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Conscientia in Seneca Three FootnotesAuthor(s): B. L. Hijmans Jr.Source: Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 23, Fasc. 2 (1970), pp. 189-192Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4429850Accessed: 01/09/2008 19:25

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MISCELLANEA 189

2. Im Aitienprolog sind die Verse 37-8 zu lesen in der Form, die sie im Hesiodscholion haben. Nur soll man statt d??at? mit dem Papyrus d??at? schreiben. Der Anfang von 37 (-ww-) ist bis auf weiteres als verloren zu betrachten; hielten ja auch Lobel und Hunt es f?r unm?glich, in die L?cke ?? ???es?? unterzubringen (vgl. Pf. ad loc. : ??????es?? spatio longius et, ut nunc opinor, ab huius loci sensu alienum").

Ich m?chte sch?esslich darauf hinweisen, dass die an sich schon wenig ?berzeugenden Aufstellungen von W. Wimmel (Kallimachos in Rom, 51 ff.) bei dieser Sachlage v?llig hinf?llig w?rden.

Oegstgeest, Prins Bernhardlaan 28 C. M. J. Sicking

CONSCIENTIA IN SENECA THREE FOOTNOTES

A recent discussion of the use of the term conscientia in the youn- ger Seneca*) requires some footnotes ; one will deal with the spatial language Seneca employs for his concept, another with the question whether Seneca relates the custos to conscientia, a third with the comparative table that was used.

a) Spatial terminology De clem. I, 13, 3 2) : qui, ubi circumspexit, quaeque fecit quaeque

facturus est, et conscientiam suam plenam sceleribus ac tormentis

adaperuit, saepe mortem timet, saepius optat e.q.s. The words plenam and adaperuit suggest space. Is this space a metaphor or is it meant

literally ? The two further places mentioned by Molenaar that have similar terminology (De benef. 3,1, 4, p. 177, and 7,1, 7, p. 180) do not make this clear, but there are several others. At De benef. 4, 21,1 we read hie (sc. vir gratus) intra conscientiam clusus est,

?) G. Molenaar, Mnemos. IV 22 (1969), 170-180. The survey would have been useful if many references had not been wrong and if some had been there. E.g. p. 170 n. 2: Schwyzer quotes Hierocles, not Musonius Rufus (Entr. Hardt V, 1957, 357_8)? Mus. seems to have neither s??a?s??s?? nor s??e?d?s??, but conscientia occurs in a fragment taken from Gellius (ed. Hense p. 131.11); p. 174 line 3: Clem. I 9 should read I 11, 3 (Pr?chac) or I 13, 3 (Hosius) : I 9, 9 (Hosius) also has conscientia but it is not the passage referred to; p. 174 note 3: V.B. VII 2 should read V.B. 20, 4 or Dial. VII 20, 4; p. 178 line 2: (Clem.) I 15 should be I 1 : De clem. 1, 15, 5 also has an example of conscientia, but it is not the passage referred to. The phrase (p. 170 line 15) "the word s??a?s??s?? became a technical term in natural science" requires a reference or two to be useful.

2) Citations according to the various Teubner editions, except for the Letters which have been checked in Reynolds' OCT.

ICO MISCELLANEA

elsewhere that maxima beneficia . . . intra tacitam duorum con- scientiam latent (De benef. 3, 10,2; consc. here 'awareness' rather than

'conscience'). Seneca speaks of voluntas in much the same way: De benef. 2, 25, 2 ut voluntas nostra non lateatur, sed aperiatur et luceat. There are, on the other hand, also instances where con- scientia is not the container but the contained; cf. De v. b. 19, 1, De benef. 4, 21, 6, fr. 24 Haase. It seems quite possible that Seneca was acutely aware of the coextensive nature of thinker and thought, and investigation would probably show that Seneca regarded conscientia in all its senses as an aspect of animus (cf. e.g. the play between 'knowledge' and 'conscience' at De brev. vit. 13, 2 as well as De tr. an. 7, 3, Molenaar p. 173), which, in so far as it is corpus (ep. 113, 25), may of course be spoken of as literally filling a place, but which in view of its tenuous nature is also able to penetrate wherever it pleases (ep. 50, 6). Again, it is the summi boni locus (ep. 87, 21). Where such a literal interpretation is possible, I am hesitant to speak of spatial imagery since we are dealing with a self-confessed Stoic.

Mr. Molenaar quotes, in the same context, ep. 43, 4: conscientia "places a janitor at the entrance of the interior man" (my italics). I do not think that Seneca is speaking metaphorically. Lucilius is an important man in the province and his every activity is scrutinized. In Seneca's opinion he can only judge himself happy if he is truly able to live in publico, if his house serves to protect rather than to hide him. Modern man with his electronic listening devices may smile a little, but Seneca is quite serious and quite literal except, perhaps, for a slight but noticeable element of perso- nification, which also appears in par. 5 of the same letter (bona conscientia turbam advocat). Cf. ep. 97, 12 (bona conscientia prodire vult) and expressions such as Phoen. 216 (fugio conscium scelerum omniumjpectus) and H.F. 692 (Pudorque serus conscios vultus tegit). For a similar treatment of virtus see e.g. ep. 66, 20 and 27, of ratio ibid. 32 and 45-6, De ira ?, ?8, ?.

b) Conscientia and Cusios In his discussion of the relationship between conscientia and

observator-custos based on ep. 41, 2 (cf. ep. 31, 11) Molenaar states (p. 180): "Seneca distinguishes between God and human con- science". He follows Pohlenz (Die Stoa, I, 317,320) rather than Sevenster (Paul and Seneca, 90 f.). The discussion suffers from a lack of clarity in -so far as Seneca's usage of terms such as deus, di, mens, Spiritus, ratio etc. remains undefined, and the ease with which the author makes the transition from the terminology of the strict physical scheme of Stoicism to the much less strict

MISCELLANEA I9I

expressions of popular language goes unnoticed. Certainly custos and conscientia are identical at least once (fr. 14 Haase: custos te tuus sequitur . . . quid Ubi prodest non h?here conscium habenti conscientiam), whereas at De benef. 3, 17, 3 testes ingratorum omnium deos metuit, urit ilium et angit intercepti beneficii conscientia the second phrase may well be explicative of the first, rather than the mere addition of another item. It is interesting to compare ep. no, 1 iubeo (te) habere mentem bonam, hoc est propitios deos omnis, quos habet placatos et faventes quisqu?s sibi se propitiavit. This last expression comes very close to the notion of bona conscientia. At De v.b. 20, 5 there is indeed a distinction between the di . . . censores factorum dictorumque on the one hand and conscientia (as well as the expression me conscio) on the other, but ep. 73, 15-16, 41, 2 etc. etc. make it quite clear that Seneca feels no pangs of conscience in speaking of God or the gods as transcendent and as present within a human being in one and the same breath.

c) The comparative table Mr. Molenaar has counted 44 places where conscientia figures in

the remains of Seneca's opera omnia. Th. L. L. gives?if I am not mistaken?39, Mulder (De consc. notione, Leiden 1908, printed after Th. L. L., cf. p. 6 note 1) has 48. Counting is difficult, in particular if the principles on which the count is to be made are not first established. I suspect Molenaar has excluded two references in Haase's Supplement: Form. hon. vit. 3,4 (p. 69,11-12) and De moribus 65 (= m?nita 26), yet there are good reasons to regard both as Senecan at least in origin. Even when the same restriction is applied, my own count results in 46 instances, 48 if one counts epp. 12, 9 and 43, 5 double. The distribution acc. to works: dialogi 7, de benef 15, de clem. 4, letters 17 (19), nat. qu. 1, fragments 2, [excerpts 2]; according to the groups established by Molenaar: a. 'together with someone else' 3, b. 'with obj. gen. (pos.)' 4, c. 'with obj. gen. (neg.)' 1 [2], d. 'absolute' 22, e. 'mala consc' 4 [6], /. 'bona consc' 11, 12 or 13 depending on whether one wishes to count ep. 12, 9 and ep. 117, 1 (salva conscientia). Mr. Molenaar's count of 1 under b. and 4 under c. is the result of a misprint (cf. p. 173). The actual counting may seem of minor importance, but in view of the hazards of applying statistics where such small numbers are involved accuracy seems of paramount importance. The interest of the table, however, lies in the comparison with Cicero. It would seem that with ca. 45 instances in roughly 350.000 words Seneca uses the term more frequently than Cicero with ca. 73 x) in some 1.300.000 words. Molenaar rightly avoids drawing

1) Mulder mentions 77 instances.

192 MISCELLANEA

conclusions with regard to absolute frequency, but he does draw conclusions with respect to relative frequency of particular types of usage. One must ask, however, whether an idea-carrying word like conscientia is likely to be produced by the context. Thus it is curious that in Cicero's letters conscientia with an obj. gen. never occurs in the negative sense; in a positive sense some 15 times, to which one may add praeclara consc. (Att. 10, 4, 5), and recta consc. (Att. 13, 20, 4). Again the context of beneficia seems to account for rather a large number of instances in Seneca (15 in De benef., add ep. 81, 20 and 21); and at least 15 of the instances under rubric c (Cicero) are to be found in the speeches x). There- fore, a comparative table that takes context into account, in parti- cular if it is balanced by another table that shows distribution in the various works, would be much more enlightening.

University of Manitoba B. L. Hijmans Jr.

SEG VI, 731: [S??]???S? A honorific inscription of the third century A. D. from

Side in Pamphylia tells us that the boule, the demos and the gerousia have set up a statue of the ?e?? [s???]??t?? (i.e. a personifi- cation of the Roman Senate2)) by the side of (pa??) ta?? ?e?a?? t[?? p??|?]???? t?? Se?as[t?? . .| .]ea?? 3).

Two restorations have been proposed: [d?|?]ea?? (W. M. Calder) and [?e|?]ea?? (Paribeni-RomanelH; Buckler). ???e? is supposed to mean 'gift portrait or bust' and G. F. Hill reasonably calls this "quite adequate" 4). The meaning 'portrait or bust' surely is ade- quate in this text but it seems doubtful whether the concept of a 'gift portrait' is what we really need; nor am I sure that we do not strain the meaning of the Greek by interpreting d??e? as a 'gift portrait') moreover, the d??ea? of the emperor's ancestors at first sight would seem to indicate gifts or privileges, conveyed upon an individual by these ancestors, whereas Calder and Hill naturally

?) I suspect that the Cicero numbers have been accidentally interchanged between b. and c. as was the case with the numbers for Seneca. I have not taken the time to make a very accurate check of all the Cicero passages in- volved.

2) Cf. G. Forni, ?e?? e Te?? S?????t??: Un capitolo dimenticato nella storia del Senato Romano, Mem. Acc. Lincei, Sc. Mor. Stor., Ser. VIII, vol. 5, nr. 3 ; Forni missed this example from Side.

3) SEG VI, 731; cf. also L. Robert, Rev. de Phil. 1958, 27. 4) Anatolian Studies W. M. Ramsey (Manchester 1923), 216.

Article Contentsp. 189p. 190p. 191p. 192

Issue Table of ContentsMnemosyne, Vol. 23, No. 2 (1970), pp. 113-224Front MatterRemarques sur les fragments de l'"Erechthe" d'Euripide [pp. 113-126]Thucydides i 29, 3, Gregory of Corinth and the ars interpretandi [pp. 127-149]Thucydides and the War Strategy of Perikles [pp. 150-161]Aristarchus and : Some Fundamental Ideas of Aristarchus on Homer as a Poet [pp. 162-178]Enjambement in the "Annales" of Ennius [pp. 179-187]MiscellaneaKallimachos, Epigramm XXI Pf [pp. 188-189]Conscientia in Seneca Three Footnotes [pp. 189-192]"Seg" VI, 731: [HM]EAI? [pp. 192-195]

De novis libris iudiciaReview: untitled [pp. 196-197]Review: untitled [pp. 197-198]Review: untitled [pp. 198-199]Review: untitled [pp. 199-201]Review: untitled [pp. 201-203]Review: untitled [pp. 203-204]Review: untitled [p. 204]Review: untitled [p. 205]Review: untitled [pp. 205-206]Review: untitled [pp. 206-208]Review: untitled [pp. 209-210]Review: untitled [pp. 210-211]Review: untitled [pp. 211-213]Review: untitled [pp. 213-214]Review: untitled [pp. 214-215]Review: untitled [pp. 215-216]Review: untitled [pp. 217-218]Review: untitled [pp. 218-220]Review: untitled [pp. 220-221]Review: untitled [pp. 221-222]Review: untitled [pp. 222-224]

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