27 Seneca, Epistula 9.1–5
SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM
[1] An meritō reprehendat in quādam epistulā Epicūrus eōs quī dīcunt sapientem sē ipsō esse contentum et propter hōc amīcō nōn indigēre, dēsīderās scīre. Hoc obicitur Stilbōnī ab Epicūrō et iīs quibus summum bonum vīsum est animus inpatiēns. [2] In ambiguitātem incīdendum est, sī exprimere ἀπάθειαν ūnō verbō cito voluerimus et impatientiam dīcere; poterit enim contrārium eī quod significāre volumus intellegī. Nōs eum volumus dīcere quī respuat omnis malī sēnsum: accipiētur is quī nūllum ferre possit malum. Vidē ergō num satius sit aut invulnerābilem animum dīcere aut animum extrā omnem patientiam positum. [3] Hoc inter nōs et illōs interest: noster sapiēns vincit quidem incommodum omne sed sentit, illōrum nē sentit quidem. Illud nōbīs et illīs commūne est, sapientem sē ipsō esse contentum. Sed tamen et amīcum habēre vult et vīcīnum et contubernālem, quamvīs sibi ipse sufficiat.
Interrogata
- How much do you value self-sufficiency?
- Is it possible to be too self-sufficient?
- Why do you think a “wise” person wants to have friends?Vocabularia, Res Grammaticae, et Alia
Commentariolum
Is the wise man so self-sufficient that he does not need friends? To address that question one has to define more precisely what the term “unmoved” (inpatiēns) actually means: does it refer to someone who has no feeling at all? or one who controls his feelings?
2 an: this introduces an indirect questions that is triggered by scīre in line 3 (which is itself dependent on dēsīderās).
Epicūrus: Greek philosopher (341-270 BCE) who founded an influential school in Athens based the idea that pleasure (the absences of pain and/or desire) is the highest good for humans; he, like Seneca, wrote moral “letters” among other works.
3 ipsō: is abl. (what kind?) with contentum (in other passages you will see sē); the philosophical notion here is “self-sufficiency” (autarkeia in Greek).
4 iīs: dative, just like Stilbōnī (Stilbon was another Greek thinker), with the verb obicitur.
5 inpatiēns: a key description of the soul that is unmoved by pain or desire, but does “unmoved” mean that it actually feels nothing or that it merely does not respond? This is the “ambiguity” that Seneca explores in the next sentences.
ἀπάθειαν: a Greek word, apatheian; remember that educated Romans could almost always read and speak Greek fluently.
6 inpatientiam: Seneca adopts Cicero’s translation of the Greek abstract noun, apatheian.
poterit: takes intellegī (line 7) as a complementary infinitive.
eī: dative with contrārium (and antecedent to quod).
7 eum: this person (or soul) is the one being described as inpatientem.
respuat: why subjunctive in this relative clause?
8 accipiētur: this is what other people will take the description to mean; what is the difference that Seneca is getting at here?
8-9 aut…aut: Seneca offers two alternative expression (more than a single word) that better describe the Greek term and defines precisely the ambiguity.
11 illud: the upcoming infinitive phrase.
11-12 sapientem…contentum: amplifies what illud means here.
12 sed…vult: just like the sed sentit in line 11, Seneca implies that the kind of sapiēns he is describing does have ordinary human emotions; it is just that they are under the control of reason.
