Seneca the Elder

Marcus Annaeus Seneca (54 BC – c. AD 39), often known as Seneca the Rhetorician or Seneca the Elder, was a Roman authority on the history and techniques of oratory. He was father of Seneca the Younger and grandfather of Lucan.

Quotes

 * Magni pectoris est inter secunda moderatio.
 * Of a great spirit is moderation in prosperity.
 * Suasoriae; Chapter I

Controversiae

 * Perierat totus orbis, nisi iram finiret misericordia.
 * The whole world would have been destroyed if compassion did not put an end to anger.
 * Book I, Chapter I; slightly modified translation from Michael Winterbottom, Declamations of the Elder Seneca (London: Heinemann, 1974) vol. 1 p. 33


 * Iniquum est conlapsis manum non porrigere; commune hoc ius generis humani est.
 * It is wrong not to give a hand to the fallen; this law is universal to the whole human race.
 * Book I, Chapter I; slightly modified translation from Norman T. Pratt Seneca's Drama (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983) p. 140


 * Quædam iura non scripta, sed omnibus scriptis certiora sunt.
 * Some laws are not written, but are more decisive than any written law.
 * Book I, Chapter I; slightly modified translation from Norman T. Pratt Seneca's Drama (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983) p. 140


 * Vivamus, moriendum est.
 * Let us live – we must die.
 * Book II, Chapter VI; translation from Michael Winterbottom, Declamations of the Elder Seneca (London: Heinemann, 1974) vol. 1 p. 349
 * Note: Some editions of Seneca prefer the reading Bibamus, moriendum est (Let us drink – we must die).

Misattributed
Many quotations have been incorrectly attributed to Seneca the Elder which are actually from his son Seneca the Younger.


 * Quid enim refert, quantum habeas? multo illud plus est, quod non habes.
 * What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.
 * Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, bk. 12, ch. 2, sect. 13; translation from Riad Aziz Kassis The Book of Proverbs and Arabic Proverbial Works (Leiden: Brill, 1999) p. 159.


 * Si vis amari, ama.
 * If you wish to be loved, love.
 * From Hecato, as quoted by Seneca the Younger in Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium; Epistle IX


 * He that is a friend to himself, is a friend to all mankind.
 * Derived from Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium; Epistle VI of Seneca the Younger:
 * "I shall tell you what pleased me today in the writings of Hecato; it is these words: 'What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.' That was indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind." ["Interim quoniam diurnam tibi mercedulam debeo, quid me hodie apud Hecatonem delectaverit dicam. 'Quaeris' inquit 'quid profecerim? amicus esse mihi coepi.' Multum profecit: numquam erit solus. Scito esse hunc amicum omnibus."]


 * Omnia mors poscit. Lex est, non poena, perire.
 * All things Death claims. To perish is not doom, but law.
 * From Epigrammata: De Qualitate Temporis 7, 7 as quoted in L. De Mauri, Angelo Paredi, Gabriele Nepi, 5000 proverbi e motti latini, Hoepli Editore, 1995, p. 384 and Hubertus Kudla, Lexikon der lateinischen Zitate, C. H. Beck, 2007, p. 416. The full text can be found in Anthologia Latina I, fasc. 1 (Walter de Gruyter, 1982), ed. by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, p. 164. Harold Edgeworth Butler (Post-Augustan Poetry: From Seneca to Juvenal, Library of Alexandria, 1969, ch. 2, sec. 2) attributes De Qualitate Temporis to Seneca the Younger.