NOTES 313 



the light of what had already been written upon them, 

 and of what his own reflections suggested. His under 

 taking assumed the form of a series of epistolary essays 

 addressed to his friend Lucilius Junior, procurator of 

 Sicily. The literary shape thus selected allowed the use 

 of an unconstrained, almost colloquial, style which would 

 not have been suitable to a more ambitious work. 



Had Seneca designed to prepare a formal or methodical 

 treatise, he would doubtless have planned it to include 

 the three sections which he regarded as comprising every 

 inquiry that can arise as to the nature and constitution 

 of the Universe (Untversum) celestial, atmospheric, and 

 terrestrial (Caelestia, Sublimia^ Terrena, 51). The world 

 (Mundus) in his view comprehends all things that come 

 or can come within our cognisance (54). Instead of 

 entering upon a full discussion of any one of his three 

 sections, he selected from them a few topics which had 

 probably more particularly engaged his attention. Most 

 of these belong to the second or atmospheric division of 

 his scheme of arrangement, to which he devotes six of 

 his seven books, the remaining one being given to the 

 discussion of some celestial phenomena. Certain subjects 

 which we should naturally range in the terrestrial series, 

 such as the source and flow of rivers and the nature and 

 origin of earthquakes, he explicitly includes among his 

 atmospheric phenomena (5 i). 



It appears to be probable that Seneca had neither 

 finished nor revised his manuscript at the time of his 

 death. Parts of the work are obviously incomplete, though 

 some of these gaps may be due to defects of transcription 

 or to the subsequent loss of parts of the text. The 

 obscurities of language, which are not infrequent, may like 

 wise have partly arisen from lack of the author s revision 

 of his original copy. His discussion of the problem of 

 the rise of the Nile suddenly breaks off in such an abrupt 

 manner as to suggest the loss of a portion of the original 

 volume. One of the most important omissions is the 

 absence of any account of the phenomena of volcanoes. 

 The author does indeed refer in several places to this 



