De clementia
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~13,900 words · 66 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). De clementia. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/de-clementia
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. "De clementia." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/de-clementia.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. De clementia. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/de-clementia.
What it is about
A treatise on mercy addressed to Nero, then eighteen and newly in power with Seneca as his tutor.
Context and history
It is at once moral philosophy and a practical attempt to shape an emperor, and it cannot be read without knowing how it ended: that young man had his mother killed, and ten years later ordered Seneca to take his own life. Widely read in the Renaissance as a mirror for princes. This entry is the Latin original; the catalogue also carries the English translation as a separate work. Cite the original.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
1. Scribere de clementia, Nero Caesar, institui, ut quodam modo speculi vice fungerer et te tibi ostenderem perventurum ad voluptatem maximam omnium. Quamvis enim recte factorum verus fructus sit fecisse nec ullum virtutum pretium dignum illis extra ipsas sit, iuvat inspicere et circumire bonam conscientiam, tum immittere oculos in hanc immensam multitudinem discordem, seditiosam, impotentem, in perniciem alienam suamque pariter exsultaturam, si hoc iugum fregerit, et ita loqui secum: 2. 'Egone ex omnibus mortalibus placui electusque sum, qui in terris deorum vice fungerer? Ego vitae necisque gentibus arbiter; qualem quisque sortem statumque habeat, in mea manu positum est; quid cuique mortalium Fortuna datum velit, meo ore pronuntiat; ex nostro responso laetitiae causas populi urbesque concipiunt; nulla pars usquam nisi volente propitioque me floret; haec tot milia gladiorum, quae pax mea comprimit, ad nutum meum stringentur; quas nationes funditus excidi, quas transportari, quibus libertatem dari, quibus eripi, quos reges mancipia fieri quorumque capiti regium circumdari decus oporteat, quae ruant urbes, quae oriantur, mea iuris dictio est. 3. In hac tanta facultate rerum non ira me ad iniqua supplicia compulit, non iuvenilis impetus, non temeritas hominum et contumacia, quae saepe tranquillissimis quoque pectoribus patientiam extorsit, non ipsa ostentandae per terrores potentiae dira, sed frequens magnis imperiis gloria. Conditum, immo constrictum apud me ferrum est,← Back to Lucius Annaeus Seneca