person
Terentia
The beautiful and difficult wife of Maecenas, famous for her quarrels and reconciliations with him; here a byword for a life of luxurious misery preferable, Seneca says, to none.
Reading notes
- On Providence §3.11 Terentia
The beautiful, quarrelsome wife of Maecenas; Seneca's point is that even the man who would rather be Maecenas than Regulus would, if honest, rather be Terentia — i.e. would choose any luxury over virtue's hardship.