Gareth Williams
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199731589
- eISBN:
- 9780199933112
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731589.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
Central to Natural Questions 2, on the nature of lightning and thunder, is Seneca's critique of divination by lightning: in particular, he focuses on the Etruscan art of divination, testing it ...
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Central to Natural Questions 2, on the nature of lightning and thunder, is Seneca's critique of divination by lightning: in particular, he focuses on the Etruscan art of divination, testing it against ‘scientific’ canons of Greco-Roman philosophical thought. In identifying commonality and overlap between the two systems, traditional/religious on the one hand, philosophical/’modern’ on the other, Seneca effects a form of cultural fusion which contributes to the broader phenomenon of (in Andrew Wallace-Hadrill's words) the Roman cultural revolution of the late Republic and early Empire – a revolution which witnessed the rise of the technical/specialist management and application of knowledge at Rome. Book 2 explicitly engages in this larger cultural conversation, but it is also emblematic of a similar merging process between tradition and ‘modern’ rationalism in the Natural Questions generally.Less
Central to Natural Questions 2, on the nature of lightning and thunder, is Seneca's critique of divination by lightning: in particular, he focuses on the Etruscan art of divination, testing it against ‘scientific’ canons of Greco-Roman philosophical thought. In identifying commonality and overlap between the two systems, traditional/religious on the one hand, philosophical/’modern’ on the other, Seneca effects a form of cultural fusion which contributes to the broader phenomenon of (in Andrew Wallace-Hadrill's words) the Roman cultural revolution of the late Republic and early Empire – a revolution which witnessed the rise of the technical/specialist management and application of knowledge at Rome. Book 2 explicitly engages in this larger cultural conversation, but it is also emblematic of a similar merging process between tradition and ‘modern’ rationalism in the Natural Questions generally.
