La teoria in azione. Il dono di Eschine e la riflessione senecana sui beneficia

Abstract

In the very middle of the first book of the De beneficiis (I 8) Seneca interrupts the stream of philosophical reflection in order to introduce the story of Aeschines and Socrates. The anecdote, however, has not to be read as a simple digression. Indeed it has to be understood as a clear continuity with the theoretical plan of the treaty. The two characters actually realize, and in some ways "personify", the perfect beneficium model exposed in the first paragraphs of the book. In particular, the gift of himself that the young auditor gives his master, and the master's promise of making him better, represent - in line with the author's project - the moments of a potentially infinite contentio honestissima, the moves of a 'good competition' through which a virtuous form of reciprocity is activated. This form puts aside the aleatority and relativeness of material goods, conveying them as simple semiotic interfaces to be used for signifying the giver's benevolentia. The anecdote represents, in this sense, an interesting form of narrative sociology, used as the proper tool to fix in the reader's mind - with great perlocutory strength - the firm points of a particular kind of Stoic ethics-in-action.