The sources of Letters to Lucilius

1. Aeneid Virgil 9 authority · 2 neutral · 2 extended · 1 endorsed 14 citations · 22 passages

   letter 21 · letter 53 · letter 56 · letter 58 3 passages anchored here · letter 59 · letter 70 · letter 82 · letter 84

   and 6 more chapters

   letter 92 · letter 101 · letter 104 · letter 108 6 passages anchored here · letter 115 2 passages anchored here · letter 122

   Explicit: 'Would you suppose that Virgil ever recited to such a man the line, Is it then so wretched a thing to die?'

   He who is going to be a grammarian and examines Virgil reads that excellent line, "irrecoverable time flees on," not with this mind:

2. Epicurus 1 authority · 2 neutral · 2 extended · 5 endorsed 10 citations · 11 passages

   letter 2 2 passages anchored here · letter 8 · letter 9 · letter 14 · letter 16 · letter 17 · letter 18 · letter 19

   and 2 more chapters

   letter 20 · letter 81

   Seneca explicitly names Epicurus as speaker and asks Lucilius to take the saying in good part.

   Today's is this, which I came upon in Epicurus—for I am accustomed to cross even into the enemy's camp, not as a deserter, but as a scout.

3. Homer 3 authority · 3 neutral · 1 extended 7 citations · 8 passages

   letter 40 · letter 63 · letter 88 3 passages anchored here · letter 90 · letter 108 · letter 123

   Homer is mentioned only as the traced origin of a phrase, without evaluative stance

   The grammarian Apion, who went about all Greece in the days of Gaius Caesar and was adopted into the name of Homer by all the cities, used to say that Homer, when he had finished both his works, the Iliad and the Odyssey, added a beginning to his poem, in which he embraced the whole Trojan war.

4. Virgil 3 authority · 2 extended 5 citations · 7 passages

   letter 28 2 passages anchored here · letter 79 · letter 95 3 passages anchored here · letter 102

   Explicit quotation: 'Many a time the hero's worth returns upon the mind, and the high honour of his race,' introduced to support the point about the usefulness of examples.

   While doing something else, our Virgil has described a brave man;

5. Plato 1 authority · 1 neutral · 2 extended 4 citations · 23 passages

   letter 24 · letter 44 · letter 58 15 passages anchored here · letter 65 6 passages anchored here

   Explicitly mentioned as the book Cato reads, though not quoted or argued with directly.

   Now I return to what I promised you — how Plato divides whatever exists into six ways.

6. Georgics Virgil 2 authority · 1 neutral 3 citations · 4 passages

   letter 59 · letter 86 2 passages anchored here · letter 101

   The quoted line 'Graft now your pears, Meliboeus, set your vines in rows' is drawn from Virgil's pastoral poetry and used to illustrate the point being made.

   You too shall be sheltered by that tree which "comes late, to make shade for late descendants," as our Virgil says, who looked not at what could be said most truly, but at what could be said most fittingly, and wished not to instruct farmers, but to delight his readers.

7. Aristotle 1 neutral · 1 extended 2 citations · 8 passages

   letter 58 · letter 65 7 passages anchored here

   Explicitly attributed: 'Man is a species, as Aristotle says.'

   This crowd of causes set down by Aristotle and Plato comprehends either too many or too few.

8. Lucretius 2 authority 2 citations

   letter 95 · letter 106

   Explicitly cited: 'for nothing can touch or be touched save a body, as Lucretius says.'

   'For I shall begin to discourse to you of the high reckoning of heaven and of the gods, and to lay open the first beginnings of things, whence nature creates all things, increases and nourishes them, and whither again she dissolves the same when they are spent,' as Lucretius says.

9. Ovid 2 neutral 2 citations

   letter 79 · letter 110

   Ovid is cited only to supply a name for a category of deity, reported neutrally

   Whether Ovid had already treated the subject was no hindrance to Virgil's doing it.

10. Sallust 1 extended · 1 endorsed 2 citations · 4 passages

    letter 60 · letter 114 3 passages anchored here

    Sallust's specific phrases are quoted by name as the origin later imitated ('extended') to excess by Arruntius.

    What in Sallust were rare, in this man are frequent and almost continuous, and not without cause;

11. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 2 extended 2 citations · 3 passages

    letter 75 · letter 76 2 passages anchored here

    Explicit self-citation: 'as I remember I wrote in a certain letter, "they do not know that they know."'

    Why the honourable is the one good I shall now explain, since you judge that I dealt with the matter too briefly in my earlier letter, and think that I praised the thesis to you rather than proved it;

12. On the golden age and the origins of the arts Posidonius 1 refuted · 1 endorsed 2 citations · 18 passages

    letter 90 18 passages anchored here

    Posidonius is named repeatedly as the source of claims that Seneca explicitly argues against throughout the letter.

    The wise man did not, I say, as Posidonius thinks, withdraw himself from those arts, but came to them not at all.

13. Philosophical writings (unspecified) Cicero 2 authority 2 citations · 1 passage

    letter 58

    Explicitly named as authority: 'For this word I have Cicero as my authority.'

    For this word I have Cicero as my authority — a rich one, I think.

14. definition of walking Cleanthes 2 neutral 2 citations · 1 passage

    letter 113

    Cleanthes' specific claim about the nature of walking is reported by name.

    Cleanthes says it is breath sent from the governing part down to the feet, Chrysippus says it is the governing part itself.

15. example of philosophy's power over birth Socrates 2 authority 2 citations · 1 passage

    letter 44

    Socrates's humble origin is cited as authoritative proof that philosophy does not depend on noble birth.

    Socrates was no patrician.

16. letter to his sister on the loss of her son Metrodorus 1 refuted · 1 endorsed 2 citations · 4 passages

    letter 98 · letter 99 3 passages anchored here

    Seneca explicitly praises this Metrodorus saying as excellently said

    I by no means approve what Metrodorus says, that there is a certain pleasure akin to sadness, and that this must be hunted after at such a time.

17. unnamed tragic poet 1 authority · 1 neutral 2 citations

    letter 49 · letter 102

    Explicit: 'when that tragic poet of ours says that it is a glorious thing to be praised by a man who is himself praised.'

    For, as that tragic poet says, "The speech of truth is simple.

18. unspecified work(s) on Etna Messala 2 neutral 2 citations · 1 passage

    letter 51

    Named author whose writing on Etna is directly referenced and questioned

    why Messala called it unique, or Valgius (for I have read it in both), I cannot make out, since a great many places belch fire — not only the lofty ones, as happens more often (because, of course, fire is carried up to the greatest height), but the low-lying ones as well.

19. De Rerum Natura Lucretius 1 refuted 1 citation · 2 passages

    letter 110 2 passages anchored here

    Seneca explicitly says 'But it is false, Lucretius' before restating and correcting the claim, marking a refutation of the literal point even while retaining the image

    we have made all things darkness for ourselves.

20. Eclogues Virgil 1 authority 1 citation · 2 passages

    letter 73 2 passages anchored here

    The quoted lines (a god made this leisure, allowed my cattle to wander, the rustic reed) are from Virgil's Eclogues, invoked as poetic authority.

    "He allowed my cattle to wander, as you see, and myself to play what I would on the rustic reed" — how greatly do we value this leisure, which is passed among the gods, which makes gods?

21. Euripides 1 neutral 1 citation

    letter 115

    Named directly as Euripides's tragedy, reported as an anecdote about audience reaction rather than endorsed or refuted by Seneca directly

    When these last verses had been pronounced in a tragedy of Euripides, the whole people rose up with one impulse to cast out both the actor and the play, until Euripides himself sprang forth into the midst, asking them to wait and to see what end this admirer of gold would make.

22. Horace 1 endorsed 1 citation · 2 passages

    letter 119 2 passages anchored here

    Explicitly attributed: 'Horace says excellently that it makes no difference to thirst in what cup... the water is served.'

    And so Horace says excellently that it makes no difference to thirst in what cup or by how elegant a hand the water is served.

23. Hymn to Zeus Cleanthes 1 endorsed 1 citation · 2 passages

    letter 107 2 passages anchored here

    Seneca explicitly translates and presents Cleanthes's verses as his own culminating statement of doctrine, endorsing their content fully.

    And let us so address Jupiter, by whose helm this whole mass is steered, as our Cleanthes addresses him in most eloquent verses, which I am permitted to render into our own tongue after the example of Cicero, a most eloquent man.

24. Iliad Homer 1 neutral 1 citation

    letter 104

    The line about Agamemnon, Priam, and Achilles is invoked as a poetic parallel, reported neutrally as illustration rather than argued for or against.

    You will marvel, I say, when you observe "the son of Atreus and Priam, and Achilles fierce against them both.

197 sources are named once. Each stands in the run of its own letter, below — in the order of the text.