Natural Questions (The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca) - Tapa dura

"For the Natural Questions . . . a new translation was badly needed. Corcoran's Loeb translation was outdated when it was published forty years ago, and our understanding of the text has advanced greatly since then. Hine . . . has contributed more than anyone to this progress. . . . The most striking innovation of Hine's translation is a new sequence of the books. . . . If the corrected order is right, as seems probable, the reader has the advantage of starting with the opening that Seneca gave the work."--Bryn Mawr Classical Review "From the rainbow in the heavens to the iridescent scales of a mullet dying at the gourmet's table, Seneca examines the face of God and its distorted human images to find, at the last, himself. One of the many virtues of Harry Hine's lively new translation of the Natural Questions is the variation in its registers, encompassing satire, scientific argument, moral dialogue, and epic grandeur. Backed up by an extensive critical introduction, this volume makes an auspicious beginning to the series." --C. A. J. Littlewood, University of Victoria, Canada "Hine's translation is clear, elegant, and energetic, and the introduction and notes allow us to read the work within the contexts of ancient science, philosophy, culture, and literature. Most of all, by conveying both its intellectual urgency and its artfulness, this edition reveals the Natural Questions to be among Seneca's most powerful writings and in the league of such masterworks as Lucretius's De rerum natura and Virgil's Georgics." --James Ker, University of Pennsylvania, author of The Deaths of Seneca

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE to 65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. Here, with the publication of "Anger, Mercy, Revenge" and "Natural Questions", the University of Chicago Press proudly inaugurates "The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca", a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca - whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Erasmus to Emerson - to his rightful place among those classical writers most widely studied in the humanities. "Anger, Mercy, Revenge" comprises three key writings: the moral essays 'On Anger' and 'On Clemency' - which were penned as advice for the then young emperor Nero - and the Apocolocyntosis, a brilliant satire lampooning the end of the reign of Claudius. "Natural Questions" is a stand-alone treatise in which Seneca compiles and comments on the physical sciences of his day, offering us a valuable look at the ancient scientific mind at work. Both volumes introduce the Latinless reader to the writings of one of the ancient world's most fascinating - and acclaimed - philosophical figures, making them perfect for the undergraduate student and lay scholar alike.