Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SENECA 183of his better qualities. Quintilian says of thelater writers of that school, that all they can dois to imitate and exaggerate the faults and mannerismsof their master, since his real excellence isbeyond their capacity. By resembling they, so tospeak, slander him.^ I do not dwell upon theabsence of all allusion to the tragedies in hisletters, though he quotes Euripides and Publius,for Seneca was completely free from that literaryvanity which was so conspicuous in Cicero, andin no one of his letters does he mention any otherof his works. Indeed, with the exception of asingle passage in his twenty-first letter, in whichwith a certain solemnity he promises Lucilius thatas Idomeneus lives for ever in the letters ofEpicurus, Atticus in those of Cicero, so it wasalso in his power to confer immortality on hisown correspondent, we hear nothing of his greatposition and reputation from himself.The denunciations of tyrants and tyranny withwhich the plays abound, and the direct references,as they appear to be, to Seneca's own relationswith Nero which they contain, have appeared toM. Boissier conclusive evidence of his authorship.But they also make it in a high degree unlikely thatthe plays were published during Nero's lifetime,and would rather indicate their publication underVespasian by another member of Seneca's family.'He who distributes crowns at his will,' we read'in the Thyestes, before whom trembling nationsbend the knee, who by a sign of his hand disarms^One wonders whether he maytragedian among others in his mind when so writing.not have had Seneca the