innocent; his character was injured, but not the lives of the people.
His conduct, however, soon became more censurable; he was guilty of
various acts which cannot be even named with decency. The cruelty of
his nature was displayed in the sacrifice of his wives Octavia and
Poppæa; and the celebrated writers, Seneca, Lucan, Petronius, &c.,
became the victims of his wantonness. The Christians did not escape
his barbarity. He had heard of the burning of Troy, and as he wished
to renew that dismal scene, he caused Rome to be set on fire in
different places. The conflagration became soon universal, and during
nine successive days the fire was unextinguished. All was desolation;
nothing was heard but the lamentations of mothers whose children had
perished in the flames, the groans of the dying, and the continual fall
of palaces and buildings.
Nero was the only one who enjoyed the general consternation. He placed
himself on a high tower and he sang on his lyre the destruction
of Troy; a dreadful scene which his barbarity had realized before
his eyes. He attempted to avert the public odium from his head, by
a feigned commiseration of the sufferings of his subjects, and by
charging the fire upon the Christians. He caused great numbers of them
to be seized and put to death. Some were covered with the skins of wild
beasts, and killed by dogs set upon them; others were crucified; others
were smeared with pitch and burned, at night, in the imperial gardens,
for the amusement of the people!
Nero began to repair the streets and the public buildings at his own
expense. He built himself a celebrated palace, which he called his
golden house. It was profusely adorned with gold and precious stones,
and with whatever was rare and exquisite. It contained spacious fields,
artificial lakes, woods, gardens, orchards, and every device that
could exhibit beauty and grandeur. The entrance to this edifice would
admit a colossal image of the emperor, one hundred and twenty feet
high; the galleries were each a mile long, and the whole was covered
with gold. The roofs of the dining halls represented the firmament, in
motion as well as in figure, and continually turned round, night and
day, showering all sorts of perfumes and sweet waters. When this grand
edifice, which, according to Pliny, extended all round the city, was
finished, Nero said that he could now lodge like a man!
His profusion was not less remarkable in all his other actions. When
he went fishing, his nets were made with gold and silk. He never
appeared twice in the same garment, and when he undertook a voyage,
there were thousands of servants to take care of his wardrobe. His
continued debauchery, cruelty, and extravagance at last roused the
resentment of the people. Many conspiracies were formed against him,
but they were generally discovered, and such as were accessory,
suffered the greatest punishments. One of the most dangerous plots
against Nero’s life was that of Piso, from which he was delivered
by the confession of a slave. The conspiracy of Galba proved more
successful; for the conspirator, when he was informed that his design
was known to Nero, declared himself emperor. The unpopularity of Nero
favored his cause; he was acknowledged by the whole Roman empire, and
the senate condemned the tyrant, that sat on the throne, to be dragged,
naked, through the streets of Rome, whipped to death, and afterwards
to be thrown from the Tarpeian rock, like the meanest malefactor.
This, however, was not done, for Nero, by a voluntary death, prevented
the execution of the sentence. He killed himself, A. D. 68, in the
thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of thirteen years and
eight months.
Rome was filled with acclamations at the intelligence of this event,
and the citizens, more strongly to indicate their joy, wore caps such
as were generally used by slaves who had received their freedom. Their
vengeance was not only exercised against the statues of the deceased
tyrant, but his friends were the objects of the public resentment, and
many were crushed to pieces in such a violent manner, that one of the
senators, amid the universal joy, said that he was afraid they should
soon have cause to wish for Nero. The tyrant, as he expired, begged
that his head might not be cut off from his body and exposed to the
insolence of an enraged populace, but that the whole might be burned
on a funeral pile. His request was granted, and his obsequies were
performed with the usual ceremonies.
Though his death seemed to be the source of universal gladness, yet
many of his favorites lamented his fall, and were grieved to see
that their pleasures and amusements were terminated by the death of
the patron of debauchery and extravagance. Even the king of Parthia
sent ambassadors to Rome to condole with the Romans, and to beg that
they would honor and revere the memory of Nero. His statues were
also crowned with garlands of flowers, and many believed that he was
not dead, but that he would soon make his appearance and take a due
vengeance upon his enemies. It will be sufficient to observe, in
finishing the character of this tyrannical emperor and detestable man,
that the name of _Nero_ is, even now, the common designation of a
barbarous and unfeeling oppressor.
[Illustration]
LUCIUS ANNÆUS SENECA.
This individual, whose “Morals” are so familiar to us, was born
at Corduba, in Spain, six years before Christ. His father was a
rhetorician of some celebrity, and a portion of his works has come down
to our time. While Lucius was yet a child, he removed from Corduba to
Rome, which henceforward became his residence. The son, possessing
very promising talents, received the greatest care and attention in
respect to his education. He was taught eloquence by his father, and
took lessons in philosophy from the most celebrated masters. According
to the custom of those who sought to excel in wisdom and knowledge, he
travelled in Greece and Egypt, after completing his studies, and his
work entitled _Quæstiones Naturales_ showed that he made good use of
his opportunities during this excursion; it also proves that he was
master of the science of his time.
Young Seneca was fascinated with the philosophical speculations of
the Stoics,[5] to which sect he became devoted. He even adopted the
austere modes of life they inculcated, and refused to eat the flesh of
animals; but when the emperor, Tiberius,[6] threatened to punish some
Jews and Egyptians for abstaining from certain meats, at the suggestion
of his father, he departed from this singularity. In compliance with
his father’s advice, who urged upon him the necessity of devoting
himself to some kind of business, he adopted the profession of an
advocate.
As a pleader, Seneca appeared to great advantage, and consequently
excited the envy of Caligula, who aspired to the reputation of an
orator. Apprehensive of the consequences, he changed his views, and
became a candidate for the honors and offices of the state. He was made
prætor, under Claudius, but, being charged with a shameful intrigue
with a lady of rank, he was banished to Corsica. Though his guilt was
not satisfactorily proved, he continued for five years in exile; during
which period he wrote a treatise on Consolation. In this, he seems to
draw contentment and peace from philosophical views, and one would
fancy that he was elevated by these, above the evils of his condition.
Yet, unhappily for his reputation in respect to consistency and
sincerity, history tells us that, at this period, he was suing to the
emperor in the most abject terms for restitution.
Claudius[7] at length married Agrippina, and Seneca, being recalled,
was made preceptor of Nero, the son of Agrippina, who was destined to
become emperor. From the favorable traits of character displayed by
the pupil of the philosopher in the early part of his career, it might
seem that Seneca’s instructions had exerted a good influence over him.
But an impartial scrutiny of the events of that period has led to the
probable conclusion that he was a pander to the worst of Nero’s vices.
It is certain that he acquired immense wealth in a short period of
time, and it appears that this was obtained through the munificence
of his royal patron. The latter was avaricious and mercenary, and was
likely to part with his money only for such things as ministered to his
voluptuous passions.
The possessions of Seneca were enormous. He had several gardens and
villas in the country, and a magnificent palace in Rome. This was
sumptuously furnished, and contained five hundred tables of cedar,
with feet of ivory, and all of exquisite workmanship. His ready cash
amounted to about twelve millions of dollars. It appears certain
that such riches could not have been acquired by means of Seneca’s
precepts; and the inference of many of his contemporaries, as well as
of posterity, has been, that the virtue which appears so lovely in his
pages was but the decorous veil of avarice, vice, and crime.
For a period after his accession to the throne, Nero’s conduct was
deserving of praise; but he soon threw off all regard even to decency,
and launched forth upon that career which has made his name a by-word
and reproach for all after time. Seneca, being accused of having
amassed immense wealth by improper means, became greatly alarmed;
for he knew the tyrant so well as to foresee that, under color of
this charge, he was very likely to sacrifice him, in order to obtain
his property. Pretending, therefore, to be indifferent to riches, he
begged the emperor to accept of his entire fortune, and permit him to
spend the remainder of his days in the quiet pursuits of philosophy.
The emperor, with deep dissimulation, refused this offer—no doubt
intending in some other way to compass the ruin of Seneca.
Aware of his danger, the philosopher now kept himself at home for
a long period, as if laboring under disease. Some time after, a
conspiracy for the murder of Nero, headed by Piso, was detected.
Several of the most noble of the Roman senators were concerned, and
Seneca’s name was mentioned as an accessory. Nero, doubtless glad of an
opportunity to sacrifice him, now sent a command that he should destroy
himself.
It has been a question whether Seneca was really concerned in the
conspiracy of Piso. The proof brought against him was not indeed
conclusive, but it is obvious that his position might lead him to
desire the death of the tyrant, as the only means of safety to himself;
and Seneca’s character, unfortunately, is not such as to shield his
memory against strong suspicion of participation in the alleged crime.
Seneca was at table, with his wife, Paulina, and two of his friends,
when the messenger of Nero arrived. He heard the words which commanded
him to take his own life, with philosophic firmness, and even with
apparent joy. He observed that such a mandate might long have been
expected from a man who had murdered his own mother and assassinated
his best friends. He wished to dispose of his possessions as he
pleased, but his request was refused. When he heard this, he turned to
those around who were weeping at his fate, and told them, that, since
he could not leave them what he believed his own, he would leave them
at least his own life for an example—an innocent conduct, which they
might imitate, and by which they might acquire immortal fame.
Against their tears and wailings, he exclaimed with firmness, and asked
them whether they had not learned better to withstand the attacks of
fortune and the violence of tyranny. As for his wife, he attempted to
calm her emotions, and when she seemed resolved to die with him, he
said he was glad to have his example followed with so much constancy.
Their veins were opened at the same moment; but Nero, who was partial
to Paulina, ordered the blood to be stopped, and her life was thus
preserved.
Seneca’s veins bled but slowly, and the conversation of his dying
moments was collected by his friends, and preserved among his works. To
hasten his death, he drank a dose of poison, but it had no effect, and
therefore he ordered himself to be carried to a hot bath, to accelerate
the operation of the draught, and to make the blood flow more freely.
This was attended with no better success, and, as the soldiers were
clamorous, he was carried into a stove, and suffocated by the steam.
Thus he died, in the 66th year of the Christian era.
The death of Seneca has been loudly applauded, and has sometimes been
pronounced sublime; but this is owing to an ignorance of the time,
and inattention to Seneca’s own doctrines. With the Stoics, death was
nothing; “It is not an evil, but the absence of all evil.” This was
their creed. With such principles, there could be no fear of death,
and consequently, we find that courage to die—if it be courage to
encounter that which is not an evil—was common in Seneca’s time. “At
that period of languor and luxury,” says M. Nisard, “of monstrous
effeminacies, of appetites for which the world could hardly suffice—of
perfumed baths, of easy and disorderly intrigues, there were daily men
of all ranks, of all fortunes, of all ages, who released themselves
from their evils by death. How was it possible for them to avoid
suicide, with no other consolation than the philosophy of Seneca, and
his theories on the delights of poverty?
“Marcellinus[8] is attacked with a painful but curable malady. He is
young, rich, has slaves, friends, everything to make life pleasant: no
matter, he conceives the fancy of the pleasure of dying. He assembles
his friends; he consults them as if he were going to marry. He
discusses with them his project of suicide, and puts it to the vote.
Some advise him to do as he pleases; but a Stoic, a friend of Seneca’s,
then present, exhorts him bravely to die. His principal reason is that
he is _ennuyé_. No one contradicts the Stoic. Marcellinus thanks his
friends, and distributes money to his slaves. He abstains for three
days from all food, and is then carried into a warm bath, where he
quickly expires, having muttered some words on the pleasure he felt in
dying.
“This pleasure was so little of an affectation, so much had it become
the fashion, that some of the austere Stoics thought themselves bound
to place certain restrictions upon it. They committed suicide from
_ennui_, from idleness, from want of patience to cure themselves of
their ills,—for distraction—much in the same way that they killed
each other in duels, under Cardinal Richelieu.”
Viewed in this light, Seneca’s death had nothing in it of the sublime:
he yielded but to a fashion; he only practised what was common. If he
sincerely believed his professed creed—that death is the absence
of all evil—he neither evinced courage nor dignity; if he did not
believe, then his conduct displayed but the skilful acting of a part,
and under circumstances which mark him with the deepest hypocrisy.
It is impossible to deny that Seneca’s works are full of wisdom, though
they fall far short of the Christian’s philosophy. In his treatise upon
benefits, for example, we have the following passage:—
“The good will of the benefactor is the fountain of all benefits;
nay, it is the benefit itself, or, at least, the stamp that makes it
valuable and current. Some there are, I know, that take the matter
for the benefit, and tax the obligation by weight and measure. When
anything is given them, they presently cast it up—‘What may such a
house be worth? such an office? such an estate?’ as if that were the
benefit which is only the sign and mark of it, for the obligation
rests in the mind, not in the matter; and all those advantages which
we see, handle, or hold in actual possession, by the courtesy of
another, are but several modes or ways of explaining and putting the
good will in execution. There needs no subtlety to prove that both
benefits and injuries receive their value from the intention, when
even brutes themselves are able to decide this question. Tread upon a
dog by chance, or put him in pain upon the dressing of a wound, the
one he passes by as an accident, and the other, in his fashion, he
acknowledges as a kindness. But offer to strike at him—though you do
him no hurt at all—he flies in the face of you, even for the mischief
that you barely meant him.”
This is all just and true: it makes the heart the seat of moral action,
and thus far coincides with the Christian’s philosophy. But if there be
nothing after death, what sanction has virtue? It may be more beautiful
than vice, and consequently preferable, just as a sweet perfume is
more desirable than an offensive odor. It is good taste, therefore,
to be virtuous. Still, each individual may choose for himself, and
without future responsibility, for all alike must share the oblivion
of the tomb. The insufficiency of this philosophy to ensure virtue, is
attested by the life of Seneca, as well as that of most of his sect. It
resulted in the grossest hypocrisy; an ostentation of virtue, covering
up the practice of vice.
[Illustration]
[Footnote 5: The Stoics were the followers of Zeno, a Greek philosopher
of Citium. They professed to prefer virtue to everything else, and
to regard vice as the greatest of evils. They required an absolute
command over the passions, and maintained the ability of man to attain
perfection and felicity in this life. They encouraged suicide, and held
that the doctrine of rewards and punishments was unnecessary to enforce
virtue upon mankind.]
[Footnote 6: Tiberius succeeded Augustus Cæsar, as emperor; at his
succession he gave promise of a happy reign, but he soon disgraced
himself by debauchery, cruelty, and the most flagitious excesses. It
was wittily said of him by Seneca that he was never intoxicated but
once, for when he became drunk, his whole life was a continued state of
inebriety. He died A. D. 37, after a reign of twenty-two years, and was
succeeded by Caligula.
For a brief period, Rome now enjoyed prosperity and peace; but the
young emperor soon became proud, cruel and corrupt. He caused a temple
to be erected to himself, and had his own image set in the place of
Jupiter and the other deities. He often amused himself by putting
innocent people to death; he attempted to famish Rome, and even wished
that the Romans had one head, that he might strike it off at a blow! At
last, weary of his cruelties, several persons formed a conspiracy and
murdered him, A. D. 41. History does not furnish another instance of so
great a monster as Caligula.]
[Footnote 7: Claudius succeeded Caligula in 41, and, after a reign of
thirteen years, he was poisoned by his wife, Agrippina.]
[Footnote 8: Seneca, Ess. lxxvii.]
VIRGIL.
Mantua, the capital of New Etruria itself built three centuries before
Rome, had the honor of giving birth to Publius Virgilius Maro. This
event happened on or near the fifteenth of October, seventy years B.
C, or during the first consulship of Pompey the Great and Licinius
Crassus. Who his father was, and even to what country he belonged, has
been the subject of much dispute. Some assert that he was a potter of
Andes; but the most probable account is, that he was either a wandering
astrologer, who practised physic, or a servant to one of this learned
fraternity. It is observed by Juvenal, that _medicus, magus_ usually
went together, and that this course of life was principally followed
by the Greeks and Syrians; to one of these nations, therefore, it
is presumed, Virgil owes his birth. His mother, Maia, was of good
extraction, being nearly related to Quintilius Varus, of whom honorable
mention is made in the history of the second Carthaginian war.
It appears that all due attention was paid to young Virgil’s education.
He passed through his initiatory exercises at Mantua; thence he removed
to Cremona, and afterwards to Milan. In all these places he prosecuted
his studies with the most diligent application, associating with the
eminent professors of every department of science, and devoting whole
nights to the best Latin and Greek authors. In the latter he was
greatly assisted by his proximity to Marseilles, the only Greek colony
that maintained its refinement and purity of language, amidst the
overwhelming influence of all the barbarous nations that surrounded
it. At first, he devoted himself to the Epicurean philosophy, but
receiving no satisfactory reason for its tenets from his master, the
celebrated Syro, he passed over to the academic school, where physics
and mathematics became his favorite sciences; and these he continued to
cultivate, at leisure moments, during his whole life.
At Milan, he composed a great number of verses on various subjects,
and, in the warmth of early youth, framed a noble design of writing
an heroic poem, on the Wars of Rome; but, after some attempts, he was
discouraged from proceeding, by the abruptness and asperity of the old
Roman names.
It is said that he here formed the plan and collected the materials
for his principal poems. Some of these he had even begun; but a too
intense application to his studies, together with abstinence and
night-watching, had so impaired his health, that an immediate removal
to a more southern part of Italy was deemed absolutely necessary for
the preservation of his existence. He fixed upon Naples, and visiting
Rome in his way, had the honor, through the interest of his kinsman
and fellow-student, Varus, of being introduced to the emperor,
Octavius, who received him with the greatest marks of esteem, and
earnestly recommended his affairs to the protection of Pollio, then
lieutenant of Cisalpine Gaul, where Virgil’s patrimony lay, and who
generously undertook to settle his domestic concerns. Having this
assurance, he pursued his journey to Naples. The charming situation
of this place, the salubrity of the air, and the constant society of
the greatest and most learned men of the time, who resorted to it,
not only re-established his health, but contributed to the formation
of that style and happy turn of verse in which he surpassed all his
cotemporaries.
To rank among the poets of their country, was, at this time, the
ambition of the greatest heroes, statesmen, and orators of Rome.
Cicero, Octavius, Pollio, Julius Cæsar, and even the stoical Brutus,
had been carried away by the impetuosity of the stream; but that genius
which had never deserted them in the forum, or on the day of battle,
shrunk dismayed at a comparison with the lofty muse of Virgil; and,
although they endeavored, by placing their poems in the celebrated
libraries, to hand them down to posterity, scarcely a single verse of
these illustrious authors survived the age in which they lived. This
preponderence of fashion, however, was favorable to Virgil; he had for
some time devoted himself to the study of the law, and even pleaded one
cause with indifferent success; but yielding now to the impulse of the
age and his own genius, he abandoned the profession and resumed with
increased ardor the cultivation of that talent for which he afterwards
became so distinguished.
Captivated at an early age by the pastorals of Theocritus, Virgil was
ambitious of being the primitive introducer of that species of poetry
among the Romans. His first performance in this way, entitled Alexis,
is supposed to have appeared when the poet was in his twenty-fifth
year. Palæmon, which is a close imitation of the fourth and fifth Idyls
of Theocritus, was probably his second; but as this period of the life
of Virgil is enveloped in a considerable degree of obscurity,—few
writers on the subject having condescended to notice such particulars
as chronological arrangement,—little more than surmise can be
offered to satisfy the researches of the curious. The fifth eclogue
was composed in allusion to the death and deification of Cæsar, and
is supposed to have been written subsequently to Silenus, his sixth
eclogue. This is said to have been publicly recited on the stage, by
the comedian Cytheris, and to have procured its author that celebrity
and applause to which the peculiar beauty and sweetness of the poem so
justly entitled him.