PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 François de La Rochefoucauld’s Appropriation and Unmasking of Seneca in His Maximes J IANI (S TEPHANIE ) F AN T SINGHUA U NIVERSITY , B EIJING D EPARTMENT OF C HINESE L ANGUAGE AND L ITERATURE Introduction This article examines the appropriation of Senecan proverbs and critique of Stoic virtues in La Rochefoucauld’s Maximes, comparing them with Seneca’s teachings and other philosophical perspectives. In early modern France, aphorisms and maxims, rooted in the Proverbia Senecae compilation, were popular among Christian humanists who sought to reconcile reason and belief. La Rochefoucauld’s Maximes exemplify an Atticism that prioritizes brevity and personal reflection over ornate language. While he acknowledges the importance of virtues like magnanimity and clemency, La Rochefoucauld critiques the Stoic presumption and exposes the self-interest underlying seemingly virtuous actions. In La Rochefoucauld’s work, Seneca’s concept of clemency is dissected, revealing its potential ties to fear and self-interest. The interplay of virtues and vices, particularly in the case of Augustus, underscores the complexities of moral psychology. La Rochefoucauld’s skepticism challenges conventional interpretations of Stoic virtues, highlighting the interplay between ambition, generosity, and self-interest. La Rochefoucauld’s Christian humanist perspective critiques Seneca’s vanity and self-love masquerading as virtue, echoing themes of Christian morality. 1 Part I: Appropriation and innovation of Proverbia Senecae In early modern France, one of the most imitated and appropriated literary forms was the aphorism, along with its related subgenres such as 1 My research on this article was supported by Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program and Cyrus Tang Foundation. Jiani (Stephanie) Fan PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 186 maxims, sentences, and proverbs. According to Jean Lafond’s incisive observation, the ninth-century compilation Proverbia Senecae includes Seneca’s genuine works and two pseudo-Senecan compositions. It was a much-read collection of proverbs among many early modern French authors. This brief form of proverb-sentence was an intellectual instrument for Christian humanists to reconcile reason and faith and to gain attention through its wittiness and astonishing effects. This Atticism, which privileges the brief form, “also facilitates personal ideas and reflections to gain the upper hand over flowery language.” 2 Unlike the messy repertoire of extracts from books constituting pedantic and dogmatic maxims, La Rochefoucauld’s maxims are characterized by subtle literary registers, an Atticism with short sentences that discards Ciceronian abundance, and functions as “intellectual weapons of a Christian humanist intending to conciliate reason and belief in the vein of a quite new liberalism.” 3 Initially, the complete title of La Rochefoucauld’s Maximes was Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales. Although both maxims and sentences intend to inculcate into the readers the gnomic and universally valid truth concerning morality and the wisdom of life through some witticism, the genre of sentences appertains to impersonal discourse as absolute truth - dictum impersonale. 4 On the contrary, the maxim as a genre is less impersonal and is characterized by irony and other special literary effects to surprise the readers in revealing the author’s character and his intended relation to his interlocutors or readers. 5 Thus, as a man of worldly society, he prefers to provoke his readers, instead of pedantically instilling the dogmatic doctrines to his readers, since the court society stimulates him through invigorating, worldly prose. Nevertheless, this rigid dichotomy of sentences as impersonal statements and maxims as more personal discourses is not always tenable in the case of La Rochefoucauld, since the boundary is blurred. 2 Jean Lafond, Moralistes du XVII e siècle. Paris: R. Laffont, 1992, pp. vii-xiv. About the whole section, see also Jiani Fan, “Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales.” The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 June 2020. [https: / / www.litencyc.com/ php/ sworks.php? rec=true&UID=31916, accessed 05 April 2024.] 3 Jean Lafond, Moralistes du XVII e siècle. Paris: R. Laffont, 1992, pp. vvi. Ibid., pp. x and xii. Ibid., pp. x-xii. François de La Rochefoucauld’s Appropriation and Unmasking of Seneca PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 187 Part II: Critique of the Senecan moral values Several maxims disclose the latent motivation of self-interest behind Stoic virtues such as clemency, constancy, generosity, magnanimity, pity and constitute two direct references to Seneca. La Rochefoucauld criticized Stoic presumption (présomption) and thought that Stoics denied their miserable condition as human beings. Stoic virtues are epitomes of self-love and masks of their pride: “The philosophers—and Seneca above all—did not eradicate crime by the advice they gave; they only used it to build up their pride.” 6 In an Augustinian vein, for La Rochefoucauld, the Stoics turned their back on the grace endowed by God. La Rochefoucauld closely associated the Premier President Lamoignon, an advocate of Jansenists’ religious rigorism, and attended his academy frequently. Imbued with the Jansenists’ Augustinian doctrines, La Rochefoucauld unveiled the heroic virtues proclaimed by Seneca and other Stoics as a sublimation of their vanity and vainglory, that is to say, false virtues. Nevertheless, it is also complicated since La Rochefoucauld was not condemning the doctrines of Stoic virtues or behaviors that appear to comply with these virtues but are a dazzling sham distorting the essential properties of them out of self-interest. Unmasking hypocritical claims behind actions violating orthodox Stoic virtues by self-interests rather than condemning the doctrinal aspects of Stoic virtues makes La Rochefoucauld’s demystification of Neo-stoicism in the court society ambivalent and intricate. Purportedly, La Rochefoucauld still advocated some ought-tobe Stoic virtues such as the strength of character and generosity, as ancillary transitional virtues for Christian morality, if they are the genuine motivation of ostensibly great actions; while he would ridicule these virtues if they were only masks of self-interests or fear. One of the Stoic virtues, magnanimity, 7 was subordinate to the cardinal Stoic virtues of courage for the early Stoics but later elevated as one of the four generic virtues by Cicero. In light of this-worldly human virtues, 6 François de La Rochefoucauld, Collected Maxims and Other Reflections. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by E. H. and A. M. Blackmore and Francine Giguère. Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 159. 7 “Magnanimity, in most Stoic sources, is given what may seem a subordinate role, as a sub-strand of the generic or cardinal virtue of courage. This is markedly different from the prominent status give to magnanimity, as ‘the crown of the virtues’, by Aristotle. However, in Cicero’s On Duties, magnanimity is promoted to being one of the four central or generic virtues; Cicero also explores it in some depth in each of the three books that make up this book.” Christopher Gill, “Stoic Magnanimity.” In The Measure of Greatness: Philosophers on Magnanimity, ed. Sophia Vasalou. Oxford University Press, 2019, p. 49. Jiani (Stephanie) Fan PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 188 La Rochefoucauld paid tribute to this-worldly magnanimity as “the noblest approach to receive praises,” high-mindedness, and greatness of the soul, because it compels aristocrats to persist in self-overcoming and overcoming other external difficulties: “Magnanimity is defined well enough by its name, yet we could say that it is pride’s form of good sense, and the noblest way to win praise.” 8 He remarks elsewhere, “Magnanimity is a noble effort of pride, which makes a man a master of himself so that he can master all things.” 9 Here, magnanimity emerges as both a virtuous form of pride and a product of noble efforts of pride. According to Aristotle’s discussion about the virtue megalopsychia, which several English editions, such as those of Richard McKeon and David Ross, prefer to translate as “pride” or “greatness of soul” and “self-respect,” 10 since pride is a golden mean between two vices “vanity (which is excessive) and humility (which is deficient),” 11 as the appropriate measure rendering pride as a virtue. Noblemen and noblewomen display their dignity because of the adequate relation between their self-evaluation and their actual words and deeds. This golden mean is conveyed in the post- Homeric Greek sense of the word, , which means “in moral relations, worthy, estimable, of persons and things” (LSJ). As Aristotle incisively defines 8 V: 285, “La magnanimité est assez définie par son nom ; néanmoins on pourrait dire que c’est le bon sens de l’orgueil, et la voie la plus noble pour recevoir des louanges.” François de La Rochefoucauld, Collected Maxims and Other Reflections, 2007, p. 81. 9 I: 127, “La magnanimité est un noble effort de l’orgueil, par lequel il rend l’homme maître de lui-même, pour le rendre maître de toutes choses.” François de La Rochefoucauld, Collected Maxims and Other reflections, 2007, p. 167. 10 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, in Richard McKeon, ed. The basic works of Aristotle. New York: The Modern Library, 2001, 1107b, 1100b and Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by David Ross, revised with an introduction and notes by Lesley Brown, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009, 1125a. The English word “pride” also vacillates between two extremes of excessively mistaken high self-evaluation and adequate self-evaluation of the spectrum: “a high, esp. an excessively high, opinion of one’s own worth or importance which gives rise to a feeling or attitude of superiority over others; inordinate self-esteem” and “a consciousness of what befits, is due to, or is worthy of oneself or one’s position; self-respect; self-esteem”. “Pride, N. (1).” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford UP, March 2025, https: / / doi.org/ 10.1093/ OED/ 7380022113. See also the discussion of the word pride in Yelena Baraz, “From Vice to Virtue: The Denigration and Rehabilitation of Superbia in Ancient Rome.” KAKOS, Badness and Anti-Value in Classical Antiquity, ed. Ineke Sluiter and Ralph Rosen. Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2008, pp. 365-398. 11 Bernd Magnus, “Aristotle and Nietzsche: ‘Megalopsychia’ and ‘Uebermensch’.” In The Greeks and the Good Life. Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Philosophy Symposium, Calafornia State University, Fullerton, ed. David J. Depew. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980, pp. 260-261. François de La Rochefoucauld’s Appropriation and Unmasking of Seneca PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 189 a magnanimous person, it “seems to be the one who thinks himself worthy of great things and is really worthy of them” (1123b). 12 Here, La Rochefoucauld seems to practice the hermeneutics of restoring the glorious side of the natural human virtue, in accordance with his own merits. 13 This process of devaluation of the noble qualities by the criterion of good and bad is the demolition of the heroic virtues by the moral evaluation of the slave morality: the “pessimistic suspicion” and misanthropic condemnation of the human condition with the sublime potentiality of being noble, as well as suspicious of all the high virtues honored. Different scales and criteria of moral evaluation may lead to some mixed assessments of magnanimity and pride. On the scale of natural and human goodness, magnanimity is usually associated with a pejorative connotation of immoderate self-importance. Nevertheless, since the greatness of the soul of the nobility is proportional to the reputation of being magnanimous according to the proper definition of magnanimity, those of moderate or petty virtues have overestimated their merits “rather than the megalopsychos who has an exaggerated sense of his importance” (EN,1123b1- 2, 1123a8-9). Here, it is quite ambiguous whether La Rochefoucauld opposes magnanimity to Christian virtues of self-denial and humility and whether he condemns pride as a depraved vice in the Augustinian vein, just as Pascal equates pride (orgueil) with “superbia” and “ordinary vanity.” 14 In particular, contrary to the scale of natural virtues, in light of Augustinism, the genuine glory lies in celestial glory, as the entry of glory in Furetière’s 1690 edition of Dictionnaire universel indicates: “Majesty of God, the sight of his power, of his infinite greatness.” 15 Megalopsychia and mikropsychia can be translated as “pride” and “humility,” and respectively considered as vice or virtue during the process of the transvaluation of moral traits and reversal of the hierarchy 12 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Translated with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis/ Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999, p. 56. 13 Yelena Baraz, “True Greatness of Soul in Seneca’s De Constantia Sapientis”. In Roman Reflections: Essays on Latin Philosophy, ed. G. Williams and K. Volk. Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 157-171. For superbia is a quality of those who misapprehend their true stature and consider themselves to be greater than they truly are. On superbia as mistaken self-evaluation, see Yelena Baraz, “Modeling Roman Pride,” in Unveiling Emotions II: Emotions in Greece and Rome: Texts, Images, Material Culture, eds. A. Chaniotis and P. Ducrey, Steiner Verlag 2014, pp. 218-220. I would like to extend my gratitude to Yelena Baraz for sharing her insights with me on this paper. 14 William Wood, Pascal on Duplicity, Sin, and the Fall: The Secret Instinct. Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 24. 15 “Majesté de Dieu, la veuë de sa puissance, de sa grandeur infinie”. See Margot Kruse, “Ethique et critique de la gloire dans la littérature française du XVII e siècle.” In Margot Kruse, Beiträge zur französischen Moralistik, ed. Joachim Küpper, Andreas Kablitz, Bernhard König. Walter de Gruyter : Berlin/ New York, 2003, p. 62. Jiani (Stephanie) Fan PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 190 between pride and humility from the Aristotelian framework to the Christian framework discussed in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. However, it is unclear whether this kind of transvaluation occurs in the Maximes rather than in Aristotle’s ethics. Humility restrains the appetite from aiming at great things against the right reason: while magnanimity urges the mind to great things according to the right reason. Hence it is clear that magnanimity is not opposed to humility. Indeed, they concur in this, that each is according to the right reason. 16 If we attempt to weigh this-worldly virtue against the so-called perfect and infinite goodness of God, this-worldly glory or the magnanimity of heroes is only a pale shadow of celestial glory. The recognition of the discrepancy between this-worldly glory and the ultimate glory to God, as well as the conscious internalization of glory based on genuine human virtue instead of contrived glory based on others’ approval, manifest a process of disabusing false consciousness. They mislead us to the anthropocentric illusion that we are as glorious as God, in virtue of our resplendent undertakings or the empty glory based on intersubjective recognition. Being aware of our misery and destitution testifies to our majesty (grandeur) through cognitively transcending the confined mental and anthropological sphere of the miserable human condition, as Pascal claims: Man’s greatness lies in his capacity to recognize his wretchedness. A tree does not recognize its wretchedness. So it is wretched to know one is wretched, but there is greatness in the knowledge of one’s wretchedness. 17 By analogy, as exemplified by the lesson of Spinoza: “one first finds himself a slave, he understands his slavery, he rediscovers himself free within understood necessity,” 18 the hermeneutics of suspicion as an existential inquiry into the text and the Lebenswelt bears witness to the greatness of human beings attempting to disenchant false consciousness and awaken 16 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, volume II, p.1848 and Howard J. Curzer, “Aristotle’s much maligned megalopsychos.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69.2 (1991), p. 149. 17 “La grandeur de l’homme est grande en ce qu’il se connaît misérable. Un arbre ne se connaît pas misérable. C’est donc être misérable que de [se] connaître misérable, mais c’est être grand que de connaître qu’on est misérable.” Lafuma 114 / Sellier 146. Blaise Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings. Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 36-37. 18 Paul Ricœur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. Translated by Denis Savage. Yale University Press, 1970, pp. 35-36. François de La Rochefoucauld’s Appropriation and Unmasking of Seneca PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 191 ourselves from that simulacrum through confronting ourselves with the bare reality and necessity of the world. The strength of character or magnanimity is usually attributed to Stoic sages. Although sometimes caricatural and exaggerated, this character trait depicts Stoics’ indifference towards the vicissitudes of their destiny and pleasure as well as their constancy, sangfroid, and impassivity before suffering and death. Sweetness and gentleness (douceur) ostensibly seem to conflict with the qualities of the strength of character (la fermeté) 19 and to verge on weakness (faiblesse) with respect to the appearance of the lack of vigor and force as well as softness. The true gentleness lies not in the acquisition of truth and its articulation in an apathetic, impersonal, and demonstrative manner. Now we focus on the analysis of several other illuminating maxims on generosity and clemency: I: 105 The philosophers--and Seneca above all--did not eradicate crime by the advice they gave; they only used it to build up their own pride. Les Philosophes et Sénèque surtout, n’ont point ôté les crimes par leurs préceptes, ils n’ont fait que les employer au bâtiment de l’orgueil. V: 15 The clemency of rulers is often merely a strategy to win their subjects’ affections. La clémence des princes n’est souvent qu’une politique pour gagner l’affection des peuples. V: 16 Such clemency, which is treated as a virtue, is prompted sometimes by vanity, sometimes by laziness, often by fear, and nearly always by all three together. Cette clémence dont on fait une vertu se pratique tantôt par vanité, quelquefois par paresse, souvent par crainte, et presque toujours par tous les trois ensemble. V: 246 What seems to be generosity is often merely a disguised form of ambition, which disdains small interests in order to pursue great ones. Ce qui paraît générosité n’est souvent qu’une ambition déguisée qui méprise les petits intérêts, pour aller à de plus grands. La Rochefoucauld’s moral skepticism about Seneca’s clemency is based, at least in part, on reading Montaigne’s translation of De Clementia 1.9 in his Essays in the wake of the Neo-Stoic fad in seventeenth-century France. His initial collaborator on the Maximes, or at least his interlocutor and corre- 19 Isabelle Chariatte, La Rochefoucauld et la culture mondaine. Portraits du cœur de l’homme. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2011, p. 202. Jiani (Stephanie) Fan PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 192 spondent, Jacques Esprit, in La Fausseté des vertus humaines, a cynical Jansenist pamphlet, relentlessly denounced Seneca’s clemency through numerous direct literary references to Seneca’s works. “What am I to do, then? Am I to let my assassin stroll about without a care while I’m wracked by anxiety? Will he not be punished, when he has undertaken not just to kill me but to offer me up as a blood sacrifice”—for Cinna had decided to attack Augustus when he was sacrificing—“after I have survived attacks in so many civil wars, so many naval and ground skirmishes, and brought peace on land and sea? ” (De Clementia, I,9) 20 Now let us attempt to create a parody of Pascal’s wager about happiness. This transaction effectuated by generosity could be reformulated as: “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that you should practice generosity and clemency. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.” Now, let us undertake to make an account of the total balance in the ledger book about what Augustus has gained and lost through adopting clemency, magnanimity, and generosity. Am I to let my assassin stroll about without a care while I’m wracked by anxiety? (Seneca, De Clementia, I, 9) For the Stoics, anxiety (sollicitus) and fear as emotional reactions against external stimuli due to cognitive errors are the tyranny of passion. These passions should be extirpated because they are the chief enemies against equanimity as a character trait of a sage. Clemency and generosity function as effective antidotes to purge these disturbing emotions through eradicating the origin of these emotions, namely, the dilemma between assassinating Cinna as transgressing Mark Anthony’s edict for the proscription and being murdered. Although Seneca is clearly dramatizing here with all this direct speech, through La Rochefoucauld’s lens, this one transaction is accomplished by generosity and clemency to achieve the disguised ambition of more considerable interests through sacrificing a little interest. Moreover, Seneca contradicts himself in his narrative concerning Cinna and Augustus, before he claims that generosity should not be achieved “at another’s expense” but “gives what he gives at some cost to himself” (Seneca, XX, 3), but rather release another from distress and anxiety through one’s lenience. In the story of Cinna, Augustus demonstrates his clemency for the purpose of cleansing his fear and anxiety instead of an altruistic goal. This egoism-oriented motivation of Augustus’ self-claimed clemency testifies to 20 I quote the English translation of De Clementia from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Anger, Mercy, Revenge. Translated by Robert A. Kaster, and Martha C. Nussbaum. University of Chicago Press, 2010. François de La Rochefoucauld’s Appropriation and Unmasking of Seneca PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 193 La Rochefoucauld’s pungent hermeneutic of suspicion of these specific Stoic virtues, indicating fear as a hidden motivation behind the ostensibly clement actions. Such clemency, which is treated as a virtue, is prompted sometimes by vanity, sometimes by laziness, often by fear, and nearly always by all three together. [I-V] La Rochefoucauld incisively discloses another contemptible and disguised stimulus of clemency, namely laziness, as an inversed character trait for magnanimity and strength of character. In the same vein, Seneca also contradicted himself when applauding Augustus’s clemency (De Clementia I, 9) and condemning his camouflaged clemency through revealing the hidden script of exhausted cruelty (lassam crudelitatem) to kill Cinna, 21 due to the restriction of old age and crushing defeat in the next section of De Clementia. Additionally, according to Seneca, the scene with Cinna took place when Augustus was around forty years old, which is considered old age in ancient Rome. Moreover, Seneca portrays clemency as “the mind’s inclination toward mildness in exacting punishment (inclinatio animi ad lenitatem in poena exigenda).” David Konstan asserts several times that clemency is the overall innate or habitual and even settled disposition of a person to feel and behave in place of fickle emotion or impulse. 22 Conversely, although Augustus was labeled as mild, his tender temperament was offset by his cruelty in his youth, such as when he “stabbed friends in the heart” and “tried to ambush Mark Anthony” (De Clementia, I, 9). In the case of Augustus’s renunciation of exacting revenge on Cinna, his clemency was triggered by extremely agitating fear embodied by “a groan” and “wracked by anxiety” (De Clementia, I,9). Augustus’s inclination toward being manipulated by perturbing emotion as a marionette demonstrates the defects of character, especially pusillanimity. As a matter of fact, under the disguise of clemency, Augustus’s clemency is a condescending and tyrannical generosity, originated in self-interest and the will to domination regardless of his impotence and pusillanimity. It serves as a substitute for an innate virtuous character of magnanimity. The character traits of clemency as a virtue should consist of indifference towards the vicissitudes of destiny and pleasure, and constancy, sangfroid, and impassibility before suffering and death. Under these difficult circumstances, it still strives to accomplish praiseworthy and noble undertakings. La Rochefoucauld reveals the deep moral psychology of magnanimity as premises of clemency: “Magnanimity is a noble effort of pride, which makes a man master of himself 21 See the discussion about lassam crudelitatem in Guillaume Flamerie de Lachapelle, “Jacques Esprit, Sénèque et la clémence”, Anabases, 4 | 2006, p. 115. 22 David Konstan, “Clemency as a Virtue.” Classical Philology 100.4 (2005): 337-346. Jiani (Stephanie) Fan PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 194 so that he can master all things.” 23 Nonetheless, Augustus shows evidence of clemency not based on the strength of character trained through constantly ascetic self-overcoming, a will to power, and mastery of the self and all things, but on shrewd and utilitarian calculation of interests. At any rate, it seems that Augustus’s gesture, as reported, was exaggerated if a typical act of imperial clemency, one of the vaunted virtues of the emperor. As one would expect, even Seneca acknowledges to Nero that this gesture and the virtue to which it is attached is useful and self-interested—so that clemency entails self-interest for each individual agent, to some extent, has already been admitted in their estimation. 24 Remarkably, when writing De Clementia, Seneca does not intend clemency to be an abstract consideration of a specific virtue and its nature. Moreover, he was not much more insistent that practicing clemency as a virtuous behavior should be practiced just because it is virtuous, nor that virtue is its own reward. This book is primarily a practical attempt to persuade the most powerful person Nero in the world— a person whose limitations of character Seneca observes very closely—that being merciful was not just a matter of cultivating virtue for virtue’s sake but was very much in his practical interest. The account he gives of the virtue has a very consequentialist emphasis as a result, but the goal he was trying to achieve was not an unworthy one, if it could have the effect of tempering a narcissist’s worst impulses and thereby save lives, although these impulses ended up running essentially unchecked. The unfinished state of the treatise just might reflect his unhappy realization that—with Nero being Nero—he was only wasting his breath and his time. 25 Seneca spells out a concept of clemency as “the leniency of a superior towards an inferior in fixing punishment (lenitas superioris adversus inferiorem in constituendis poenis)” (De Clementia, II, 3). With regard to the power dynamics of superior and inferior in the transaction through clemency, I consent to David Konstan’s denial of clemency as “the arbitrary mercy, bound by no law” or as “a despotic trait offensive to the Roman aristocracy.” Still, on different grounds in the specific case of Augustus: first, although no civic laws, such as sumptuary usury laws, stipulate the practice of clemency, the natural law of moral psychology, such as everyone is dragged by self-interest, might be applicable here; second, I question the validity of David Konstan’s statement that superior and inferior refers to the legal or practical authority 23 I: 127, “La magnanimité est un noble effort de l’orgueil, par lequel il rend l’homme maître de lui-même, pour le rendre maître de toutes choses.” François de La Rochefoucauld, Collected Maxims and Other Reflections, 2007, p. 167. 24 I’d like to express my gratitude towards Professor Brent Shaw for pointing out this issue. 25 Thanks to Professor Robert Kaster for making this important comment. François de La Rochefoucauld’s Appropriation and Unmasking of Seneca PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 195 of demonstrating leniency towards penalty in place of social status. 26 I would like to, at least, propose another interpretation of the dynamic status of the superior and the inferior constructed by the cycling gift system of reciprocity as a sophisticated calculation of gains and losses and a competition of powers with the intention of domination. Specifically in the case of Cinna and Augustus, as Augustus pretends that his sovereignty cannot be guaranteed in confrontation with Cinna as a potential usurper: “Do you mean to be prince yourself? My God, the Roman people, are in a bad way if I’m the only thing between you and supreme authority! ” (De Clementia, I,9). The principle of a symbolic transaction of honor and prestige, as well as the trade of material capitals between Augustus and Cinna, lie in what La Rochefoucauld observes with his perspicacious eyes: “What seems to be generosity is often merely a disguised form of ambition, which disdains small interests in order to pursue great ones.” 27 In terms of this generosity under the disguise of ambition for greater interests at the expense of small interests, it is legitimate to draw a convincing analogy between Augustus and Cinna’s transaction and potlatch investigated by Marcel Mauss with some minor revisions. The allegedly altruistic gesture of potlatch results in many significant ramifications, most of which apply to the case of clemency and generosity between Augustus and Cinna. 28 Ostensibly, the manifestation of Augustus’ gifts, such as leniency in penalty and even conferring consulship to his potential assassin, witnesses several notches above Cinna’s plot and crime, not only marking the social status of the benefactor within the framework of potlatch but also enhancing Augustus’ reputation: “he’s been caught and now can do you no harm, though he can do your reputation some good” (De Clementia, I,9). Moreover, in the similar spirit of potlatch, Cinna was obliged to be embroiled in the spiral of reciprocation 29 through promising to 26 Konstan, 2005, p. 339. 27 “Ce qui paraît générosité n’est souvent qu’une ambition déguisée qui méprise les petits intérêts, pour aller à de plus grands.” François de La Rochefoucauld. Collected Maxims and Other Reflections, 2007, p. 71. 28 With regard to the definition and analysis of potlatch in the following sentences of this paragraph, I refer to Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. London/ New York: Routledge, 2002 and Tom Jaine, “Potlatch.” In Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press, 2014. Oxford Reference, date accessed Nov. 19, 2020: <https: / / www.oxfordreference.com/ view/ 10.1093/ acref/ 9780199677337.001.00 01/ acref-9780199677337-e-1931>. 29 Tom Jaine, “Potlatch.” In Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford Reference, date accessed Nov. 19, 2020: Jiani (Stephanie) Fan PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 196 forfeit his future conspiracy and thus spared Augustus’ life, the most valuable property for Augustus. Remarkably, Augustus also stressed that “he had Cinna as his dearest and most loyal friend and was his sole heir (heres)” (De Clementia, I, 9). As heres, Augustus could inherit a whole lot of Cinna’s properties, as a mark of his status as a beneficiary of Augustus’ clemency, expression of his allegiance, and indebtedness to Augustus. However, the Lex Falcidia protected the heres from the excessive dispensation of the patrimony to legatees—he had to leave at least a quarter of the whole estate to the heres. Presumably, we don’t know what sort of final dispensation that Cinna made, but Augustus, as sole heir, would get at least one-quarter of the whole. 30 Both Augustus and Cinna were obliged to be enmeshed in the roles of a giver and a recipient. Augustus and Cinna, both as recipients and donators in turns, “possess some kind of right of property over anything that belongs to the donor,” 31 that is to say, their own lives. Augustus spares Cinna, unlike the others mentioned by Livia in her “speech,” because of his very noble birth, youth, and relationship with Pompey, to whom Augustus was himself related. He decided that Cinna would be more useful as a political ally. In this case, he seems to have been correct, but this is the only example of such a pardon that we know of. Augustus also imitates Julius Caesar, who pardoned so many but still ended up being killed by the men he had spared. After all, this is not a strictly historical account but the use of an episode for Seneca’s purposes, written in a very different period. This analysis of Seneca’s writing for his purposes, like hermeneutics of suspicion, unmasks one more layer of the mask on the historical facts and moral psychology, besides La Rochefoucauld. 32 The rejection of the bond of alliance conduces to a declaration of war in the case of potlatch and bloodshed in this specific case of clemency. Analogous to the gift exchange system of potlatch, generosity through transferring interests on equal or overweight footing dispels the <https: / / www.oxfordreference.com/ view/ 10.1093/ acref/ 9780199677337.001.00 01/ acref-9780199677337-e-1931>. 30 Thanks to Professor Brent Shaw to clarify the issue of heres and legatee to me: would prevent a person writing a last will and testament (here Cinna) from giving away more than three-quarters of his/ her estate to legatees (i.e. in legacies to persons other than the heir)—so that Augustus would be guaranteed of receiving no less than one-quarter of Cinna’s wealth. Of course, exactly what disposition of his wealth that Cinna did make in his testament, we are not told. See also Robert Samuel Rogers, “The Roman emperors as heirs and legatees.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 78. Johns Hopkins University Press, American Philological Association, 1947, pp. 142-143. 31 Mauss, 2002, p. 18. 32 I’d like to express my gratitude towards Professor Harriet Flower for pointing out this issue. François de La Rochefoucauld’s Appropriation and Unmasking of Seneca PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 197 rivalry between the giver and the recipient and even establishes hierarchical structure in the competition of honors, when a giver heaps extravagant gifts on the recipient such as granting a second life and consulship to Cinna or Cinna sparing Augustus his life. Despite the intricate and duplicitous calculation of interests behind the generous behaviors of both sides, from a utilitarian viewpoint, the private self-interest of the two individual agents as a potential vice increases the wellbeing of both agents in a win-win situation and creates huge social benefits. In spite of that, judging Augustus’ deeds and intentions based on the criteria of utility and outcome of the maintenance of power is such a Machiavellian gesture, according to whom, the use of generosity should comply with the necessity of hostile circumstances instead of good (The Prince, 15). Nonetheless, one of the differences between potlatch and the transaction between Augustus and Cinna lies in the fact that conferring a consulship on Cinna did not deplete any of the prince’s possession but preserved the most precious and priceless treasure for Augustus—his own life—as well as conferred himself on as sole heir of Cinna. Here, Augustus can be deemed a figure of a Machiavellian fox, able to recognize traps and set traps. Specifically, Augustus does not live up to all the idea virtues which might be detrimental to his rule, but seem to have them and guaranteed his sovereignty without disclosing his feebleness: “Everyone sees what you seem to be; few have direct experience of what you are” (Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 18, 55). This sleight of hand scarcely matches up to the orthodox Stoic moral doctrine that “The nearest path to glory [...] is to behave in such a way that one is what one wishes to be thought [...] The greatest effect is achieved, then, by being what we wish to seem” (Cicero, On Duties, sec. 44, 79). Augustus lacked in the physical strength and strength of character to emulate and then gradually embody the virtue through behaving in the manner of what one aspires for. Machiavelli might inspire La Rochefoucauld and therefore advocates strength and power when delivering a eulogy of the strength of character. Implicitly or even unconsciously, he shows admiration for the Nietzschean will to power and adopts a new scale of values and reverses the hierarchy of good and evil through the ethics of force, when sublimating the ought-to-be clemency as a natural human virtue and denouncing its feeble and vain counterfeit embodiment in the exhausted cruelty. The new scale of value grounded in the potency and strength follows the same logic of Machiavelli’s substitution of a prince’s virtù for conventional virtues related to a prince. To be specific, the traditional doctrine of virtue assumes a symbiotic relationship between a prince’s ethical traits and a polity’s character, and the latter corresponds to the former. Furthermore, Jiani (Stephanie) Fan PFSCL, LII, 102 DOI 10.24053/ PFSCL-2025-0012 198 engagement with political life conduces to moral development. 33 On the contrary, virtù, in the sense of energetic living force and as an antonym to sloth and laziness (lassam crudelitatem) instead of being opposed to vice, 34 requires a prince to commit cruelty and nonchalance under certain appropriate circumstances. Thus, virtù related to the will to power is analogous to Nietzschean master drive, which channels all the dispersed and agitating drives into the very one most grandiose enterprise. The Stoics advocate character traits of a sage such as generosity, clemency, magnanimity, and a human soul as a part of divine substance. Consequently, Stoics espoused human beings’ free will, believed that human beings could attain perfection, and considered human beings as equal as God through indulging themselves in presumption characterized by excessive confidence. In conclusion, when exposing the hidden, insidious motivations of stoic virtues through the hermeneutics of demystification, La Rochefoucauld, as a Christian humanist, foreshadows the insinuation of Christian morality into the court society. For that reason, La Rochefoucauld still criticizes the deep driving force of selflove and concupiscence exemplified by vanity, for “gaining people’s affection,” as “a noble effort of pride” (La Rochefoucauld) and a maneuver of masking feebleness as virtue behind the ostensible strength of character, clemency, and generosity from an Augustinian view. 33 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince. Translated with Introduction and Notes by James B. Atkinson (Atkinson Edition). Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008, pp. 258-260. 34 Neal Wood, “Machiavelli’s Concept of virtù Reconsidered.” Political Studies 15.2 (1967), p. 160.