ABSTRACT
Book 6 of Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones offers an exemplary illustration of the way that Seneca blends Stoic physics and ethics with an eye to the ethical benefits of seeking and achieving knowledge of the physical world. This happens, primarily, through the rhetoric of his account, and this paper treats the language and literary devices that Seneca employs to discuss earthquakes and their traumatic effects on individuals. He encourages close reading and readerly control of the narrative as a way to harness the potential trauma of earthquakes and models how an informed perspective can help one cope with such trauma. Seneca shows the reader how to redefine the concept of trauma, while forcefully arguing for the importance of education and knowledge of the natural world in order to help in the process.
