CHAPTER III.
[1] Praefectus vigilum.
[2] Plin. N. H. xxii. 23, 47.
[3] Said to have amounted to 300,000,000 sesterces. Tac. An. xiii. 42. Juvenal calls him praedives. Sat. x. 16.
[4] Au. xiv. 53.
[5] The great blot on his character is his having composed a justification of Nero's matricide on the plea of state necessity.
[6] Ep. 45, 4; cf. 2, 5.
[7] Ep. 110, 18.
[8] He was a scurrilous abuser of the government. Vespasian once said to him, "You want to provoke me to kill you, but I am not going to order a dog that barks to execution." Cf. Sen. Ep. 67, 14; De ben. vii. 2.
[9] Ep. 64, 2.
[10] Or at least in a much less degree. Tacitus and Juvenal give instances of rapacity exercised on the provinces, but it must have been inconsiderable as compared with what it had been.
[11] Ep. 6, 4.
[12] Ep. 75, 3.
[13] Ep. 75, 1.
[14] Vit. Beat. 17, 3.
[15] Ep. 38, 1. He compares philosophy to sun-light, which shines on all; Ep. 41, 1. This is different from Plato: to plaethos adunaton philosophon einai.
[16] Martha, Les Moralistes de l'Empire romain.
[17] Ep. 45.
[18] Ep. 38, 1; and 94, 1.
[19] Such as Serenus, Lucilius, &c. The old families seem to have eschewed him.
[20] Vit. Beat. 17, 1.
[21] M. Havet, Boiss. Rel. rom. vol. ii. 44.
[22] The question is sifted in Aubertin, Sénèque et Saint Paul; and in Gaston Boissier, La Religion romaine, vol. II. ch. ii.
[23] De Vir. Illust. 12. Tertullian (Ap. ii. 8, 10) had said before, Seneca saepe noster; but this only means that he often talks like a Christian.
[24] He afterwards repudiated her, and she died in great poverty. Her act shows a gentle and forgiving spirit.
[25] Claud. 25, "Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes expulit."
[26] Tac. An. xv. 44.
[27] Hodie tricesima Sabbata, S. I. ix.
[28] We have seen how the great orators Crassus and Antonius pretended that they did not know Greek: the same silly pride made others pretend they had never heard of the Jews, even while they were practising the Mosaic rites. And the number of noble names (Cornelii, Pomponii, Caecilii) inscribed on Christian tombs in the reigns of the Antonines proves that Christianity had made way even among the exclusive nobility of Rome.
[29] Prol. 13; ii. 45.
[30] 107, 12.
[31] 74, 20.
[32] Frag. 123.
[33] Ep. 110, 10 parens noster.
[34] 41, 2.
[35] Ep. 47, 18.
[36] Benef. iv. 12.
[37] E.g. In the Consol. ad Marc. 19, 5; ad Polyb. 9, 3. Even in Ep. 106, 4, he says, animus corpus est. Cf. 117, 2.
[38] 57, 7-9; 63, 16.
[39] 86, 1, animum eius in coelum, ex quo erat, redisse persuade mihi.
[40] 102, 26.
[41] Some have thought that if he did not know St Paul (who came to Rome between 56 and 61 A.D. when Seneca was no longer young) he may have heard some of the earlier missionaries in Rome.
[42] He could not have been occupied for years in governing the world, and, with his desire for virtue, not have risen to nobler conceptions than those with which he began.
[43] De. Ira, iii. 28, 1; cf. id. i. 14, 3.
[44] De. Clem. ii. 6, 2.
[45] Ep. 59, 14; 31, 3.
[46] 53, 11; cf. Prov. 66.
[47] This is the more cogent, because we find that the philosophers who were converted to Christianity all turned at once to its principles, often calling it a philosophia. Its practice they admired also; but this was not the first object of their attention.
[48] Ep. 95, 52.
[49] Ep. 95, 30.
[50] Ep. 96, 33, homo sacra res homini.
[51] Ben. iii. 28, 2.
[52] Ep. 47, humiles amici.
[53] In the treatise De Superstitione, of which several fragments remain. It is, however, probable that Seneca would have equally disliked any positive religion. He regards the sage as his own temple.
[54] Ep. 88, 37. There is a celebrated passage in one of his tragedies (Med. 370) where he speaks of our limited knowledge, and thinks it probable that a great New World will be discovered: "Venient annis secula seris Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes Nec sit terris ultima Thule," an announcement almost prophetic.
[55] Ep. 48, 11. He did not advise, but he allowed, suicide, as a remedy for misfortune or disgrace. It is the one thing that makes the wise man even superior to the gods, that at any moment he chooses he can cease to be!