PHYSICAL SCIENCE 



the branches chiefly dealt with are Astronomy and 

 Meteorology, together with certain portions of what 

 may be designated as Physical Geography including 

 Seismology. 



Science was in that day synonymous with Philosophy, 

 or at any rate Philosophy embraced all that could claim 

 to be Science. Learning was homogeneous ; its sub- 

 divisions had not yet been separated or differentiated. 



The treatise was addressed in a quasi-epistolary form 

 to Lucilius Junior, procurator l of Sicily. Most of our 

 knowledge of him is derived from Seneca, who, besides 

 the Q.N., addressed to him his Epistles and his tract on 

 Providence. Lucilius seems to have been a prottgt of 

 Seneca, and rising from the ranks under his fostering care 

 and guidance, not only to have attained a position of 

 influence, but also to have achieved literary distinction. 

 His philosophical predilections were toward Epicureanism, 

 but he was a man of high principle and character, though 

 not exempt from dangerous temptations at various points in 

 his career. His public labours had associated him with Sicily, 

 and the themes of his writings, chiefly poems as it would 

 appear, had been drawn from the same quarter. He is, 

 not without probability, supposed to have been the author 

 of the anonymous didactic poem Aetna, for long attri- 

 buted to Virgil, a work which presents many interesting 

 parallelisms to the Q.N. both in its science and its 

 philosophy. Seneca's Epistle Ixxix. contains a special 

 charge to Lucilius, who was at the time making a circuit 

 of his province, to report the facts concerning Charybdis 

 Seneca knew all there was to know about Scylla and to 

 investigate in detail the present condition of Aetna. The 

 letter goes on to banter Lucilius upon the inclusion of 

 Aetna in the poem on which he was engaged no doubt 

 the work referred to in Q.N. 114, 142 ; cf. 167. The whole 

 question is discussed with full knowledge by Professor 

 Robinson Ellis in the Introduction (xxxvi-xlviii) to his 



1 The procurator was in this case practically governor. In some instances 

 he was the representative of a chief governor (praeses] to whom he was 

 subject, e.g. Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judaea under the Governor of 

 Syria. 



