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The Road to Sicily: Lucilius to Seneca*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Emily Gowers
Emily Gowers*
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge
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Extract

One of Horace's best-known allegations in Epistles 1 is that where in the world you are is neither here nor there, as long as you have peace of mind (animus aequus):

      caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
      strenua nos exercet inertia; nauibus atque
      quadrigis petimus bene uiuere. quod petis, hie est,
      est Vlubris, animus si te non deficit aequus.
      (Hor. Ep. 1.11.27-30)

Cross the sea, and you change your climate, not your mental state. Restless idleness drives us on. In ships and chariots we seek the good life. What you seek is here, it's even at Ulubrae—if your mind is only at peace with itself.

This turns out to be one of the book's hugest lies. It makes all the difference how Horace and his correspondents are placed when he is writing to them: Rome is different from backwater Ulubrae, Baiae from Brundisium. In Morals and Villas in Seneca's Letters, John Henderson has attached similar importance to named locations in calibrating metaphorical distance between Seneca and the correspondent of his Epistles, Lucilius. This paper aims to close a gap of two centuries between two of the most disparate figures in Latin literature: the same Seneca, that knotted-up recluse, and another Lucilius, the laughing cavalier satirist. The link: a journey made from Rome to Sicily, or, more precisely, the uses of the road to Sicily in epistolary-philosophical discourse (by way of Horace's Satires and Epistles). Lucilius' Iter Siculum and Seneca's mental journeys to Sicily in the Epistulae Morales are related stages, I will argue, in the philosophical applications of travel writing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , 2011 , pp. 168 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2011

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank audiences at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London and at the Department of Classics, University of California at Santa Barbara, who heard versions of this paper in 2010 and 2011. Thanks also to Madeline Gowers for her essential help with the map.

References

NOTES

1. Henderson, J., Morals and Villas in Seneca's Letters: Places to Dwell (Cambridge 2004), esp. 2 and 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and see 171-74 for his appendix of ‘places and persons named in the Epistulae Morales’. Ker, J., The Deaths of Seneca (Oxford 2009), 325CrossRefGoogle Scholar, echoes this sentiment: ‘Location, location, location.’

2. Altman, J.G., Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form (Columbus OH 1982)Google Scholar. At the time of writing, the suspension bridge designed to join Italy and Sicily, a dream of the Romans, Benito Mussolini and Silvio Berlusconi, seems no nearer to being realised.

3. Putnam, M.C.J., ‘From Lyric to Letter: Iccius in Horace Odes 1.29 and Epistles 1.12’, Arethusa 28 (1995), 193–207Google Scholar (200: the letter as bridge; 203: the letter as ‘an imagined island’).

4. Cic. Verr. 2.2.7: quasi quaedam praedia populi Romani sunt uectigalia nostra atque prouinciae, quem ad modum uos propinquis uestris praediis maxime delectamini, sic populo Romano iucunda suburbanitas est huiusce prouinciae (‘our provinces and subject states are like the farmlands of Rome; just as you take most pleasure in estates that are easy to reach, so the suburban quality of this province is a joy to Rome’); cf. 2.5.157, 23.66, Planc. 40.95 sicut domus una coniuncta (‘like a second home’). See further Sartori, F., ‘Suburbanitas Siciliae’, in Händel, P. and Meid, W. (eds.), Festschrift für R. Muth (Innsbruck 1983), 415–23Google Scholar; Gowers, E., ‘Augustus and “Syracuse“’, JRS 100 (2010), 69-87, at 74–76Google Scholar.

5. Cic. Att. 15.11.1.

6. Spence, S., ‘The Straits of Empire: Sicily from Vergil to Dante’, in Barolini, T. (ed.), Medieval Constructions in Gender and Identity: Essays in Honor of Joan M. Ferrante (Tempe AZ 2006), 133–50Google Scholar.

7. Cic. Verr. 2.5.169.

8. Sen. Ep. 45.2.

9. Williams, G., ‘Reading the Waters: Seneca on the Nile in Natural Questions, Book 4a’, CQ 58 (2008), 218–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. See Montiglio, S.. ‘Should the Aspiring Wise Man Travel? A Conflict in Seneca's Thought’, AJP 127 (2006), 553–86Google Scholar; Manning, C.E., On Seneca's “Ad Marciam” (Leiden 1981), 95–101Google Scholar.

11. Henderson (n.2 above), 42.

12. See Ker (n.2 above), 153, on the contrast drawn in the letters between Seneca's senectus ‘old age’ and Lucilius Junior's youth.

13. Herrmann, L., Le second Lucilius (Brussels 1958)Google Scholar.

14. cito magnum interuallum fit inter duos in diuersum euntes, Ep. 83.4.

15. Watson, P. and Watson, L., ‘Seneca and Felicio: Imagery and Purpose’, CQ 59 (2009), 212–25Google Scholar. Ronnick, M., ‘Concerning the Plane-Trees in Seneca's Twelfth Epistle’, in Veritatis Antiquae Causa: Essays in Honor of Anna Lydia Motto and John R. Clark (Wauconda 1999), 219-29, at 222Google Scholar calls the background of the letter ‘a “landscape” of himself, past, present, and future’. See also Henderson (n.2 above), 19-27, and Ker (n.2 above), 333-41.

16. Compare Ep. 31.1: agnosco Lucilium meum: incipit, quem promiserat, exhibere (‘I recognise my Lucilius: he begins to live up to his promise’).

17. See Ker (n.2 above), 182-84 for the history of this forgery, first mentioned by Jerome, (De Viris Illustribus 12)Google Scholar.

18. Vell. Pat. 2.9.4; Nicolet, C., L'ordre équestre à l'époque républicaine (2 vols.: Paris 1974), ii.926–29Google Scholar.

19. Jerome, , Chron. P. 148e HGoogle Scholar.

20. Mazzoli, G., Seneca e la poesia (Milan 1970), 263Google Scholar: ‘[E] anch'esso trova (è solo fortuita la coincidenza?) un preciso precedente nell' Iter Siculum del primo Lucilio.’

21. Manuwald, G., ‘Concilia deorum: ein episches Motiv in der römischen Satire’, in Felgentreu, F., Rucker, N. and Mundt, F. (eds.), Per attentant Caesaris aurem: Satire–Die unpolitische Gattung? (Tübingen 2009), 46–61Google Scholar.

22. Stringent arguments against in Zetzel, J.E.G., ‘Cicero and the Scipionic Circle’, HSCP 76 (1972), 173–79Google Scholar.

23. Panaetius: 116.5-6; Cato Maior: 11.10, 25.6, 64.10, 70.22, 87.9, 95.72, 104.21; Scipio Aemilianus: 25.6, 70.22, 95.72; Laelius 11.10, 25.6, 64.10, 95.72, 104.21.

24. Lucilius as para-convivial: Cucchiarelli, A., La satira e il poeta: Orazio tra satire e epodi (Pisa 2001), 58 n.4Google Scholar. See also Anderson, W.S., ‘The Roman Socrates: Horace and his Satires’, in Sullivan, J.P. (ed.), Critical Essays on Roman Literature, Vol. 2: Satire (London 1963), 2–37, at 20Google Scholar = Essays on Roman Satire (Princeton 1982), 32f.Google Scholar, for Lucilius as always portrayed at a feast in Horace.

25. Ep. 64.1-2: fuisti here nobiscum…mecum enim semper es. interuenerant quidam amici propter quos maior fumus fieret…uarius nobis fuit sermo, ut in conuiuio, nullam rem usque ad exitum adducens, sed aliunde alio transiliens (‘You were with us yesterday…you are always with me. Some friends dropped round, on whose account a bigger fire was laid…we conversed on different topics, as people do at dinner; no subject was followed through to the end; we just rambled on from one theme to another’).

26. Raschke, W., ‘The Virtue of Lucilius’, Latomus 49 (1990), 352–69Google Scholar.

27. Cic. Acad. 2.102: accipe quem ad modum eadem dicantur a Clitomacho in eo libro quem ad C. Lucilium scripsit poetam (‘this is how Clitomachus expressed the same thing in the book he wrote for Gaius Lucilius the poet’).

28. Gärtner, U., ‘Lucilius und die Freundschaft’, in Manuwald, G. (ed.), Der Satiriker Lucilius und seine Zeit (Munich 2001), 90–110Google Scholar.

29. improbus Lucilius: 821f.M = 892K, 1035M = 1062K.

30. interim aliquorum te auctoritate custodi—aut Cato ille sit aut Scipio aut Laelius aut alius cuius interuentu perditi quoque homines uitia supprimerent (‘meanwhile, entrust yourself to the authority of some of them—let it be Cato or Scipio or Laelius, or someone by whose intervention even ruined men would check their sins’).

31. elige itaque Catonem; si hic tibi uidetur nimis rigidus, elige remissioris animi uirum Laelium. elige eum cuius tibi placuit et uita et oratio et ipse animum ante se ferens uultus; illum tibi semper ostende uel custodem uel exemplum.

32. Hor. Sat. 2.1.28-33: me pedibus delectat claudere uerba/Lucili ritu, nostrum melioris utroque./ille uelut fidis arcana sodalibus olim/credebat libris neque, si male cesserat, usquam/decurrens alio neque, si bene; quo fit ut omnis/uotiua pateat ueluti descripta tabella/uita senis (‘I take pleasure in enclosing words in feet, like Lucilius, a better man than either of us. He used to entrust his secrets to his books like faithful friends, having no other outlet, whether things went badly or well; the result is that this old man's whole life lies open, as if engraved on a votive tablet’).

33. See Edwards, C., ‘Self-Scrutiny and Self-Transformation in Seneca's Letters’, G&R 44 (1997), 23–38Google Scholar, on self-scrutiny as the dominating principle of the Epistles.

34. Henderson (n.2 above), 7.

35. Ad Polybium 18.2: fratris quoque tui produc memoriam aliquo scriptorum monimento tuorum; hoc enim unum est <in> rebus humanis opus, cui nulla tempestas noceat, quod nulla consumat uetustas (‘prolong the memory of your brother in a kind of memorial in your writing; for among human achievements this is the only work that no storm can harm, nor length of time destroy’).

36. At Ep. 33.4, 116.5-6.

37. See Henderson (n.2 above), 46 and 71f., on ‘shaking up’ (excutere) as mental therapy.

38. Cichorius, C., Untersuchungen zu Lucilius (Berlin 1908), 251–61Google Scholar, splits the fragments into four groups, according to tense and person used, and assumes a variety of different poems; Krenkel, W. (ed.), Lucilius Satiren, lateinisch und deutsch (2 vols.: Leiden 1970)Google Scholar is with the majority of subsequent editors in deciding for a single poem, with the fragments addressing a second person in the future tense treated as part of a preliminary propempticon (98-106K).

39. Thanks to Ian Goh for telling me the history of this mistake. See Faller, S., ‘Lucilius und die Reise nach Sizilien’, in Manuwald, (n.28 above), 72–89, at 74Google Scholar; Rudd, N., Themes in Roman Satire (London 1986), 118Google Scholar.

40. Cic. Att. 13.6.4: Mummium fuisse ad Corinthum pro certo habeo. saepe enim hic Spurius, qui nuper est <mortuus>, epistulas mihi pronuntiabat uersiculis facetis ad familiares missas a Corintho (‘I am certain that Mummius was at Corinth: often Spurius, who recently died, used to recite to me letters in witty verse sent to his friends from Corinth’).

41. Faller (n.39 above), 76, draws an interesting link between the temples of Diana at Facelina (Lucil. fr. 102-4M = 104-6K) and at Aricia (first stop on Horace's journey: Sat. 1.5.1-2): both pilgrimage sites.

42. Marx, F. (ed.), C. Lucilii Carminum Reliquiae (2 vols.: Leipzig 1904–1905), ii.45Google Scholar: non animi delectandi causa et voluptatum sed praedia sua Sicula qui visuras sit.

43. Rudd (n.39 above), 126f.

44. Faller (n.39 above), 79, speaks of this fragment's contribution to the ‘Marx’ schen Mythos' of Lucilius' journey: Krenkel (n.38 above), 143 and 145, is also resistant.

45. Most famously by Fiske, G., Lucilius and Horace: A Study in the Classical Theory of Imitation (Madison WI 1920)Google Scholar.

46. See Musurillo, H.A., ‘Horace's Journey to Brundisium—Fact or Fiction?’, CW 48 (1954–1955), 159–62Google Scholar; E.Gowers, Horace Satires Book I (Cambridge 2012), 183 and 212f.Google Scholar

47. Cf. 129M = 130K: cernuus extemplo plantas conuestit honestas (‘at once gaiters clothed our feet with decency’).

48. Barchiesi, A. and Cucchiarelli, A., ‘Satire and the Poet: The Body as Self-Referential Symbol’, in Freudenburg, K. (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire (Cambridge 2005), 207-23, at 210Google Scholar.

49. Faller (n.39 above).

50. Faller (n.39 above), 73: ‘Auch krasse Mißverständnisse der Fragmente sind nicht ausgeblieben, so zum Beispiel Emily Gowers' Überzeugung, Lucilius sei—offenbar auf dem Landweg—über Tarent an die Straße von Messina gereist.’ Guilty as charged: see Gowers, E., ‘Horace, Satire 1.5: An Inconsequential Journey’, PCPS 39 (1993), 48–66, at 50Google Scholar (at 57 Tarentum is mentioned as a point somewhere on the journey) = Freudenburg, K. (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Horace: Satires and Epistles (Oxford 2009), 156-80, at 157Google Scholar (cf. 160).

51. Warmington, E.H., Remains of Old Latin Vol. III: Lucilius/Laws of the XII Tables (Cambridge MA and London 1938), 30Google Scholar.

52. Hor. Sat. 1.6.58f.: non ego me claro natum patre, non ego circum/me Satureiano uectari rura caballo (‘that I was not born of a distinguished father, nor rode around my estates on a Tarentine nag’).

53. Armstrong, D., ‘Horatius eques et scriba: Satires 1.6 and 2.7’, TAPA 116 (1986), 255–88Google Scholar.

54. Hor. Sat. 1.6.104f.: nunc mihi curto/ire licet mulo uel si libet usque Tarentum.

55. Marx (n.42 above), ii.44-47, with map at ii.51.

56. See Diggle, J. and Goodyear, F., The Collected Papers of A. E. Housman (3 vols.: Cambridge 1972), iii.684Google Scholar = Housman, A.E., ‘Luciliana’, CQ 1 (1907), 53-74, at 74Google Scholar.

57. Cic. Pro Planc. 96: turn Consilio repente mutato iter a Vibone Brundisium terra petere contendi: nam maritimos cursus praecludebat hiemis magnitudo. See Coarelli, F., ‘Il viaggio da Roma a Brindisi: note topografiche’, in Coarelli, F., Corcella, A. and Rossi, P. (eds.), Un angolo del mondo: i luoghi oraziani (Venosa 1993), 13–28Google Scholar.

58. Morgan, L., ‘Metre Matters: Some Higher-Level Metrical Play in Latin Poetry’, PCPS 46 (2000), 99-120, at 114–17Google Scholar; id., Musa Pedestris (Oxford 2010), 62, 69f. Faller (n.39 above), 75, suggests plausibly that ‘250 miles’ signifies the entire stretch from Capua to Vibo (officially 264 miles). Cf. 124M = 125K: ad portam mille a porta est. exinde Salernum (‘a mile from gate to gate. From there to Salernum’).

59. Rudd (n.39 above), 281 n.4.

60. R. Degl'Innocenti Pierini, ‘Note a Lucilio (in margine ad una recente edizione)’ (review of Charpin, F. [ed.], Lucilius, Satires, Tome I: Livres I-VIII [Paris 1978]Google Scholar, A&R 26 (1981), 50-61, at 56–58Google ScholarPubMed.

61. E.g. 109M = 107K, 110-13M = 108-11K, 144-46M = 146-48K; 107f.M = 102f.K, 114M = 112K, 124M = 125K, 126M = 127K; 134f.M = 134f.K. See Faller (n.39 above), 86: ‘eine Parodie auf die griechische geographische Schriftstellerei oder antike Wegbeschreibungen’.

62. Servius ad Aen. 1.44. Lucil. 1260M = 1278K (Priuerno Oufentina uenit fluuioque Oufente, ‘from Privernum and the river Ufens comes the Ufentine tribe’) appears to refer to two tribes of Campania.

63. Varro wrote a Menippean satire called Periplous, of which only five lines survive and no clues as to route taken—except that Var. Men. 416 Astbury contains a reference to ‘Dionysius’, presumably the tyrant of Syracuse: in hac ciuitate tum regnabat Dionysius, homo garrulus et acer (‘at that time the city was ruled by Dionysius, a fierce and wordy man’). Var. Men. 418 Astbury, which appears to be a metapoetic parallel between writing and journeying, is also ascribed to the Periplous: et ne erraremus, ectropas esse multas; omnino tutum esse, sed spissum iter (‘so that we don't go astray, there are many rest-stops; the journey will be utterly safe but somewhat congested’).

64. Nonius 25, 22: ‘brocci’ sunt producto ore et dentibus prominentibus.

65. 117f.K: broncus Nouiltanus: dente aduerso eminulo hic est/rhinoceros uelut Aethiopis.

66. The usual interpretation of 121f.M = 122f.K: ille alter abundans/cum Septem incolumis pinnis redit ac recipit se (‘one of the two, resplendent with seven feathers, lunges back and retreats unscathed’).

67. Mras, K., ‘Randbemerkungen zu Lucilius' Satiren’, WS 46 (1928), 78–84, at 78–80Google Scholar.

68. Classen, C.J., ‘Die Kritik des Horaz an Lucilius in den Satiren I 4 and I 5’, Hermes 109 (1981), 339-60, at 346Google Scholar.

69. Cavarzere, A., ‘Noterelle eterodosse alle satire odeporiche’, Prometheus 21 (1995), 141-60, at 151Google Scholar.

70. Strabo 6.2.3 (armpit), 1.2.12 (elbow), 63.6 (stag's head).

71. Cf. Lucr. 5.225 (nixibus ex aluo matris natura profudit, ‘nature poured forth from the mother's straining belly’); Hollis's conjecture profudit (‘poured forth’) in a childbirth scene at Varro Atacinus fr. 125.3. Cavarzere (n.69 above), 148, argues that Lucilius' fragment is related to the gladiatorial context in being an abusive parody of an epic genealogy (cf. Cic. In Pis. fr. XIV Nisbet: te tua illa nescio quibus terris apportata mater pecudem ex aluo, non hominem effuderit, ‘your mother, dragged in tow from god knows what country, poured you out—a herd-animal, not a human—from her belly’); cf. Marx (n.42 above) ad loc.

72. Strabo 6.1.6.

73. Van Dam, H.-J., Silvae Book II: A Commentary (Leiden 1984)Google Scholar, ad 2.2.76 (πϱοχέω); cf. Serv. ad Aen. 9.715: fundere enim est ἐϰχέειν. Cf. Strabo 6.1.6, Plin. NH 2.203, 3.208: Precida as ‘broken off’ from the mainland.

74. Hooley, D., Roman Satire (Malden 2007), 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75. Green, R.P.H., The Works of Ausonius (Oxford 1991), 282Google Scholar, supports this on stylistic grounds: the poem imitates the ellipses and archaisms of Lucilian sermo.

76. Cf. 9-11: paruum herediolum, fateor, sed nulla fuit res/parua umquam aequanimis, adde etiam unanimis./ex animo rem stare aequum puto, non animum ex re (‘a little estate, I admit, but no property is ever small to those whose souls are at ease, or even at one. I believe that wealth depends on the temperament, not the temperament on wealth’).

77. Cf. Hor. Ep. 1.17.52f.: Brundisium comes aut Surrentum ductus amoenum/qui queritur salebras et acerbum frigus et imbres (‘a travelling companion on the way to Brundisium or pretty Surrentum who complains of the jolting, the bitter cold and the rain’).

78. OLD s.v.

79. Ep. 31.9, NQ 4.1. Perhaps playing on Cicero's negotium/otium joke at Off. 3.58 (cum se Syracusas otiandi…non negotiandi causa contulisset, ‘when he betook himself to Syracuse, not for business, but for not-busyness’).

80. Schönegg, B., Der Tod des Seneca (Ditzingen 2001)Google Scholar.

81. Ker (n.2 above), 241.

82. A sentiment replayed at Ep. 69.1: mutare te loca et aliunde alio transilire nolo; primum, quia tam frequens migratio instabilts animi est (‘I don't like the way you change your surroundings and rush around from place to place: above all, because such frequent travelling is the sign of an unsteady temperament’).

83. Mazzoli, G., ‘Effetti di cornice nell'epistolario di Seneca a Lucilio’, in Setaioli, A. (ed.), Seneca e la cultura (Perugia 1991), 67–87, at 86fGoogle Scholar.

84. On Seneca and travel: Lavery, G., ‘Metaphors of War and Travel in Seneca's Prose Works’, G&R 27 (1980), 147–57Google Scholar; Garbarino, G., ‘Secum peregrinari: il tema di viaggio in Seneca’, in De tuo tibi: omaggio degli allievi a Italo Lana (Bologna 2006), 263–85Google Scholar; Henderson (n.2 above), passim; Chambert, R., ‘Voyage et santé dans les lettres de Sénèque’, BAGB 61 (2002), 63–82Google Scholar; Montiglio (n.12 above). On ancient travel-writing in general, see also Cavarzere (n.69 above), Degl'Innocenti Pierini (n.59 above).

85. Ep. 48.1: ad epistulam quam mihi ex itinere misisti, tam longam quam ipsum iter fuit, postea rescribam (‘as for the letter that you wrote me while travelling, a letter as long as the journey itself, I shall reply to it later’). For the journey metaphor applied to styles of protreptic, compare Ep. 6.5: longum est iter per praecepta, breite et efficax per exempla (‘long is a journey through commandments, short and sharp is a journey through examples’).

86. See Henderson (n.2 above), 19-27.

87. Henderson (n.2 above), 32; Ker (n.2 above), 345.

88. Ker (n.2 above), 343.

89. See Henderson (n.2 above), 32-39 and 46-170, for more intense discussion of these letters (‘an unheralded and never-to-be-rivalled surge of mimetic narrative’, 32); see Ker (n.2 above), 342-46 for a briefer summary. See also the commentaries of Berno, F., L. Anneo Seneca, Lettere a Lucilio libro VI: Le lettere 53-57 (Bologna 2006)Google Scholar, and Honscheid, C., Fomenta Campaniae: ein Kommentar zu Senecas 51., 55. und 56. Brief (Munich 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90. Ep. 49.1: ecce Campania et maxime Neapolis ac Pompeiorum tuorum conspectus incredibile est quam recens desiderium tui fecerint. totus mihi in oculis es. cum maxime a te discedo. Cf. Ep. 70.1: post longum interuallum Pompeios tuos uidi. in conspectum adulescentiae meae reductus sum (‘After a long interval I have seen your dear Pompeii. I have come face to face with my own adolescence’).

91. Mazzoli (n.20 above), 264 n.168.

92. schedia: 1279M= 1296K.

93. See Henderson, J., ‘Journey of a Lifetime: Seneca, Epistle 57 in Book VI of EM’, in Volk, K. and Willams, G. (eds.), Seeing Seneca Whole: Perspectives on Philosophy, Poetry, and Politics (Leiden 2006), 123–46Google Scholar.

94. Ep. 57.1: cum a Bais deberem Neapolim repetere, facile credidi tempestatem esse, ne iterum nauem experirer; et tantum luti tota uia fuit ut possim uideri nihilominus nauigasse. totum athletarum fatum mihi illo die perpetiendum fuit: a ceromate nos haphe excepit in crypta Neapolitana.

95. Mazzoli (n.20 above), 263.

96. Henderson (n.2 above), 35.

97. Mazzoli (n.20 above), 263.

98. Messalla and Valgius are named as sources for his information.

99. Mazzoli (n.20 above), 262.

100. Warmington (n.51 above), 32f., assigns the mantica fragment to Book (101W).

101. inuitus erubesco, quod argumentum est ista quae probo, quae laudo, nondum habere certam sedem et immobilem…etiamnunc curo opiniones uiatorum (‘I blush, despite myself – proof that this behaviour which I approve and praise has not yet found firm and unshifting lodging within me. …Even so, I care about what other travellers think of me’, Ep. 87.4-5)

102. A. Motto and J. Clark, ‘Et terris iactatus et alto: The Art of Seneca's Epistle LIII’, AIP 92 (1971), 217-25, argue that Seneca is never more of a clown than in Ep. 53, where he is a seasick Ulysses; cf. eid., ‘Seneca and Ulysses’, CB 67 (1991), 27-32 = Essays on Seneca (Frankfurt 1993), 181-87. See also Hurka, F., ‘Seneca und die Didaktik des Lachens: Spiel und Ernst in der Briefgruppe Epist. 49-57’, in Baier, T., Manuwald, G. and Zimmermann, B. (eds.), Seneca: Philosophus et Magister (Freiburg 2005), 117–38Google Scholar.