CHAPTER VIII.

M. ANNÆUS SENECA—HIS CONTROVERSY AND SUASORIÆ—L. ANNÆUS SENECA—TUTOR TO NERO—HIS ENORMOUS FORTUNE—HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER—INCONSISTENCIES IN HIS PHILOSOPHY—A FAVOURITE WITH EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS—HIS EPISTLES—WORK ON NATURAL PHENOMENA—APOCOLOCYNTOSIS—HIS STYLE.

M. ANNÆUS SENECA.

The family of the Senecas exercised a remarkable influence over literature; they may, in fact, be said to have given the tone to the taste of their age.

M. Annæus Seneca was born at Corduba (Cordova.) The precise date of his birth is unknown; but Clinton places it about B. C. 61. This is not improbable, for he asserts[1248] that he had heard all the eminent orators except Cicero, and that he might have enjoyed that privilege also if the civil wars had not compelled him to remain in his native country. After this hinderance was removed by the accession of Augustus he came to Rome, and, as a professional rhetorician, amassed a considerable fortune. Subsequently he returned to Cordova, and married Helvia, by whom he had three sons, of whom L. Annæus Seneca, the philosopher, was the eldest.

He left behind him two works, the composition of which was the employment of his old age. They are the results of his long and successful experience as a teacher of rhetoric, the gleanings of his commonplace book, the stores accumulated by his astonishing memory, which enabled him to repeat two thousand unconnected words after once hearing them, and to report literally any orations which he had heard delivered. They are valuable as showing how a hollow and artificial system, based upon the recollection of stock-passages and commonplaces, had supplanted the natural promptings of true eloquence. They explain the principles and practice of instruction in the popular schools of rhetoric, the means by which the absence of natural endowments could be compensated. They exhibit wit, learning, ingenuity, and taste to select and admire the best literary specimens of earlier periods; but it is plain that matter was now subordinate to form—that the orator was content to borrow the phraseology of his predecessors in which to clothe sentiments which he could neither feel nor understand. The ear still yearned for the language of sincerity, although the heart no longer throbbed with the ardour of patriotism. It is this want of conformity of ideas to words which causes the coldness of a declamatory and florid style. It is a mere representation of warmth: it disappoints like a mere painted fire.

The first work of M. Seneca was entitled _Controversiæ_: it was divided into ten books, of which, with the exception of fragments, only the first, second, seventh, eighth, and tenth are extant. It contains a series of exercises or declamations in judicial oratory on fictitious cases. The imaginary causes were probably sketched out by the professor. The students composed their speeches according to the rules of rhetoric: they were then corrected, committed to memory, and recited, partly with a view to practice, partly in order to amuse an admiring audience. The cases are frequently as puerile as a schoolboy’s theme, sometimes extravagant and absurd.

His other work, the _Suasoriæ_, contains exercises in deliberative oratory. The subjects of them are taken from the historians and poets: they are as harmless as tyranny could desire: there is no danger that languid patriotism should revive, or the empire be menaced, by such uninteresting discussions. Nor were they confined to mere students. Public recitations had, since the days of Juvenal, been one of the crying nuisances of the times. The poets began it, the rhetoricians followed, and the most absurd trash was listened to with patience, being ushered into popular notice by partial flatterers or hired claqueurs.

L. ANNÆUS SENECA.

L. Seneca was born at his father’s native town about the commencement of the Christian era. He was brought to Rome when very young, and there studied rhetoric and philosophy. He soon displayed great talents as a pleader; and by his success is said to have provoked the jealousy of Caligula. In the reign of Claudius he was accused by the infamous Messalina of improper intimacy with Julia, the emperor’s niece, and was accordingly banished to Corsica.[1249] He solaced his exile with the study of the Stoic philosophy; and although its severe precepts exercised no moral influence over his conduct, he not only professed himself a Stoic, but sincerely imagined that he was one. Eight years afterwards Agrippina caused his recall,[1250] in order to make him tutor to her son Nero.

His pupil was naturally vicious; and Seneca, though wise and prudent, was too unscrupulous a man of the world to attempt the correction of his propensities, or to instil into him high principles. After the accession of Nero,[1251] Seneca endeavoured to arrest his depraved career; but it was too late: all he could do was to put into his mouth specious words of clemency and mercy. He saw how dangerous was the unprincipled ambition of Agrippina; and dreadful though it was to sanction parricide, there was scarcely any other course to be pursued, except the consenting to her death. When the deed was done, he had the pitiful meanness to screen the murderer by a falsehood. He wrote a letter, which Nero sent to the senate, accusing his mother of treason, and asserting that she had committed suicide.[1252]

Seneca had by usury and legacy-hunting, amassed one of those enormous fortunes, of which so many instances are met with in Roman history. This had already exposed him to envy,[1253] and caused his temporary banishment to the Balearic isles.[1254] But after that Burrus was dead, who shared his influence over the Emperor, he felt the dangers of wealth, and offered his property to Nero.[1255] The Emperor refused; but Seneca retired from public life. Being now under the influence of new favourites, Nero wished to rid himself of Seneca; and although there was no evidence of his being privy to the conspiracy of Piso, it furnished a pretext for his destruction.[1256] In adversity his character shone with brighter lustre. Though he had lived ill, he could die well. His firmness was the result, not of Stoical indifference, but of Roman courage. He met the messengers of death without trembling. His noble wife Paullina determined to die with him. The veins of both were opened at the same time. The little blood which remained in his emaciated and enfeebled frame refused to flow: he suffered excruciating agony: a warm bath was applied, but in vain; and a draught of poison was equally ineffectual. At last he was suffocated by the vapour of a stove, and expired.[1257]

Seneca lived in a perilous atmosphere. The philosophy in which he believed was hollow, and, being unsuited to his court life,[1258] he thought it expedient to allow himself some relaxation from its severity. His rhetorical taste led him to overstate even his own real convictions; and hence the incongruity of his life appeared more glaring. He was not insincere; but he had not firmness to act up to the high moral standard which he proposed to himself. In his letters, and his treatise “_De Consolatione_,” addressed to Polybius, he even convicts himself of this defect. He had difficult questions to decide, and had not sufficient moral principle to lead him in the right course. He was avaricious; but it was the great sin of his times. Tacitus is not blind to his weaknesses;[1259] but he estimates his character with more candour and fairness than Dio.[1260] He is neither a panegyrist nor an accuser. The education of one who was a brute rather than a man was a task to the discharge of which no one would have been equal. He, therefore, retained the influence which he had not uprightness to command by miserable and sinful expedients. He had great abilities, and some of the noble qualities of the old Romans. Had he lived in the days of the Republic he would have been a great man.

Seneca was the author of twelve ethical treatises, the best of which are entitled “_De Providentiâ_,” “_De Constantiâ Sapientis_,” and “_De Consolatione_.” The latter was addressed to his mother Helvia, and written during his exile in Corsica. In the treatise on Providence he discusses the question why, since there is a Divine Providence, good men are liable to misfortunes. Although the difficulty is explained by the doctrine that the remedy, “_suicide_,” is always in man’s power, it asserts the omnipresence of the Deity, and the existence of a moral Governor of the universe.

Great as are the inconsistencies in his ethical philosophy (nor could it be otherwise, as his life was always doing despite to his moral sense of right and wrong,) his views are generally clear and practical. In this he was a true Roman; he cared little for abstract speculation; he did not value, except as subordinate aids, either mental or natural philosophy. He delighted to inculcate precepts rather than investigate principles. It is for this reason that his works are not satisfactory as a whole, whilst they furnish a rich mine for quotations. The fault which pervades all Roman philosophy exists in an exaggerated form in his works: they are ethical digests of didactic precepts; but there is no system, no developement of new truths. His studies taught him that general principles are the foundations of morals, and that casuistry is the application of those principles;[1261] but the Romans were naturally inclined to be casuists rather than moralists; and in this preference Seneca went beyond all his countrymen. He writes like a teacher of youth rather than as a philosopher; he inculcates, without proof, maxims and instructions, and impresses them by repetition, as though they recommended themselves by their intrinsic truthfulness to the consciences of his hearers.

Seneca was always a favourite with Christian writers; he is in fact a better guide to others than he was to himself. Some of his sentiments are truly Christian; there is even a tradition that he was acquainted with St. Paul, and fourteen letters to that apostle have been, though without grounds, attributed to him. He may, however, unconsciously have imbibed some of the principles of Christianity. The gospel had already made great and rapid strides over the civilized world, and thoughtful minds may have been enlightened by some of the rays of divine truth dispersed through the moral atmosphere, just as we are benefited by the light of the sun, even when its disc is obscured by clouds.

His Epistles, of which there are one hundred and twenty-four, are moral essays in an epistolary form, and are the most delightful of his works. Although addressed to a disciple named Lucilius, they are evidently written for the public eye: they are rich in varied thought, and the reflections flow naturally and without effort. Letters were perhaps the most appropriate vehicle for his preceptive philosophy, because such a desultory style is best adapted to convey isolated and unconnected maxims. They contain a free and unconstrained picture of his mind. We see in them how he despised verbal subtleties,[1262] the external badges of a sect or creed, and insisted that the great end of science is to learn how to live and how to die.

In his old age he wrote seven books on questions connected with natural phenomena (_Quæstionum Naturalium_, Libri vii.) Why he did so it is impossible to say, since he had so often argued against the utility of physical studies.[1263] The declamatory praise which he bestows upon them in this work would lead us to suppose that it was a mere exercise for amusement and relaxation. But in this case he is not so inconsistent as might be supposed—he treats the subject like a moralist, and makes it the occasion of ethical reflections.[1264]

Once he indulged in the playfulness of satire. He had written a fulsome funeral oration on Claudius, which Nero delivered in the midst of laughter and derision; but for this abject flattery he afterwards made compensation by composing, as a parody on the apotheosis of the stupid Emperor, the _Apocolocyntosis_, or his metamorphosis into a pumpkin. The pun was good enough, but the execution miserable.

In the style of Seneca we see the result of that false declamatory taste of which the works of his father furnish specimens. Thought was subordinate to expression. The masters of rhetoric were all in all. His style is too elaborate to please; it is generally affected, often florid and bombastic: he seems always striving to produce striking effects, either by antithesis or ornament; of course he defeats his object, for there is no light and shade. There is too much sparkle and glitter, too little repose and simplicity.