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and all admit that he was jealous of the oratoric fame of Seneca. The fact is recorded by Seutonius; but he says that the emperor sought no other weapon against his rival, than a disdainful raillery, such as the following: "His harangues," said Caligula, "are but academic morsels; they are but sand without lime." That the

emperor tried to disparage his oratory in this manner is highly probable; but that his jealousy led him no further is denied by almost every other biographer who takes any notice of the circumstance. Thus for example, Dio Cassius informs us, that such was the envy of Caligula, on having heard Seneca plead an important case before the senate, that he resolved to put him to death, and that he spared him only at the earnest request of one of his concubines, who assured him that the fatal disease, under which all knew he laboured,* would kill him soon, adding that it was more judicious to allow him to die of phthisis than to put to death one who could not be accused of any capital offence.

Whether the tyrant was induced to spare his life on this account or not, it is certain that the health of Seneca was very precarious at this period. He suffered severely from hectic fever, which made him almost a skeleton. In describing his condition to his mother some time subsequently, he says: "More than once I had the temptation to put an end to my days. The thought of my old father, who could not support such a blow, restrained me. commanded myself to live. Sometimes it requires courage to support even life."+

I

It seems that, whatever resolution was formed by Caligula, Seneca thought it best to retire from public life for some time. He asked permission from the emperor to travel, knowing that the latter would be gratified at his departure, and still more gratified if he thought he would never return. Be this as it may, he soon set out for Egypt, where his maternal uncle was prefect. His chief object was to learn all he could in a country where the most eminent of the Greek philosophers had so far extended the sphere of their knowledge; and it is sufficiently evident from his writings that he was a close observer and zealous investigator during his stay in Egypt. It does not appear that he wrote any work while in that country, but he collected a large mass of materials, which

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he afterwards turned to good account in his works on Superstition and Earthquakes, and in his Questiones Naturales; although his work on Superstition is known at the present day only by some quotations made from it by St. Augustin, and by a brief mention of it by Tertullian.

Soon after his return to Rome, his friends obtained of him the office of quæstor; but he was not destined to enjoy it long. Caligula had died during his absence; had he lived longer Seneca would have travelled farther. He had intended visiting India; indeed, some think that he did visit that country; but there is no other proof of the fact than that Pliny, the naturalist, tells us that Seneca had written a memoir on India.*

Whether he visited India or not, he expected to be treated favourably by Claudius; but that emperor did not occupy the throne more than a few months, when the philosopher was arrested and sent into exile. Different reasons are assigned for his banishment. It is insinuated by Dio Cassius that he was implicated in the charge of adultery made by Messalina, one of his bitterest enemies, against Julia, the daughter of Germanicus. Whether he was guilty or not of being one of the paramours of Julia, it must be admitted that he was rather licentious in his morals from his youth up to this time; indeed, he does not deny the fact himself, but frankly confesses, that could he have regulated his practices in accordance with his precepts, his ethics would have exercised a much more powerful influence on his contemporaries than they did.+

He was in his forty-first year when he was thus banished to Corsica; but even Ovid did not grieve more profoundly for being exiled from Rome. During the first two years of his banishment he tried to conceal his grief, hoping from day to day that his friends would be able to procure him his liberty; but he was doomed to hope in vain for eight years. His letter, written to his mother towards the close of the first year of his exile, is one of the finest of his productions. He tries to console her, not only under the misfortune that had befallen her in his banishment, but also under all her other sorrows. With this view, he undertakes to demonstrate to her that he had lost nothing, that disgrace had cast him down

* Seneca etiam apud nos tentata Indiæ commentatione septuaginta omnes ejus prodidit gentes duodeviginta centumque.-Hist. Nat., vi., 17.

Vide De Vita Beata, c. xviii.

De Consolatione ad Helviam Matrem.

without discouraging him, and that exile, poverty, and ignominy are not evils; but his subsequent conduct proved but too plainly that his feelings were very different from his expressions.

His course now was remarkably similar in some important respects, to that pursued under somewhat similar circumstances by Lord Bacon, nearly sixteen centuries later. All our readers are familiar with the gross adulation in which the author of the Novum Organum indulged in his disgrace, with the view of influencing the king in his favour. He not only praised the king himself as the greatest of earthly monarchs, comparing him to the Almighty, but he was equally lavish of his eulogies on all whom he knew to be his majesty's favourites. It is generally admitted by his biographers, that he disgraced himself more by this conduct, than even by that for which he was condemned by the Parliament, assuming that he was really guilty of having accepted bribes while presiding on the bench; yet his was but a slight meanness, compared to that of Seneca at this crisis.

One letter of the Roman philosopher to Polybius, the freedman of Claudius, entitled De Consolatione ad Polybium, has scarcely a parallel in its kind. In this, he throws himself in the dust at the feet of the freedman, lauding him to the skies, declaring that the world can only boast of one greater man-that one being Claudius. As for the latter, there is no noble quality which he does not possess; the admiration of Seneca for his virtues and character is unbounded; his devotion to him is equally great; he wishes to adore him in all humility, but above all things he invokes his divine clemency.*

The ostensible object of this communication to Polybius was to console him on the death of his brother; what the real object was, need not be mentioned any further than that the bereaved Polybius happened to be the chief favourite of Claudius at this time, and that it was hoped, therefore, the emperor would have an opportunity of seeing how profoundly he was admired and venerated by the man who perhaps above all others had most reason

* Eriperes illi bonam opinionem? Solidior est hæc apud eum, ut à te quoque ipsa concuti posset. Eriperes bonam valetudinem? Sciebas animum ejus liberalibus disciplinis quibus non innutritus tantum sed innatus est. * * Longissimum illi ævum ingenii fama promisit. Id ejit ipse a meliore sui parte duraret, et compositis eloquentiæ preclaris operibus à mortalitate se vindicaret, &c.—Cons, ad Pol., c. xxi.

to detest him. This Consolatio is so full of human weakness, not to give it a harsher name, that several of the biographers of Seneca, including Diderot and Ruhkopf, have denied its authenticity. But this is of no use, the proofs of its genuineness are too strong. There is not a passage in it which is not marked by the peculiar characteristics of Seneca's style. The mode of reasoning throughout, the moral precepts by which every argument is enforced, as well as the eulogies both on the freedman and the emperor, all very clearly point to Seneca as the author.

The most probable view of the work is that given by Justus Lipsius, who says that it was not intended for publication, and that it was by an indiscretion on the part of one of the author's friends it was made public. This opinion is considerably strengthened by the fact, that nearly twenty chapters of the beginning of the Consolatio are wanting. Doubtless the indiscreet friend suppressed the part which he thought would reflect most discredit on the writer; and yet it is difficult to conceive any grosser flatteries than those contained in the part that has come down to us.

At the same time we must not consider Seneca as having acted foolishly, although he certainly acted unworthily. The morality of his adulations is, indeed, not good, yet there is a certain kind of philosophy in them. As a means to the end he sought, they were probably the most potent he could have used. It is true that they had not an immediate effect; nearly five years had intervened from the writing of the Consolatio until the recall of the author from exile; but it is more than probable that Polybius was in no hurry to serve the cause of one who might become his rival, by making the emperor familiar with the contents of a communication which was not addressed to his majesty. It is true that Agrippina, the fourth wife of Claudius, has generally received the credit of having caused the liberation of Seneca; but this is rather inconsistent with the cause assigned for his exile. If he was banished from Rome, and forbidden to leave the island of Corsica, for having been an accomplice in the adultery of Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, it was not likely that Agrippina, bold as she undoubtedly was, would signalize her nuptials with Claudius by requesting the recall of one banished for such an offence, no matter how viciously inclined she was herself. Still more unlikely was it that she would bring him into the

palace so soon after her marriage, and make him the tutor of her son, Nero.

It is much more rational to believe that the flatteries of Seneca, gross and absurd as they were, had the desired effect on Claudius; for the philosopher had been made prætor and admitted into the senate, by the emperor, before he was brought to the palace as the tutor of Nero. Seneca could then reply somewhat as follows to those who sneered at his meanness in almost worshipping Claudius as a deity, in return for his having banished him as a criminal: There would have been no use in addressing Claudius in the language of reason and moderation. It was only by mocking him to his face that he could be influenced. I mocked him accordingly, and my mockery produced the desired effect in due time. Had I told Claudius what he really was, instead of what no mortal can ever be, I would still, at this day, have continued to languish in the swamps of Corsica.

This is in entire accordance with his satire in prose and verse on the death of Claudius, entitled, Anozoloxuydwais ("The Metamorphosis into a Gourd") ;* in which he ridicules him quite as much as he praised him in his Consolatio ad Polybium. Indeed, it would be difficult to decide which production does most discredit to the philosopher. The first had an object; the author yearned to return to Rome; but the second had none, except the author wished to gratify Agrippina, by showing that, in poisoning her husband and uncle, she only committed an act for which all ought to commend rather than censure her. Considered in any light, such an attack on the murdered dead was not merely in bad taste; it was base-nearly if not quite as much so, as the murder, which made it safe to make it. Accordingly its authenticity is denied by some of the biographers of Seneca, like that of the Consolatio ad Polybium. But one as well as the other bears the obvious impress of Seneca's style, it would be much easier to prove that he is not the author of the Questiones Naturales, De Ira, and De Clementia, than of this bitter satire on the poisoned Claudius. A writer may be so closely imitated, however, that there would be some reason in denying the authenticity of the Apocolocynthosis, if Seneca had done nothing else deserving of censure; but, unfortunately, this cannot be pretended.

This curious production commences as follows:-Quid actum sit in cœlo ante diem tertium eidus octorbis, anno novo, initio felicissimi, volo memoriæ tradere.-Claudii Casoris Apocol.

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