Note 26 — III. TO L. ANNAEUS SENECA

The only passages in which Plutarch mentions Seneca are “De cohibenda ira,” Moralia, Vol. III, p. 201, ll. 16-23, and “Galba,” chap. XX, init. In neither of these is there any praise of the philosopher. Moreover, it is useless to search through the works of Plutarch, because Petrarch was acquainted with not a single one of his works. Hence the statement made in the Lemaire edition, Vol. CIV, p. xlviii, that “Petrarch had access to several ancient works which are absolutely lost to us,” cannot apply in this case at least. Petrarch, however, was acquainted with the “Institutio Traiani” (a Latin fabrication), the authenticity of which is today disputed. P. de Nolhac has pointed this out (II, p. 122), and shows that Petrarch actually refers to this work by name in the Remedium, I, 81. And even closer acquaintance is revealed in Fam., XXIV, 7, where Petrarch writes to Quintilian that the indiscretions of his wards (Domitian’s grandnephews) were made to detract from his fair name (Vol. III, p. 280). These words are quoted verbatim from the “Institutio Traiani” (Moralia, Vol. VII, p. 183); and in the same passage Plutarch makes a precisely similar reference to Seneca and to Socrates. The grouping of these three names is somewhat contradictory to the statement which Petrarch makes in the present letter.