NERO AND HIS TUTOR.
The imperial youth, whose destinies are now inextricably mingled with
those of Seneca, was accompanied to the throne by the acclamations of
the people. Wearied by the astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath
of a Tiberius, the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of
a Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and
beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his shoulders, and whose
features displayed the finest type of Roman beauty. There was nothing in
his antecedents to give a sinister augury to his future development, and
all classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We can
understand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own
countrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the
youthful virtue and gentleness of Edward VI. Happy would it have been
for Nero if his reign, like that of Edward, could have been cut short
before the thick night of many crimes had settled down upon the promise
of its dawn. For the first five years of Nero's reign--the famous
_Quinquennium Neronis_--were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period
of almost ideal happiness. In reality, it was Seneca who was ruling in
Nero's, name. Even so excellent an Emperor as Trajan is said to have
admitted "that no other prince had nearly equalled the praise of that
period." It is indeed probable that those years appeared to shine with
an exaggerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded them;
yet we can see in them abundant circumstances which were quite
sufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope and joy. The young Nero was
at first modest and docile. His opening speeches, written with all the
beauty of thought and language which betrayed the _style_ of Seneca no
less than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises. All
those things which had been felt to be injurious or oppressive he
promised to eschew. He would not, he said, reserve to himself, as
Claudius had done, the irresponsible decision in all matters of
business; no office or dignity should be won from him by flattery or
purchased by bribes; he would not confuse his own personal interests
with those of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient
prerogatives of the Senate; he would confine his own immediate attention
to the provinces and the army.
Nor were such promises falsified by his immediate conduct. The odious
informers who had flourished in previous reigns were frowned upon and
punished. Offices of public dignity were relieved from unjust and
oppressive burdens. Nero prudently declined the gold and silver statues
and other extravagant honours which were offered to him by the corrupt
and servile Senate, but he treated that body, which, fallen as it was,
continued still to be the main representative of constitutional
authority, with favour and respect. Nobles and officials begun to
breathe more freely, and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was
perceptibly relaxed. Severity was reserved for notorious criminals, and
was only inflicted in a regular and authorized manner, when no one
could doubt that it had been deserved. Above all, Seneca had
disseminated an anecdote about his young pupil which tended more than
any other circumstance to his wide spread popularity. England has
remembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluctance of her
youthful Edward to sign the death-warrant of Joan Boucher; Rome,
accustomed to a cruel indifference to human life, regarded with
something like transport the sense of pity which had made Nero, when
asked to affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, "_How I
wish that I did not know how to write_!"
It is admitted that no small share of the happiness of this period was
due to the firmness of the honest Burrus, and the wise, high-minded
precepts of Seneca. They deserve the amplest gratitude and credit for
this happy interregnum, for they had no easy task to perform. Besides
the difficulties which arose from the base and frivolous character of
their pupil, besides the infinite delicacy which was requisite for the
restraint of a youth who was absolute master of such gigantic destinies,
they had the task of curbing the wild and imperious ambition of
Agrippina, and of defeating the incessant intrigues of her many powerful
dependents. Agrippina had no doubt persuaded herself that her crimes had
been mainly committed in the interest of her son; but her conduct showed
that she wished him to be a mere instrument in her hands. She wished to
govern him, and had probably calculated on doing so by the assistance of
Seneca, just as our own Queen Caroline completely managed George II.
with the aid of Sir Robert Walpole. She rode in a litter with him;
without his knowledge she ordered the poisoning of M. Silanus, a brother
of her former victim, she goaded Narcissus to death, against his will;
through her influence the Senate was sometimes assembled in the palace,
and she took no pains to conceal from the senators that she was herself
seated behind a curtain where she could hear every word of their
deliberations;--nay, on one occasion, when Nero was about to give
audience to an important Armenian legation, she had the audacity to
enter the audience-chamber, and advance to take her seat by the side of
the Emperor. Every one else was struck dumb with amazement, and even
terror, at a proceeding so unusual; but Seneca, with ready and admirable
tact, suggested to Nero that he should rise and meet his mother, thus
obviating a public scandal under the pretext of filial affection.
But Seneca from the very first had been guilty of a fatal error in the
education of his pupil. He had governed him throughout on the ruinous
principle of _concession_. Nero was not devoid of talent; he had a
decided turn for Latin versification, and the few lines of his
composition which have come down to us, _bizarre_ and effected as they
are, yet display a certain sense of melody and power of language. But
his vivid imagination was accompained by a want of purpose; and Seneca,
instead of trying to train him in habits of serious attention and
sustained thought, suffered him to waste his best efforts in pursuits
and amusements which were considered partly frivolous and partly
disreputable, such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca
might have argued that there was, at any rate, no great harm in such
employments, and that they probably kept Nero out of worse mischief. But
we respect Nero the less for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging
just as we respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks; and, if
Seneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the first, Rome
might have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero's subsequent
buffooneries in the cities of Greece and the theatres of Rome. We may
lay it down as an invariable axiom in all high education, that it is
_never_ sensible to permit what is bad for the supposed sake of
preventing what is worse. Seneca very probably persuaded himself that
with a mind like Nero's--the innate worthlessness of which he must early
have recognised--success of any high description would be simply
impossible. But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble
means by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable.
Let us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly
in matters which he regarded as indifferent--or, at the worst, as
discreditable--rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably
arose from an error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in
moral character.
Yet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the worse for this
laxity of training. We have already seen that, in his maiden-speech
before the Senate, every one recognized the hand of Seneca, and many
observed with a sigh that this was the first occasion on which an
Emperor had not been able, at least to all appearance, to address the
Senate in his own words and with his own thoughts. Tiberius, as an
orator, had been dignified and forcible; Claudius had been learned and
polished; even the disturbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in
a capacity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but Nero's
youth had been frittered away in paltry and indecorus accomplishments,
which had left him neither time nor inclination for weightier and
nobler pursuits.
The fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously from the
subsequent infamy of his pupil; and it is obvious that the dislike of
Tacitus to his memory is due to his connexion with Nero. Now, even
though the tutor's system had not been so wise as, when judged by an
inflexible standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to
make him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and it must be
remembered, to Seneca's eternal honour, that the evidence of facts, the
testimony of contemporaries, and even the grudging admission of Tacitus
himself, establishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation
characterized the earlier years of Nero's reign were due to his
counsels; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the virtuous Burrus;
that he helped to check the sanguinary audacities of Agrippina; that the
writings which he addressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for
him, breathed the loftiest counsels; and that it was not until he was
wholly removed from power and influence that Nero, under the fierce
impulses of despotic power, developed those atrocious tendencies of
which the seeds had long been latent in his disposition. An ancient
writer records the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a
savagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate; and that to
his intimate friends he used to observe that, "when once the lion tasted
human blood, his innate cruelty would return."
But while we give Seneca this credit, and allow that his _intentions_
were thoroughly upright, we cannot but impugn his _judgment_ for having
thus deliberately adopted the morality of expedience; and we believe
that to this cause, more than to any other, was due the extent of his
failure and the misery of his life. We may, indeed, be permitted to
doubt whether Nero himself--a vain and loose youth, the son of bad
parents, and heir to boundless expectations--would, under any
circumstances, have grown up much better than he did; but it is clear
that Seneca might have been held in infinitely higher honour but for the
share which he had in his education. Had Seneca been as firm and wise as
Socrates, Nero in all probability would not have been much worse than
Alcibiades. If the tutor had set before his pupil no ideal but the very
highest, if he had inflexibly opposed to the extent of his ability every
tendency which was dishonourable and wrong, he might _possibly_ have
been rewarded by success, and have earned the indelible gratitude of
mankind; and if he had failed he would at least have failed nobly, and
have carried with him into a calm and honourable retirement the respect,
if not the affection, of his imperial pupil. Nay, even if he had failed
_completely_, and lost his life in the attempt, it would have been
infinitely better both for him and for mankind. Even Homer might have
taught him that "it is better to die than live in sin." At any rate he
might have known from study and observation that an education founded on
compromise must always and necessarily fail. It must fail because it
overlooks that great eternal law of retribution for and continuity in
evil, which is illustrated by every single history of individuals and of
nations. And the education which Seneca gave to Nero--noble as it was in
many respects, and eminent as was its partial and temporary success--was
yet an education of compromises. Alike in the studies of Nero's boyhood
and the graver temptations of his manhood, he acted on the
foolishly-fatal principle that
"Had the wild oat not been sown,
The soil left barren scarce had grown,
The grain whereby a man may live."
Any Christian might have predicted the result; one would have thought
that even a pagan philosopher might have been enlightened enough to
observe it. We often quote the lines--
"The child is father of the man,"
and
"Just as the twig is bent the tree inclines."
But the ancients were quite as familiar with the same truth under other
images. "The cask," wrote Horace, "will long retain the odour of that
which has once been poured into it when new." Quintilian, describing the
depraved influences which surrounded even the infancy of a Roman child,
said, "From these arise _first familiarity, then nature_."
No one has laid down the principle more emphatically than Seneca
himself. Take, for instance, the following passage from his Letters, on
evil conversation. "The conversation," he says, "of these men is very
injurious; for, even if it does no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds
in the mind, and follows us even when we have gone from the speakers,--a
plague sure to spring up in future resurrection. Just as those who have
heard a symphony carry in their ears the tune and sweetness of the song
which entangles their thoughts, and does not suffer them to give their
whole energy to serious matters; so the conversation of flatterers and
of those who praise evil things, lingers longer in the mind than the
time of hearing it. Nor is it easy to shake out of the soul a sweet
sound; it pursues us, and lingers with us, and at perpetual intervals
recurs. Our ears therefore must be closed to evil words, and that to the
very first we hear. For when they have once begun and been admitted,
they acquire more and more audacity;" and so he adds a little
afterwards, "our days flow on, and irreparable life passes beyond our
reach." Yet he who wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to
his imperial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encouraged
him in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named Acte, into which Nero
fell. It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the
youthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to
whom he had been bound by every tie of honour and affection, and his
union with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical
usurpation. But princes rarely love the wives to whom they owe any part
of their elevation. Henry VII. treated Elizabeth of York with many
slights. The union of William III. with Mary was overshadowed by her
superior claim to the royal power; and Nero from the first regarded with
aversion, which ended in assassination, the poor young orphan girl who
recalled to the popular memory his slender pretensions to hereditary
empire, and whom he regarded as a possible rival, if her cowed and
plastic nature should ever become a tool in the hands of more powerful
intriguers. But we do not hear of any attempt on Seneca's part to urge
upon Nero the fulfillment of this high duty, and we find him sinking
into the degraded position of an accomplice with young profligates like
Otho, as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, which
would have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to a Stoic
disgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the very principle to
which we have been pointing,--the principle of moral compromise, the
principle of permitting and encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of
thereby preventing what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca
should have erred in this way, for compromise was the character of his
entire life. He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible
task of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the
Caesars. He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a
man of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he
failed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man
_must_ make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of
Mammon and the service of God. No man ever gained anything but contempt
and ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions.
And by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or an Antisthenes
would have taken, Seneca became more or less involved in some of the
most dreadful events of Nero's reign. Every one of the terrible doubts
under which his reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted
the principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue. One or two
of these events we must briefly narrate.
We have already pointed out that the Nemesis which for so many years had
been secretly dogging the footsteps of Agrippina made her tremble under
the weight of its first cruel blows when she seemed to have attained the
highest summit of her ambition. Very early indeed Nero began to be
galled and irritated by the insatiate assumption and swollen authority
of "the best of mothers." The furious reproaches which she heaped upon
him when she saw in Acte a possible rival to her power drove him to take
refuge in the facile and unphilosophic worldliness of Seneca's
concessions, and goaded him almost immediately afterwards into an
atrocious crime. He naturally looked on Britannicus, the youthful son of
Claudius, with even more suspicion and hatred than that with which he
regarded Octavia. Kings have rarely been able to abstain from acts of
severity against those who might become claimants to the throne. The
feelings of King John towards Prince Arthur, of Henry IV. towards the
Earl of March, of Mary towards Lady Jane Grey, of Elizabeth towards Mary
Stuart, of King James towards Lady Arabella Stuart, resembled, but
probably by no means equalled in intensity, those of Nero towards his
kinsman and adoptive brother. To show him any affection was a dangerous
crime, and it furnished a sufficient cause for immediate removal if any
attendant behaved towards him with fidelity. Such a line of treatment
foreshadowed the catastrophe which was hastened by the rage of
Agrippina. She would go, she said, and take with her to the camp the
noble boy who was now of full age to undertake those imperial duties
which a usurper was exercising in virtue of crimes which she was now
prepared to confess. Then let the mutilated Burrus and the glib-tongued
Seneca see whether they could be a match for the son of Claudius and the
daughter of Germanicus. Such language, uttered with violent gestures and
furious imprecations, might well excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And
that alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all
the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During
the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with
all the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot
as "governor of the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue
his orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates which
would not make them blush; but Britannicus in violation of every
principle of Roman decorum, was ordered to stand up in the middle and
sing a song. The boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and
wholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well have faltered;
but he at once rose, and with a steady voice began a strain--probably
the magnificent wail of Andromache over the fall of Troy, which has been
preserved to us from a lost play of Ennius--in which he indicated his
own disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights. His courage and his
misfortunes woke in the guests a feeling of pity which night and wine
made them less careful to disguise. From that moment the fate of
Britannicus was sealed. Locusta, the celebrated poisoner of ancient
Rome, was summoned to the councils of Nero to get rid of Britannicus, as
she had already been summoned to those of his mother when she wished to
disembarrass herself of Britannicus's father. The main difficulty was to
avoid discovery, since nothing was eaten or drunk at the imperial table
till it had been tasted by the _praegustator_. To avoid this difficulty
a very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he wished for
something cooler a swift and subtle poison was dropped into the cold
water with which it was tempered. The boy drank, and instantly sank from
his seat, gasping and speechless. The guests started up in
consternation, and fixed their eyes on Nero. He with the utmost coolness
assured them that it was merely a fit of epilepsy, to which his brother
was accustomed, and from which he would soon recover. The terror and
agitation of Agrippina showed to every one that she at least was
guiltless of this dark deed; but the unhappy Octavia, young as she was,
and doubly terrible on every ground as the blow must have been to her,
sat silent and motionless, having already learnt by her misfortunes the
awful necessity for suppressing under an impassive exterior her
affections and sorrows, her hopes and fears. In the dead of night, amid
storms and murky rain, which were thought to indicate the wrath of
heaven, the last of the Claudii was hastily and meanly hurried into a
dishonourable grave.
We may believe that in this crime Seneca had no share whatever, but we
can hardly believe that he was ignorant of it after it had been
committed, or that he had no share in the intensely hypocritical edict
in which Nero bewailed the fact of his adoptive brother's death, excused
his hurried funeral, and threw himself on the additional indulgence and
protection of the Senate. Nero showed the consciousness of guilt by the
immense largesses which he distributed to the most powerful of his
friends, "Nor were there wanting men," says Tacitus, in a most
significant manner, "_who accused certain people, notorious for their
high professions, of having at that period divided among them villas and
houses as though they had been so much spoil_." There can hardly be a
doubt that the great historian intends by this remark to point at
Seneca, to whom he tries to be fair, but whom he could never quite
forgive for his share in the disgraces of Nero's reign. That avarice was
one of Seneca's temptations is too probable; that expediency was a
guiding principle of his conduct is but too evident; and for a man with
such a character to rebut an innuendo is never an easy task. Nay more,
it was _after_ this foul event, at the close of Nero's first year, that
Seneca addressed him in the extravagant and glowing language of his
treatise on Clemency. "The quality of mercy," and the duty of princes to
practise it, has never been more eloquently extolled; but it is
accompanied by a fulsome flattery which has in it something painfully
grotesque as addressed by a philosopher to one whom he knew to have been
guilty, that very year, of an inhuman fratricide. Imagine some Jewish
Pharisee,--a Nicodemus or a Gamaliel--pronouncing an eulogy on the
tenderness of a Herod, and you have some picture of the appearance which
Seneca's consistency must have worn in the eyes of his contemporaries.
This event took place A.D. 55, in the first year of Nero's
_Quinquennium_, and the same year was nearly signalized by the death of
his mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy was invented against her,
and it is probable that but for the intervention of Burrus, who with
Seneca was appointed to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a
very sudden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred of her
son. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of her defence created a
reaction in her favour, and secured the punishment of her accusers. But
the ties of affection could not long unite two such wicked and imperious
natures as those of Agrippina and her son. All history shows that there
can be no real love between souls exceptionally wicked, and that this is
still more impossible when the alliance between them has been sealed by
a complicity in crime. Nero had now fallen into a deep infatuation for
Poppaea Sabina, the beautiful wife of Otho, and she refused him her hand
so long as he was still under the control of his mother. At this time
Agrippina, as the just consequence of her many crimes, was regarded by
all classes with a fanaticism of hatred which in Poppaea Sabina was
intensified by manifest self-interest. Nero, always weak, had long
regarded his mother with real terror and disgust, and he scarcely needed
the urgency of constant application to make him long to get rid of her.
But the daughter of Germanicus could not be openly destroyed, while her
own precautions helped to secure her against secret assassination. It
only remained to compass her death by treachery. Nero had long compelled
her to live in suburban retirement, and had made no attempt to conceal
the open rapture which existed between them. Anicetus, admiral of the
fleet at Misenum, and a former instructor of Nero, suggested the
expedient of a pretended public reconciliation, in virtue of which
Agrippina should be invited to Baiae, and on her return should be placed
on board a vessel so constructed as to come to pieces by the removal of
bolts. The disaster might then be attributed to a mere naval accident,
and Nero might make the most ostentatious display of his affection
and regret.
The invitation was sent, and a vessel specially decorated was ordered to
await her movements. But, either from suspicion or from secret
information, she declined to avail herself of it, and was conveyed to
Baiae in a litter. The effusion of hypocritical affection with which she
was received, the unusual tenderness and honour with which she was
treated, the earnest gaze, the warm embrace, the varied conversation,
removed her suspicions, and she consented to return in the vessel of
honour. As though for the purpose of revealing the crime, the night was
starry and the sea calm. The ship had not sailed far, and Crepereius
Gallus, one of her friends, was standing near the helm, while a lady
named Acerronia was seated at her feet as she reclined, and both were
vieing with each other in the warmth of their congratulations upon the
recent interview, when a crash was heard, and the canopy above them
which had been weighted with a quantity of lead, was suddenly let go.
Crepereius was crushed to death upon the spot; Agrippina and Acerronia
were saved by the projecting sides of the couch on which they were
resting; in the hurry and alarm, as accomplices were mingled with a
greater number who were innocent of the plot, the machinery of the
treacherous vessel failed. Some of the rowers rushed to one side of the
ship, hoping in that manner to sink it, but here too their councils were
divided and confused. Acerronia, in the selfish hope of securing
assistance, exclaimed that she was Agrippina, and was immediately
despatched with oars and poles; Agrippina, silent and unrecognized,
received a wound upon the shoulder, but succeeded in keeping herself
afloat till she was picked up by fishermen and carried in safety to
her villa.
The hideous attempt from which she had been thus miraculously rescued
did not escape her keen intuition, accustomed as it was to deeds of
guilt; but, seeing that her only chance of safety rested in
dissimulation and reticense, she sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her
son that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible
accident, but to beg him not to be alarmed, and not to come to see her
because she needed rest.
The news filled Nero with the wildest terror, and the expectation of an
immediate revenge. In horrible agitation and uncertainty he instantly
required the presence of Burrus and Seneca. Tacitus doubts whether they
may not have been already aware of what he had attempted, and Dion, to
whose gross calumnies, however, we need pay no attention, declares that
Seneca had frequently urged Nero to the deed, either in the hope of
overshadowing his own guilt, or of involving Nero in a crime which
should hasten his most speedy destruction at the hands of gods and men.
In the absence of all evidence we may with perfect confidence acquit the
memory of these eminent men from having gone so far as this.
It must have been a strange and awful scene. The young man, for Nero was
but twenty-two years old, poured into the ears their tumult of his
agitation and alarm. White with fear, weak with dissipation, and
tormented by the furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth
looked from one to another of his aged ministers. A long and painful
pause ensued. If they dissuaded him in vain from the crime which he
meditated their lives would have been in danger; and perhaps they
sincerely thought that things had gone so far that, unless Agrippina
were anticipated, Nero would be destroyed. Seneca was the first to break
that silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus whether the soldiery
could be entrusted to put her to death. His reply was that the
praetorians would do nothing against a daughter of Germanicus and that
Anicetus should accomplish what he had promised. Anicetus showed himself
prompt to crime, and Nero thanked him in a rapture of gratitude. While
the freedman Agerinus was delivering to Nero his mother's message,
Anicetus dropped a dagger at his feet, declared that he had caught him
in the very act of attempting the Emperor's assassination, and hurried
off with a band of soldiers to punish Agrippina as the author of
the crime.
The multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excitement along the shore;
their torches were seen glimmering in evident commotion about the scene
of the calamity, where some were wading into the water in search of the
body, and others were shouting incoherent questions and replies. At the
rumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed off in a body to her villa to
express their congratulations, where they were dispersed by the soldiers
of Anicetus, who had already token possession of it. Scattering or
seizing the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage
from door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted chamber,
attended only by a single handmaid. "Dost thou too desert me?"
exclaimed the wretched woman to her servant, as she rose to slip away.
In silent determination the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus
was the first to strike her with a stick. "Strike my womb," she cried to
him faintly, as he drew his sword, "for it bore Nero." The blow of
Anicetus was the signal for her immediate destruction: she was
dispatched with many wounds, and was buried that night at Misenum on a
common couch and with a mean funeral. Such an end, many years
previously, this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had
anticipated and despised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her that
her son would become Emperor, and would murder her, she is said to have
exclaimed, "Occidat dum imperet," "Let him slay me if he but reign."
It only remained to account for the crime, and offer for it such lying
defences as were most likely to gain credit. Flying to Naples from a
scene which had now become awful to him,--for places do not change as
men's faces change, and, besides this, his disturbed conscience made him
fancy that he heard from the hill of Misenum the blowing of a ghostly
trumpet and wailings about his mother's tomb in the hours of night,--he
sent from thence a letter to the Senate, saying that his mother had been
punished for an attempt upon his life, and adding a list of her crimes,
real and imaginary, the narrative of her _accidental_ shipwreck, and his
opinion that her death was a public blessing. The author of this
shameful document was Seneca, and in composing it he reached the nadir
of his moral degradation. Even the lax morality of a most degenerate age
condemned him for calmly sitting down to decorate with the graces of
rhetoric and antithesis an atrocity too deep for the powers of
indignation. A Seneca could stoop to write what a Thrasea Paetus could
scarcely stoop to hear; for in the meeting of the Senate at which the
letter was recited, Thrasea rose in indignation, and went straight home
rather than seem to sanction by his presence the adulation of a
matricide.
And the composition of that guily, elaborate, shameful letter was the
last prominent act of Seneca's public life.