Richard Saller defines patronage by three features (summarized by Griffin): “(1) it involves the reciprocal exchange of goods and services; (2) that it is a personal relationship of some duration; (3) that it is asymmetrical, in the sense that the two parties are of unequal status and offer different kinds of goods and services in the exchange.” Saller argues that even “amicus, beneficium, officium, meritum and gratia can be used as signs of reciprocal exchange relationships, if the additional qualification... Read more

Miriam Griffin has a richly detailed discussion of Seneca’s de Beneficiis in a 2003 issue of The Journal of Roman Studies . The article discusses the appropriateness of “patronage system” as a description of Roman social relations, Seneca’s use of exaggeration for moral effect, the and similarities between Seneca and Cicero (who treats benefits in de Officiis ), and much else. She poses two central questions concerning Seneca’s theory: First, two features of this social phenomenon stand out: Seneca is... Read more

Seneca found Chrysippus’s treatment of the Three Graces too subtle: He was a great man but “a Greek, whose intellect, too sharply pointed, is often bent and turned back upon itself; even when it seems to be in earnest it only pricks, but does not pierce.” Seneca himself found in the dance of the Three Graces a dance of gift and return: “What is the meaning of this dance of sisters in a circle, hand in hand? It means that... Read more