The sources of On Benefits

1. Hesiod 1 neutral 1 citation

   book 1

   Hesiod's naming is directly cited and characterized, but treated as arbitrary rather than authoritative truth about the Graces

   in Hesiod she is one of the Graces, in Homer one of the Muses.

2. Homer 1 neutral 1 citation

   book 1

   Homer's account is directly cited and contrasted with Hesiod's to demonstrate that such details are poetic invention rather than fixed truth

   in Hesiod she is one of the Graces, in Homer one of the Muses.

3. Ovid 1 authority 1 citation

   book 4

   Ovid is explicitly named as the author of the cited line used to support Seneca's point about motive

   1 These things, my Liberalis, had to be inserted, because to give a benefit, of which we now treat, belongs to virtue, and it is most base to give it for the sake of any other thing than that it may have been given.

4. Plato 1 authority 1 citation

   book 4

   Plato is explicitly named as the source of the cited maxim about the difficulty of human conjecture

   To wait is long (for, as Plato says, the conjecture of the human mind is difficult), not to wait is rash.

5. Sallust 1 authority 1 citation

   book 4

   Sallust is named as the source of a maxim Seneca adopts to frame the seriousness of the topic

   1 Of all the matters we have handled, Aebutius Liberalis, none can seem so necessary, or, as Sallust says, so to be spoken of with care, as that which is now in hand:

6. Virgil 1 extended 1 citation

   book 6

   The line 'There is no delay in Turnus' is a recognizable quotation used to extend a literary phrase into Seneca's own ethical self-description, though Virgil is not named directly in this window.

   4 Add, that they aid us of set purpose, and therefore we are laid under obligation, because we did not fall into the benefit of those who knew not, but they knew that we, who receive these things, would receive them;

Each stands at a single passage. The chapter carries the anchors.

book 1 3 sources

On Benefits / treatise on benefits (title not given in window) · account of the Graces' genealogy · unspecified poem or saying (possibly Vergil)

book 2 8 sources

Stoic teaching on tyrannicide and kingship · a comic poet · anecdote of Arcesilaus and the miserly father · maxim on the difficulty of reciprocal duty · teachings of the masters of wisdom on open and secret benefits · the Stoic paradox that gladly receiving a benefit repays it · the ball-game analogy · unspecified maxim of the forefathers

book 4 4 sources

Epicurean doctrine · Stoic doctrine on vice and virtue · anecdote of the loan to an unfit man · saying on financial loss

book 5 6 sources

Stoic debate on self-directed benefit · argument on ingratitude and intent · doctrine on benefits owed to the wicked · doctrine that a wicked man cannot be profited · saying attributed to Marcus Cato · unspecified saying on being surpassed in benefits

book 6 3 sources

anecdote of Callistratus's exile · unspecified poem (possibly Bellum Actiacum or similar) · unspecified teaching/example on duty and will

book 7 7 sources

civil/Roman law of property and kingship · sacrilege paradox arguments · saying of Aristippus on perfume · sayings of Socrates · sophistical argument on the wise man and gifts (Stoic dialectical objection) · unnamed poetic hyperboles ('whiter than snow', 'more unmoving than rocks') · unspecified teachings/sayings of Demetrius the Cynic

The harvest records where a citation is made: the paragraph in the citing book, and the book that paragraph stands in. It does not record which page of this book is meant. Where the citing text names a locus, you will find it in the quotation.

1. Letters to Lucilius Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 1 extended 1 citation

   letter 81

   Seneca explicitly names his earlier work and builds on it by moving to an unresolved question.

   But on this subject we have said quite enough in those books which are entitled On Benefits.