401 



SENECA, LUCIUS ANN^EUS. 



SENECA, LUCIUS ANN^EUS. 



402 



to have written also several works relating to the religious doctrines, 

 rites, and ceremonies of the Sabians. 



SE'NECA, LUCIUS ANN^EUS, was probably born a few years 

 before the Christian era, at Cordoba in Spain, and was brought to 

 Home while quite a child for the prosecution of his studies and for his 

 health. ('Con. ad Helv.,' 16.) He was the second son of Marcus 

 Annreus Seneca, the rhetorician, and the author of ' Suasorise, Contro- 

 versiso, Declamationumquo Excerpta,' whose memory was so strong 

 that ho could repeat two thousand words in the same order as he 

 heard them. He had the reputation of being a man of taste, but 

 when wo consider that his taste was so comprehensive as to admit a 

 hundred to the rank of orators in a century whose orators fame limits 

 to five or six, we may reasonably doubt its value and delicacy. As 

 was natural with such a man, he assiduously directed the studies of 

 his son to rhetoric, a preference which Lucius soon rebelled against, 

 and, placing himself under Papiriua Fabianus, Attalus, and Sotion, 

 devoted himself to philosophy. In common with many others who 

 aspired to wisdom, young Seneca travelled into Greece and Egypt, 

 and in his ' Qusostiones Naturales ' (a remarkable work, which shows 

 him to have been master of the scientific knowledge of his time), he 

 has judicious and accurate remarks on Egypt and on the Nile. But 

 his father at length succeeded in convincing him that worldly interests 

 ought not to be sacrificed to philosophy, and he undertook the business 

 of an advocate. He became quaestor, and under the emperor Claudius 

 rose to distinction ; but the particulars of his life are at this period 

 nowhere traceable with any degree of certainty, and we must therefore 

 suspend our judgment as to the truth of Messalina's accusation against 

 him of adultery with Julia, daughter of Germanicus. (Tacit., ' Ann.,' 

 xiii. 42.) His intimacy and connection with her were certainly very 

 equivocal, and the manners of the time still more so, but then 

 Mesaalina, who was humbled by the pride of the princess, and who 

 nowhere manifested any nice sense of right and wrong, is not worthy 

 of much credit. The result however was Julia's exile and subsequent 

 assassination, and Seneca's banishment to Corsica. Here, according to 

 his account, he spent bis time in the study of philosophy, and writing 

 his treatise on ' Consolation.' The stoicism looks very well on paper, 

 but, unfortunately for his credit, we find him courting the emperor in 

 a servile strain of adulation, and begging to be restored to favour. 



On the death of Messalina Claudius married Agrippina, who prevailed 

 on him to recal Seneca, and to bestow on him the office of proctor 

 (Tacit., 'Ann.,'' xii. 8), and she afterwards made him, with Afranius 

 Burrhus, tutor to her son Nero. To Seneca's lot fell the instructing 

 of the young prince ^in the principles of philosophy and the precepts 

 of wisdom and virtue : with what success all the world knows. In 

 fact an impartial scrutiny of the events of that period, and of Seneca's 

 connectiou with Nero, leads to the probable conclusion of his being a 

 pander to Nero's worst vices. Not to repeat the many stories current 

 at Rome of his particular acts (which if not fully attested, are yet 

 equally so with those of his virtue and decorum), we will only insist 

 on his immense wealth, and demand whether Nero was a man likely 

 to have bestowed such munificent presents (avaricious as he was known 

 to be) upon one who had no other claim upon him than the instruction 

 of precepts and axioms which he must have laughed at in supreme 

 contempt] Juvenal speaks of "the gardens of the wealthy Seneca." 

 He possessed, besides these gardens and country villas, a superb palace 

 in Rome, sumptuously furnished, containing five hundred cedar-tables 

 with feet of ivory, and of exquisite workmanship. His hard cash 

 amounted to 300,000 sestertia, or 2,421,870. of our money; a sum, 

 the magnitude of which might well excite the sarcastic inquiry of 

 Suilius, by what wisdom or precepts of philosophy Seneca had been 

 enabled in the short space of four years to accumulate it ? (Tacit., 

 xiii. 42, &c.) We will not affirm with his enemies that he instigated 

 or abetted Nero in the murder of his mother, though we know that 

 Seneca became the foe of his former protectress, and Seneca was the 

 author of the letter which Nero sent in his own name to the senate, 

 in which she was charged with conspiring against her son, and with 

 having committed suicide on the discovery of her guilt. 



Seneca however soon found that the tyrant who had made such 

 singular use of his precepts, and whose vices had so enriched his 

 philosophical abode, had cast jealous eyes upon this very wealth. He 

 therefore with consummate address offered to surrender the immense 

 treasures which he had accumulated, and begged permission to retire 

 on a small competency. Nero would not accept this. Seneca then 

 shut himself up, " kept no more levees, declined the usual civilities 

 which had been paid to him, and under pretence of indisposition 

 avoided appearing in public." (Tacit., ' Ann.,' xiv. 53, &c.) Nero now 

 attempted to poison him by means of Cleonicus, but he failed in the 

 attempt. Shortly after Antonius Natalis, when on his trial for his 

 share in the conspiracy of Piso, mentioned Seneca as one of the con- 

 spirators. All Seneca's biographers loudly deny this. Wishing to 

 keep their Stoic free from the slightest taint, they adopt the most 

 absurd conjectures, assert the most puerile motives, and suppose any- 

 thing and everything that could clear him of the charge. One says 

 Natalis wished to curry favour with Nero by implicating Seneca. But 

 was Nero a man to need such roundabout measures ? Another confi- 

 dently asserts (upon a 'perhaps' of Brucker) that Nero himself 

 instigated the charge. Upon what authority is this said ? These are 

 the most reasonable of the suppositions. We dissent from them all, 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. v. 



and we dissent from nearly every judgment of Seneca that we 

 have hitherto seen. Seneca, by confession of every authority, dreaded 

 Nero, had cause to dread him, and therefore even to save his life 

 from impending danger would have strong reason for joining the 

 conspiracy. Piso and Seneca were intimate friends. Natalis had 

 said that he had been sent by Piso to visit Seneca during his 

 illness, and to complain of his having refused to see Piso, and that 

 Seneca, in reply, had said that frequent conversations could be of no 

 service to either party, but that he considered his own safety as 

 involved in that of Piso. (Tacit., 'Ann./ xv. 60.) Granius Sylvanue, 

 tribune of the praetorian cohort, was sent to ask Seneca whether he 

 recollected what passed between Natalis and himself. Sylvanus pro- 

 ceeded to his country-house near Rome, to which Seneca had either 

 accidentally or purposely (Tacitus does not decide which) returned 

 from Campania on that day ; and he there delivered his message. 

 Seneca replied, that he had received a complaint from Piso of hia 

 having refused to see him, and that the state of his health, which 

 required repose, had been his apology. He added that he saw no 

 reason why he should prefer the safety of another person to his own. 

 We do not see in Seneca's life anything contradictory to the supposi- 

 tion of his being implicated in any conspiracy whatever : certainly not 

 in one against Nero. 



Nero, satisfied of his treason, Ordered him to put himself to death. 

 He bore this fate with Stoic fortitude, and opened a vein in each arm. 

 His advanced age however caused the blood to flow so slowly that it 

 was found necessary to open also the veins in his legs. This still not 

 succeeding, Statius Annaeus gave him a dose of poison, but, owing to 

 the feeble state oi his vital powers, it produced little effect. He then 

 ordered his attendants to carry him to a warm bath, and, plunging 

 into it, he was speedily suffocated. His wife Paulina is asserted by hia 

 biographers to have " refused every consolation except that of dying 

 with her husband, and earnestly solicited the friendly hand of the 

 executioner." Dion Cassius asserts that Paulina, who was considerably 

 younger, was forced to have her veins opened owing to the stoical 

 exhortations of her husband, and to fulfil her frequent promise of 

 never surviving him. Tacitus says (xv. 63) that her veins were opened 

 in compliance with her own wish, and that the blood was stopped by 

 her attendants at the command of Nero : he adds that it is doubtful 

 whether she was conscious of her veins being tied up. 



The death of Seneca has been loudly applauded has sometimes 

 been called sublime ; but this is owing to an ignorance of the time and 

 inattention to Seneca's own doctrines. With the Stoics death is nothing 

 (" mors est non esse," ' Ep.,' liv.) ; it is not an evil, but the absence of 

 all evil (" mors adeo extra omne malum est, ut sit extra oinnem 

 malorum metum," ' Ep./ xxx.). There is nothing after death death 

 itself is nothing : 



" Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nikil." ('Troades,' act. i.) 



With such a doctrine there could be no fear of death, and consequently 

 we find that courage to die was common in Seneca's time. In fact his 

 death was like his writings pompous, inflated, epigrammatic, and 

 striking to common judgments, but bearing no inspection. His terse 

 aphoristic style has rendered him one of the moat frequently-quoted 

 authors of antiquity ; and it was Scaliger, we believe, who remarked 

 that he did more honour to the works of others than to his own. 



Besides his ' Physical Questions,' ' Epistles,' and various moral 

 treatises, he is the supposed author of ten tragedies. On this matter 

 however there is much dispute, some declaring these tragedies to be 

 the composition of five or six Senecas ; but Quintilian, whose authority 

 is superior to every one on the matter, speaks of Seneca without sur- 

 name or qualification, and in quoting a verse from the ' Medea,' cites 

 it as a verse of Seneca, and not of one of the Senecas. (' Instit. Orat.,' 

 ix. 2.) Further, Quinctilian, in his list of the Roman poets (x. 1) (hi 

 which each name is accompanied by a distinguishing epithet), makes 

 no mention of any author of these ten tragedies; but he says of 

 Seneca that he wrote orations, poems, epistles, and dialogues, thus 

 appearing to include the tragedies under the term poems. The argu- 

 ment drawn from Seneca's own silence respecting them, or respecting 

 any poetry of his whatever, is but negative, and is nullified by Tacitus, 

 who distinctly asserts him to have written verses ever since Nero had 

 taken to write them. (' Ann./ xiv. 52.) But apart from these historical 

 evidences, we believe internal evidence to be quite sufficient to convince 

 the most sceptical evidence not only of style and epigram, but of 

 uniform coincidence in thought and expression. 



Of the intrinsic merit of these tragedies there is as much difference 

 of opinion as of their authorship. They have been lauded by com- 

 mentators and abused by critics. They have been judged from a false 

 point of view. They have been considered as imitations of the Greek 

 dramas, and have been considered as dramas. Both these points of 

 view are erroneous. They were never written for representation, but 

 for reading aloud. This simple fact overturns all criticisms. Not 

 being intended for the stage, any dramatic objection must be 

 unfounded ; nor could they for the same reason have been imitations 

 of the Greek, which were written for representation. The proof of 

 this fact is to be seen in the history of the Roman drama and literature 

 by any one who looks attentively, and is to be seen also by a scrutiny 

 of the pieces themselves. The plot is often concluded in the first act, 

 but still he goes on through the other four with great patience. The 



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