[3.21.1] In quosdam specus qui despexere moriuntur: Pliny writes about letales spiritus that emerge from certain areas of the world at Nat. 2.207-208. These can cause death, but some also are said to provide the “intoxication” necessary for prophecy at Delphi. Greek sources such as Aristotle (De Sensu 444b31), Theophrastus (De Causis Plantarum 6.5.5), and Strabo (5.4.5, 13.4.14). Places where these emissions occur are associated with the underworld. Strabo’s latter description of the Ploutonion at Hierapolis unites many of the topics under discussion by Seneca: “The water easily solidifies and turns to stone, so that streams are carried along that make fences of a single stone. The Ploutonion is below a small brow of the mountainous territory above it and is a moderately sized opening, large enough to be capable of admitting a man, but which is very deep…it is full of a thick mist-like cloud, so that one can scarcely see the surface. For those who come near the railing, the air around it is harmless, since it is free from the cloud when it is calm, remaining within the enclosure, but all animals that pass within die immediately…I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and died” (trans. Roller). It is notable that these underground airs, waters, and places are often associated with the underworld, death, disease, and disgust, cf. Jones 2013. If underground waters are capable of being corrupted, so the air traveling in the arteries of the earth and other emissions are likewise able to be harmful.
tam velox malum est ut transvolantes aves deiciat: This refers to the area around Lake Avernus and the etymology that it is ἄορνος. Lucretius 6.738-48 describes the lake and its surrounding area, and Vergil echoes many of Lucretius’ claims at A. 6.237-41. For Lucretius this is an important moment to show that nature accounts for such places and they are not “the gates of Orcus” (6.762) – the same force can be seen in Seneca’s account and Seneca will go on to expand on Lucretius’ ideas of the various airs within the earth in NQ 5.14.1-4 and 6.12-19, 28.1-3 (see Tutrone 2017: 776-81 for more on Seneca’s response to Lucretius there). Both describe the birds as volantes, which Seneca knowingly alters (possibly to clear up any possible ambiguity of Lucr. 6.818 where alitibus puns knowingly on halitibus, see Fontaine, McNamara, and Short 2018: xviii. Seneca often pairs transvolare with the motion of birds, cf. Phaed. 1233, Ep. 104.14, Ep. 121.18. I believe Seneca is also combining additional Vergilian diction surrounding Fama, (malum quo non aliud velocius ullum, A. 4.174) and the shooting down of birds (avem caelo deicit ab alto, A. 5.542). MacLennan 2003: ad loc. remarks that there is no evidence of a cave of this sort near Avernus and today one can readily see birds not only flying above the lake, but also waterfowl dwelling in its waters. Clearly the volcanic emissions that once defined this particular area are now dormant, cf. Kroonenberg 2011: 30-40.
talis est aër, talis locus ex quo letalis aqua destillat: Vergil writes of hippomanes: lentum distillat …virus, (G. 3.281), and Seneca remarked on the virus of sulphur water at NQ 3.20.5. Seneca will use destillare elsewhere in the NQ about metal spear points “trickling down” their shafts after being struck by lightning (2.31.1) and of fire filtering down from the heavens (2.12.3). letalis is a poetic word before Seneca and he utilizes it in his tragedies (Med. 269, Oed. 77, Thy. 692), but only here in his prose works. Hine 2005 wonders if “the poetic force of letalis was already becoming weaker by this date” (220) but this passage is replete with poetic antecedents and Seneca may be knowingly raising the register of his prose to compete with Lucretius and Vergil.
si remissior fuit aëris et loci pestis: remissior is also found at NQ 1.1.7 and 6.11.1. Earlier Alexander and Philip were compared to pestes (NQ 3.pr.5), but here the term refers, almost metonymically, for the substance which causes harm, cf. TLL 10.1.1928.57-68 and Thy. 89. While other authors write of loci pestilentes (Cato Agr. 14.5, Varro R.R. 3.17.8) or aer pestiferens (Luc. 7.412), none pair aër and locus in this way with pestis.
ipsa quoque temperatior noxa nihil amplius quam temptat nervos: For the comparative temperatior/-ius in Seneca, cf. Ep. 66.8, NQ 2.10.2, NQ 7.27.5. Seneca elsewhere exploits a similar wordplay, Ep. 107.7: intemperies caeli valetudinem temptat: aegrotandum est. For water’s ability to help/hurt the muscles (nervos), cf. 3.1.2 supra. Seneca may have picked up nihil amplius quam from the works of his father, cf. Contr. 1.1.10, 1.7.4, 10.5.4, and, in Seneca, Ben. 6.16.2, Ep. 114.16, NQ 6.11.1, NQ 6.14.1, and NQ 1.5.12.
velut ebrietate torpentes: Cf. Ep. 24.16 where Seneca writes of pleasures becoming the source of pain: epulae cruditatem adferunt, ebrietates nervorum torporem tremoremque, libidines pedum, manuum, articulorum omnium depravationes; and Ep. 122.6 where drunks enjoy drinking unmixed wine (merum) on an empty stomach because it immediately penetrat ad nervos. While Seneca relates such torpor back to drunkenness, it is also consistent with asphyxiation by carbon dioxide, which is a common emission from fumeroles and volcanic activity. In the same area around Naples, Lake Agnano had an “attraction” that was popular for hundreds of years, the Grotta del Cane or “Cave of Dogs”. Here is the description from Athanasius Kircher’s visit in 1638: “The [lake] water is clear and quite cold, and is replenished by mineral Springs. On the shore there is a Farm cottage, where the owner breeds a large number of Dogs to use for tests in the cave. As soon as we arrived at the spot, he took a Dog and tied it to a long stick, whereupon a man who knew about these things pushed the beast into the deadly Flue of the Cave. When the Dog entered the Flue he could not bear the acidity of the toxic vapours that arose from it, and appeared to suffocate and be completely unable to move. The Dog was pulled out of the Hole and submerged in the waters of the Lake and, after a short time, as though he had been roused from a deep sleep, he started to walk again” (cited in Kroonenberg 2011: 410).
[3.21.2] locus atque aër aquas inficit: Seneca claims this influence should not be surprising and the combination of words for “air” “water” and “place” would make the reader recall Hippocrates’ treatise. The environmental determinism writ large in that work can be seen behind the examples Seneca gives in this section. The larger question of influence can be seen behind this material and gives this material possible metaliterary resonance. Cf. Ep. 71.31 for the way doctrine can “dye” the soul (possibly foreshadowing 3.25.3) and Dial. 10.10.8 for the way Apicius’ teaching “infected” the current age. Cf. Pliny Nat. 2.222 for a similar construction in describing the different tastes of sea water, quia plurimus ex arido misceatur illi vapor, aut quia terrae natura sicut medicatas aquas inficiat, and Aetna 394: infectae eructantur aquae radice sub ipsa.
similesque regionibus reddit per quas et ex quibus veniunt: Vitruvius writes of one river, the Himeras (Sicily), which splits into two different directions and acquires differing tastes depending on the land through which it journeys (8.3.7) and his general account of finding water (8.1.1-7) indicates how different environmental conditions produce waters of various characteristics.
pabuli sapor apparet in lacte: Vergil G. 3.397 (and Thomas 1988: ad loc.), Columella 10.124 and 7.8.1-7 for cheese-making. Theophrastus mentioned the “milky” and “wine-like” as separate tastes, (CP 6.1.1, and Totelin 2018: 62-64). For a modern perspective on how this affects the taste of goat’s/sheep’s milk cheese, cf. Crowley 2017: 26-27 “According to a report by the World Intellectural Property Organization, sheep and goats in Greece consume a more diverse diet than other animals around the Mediterranean; the hillsides where they graze are covered in at least 6,000 different types of plant life, including numerous species that don’t grow anywhere else, and that translates to milk with uniquely complex flavor”.
vini vis existit in aceto: vini vis is a Lucretian phrase, 3.476. Vinegar was incredibly popular as an ingredient in cooking, for posca (a vinegar-based beverage), and as a preservative (cf. Donahue 2016: 609, and s.v. Essig, RE 11, 689-92). Pliny Nat. 9.119-21 is devoted to the story of Cleopatra’s “cocktail” of vinegar and a dissolved pearl (cf. Jones 2010) and Baker 2018 catalogues how vinegar, among other ingredients, affects taste. Vitruvius writes of the way terroir influences the taste of wine (8.3.12).
nulla res est quae non eius quo nascitur notas reddat: In this context it is notable that nota can also be used to distinguish the quality of wine and other products (OLD 5a,b), although here it is more indicative of a general “trace” or “sign” (cf. Ep. 95.65 on “characterization” which signa cuiusque virtutis ac vitii et notas reddentem, quibus inter se similia discriminentur). Allendorf 2017 also stresses that nota and signum are used often as Latin translations of Greek σημεῖον. Seneca will elsewhere write about how the influences on one’s style can be discerned and compares it to the various flavors apparent in honey, cf. Ep. 84.5: in unum saporem varia illa libamenta confundere, ut etiam si apparuerit, unde sumptum sit, aliud tamen esse quam unde sumptum est, appareat (cf. Graver 2014 for more on this image and this letter).
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