Review: [Untitled]

Reviewed Work(s):
Seneca e la poesia by Giancarlo Mazzoli
Norman T. Pratt

The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 95, No. 2. (Summer, 1974), pp. 177-179.

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after patrian~,and genus as accusative, an extension after patriam);

636 dei for dii (but here, I think the true reading must be die = diri; cf.
G. 1.208; Paulin. Nol. Carrn. 5.72 = Auson. Eph. 4.72; p. 368, 1 P.;
Thes. 5.1.1022,16ff. Servius seems to explain an apocryphal reading
diu). One of the longest notes in this volume is devoted to the question
whether 286ff. Caesar is Augustus or his adoptive father. Like E. J .
Kenney, Austin is inclined to assume a "deliberate Virgilian am-
biguity." More could be said on Lucan's imitations of whole passages,
e.g. the banquet scene 723-56 in Phars. 10.107-333. Lucan's elabora-
tion of detail and his change of mood deserve close study.
I wonder why commentators have little or nothing to say on Virgilian
lines of the type sit mihi,fas audita loqui. They have a clear, unmistaka-
ble ring and almost always seem to emphasize an emotional high point,
e.g. in 10; 380; 573, etc. Even Norden on Book 6', p. 421, n. 1 has
apparently missed this and put at least two examples into a wrong
category. Lucan-always the clever disciple-uses this pattern fre-
quently.
Austin cannot quite resist his urge (cf. Gnomon, loc. cit.) to discover
all kinds of hidden meanings in certain metrical features. T o him, the
hypermetre in the description of the temple of Juno in Carthage, 448,
seems "intended pictorially. perhaps to suggest the closeness of the
plating." T o Conway (ad loc.) it suggested the "projection of the
architrave." These are idle guesses, entirely based on impressions.

GIANCARLO MAZZOLI. Seneca e la poesia. Milano, Ceschina, 1970. Pp.

320. L.3500. (Pubblicazioni della Facolta' di lettere e filosofia
dell' Universita' di Pavia. Istituto di letteratura latina, 15)
The preface shows that this book is the work of a young scholar,
encouraged by Enrica Malcovati and Luigi Alfonsi. Certainly it is the
work of a competent young scholar, but one may ask whether the topic
deserves a book, particularly of this length. The younger Seneca surely
is not distinguished for his literary criticism.
Part one (9- 108) treats Seneca's thought on art and poetry. Mazzoli
portrays the author as rising above the cultural provincialism of his
Spanish origin, shown in his father's prejudice against the liberal arts.
For Seneca, culture is "a precious spiritual investment" (lo), in that
it consoles and gentles the spirit, and counteracts pain and passion.
However, culture must not be only decorative, not merely literary, but
above all philosophical (14). Both here and throughout the first two
parts of the book, Mazzoli often uses De Lacy's "Stoic Views of
Poetry" (AJP 69 [1948] 241-71). The severe limitation of the Stoic
178 REVIEWS

view. particularly in the hands o f a rhetorical moralist like Seneca, does

not allow much of consequence to be added to D e Lacy's basic and
more comprehensive treatment.
Mazzoli goes on to construct Seneca's "Poetics." He demonstrates
the fusion of aesthetic and ethical concepts in the system and. of
course, cannot avoid the conclusions that for the Stoic Seneca the
autonomy o f t r r . ~is unthinkable. the arts are to be subjected to ethical
philosophy, and moral philosophy is not sharply distinguished from the
arts: .scrpirtzritr rrrs rjsf. Aesthetic experience is identical with contem-
plation of nature. God-nature is the artist par excellence. M ~ g t ~ i t i i c f o
and rf~irgtlirritioit ~ g c , t ~run
trt~it~ri i i together toward the supreme goal, the
srihlitl~c.in nature and therefore in man.
Thih synthesis of values, rooted in the Panaetian principle of the
.-rpt.-rov (68-69). allows only a restricted commitment to poetry:
Seneca3\ poetic ideal is the ethical c,trrt~c.t~ which "imitates" human
and divine reality, Stoically defined. For this restriction Mazzoli obvi-
ously is not accountable, hut one hundred pages are not needed to
demonstrate this extreme example of the general failure of classical
literary criticism to rise above rhetorical and moralistic analysis.
Here and elsewhere in the hook. Mazzoli makes some valuable
points showing Seneca's ideas about tragedy. There is an interesting
passage connecting his conception of philosophical prtrcc,cpttr with the
composition of the tragedies ( 107). Seneca is a partisan of a dramatic art
capable of producing vigorou\ ethical effects: his tragedies were prob-
ably never presented to the coarse theater of his day (133-34). T o him
tragedy is foremost among dramatic forms for its grandiosity and
severity (134-37).
Seneca as a critic (part two. I 1 1-53) turns away from grammatical
and philological study to the philosophical decoding of moral symbols
and allegory. Mazzoli tries to argue that in the criticism of poetic genres
Seneca does not merely follow tradition, as in his preference for
tragedy. but shows an uneasiness and a "dramaticity" of spirit charac-
teristic of modern criticism (121); this judgment seems more true of
Seneca as a creative writer than as a critic. In any event, his attitude
toward genres is conditioned by their capacity for moralizing: tragedy
is preferred: he is attracted to the mime by its sc~t7f'nrirrc~;epic is
important a s a storehouse of characters who fit Seneca's concerns, as a
"guide of humanity toward the good," but his judgments on authors
like Homer, Ennius, and Virgil have to do with their general poetic
quality as he sees it, not with a distinctive genre (149-50).
The third part ("Seneca and the poets," 157-264) is valuable for
assembling information, although it contains no surprises and too much
extraneousliterary history .The authorarranges his material chronolog-
ically and discusses all the Senecan citations ofGreek and Latin poetry
that can be identified more or less surely. Greek poetry appears very
sparsely, presumably because of Iberian and Roman prejudices against
 REVIEWS.

the subtlety and theoretical nature of the Greek tradition (157-58).

Even the citations of Homer seem to be a bow to tradition rather than
the product of personal appreciation. Of theGreek poet-philosophers,
Cleanthes alone receives serious attention. Interestingly, there are
only vague indications of knowledge of the Greek tragedians (172).
O n the Latin side, his judgments are those of ageneration born at the
waning of the early Imperial period, brought up on admiration of the
great literary talents. Archaic poetry, of which Ennius is Seneca's
model, did not satisfy the criterion of the neinov requiring that the
morality of the res be seen through the clarity of the verba. The archaic
style is older crudity supplanted by Imperial splendor. Apparently
Seneca derived his fragments of the early poetry from their citation in
Cicero (183-87). From the later Republic, Lucretius is the only one of
whose work he shows direct knowledge; from this source, a s from
Epicurus, he is willing to accept fragments of wisdom, but of course no
more than this (206-209).
Virgil and Ovid appear most frequently, and there are charts showing
the distribution (23 1 and 240). Virgil is maximus rwtes; Seneca admires
theprutlentia of the entire Aeneid. Mazzoli quite properly makes much
of Seneca's allegorizing use of his favorite: e.g. the last night of Troy
symbolizes human life in the painful uncertainty of its own cusus (226).
In fact, Mazzoli believes that the discovery of Virgilian classicism is
the richest result of Senecan literary criticism (232).
T h e subject is unrewarding for book-length study, but it is appro-
priate to congratulate Mazzoli for his careful interpretation of all
the evidence.

FRANKKOL.B. Literarische Beziehungen zwischen Cassius Dio, Hero-

dian und der Historia Augusta. Bonn, Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1972.
Pp. xii + 196. (Antiquitas, Reihe 4, Band 9)
Most scholars today, though by no means all, recognize that the
plurality of authors known as the S(criptores) H(istoriae) A(ugustae) is
some kind of a hoax. Since Dessau's famous article more and more
have become convinced that the H A is a series of biographies from the
late fourth o r fifth century by one man who deliberately forged names
and documents and sought to give a n erroneous impression of exact
knowledge. Though he undoubtedly consulted respectable sources, he
was intent on writing something interesting o r surprising, not on find-
ing the truth. In fact, he sometimes is seen to be deliberately distorting
the truth.