But, notwithstanding the celebrity which Sidonius enjoyed as a poet at the imperial court, his opinion is of no authority when weighed against the internal evidence derived from the tragedies themselves. This renders it almost morally certain, that they are the work of no other writer than Seneca the philosopher.
Although the Romans, as being imitators of the Greeks, and not original thinkers, were eclectics in philosophy, their favourite doctrines were those of the Stoics. They suited the rigid sternness of their character: they imbodied that spirit of self-devotion and self-denial with which the Roman patriot, in the old times of simple republican virtue, threw himself into his public duties; and Seneca, with all his faults, was a real Roman: with all his finesse and artful policy, he retained, in the midst of a debased age and a profligate court, a large portion of the old Roman character. In life and in death his was a true specimen of the Stoic creed.
Still he was by no means a consistent man: his theory was perfect, but his practice often fell short of it. The lessons of morality contained in his philosophical works are excellent, and persuasively enforced, and wear an appearance of honesty and sincerity; but, nevertheless, in his philosophy, as well as in his life, we can discover that his moral principles were unstable and wavering. These two features can be traced in his tragedies: they abound in philosophical dogmas and moral sentiments, and they display the same Stoicism mingled with occasional habits of inconsistency. Suicide is painted in the most attractive colours: death is met not only with courage, but with the same indifference with which Seneca himself, together with other victims of imperial tyranny, met it in his own day. It is not welcomed, as in the Greek tragedians, as a relief from the burden of earthly sorrows; but there is a manifest departure from the Greek model: the natural beauty of that model is violated, and the features of the original character sacrificed to Stoical coldness and want of feeling.
But not only are these tragedies filled with philosophical reflections; even the sentiments enunciated in the acknowledged works of Seneca, in his Essays and Epistles, are transferred to them, and the peculiar turns of expression used by the philosopher are repeated by the poet. A brilliant French author[[1041]] has ingeniously brought together and compared parallel passages, which illustrate this similarity of sentiment and style. A few of these are sufficient as examples. Two in the “Phœnissæ,” in which Œdipus insists on “the liberty of dying,” imbody the same doctrine as two others, one in the epistles to Lucilius, the other in the treatise on Providence.
He (says Œdipus) who compels one who is unwilling to die does the same as he who hinders one who is eager for death; nay, I consider the latter treats me the worse of the two. I had rather that death were forced upon me than that the privilege of dying should be torn from me.
Qui cogit mori
Nolentem, in æquo est, quique properantem impedit.
Nec tamen in æquo est; alterum gravius reor,
Malo imperari quam eripi mortem mihi.
Phœnis. 98.