[3.22.1] Aliud est aquarum genus: Seneca moves on to the primordial water that was created in tandem with the Earth compared to the more recently created waters. For the role of water in early Stoic cosmology, see Diogenes Laertius 7.136, 142 who writes of substance being created “through air into water” from fire (cf. Gourinat 2009: 59-60, and Hahm 1977: 66-67, 242-43).
nobis placet coepisse cum mundo: nobis here alludes to the Stoic idea also found in Lucan, 10.265-66: non id agente deo, quasdam conpage sub ipsa / cum toto coepisse reor and note cum toto below. For the phrase nobis placet, cf. note on 3.9.3 supra. In similar language, Seneca asks the question whether time “began with the world” or existed before the creation of the world (cum mundo coeperit an etiam ante mundum quia fuerit aliquid, fuerit et tempus, Ep. 88.33). West remarks that χάος often was interpreted by the Stoics as “primeval water” (2013: 72 with further references) and Rudhardt 1971 discusses primordial water in Greek mythology generally.
sive ille aeternus est hoc quoque fuit semper: This may be a nod to Aristotle and his belief in the eternal nature of the world, cf. Mete. 356b4-6, which remarks that the sea and the cosmos are coeval. See Wilson 2013: 180 “Awesome is the sea, coeval with the earth and invested with a hoary mythology. Aristotle meets this mythology head on, citing myths and mythographers more times here than in any other section, and treating them with a seriousness that far outstrips their limited scientific value”. The Stoics believed in the periodic destruction of the universe so the world (ille) clearly is not “eternal”, cf. note on 3.27 infra. But during its life-cycle, such waters may be said to be “everlasting” just like the constellations (NQ 7.23.2) and other “everlasting works of nature” (aeterna opera naturae, NQ 7.22.1). Seneca wants to make the point that the world and its major bodies of water (hoc) are coterminous.
sive initium aliquod est illi, haec quoque aqua disposita cum toto est: If the world had a beginning, this type of water would have been distributed at the same time with “the whole”. Seneca uses cum toto elsewhere when discussing man’s contemplation of the universe (Dial. 8.5.4) and see Williams 2012: 251-54 for the importance of the totum for the Natural Questions. For god as dispositor mundi, cf. NQ 5.18.5, for natura doing the arranging, cf. NQ 3.30.3, Dial. 12.10.5, Ep. 29.9.
quae sit haec, quaeris?: As at NQ 3.12.1 supra, the question implies not only the engaged interaction of the interlocutor, but also is a play on the title of the work. In the NQ, quaeris only appears elsewhere in the final book, 2.42.2, 2.57.1.
oceanus et quodcumque ex illo mare terras interluit: For connections between the Ocean and sea in Seneca, cf. NQ 6.6.1 and see the notes supra 3.pr.10 and 3.14.3 (mare unum est) and Dial. 8.4.2 (cf. Citti 2012: 116). Homer’s view of the ocean (Il. 14.201, 246, 20.7-9, 21.195-97) clearly influenced later thinkers – from Plato (Phaed. 111e7-113d1) to Strabo (e.g. 1.1.3-9). Connections between the ocean and creation run deep in Greek thought: “And there are people who think that those in the dim, distant past who first began to reason about the gods, long before our present generation, shared this conception of the underlying nature [of water]; for these poets made Ocean and Tethys the parents of creation, and claimed that the gods took their oath upon water – the river Styx, as the poets call it.” (Aristotle, Mete. 983b25-32). Posidonius’ work has been suspected as a source for Seneca here (Edelstein and Kidd 1989: F214-29 cf. Vottero 1989: ad loc.). The only other time in which interluere appears in the NQ is a quotation of Vergil to describe the Strait of Messina, cf. 6.30.1.
iudicant quidam flumina quoque quorum inenarrabilis natura est cum ipso mundo traxisse principia: Major rivers, especially those with unusual qualities, “took their start with the world itself”. For Seneca, who believes the sources of rivers are the lakes, rivers, and continual elemental exchange underground, it is possible that he would believe this, but not separate the exceptional rivers, cf. NQ 3.12.1 supra, 6.8.1-5. For Hesiod, Tethys bore to Ocean the rivers and springs of the world, including the Nile and Danube (Th. 338-39). Hecataeus believed that the Nile flowed from the outer Ocean (cf. Graham 2010: 41). For the phrase, cf. Valerius Maximus 1.pr.1.19: si excellentissimi vates a numine aliquo principia traxerunt… This idea is contra Aristotle Mete. 353a15-28: “It is clear that since time will not give out and the cosmos is everlasting, neither the Tanais nor the Nile always flowed, but the place whence they flow was once dry; for their action has a limit, but time has not”. inenarrabilis is only used here by Seneca, but may be meant to evoke Vergil’s famous description of the Shield of Aeneas, which was non enarrabile (A. 8.625) and notably featured representations of the Nile (A. 8.711) and other great rivers (A. 8.726-28).
ut Histrum, ut Nilum: Connections between the two rivers is common, Hdt. 2.33-34, 4.48-50, Mela 1.8-9, Hor. Carm. 4.14.46 (cf. Thomas 2011: ad loc.), Lucan 2.408-20, Valerius Flaccus 8.183-91 (cf. Manolaraki 2013: 156-63), and Seneca will return “certain philosophers” who unite the two because of their hidden sources and (supposedly) increased volume during the summer at NQ 4a.1.1. Cf. Pellacani 2012: 84-5 for more on the connections between the two in the NQ, Postl 1965: 20, 219 for the comparisons between the Nile and Danube in antiquity, and s.v. “Danuvius 1” RE 4: 2101-31 for the Danube in antiquity. Merrills 2017 writes, "The earliest cosmogonies from Egypt closely associated the Nile and the Nun - the undifferentiated primordial waters from which matter was held to have emerged. While the Nile was not exactly equivalent to the Nun, the annual floods of the river were regarded as one of a nested series of periodic renewals of this creation along with the rising and setting of the sun each day" (176).
vastos amnes magisque insignes quam ut dici possit eandem illis originem quam ceteris esse: For the collocation vastos amnes, cf. Ep. 41.3 and a variation supra at NQ 3.19.4. For magis…quam ut elsewhere in Seneca, cf. NQ 1.3.3. These rivers are, literally, “too remarkable to be able to be said” to have the same origin as the others. Of course, Seneca will devote NQ 4a to the Nile (which he has often noted as unique, cf. NQ 3.1.2), and often uses the Danube as comparanda, cf. NQ 4a.2.20.
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