At the hinge between the two grand topics combined in Letter 86, we were given notice that disjunction in tone should feature in our reception of what lies ahead. By implication we may be promised a lightening of tone, as we move from Schloss scipio, on to a lesson we can learn from the present owner (haec si tibi nimium tristia uidebuntur, 14). But this is not spelled out, and the letter of the text even locates the up and coming lesson firmly ‘inside’ the very selfsame ‘mansion’ wherein we have just learned our lesson in lugubrious revulsion (in uilla).

If, or rather, since, as we just saw (in chapter 9: pp. 107, 115–17), it is a major test of the reader's own orientation to suggest that they may not have wallowed in Scipio's cranny and may not have exulted in Seneca's diatribe (haec si tibi nimium tristia uidebuntur, 14), there is a firm underlying directive to anticipate something just as excessively ‘grim’ in store. This editorial hinge (diuisio) even amounts to a boast that what follows will live up to the mighty scipio. We are cued to read as ‘conscientiously’ as we can (diligentissimo). Here, now, today, under present management, the site is Roman respectability itself (patre familiae).

THE FIELD TRIP

‘Within’ the estate, Seneca learns to think of the locus as ‘farmland’ (huius agri).