“WAIT A MOMENT, PHANTASIA”:

EKPHRASTIC INTERFERENCE IN SENECA AND EPICTETUS

shadi bartsch

he only extended ekphrasis in the entirety of Seneca’s work opens

T traditionally enough. It is a description of Syracuse, considered in

antiquity to be the most beautiful and opulent of cities, and thus a
natural choice for the ekphrasis of a geographical site. Cicero praised the
locale in his Verrines for its size and beauty, its double harbor, its temples
and statues (Verr. 4.117–19); over 150 years later, Quintilian proffered this
very laus Siciliae as an outstanding example of an ekphrasis of a particular
region. 1 Seneca seems to follow this model in starting his own laus Siciliae
with a list of features that will excite admiration in any prospective traveler
to the city. In an exposition introduced by the verb mirari, “to wonder at,”
punctuated by the fivefold repetition of videbis, “you will see,” and generously
sprinkled with superlatives, he describes for his audience the narrow straits of
Messina, the fearsome whirlpool Charybdis, the stream Arethusa, the peaceful
harbor, and finally the deep stone quarries where so many Athenians perished
at the close of the ill-fated Sicilian expedition of 413 b.c.e. (Cons. ad Marc.
17.2–4):
The things that may fill you with wonder are these. First, you will see the island itself, cut
off from Italy by a narrow strait, but once evidently joined to the mainland; there the
sea suddenly broke through, and “severed Sicily from Hesperia’s side.” Next, you will see
Charybdis—for it will be possible for you to skirt this greediest of whirlpools, so famous in
story—resting quietly so long as there is no wind from the south, but whenever a gale
blows from that quarter, sucking down ships into its huge and deep maw. You will see
the fountain of Arethusa, oft famed in song, with its bright gleaming pool, transparent
to the very bottom, and pouring forth its icy waters—whether it found them there where
they first had birth, or yielded up a river that had plunged beneath the earth and, gliding
intact beneath so many seas, had been kept from the contamination of less pure water.
You will see a harbor, of all havens the most peaceful—whether those that Nature has set
to give shelter to ships or that man’s hand has improved—and so safe that not even the
fury of the most violent storms can have access there. You will see where the might of
Athens was broken, where so many thousands of captives were confined in that natural

1. Quint. Inst. 4.3.12–14: hanc partem parekbasin vocant Graeci, Latini egressum vel egressionem. sed
hae sunt plures, ut dixi, quae per totam causam varios habent excursus, ut laus hominum locorumque, ut
descriptio regionum, expositio quarundam rerum gestarum vel etiam fabulosarum. quo ex genere est in
orationibus contra Verrem compositis Siciliae laus, Proserpinae raptus, pro C. Cornelio popularis illa
virtutum Cn. Pompei commemoratio: in quam ille divinus orator, veluti nomine ipso ducis cursus dicendi
teneretur, abrupto quem inchoaverat sermone devertit actutum.

Classical Philology 102 (2007): 83–95

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84 Shadi Bartsch

prison, hewn out of solid rock to immeasurable depth—you will see the great city itself,
occupying a broader extent of territory than many a metropolis can boast, where the
winters are the balmiest, and not a single day passes without the appearance of the sun. 2

Inasmuch as both Cicero and Seneca describe the most striking natural and
artistic features of the city and stress their magnificence, they are fine models
of the standard definition of ekphrasis in the rhetorical handbooks of Her-
mogenes and his ilk: the vivid depiction of people, deeds, crises, places, and
periods, and in the case of places, harbors, shores, and cities, a special focus
on what is beautiful, useful, or incredible. The wonder and admiration the
city will arouse in its viewer, too, are the well-known reactions that artistic
ekphrasis endeavors to induce, as attested by the reactions of viewers in the
text in Petronius, Philostratus, and others.
Our Senecan ekphrasis, however, takes a startling turn away from rhe-
torical prescription once the praise of Syracuse is over. Once he is sure we
have absorbed the description of the city, he invites us to reflect on facts
that immediately undercut the idea that Sicily is due praise: not only is her
climate inhospitable in the winter, but (in a chronological leap backwards)
the beauties of the island will be spoiled for any traveler by the presence of
the vicious Dionysius II, a ruler notorious for sundry acts of barbarism and
for placing Plato himself under house arrest (Cons. ad. Marc. 17.5):
You will find there the tyrant Dionysius, that destroyer of freedom, justice, and law,
greedy of power, even after knowing Plato, and of life even after exile! Some he will
burn, some he will flog, some for a slight offense he will order to be beheaded, he will
call for males and females to satisfy his lust, and to enjoy two at one time of his shameful
victims will be small matter among the foul companions of his royal excesses. You have
now heard what may attract, what repel you—now, then, either set sail or stay at home!

Like any good classical tyrant, Dionysius scoffs at philosophy, incinerates

some folks and decapitates others, and engages in kinky sex in the mean-
time. This is the ugly fact that underlies the conventional appreciation of
the wonders of the city, and Syracuse becomes, after all, a place one might
want to think twice about before visiting. 3
Seneca’s curious procedure here reverses and undermines the traditional
prescriptions for rhetorical ekphrasis as well as undermining the praise of
Syracuse itself. The introductory verbs of seeing come to an end, and so does
the criterion of visibility; sex and torture replace the usual topoi of harbors and
cities; and the tourist’s wonder and admiration give way to fear. 4 Mythology
and history, the latter represented by the past tenses of the Athenian expe-
dition, have been replaced by what Seneca presents as a pending experience:
that is, the tyrannical behavior of Dionysius, whose activities are in the same

2. The Senecan passages in this essay are based on the translation of J. W. Basore.
3. In Seneca’s new version of what Syracuse really stands for, we might see hints of the usual interruption
of the wise interpreter so often found in ekphrasis: cf. Petron. Sat. 88, Cebes 1.3, Lucian Hercules 4,
Amores 8 and 15.
4. Pollitt (1974, 11) identifies four strands of art criticism in antiquity, including one that focuses on the
“moral and epistemological value of artistic experience” and a popular tradition based on wonder. Seneca
too seems to rely on this dichotomy.
 “Wait a Moment, Phantasia” 85

future tense as the arrival of our future visitor. In short, the surface beauties of
the island—the features visible to the eye—have been replaced by a political
regime that represents the death of the abstract principles of liberty, justice,
and the law. Perhaps most strikingly, and in a twist on what Andrew Laird
has elsewhere called disobedient ekphrasis, 5 Seneca’s exposé, in closing with
Dionysius, closes with a character who cannot be seen at all: this future-
tense tyrant has been dead for some four hundred years and it is highly
unlikely that a contemporary visiting the island will have to reckon with his
brand of hospitality.
The ekphrasis, in short, concludes by rejecting its own content and values,
and so must we as reader-viewers. Once we have encountered the nonvisual
qualities of the city, we will have to reevaluate both Syracuse’s charms and
our own initial, and conventional, reaction to its beauty. We find we were
mistaken to be seduced by this description, and we are made aware of the
shallowness of our initial impression, our inattention to history, our failure
to look beyond the surface. Our initial visual impression of Syracuse (as
conveyed by the ekphrasis) has been superseded, upon reflection, by a more
in-depth knowledge.
What motivates Seneca’s plunge into the historical here? He obligingly
spells it out for us. The very sequence in which he has just engaged, Seneca
tells us, is a procedure he would have us apply to life as well. 6 There is much
in the world to strike us as beautiful (Cons. ad Marc. 18.1–7):
Consider that I am coming now to give you advice at your birth: “You are about to enter
a city shared by gods and men—a city that embraces the universe, that is bound by fixed
and eternal laws, whirling the celestial bodies through their unwearied rounds. You will
see the gleaming of countless stars, you will see one star flooding everything with his
light. . . . You will wonder at the piled-up clouds and the falling waters and the zigzag
lightning and the roar of heaven. When, sated with the spectacle of things above, you
lower your eyes to earth, another aspect of things, and otherwise wonderful, will meet
your gaze. . . . You will see nothing untried by human audacity, and you will yourself
be both a spectator and a partner of mighty enterprises.”

But there is also another perspective, one that can take into account the
negative aspects of our existence as well as the positive (18.8):
“But there, too, will be found a thousand plagues of the body and the mind, wars, robberies,
poisons, shipwrecks, distempers of climate and the body, untimely grief for those most
dear, and death—whether an easy one or after pain and torture no one can tell. Now take
counsel of yourself and weigh the choice you make; if you would reach these wonders,
you must pass through these perils.” Will your answer be that you choose to live? Of
course it will.

The ekphrasis of Syracuse, both good and bad, turns out to be a Stoic parable
for our earthly existence. In one sense, it is a journey through visual marvels

5. Laird (1993, 19) suggests that in “disobedient ekphrasis” the historical/moral aspects of the scene
are emphasized as well as its visual ones, and the ekphrasis includes digressions, flashbacks, descriptions
of thought and movement, and audible features.
6. In Ep. 79.5–9, when Seneca urges Lucilius to try an ekphrasis (descriptio) of Aetna, he takes the
ekphrasis as an allegory for life; in this instance, the procedure is not reversed.
86 Shadi Bartsch

provided by the earth, the sea, and the sky, at which we will gaze and wonder
as a spectator of images of beauty. 7 From another perspective, though, life
is the occasion of horrors, plague and death, war and loss. Let us enter upon
life, then, as we would a journey to Syracuse: with an awareness of the
possibility of suffering and an acceptance of the terms of our existence. We
are not to leap into life with careless glee, as if about to see something
mirum, for beauty and amazement are not the whole story, and the human
condition can be painful and drab.
Such a conclusion may seem predictably Stoic, especially in its final em-
phasis on our resignation to the slings and arrows of fortune and Seneca’s
stress here and elsewhere on the necessity of our detachment from these ex-
ternals outside our control. Nonetheless, it is not insignificant that Seneca’s
procedure here differs from the exegetical trends of other first- and second-
century ekphraseis. Consider, for example, the Pinax of Cebes, in which the
ekphrasis of an abstract painting of smaller circles set in progressively larger
ones informs us that the tablet is meant to represent life and its choices; an
old man explains to the confused viewers of the image that those who enter
the outermost circle of life may be led astray by Deceit, Desire, Pleasure, and
Opinion, or they may succeed in breaching the inner circles, which stand in
turn for True Learning and Happiness. Here too, ekphrasis is clearly employed,
as in Seneca, for ethical aims and to teach a correct approach to the art of
living. As Ja¶ Elsner has pointed out, our interpretation of this image is in-
tended to lead us to salvation or to error: “The goal of art in the Tabula is
not to imitate the viewers’ world at all, but rather to initiate viewers out of
their ordinary assumptions into a new exegetic reality, a truth that brings
salvation.” 8
But the path Seneca takes to his ethical lesson is not like Cebes’. For one,
the ekphrasis’ repeated movement from verbs of seeing and wondering to
the exposition of the suffering behind the surface places the point of the
passage not in the interpretation of a visible image but in the understanding
of its limited place, and the limited place of visual appearances, in the scheme
of life. This is not generally true of the ekphrastic tradition, even in those
cases where interpretation of a picture is primarily philosophical, because
there too, as in the Pinax, the point is to explicate, rather than undermine,
the visual image. The ekphraseis of Philostratus and Callistratus, with their
elaborate descriptions from the Second Sophistic rhetorical tradition, may
lead to a moral point, but the artworks to hand are not dealt with in a way
that involves the rejection of precisely their appearance, however much that

7. For a discussion of Stoic attitudes towards the beauty of the cosmos, see Zagdoun 2000, 81–90.
8. See Elsner 1995, 47; on p. 33 he writes: “In the Tabula of Cebes, a philosophical allegory of a picture
drawing on eclectic sources and purporting to offer salvation both to the viewers of the image and the readers
of the text, the viewers’ initial aporia before the subject-matter of a picture is presented as a reflection of
their aporia before the problem of life itself (from which a correct understanding of the image is going to
save them). While, on an erotic reading, Encolpius’ response to the paintings is a normal self-reflexive vision
of his own plight . . . , on a ‘philosophic’ reading his is a highly selective reaction indicative of aporia, con-
fusion, and the need for salvation.” On the Tabula, see also Bartsch 1989, 14–40 passim.

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 “Wait a Moment, Phantasia” 87

appearance may be expanded upon. 9 A second significant difference in

Seneca’s method is that in having us reevaluate the importance of appear-
ances by condemning the efficacy of his own ekphrasis on the laus Siciliae,
Seneca has us follow this movement from the appreciation of beauty to a
broadening awareness of its limited validity all told, and we thus engage
in a two-step dance: appreciate/reevaluate. This form of self-correction
highlights the nature of our own values, those we have brought to the table.
And finally, a dichotomy is set up here between what we see and what we
know, as if the two were here vehicles for antithetical forms of being in the
world. 10
All of this has a clearly educational bent. At the end, we are impelled by
Seneca’s closing analogy to life to grasp that both the sights of Syracuse
and our knowledge of Dionysius can represent the variegated texture of our
existence and that the contrast between amazing sights and grim tyrants was
not, in the end, the only contrast that mattered: both are conditions of exis-
tence, but both, in the end, are to be interpreted as equally irrelevant given
the correct adoption of a Stoic attitude to externals. Seneca sends us out into
life knowing that we cannot control these externals, but urging us to under-
stand that they do not matter. For a tyrant such as Dionysius, after all, is
nothing of great import, as both Seneca and, later, Epictetus repeatedly instruct
in their prose. The tyrant has control over nothing but a pint of blood and
some paltry flesh, and his ability to torture us or to take away our life should
not be a source of fear. As Seneca reminds us in De tranquillitate animi 14.2,
when a tyrant threatened the philosopher Theodorus with death without burial,
“ ‘You have the right,’ he replied, ‘to please yourself, you have within your
power only a half pint of my blood; for as to burial, you are a fool if you
think it makes any difference to me whether I rot above ground or beneath
it.’ ” What matters alone is the moral purpose or mindset of the viewer, or,
as Epictetus would call it, his prohairesis: 11 “ ‘But the tyrant will chain—’
What? Your leg. ‘But he will cut off—’ What? Your neck. What, then, will
he neither chain nor cut off? Your moral purpose” (Disc. 1.18.17, trans.
W. A. Oldfather; cf. 1.1.23). Seneca sums it up (Ep. 14.2): “We should
conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could
not live without it. Our too-great love for it makes us restless with fears,
burdens us with cares, and exposes us to insults.” 12
There is more still at stake here, and in commenting on it I would like to
move away from this ekphrasis to a consideration of the Stoic interpretation

9. On this “expansion” (which Alpers calls “reading in”), see, e.g., Alpers 1960, 190–94, and Elsner
1995, 23–29.
10. This skepticism about the truth value of appearances is a position at contrast with Zeno’s treatment
of phantasia as free from error (especially in the case of what he called phantasia kataleptike); cf. Sex.
Emp. Math. 7.236, 230 (SVF 1.58); also Diog. Laert. 8.46, 50, Cic. Luc. 77. On Zeno and the later tradition,
see Ioppolo 1990, 433–35.
11. On prohairesis, see especially Long 2002, 207–30.
12. Cf. Ep. 24.11: “Believe me, Lucilius; death is so little to be feared that through its good offices
nothing is to be feared”; Ep. 65.24: “World-matter corresponds to our mortal body; therefore let the lower
serve the higher. Let us be brave in the face of hazards. Let us not fear wrongs, or wounds, or bonds, or
poverty”; and many other examples.
88 Shadi Bartsch

of images more generally. Any investigation of the Stoic treatment of visual

images will turn up far more material on Stoic phantasia than on Stoic ek-
phrasis, which is untheorized in any Stoic text. Phantasia (“a representational
image in the mind,” Inwood 1985, 56), in contrast, is a crucial part of the
Stoic theory of cognition and was used as a concept to distinguish between
presentations or impressions in the mind and our responses to them. 13 Simply
put, a phantasia is generated either by perception or by internal mental activity
caused by the hegemonikon (Diog. Laert. 7.51). 14 It comes accompanied by
a lekton, a form of propositional content that may or may not be endorsed by
the agent. 15 As the phantasia might also present the possibility of action, the
accompanying lekton might include propositional content on that action. If we
endorse the phantasia and its lekton, synkatathesis (assent) follows, and the
third stage, horme (impulse), results; such a phantasia is accordingly called
a phantasia hormetike. 16 Passion is assent to an incorrect lekton. 17 This dis-
tinction between lekton and phantasia is sometimes elided in our sources;
Epictetus, for example, will simply refer to phantasiai, apparently as a short-
hand for both.
Stoic phantasia, then, plays an important role in precisely what Epictetus
called our moral choice, or prohairesis: in assenting to or dissenting from
propositional presentations, we exercise our ability to reason about the true
value of such presentations, reminding ourselves, for example, that looks
aren’t everything, or that the lekton that “Buying that Ferrari will complete
my life” is to be dissented from. Indeed, for the wise man, phantasiai and
their lekta have little power to generate a false course of action even when

13. For Stoic phantasia, see Frede 1986; Inwood 1985, 42–101; Long 1996, 266–85; Sandbach 1971,
9–21; Zagdoun 2000, 160–70.
14. The phantasia is often described as an imprint in the soul; see, e.g., Diog. Laert. 7.50; Sex. Emp.
Math. 227–31, 7.372–73; Plut. Adv. Col. 1122C, Comm. not. 1084–85. On Sextus’ discussion, see Annas
1992, 72–75.
15. I cannot cover here the current debate over the orthodoxy or even coherence of the early and late
Stoic positions on lekta. The main difficulty seems to arise over whether we assent to phantasiai or to their
corresponding lekta; Arcesilaus apparently criticized Zeno’s early view of phantasia by pointing out that
assent cannot be given to a presentation, but only to a proposition, Sex. Emp. Math. 7.151–57. Ioppolo analyzes
Cic. Luc. 21 and Sen. Ep. 117.3 to suggest that assent is a movement of the soul rather than an enunciation:
“What emerges from Seneca’s words is that the Stoics consider assent principally a dynamic movement towards
an external body, the presentation of which can be expressed in language” (1990, 445–46). For the purpose of
this paper, whether assent is bodily or enunciated does not affect its voluntary nature, though the emphasis
placed on reasoning oneself out of a reaction certainly stresses the rational and dialogic quality of this
response. Contrast Inwood (1985, 57): “Those sources which refer to a propositional presentation which
receives assent are using a forgivable shorthand expression for the more precise Stoic doctrine, which is that
the assent is given to the immaterial entity which corresponds to and accompanies the material presentation.”
On propositional content and action it gives rise to in case of phantasiai hormetikai, see further Frede
1986, 104.
16. According to Chrysippus, a phantasia will “reveal itself and its cause” and the term phantasia is
derived from fΩÍ, “light”; “just as light reveals itself and whatever else it includes in its range, so phantasia
reveals itself and its cause” (Aetius 4.11.1–4). Cicero claimed that the Stoic Zeno used the model of a hand to
describe the acceptance of such an external impression: an open palm was phantasia, with fingers tightened
it was assent (synkatathesis); and as a closed fist was apprehension, or what the Stoics called katalepsis
(Acad. Pr. 2.145).
17. For the substance of this discussion, see Inwood 1985; Lesses 1998; and Long 1991, who remarks
that “the hegemonikon articulates the linguistic content of each phantasia in propositional form: S is P.”
Note that this position on the lekta has not won universal acceptance among scholars.

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 “Wait a Moment, Phantasia” 89

other humans might find them compellingly seductive. Since a phantasia

includes a value judgment, when a person assents to an impression, he/she
assents to the value judgment too. So, as Epictetus reminds us, the philos-
opher should train for freedom from deception, hasty judgment, and wrong
assents (Disc. 3.1–2). We should analyze our incoming impressions and
be on guard against incorrect value judgments. This Stoic stance towards
phantasia reminds philosophical students that some such presentations
to the mind are simply unworthy of assent; these presentations call for a
conscious, Stoically guided reassessment of things that might seem on the
surface attractive and acceptable as a good.
Epictetus warns us of this danger often, including in the passage from
which I have taken my title. Discussing what to do if a pretty girl takes an
eager interest in you, he tells us that the best response to the impact of such
an impression is the equivalent of taking a deep breath and counting to ten—
that is, to not react to the vividness of the phantasia (Disc. 2.18.24): 18
But, to begin with, be not swept off your feet, I beseech you, by the vividness of the
impression, but say, “Wait for me a little, O phantasia; allow me to see who you are,
and what you are an impression of; allow me to put you to the test.” And after that, do
not allow it to lead you on by picturing to you what will follow. Otherwise, it will take
possession of you and go off with you wherever it will. (trans. Oldfather, modified)

Allow yourself time to evaluate the appearance’s true worth—even if the girl
has grabbed you amorously in the meantime, as Epictetus’ poor interlocutor
complains. For the true worth of this image has nothing to do with the
beauty of the girl, and dragging her off to bed would not in fact be an action
that would benefit her dazed admiree. Our capacity for self-control and our
understanding tell us that to yield to such a phantasia—that the girl is de-
sirable—is to commit an error of judgment. Epictetus continues here and
elsewhere by giving us images to set against such phantasiai; he would have
us counteract the subjective evaluation of an attractive woman as a good
by focusing on thoughts and pictures that will quench desire. Even Marcus
Aurelius seizes upon this example as a way of explaining the compelling
force of some phantasiai; in Meditations 9.7 he urges himself to wipe out
impression (phantasia), check impulse (horme) and quench desire (orexis)! 19
(As an aside, the more romantic among us will be relieved to know that
sometimes love does triumph, even for the Stoic proficiens: as one male
viewer in Epictetus finally confesses after a long struggle, “The phantasia
of this little cutie defeats me!” [Disc. 3.25.6]) 20

18. On Epictetus on the correct use of representations, see Long 1991, 275–85. Epictetus insists on
the necessity of making proper judgments about phantasiai in order to live an ethical life (Long cites Disc.
1.1.7, 2.1.4, 2.22.29, 4.6.34).
19. Seneca, of course, does not use the actual term phantasia, but (as we have seen) talks about the
compelling force of untrue opinions and sometimes uses terms such as cogita or “describe” in urging his
reader to dwell on falsely horrifying images.
20. Long (1996, 284–85) stresses the particularity of the way representations will appear to one individual
and not another; as he writes on p. 273, “For every rational representation there is a lekton, a ‘sayable,’
which will articulate the representation in propositional form: S is P.” See Diog. Laert. 7.49, 7.63; Sen. Ep.
117.13.
90 Shadi Bartsch

What relationship are we to establish between Stoic ekphrasis (such as

Seneca’s description of Syracuse) and Stoic teachings on phantasia? Even
in Pseudo-Longinus, whose philosophical views are obscure, phantasia
appears to share a lot with ekphrasis; both terms denote a visual or mental
picture that is put into language in order to move an audience, although in
Pseudo-Longinus, phantasia is more often invoked in the formation of a
mental image formed by an orator or poet and used to move the audience. 21
Pseudo-Longinus’ view (clearly influenced by Stoicism) 22 is that “[t]he word
[phantasia] has now come to be used predominantly of passages where, in-
spired by strong emotion, you seem to see what you describe and bring it
vividly before the eyes of the audience” (Subl. 15.1, trans. Russell 1964). 23
Here the term is used of the creator of the image rather than of its live re-
cipient, and this is the usage that gives rise to analogies with our modern
idea of the imagination. 24 Still, both this kind of phantasia and traditional
ekphrasis share the criterion of vividness, enargeia, as a distinctive charac-
teristic; both move the viewer or the hearer. 25
If we limit ourselves to the philosophical terminology, however, phantasia
(as we have seen) implies not merely an act of imagination, but a way of
looking at the world, and the potential of such phantasiai and their lekta to
be deceptive is a matter of great philosophical concern. The problem is not
only the question of assent or dissent, but also the simple impact of some par-
ticularly striking images, which can give rise to strong human reactions—
for example, the very ekplexis, or stunned wonder, that ekphrasis strives to
induce. In the case of phantasia in Stoic thought, however, whether it be a
pleasant one (a dark handsome stranger wearing Armani) or a repellent one
(being roasted alive in Phalaris’ bronze bull), a reaction of ekplexis or wonder
is precisely what is most to be avoided. If such a reaction is at first invol-
untary, as the Stoics acknowledged could transpire (see, e.g., Sen. De ira
2.3.3, Ep. 71.29), nonetheless a concerted effort of reflection—of reevalu-
ation—can restore the individual to his or her stoic equanimity. 26 (It must

21. See Thein (2002) for a different approach to phantasia and ekphrasis, pointing out their similarities
in picking and choosing what aspects of the perceived object the mind gives assent to.
22. Cf. also Slater 1987, 173: “Art, like any other object of sense perception, could assist the mind in
building up from the field of sense perceptions a kataleptike phantasia, or comprehensive representation
of reality that was not simply a mimesis of appearance. The term phantasia soon migrated into artistic and
literary theory, where it became something akin to artistic inspiration. . . . While phantasia often refers to
inspiration as it occurs in the mind of the artist, it can also refer to the physical artistic production and some-
times indeed to the effects of the work of art upon the mind of the viewer or reader. All of these concepts
imply the need for the phantasia to be interpreted.”
23. In leading up to this definition, Ps.-Longinus writes (15.1): “Phantasiai contribute greatly to dignity,
elevation, and power as a pleader. This is the name I give them; some call them eidolopoiiai. The term
phantasia is used generally for anything that in any way suggests a thought productive of speech. . . .”
Longinus, like Hermogenes and the other rhetoricians, tells us that the primary goal of phantasia in rhetoric
is enargeia and in poetry it is ekplexis: “You seek to move the audience; you have something vividly before
your mind and try to bring it before your hearers.” In a rhetorical context, enargeia equals the orator’s
ability to bring a scene before the eyes: Dion. Hal. Lys. 7.1; Quint. Inst. 4.2.63, 6.2.32, 8.3.62, etc.
24. On the art-historical aspect of the term phantasia, see Watson 1994; Manieri 1998; Elsner 1995,
26–27; Perry 2005, 150–71.
25. On ekphrasis and phantasia, see also the discussion of Goldhill in this issue (1–19).
26. There is repeated reference to proper use of appearances in Epictetus. For the conditions under which
appearances may overwhelm you, see Disc. 2.22.5–6, 3.12.11.
 “Wait a Moment, Phantasia” 91

be noted that even on the philosophical side, enargeia sometimes crops up

in Stoic philosophy as a truth criterion of a phantasia or presentation; some
images are apparently so clear and powerful in their impact that an argument
can thereby be made for their truth value, as takes place in Book 2 of Cicero’s
Academica, and indeed Plutarch calls the Stoics “defenders of enargeia.” 27
It is worth remembering, however, that here we are speaking of phantasia
kataleptike, a special subclass, and not of phantasiai in general.) 28
Inasmuch as Seneca models his ekphrasis on the very process of assessing
a phantasia-with-its-lekton, he transforms a rhetorical tool in which words
vied with images to produce a mental picture striking for its enargeia, into
a philosophical tool a speaker (or thinker) uses to counteract the effect of
the visual image by means of an act of conscious reassessment. Here, then, he
carries out in full a practice that he recommends in shorthand in a number
of letters and essays: the deliberate cultivation of a vivid image in order to
inure the viewer/thinker to its effect. 29 This is why so much of Seneca’s
writing is filled with the grisliest of descriptions, with startling pictures of
torture and dismemberment. Like Epictetus, he likes to linger on the melting
flesh of Mucius Scaevola’s hand in the fire, or on an innocent man being drawn
and quartered, or on an array of torture implements just waiting for a Stoic
to provide his body. In other words, Seneca seems bent on sketching before
our eyes spectacles that would make a normal audience react strongly and
emotively to their gruesome contents, that would, in other words, be able to
move the readers. Epistle 14’s details provide a good example (Ep. 14.5–6):
Picture to yourself under this head the prison, the cross, the rack, the hook, and the stake
that they drive straight through a man until it protrudes from his throat. Think of human
limbs torn apart by chariots driven in opposite directions, of the terrible shirt smeared
and interwoven with inflammable materials, and of all the other contrivances devised
by cruelty, in addition to those which I have mentioned! It is not surprising, then, if our
greatest terror is of such a fate; for it comes in many shapes and its paraphernalia
are terrifying. For just as the torturer accomplishes more in proportion to the number of
instruments that he displays—indeed, the spectacle overcomes those who would have
patiently withstood the suffering—similarly, of all the agencies which coerce and
master our minds, the most effective are those which can make a display.

Not only do these details shock and horrify us, but Seneca seems to self-
consciously acknowledge that it is precisely the visual dimension of torture

27. Plut. Comm. not. 1083C. Cicero in Acad. Pr. 2.17 offers an argument about phantasia/evidentia in the
philosophical context—it adds to the truth value of an impression: sed tamen orationem nullam putabant
inlustriorem ipsa evidentia reperiri posse, nec ea quae tam clara essent definienda censebant. alii autem
negabant se pro hac evidentia quicquam priores fuisse dicturos, sed ad ea quae contra dicerentur dici
oportere putabant, ne qui fallerentur. See also Epicurus Ep. Hdt. 48.8–11 and Diog. Laert. 10.33.
28. Cf. Quint. Inst. 6.2.29 on rhetorical/poetic phantasia: the effective orator has a stock of phantasias/
visiones. Phantasia makes you see an absent thing with your very eyes and have it before you (like ekphrasis);
the result is enargeia. It must also be said that in the context of art production, even what I am calling “non-
philosophical” phantasia has a philosophical connection to Plato’s ideas. It represents the form in the artist’s
minds, like Phidias imagining Jupiter (Sen. Controv. 10.34; cf. Sen. Ep. 65.4; Cic. Orat. 9). In Quint. Inst.
8.3.62–71, too, where we read that a whole scene is painted, as it were, in words, poetic/rhetorical phantasia
seems close to ekphrasis. See also Slater 1997; Watson 1994.
29. On the praemeditationes futuri mali, in which such practices belong, see Manning 1976; cf. Ep.
24.2, 91.4, 93.6, and 107.3–4.
92 Shadi Bartsch

that accomplishes the most coercion and mastery of our minds and that has
the greatest power to overcome our will. Indeed, as Catharine Edwards has
put it, “The mind of any reader [of Seneca] becomes the arena in which
horrific sights are put on display.” 30 And even when the sight we are supposed
to picture to ourselves is in fact an old Roman hero, like Cato the Younger, we
are sometimes shown not so much his virtue as his wounds (Ep. 67.12–13): 31
Form a proper conception of the image of virtue, a thing of exceeding beauty and grandeur;
this image is not to be worshipped by us with incense or garlands, but with sweat and
blood. Behold Marcus Cato, laying upon that hallowed breast his unspotted hands, and
tearing apart the wounds which had not gone deep enough to kill him!

Poor Cato, that handy exemplum, almost never turns up in these pages in
one piece.
At first such a focus on graphic detail, and violent detail at that, in an
author who seems elsewhere to have suggested that deliberation rather than
emotional response is the better reaction to an ekphrasis, might seem an odd
choice for Seneca and Epictetus. Are arms without the man (with apologies
to Vergil) so educational a sight? I think we can do away, by now, with the idea
of rhetorical bad taste or a Neronian hankering for the life of the amphitheater
as a primary reason for any such choices on Seneca’s part. The explanation at
which I have hinted—the need for inuring oneself to such images—emerges
perfectly clearly from the philosophers’ own words, and in a manner per-
fectly consonant with the ekphrasis of Sicily. When Epictetus is denouncing
the effect of a pretty girl, a great part of his censure is derived from the fact
that such a sight moves and disturbs us and thus impairs our access to a better
grasp of the meaning and worth of that phantasia (see, e.g., Disc. 1.22.7 on
the emotional effect of phantasiai). Seneca, as we have seen, criticizes the
same result, especially in the case of sights that are cause for fear. Such a
reaction to a painting would be praiseworthy in the Romans’ naturalistic
school of criticism, where to mistake appearance for reality was the ultimate
goal of the realist painter; 32 such a reaction to a traditional ekphrasis pro-
duced by an orator or a sophist would be precisely what its maker would
strive for; here, however, in the gallery of real life, the Stoic would prefer
to see so powerful a reaction subdued and finally banished.
And so, in fact, it is, if we remember that both Seneca and Epictetus
stress that our attachment to our physical body is a stumbling block on the
path to virtue: “Virtue is held too cheap by the man who counts his body too
dear,” as Seneca puts it (Ep. 14.1), or, in Epictetus’ terms, “If I admire my
paltry body, I have given myself away as a slave” (Disc. 1.25.23). If one
goal of Stoicism in its Roman incarnation is to teach contempt for the body,
and to do so for people for whom pain and suffering might cause initial fear
and an instinctively negative reaction, the Stoic teacher will of course try

30. Edwards 1999, 258. For another ekphrasis of torture, see Sen. Ep. 20.3–4.
31. The reader is often told to create a picture of Cato as an exemplum: Ep. 104.33, Cato in the African
desert, amongst sun-baked hills, in heavy armor; Prov. 2.9–12, Cato standing erect, while gods look on
in joy.
32. Cf. Plin. HN 35.61–66, and also Elsner 1995, 15–18.
 “Wait a Moment, Phantasia” 93

to eliminate this fear. And the method of choice is this very production of
violent ekphrasis, and the insistence upon the repetition of that image. Just
as Chrysippus points out that those judgments that seem most like the
passions must be fresh, prosphaton, to maintain their effect, but that over
time the passionate part of that judgment will fade, just as Seneca tells us that
time’s passage lessens grief (Ep. 63.5), so too here the sameness over time
of the Senecan image must dull the excitable mind into the capacity for
proper evaluation. 33 Cicero, in the voice of the Stoic Balbus in De natura
deorum 96, speaks of the numbing effect of repetition, which produces con-
suetudo. As Martha Nussbaum points out of the Chrysippean passage, “Loss
of ‘freshness’ is usually portrayed in the texts as a temporal matter; . . . when
the proposition has been there for a long time, when the element of surprise
and tearing is gone, it has lost its extreme sharpness, its intrusive cutting
edge, since [the proficiens] has by that time adjusted her life and the rest of
her beliefs to fit with it.” 34 Also playing a role here is the effect of cognitive
habit: the development of a pattern of response by dint of sheer repetition
that makes the correct use of appearances more or less automatic. Epictetus
opines that “if you form the habit of taking such exercises, you will see what
mighty shoulders you develop, what sinews, what vigor” (Disc. 2.18.26); “if
we acquire this habit, we shall make progress” (Disc. 3.8.4); after training,
you will discover “whether these phantasiai still overcome you just as they
did before” (Disc. 3.12.11). 35
In fact, that the training of the reader in the art of nonresponsiveness
is part of Seneca’s goal we can glean from Seneca’s self-justification in
Epistle 24.9, where he responds to an imaginary protest from his corre-
spondent by explaining of his own ekphraseis that: “I am not heaping up
examples to practice my wit, but to exhort you against whatever seems most
terrible to you.” And Seneca gives us, too, the idealized reply of the reader
who has absorbed his lesson (Ep. 24.14): 36
“Why dost thou hold up before my eyes swords, fires, and a throng of executioners raging
about thee? Take away all that vain show, behind which thou lurkest and scarest fools!
Ah! thou art naught but Death, whom only yesterday a manservant of mine and a maid-
servant did despise! Why dost thou again unfold and spread before me, with all that
great display, the whip and the rack? Why are those engines of torture made ready, one
for each several member of the body, and all the other innumerable machines for tearing

33. SVF 3.391; cf. Inwood 1985, 146–55, Nussbaum 1994, 381–86.
34. Nussbaum 1994, 382, on SVF 3.466. Inwood (1985, 14) on prosphatos doxa contradicts Nussbaum:
according to his interpretation, it does not refer primarily to a temporal recentness of the object about
which the opinion is made, but rather to the fact that a fresh opinion is one that still has a certain kind of
force for the agent. For this view, see Cic. Tusc. 3.74–75 and Arius Didymus Ecl. 2.89.2–3 vs. Posidonius
in Galen PHP 4.7.1–5 (SVF 3.481) saying that Chrysippus meant temporally recent. Be that as it may, in
either case the passage of time is a factor in the subject’s attitude.
35. On the force of habit, see also Disc. 3.12. Without such habit, “It is not a fair match that, between a
pretty wench and a young beginner in philosophy. ‘A pot,’ as they say, ‘and a stone do not go together’ ”
(Epict. Disc. 3.12.12, trans. Oldfather).
36. Also Ep. 91.7–8: “We should therefore reflect upon all contingencies, and should fortify our minds
against the evils which may possibly come. Exile, the torture of disease, wars, shipwreck—we must think
on these” (precisely all the purple passages from declamation and tragic historiography!). And in Ep. 24.9
Seneca makes it clear that the goal of such visiones is not an aesthetic one: non in hoc exempla nunc congero
ut ingenium exerceam, sed ut te adversus id quod maxime terribile videtur exhorter.
94 Shadi Bartsch

a man apart piecemeal? Away with all such stuff, which makes us numb with terror! And
thou, silence the groans, the cries, and the bitter shrieks ground out of the victim as he
is torn on the rack! Forsooth thou are naught but Pain, scorned by yonder gout-ridden
wretch, endured by yonder dyspeptic in the midst of his dainties, borne bravely by the
girl in travail. Slight thou art, if I can bear thee; short thou art if I cannot bear thee!”

This idealized reader of Seneca’s work has learned the proper response to
pictures of violence—“Take away that vain show.” In fact, this response
seems first addressed to Seneca and his readers, rather than to Death, as if
to let them know that descriptions that would numb men with terror are no
longer effective.
This, then, is the correct response to Stoic ekphrasis: not an emotional
reaction, not to be moved, but to be unmoved; and it is this, I would argue,
that provides the major difference between philosophical ekphrasis or phan-
tasia and rhetorical/poetic ekphrasis or phantasia. Quintilian may tell us in
his Institutes 6.2.29 that the result of rhetorical phantasia, when the orator
translates the image in his head into words, is the stirring of the emotions,
just as it would be with a good ekphrasis; 37 but Seneca would disagree:
“Picture slavery, lashes, chains, want, mutilation by disease or by torture—
or anything else you may care to mention; he will count all such things as
the fears of a fevered mind.” He devotes the entirety of Epistle 4 to showing
Lucilius that death is not to be feared, and reminds him elsewhere that
happiness depends precisely on such equanimity (Ep. 76.33):
If a man can behold with unflinching eyes the flash of a sword, if he knows that it makes
no difference to him whether his soul takes flight through his mouth or through a wound
in his throat, you may call him happy; you may also call him happy if, when he is
threatened with bodily torture, whether it be the result of accident or of the might of the
stronger, he can without concern hear talk of chains, or of exile, or of all the idle fears
that stir men’s minds.

In fine: Just as with the ekphrasis of Syracuse, which explicitly doubled back
upon itself to deny the worth of appearances alone and the misleading re-
sponse of wonder, so too in Seneca’s other descriptive passages focusing on
violence. Pleasure or fear: both emotive responses are wrong. Our mission
is to shrug in response to Syracuse’s beauties or a young woman’s; to doze
off before images of terror; to remember that disease is not an evil. Via such
an act of “ekphrastic interference,” he manipulates the description to introduce
what is not seen—but true.
The Stoics were credited in antiquity with believing in the persuasive and
pedagogic power of visualization, and learning to employ this technique
appropriately provided part of the training, or askesis, that a budding Stoic
was encouraged to undertake—perhaps ironically, in order to vitiate the
effects of the visual. 38 Nussbaum (1993) has suggested that Stoic orthodoxy

37. Quas “phantasias” Graeci vocant (nos sane visiones appellemus), per quas imagines rerum absentium
ita repraesentantur animo ut eas cernere oculis ac presentes habere videamur, has quiquis bene ceperit is
erit in adfectibus potentissimus (Inst. 6.2.29).
38. The Stoics were less suspicious of such sense data than Plato, judging knowledge through the senses
as the only source of knowledge available (Watson 1988, 55); see Diog. Laert. 7.49; and Rist 1969, 133–51.
 “Wait a Moment, Phantasia” 95

on poetry and drama allows for the educational effect of these media, and
that this orthodoxy even acknowledges that their vividness may help the
spectator—but only if they come to the spectacle with the right mindset,
prepared to recognize the errors and bad choices of the tragic character
upon the stage. Similarly, Seneca tells us that the angry man who looks in
the mirror will change only if he already wants to change; otherwise the
sight of his flushed and choleric face will simply fuel his rage, like an Atreus
enjoying his own show (De ira 2.36.3). The Stoic view of literary or mental
imagery exposed in Seneca, I would argue, assumes a less wise spectator
from the outset: she can come to the ekphrasis of torn bodies in all her
ignorance, and they, by repetition, will numb her first and violent reaction,
and help her to overcome fear for her body by means of the rational con-
sideration of what is, in Stoic terminology, eph’ hemin—up to us. 39 In all of
this, we see the Stoic desire to push beyond surface appearances and surface
imprints; to distrust those features of the representation of the visual world
that blind man with their vividness and disable his senses with wonder; and
finally to teach the student, via the process of interpretation, that disabling
his capacity to respond to misleading phantasia (such as “torture and death
are the worst things that can happen to me”) with emotion or wonder will be
his best safeguard against suffering in his life ahead.
Epictetus tells us that God has brought man into the world to be a spectator
of Himself and His works, and not merely a spectator of them but also an
interpreter (Disc. 1.6.20). How does one get from spectator to interpreter?
By becoming a practicing Stoic and perhaps by reading Seneca’s ekphraseis,
whether glorious or horrific. For Seneca’s ekphrastic usage, understood
together with some of his and Epictetus’ comments on the power of our
reception of images, has the threefold purpose of evoking parallels to the
procedure of the interpretation of phantasiai in Stoic philosophy, ques-
tioning ekphrasis’ traditional criteria of excellence, and, finally, training the
viewer/reader to control and disown the prescribed reactions to vivid images
and the propositional content they may bring with them. In a remarkable
twist on rhetorical prescription, it is, finally, learning to yawn in the face of
these visions that offers the Roman viewer his path to salvation.

University of Chicago

See Watson 1988, 44–58 on phantasia as criterion for truth (this would be phantasia kataleptike): “Some
presentations experienced in perceptually ideal circumstances, however, are so clear and distinct that they
could only come from a real object; these were said to be kataleptike (fit to grasp). The kataleptic presenta-
tion compels assent by its very clarity and, according to some Stoics, represents the criterion for truth.”
But we must remember that while the sense impression itself is not a source of deception or untrustworthy,
whether it appears to us as a good or a bad depends upon the reception we accord it; it is possible to give
one’s assent to a false proposition, as Medea did when she decided that vengeance on her husband was a
good. On the difficult question of the relationship between phantasia and propositional content (the lekton),
see Ioppolo 1990; on Medea’s decision, see Epict. Disc. 1.28.7–9.
39. The reading of Stoic ekphrasis need not prop itself up on the claim that torture or death were common
fears for the senatorial class under Nero. The mental training this procedure provided looked to a rethinking
of values rather than an immediate response to given circumstances.