INTRODUCTION liii 



reproduced. The danger of attributing to Seneca ideas 

 that were unknown to him and that are due to modern 

 analysis and discovery has to be constantly present to 

 one's mind. For example, " homogeneity," " elasticity," 

 " electricity," " gas," " explosion," etc., are a few of the 

 terms that his language suggests, but that would probably 

 convey a wrong impression of his conception of the 

 phenomena to which they relate. They have been thus 

 ruled out. Nor is Seneca consistent in the use of the 

 terms he employs ; he has no scientific vocabulary. In a 

 separate note attention is called to his words for " air " 

 and " atmosphere " ; but there are many other terms that 

 belong to the same category. These are, for instance, 

 three words for " thick " or " dense," crassus, densus, spissus, 

 which he seems to use almost indifferently, at any rate 

 without any precise discrimination. So with terms like 

 " impetus " (impulse, onset) " impulsus " (shove, impulse), 

 " ictus " (stroke, blow), " vis " (force, quantity, amount), 

 " curro " (to run (river), to revolve (heavenly body)), and 

 its compounds, eo (to go), and its compounds, etc., etc. 



Apart from any peculiarity of Seneca, Latin allows 

 the use of adjectives and pronouns, whose distinctive 

 gender points their reference, where English requires 

 substantives or their equivalent. Latin, too, often conveys 

 by mere suggestion where English requires explicit ex- 

 pression. This is particularly so with connectives, where 

 a separate clause may be required to develop the nuance 

 of a subtle collocation. In general, assuming and it is 

 no great stretch that the author meant to express some- 

 thing, whether right or .wrong, I have endeavoured to 

 ascertain what that something was and to convey it to 

 the English reader. In doing so I have had no scruple 

 in using more words than Latin, or in making explicit 

 what I conceived to be implicit, or in varying the render- 

 ing of the same term to suit the context and idiom. 

 Ambiguity has, as far as possible, been avoided and even 

 removed. At the same time the author has been followed 

 as closely and faithfully as may be. Where he repeats 

 a term purposely, as he frequently does, the repetition is 



