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Seneca on Comets and Ancient Cometary Theory in Natural Questions 7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Gareth Williams
Gareth Williams*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Seneca's focus on comets in Natural Questions 7 concentrates our attention on a phenomenon that is in a sense familiar but so distant, known but so unknown; they are obscurities that ‘both fill and escape our eyes’ (7.30.4), and which challenge us to project the mind's eye beyond the limits of our ordinary vision as we seek insight into nature's mysteries. The broad aim of this paper is to argue that Seneca's treatment of comets shapes, and actively applies in inventive ways within the text, a mindset that moves restlessly from narrow, more ‘terrestrial’ ways of reflecting upon the universe towards an unfettered mode of investigation that looks daringly beyond the limits of the visible and known to speculate on what lies beyond. This mindset proceeds by conjecture and ‘neither with any assurance of finding [the truth] nor without hope’ (7.29.3), but it nevertheless follows the ‘right’ (Senecan) path even in possible error: it reaches dynamically beyond conventional confines—in this case, the zodiac—to engage with the universal immensity in ways that aspire to that main Senecan goal in the Natural Questions as whole, ‘to see the all with the mind’ (cf. animo omne uidisse, 3 pref. 10).

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Research Article
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Ramus , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , 2007 , pp. 97 - 117
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Copyright © Aureal Publications 2007

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References

1. All references to the text follow Hine’s, H.M.Teubner L. Annaei Senecae Naturalium Quaestionum Libri (Stuttgart 1996Google Scholar).

2. The comet of 44 BCE shortly after Caesar’s assassination was allegedly adjudged propitious (faustus) by Octavian himself (Plin. Nat. 2.93), but this was not the only interpretation ; see Ramsey, J.T. and Licht, A.L., The Comet of 44 B.C. and Caesar’s Funeral Games (Atlanta 1997), 135–37Google Scholar. In his On Comets the Stoic Chaeremon apparently listed comets of good omen (Orig. Cels. 1.59 = fr. 3 van der Horst, P.W., Chaeremon: Egyptian Priest and Stoic Philosopher [Leiden 1984], 12Google Scholar), possibly to flatter Nero, in whose reign several comets appeared (see below and n.3, with van der Horst 53 and now Hine, H.M., ‘Rome, the Cosmos, and the Emperor in Seneca’s Natural Questions’, JRS 96 [2006], 66Google Scholar). Otherwise, positive interpretations are rare indeed (RE 11.1 1149.62–1150.38 with Ramsey and Licht 135 n.5); but as ‘tokens of doom’, Schechner Genuth, S., Comets, Popular Culture, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology (Princeton 1997), 20–24Google Scholar.

3. Rogers, R.S., ‘The Neronian Comets’, TAPA 84 (1953), 249Google Scholar; with the help of Chinese records, six comets in all. Why, then, does so keen an observer as Seneca curiously omit to mention comets in 55/56 and 61? Perhaps because he distinguished between a nova and a comet, and it was a nova that was observed in each of those years (Bicknell, P.J., ‘Neronian Comets and Novae’, Latomus 28 [1969], 1075Google Scholar)?

4. For those analyses surveyed, Gilbert, O., Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertums (Leipzig 1907), 642–58Google Scholar, RE 11.1 1164.12–1193.58; then Jervis, J.L., Cometary Theory in Fifteenth-Century Europe (Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster 1985), 11–21Google Scholar; Whipple, F.L., The Mystery of Comets (Washington DC 1985), 10–16Google Scholar; Yeomans, D.K., Comets: A Chronological History of Observation, Science, Myth, and Folklore (New York 1991), 1–17Google Scholar; Schechner Genuth (n.2 above), 17–26. For a succinct catalogue of ancient occurrences, Barrett, A.A., ‘Observations of Comets in Greek and Roman Sources Before A.D. 410’, The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 72 (1978), 81–106Google Scholar; and for much of importance on Nat. 7, albeit with a very different trajectory from my own, see Keyser, P.T., ‘On Cometary Theory and Typology from Nechepso-Petosiris through Apuleius to Servius’, Mnemosyne 47 (1994), 625–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Most colourfully at 1.16–17, 3.17–18, 4B.13, 5.15 and 18, 6.32.

6. For detailed analysis of 7.31–32, Berno, F.R., Lo specchio, il vizio e la virtù: studio sulle Naturales Quaestiones di Seneca (Bologna 2003), 294–306Google Scholar.

7. On the tell-tale signs of mollitia in 7.31, Edwards, C., The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 1993), 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar and n.16, with 87f. on the cultural conditioning that shapes Seneca’s outrage at ‘unnatural’ behaviour; he ‘was not reacting to naturally anomalous behaviour. He was taking part in the reproduction of a cultural system’ (88, on Ep. 95.20–21).

8. Cf. OLD mundus 2 (‘a woman’s beauty aids’) and mundus 3; possible identification perhaps after the sense-development of Gk. κόσμοϛ (LSJ s.v. II, IV; cf. Cic. Tim. 35, Plin. Nat. 2.8). For another such play, Williams, G., ‘Interactions: Physics, Morality, and Narrative in Seneca, Natural Questions 1’, CP 100 (2005), 163Google Scholar; in general, Puhvel, J., ‘The Origins of Greek Kosmos and Latin Mundus’, AJP 97 (1976), 161–67Google Scholar.

9. Effectively ‘degrees’; cf. Man. 1.581, 3.268, 445, 4.120 with Volk, K., ‘“Heavenly Steps”: Manilius 4.119–21 and its Background’, in Boustan, R. and Reed, A.Y. (eds.), Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (Cambridge 2004), 43fGoogle Scholar.

10. For this effeminate step (non ambulamus sed incedimus, ‘we don’t walk but we strut’, 7.31. 2) cf. Dial. 9.17.4, Ep. 52.12, 114.3 si ille [sc. animus] effeminatus est, in ipso incessu apparere mollitiam [sc. non uides]? (‘Do you not see that, if the mind has become enervated, his effeminacy is visible in his very gait?’).

11. For more than one ring as a ‘conventional sign of mollitia’, Gibson, R.K. (ed.), Ovid: Ars Amatoria Book 3 (Cambridge 2003), 281Google Scholar on 3.446.

12. Morton Braund, S. (ed.), Juvenal: Satires Book 1 (Cambridge 1996), 159Google Scholar on 2.143–48; in the hierarchy of gladiators, the lightly armed and dressed retiarius was viewed as ‘particularly effeminate: the greater the exposure of the body, the greater the disgrace’. Cf. also Juv. 6.7–13, 8.200–08 with Housman, A.E., ‘Tunica Retiarii’, CR 18 (1904), 395–98Google Scholar = Diggle, J. and Goodyear, F.R.D. (eds)., The Classical Papers of A. E. Housman (Cambridge 1972), 619–22Google Scholar.

13. Barton, C.A., The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton 1992), 72fGoogle Scholar.

14. On this ‘perennial motif in ancient philosophic writing’, Rutherford, R.B., The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford 1989), 155–61Google Scholar, with Hadot, P., Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, tr. Chase, M. (Oxford 1985), 238–50Google Scholar.

15. For this divergence starkly put, Plin. Nat. 2.94 sunt qui et haec sidera perpetua esse credant suoque ambitu ire, sed non nisi relicta ab sole cerni; alii uero qui nasci umore fortuito et ignea ui ideoque solui (‘There are those who believe that even comets are everlasting and circle in their own orbits, but are not seen except when the sun leaves them; but others believe that they come into being out of chance moisture and fiery force, and for that reason they are dissolved’). Cf. also the Manilian distinction drawn between the exhalation (Aristotelian) theory (1.817–66) and the celestial theory (1.867–73), with Montanari Caldini, R., ‘Manilio tra scienza e filosofia: la dottrina delle comete’, Prometheus 15 (1989), 3fGoogle Scholar.

16. Schechner Genuth (n.2 above), 92f.

17. On this Aristotelian/Posidonian categorisation, Hine, H.M. (ed.), An Edition with Commentary of Seneca Natural Questions, Book 2 (New York 1981), 31Google Scholar.

18. Kidd, I.G., Posidonius II: The Commentary (Cambridge 1988), 494Google Scholar. Hine (n.2 above), 61, stresses the ‘unusual feature’ that in Book 7 Seneca focuses attention on ‘the virtual unknowns’, Epigenes, Artemidorus, and Apollonius of Myndus. Given his brusque critique of theories that differ from his own in Book 7, does Seneca tactfully avoid confrontation with more distinguished names?—yet Posidonius for one, arguably a key source (cf. p. 101 and n.32 below), still qualifies for attack at 7.20. Or could it be that Seneca mainly confines himself here to targeting contemporaries (on this possibility, cf. Hine [n.2 above], 61f.)?

19. On the former, Volk (n.9 above), 36f. with 36 n.5 for bibliography; on the latter, Volk, K., ‘Pious and Impious Approaches to Cosmology in Manilius’, MD 47 (2001), 88Google Scholar and n.5.

20. For the persuasive, and now generally accepted, case for an original order of 3 4a 4b 5 6 7 1 2 see Codoñer Merino, C. (ed.), L. Annaei Senecae Naturales Quaestiones (2 vols.: Madrid 1979), i.xii-xxiGoogle Scholar, and ‘La physique de Sénèque: ordonnance et structure des Naturales Quaestiones’, ANRW II.36.3 (1989), 1792–94Google Scholar; Hine (n.17 above), 4–23; Hine (n.l above), xxii–xxv; Hine (n.2 above), 43; Gauly, B.M., Senecas Naturales Quaestiones: Naturphilosophie fur die rbmische Kaiserzeit (Munich 2004), 53–67Google Scholar.

21. Succinctly surveyed by Kidd (n.l8 above), 494; further, Hartmann, R., De Senecae Natural-ium Quaestionum Libro Septimo (Diss. Munster 1911), 16–26Google Scholar.

22. For whom see n.34 below.

23. See Kidd (n.18 above), 492 A4, on frr,131a26–37, 131bl2–24.

24. So Aristot. Mete. 1.6 342b27–9; DK 59 A81, 68 A92; Posid. fr.l31al3–25 E-K.

25. Seemingly a contemporary of Seneca, given his reported voice’s allusion to the Neronian comet of 60 CE at 7.17.2; so Gauly (n.20 above), 150, after Gross, N., Senecas Naturales Quaestiones: Komposition, Naturphilosophische Aussagen und ihre Quellen (Stuttgart 1989), 295–97Google Scholar— unless (cf. Hine [n.2 above], 62) Seneca inserts into his account of Apollonius’ views this reference to recent comets.

26. Aristot. Mete. 1.6 342b29–343a20 (= DK 42 5); Posid. frr.l31al–12 E-K, 131b6–12 (further, Heath, T.L., Aristarchus ofSamos: The Ancient Copernicus [Oxford 1913], 243fGoogle Scholar.).

27. Fr.132 E-K with Kidd (n.18 above), 494–96.

28. SVF 1.122 (p.35.8–10).

29. So perhaps Diogenes of Babylon: Kidd (n.18 above), 495.

30. Also Panaetius, given 7.30.2 (see Vottero, D., Questioni Naturali di Lucio Anneo Seneca [Turin 1989], 700Google Scholar n.5, on 7.19.2); and cf. SVF 2.692 (p.201.22–24) for Chrysippus (albeit Kidd [n.18 above], 496: the reference in D.L. 7.152, given as Chrysippus in SVF, ‘almost certainly derives from Posidonius’), 3.9 (p.267.6–7) for Boethus of Sidon.

31. Kidd (n.18 above), 493.

32. Fundamental: A. Rehm, ‘Das siebente Buch der Naturales Quaestiones des Seneca und die Kometentheorie des Poseidonios’, Sitzungsherichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: philosophisch-philologische und historische Klasse Jahrgang 1921, I Abh. 3–40 (repr. in G. Maurach [ed.], Seneca als Philosoph [Darmstadt 1975], 228–63). Rehm posits an intermediary whose identity remains elusive (5 = 230 in reprint); Hartmann (n.21 above), 12, looks to Asclepio-dotus, auditor Posidonii (2.26.6 with Hine [n.17 above], 317f.), but further on the question see A. Setaioli, Seneca e i Greci: citazioni e traduzioni nelle opere filosofiche (Bologna 1988), 420–22.

33. See Hine (n.2 above), 56–58 (‘distinctive features’); Williams, G., ‘Greco-Roman Seismology and Seneca on Earthquakes in Natural Questions 6’, JRS 96 (2006), 128–34Google Scholar.

34. Possibly a contemporary of Seneca, but the Senecan clues to that effect (nuper, 7.3.1; allusions to comets of 54 and 60 in his reported voice at 7.6.1) are far from conclusive; see Hine (n.2 above), 61f., with Vottero (n.30 above), 671 n.2, and Gauly (n.20 above), 147f. For Seneca, the Chaldaean connection would seem to be unimpressive given his polemic elsewhere; cf. 2.32.7 with Vottero 334 n. 10.

35. Detailed coverage in Hartmann (n.21 above), 17–20.

36. On the distinction between fulmen and fulguratio (7.4.3), Hine (n.17 above), 225–27 on 2.12.1.

37. If we accept that Book 7 precedes Book 1 in the original ordering of the Natural Questions (cf. p. 100 above with n.20).

38. Hartmann (n.21 above), 17.

39. Otherwise unknown; identified by Gruppe, O., Die griechischen Culte und Mythen in ihren Beziehungen zu den orientalischen Religionen (Leipzig 1887), 433Google Scholar n.2, with the Stoic Chaeremon (cf. also Oltramare, P. [ed.], Sénèque: Questions Naturelles [2 vols.: Paris 1929]Google Scholar, ii.305 n.2), but see contra van der Horst (n.2 above), 53 on fr.3 n.2 (further, Vottero [n.30 above], 674 n.3). On the hypothetical possibility that he is Seneca’s intermediary source for Posidonius, Setaioli (n.32 above), 425.

40. FGHMA fr.21 Jacoby; for Callisthenes, Williams (n.33 above), 142 and n.118, 144f.

41. Seneca’s testimony finds support in Diodorus’ allusion to a ‘fiery beam’ ( 15.50.2, cited by Setaioli [n.32 above], 425f.).

42. See Hall, J.J., ‘Seneca as a Source for Earlier Thought (Especially Meteorology)’, CQ 27 (1977), 414CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Seneca ‘a bad source for Aristotle’s theory#x2019;).

43. For a possible intermediary, Setaioli (n.32 above), 426 and n.2003.

44. Hine (n.l above), 289.151, follows P. Parroni, ‘Tre congetture alle Naturales Quaestiones di Seneca’, in Dicti Studiosus: scritti di filologia offerti a Scevola Mariotti dai suoi allievi (Urbino 1990), 112–15, in reading Mi [sc. beams, torches etc.] turbine ex superiore parte in terras deprimuntur, hi [sc. comets] de terra in superiora luctantur. If Mi turbines is read with most editors, how do we reconcile the whirlwinds’ descent with their formation and progress circa terras at 7.5.1?

45. Inwood, B., ‘God and Human Knowledge in Seneca’s Natural Questions’, in Frede, D. and Laks, A. (eds.), Traditions of Theology: Studies in Hellenistic Theology, its Background and Aftermath (Leiden 2002), 144Google Scholar.

46. These humiliores are effectively equivalent to Epigenes’ beams and torches at 7.4.3, 5.1, 6.1; Parroni, P. (ed.), Seneca: Ricerche sulla Natura (Milan 2002), 596Google Scholar.

47. For the ‘lowness’ of Epigenes’ theory suggestively connected to a hierarchical symbolic system of ‘high’ and ‘low’ in Book 7 (albeit a system developed differently from the approach taken here), cf. Gauly (n.20 above), 156.

48. Cf. Posid. 131al6–18E-K.

49. The interlocutor’s emphasis on rainbow and parhelion as optical illusions will be borne out at 1.3–8 and 1.11.2–13.3, despite the over-literal objections in Book 1 of an(other) imaginary interlocutor (cf. Williams [n.8 above], 145–52).

50. He is generally assumed to be the Artemidorus of Parium portrayed at 1.4.3–4; possibly a contemporary (see Gross [n.25 above], 299f., Gauly [n.20 above], 149), but much uncertainty remains (cf. Hine [n.2 above], 61f.). On 7.13–14, Hartmann (n.21 above), 21–25; for Gilbert (n.4 above), 675 n.2, ‘Epikureisch scheint die Ansicht’ derided by Seneca at 7.13.2.

51. hoc printed by Hine (n.l above), 297.319; for haec rejected cf. Hine, , Studies in the Text of Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones (Stuttgart 1996), 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar on 7.7.1. Corcoran’s, T.H. translation (Seneca: Naturales Quaestiones [2 vols.: London and Cambridge MA 1972]Google Scholar, ii.255, with haec) imprecisely catches the flow of argument here (‘Against such theories Artemidorus gives the following arguments’); the crucial point is that aduersus hoc = ‘In response to this series of objections [7.12. 2–8] to the optical theory…’

52. For this emphasis, Hine (n.51 above), 117.

53. For the skin or membrane surrounding the world according to the fifth-century atomists, DK 67 Al (= D.L. 9.32) and A23, but cf. already for this ‘inherited and deeply seated belief (Guthrie, W.K.C., A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. 2: The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus [Cambridge 1965], 411Google Scholar) Anaximenes, DK 13 A14: ‘the stars are implanted like nails in the “ice-like”’ (= no 154 in Kirk, G. et al., The Presocratic Philosophers2 [Cambridge 1983], 154Google Scholar, although their discussion at 155 suggests that the attribution of this idea to Anaximenes is problematic); Parmenides, DK 28 A37.5–6; Empedocles, DK 31 A51 with Guthrie, 188.

54. Further, Furley, D., ‘Cosmology’, in Algra, K. et al. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge 1999), 440–48Google Scholar.

55. Cf. Aristot. Mete. 1.6 343a23–5; Posid. fr.l31a4–9 E-K.

56. The first comet apparently in 147 BCE (so Julius Obsequens, Prod. lib. 20), the second in 137, for which year Obsequens (Prod. lib. 24) registers a torch in the skies of Praeneste; for both, Yeomans (n.4 above), 365, with Barrett (n.4 above), 90f.

57. Does Seneca imply that the comet even outdid the spectacle of the Milky Way? For exaggerated emphasis on the Milky Way’s own brilliance cf. already Cic. Rep. 6.16.1 (splendidissimo candore), Ov. Met. 1.169, Man. 1.701–06, 713–17, with Soubiran, J. (ed.), Ciceron, Aratea, Fragments Poetiques (Paris 1972), 215Google Scholar on Cic. Arat. 249 (‘, “anneau resplendis-sant”, dit Arat. (Ph. 476); c’est déjà beaucoup dire, et Cicéron a tort de renchérir. German. (Ph. 457) est plus discret’). Does Seneca imply that the comet is a still greater wonder (miraculum; cf. Man. 1.716 mirantur)? For a more scientific approach to the Milky Way, Kidd (n.18 above), 486–90 on Posid. frr. 129–30.

58. Ephorus, FGH 70T14b, fr.212. But despite Seneca’s scepticism, cf. Aristot. Mete. 1.6 343b26–7 (Democritus ‘maintains that stars have been seen to appear when some comets dissolve’) with Galdi, M., ‘Seneca e la mendax natio’, Mouseion 2 (1924–25), 42fGoogle Scholar., and see Yeomans (n.4 above), 8: ‘Seneca might have treated [Ephorus] with more respect had he known that several comets have since been observed to split.’

59. Cf. Schepens, G., ‘Historiographical Problems in Ephorus’, in Historiographia Antiqua: Commentationes Lovanienses in Honorem W. Peremans Septuagenarii Editae (Leuven 1977), 95–118Google Scholar, on this notissimus scriptor historiarum (Macr. 5.18.6), author of a thirty book history from the Dorian invasion down to his own time; he was ‘characterised by ancient tradition as an historian of undeniable merit’ (95). On Ephorus in Seneca, Bogun, V., Die ausserrömische Geschichte in den Werken Senecas (Köln 1968), 266–68Google Scholar.

60. See Schepens (n.59 above), 96, on this ‘reputation for akribeia’ (with sources).

61. By specifying five planets here, Seneca also indirectly turns the knife on Artemidorus’ innumerable planet theory (cf. 7.13.1).

62. For pejorative natio, 6.26.2. Seneca’s hostility to historici in the Natural Questions (cf. 4b.3.1; Callisthenes is a conspicuous exception at 6.23.2–4) is conditioned by his emphasis on selfimprovement in the preface to Book 3 (the first in the original collection; cf. p.100 above with n.20), and not on the kind of ‘exterior’ studium and appeal to credulitas exemplified by historical study (cf. 3 pref. 5 ‘How much better it is to eliminate one’s own evils than to report to posterity the evils of others’; Galdi [n.58 above], 44f.). Elsewhere, his target is not so much historical study per se but excessive preoccupation with superfluous detail (cf. Dial. 10.13.3–9; in general, Kühnen, F.J., Seneca und die römische Geschichte [Köln 1962], 18–28Google Scholar).

63. On this central Senecan emphasis, Williams (n.33 above), 125f. Cf. Hine (n.2 above), 67, invoking ‘Andrew Wallace-Hadrill’s model of cultural revolution [‘Mutatio Morum: The Idea of a Cultural Revolution’, in Habinek, T. and Schiesaro, A. (eds.), The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 1997), 3–22Google Scholar], conceived as a transfer of authority in Roman society, as new systems of knowledge, and new, expert holders of that knowledge, replaced the traditional systems of knowledge and their élite guardians’, to the effect that Seneca is implicated in the new intellectual order: ‘Confronted with the appearance of comets, with their traditional ominous associations, these men offered not traditional religious measures, but insights based on philosophical or astronomical or astrological theory…Seneca offers a rational rather than a traditional religious approach to these features of the natural world [sc. comets, earthquakes, lightning strikes etc.] on which Roman religion focused much attention’.

64. For whom see n.25 above; on his theory, Hartmann (n.21 above), 20f.

65. Rightly Parroni (n.46 above), 599, and also Vottero (n.30 above), 698 n.l (with speculation on Posidonius or Epigenes as possible voices implicated in respondetur).

66. If we can trust it; cf. p. 105 above with n.57.

67. Cf. 1 pref. 7–13, and see pp. 11 If. below.

68. Cf. Kidd (n.18 above), 495f: ‘[W]hen Seneca says that most Stoics hold [the theory held by Posidonius], he must mean most Stoics of his own day. There is no sure trace of it before Posidonius in the Stoa.’

69. Kidd (n.18 above), 496.

70. Cf. Posid. fr.l31a31–3 E-K, 131M8–19.

71. On Seneca’s independence from his own as well as other schools, cf. 1.8.4, 2.21.1, 4b.3.1–2, 4b.5.1; further, Hine (n.2 above), 57 and nn.61, 65.

72. So, e.g., a comet follows its fuel in the way fire does (7.21.2). Not so: if fire clings to its fuel, it should descend because the atmosphere is thicker the closer it is to the earth; but comets never descend to those lower reaches of the atmosphere (7.22.2).

73. Cf. p.99 above with n.14.

74. Cf. 7.18.1 and p. 107 above.

75. Cf. on Ep. 66.6 Hadot (n.14 above), 208, 230.

76. Oltramare (n.39 above), ii.326 n.2 (emphasis original).

77. Cf. Dial. 8.5.4 with Dionigi, I. (ed.), L. Anneo Seneca: De otio (dial, viii) (Bologna 1983), 235–37Google Scholar.

78. Hence 7.30.3: ‘How many bodies apart from comets move in secret, never rising before human eyes! For god has not made all things for mankind (neque enim omnia homini deus fecit)’. This qualification late in Book 7 to the familiar (Stoic) anthropo- and geocentric vision of the cosmos gives delayed significance in retrospect to Seneca’s passing allusion at 7.2.3 to heliocentric theorising (perhaps that of Aristarchus of Samos in the early third century? See Vottero [n.30 above], 668 n.6 with Heath [n.26 above], 299–316); on this cross-connection, Gauly (n.20 above), 163. Cf. also for this modified perspective Hadot (n.14 above), 254: ‘Aesthetic and philosophical perceptions of the world are only possible by means of a complete transformation of our relationship to the world: we have to perceive it for itself, and no longer for ourselves’ (emphasis original).

79. Roman progress (cf. apud nos, 7.25.3) in astronomy dates back at least to C. Sulpicius Galus, author of a book on the subject in the mid-second century. For this and later developments, Rawson, E., Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (London 1985), 162–64Google Scholar.

80. retrogradus is itself first attested in Seneca, then in Pliny (Nat. 2.77; retrogradior of planets also at 2.61, 2.76).

81. So at 7.26.1–2 the double distinction that the interlocutor draws between planets and comets—(i) ‘we cannot see through planets to objects on the other side, but our vision passes through comets’ (cf. 7.18.2 and p.107 above), and (ii) ‘planets are all round, comets extended’—is based on what Seneca casts as another blinkered, over-literal form of viewing that perceives no difference between the comet’s tail and the sidus ipsum of the comet itself.

82. So Gauly (n.20 above), 163, closely relating Seneca’s characterisation of comets as celestial bodies to his emphasis late in Book 7 on human progress to ever new knowledge: ‘Wie der Progress zur Transzendenz wird, so werden die Kometen zum Zeichen einer fernen besseren Welt…. Der Zeichencharakter des Phänomens wird also nicht bestritten, sondern nur in anderer Weise gedeutet: Die Kometen werden zu Zeichen einer geordneten, ruhigen und schönen Welt jenseits der irdischen Existenz.’ While not altogether incompatible with this line, the approach taken below differs in the type and scale of the cometary symbolism that it finds in Book 7.

83. On Seneca’s departure from (and perhaps conscious distortion of) Aristot. Mete. 1.7 344bl8–345a5 in 7.28, Hall (n.42 above), 415. For the date of the Achaean/Macedonian earthquake (no later than the latter half of 61? Or as late as early in 62?), Hine (n.2 above), 69–71, with Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Seneca and the Pompeian Earthquake’, in De Vivo, A. and Lo Cascio, E. (eds.), Seneca uomo politico e I’età di Claudio e di Nerone. Atti del Convegno internazionale (Capri 25–27 mono 1999) (Bad 2003), 181Google Scholar.

84. Cf. Hine (n.2 above), 58, on Seneca’s self-positioning in relation to both his scientific predecessors and his successors, to the effect that ‘he is implicitly claiming that his own views deserve as much attention as he gives to those of his predecessors, and that even after his own views are superseded in future, they still deserve to be recognised for their role in the development of the subject’.

85. Edelstein, L., The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity (Baltimore 1967), 168Google Scholar.

86. Cf. Edelstein (n.85 above), 172–74.

87. See p. 100 above with n.20.

88. For the division between the different philosophical parts here, ethics and theology, Gross (n.25 above), 13. For theology itself as the last stage in physical studies (physics of course one of the three traditional Stoic parts of philosophy), Long, A.A. and Sedley, D.N. (eds.), The Hellenistic Philosophers (2 vols.: Cambridge 1987Google Scholar), 1.159 (= 26C).

89. For overlap between Book 7 and 1 pref., see already Gauly (n.20 above), 162, 164.

90. For the approach, Williams (n.8 above), 147.