Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
‘In spite of the efforts of scholars to improve matters, the condition of Seneca's text remains in many places most uncertain or quite irrecoverable. Again and again one has to be content with conjectures which, while often giving the general sense of a passage, must not be taken as certainly Seneca's words’ (Corcoran).
1. praef. 5 o quam contempta res est homo, nisi supra humana surrexerit! quam diu cum affectibus colluctamur, quid magnifici facimus, etiam si superiores sumus? portenta vincimus: quid est cur suspiciamus nosmet ipsos, quia dissimiles deterrimis sumus? Traditional punctuation: ‘… quid magnifici facimus? etiam si superiores sumus, portenta vincimus’
1 Note the following: ‘Alexander’ = Alexander, W. H., ‘Naturales Quaestiones’, Publ. in Class. Pbil. of University of California 13 (1948), 241 ff.Google Scholar; ‘Axelson’ = Axelson, B., Senecastudien (Lund, 1933)Google Scholar; ‘Corcoran’ = Corcoran, T. H., ed. Loeb (1971–1972)Google Scholar; ‘Gercke’ = Gercke, A., ed. Teubner (1907);Google Scholar ‘Oltramare’ = Oltramare, P., ed. Bude (1929);Google Scholar ‘Schultess’ = Schultess, F., Annaeana Studia (1888).Google Scholar Manuscript readings are cited from Gercke's apparatus.
I am grateful to the Editors and to Mr. H. M. Hine of Edinburgh University for allowing me to read and make use of his comments on this paper.