Four Tragedies and Octavia Read Free

where he spent eight years. He was by now the father of a son and daughter; a second son died on the eve of his exile, and his wife was dead before his return.
    Out of the lonely meditations of these eight years came two of the three works known as ‘Consolations’. One had already been written ‘To Marcia’, a bereaved mother, 1 a second was addressed to Polybius, the powerful freedman of Claudius, and combined ‘consolation’ on the death of a brother with advice on public administration and servile flattery of the emperor and his entourage. The third, to his mother Helvia, on the subject of his own exile, is one of his most sincere and likeable compositions. 2 He was probably also engaged at this time on the treatise
De Ira
(published about A.D . 49), a brilliant and eloquent plea for the stoical control of the baser emotions, and perhaps on some of his work on natural phenomena, which was to appear nearthe end of his life. It is not unlikely that his experiments in the composition of tragedy began in this period of unlimited leisure.
    In A.D . 48 Messalina was executed for her illegal and treasonable marriage to Gaius Silius, and the emperor married Agrippina. The abilities of Seneca had not been forgotten at Rome during his exile; by Agrippina’s influence he was now recalled to be tutor to her twelve-year-old son Lucius Domitius, the future emperor Nero. He was also appointed to the office of praetor. By the time Nero was eighteen years old, his advancement to the position of heir-apparent had been secured by his adoption into the Claudian family and his marriage to Octavia, daughter of Claudius; it only remained for Agrippina to remove her husband, which she did, by poison, in A.D . 54. From that date Seneca became the emperor’s principal civil adviser, in association with Burrus who commanded the praetorian guard. The first five years of the new reign surprised everyone, and became proverbial among historians as a period of wise and moderate government; for which credit must certainly be given to Seneca’s ability to combine firmness and high principle with tactful indulgence in his direction of the young emperor’s tastes and ambitions – an influence extending, one would imagine, more widely than is grudgingly allowed by Tacitus: 1 ‘Burrus’s influence lay in soldierly efficiency and seriousness of character, Seneca’s in amiable high principles and his tuition of Nero in public speaking.’ It is clear, however, that it was from Seneca that Nero learnt, not only how to speak, but what to say: ‘Nero pledged himself to clemency in numerous speeches; Seneca put them into his mouth, to display his own talent or demonstrate his high-minded guidance.’ It is uncertainwhether among Seneca’s literary compositions should be included the ribald satire
The Pumpkinification of the Late Claudius
, a farcical fantasy on the reception of the departed emperor into everlasting life. But it is recorded that he wrote for Nero a tongue-in-cheek panegyric on Claudius, the recitation of which reduced the audience to helpless laughter. 1 More to his credit are the works
De Vita Beata
and
De Beneficiis
, and, despite its tendency to offer flattery in the guise of instruction, the
De dementia
addressed to his royal pupil.
    But it was not long before a growing feud between Agrippina and her son disturbed the security of Seneca’s position; and the part played by him in Nero’s atrocious matricide appears, at the best, ambiguous; he certainly failed, or had no desire, to curb the emperor’s violence, and he provided him with the letter of justification which was sent to the senate. 2 There is reason to believe that he condoned, and possibly profited by, many of Nero’s attacks on his enemies; and in return his own acquisition of enormous wealth brought him into disrepute. A senator prosecuted for extortion and embezzlement while governor of Asia