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16 June 2004



In her April 16 review, Emily Wilson claimed that Seneca might be regarded as the greatest Latin writer. However questionable that judgment of hers, she surely erred in claiming that Seneca liked “young boys” and taught his tutee, Nero, to do the same. She mistranslated Dio Cassius, whose epitome in fact stated “he took delight in boys past their prime, a practice which he also taught Nero to follow.” Thus she calumniates these two Romans as pedophiles, that is, those attracted to prepubescents. Actually Dio has them delighting not in adolescents, as Greeks pederasts preferred, but in meirakiois exōrois, best translated as “boys [or ‘youths’] past their prime,” that is in their early twenties or perhaps even older, and thus by today’s higher standards licit, if, according to those Greeks, in bad taste.



William A. Percy<br>
University of Massachusetts<br>
Boston, MA 02125<br>


Beert Verstraete<br>
Acadia University<br>
Wolfville, Nova Scotia<br>
Canada, B4P 2R6<br>