tinsel and ornament, now novelty and versatility of treatment, or
affected simplicity and studied absence of plan. But the chief
weapon is the epigram (sententia), summing up in terse incisive
antithesis the gist of a whole period. “Seneca is a man of real
genius,” writes Niebuhr, "which is after all the main thing; not
to be unjust to him, one must know the whole range of that literature
to which he belonged and realize how well he understood the art of making something even of what was most absurd." His works were upon various subjects. (1) His Orations, probably the speeches which Nero delivered, are lost, as also a biography of his father, and (2) his earlier scientific works, such as the monographs describing India and Egypt and one upon earthquakes (Nat. Qu. vi. 4. 2). The seven extant books of Physical Investigations (Naturales Quaestiones; trans. John Clarke, with introd. by Sir Archibald
Geikie, 1910) treat in a popular manner of meteorology and astronomy; the work has little scientific merit, yet here and there Seneca, or his authority, has a shrewd guess, e.g. that there is a Connexion between earthquakes and volcanoes, and that comets are bodies like the planets revolving in fixed orbits. (3) The Satire on the Death (and deification, literally “pumpkinification”) of Claudius (ed. Bücheler, Berlin, 1882) is a specimen of the "satira Menippea" or medley of prose and verse. The writer's spite against
the dead emperor before whom he had cringed servilely shows in a sorry fashion when he fastens on the wise and liberal measure of conferring the franchise upon Gaulish nobles as a theme for abuse. (4) The remaining prose works are of the nature of moral essays, bearing various titles-twelve so-called Dialogues, three books
On Clemency dedicated to Nero, seven On Benefits, twenty books of Letters to Lucilius (ed. Hense, Leipzig, 1898; W. C. Summers published a selection in 1910). They are all alike in discussing practical questions and in addressing a single reader in a tone of familiar conversation, the objections he is supposed to make being occasionally cited and answered. Seneca had the wit to discover that conduct, which is after all “three-fourths of life," could furnish
inexhaustible topics of abiding universal interest far superior to the imaginary themes set in the schools and abundantly analysed in his father's Controversiae and Suasoriae, such as poisoning cases, or
tyrannicide, or even historical persons like Hannibal and Sulla. The innovation took the public taste,—plain matters of urgent personal concern sometimes treated casuistic ally, sometimes in a liberal vein with serious divergence from the orthodox standards, but always with an earnestness which aimed directly at the reader's
edification, progress towards virtue and general moral improvement. The essays are in fact Stoic sermons; for the creed of the later Stoics had become less of a philosophical system and more of a religion, especially at Rome, where moral and theological doctrines alone attracted lively interest. The school is remarkable for its anticipation of modern ethical conceptions, for the lofty morality
of its exhortations to forgive injuries and overcome evil with good;
the obligation to universal benevolence had been deduced from the
cosmopolitan principle that all men are brethren. In Seneca, in
addition to all this, there is a distinctively religious temperament,
which finds expression in phrases curiously suggestive of the spiritual
doctrines of Christianity. Yet the verbal coincidence is sometimes
a mere accident, as when he uses sacer spiritus; and in the same
writings he sometimes advocates what is wholly repulsive to Christian
feeling, as the duty and privilege of suicide.
In the tragedies which bear Seneca's name (Hercules Furens, Thyestes, Phoenissae, Phaedra, Oedipus, Troades, Medea, Agamemno, Hercules Oetaeus) the defects of his prose style are exaggerated: as specimens of pompous rant they are probably unequalled; and the rhythm is unpleasant owing to the monotonous structure of the iambics and the neglect of synapheia in the anapestic systems. The praetexta Octavia, also ascribed to him, contains plain allusions to Nero's end, and must therefore be the product of a later hand. The doubt as to his authorship of the tragedies is due to a blunder of Sidonius Apollinaris (ix. 229-231); against it must be set Quintilian's testimony ("ut Medea apud Senecam," ix. 2. 8). The judgment of Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 4, 13, 42 sq., xiv. 52-56, xv. 60 sq.) is more favourable than that of Dio, who may possibly derive his account from the slanders of some personal enemy like Suilius. At least eighteen prose works have been lost, among them De superstitione, an attack upon the popular conceptions of the gods, and De matrimonio, which, to judge by the extant fragments, must have been interesting reading. Since Gellius (xii. 2. 3) cites a book xxii. of the Letters to Lucilius, some of these have been lost.
The best text of the prose works, that of Haase in Teubner's series (1852), was re-edited in 1872–1874 and 1898. More recently Gertz has revised the text of Libri de beneficiis et de clementia (Berlin, 1876), H. A. Koch that of the Dialogorum libri xii. (completed by Vahlen, Jena, 1879), and Gertz the Dialogi (Copenhagen, 1886). There is no complete exegetical commentary, either English or German. Little has been done systematically since the notes of Lipsius and Gronovius. There is, however, Ruhkopf's ed. with Latin notes, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1797–1811), and Lemaire's variorum ed. (Paris, 1827–1832, 8 vols., prose and verse). The text of the tragedies was edited by Peiper and Richter, 1867, 2nd ed. 1902, and by F. Leo (2 vols., Berlin, 1878–1879); verse trans. by F. J. Miller (Chicago and London, 1908). Nisard, Études de mœeurs et de critique sur les poètes de la décadence (4th ed., Paris, 1878), has criticized them in detail. Of some 300 monographs enumerated in Engelmann may be mentioned, in addition to the above, G. Boissier, Les Tragedies de Sénèque ont-ils été représentés? (Paris, 1861); A. Dörgens, Senec. disciplinae moralis cum Antoniniana comparatio (Leipzig, 1857); E. F. Gelpke, De Senec. vita et moribus (Bern, 1848); Holzherr, Der Philosoph Seneca (Rastadt, 1858). See also Sir S. Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904).
SENECA, a tribe of North American Indians of Iroquoian
stock. They call themselves Tshoti-nondawaga, “ people of the
mountain.” The French called them Tsonnontouan. Their
former range was in western New York state between Seneca
lake and the Genesee river. They were one of the Six Nations
League of the Iroquois, and eventually became the most important
tribe of the league. They were foremost in all the
Iroquoian wars, and were the official guardians of the western
frontier of the league. On the defeat of the Erie and Neuter
tribes they occupied the county west of Lake Erie and south along
the Alleghany to Pennsylvania. They fought on the English
side in the War of Independence. About 2700 are now on
reservations in New York State, while a few are in Oklahoma
and on Grand River reservation, Ontario.
For Seneca Cosmology see 21st Ann. Report Bureau Amer. Ethnol. (1899–1900).
SENECA FALLS, a village of Seneca county, New York,
U.S.A., in the township of Seneca Falls, on Seneca Outlet, pr
river (which connects Lake Seneca and Lake Cayuga), about
42 m. W.S.W. of Syracuse. Pop. (1900) 6519, of whom 801
were foreign-born; (1905) 6733; (1910) 6588; of the township,
including the village (1910) 7407. The village is served by
the New York Central & Hudson River, the Lehigh Valley and
electric suburban railways, and by the Seneca & Cayuga Canal.
In the village are the Mynderse (public) Library and the Johnson
Home for Old Ladies (1868). Cayuga Lake Park, a pleasure resort,
is 3 m. distant and is reached by electric railway. The village is
the shipping point for a farming and dairying region. The river
here falls 50 ft. and provides a good water power; among the
manufactures are pumps and hydraulic machinery, woollen goods,
wagons and farm implements. Seneca Falls was settled about
1790, and was first incorporated as a village in 1831, its charter
as revised in 1902 being similar in some respects to that of a city.
In Seneca Falls on the 19th and 20th of July 1848 was held a
Woman's Rights Convention, the first in the United States.[1]
SENEFELDER, ALOIS (1771–1834), German inventor of
lithography, was born at Munich on the 6th of November 1771, his father Peter being an actor at the Theatre Royal. Owing to the death of his father he was unable to continue his legal studies at the university of Ingolstadt, and tried to support himself as a performer and author, but without success. In order to accelerate the publication of one of his works, he frequently spent whole days in the printing office, and found the process of printing so simple that he conceived the idea of purchasing a small printing press, thus enabling himself to print and publish his own compositions. Unable to pay for the engraving of his compositions, he attempted to engrave them himself. He made numerous experiments with little success; tools and skill were alike wanting. Copper-plates were expensive, and the want of a sufficient number entailed the tedious process of grinding and polishing afresh those he had used. About this period his attention was accidentally directed to a fine piece of Kellheim stone which he had purchased for the purpose of grinding his ink. His first idea was to use it merely for practice in his exercises in writing backwards, the ease with which the stone could be ground and polished afresh being the chief inducement. While he was engaged one day in polishing a stone slab on which to continue his exercises, his mother entered the room and desired him to write
- ↑ The convention, under the leadership of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, adopted a “Declaration of Sentiments” modelled after the American Declaration of Independence, and resolved “that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise," and “that the same amount of virtue, delicacy and refinement of behaviour that is required of woman in the social state should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman."
