Talk:Seneca the Younger

Deleted material
A lot of biographical and other material was deleted by this edit. Are any contributors to this article able to rescue it? -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:36, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Seneca Immortality quote
Can the archivist/ author please supply the citation for the boxed Seneca quote:

"What would it take to make men believe in immortality ?, once asked Seneca. To which he replied, that a man had risen from the dead. – Seneca the Younger"

It is possible this is an obscure quote from an early church "Father" such as Tertullian referring to Seneca, however I believe after much searching that it is an extremely paraphrased version of a portion of Seneca's Epistle to Lucillius XXX.9, which is reproduced in https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_30:

"Accordingly, I listened to Bassus with the deepest pleasure; he was casting his vote concerning death and pointing out what sort of a thing it is when it is observed, so to speak, nearer at hand. I suppose that a man would have your confidence in a larger degree, and would have more weight with you, if he had come back to life and should declare from experience that there is no evil in death; and so, regarding the approach of death, those will tell you best what disquiet it brings who have stood in its path, who have seen it coming and have welcomed it."

This Seneca quote has been similarly poorly paraphrased in the past by Christian scholars, e.g. "The Connection Between the Sacred Writings and the Literature of Jewish and Heathen Authors: Particularly that of the Classical Ages, Illustrated, Principally with a View to Evidence in Confirmation of the Truth of Revealed Religion, Volume 2, F. C. and J. Rivington, 1819", where it is phrased thus:

"It is remarkable that Seneca observes: 'If one were to rise from the dead, and to inform us upon his own experience, that there is no evil in death, he would obtain more credit, and have greater weight with us than an ordinary teacher!'"

The fact that the Wiki Seneca quote has its own prominent box and is a striking statement (to anyone interested in the origins of Christianity), and yet appears to be a gross overstretch of what Seneca actually said, to me is unacceptable -- unless it is a quote from another author referring to what they think is the gist of Seneca's XXX.9 quote, in which case the correct author of the statement should replace "- Seneca the Younger".

If the quote turns out to be paraphrased Seneca, it should be completely removed from the prominent box, but could be included in the body text in a modified form to indicate it is somebody's (cite please) interpretation of the XXX.9 quote.

AdamKW (talk) 22:19, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I was starting to look into the same quote, when I discovered you'd done this excellent work already. I removed the box in question:


 * {| class="toccolours" style="float: left; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 1em; font-size: 85%; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="0"


 * style="text-align: left; font-family:'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight:bold; padding:0px 5px; vertical-align: top; font-size: large; color: gray;" | “
 * What would it take to make men believe in immortality? once asked Seneca. To which he replied, that a man had risen from the dead.
 * style="text-align: left; font-family:'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight:bold; padding:0px 5px; vertical-align: bottom; font-size: large; color: gray" | ”
 * colspan=3 style="text-align:center;" |– Seneca the Younger
 * }
 * }


 * As for who put it there, there is a tool called WikiBlame (a name which is to me both funny and off-putting; what if you're trying to WikiApplaud?) that can tell you. You can then try asking the original editor on the editor's talk page. Sometimes hints can be found in the context of the original edit, too.


 * Any page that has a history has a link to WikiBlame: select  →.


 * Thanks for your earnest work! Earnestness is my favorite virtue, by the way, so I only use it in compliments when I really mean it. — Geekdiva (talk) 02:50, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Spelling
I found this article a mix of AE and BE spellings. In this early version there is only AE ("romanticized" etc.), so I've standardized on AE (without, of course, changing any verbatim quotations). JamesMLane t c 13:33, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

References - ISBN hyperlink not working
The first of the references listed under the reference tab does not produce the reference via the hyperlink of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0226748429 for what reason, I cannot say, I am merely a passerby and do not know the intricacies of the wikipedia booksources system. 174.247.12.13 (talk) 21:13, 18 August 2023 (UTC)