Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

i82SENECAthe tragedian were actually alive, is comprehensible,for Quintilian avoids all criticism of his livingcontemporaries, and only alludes without naminghim to Tacitus himself. But if Lucius Senecawere the author of the plays, how could he havepassed him over in silence ? Moreover, he tells usthat Lucius Seneca practised almost every formof literature, leaving behind him orations, poems,epistles, and dialogues. Why no mention of thetragedies ? But the strongest external reasonfor disbelieving in the identity of Seneca thetragedian with Seneca the philosopheris to befound in the poem of Sidonius ApoUinaris, writtenin the fifth century, in which he distinguishesbetween the two.^ It is difficult to believe thatSidonius, to whom letters were the chief interestin life, and who lived in an age before the finalbreak up of the Empire had cast a doubt on somany origins, could have been mistaken on sucha point. He writes, too, as he naturally would ifno question on the subject had been raised, as ifthe matter were one of common knowledge.As to the internal evidence, the defects ofSeneca are visible in the plays, tempered by few1'Non quod Corduba praepotens alumnisFacundum ciet, hie putes legendum :Quorum unus colit hispidum Platona,Incassumque suum monet Neronem :Orchestram quatit alter Euripidis,Pietum faeeibus AeSv^hylum secutusAut plaustris solitum sonare Thespin :Qui post pulpita trita sub cothurnoDucebant olidae matrem capellae.'Carm.ix.Cp.Carm. xxiii, :'Quid celsos Seneeas loquar.'