_SENECA AND HIS VISITORS_
‘Videtur mihi cadere in sapientem ægritudo.’--CIC. _Tusc.
Disp._ iii. 4.
Burrus was a man in the prime of life, whose whole bearing was that
of an honest and fearless Roman; but his look was gloomy, and those
who had seen him when he escorted Nero to the camp and the senate
house, noticed how fast the wrinkles seemed to be gathering on his
open brow.
We need not repeat the conversation which took place between the
friendly ministers, but it was long and troubled. Burrus felt,
no less strongly than Seneca, that affairs at Court were daily
assuming a more awkward complexion. The mass of the populace, and
of the nobles, rejoicing in the general tranquillity, were happily
ignorant of facts which filled with foreboding the hearts of the two
statesmen. The nobles and the people praised with rapture the speech
which Nero had pronounced before the Senate after the funeral honours
had been paid to the murdered Claudius. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘no
wrongs to avenge; no ill feeling towards a single human being. I
will maintain the purity and independence of legal trials. In the
Palace there shall be no bribery and no intrigues. I will command
the army, but in no particular will I encroach upon the prerogatives
of the Conscript Fathers.’ Critics recognised in the speech the
style and sentiments of Seneca, but that only showed that at last
philosophy was at the helm of state. And the Fathers had really been
allowed to enact some beneficent and useful measures. It was the
beginning of a period of government of which the public and external
beneficence was due to Seneca and the Prætorian Præfect, who acted
together in perfect harmony, and with whom Nero was too indolent to
interfere. Long afterwards, so great a ruler as Trajan said that he
would emulate, but could not hope to equal, the fame of Nero’s golden
_quinquennium_.
But, meanwhile, unknown to the Roman world in general, the ‘golden
quinquennium’ was early stained with infamy and blood; and the
contemporary Pliny says that _all through his reign_ Nero was an
enemy of the human race.[9]
The turbulent ambition of Agrippina was causing serious misgivings.
When the senators were summoned to meet in the Palace she contrived
to sit behind a curtain and hear all their deliberations. When
Nero was about to receive the Armenian ambassadors she would have
scandalised the majesty of Rome by taking her seat unbidden beside
him on the throne, if Seneca had not had the presence of mind to
whisper to the Emperor that he should step down to meet his mother
and lead her to a seat. Worse than this, she had ordered the murder,
not only of Narcissus, but of the noble Junius Silanus, whose
brother, the affianced suitor of Octavia before her marriage with
Nero, she had already got rid of by false accusations which broke
his heart. She was doubly afraid of Junius, both because the blood
of Augustus flowed in his veins, and because she feared that he might
one day be the avenger of his brother, though he was a man of mild
disposition. She sent the freedman Helius and the knight Publius
Celer, who were procurators in Asia, to poison him at a banquet,
and the deed was done with a cynical boldness which disdained
concealment. So ended the great-great-grandson of Augustus, whom
his great-great-grandfather had just lived to see. It was only
with difficulty that Seneca and Burrus had been able to stop more
tragedies, and they had succeeded in making the world believe in
Nero’s unique clemency by the anecdote, everywhere retailed by
Seneca, that when called upon to sign a death-warrant he had
exclaimed, ‘I wish I did not know how to write!’ It was looked on
as a further sign of grace that he had forbidden the prosecution of
the knight Julius Densus, who was charged with favour towards the
wronged Britannicus.
But now a new trouble had arisen. Nero began to seek the company of
such effeminate specimens of the ‘gilded youth’ of Rome as Otho and
Tullius Senecio. They were his ready tutors in every vice, and he was
a pupil whose fatal aptitude soon equalled, if it did not surpass,
the viciousness of his instructors.
Partly through their bad influence, he had devoted himself heart and
soul to Acte, the beautiful freedwoman of Octavia. It was impossible
that any secret of the Palace could long be concealed from the
vigilant eyes of Agrippina. She had discovered the amour, and had
burst into furious reproaches. What angered her was, not that the
Emperor should disgrace himself by vice, but that a freedwoman should
interfere with the supremacy of her will, and be a rival with her
for the affections of her son. A little forbearance, a little calm
advice, might have proved a turning point in the life of one who
was not yet an abandoned libertine, but rather a shy and timid youth
dabbling with his first experiences of wrong. His nature, indeed, was
endowed with the evil legacy of many an hereditary taint, but if it
was as wax to the stamp of evil, it was not as yet incapable of being
moulded into good. But Agrippina committed two fatal errors. At first
she was loudly indignant, and when by such conduct she had terrified
her son into the confidence of Otho and Senecio, she saw her mistake
too late, and flew into the opposite extreme of complaisance. Nero at
that time regarded her with positive dread, but his fear was weakened
when he saw that, on the least sign of his displeasure, she passed
from fierce objurgations to complete submission. In dealing with her
son, Agrippina lost the astuteness which had carried her triumphantly
through all her previous designs.
But at this point Seneca also made a mistake no less ruinous. If he
had remonstrated, and endeavoured to awaken his pupil to honourable
ambition, it was not impossible that the world might have found in
Nero a better Emperor than most of his predecessors. Instead of
this, the philosopher adopted the fatal policy of concession. He
even induced his cousin Annæus Serenus, the Præfect of the police,
to shield Nero by pretending that he was himself in love with Acte,
and by conveying to her the presents which were, in reality, sent
to her by the Emperor. Seneca soon learnt by experience that the
bad is never a successful engine to use against the worst, and that
fire cannot be quenched by pouring oil upon it. When Nero had been
encouraged by a philosopher to think lightly of immorality,
the reins of his animal nature were seized by ‘the unspiritual
god Circumstance,’ and with mad pace he plunged into the abyss.
Burrus had come to tell Seneca that Nero’s passion for Acte was going
to such absurd lengths that he talked of suborning two Romans of
consular dignity to swear that the slave girl, who had been brought
from Asia, was in reality a descendant of Attalus, King of Pergamus!
The Senate would be as certain to accept the statement as they had
been to pretend belief that Pallas was a scion of Evander and the
ancient kings of Arcadia; and Nero had actually expressed to Burrus
a desire to divorce Octavia[*2] and marry Acte!
‘What did you say to him?’ asked Seneca.
‘I told him frankly that, if he divorced Octavia, he ought to restore
her dower.’
‘Her dower?’
‘Yes--the Roman Empire. He holds it because Claudius adopted him as
the husband of his daughter.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He pouted like a chidden boy, and I have not the least doubt that he
will remember the answer against me.’
‘But, Burrus,’ said Seneca, ‘I really think that we had better
promote, rather than oppose, this love-affair. Acte is harmless and
innocent. She will never abuse her influence to injure so much as a
fly; nay, more, she may wean Nero from far more dangerous excesses.
I think that in this case a little connivance may be the truest
policy. To tell you the truth, I have endeavoured to prevent scandal
by removing all difficulties out of the way.’
‘You are a philosopher,’ said Burrus, ‘and I suppose you know best.
It would not have been my way. We often perish by permitted things.
But, since you do not take so serious a view of this matter as I did,
I will say no more. Forgive a brief interview. My duties at the camp
require my presence. Farewell.’
Seneca, as we have seen, had spent a somewhat agitated day, but
he had one more visitor before the afternoon meal. It was the
philosopher Cornutus, who had been a slave in the family of the
Annæi, but was now free and had risen to the highest literary
distinction by his philosophical writings.
‘Cornutus is always a welcome visitor,’ he said, as he rose to greet
him; ‘never more so than this morning. I want to consult you, in deep
confidence, about the Emperor’s education.’
‘Can Seneca need any advice about education?’ said Cornutus. ‘Who has
written so many admirable precepts on the subject?’
Seneca, with infinite plausibility, related to his friend the
arguments which he had just used to Burrus. He felt a restless
desire that the Stoic should approve of what he had done. To fortify
his opinion he quoted Zeno and other eminent philosophers, who had
treated graver offences than that of Nero as mere _adiaphora_--things
of no real moment. Cornutus, however, at once tore asunder his web of
sophistry.
‘A thing is either right or wrong,’ he said; ‘if it is wrong no
amount of expediency can sanction it, no skill of special pleading
can make it other than reprehensible. The passions cannot be checked
by sanctioning their indulgence, but by training youth in the
manliness of self-control. You wish to prevent the Emperor from
disgracing himself with the crimes which rendered execrable the
reigns of Tiberius and Gaius. Can you do it otherwise than by
teaching him that what he _ought_ to do is also what he _can_ do?
Is the many-headed monster of the young man’s impulses to be checked
by giving it the mastery, or rather by putting it under the dominion
of his reason?’
‘I cannot judge by abstract considerations of ethics. I must judge as
a statesman,’ said Seneca, somewhat offended.
‘Then, if you are only a statesman, do not pretend to act as a
philosopher. I speak to you frankly, as one Stoic to another.’
Seneca said nothing. It was evident that he felt deeply hurt by the
bluntness of Cornutus, who paused for a moment, regarding him with a
look of pity. Then he continued.
‘If it pains you to hear the truth I will be silent; but if you wish
me to speak without reserve, you are committing two fatal errors.
You dream of controlling passion by indulging it. You are conceding
liberty in one set of vices in the vain hope of saving Nero from
another. But all vices are inextricably linked together. And you
have committed a second mistake, not only by addressing your pupil
in language of personal flattery, but also by inflating him with a
belief in his own illimitable power.’[10]
‘Nero is Emperor,’ answered Seneca curtly, ‘and, after all, he can
do whatever he likes.’
‘Yet even as Emperor he can be told the truth,’ replied Cornutus. ‘I
for one ventured to offend him yesterday.’
‘In what way?’
‘Your nephew Lucan was belauding Nero’s fantastic verses, and said he
wished Nero would write four hundred volumes. “Four hundred!” I said;
“that is far too many.” “Why?” said Lucan; “Chrysippus, whom you are
always praising, wrote four hundred.” “Yes,” I answered, “but they
were of use to mankind!” Nero frowned portentously, and I received
warning looks from all present; but if a true man is to turn
flatterer to please an Emperor, what becomes of his philosophy?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Seneca: ‘but _your_ pupil Persius is a youth of the
sweetest manners and the purest heart; whereas Nero is--Nero.’
‘A finer young Roman than Persius never lived,’ replied the Stoic,
‘but if I had encouraged Persius in the notion that vice was
harmless, Persius might have been--Nero.’
‘Cornutus,’ said the statesman--and as he said it he sighed deeply
--‘your lot is humbler and happier than mine. I do not follow, but I
assent; I am crushed by an awful weight of uncertainty, and sometimes
life seems a chaos of vanities. I wish to rise to a loftier grade
of virtue, but I am preoccupied with faults. All I can require of
myself is, not to be equal to the best, but only to be better than
the bad.’[11]
‘He who aims highest,’ said the uncompromising freedman, ‘will reach
the loftiest ideal. And surely it is hypocrisy to use fine phrases
when you do not intend to put your own advice into practice.’
Seneca was always a little touchy about his style, and he was now
thoroughly angry, for he was not accustomed to be thus bluntly
addressed by one so immeasurably beneath him in rank. ‘Fine phrases!’
he repeated, in a tone of deep offence. ‘It pleases you to be rude,
Cornutus. Perhaps the day will come when the “fine phrases” of
Seneca will still be read, though the name of Cornutus, and even
of Musonius, is forgotten.’
‘Very possibly,’ answered the uncompromising freedman. ‘Nevertheless,
I agree with Musonius that stylists who do not act up to their own
precepts should be called fiddlers and not philosophers.’
When Cornutus rose to leave, the feelings of the most envied man in
Rome were far from enviable. He would have given much to secure the
Stoic’s approval. And yet the sophistries by which he blinded his
own bitter feelings were unshaken. ‘Cornutus,’ he said to himself,
‘is not only discourteous but unpractical. Theory is one thing; life
another. We are in Rome, not in Plato’s Atlantis.’
Seneca lived to find out that facing both ways is certain failure,
and that a man cannot serve two masters.
In point of fact the struggle was going on for the preponderance of
influence over Nero. Agrippina thought that she could use him as a
gilded figurehead of the ship of state, while she stood at the helm
and directed the real course. Burrus and Seneca, distrusting her
cruelty and ambition, believed that they could render her schemes
nugatory, and convert Nero into a constitutional prince. Both efforts
were alike foiled. The passions which were latent in the temperament
of the young Emperor were forced into rank growth by influences
incomparably less virile than that of his mother, and incomparably
more vile than those of the soldier and the philosopher. Otho was a
more effective tutor than Seneca, and Seneca’s own vacillation paved
the way for Otho’s corrupting spell. Claudius had been governed by
an ‘aristocracy of valets;’ Nero was to be governed neither by the
daughter of Germanicus nor by the Stoic moralist, but by a despicable
fraternity of minions, actors, and debauchees.