Search results for "Roman society"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
Granting Epicurean Wisdom at Rome: Exchange and Reciprocity in Lucretius' Didactic (DRN 1.921-950)
2018
In the first book of De Rerum Natura, Lucretius describes his didactic undertaking as a metaphorical process of gift exchange (1.50-53): the obscure and salvific precepts of Epicurean philosophy, skilfully arranged in hexameters, are said to be 'gifts' (dona) that the poet has prepared with loyal zeal (studio fideli). Such a suggestive depiction of Lucretius' relationship to the work's dedicatee, Gaius Memmius, seems to reflect a relevant functional pattern of De Rerum Natura as a coherent system of communication strategies, variously readapting social models and cultural traditions. The present paper employs the interpretative approach of gift theories – the thought-provoking theories elab…
Veniet Tempus (QNat.7.25): Stoic Philosophy and Roman Genealogy in Seneca's View of Scientific Progress
2014
Seneca's views on the future development of knowledge have often been interpreted as an enlightened anticipation of the modern faith in progress. And Seneca himself has been depicted as a sort of Condorcet avant la lettre. In the present paper, I argue that while it is extremely interesting to investigate the reception of Senecan patterns in modern thought, the writer's idea of scientific and moral enhancement should primarily be understood in the intellectual and socio-anthropological framework of ancient culture. Indeed, a reassessment of the evidence offered by the Natural Questions and the Moral Epistles shows that Seneca devises a broadly conceived spectrum of progress, which reflects …