stepped indoors just as Seneca and his wife and a couple of friends, in a somewhat tense atmosphere, were about to have a meal.
Seneca calmly went on with his meal, replying as if in passing that Natalis had visited him as an envoy from Piso to complain that he had not replied to any of Piso’s invitations. Seneca had then referred politely to his health; he had no reason to begin supporting someone at his own expense. Silvanus had to be content with that answer.
When Nero asked whether Seneca had made any preparations to end his life voluntarily, Silvanus had to admit that he had not been able to detect any signs of fear in him. Nero was forced to send Silvanus back to Seneca to say that he must die. It was a distasteful order for Nero. For the sake of his own reputation he would have preferred his old tutor to have chosen his own way out.
To show how Nero’s life still stood in the balance, it must be said that Silvanus went straight to Fenius Rufus in the Praetorian camp after receiving this order, told him about it and asked whether it should be obeyed. Silvanus himself was one of the conspirators. Rufus still might have proclaimed Seneca Emperor, bribed the Praetorians and resorted to armed uprising had he considered that he himself, because of his position, was unable to murder Nero.
Afterwards I thought about his various possible courses of action. The Praetorians would hardly have been all that pleased to set up a philosopher on the throne in place of a cittern-player, but they loathed Tigellinus and would probably have assisted in his downfall because of his ruthless discipline. Everyone knew about Seneca’s immense wealth and they would have been able to push up the bribes quite high.
Rufus had yet another reason for supporting Seneca. He was originally of Jewish descent, hailing from Jerusalem, but he had tried to keep his origins secret because of his high office. His father was a freedman, who in his time had been a grain merchant in Cyrene and who, when his son moved to Rome, had used his money to persuade the Fenians to adopt him. Rufus had received an excellent Jewish upbringing and had been successful, thanks to his talents and his business skill.
I do not know why his father, Simon, had wished his son to be a Roman, but I am quite certain that Fenius Rufus was in sympathy with the Christians. My father had once told me that Rufus’ father had had to carry Jesus of Nazareth’s cross to the execution place in Jerusalem, but I did not remember that then. In his confused letters from Jerusalem, I also found Simon of Cyrene’s name mentioned and I guessed that my father had helped Rufus to become adopted and to hide his origins. Perhaps that was also why I had found it so easy to win Rufus’ friendship just when I needed it, when I started dealing in grain.
Seneca on the Imperial throne would have been of such great political advantage to the Christians that it would have been worth relinquishing a few principles to achieve it. For Fenius Rufus it was probably a very different choice, but he was an excellent lawyer and grain merchant and not a soldier. So he could not make that determining decision, but relied on not being exposed. He told Silvanus to obey Nero.
To Silvanus’ honor it must be said that he was ashamed to confront Seneca himself, but sent a centurion with the message. So many edifying things have been written on Seneca’s calmness in the face of death that it is not worth saying much about his death. Anyhow, I do not think it was very pleasant of him to try to frighten his young wife, who still had her life before her, into dying with him.
Of course he consoled her first, according to what his friends said, and made her promise not to go into permanent mourning for him but to lessen her sense of loss by thinking of Seneca’s pursuit of virtue which had been his life. After making her relent, he then in the same breath described his fears for what would happen to her when she fell into the hands of the blood-thirsty Nero. Paulina then said she would prefer to die with her husband.
“I have shown you a way to make your life easier,” said Seneca, “but your yourself prefer an honorable death, and I cannot think that you are choosing wrongly. Let us both show equally great strength in the moment of parting.”
He hurriedly bade the centurion open their veins with a quick slash, so that Paulina would have no time to change her mind.
But Nero had nothing against Paulina. He had expressly ordered her to be spared, for he usually tried to avoid unnecessary cruelty in his sentences for his own reputation’s sake. The centurion was forced to obey Seneca because of his position, but he was careful not to injure Paulina’s tendons or artery when he cut her arm.
Seneca’s body was sufficiently weakened by age and his diet that his blood flowed sluggishly. He did not get into a hot bath as he should have done, but just dictated some corrections to his collected writings to his scribe. When Paulina disturbed him with her weeping, he asked her impatiendy to go into the next room, justifying himself by saying that he did not wish to weaken Paulina’s steadfastness by letting her see how much he was suffering.
In the room next door, on the soldier’s commands, Seneca’s slaves immediately bandaged Paulina’s wrists and stopped the bleeding. Paulina made no objections. So the boundless conceit of an author saved Paulina’s life.
Like many Stoics, Seneca was afraid of physical pain, so he asked his personal physician for some numbing poison such as the Athenians had given Socrates. Perhaps Seneca wished posterity to remember him as an equal to Socrates. When he had finished dictating and the centurion had begun to become impatient, he at last went to his hot bath and then to the household steam bath which was filled with so much steam that he was suffocated. His body was quietly cremated without ceremonies, as he had ordained, making a virtue of a necessity. Nero would never have permitted a public funeral for fear of demonstrations.
Thanks to the centurion, Paulina lived on for many years. She grew as pale as a ghost and it was said that she was secretly converted to Christianity. I am telling you what I have heard. I myself had no desire to get in touch with this grief-stricken widow, and any sensible person will know the reason why. It was not until after her death that I had my freedman’s publishing house take over Seneca’s collected works.
My friend, the author Petronius Arbiter, died, as his reputation demantled, after an excellent banquet for his friends at which he smashed every one of the objets d’art he had collected, so that Nero should not have them. Nero was especially grieved about two incomparable crystal goblets which he had always envied Petronius.
Petronius satisfied his own vanity as an author by putting in his will a careful catalogue of Nero’s vices and the people with whom he had practiced them, to the extent of mentioning all the times, places and names so that no one should suspect him of drawing too much on his imagination. As a writer he perhaps exaggerated to cause more amusement when he later read out his will to his friends as he gradually bled to death. He had himself bandaged up once or twice in order, as he said, to make the most of death as well.
His will he had sent to Nero. I think it was a pity that he would not allow anyone to make a copy of it, but he thought he owed this to Nero for the sake of their old friendship. Petronius was a fine man, the finest I have ever met I think, however crude his stories were.
He could not invite me to his farewell feast, but I was not offended. He had a message sent to me to say that he fully understood my behavior and would probably have done the same himself if he had had the opportunity. On his part, he would have liked to invite me too, but he had guessed that I would not feel at home with certain of his friends. I still have his sensitive letter and will always remember him as a friend.
But why list the downfall or exile of so many acquaintances, noble friends and respected men during that year and the next? It is more agreeable to tell of the rewards which Nero distributed to those who had distinguished themselves in the suppression of the conspiracy. He gave the Praetorians the same sum of two thousand sesterces per man as the conspirators had promised them. He also raised their pay by deciding that from then on they would receive their grain free whereas hitherto they had had to buy it at ordinary market prices. Tigellinus and two others received the right to a triumph, and triumph statues of them were erected in Palatine.
I myself insinuated to Nero that the Senate had become a little thin and that my father’s place still remained empty. There was a great need for a man on the Eastern committee who, like my father, could advise on Jewish affairs and who could mediate between the State and the Jews’ interests in connection with their special position. From Nero’s point of view it would be politically farsighted to appoint senators who had demonstrated their loyalty to him by their actions, for the Senate had in many ways shown itself-to be unreliable and still in sympathy with republicanism.
Nero was astonished and said that he could not yet appoint anyone with such a bad reputation as mine as senator. The Censors would interfere. In addition, after this conspiracy, he had lost his faith in mankind and no longer trusted anyone, not even me.
I spoke energetically for my case and said that in Caere and elsewhere in Italy I owned the property
