Morals and Villas in Seneca's Letters
Places to Dwell

John Henderson explores three letters of Seneca describing visits to Roman villas.

John Henderson (Author)

9780521036221, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 April 2007

200 pages
22.9 x 15.4 x 1.3 cm, 0.308 kg

John Henderson explores three letters of Seneca describing visits to Roman villas, and surveys the whole collection to show how these villas work as designs for contrasting lives. Seneca's own place is ageing drastically; a recent Epicurean's paradise is a seductive oasis away from the dangers of Nero's Rome; once a fortress of the dour Rome of yesteryear, the legendary Scipio's lair was now a shrine to the old morality: Seneca revels in its primitive bath-house, dark and cramped, before exploring the garden with the present owner. Seneca brings the philosophical epistle to Latin literature, creating models for moralizing which feature self-criticism, parody and re-animated myth. Virgil and Horace come in for rough handling, as the Latin moralist wrests ethical practice and writing away from Greek gurus and texts, and into critical thinking within a Roman context. Here is powerful teaching on metaphor and translation, on self-transformation and cultural tradition.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Twelve steps to haven
2. Dropping in (it) at SENECA'S
3. You can get used to anything
4. The long and winding mode
5. Booking us in
6. Now and then
here and there: at SCIPIO'S
7. Bound for VATIA'S
8. Knocking the self: genuflexion, villafication, VATIA'S
9. The world of the bath-house: SCIPIO'S
10. The appliance of science: SCIPIO'S
11. Shafts of light: transplantation and transfiguration
12. Still olive, still SCIPIO'S
Appendices
Bibliography
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]