Table Of Contenti
Intertextuality in Seneca’s
Philosophical Writings
This volume is the first systematic study of Seneca’s interaction with earlier
literature of a variety of genres and traditions. It examines this interaction
and engagement in his prose works, offering interpretative readings that are at
once groundbreaking and stimulating to further study.
Focusing on the Dialogues, the Naturales quaestiones, and the Moral
Epistles, the volume includes multi- perspectival studies of Seneca’s interaction
with all the great Latin epics (Lucretius, Vergil and Ovid), and discussions of
how Seneca’s philosophical thought is informed by Hellenistic doxography,
forensic rhetoric and declamation, the Homeric tradition, Euripidean tragedy
and Greco-R oman mythology. The studies analyzes the philosophy behind
Seneca’s incorporating exact quotations from earlier tradition (including
his criteria of selectivity) and Seneca’s interaction with ideas, trends and
techniques from different sources, in order to elucidate his philosophical
ideas and underscore his original contribution to the discussion of established
philosophical traditions. They also provide a fresh interpretation of moral
issues with particular application to the Roman worldview as fashioned by
the mos maiorum. The volume, finally, features detailed discussion of the ways
in which Seneca, the author of philosophical prose, puts forward his stance
towards poetics and figures himself as a poet.
Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings will be of interest not
only to those working on Seneca’s philosophical works, but also to anyone
working on Latin literature and intertextuality in the ancient world.
Myrto Garani is Assistant Professor in Latin Literature at the National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is the author of Empedocles
Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius (London and New York, 2007) and
co- editor with David Konstan of The Philosophizing Muse. The Influence
of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry, Pierides III (Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
2014). She has also published a number of articles on Empedocles’ reception
in Latin literature, especially in Ovid’s Fasti. Her other publications include
articles on Lucretius, Propertius, Ovid and the Pseudo- Vergilian Aetna. She is
currently working on a monograph on Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones Book 3
and a commentary of Lucretius’ De rerum natura 6.
ii
Andreas N. Michalopoulos is Professor of Latin at the National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has published extensively on Latin lit-
erature of the 1st centuries BC and AD (especially epic, elegy, and drama), he
has edited numerous volumes (more recently Dicite, Pierides. Classical Studies
in Honour of Stratis Kyriakidis, 2017, with Sophia Papaioannou and Andrew
Zissos) and is the author of Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A
Commented Lexicon (2001), Ovid, Heroides 16 and 17: Introduction, Text and
Commentary (2006), and Ovid, Heroides 20 and 21: Introduction, Text and
Commentary (2013). His research interests include Augustan poetry, ancient
etymology, Roman drama, the Roman novel, and the modern reception of
classical literature.
Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens, Faculty of Philology. She is the author of numerous
articles and chapters on Augustan literature (especially epic) and on Roman
comedy, as well as two books on Ovid: Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid,
Metamorphoses 13.623– 14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid (2005); and
Redesigning Achilles: The ‘Recycling’ of the Epic Cycle in Ovid, Metamorphoses
12.1– 13.620 (2007); and a collection of papers on Terence (Terence and
Interpretation, 2014). She has published on the reception of Vergil and Ovid in
the Late Antiquity across various genres and authors, and one of her current
projects includes the tracing of Vergilian and Ovidian influence in the subtext
of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca.
ii i
Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies
Titles include:
The Making of Identities in Athenian Oratory
Edited by Jakub Filonik, Brenda Griffith- Williams and Janek Kucharski
Homicide in the Attic Orators
Rhetoric, Ideology, and Context
Christine Plastow
Underworld Gods in Ancient Greek Religion
Ellie Mackin Roberts
Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ
The Virgin and the Otherwordly Bridegroom in Ancient Greece and
Early Christian Rome
Abbe Walker
Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings
Edited by Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Sophia Papaioannou
Drama, Oratory and Thucydides in Fifth- Century Athens
Teaching Imperial Lessons
Sophie Mills
The Poetics in its Aristotelian Context
Edited by Pierre Destrée, Malcolm Heath and Dana L. Munteanu
Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama
Essays in Honor of Margalit Finkelberg
Edited by Jonathan J. Price and Rachel Zelnick- Abramovitz
For more information on this series, visit: https:// www.routledge.com/
classicalstudies/ series/ RMCS
v
Intertextuality in Seneca’s
Philosophical Writings
Edited by
Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos
and Sophia Papaioannou
vi
First published 2020
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos
and Sophia Papaioannou; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Myrto Garani, Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Sophia Papaioannou
to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the
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and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-i n- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 9780367331511 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780429318153 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
vi i
Contents
List of contributors ix
Preface and acknowledgements xii
List of abbreviations xiii
Introduction: intertextuality in the philosopher Seneca 1
MYRTO GARANI, ANDREAS N. MICHALOPOULOS AND
SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU
PART 1 21
1 Seneca on Augustus and Roman fatherhood 23
AMANDA WILCOX
2 Myth, poetry and Homer in Seneca philosophus 50
R. SCOTT SMITH
3 Seneca and the doxography of ethics 81
JULA WILDBERGER
PART 2 105
4 Reading Seneca reading Vergil 107
SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU
5 Seneca quoting Ovid in the Epistulae morales 130
ANDREAS N. MICHALOPOULOS
viii
viii Contents
6 The importance of collecting shells: intertextuality in
Seneca’s Epistle 49 142
FRANCESCA ROMANA BERNO
7 Sub auro servitus habitat: Seneca’s moralizing of
architecture and the anti- Neronian querelle 161
TOMMASO GAZZARRI
8 Seneca on the mother cow: poetic models and natural
philosophy in the Consolation to Marcia 179
FABIO TUTRONE
9 Seneca on Pythagoras’ mirabilia aquarum (NQ 3.20– 1,
25– 6; Ovid Met. 15.270– 336) 198
MYRTO GARANI
Index locorum 254
General index 271
ix
Contributors
Francesca Romana Berno is Associate Professor of Latin Language and
Literature at Sapienza University of Rome. Her main interests lie in
Seneca’s prose works, on which she has published three monographs (NQ,
2003; Epistles 53– 57, 2006; De constantia sapientis, 2018) and several art-
icles, where she deals with rhetorical tools (metaphors, poetic quotations,
historical examples) and their parenetic function. She is also enquiring on
some philosophical issues in Cicero and Ovid.
Myrto Garani (BA Thessaloniki, MA and PhD London) is Assistant Professor
in Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece. She is the author of Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in
Lucretius (London and New York, 2007) and co-e ditor with David Konstan
of The Philosophizing Muse. The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman
Poetry, Pierides III (Newcastle- upon- Tyne, 2014). She has also published
a number of articles on Empedocles’ reception in Latin literature, espe-
cially in Ovid’s Fasti. Her other publications include articles on Lucretius,
Propertius, Ovid and the Pseudo- Vergilian Aetna. She is currently working
on a monograph on Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones Book 3 and a commen-
tary of Lucretius’ De rerum natura 6.
Tommaso Gazzarri, Yale PhD, is Assistant Professor of Classics at Union
College (Schenectady, NY). He has published on Plautus, Seneca,
Petronius and ancient sexuality. He is currently completing a monograph
on Seneca’s deployment of figural language in his philosophical oeuvre.
His main scholarly interests concern Roman Stoicism, ancient rhetoric and
the relations between Greek and Roman cultures in the years of the late
Republic and early Empire (mainly the Julio- Claudian dynasty).
Andreas N. Michalopoulos, PhD Leeds, is Professor of Latin at the National
and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has published extensively on
Latin literature of the 1st centuries BC and AD (especially epic, elegy and
drama), he has edited numerous volumes (more recently Dicite, Pierides.
Classical Studies in Honour of Stratis Kyriakidis, Newcastle: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing 2017, with Sophia Papaioannou and Andrew Zissos)
x
x Contributors
and is the author of Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A
Commented Lexicon (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 2001), Ovid, Heroides 16
and 17: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Cambridge: Francis Cairns,
2006), and Ovid, Heroides 20 and 21: Introduction, Text and Commentary
(Athens: Papadimas, 2013). His research interests include Augustan poetry,
ancient etymology, Roman drama, the Roman novel, and the modern
reception of classical literature.
Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin at the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens, Faculty of Philology. She is the author of numerous
articles and chapters on Augustan literature (especially epic) and on Roman
comedy, as well as two books on Ovid: Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid,
Metamorphoses 13.623– 14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid (Berlin
2005); and Redesigning Achilles: The ‘Recycling’ of the Epic Cycle in Ovid,
Metamorphoses 12.1– 13.620 (Berlin 2007); and a collection of papers on
Terence (Terence and Interpretation, Newcastle 2014). She has published
on the reception of Vergil and Ovid in the Late Antiquity across various
genres and authors, and one of her current projects includes the tracing
of Vergilian and Ovidian influence in the subtext of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca.
R. Scott Smith is Professor of Classics at the University of New Hampshire,
where he has taught since 2000. In addition to a deep and abiding interest
in Seneca the Younger, both prose and poetry, he has published widely in
the field of myth and mythography, including co-a uthored or co-e dited
volumes: Anthology of Classical Myth (Cambridge, MA 2016), Writing
Myth: Mythography in the Greek and Roman World (Leuven 2013), and
Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae (Cambridge, MA 2007).
Recently he has been studying the way in which the Greeks and Romans
organized and transmitted their own mythical stories through the medium
of geographical texts, as well as how mythographical material was integrated
into ancient commentaries and scholia. He is currently co- editing the
Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography (forthcoming 2020).
Fabio Tutrone is a Research and Teaching Fellow in Latin literature at the
University of Palermo, where he also obtained his PhD in Greek and Latin
Philology and Culture in 2009. He has held visiting positions in the United
States, Switzerland and Germany, and has recently worked in a nationally
funded project on the ‘anthropology of ancient myth’ directed by Professor
Maurizio Bettini. His research focuses on the history of Roman literature,
science and philosophy, with special regard to Lucretius, Seneca and the
Latin reception of Greek thought. He has particular interest in literary
topics of cognitive and anthropological relevance, such as the representa-
tion of animals and man-a nimal relationships, the sociology of scientific
knowledge, and the cultural perception of time. His publications include
Filosofi e animali in Roma antica: Modelli di animalità e umanità in Lucrezio
e Seneca (Pisa, ETS, 2012), and Evil, Progress, and Fall: Moral Readings
