Seneca’s Stoic Reading of Ovid’s Phaethon

Emily E. Batinski (Louisiana State University)

Seneca’s numerous poetic citations in his philosophic works are often regarded as either part of a coherent aesthetics (Lana; Mazzoli) for which the evidence is too fragmentary to support, or as rhetorical ornaments providing little insight into how Seneca may have interpreted them in their original contexts (Doppioni).  However, in de Providentia, Seneca’s quotations from Ovid’s account of the  Phaethon myth provide evidence that he read these passage as philosophical, describing the necessary testing of  virtus.  This paper examines the clues in this Dialogue which indicate that he read Ovid’s account as exemplifying the Stoic bonus vir.  Therefore, this paper also challenges the view that poetic citations in Seneca are embellishments isolated from their original contexts.

Before considering the Ovidian citations in de Providentia, it will be helpful first to consider Seneca’s view of poetry within this school, and second to recognize Seneca’s familiarity with Ovid’s account of the Phaethon myth.  As a Stoic, Seneca was heir to a tradition which called poets into service to validate philosophic arguments.  Although Seneca rejects the critical tools of allegory and etymology often employed by the earlier Greek Stoics, like orthodox Stoics he does recognize that the literal level of a text may contain philosophic truths which the philosopher, the privileged reader, is able to discern.  However, such a philosophic reading does not demand that the poet be a Stoic.

Second it is important to recognize Seneca’s familiarity with Ovid’s entire account of the Phaethon which extends for 366 lines.  Of the 35 Ovidian quotations, 7 come from this myth.  The citations extend from the young boy’s request to drive Phoebus’ chariot to his epitaph.  Therefore, the quotations in de Providentia are not simply a chance remembering of lines, wrenched from their original context, which Seneca deemed appropriate embellishments to his philosophic argument.

Turning to de Providentia, Seneca argues that a good man can suffer no evils: god provides adversities only to test and strengthen virtus.  A good man will eagerly engage these tests; he must climb high and must struggle through difficulties (Prov. 5.10).  At this point Seneca quotes Phoebus’ warning to his son Phaethon that driving his chariot across the sky is frightening even to a god (Met. 2. 63-69).  Seneca interrupts the god’s speech with a brief, prose  dialogue between the unnamed advisor and youth who protests that, like Seneca’s good man, he is eager to undertake the test (Prov. 5.11).  After the advisor responds with Phoebus’ speech in Ovid (Met. 2.79-81), Seneca again creates an exchange between the advisor and boy which serves to remind the reader of the Ovidian context for these verses.  The boy requests that the chariot be harnessed and declares that he wishes to go where even the sun is afraid.  This indicates that Seneca is not employing Ovid’s account as a mere rhetorical decoration.  By reminding the reader of the original context, Seneca suggests that Ovid’s account can support a philosophic reading.  Further attesting to this philosophic reading is Seneca’s use in de Vita Beata (20.5) of a line from Phaethon’s epitaph (Met. 2.328) to illustrate that the good man pursues virtus.   

This consistency in Seneca’s philosophic interpretation of the Phaethon myth in Ovid indicates that it is incorrect to assume that poetic citations in his philosophic works do not reflect his understanding of the context from which the quotations are taken.