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Moral Letters Vol II

Seneca

§ Section 10

On the lesson to be drawn from the burning of Lyons

91:10

Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.

Book Description: The second volume of Seneca's moral letters to Lucilius. Each letter contains Seneca's advice and wisdom won from a life of Roman politics.

10.

A rich city has been laid in ashes, the jewel of the provinces, counted as one of them and yet not included with them; rich though it was, nevertheless it was set upon a single hill, and that not very large in extent.

But of all those cities, of whose magnificence and grandeur you hear today, the very traces will be blotted out by time.

Do you not see how, in Achaia, the foundations of the most famous cities have already crumbled to nothing, so that no trace is left to show that they ever even existed?