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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:35:20 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10846-0.txt b/10846-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50ab074 --- /dev/null +++ b/10846-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8356 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10846 *** + +SEEKERS AFTER GOD + +BY THE REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., + +CANON OF WESTMINSTER. + + + + + + + +SENECA. + + + "Ce nuage frangé de rayons qui toucbe presqu' à l'immortelle aurore + des vérités chrétiennes."--PONTMAOTIN. + +INTRODUCTORY. + +On the banks of the Baetis--the modern Guadalquiver,--and under the +woods that crown the southern slopes of the Sierra Morena, lies the +beautiful and famous city of Cordova. It had been selected by Marcellus +as the site of a Roman colony; and so many Romans and Spaniards of high +rank chose it for their residence, that it obtained from Augustus the +honourable surname of the "Patrician Colony." Spain, during this period +of the Empire, exercised no small influence upon the literature and +politics of Rome. No less than three great Emperors--Trajan, Hadrian, +and Theodosius,--were natives of Spain. Columella, the writer on +agriculture, was born at Cadiz; Quintilian, the great writer on the +education of an orator, was born at Calahorra; the poet Martial was a +native of Bilbilis; but Cordova could boast the yet higher honour of +having given birth to the Senecas, an honour which won for it the +epithet of "The Eloquent." A ruin is shown to modern travellers which +is popularly called the House of Seneca, and the fact is at least a +proof that the city still retains some memory of its illustrious sons. + +Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher, was by rank a +Roman knight. What causes had led him or his family to settle in Spain +we do not know, and the names Annaeus and Seneca are alike obscure. It +has been vaguely conjectured that both names may involve an allusion to +the longevity of some of the founders of the family, for Annaeus seems +to be connected with _annus_, a year, and Seneca with _senex_, an old +man. The common English composite plant ragwort is called _senecio_ from +the white and feathery pappus or appendage of its seeds; and similarly, +Isidore says that the first Seneca was so named because "he was born +with white hair." + +Although the father of Seneca was of knightly rank, his family had never +risen to any eminence; it belonged to the class of _nouveaux riches_, +and we do not know whether it was of Roman or of Spanish descent. But +his mother Helvia--an uncommon name, which, by a curious coincidence, +belonged also to the mother of Cicero--was a Spanish lady; and it was +from her that Seneca, as well as his famous nephew, the poet Lucan, +doubtless derived many of the traits which mark their intellect and +their character. There was in the Spaniard a richness and splendour of +imagination, an intensity and warmth, a touch of "phantasy and flame," +which we find in these two men of genius, and which was wholly wanting +to the Roman temperament. + +Of Cordova itself, except in a single epigram, Seneca makes no mention; +but this epigram suffices to show that he must have been familiar with +its stirring and memorable traditions. The elder Seneca must have been +living at Cordova during all the troublous years of civil war, when his +native city caused equal offence to Pompey and to Caesar. Doubtless, +too, he would have had stories to tell of the noble Sertorius, and of +the tame fawn which gained for him the credit of divine assistance; and +contemporary reminiscences of that day of desperate disaster when +Caesar, indignant that Cordova should have embraced the cause of the +sons of Pompey, avenged himself by a massacre of 22,000 of the citizens. +From his mother Helvia, Seneca must often have heard about the fierce +and gallant struggle in which her country had resisted the iron yoke of +Rome. Many a time as a boy must he have been told how long and how +heroically Saguntum had withstood the assaults and baffled the triumph +of Hannibal; how bravely Viriathus had fought, and how shamefully he +fell; and how at length the unequal contest, which reduced Spain to the +condition of a province, was closed, when the heroic defenders of +Numantia, rather than yield to Scipio, reduced their city to a heap of +bloodstained ruins. + +But, whatever may have been the extent to which Seneca was influenced by +the Spanish blood which flowed in his veins, and the Spanish legends on +which his youth was fed, it was not in Spain that his lot was cast. When +he was yet an infant in arms his father, with all his family, emigrated +from Cordova to Rome. What may have been the special reason for this +important step we do not know; possibly, like the father of Horace, the +elder Seneca may have sought a better education for his sons than could +be provided by even so celebrated a provincial town as Cordova; +possibly--for he belonged to a somewhat pushing family--he may have +desired to gain fresh wealth and honour in the imperial city. + +Thither we must follow him; and, as it is our object not only to depict +a character but also to sketch the characteristics of a very memorable +age in the world's history, we must try to get a glimpse of the family +in the midst of which our young philosopher grew up, of the kind of +education which he received, and of the influences which were likely to +tell upon him during his childish and youthful years. Only by such means +shall we be able to judge of him aright. And it is worth while to try +and gain a right conception of the man, not only because he was very +eminent as a poet, an author, and a politician, not only because he +fills a very prominent place in the pages of the great historian, who +has drawn so immortal a picture of Rome under the Emperors; not only +because in him we can best study the inevitable signs which mark, even +in the works of men of genius, a degraded people and a decaying +literature; but because he was, as the title of this volume designates +him, a "SEEKER AFTER GOD." Whatever may have been the dark and +questionable actions of his life--and in this narrative we shall +endeavor to furnish a plain and unvarnished picture of the manner in +which he lived,--it is certain that, as a philosopher and as a moralist, +he furnishes us with the grandest and most eloquent series of truths to +which, unilluminated by Christianity, the thoughts of man have ever +attained. The purest and most exalted philosophic sect of antiquity was +"the sect of the Stoics;" and Stoicism never found a literary exponent +more ardent, more eloquent, or more enlightened than Lucius Annaeus +Seneca. So nearly, in fact, does he seem to have arrived at the truths +of Christianity, that to many it seemed a matter for marvel that he +could have known them without having heard them from inspired lips. He +is constantly cited with approbation by some of the most eminent +Christian fathers. Tertullian, Lactantius, even St. Augustine himself, +quote his words with marked admiration, and St. Jerome appeals to him as +"_our_ Seneca." The Council of Trent go further still, and quote him as +though he were an acknowledged father of the Church. For many centuries +there were some who accepted as genuine the spurious letters supposed to +have been interchanged between Seneca and St. Paul, in which Seneca is +made to express a wish to hold among the Pagans the same beneficial +position which St. Paul held in the Christian world. The possibility of +such an intercourse, the nature and extent of such supposed obligations, +will come under our consideration hereafter. All that I here desire to +say is, that in considering the life of Seneca we are not only dealing +with a life which was rich in memorable incidents, and which was cast +into an age upon which Christianity dawned as a new light in the +darkness, but also the life of one who climbed the loftiest peaks of the +moral philosophy of Paganism, and who in many respects may be regarded +as the Coryphaeus of what has been sometimes called a Natural Religion. + +It is not my purpose to turn aside from the narrative in order to +indulge in moral reflections, because such reflections will come with +tenfold force if they are naturally suggested to the reader's mind by +the circumstances of the biography. But from first to last it will be +abundantly obvious to every thoughtful mind that alike the morality and +the philosophy of Paganism, as contrasted with the splendour of revealed +truth and the holiness of Christian life, are but as moonlight is to +sunlight. The Stoical philosophy may be compared to a torch which flings +a faint gleam here and there in the dusky recesses of a mighty cavern; +Christianity to the sun pouring into the inmost depths of the same +cavern its sevenfold illumination. The torch had a value and brightness +of its own, but compared with the dawning of that new glory it appears +to be dim and ineffectual, even though its brightness was a real +brightness, and had been drawn from the same etherial source. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA. + +The exact date of Seneca's birth is uncertain, but it took place in all +probability about seven years before the commencement of the Christian +era. It will give to his life a touch of deep and solemn interest if we +remember that, during all those guilty and stormy scenes amid which his +earlier destiny was cast, there lived and taught in Palestine the Son of +God, the Saviour of the world. + +The problems which for many years tormented his mind were beginning to +find their solution, amid far other scenes, by men whose creed and +condition he despised. While Seneca was being guarded by his attendant +slave through the crowded and dangerous streets of Rome on his way to +school, St. Peter and St. John were fisher-lads by the shores of +Gennesareth; while Seneca was ardently assimilating the doctrine of the +stoic Attalus, St. Paul, with no less fervancy of soul, sat learning at +the feet of Gamaliel; and long before Seneca had made his way, through +paths dizzy and dubious, to the zenith of his fame, unknown to him that +Saviour had been crucified through whose only merits he and we can ever +attain to our final rest. + +Seneca was about two years old when he was carried to Rome in his +nurse's arms. Like many other men who have succeeded in attaining +eminence, he suffered much from ill-health in his early years. He tells +us of one serious illness from which he slowly recovered under the +affectionate and tender nursing of his mother's sister. All his life +long he was subject to attacks of asthma, which, after suffering every +form of disease, he says that he considers to be the worst. At one time +his personal sufferings weighed so heavily on his spirits that nothing +save a regard for his father's wishes prevented him from suicide: and +later in life he was only withheld from seeking the deliverance of death +by the tender affection of his wife Paulina. He might have used with +little alteration the words of Pope, that his various studies but served +to help him + + "Through _this long disease, my life_." + +The recovery from this tedious illness is the only allusion which Seneca +has made to the circumstances of his childhood. The ancient writers, +even the ancient poets, but rarely refer, even in the most cursory +manner, to their early years. The cause of this reticence offers a +curious problem for our inquiry, but the fact is indisputable. Whereas +there is scarcely a single modern poet who has not lingered with +undisguised feelings of happiness over the gentle memories of his +childhood, not one of the ancient poets has systematically touched upon +the theme at all. From Lydgate down to Tennyson, it would be easy to +quote from our English poets a continuous line of lyric songs on the +subject of boyish years. How to the young child the fir-trees seemed to +touch the sky, how his heart leaped up at the sight of the rainbow, how +he sat at his mother's feet and pricked into paper the tissued flowers +of her dress, how he chased the bright butterfly, or in his tenderness +feared to brush even the dust from off its wings, how he learnt sweet +lessons and said innocent prayers at his father's knee; trifles like +these, yet trifles which may have been rendered noble and beautiful by a +loving imagination, have been narrated over and over again in the songs +of our poets. The lovely lines of Henry Vaughan might be taken as a type +of thousands more:-- + + "Happy those early days, when I + Shined in my Angel infancy. + Before I understood this place + Appointed for my second race, + Or taught my soul to fancy aught + But a white celestial thought; + + * * * * * + + "Before I taught my tongue to wound + My conscience with a sinful sound + Or had the black art to dispense + A several sin to every sense; + But felt through all this fleshy dress, + Bright shoots of everlastingness." + +The memory of every student of English poetry will furnish countless +parallels to thoughts like these. How is it that no similar poem could +be quoted from the whole range of ancient literature? How is it that to +the Greek and Roman poets that morning of life, which should have been +so filled with "natural blessedness," seems to have been a blank? How is +it that writers so voluminous, so domestic, so affectionate as Cicero, +Virgil, and Horace do not make so much as a single allusion to the +existence of their own mothers? + +To answer this question fully would be to write an entire essay on the +difference between ancient and modern life, and would carry me far away +from my immediate subject.[1] But I may say generally, that the +explanation rests in the fact that in all probability childhood among +the ancients was a disregarded, and in most cases a far less happy, +period than it is with us. The birth of a child in the house of a Greek +or a Roman was not necessarily a subject for rejoicing. If the father, +when the child was first shown to him, stooped down and took it in his +arms, it was received as a member of the family; if he left it unnoticed +then it was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or barren +place to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first passer by. And +even if a child escaped this fate, yet for the first seven or eight +years of life he was kept in the gynaeceum, or women's apartments, and +rarely or never saw his father's face. No halo of romance or poetry was +shed over those early years. Until the child was full grown the absolute +power of life or death rested in his father's hands; he had no freedom, +and met with little notice. For individual life the ancients had a very +slight regard; there was nothing autobiographic or introspective in +their temperament. With them public life, the life of the State, was +everything; domestic life, the life of the individual, occupied but a +small share of their consideration. All the innocent pleasures of +infancy, the joys of the hearth, the charm of the domestic circle, the +flow and sparkle of childish gaity, were by them but little appreciated. +The years before manhood were years of prospect, and in most cases they +offered but little to make them worth the retrospect. It is a mark of +the more modern character which stamps the writings of Seneca, as +compared with earlier authors, that he addresses his mother in terms of +the deepest affection, and cannot speak of his darling little son except +in a voice that seems to break with tears. + +[Footnote 1: See, however, the same question treated from a somewhat +different point of view by M. Nisard, in his charming _Études sur les +Poëtes de la Décadence_, ii. 17, _sqq_.] + +Let us add another curious consideration. The growth of the personal +character, the reminiscences of a life advancing into perfect +consciousness, are largely moulded by the gradual recognition of moral +laws, by the sense of mystery evolved in the inevitable struggle between +duty and pleasure,--between the desire to do right and the temptation to +do wrong. But among the ancients the conception of morality was so +wholly different from ours, their notions of moral obligation were, in +the immense majority of cases, so much less stringent and so much less +important, they had so faint a disapproval for sins which we condemn, +and so weak an indignation against vices which we abhor, that in their +early years we can hardly suppose them to have often fathomed those +"abysmal deeps of personality," the recognition of which is a necessary +element of marked individual growth. + +We have, therefore, no materials for forming any vivid picture of +Seneca's childhood; but, from what we gather about the circumstances and +the character of his family, we should suppose that he was exceptionally +fortunate. The Senecas were wealthy; they held a good position in +society; they were a family of cultivated taste, of literary pursuits, +of high character, and of amiable dispositions. Their wealth raised them +above the necessity of those mean cares and degrading shifts to eke out +a scanty livelihood which mark the career of other literary men who were +their contemporaries. Their rank and culture secured them the intimacy +of all who were best worth knowing in Roman circles; and the general +dignity and morality which marked their lives would free them from all +likelihood of being thrown into close intercourse with the numerous +class of luxurious epicureans, whose unblushing and unbounded vice gave +an infamous notority to the capital of the world. + +Of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of our philosopher, we know few +personal particulars, except that he was a professional rhetorician, who +drew up for the use of his sons and pupils a number of oratorical +exercises, which have come down to us under the names of _Suasoriae_ and +_Controversiae_. They are a series of declamatory arguments on both +sides, respecting a number of historical or purely imaginary subjects; +and it would be impossible to conceive any reading more utterly +unprofitable. But the elder Seneca was steeped to the lips in an +artificial rhetoric; and these highly elaborated arguments, invented in +order to sharpen the faculties for purposes of declamation and debate, +were probably due partly to his note-book and partly to his memory. His +memory was so prodigious that after hearing two thousand words he could +repeat them again in the same order. Few of those who have possessed +such extraordinary powers of memory have been men of first-rate talent, +and the elder Seneca was no exception. But if his memory did not improve +his original genius, it must at any rate have made him a very agreeable +member of society, and have furnished him with an abundant store of +personal and political anecdotes. In short, Marcus Seneca was a +well-to-do, intelligent man of the world, with plenty of common sense, +with a turn for public speaking, with a profound dislike and contempt +for anything which he considered philosophical or fantastic, and with a +keen eye to the main advantage. + +His wife Helvia, if we may trust the panegyric of her son, was on the +other hand a far less commonplace character. But for her husband's +dislike to learning and philosophy she would have become a proficient in +both, and in a short period of study she had made a considerable +advance. Yet her intellect was less remarkable than the nobility and +sweetness of her mind; other mothers loved their sons because their own +ambition was gratified by their honours, and their feminine wants +supplied by their riches; but Helvia loved her sons for their own sakes, +treated them with liberal generosity, but refused to reap any personal +benefit from their wealth, managed their patrimonies with disinterested +zeal, and spent her own money to bear the expenses of their political +career. She rose superior to the foibles and vices of her time. +Immodesty, the plague-spot of her age, had never infected her pure life. +Gems and pearls had little charms for her. She was never ashamed of her +children, as though their presence betrayed her own advancing age. "You +never stained your face," says her son, when writing to console her in +his exile, "with walnut-juice or rouge; you never delighted in dresses +indelicately low; your single ornament was a loveliness which no age +could destroy; your special glory was a conspicuous chastity." We may +well say with Mr. Tennyson-- + + "Happy he + With such a mother! faith in womankind + Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high + Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall, + He shall not blind his soul with clay." + +Nor was his mother Helvia the only high-minded lady in whose society +the boyhood of Seneca was spent. Her sister, whose name is unknown, that +aunt who had so tenderly protected the delicate boy, and nursed him +through the sickness of his infancy, seems to have inspired him with an +affection of unusual warmth. He tells us how, when her husband was +Prefect of Egypt, so far was she from acting as was usual with the wives +of provincial governors, that she was as much respected and beloved as +they were for the most part execrated and shunned. So serious was the +evil caused by these ladies, so intolerable was their cruel rapacity, +that it had been seriously debated in the Senate whether they should +ever be allowed to accompany their husbands. Not so with Helvia's +sister. She was never seen in public; she allowed no provincial to visit +her house; she begged no favour for herself, and suffered none to be +begged from her. The province not only praised her, but, what was still +more to her credit, barely knew anything about her, and longed in vain +for another lady who should imitate her virtue and self-control. Egypt +was the headquarters for biting and loquacious calumny, yet even Egypt +never breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. And when during +their homeward voyage her husband died, in spite of danger and tempest +and the deeply-rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail +with a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of shipwreck could +drive her to separate herself from her husband's body until she had +provided for its safe and honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of a +good and heroic woman; and that she reciprocated the regard which makes +her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact +that, when he made his _début_ as a candidate for the honours of the +State, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time +her matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced +for his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the +crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets of Rome. + +Two brothers, very different from each other in their habits and +character, completed the family circle, Marcus Annaeus Novatus and +Lucius Annaeus Mela, of whom the former was older the latter younger, +than their more famous brother. + +Marcus Annaeus Novatus is known to history under the name of Junius +Gallio, which he took when adopted by the orator of that name, who was a +friend of his father. He is none other than the Gallio of the Acts, the +Proconsul of Achaia, whose name has passed current among Christians as a +proverb of complacent indifference.[2] + +[Footnote 2: Acts xxv. 19.] + +The scene, however, in which Scripture gives us a glimpse of him has +been much misunderstood, and to talk of him as "careless Gallio," or to +apply the expression that "he cared for none of these things," to +indifference in religious matters, is entirely to misapply the spirit of +the narrative. What really happened was this. The Jews, indignant at the +success of Paul's preaching, dragged him before the tribunal of Gallio, +and accused him of introducing illegal modes of worship. When the +Apostle was about to defend himself, Gallio contemptuously cut him short +by saying to the Jews, "If in truth there were in question any act of +injustice or wicked misconduct, I should naturally have tolerated your +complaint. But if this is some verbal inquiry about mere technical +matters of your law, look after it yourselves. I do not choose to be a +judge of such matters." With these words he drove them from his +judgment-seat with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the Jews and +their religious affairs as was subsequently expressed by Festus to the +sceptical Agrippa, and as had been expressed previously by Pontius +Pilate[3] to the tumultous Pharisees. Exulting at this discomfiture of +the hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in +a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat +him in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal. This was the +event at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What +could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks +beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not? So long as they did not make a riot, +or give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat +Sosthenes or any number of Jews black and blue if it pleased them, for +all he was likely to care. + +[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 24, "See ye to it." Cf. Acts xiv. 15, "Look ye +to it." Toleration existed in the Roman Empire, and the magistrates +often interfered to protect the Jews from massacre; but they absolutely +and persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to +understand their doctrines or enter into their disputes. The tradition +that Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is +utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written +nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Conybeare and +Howson, _St. Paul_, vol. i. Ch. xii.; Aubertin, _Sénèque et St. Paul_.)] + +What a vivid glimpse do we here obtain, from the graphic picture of an +eye-witness, of the daily life in an ancient provincial forum; how +completely do we seem to catch sight for a moment of that habitual +expression of contempt which curled the thin lips of a Roman aristocrat +in the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews! If Seneca +had come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in his Egyptian travels, the +only impression left on his mind was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal, +and Suetonius, who never mention the Jews without execration. In a +passage, quoted by St. Augustine (_De Civit. Dei_, iv. 11) from his lost +book on Superstitions, Seneca speaks of the multitude of their +proselytes, and calls them "_gens sceleratissima_," a "_most criminal +race_." It has been often conjectured--it has even been seriously +believed--that Seneca had personal intercourse with St. Paul and learnt +from him some lessons of Christianity. The scene on which we have just +been gazing will show us the utter unlikelihood of such a supposition. +Probably the nearest opportunity which ever occurred to bring the +Christian Apostle into intellectual contact with the Roman philosopher +was this occasion, when St. Paul was dragged as a prisoner into the +presence of Seneca's elder brother. The utter contempt and indifference +with which he was treated, the manner in which he was summarily cut +short before he could even open his lips in his own defence, will give +us a just estimate of the manner in which Seneca would have been likely +to regard St. Paul. It is highly improbable that Gallio ever retained +the slightest impression or memory of so every-day a circumstance as +this, by which alone he is known to the world. It is possible that he +had not even heard the mere name of Paul, and that, if he ever thought +of him at all, it was only as a miserable, ragged, fanatical Jew, of dim +eyes and diminutive stature, who had once wished to inflict upon him a +harangue, and who had once come for a few moments "betwixt the wind and +his nobility." He would indeed have been unutterably amazed if anyone +had whispered to him that well nigh the sole circumstance which would +entitle him to be remembered by posterity, and the sole event of his +life by which he would be at all generally known, was that momentary and +accidental relation to his despised prisoner. + +But Novatus--or, to give him his adopted name, Gallio--presented to his +brother Seneca, and to the rest of the world, a very different aspect +from that under which we are wont to think of him. By them he was +regarded as an illustrious declaimer, in an age when declamation was the +most valued of all accomplishments. It was true that there was a sort of +"tinkle," a certain falsetto tone in his style, which offended men of +robust and severe taste; but this meretricious resonance of style was a +matter of envy and admiration when affectation was the rage, and when +the times were too enervated and too corrupt for the manly conciseness +and concentrated force of an eloquence dictated by liberty and by +passion. He seems to have acquired both among his friends and among +strangers the epithet of "dulcis," "the charming or fascinating Gallio:" +"This is more," says the poet Statius, "than to have given Seneca to the +world, and to have begotten the sweet Gallio." Seneca's portrait of him +is singularly faultless. He says that no one was so gentle to any one as +Gallio was to every one; that his charm of manner won over even the +people whom mere chance threw in his way, and that such was the force of +his natural goodness that no one suspected his behaviour, as though it +were due to art or simulation. Speaking of flattery, in his fourth book +of Natural Questions, he says to his friend Lucilius, "I used to say to +you that my brother Gallio _(whom every one loves a little, even people +who cannot love him more)_ was wholly _ignorant_ of other vices, but +even _detested_ this. You might try him in any direction. You began to +praise his intellect--an intellect of the highest and worthiest kind,... +and he walked away! You began to praise his moderation, he instantly cut +short your first words. You began to express admiration for his +blandness and natural suavity of manner,... yet even here he resisted +your compliments; and if you were led to exclaim that you had found a +man who could not be overcome by those insidious attacks which every one +else admits, and hoped that he would at least tolerate _this_ compliment +because of its truth, even on this ground he would resist your flattery; +not as though you had been awkward, or as though he suspected that you +were jesting with him, or had some secret end in view, but simply +because he had a horror of every form of adulation." We can easily +imagine that Gallio was Seneca's favorite brother, and we are not +surprised to find that the philosopher dedicates to him his three books +on Anger, and his charming little treatise "On a Happy Life." + +Of the third brother, L. Annaeus Mela, we have fewer notices; but, from +what we know, we should conjecture that his character no less than his +reputation was inferior to that of his brothers; yet he seems to have +been the favorite of his father, who distinctly asserts that his +intellect was capable of every excellence, and superior to that of his +brothers.[4] This, however, may have been because Mela, "longing only to +long for nothing," was content with his father's rank, and devoted +himself wholly to the study of eloquence. Instead of entering into +public life, he deliberately withdrew himself from all civil duties, and +devoted himself to tranquility and ease. Apparently he preferred to be a +farmer-general (_publicanus_) and not a consul. His chief fame rests in +the fact that he was father of Lucan, the poet of the decadence or +declining literature of Rome. The only anecdote about him which has come +down to us is one that sets his avarice in a very unfavourable light. +When his famous son, the unhappy poet, had forfeited his life, as well +as covered himself with infamy by denouncing his own mother Attila in +the conspiracy of Piso, Mela, instead of being overwhelmed with shame +and agony, immediately began to collect with indecent avidity his son's +debts, as though to show Nero that he felt no great sorrow for his +bereavement. But this was not enough for Nero's malice; he told Mela +that he must follow his son, and Mela was forced to obey the order, +and to die. + +[Footnote 4: M. Ann. Senec. _Controv_. ii. _Praef_.] + +Doubtless Helvia, if she survived her sons and grandsons, must have +bitterly rued the day when, with her husband and her young children, she +left the quiet retreat of a life in Cordova. Each of the three boys grew +up to a man of genius, and each of them grew up to stain his memory with +deeds that had been better left undone, and to die violent deaths by +their own hands or by a tyrant's will. Mela died as we have seen; his +son Lucan and his brother Seneca were driven to death by the cruel +orders of Nero. Gallio, after stooping to panic-stricken supplications +for his preservation, died ultimately by suicide. It was a shameful and +miserable end for them all, but it was due partly to their own errors, +partly to the hard necessity of the degraded times in which they lived. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE EDUCATION OF SENECA. + +For a reason which I have already indicated--I mean the habitual +reticence of the ancient writers respecting the period of their +boyhood--it is not easy to form a very vivid conception of the kind of +education given to a Roman boy of good family up to the age of fifteen, +when he laid aside the golden amulet and embroidered toga to assume a +more independent mode of life. + +A few facts, however, we can gather from the scattered allusions of the +poets Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Persius. From these we learn that +the schoolmasters were for the most part underpaid and despised,[5] +while at the same time an erudition alike minute and useless was rigidly +demanded of them. We learn also that they were exceedingly severe in the +infliction of corporeal punishment; Orbilius, the schoolmaster of +Horace, appears to have been a perfect Dr. Busby, and the poet Martial +records with indignation the barbarities of chastisement which he daily +witnessed. + +[Footnote 5: For the miseries of the literary class, and especially of +schoolmasters, see Juv, _Sat_. vii.] + +The things taught were chiefly arithmetic, grammar--both Greek and +Latin--reading, and repetition of the chief Latin poets. There was also +a good deal of recitation and of theme-writing on all kinds of trite +historical subjects. The arithmetic seems to have been mainly of a very +simple and severely practical kind, especially the computation of +interest and compound interest; and the philology generally, both +grammar and criticism, was singularly narrow, uninteresting, and +useless. Of what conceivable advantage can it have been to any human +being to know the name of the mother of Hecuba, of the nurse of +Anchises, of the stepmother of Anchemolus, the number of years Acestes +lived, and how many casks of wine the Sicilians gave to the Phrygians? +Yet these were the dispicable _minutiae_ which every schoolmaster was +then expected to have at his fingers' ends, and every boy-scholar to +learn at the point of the ferule--trash which was only fit to be +unlearned the moment it was known. + +For this kind of verbal criticism and fantastic archaeology Seneca, who +had probably gone through it all, expresses a profound and very rational +contempt. In a rather amusing passage[6] he contrasts the kind of use +which would be made of a Virgil lesson by a philosopher and a +grammarian. Coming to the lines, + + "Each happiest day for mortals speeds the first, + Then crowds disease behind and age accurst," + +the philosopher will point out why and in what sense the early days of +life are the best days, and how rapidly the evil days succeed them, and +consequently how infinitely important it is to use well the golden dawn +of our being. But the verbal critic will content himself with the +remark that Virgil always uses _fugio_ of the flight of time, and +always joins "old age" with "disease," and consequently that these are +tags to be remembered, and plagiarized hereafter in the pupils' +"_original_ composition." Similarly, if the book in hand be Cicero's +treatise "On the Commonwealth," instead of entering into great political +questions, our grammarian will note that one of the Roman kings had no +father (to speak of), and another no mother; that dictators used +formerly to be called "masters of the people;" that Romulus perished +during an eclipse; that the old form of _reipsa_ was _reapse_, and of +_se ipse_ was _sepse_; that the starting point in the circus which is +now called _creta_, or "chalk," used to be called _caix_, or _carcer_; +that in the time of Ennuis _opera_ meant not only "work," but also +"assistance," and so on, and so on. Is this true education? or rather, +should our great aim ever be to translate noble precepts into daily +action? "Teach me," he says, "to despise pleasure and glory; +_afterwards_ you shall teach me to disentangle difficulties, to +distinguish ambiguities, to see through obscurities; _now_ teach me what +is necessary." Considering the condition of much which in modern times +passes under the name of "education," we may possibly find that the +hints of Seneca are not yet wholly obsolete. + +[Footnote 6: Ep. cviii.] + +What kind of schoolmaster taught the little Seneca when under the care +of the slave who was called _pedagogus_, or a "boy-leader" (whence our +word _pedagogue_), he daily went with his brothers to school through the +streets of Rome, we do not know. He may have been a severe Orbilius, or +he may have been one of those noble-minded tutors whose ideal +portraiture is drawn in such beautiful colours by the learned and +amiable Quintilian. Seneca has not alluded to any one who taught him +during his early days. The only schoolfellow whom he mentions by name +in his voluminous writings is a certain Claranus, a deformed boy, whom, +after leaving school, Seneca never met again until they were both old +men, but of whom he speaks with great admiration. In spite of his +hump-back, Claranus appeared even beautiful in the eyes of those who +knew him well, because his virtue and good sense left a stronger +impression than his deformity, and "his body was adorned by the beauty +of his soul." + +It was not until mere school-lessons were finished that a boy began +seriously to enter upon the studies of eloquence and philosophy, which +therefore furnish some analogy to what we should call "a university +education." Gallio and Mela, Seneca's elder and younger brothers, +devoted themselves heart and soul to the theory and practice of +eloquence; Seneca made the rarer and the wiser choice in giving his +entire enthusiasm to the study of philosophy. + +I say the wiser choice, because eloquence is not a thing for which one +can give a receipt as one might give a receipt for making +_eau-de-Cologne_. Eloquence is the noble, the harmonious, the passionate +expression of truths profoundly realized, or of emotions intensely felt. +It is a flame which cannot be kindled by artificial means. _Rhetoric_ +may be taught if any one thinks it worth learning; but _eloquence_ is a +gift as innate as the genius from which it springs. "_Cujus vita fulgur, +ejus verba tonitrua_"--"if a man's life be lightning, his words will be +thunders." But the kind of oratory to be obtained by a constant practice +of declamation such as that which occupied the schools of the Rhetors +will be a very artificial lightning and a very imitated thunder--not the +artillery of heaven, but the Chinese fire and rolled bladders of the +stage. Nothing could be more false, more hollow, more pernicious than +the perpetual attempt to drill numerous classes of youths into a +reproduction of the mere manner of the ancient orators. An age of +unlimited declamation, an age of incessant talk, is a hotbed in which +real depth and nobility of feeling runs miserably to seed. Style is +never worse than it is in ages which employ themselves in teaching +little else. Such teaching produces an emptiness of thought concealed +under a plethora of words. This age of countless oratorical masters was +emphatically the period of decadence and decay. There is a hollow ring +about it, a falsetto tone in its voice; a fatiguing literary grimace in +the manner of its authors. Even its writers of genius were injured and +corrupted by the prevailing mode. They can say nothing simply; they are +always in contortions. Their very indignation and bitterness of heart, +genuine as it is, assumes a theatrical form of expression.[7] They +abound in unrealities: their whole manner is defaced with would-be +cleaverness, with antitheses, epigrams, paradoxes, forced expressions, +figures and tricks of speech, straining after originality and profundity +when they are merely repeating very commonplace remarks. What else could +one expect in an age of salaried declaimers, educated in a false +atmosphere of superficial talk, for ever haranguing and perorating about +great passions which they had never felt, and great deeds which they +would have been the last to imitate? After perpetually immolating the +Tarquins and the Pisistratids in inflated grandiloquence, they would go +to lick the dust off a tyrant's shoes. How could eloquence survive when +the magnanimity and freedom which inspired it were dead, and when the +men and books which professed to teach it were filled with despicable +directions about the exact position in which the orator was to use his +hands, and as to whether it was a good thing or not for him to slap his +forehead and disarrange his hair? + +[Footnote 7: + "Juvénal, élevé dans les cris de l'école + Poussa jusqu'à l'excès sa mordante hyperbole."-- + BOILEAU.] + +The philosophic teaching which even from boyhood exercised a powerful +fascination on the eager soul of Seneca was at least something better +than this; and more than one of his philosophic teachers succeeded in +winning his warm affection, and in moulding the principles and habits of +his life. Two of them he mentions with special regard, namely Sotion the +Pythagorean, and Attalus the Stoic. He also heard the lectures of the +fluent and musical Fabianus Papirius, but seems to have owed less to him +than to his other teachers. + +Sotion had embraced the views of Pythagoras respecting the +transmigration of souls, a doctrine which made the eating of animal food +little better than cannibalism or parricide. But, even if any of his +followers rejected this view, Sotion would still maintain that the +eating of animals, if not an impiety, was at least a cruelty and a +waste. "What hardship does my advice inflict on you?" he used to ask. "I +do but deprive you of the food of vultures and lions." The ardent +boy--for at this time he could not have been more than seventeen years +old--was so convinced by these considerations that he became a +vegetarian. At first the abstinence from meat was painful, but after a +year he tells us (and many vegetarians will confirm his experience) it +was not only easy but delightful; and he used to believe, though he +would not assert it as a fact, that it made his intellect more keen and +active. He only ceased to be a vegetarian in obedience to the +remonstrance of his unphilosophical father, who would have easily +tolerated what he regarded as a mere vagary had it not involved the +danger of giving rise to a calumny. For about this time Tiberius +banished from Rome all the followers of strange and foreign religions; +and, as fasting was one of the rites practiced in some of them, Seneca's +father thought that perhaps his son might incur, by abstaining from +meat, the horrible suspicion of being a Christian or a Jew! + +Another Pythagorean philosopher whom he admired and whom he quotes was +Sextius, from whom he learnt the admirable practice of daily +self-examination:--"When the day was over, and he betook himself to his +nightly rest, he used to ask himself, What evil have you cured to day? +What vice have you resisted? In what particular have you improved?" "I +too adopt this custom," says Seneca, in his book on Anger, "and I daily +plead my cause before myself, when the light has been taken away, and my +wife, who is now aware of my habit, has become silent; I carefully +consider in my heart the entire day, and take a deliberate estimate of +my deeds and words." + +It was however the Stoic Attalus who seems to have had the main share in +the instruction of Seneca; and _his_ teaching did not involve any +practical results which the elder Seneca considered objectionable. He +tells us how he used to haunt the school of the eloquent philosopher, +being the first to enter and the last to leave it. "When I heard him +declaiming," he says, "against vice, and error, and the ills of life, I +often felt compassion for the human race, and believed my teacher to be +exalted above the ordinary stature of mankind. In Stoic fashion he used +to call himself a king; but to me his sovereignty seemed more than +royal, seeing that it was in his power to pass his judgments on kings +themselves. When he began to set forth the praises of poverty, and to +show how heavy and superfluous was the burden of all that exceeded the +ordinary wants of life, I often longed to leave school a poor man. When +he began to reprehend our pleasures, to praise a chaste body, a moderate +table, and a mind pure not from all unlawful but even from all +superfluous pleasures, it was my delight to set strict limits to all +voracity and gluttony. And these precepts, my Lucilius, have left some +permanent results; for I embraced them with impetuous eagerness, and +afterwards, when I entered upon a political career, I retained a few of +my good beginnings. In consequence of them, I have all my life long +renounced eating oysters and mushrooms, which do not satisfy hunger but +only sharpen appetite; for this reason I habitually abstain from +perfumes, because the sweetest perfume for the body is none at all: for +this reason I do without wines and baths. Other habits which I once +abandoned have come back to me, but in such a way that I merely +substitute moderation for abstinence, which perhaps is a still more +difficult task; since there are some things which it is easier for the +mind to cut away altogether than to enjoy in moderation. Attalus used to +recommend a hard couch in which the body could not sink; and, even in my +old age, I use one of such a kind that it leaves no impress of the +sleeper. I have told you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager +impulses our little scholars would have to all that is good, if any one +were to exhort them and urge them on. But the harm springs partly from +the fault of preceptors, who teach us how to _argue_, not how to _live_; +and partly from the fault of pupils, who bring to their teacher a +purpose of training their intellect and not their souls. Thus it is +that philosophy has been degraded into mere philology." + +In another lively passage, Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of +the various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers. After +observing that philosophy exercises some influence even over those who +do not go deeply in it, just as people sitting in a shop of perfumes +carry away with them some of the odour, he adds, "Do we not, however, +know some who have been among the audience of a philosopher for many +years, and have been even entirely uncoloured by his teaching? Of course +I do, even most persistent and continuous hearers; whom I do not call +pupils, but mere passing auditors of philosophers. Some come to hear, +not to learn, just as we are brought into a theatre for pleasure's sake, +to delight our ears with language, or with the voice, or with plays. You +will observe a large portion of the audience to whom the philosopher's +school is a mere haunt of their leisure. Their object is not to lay +aside any vices there, or to accept any law in accordance with which +they may conform their life, but that they may enjoy a mere tickling of +their ears. Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, to +catch up not _things_ but _words_. Some with eager countenances and +spirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, and these are charmed by +the beauty of the thoughts, not by the sound of empty words; but the +impression is not lasting. Few only have attained the power of carrying +home with them the frame of mind into which they had been elevated." + +It was to this small latter class that Seneca belonged. He became a +Stoic from very early years. The Stoic philosophers, undoubtedly the +noblest and purest of ancient sects, received their name from the fact +that their founder Zeno had lectured in the Painted Porch or Stoa +Paecile of Athens. The influence of these austere and eloquent masters, +teaching high lessons of morality and continence, and inspiring their +young audience with the glow of their own enthusiasm for virtue, must +have been invaluable in that effete and drunken age. Their doctrines +were pushed to yet more extravagant lengths by the Cynics, who were so +called from a Greek word meaning "dog," from what appeared to the +ancients to be the dog-like brutality of their manners. Juvenal +scornfully remarks, that the Stoics only differed from the Cynics "by a +tunic," which the Stoics wore and the Cynics discarded. Seneca never +indeed adopted the practices of Cynicism, but he often speaks admiringly +of the arch-Cynic Diogenes, and repeatedly refers to the Cynic +Demetrius, as a man deserving of the very highest esteem. "I take with +me everywhere," writes he to Lucilius, "that best of men, Demetrius; +and, leaving those who wear purple robes, I talk with him who is half +naked. Why should I not admire him? I have seen that he has no want. Any +one may despise all things, but no one _can_ possess all things. The +shortest road to riches lies through contempt of riches. But our +Demetrius lives not as though he _despised_ all things, but as though he +simply suffered others to possess them." + +These habits and sentiments throw considerable light on Seneca's +character. They show that even from his earliest days he was capable of +adopting self-denial as a principle, and that to his latest days he +retained many private habits of a simple and honourable character, even +when the exigencies of public life had compelled him to modify others. +Although he abandoned an unusual abstinence out of respect for his +father, we have positive evidence that he resumed in his old age the +spare practices which in his enthusiastic youth he had caught from the +lessons of high-minded teachers. These facts are surely sufficient to +refute at any rate those gross charges against the private character of +Seneca, venomously retailed by a jealous Greekling like Dio Cassius, +which do not rest on a tittle of evidence, and seem to be due to a mere +spirit of envy and calumny. I shall not again allude to these scandals +because I utterly disbelieve them. A man who in his "History" could, as +Dio Cassius has done, put into the mouth of a Roman senator such insane +falsehoods as he has pretended that Fufius Calenus uttered in full +senate against Cicero, was evidently actuated by a spirit which +disentitles his statements to my credence. Seneca was an inconsistent +philosopher both in theory and in practice; he fell beyond all question +into serious errors, which deeply compromise his character; but, so far +from being a dissipated or luxurious man, there is every reason to +believe that in the very midst of wealth and splendour, and all the +temptations which they involve, he retained alike the simplicity of his +habits and the rectitude of his mind. Whatever may have been the almost +fabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar and ivory, they were +rarely spread with any more sumptuous entertainment than water, +vegetables, and fruit. Whatever may have been the amusements common +among his wealthy and noble contemporaries, we know that he found his +highest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of his garden, and took some +of his exercise by running races there with a little slave. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY. + +We have gleaned from Seneca's own writings what facts we could +respecting his early education. But in the life of every man there are +influences of a far more real and penetrating character than those which +come through the medium of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age; +the general tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social intercourse, +the political tendencies which were moulding the destiny of the +nation,--these must have told, more insensibly indeed but more +powerfully, on the mind of Seneca than even the lectures of Sotion and +of Attalus. And, if we have had reason to fear that there was much which +was hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the general +aspect of the society by which our young philosopher was surrounded from +the cradle was yet more injurious and deplorable. + +The darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never did a grosser +darkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence brood over the surface of +Pagan society than at the period when the Sun of Righteousness arose +with healing in His wings. There have been many ages when the dense +gloom of a heartless immorality seemed to settle down with unusual +weight; there have been many places where, under the gaslight of an +artificial system, vice has seemed to acquire an unusual audacity; but +never probably was there any age or any place where the worst forms of +wickedness were practiced with a more unblushing effrontery than in the +city of Rome under the government of the Caesars. A deeply-seated +corruption seemed to have fastened upon the very vitals of the national +existence. It is surely a lesson of deep moral significance that just as +they became most polished in their luxury they became most vile in their +manner of life. Horace had already bewailed that "the age of our +fathers, worse than that of our grandsires, has produced us who are yet +baser, and who are doomed to give birth to a still more degraded +offspring." But fifty years later it seemed to Juvenal that in his times +the very final goal of iniquity had been attained, and he exclaims, in a +burst of despair, that "posterity will add _nothing_ to our immorality; +our descendents can but do and desire the same crimes as ourselves." He +who would see but for a moment and afar off to what the Gentile world +had sunk, at the very period when Christianity began to spread, may form +some faint and shuddering conception from the picture of it drawn in the +Epistle to the Romans. + +We ought to realize this fact if we would judge of Seneca aright. Let us +then glance at the condition of the society in the midst of which he +lived. Happily we can but glance at it. The worst cannot be told. Crimes +may be spoken of; but things monstrous and inhuman should for ever be +concealed. We can but stand at the cavern's mouth, and cast a single ray +of light into its dark depths. Were we to enter, our lamp would be +quenched by the foul things which would cluster round it. + +In the age of Augustus began that "long slow agony," that melancholy +process of a society gradually going to pieces under the dissolving +influence of its own vices which lasted almost without interruption till +nothing was left for Rome except the fire and sword of barbaric +invasions. She saw not only her glories but also her virtues "star by +star expire." The old heroism, the old beliefs, the old manliness and +simplicity, were dead and gone; they had been succeeded by prostration +and superstition by luxury and lust. + + "There is the moral of all human tales, + 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, + First freedom, and then glory; when that fails, + Wealth, vice, corruption,--barbarism at last: + And history, with all her volumes vast, + Hath but one page; 'tis better written here + Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed + All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, + Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask." + +The mere elements of society at Rome during this period were very +unpromising. It was a mixture of extremes. There was no middle class. At +the head of it was an emperor, often deified in his lifetime, and +separated from even the noblest of the senators by a distance of +immeasurable superiority. He, was, in the startling language of Gibbon, +at once "a priest, an atheist, and a god." [8] Surrounding his person and +forming his court were usually those of the nobility who were the most +absolutely degraded by their vices, their flatteries, or their abject +subservience. But even these men were not commonly the repositories of +political power. The people of the greatest influence were the freedmen +of the emperors--men who had been slaves, Egyptians and Bithynians who +had come to Rome with bored ears and with chalk on their naked feet to +show that they were for sale, or who had bawled "sea-urchins all alive" +in the Velabrum or the Saburra--who had acquired enormous wealth by +means often the most unscrupulous and the most degraded, and whose +insolence and baseness had kept pace with their rise to power. Such a +man was the Felix before whom St. Paul was tried, and such was his +brother Pallas,[9] whose golden statue might have been seen among the +household gods of the senator, afterwards the emperor, Vitellius. +Another of them might often have been observed parading the streets +between two consuls. Imagine an Edward II. endowed with absolute and +unquestioned powers of tyranny,--imagine some pestilent Piers Gaveston, +or Hugh de le Spenser exercising over nobles and people a hideous +despotism of the back stairs,--and you have some faint picture of the +government of Rome under some of the twelve Caesars. What the barber +Olivier le Diable was under Louis XI., what Mesdames du Barri and +Pompadour were under Louis XV., what the infamous Earl of Somerset was +under James I., what George Villiers became under Charles I., will +furnish us with a faint analogy of the far more exaggerated and +detestable position held by the freedman Glabrio under Domitian, by the +actor Tigellinus under Nero, by Pallus and Narcissus under Claudius, by +the obscure knight Sejanus under the iron tyranny of the +gloomy Tiberius. + +[Footnote 8: + "To the sound + Of fifes and drums they danced, or in the shade + Sung Caesar great and terrible in war, + Immortal Caesar! 'Lo, a god! a god! + He cleaves the yielding skies!' Caesar meanwhile + Gathers the ocean pebbles, or the gnat + Enraged pursues; or at his lonely meal + Starves a wide province; tastes, dislikes, and flings + To dogs and sycophants. 'A god! a god!' + The flowery shades and shrines obscene return." + DYER, _Ruins of Rome_.] + +[Footnote 9: The pride of this man was such that he never deigned to +speak a word in the presence of his own slaves, but only made known his +wishes by signs!--TACITUS.] + +I. It was an age of the most enormous wealth existing side by side with +the most abject poverty. Around the splendid palaces wandered hundreds +of mendicants, who made of their mendicity a horrible trade, and even +went so far as to steal or mutilate infants in order to move compassion +by their hideous maladies. This class was increased by the exposure of +children, and by that overgrown accumulation of landed property which +drove the poor from their native fields. It was increased also by the +ambitious attempt of people whose means were moderate to imitate the +enormous display of the numerous millionaires. The great Roman conquests +in the East, the plunder of the ancient kingdoms of Antiochus, of +Attalus, of Mithridates, had caused a turbid stream of wealth to flow +into the sober current of Roman life. One reads with silent astonishment +of the sums expended by wealthy Romans on their magnificence or their +pleasures. And as commerce was considered derogatory to rank and +position, and was therefore pursued by men who had no character to lose, +these overgrown fortunes were often acquired by wretches of the meanest +stamp--by slaves brought from over the sea, who had to conceal the holes +bored in their ears;[10] or even by malefactors who had to obliterate, +by artificial means, the three letters[11] which had been branded by the +executioner on their foreheads. But many of the richest men in Rome, who +had not sprung from this convict origin, were fully as well deserving of +the same disgraceful stigma. Their houses were built, their coffers were +replenished, from the drained resources of exhausted provincials. Every +young man of active ambition or noble birth, whose resources had been +impoverished by debauchery and extravagance, had but to borrow fresh +sums in order to give magnificent gladiatorial shows, and then, if he +could once obtain an aedileship, and mount to the higher offices of the +State, he would in time become the procurator or proconsul of a +province, which he might pillage almost at his will. Enter the house of +a Felix or a Verres. Those splendid pillars of mottled green marble were +dug by the forced labour of Phrygians from the quarry of Synnada; that +embossed silver, those murrhine vases, those jeweled cups, those +masterpieces of antique sculpture, have all been torn from the homes or +the temples of Sicily or Greece. Countries were pilaged and nations +crushed that an Apicius might dissolve pearls[12] in the wine he drank, +or that Lollia Paulina might gleam in a second-best dress of emeralds +and pearls which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or more than +32,000_l_.[13] + +[Footnote 10: This was a common ancient practice; the very words +"thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots +"thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. +_Cic_. 26; and Juv. _Sat_. i. 104.)] + +[Footnote 11: _Fur_, "thief." (See Martial, ii. 29.)] + +[Footnote 12: "Dissolved pearls, Apicius' diet 'gainst the +epilepsy."--BEN JONSON.] + +[Footnote 13: Pliny actually saw her thus arrayed. (Nat. Hist. ix. 35, +36.)] + +Each of these "gorgeous criminals" lived in the midst of an humble +crowd of flatterers, parasites, clients, dependents, and slaves. Among +the throng that at early morning jostled each other in the marble +_atrium_ were to be found a motley and hetrogeneous set of men. Slaves +of every age and nation--Germans, Egyptians, Gauls, Goths, Syrians, +Britons, Moors, pampered and consequential freedmen, impudent +confidential servants, greedy buffoons, who lived by making bad jokes at +other people's tables; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a +trade; philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length of +their beards; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, ready to +flatter and lie with consummate skill, and spreading their vile +character like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a +number of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a +thousand forms of contumely[14] and insult, and living in discontented +idleness on the _sportula_ or daily largesse which was administered by +the grudging liberality of their haughty patrons. The stout old Roman +burgher had well-nigh disappeared; the sturdy independence, the manly +self-reliance of an industrial population were all but unknown. The +insolent loungers who bawled in the Forum were often mere stepsons of +Italy, who had been dragged thither in chains,--the dregs of all +nations, which had flowed into Rome as into a common sewer,[15] bringing +with them no heritage except the specialty of their national vices. +Their two wants were bread and the shows of the circus; so long as the +_sportula_ of their patron, the occasional donative of an emperor, and +the ambition of political candidates supplied these wants, they lived in +contented abasement, anxious neither for liberty nor for power. + +[Footnote 14: Few of the many sad pictures in the _Satires_ of Juvenal +are more pitiable than that of the wretched "Quirites" struggling at +their patrons' doors for the pittance which formed their daily dole. +(Sat i. 101.)] + +[Footnote 15: See Juv. _Sat_. iii. 62. Scipio, on being interrupted by +the mob in the Forum, exclaimed,--"Silence, ye stepsons of Italy! What! +shall I fear these fellows now they are free, whom I myself have brought +in chains to Rome?" (See Cic. _De Orat_. ii. 61.)] + +II. It was an age at once of atheism and superstition. Strange to say, +the two things usually go together. Just as Philippe Egalité, Duke of +Orleans, disbelieved in God, and yet tried to conjecture his fate from +the inspection of coffee-grounds at the bottom of a cup,--just as Louis +XI. shrank from no perjury and no crime, and yet retained a profound +reverence for a little leaden image which he carried in his cap,--so the +Romans under the Empire sneered at all the whole crowd of gods and +goddesses whom their fathers had worshipped, but gave an implicit +credence to sorcerers, astrologers, spirit-rappers, exorcists, and every +species of imposter and quack. The ceremonies of religion were performed +with ritualistic splendour, but all belief in religion was dead and +gone. "That there are such things as ghosts and subterranean realms not +even boys believe," says Juvenal, "except those who are still too young +to pay a farthing for a bath." [16] Nothing can exceed the cool +impertinence with which the poet Martial prefers the favour of Domitian +to that of the great Jupiter of the Capitol. Seneca, in his lost book +"Against Superstitions,"[17] openly sneered at the old mythological +legends of gods married and gods unmarried, and at the gods Panic and +Paleness, and at Cloacina, the goddess of sewers, and at other deities +whose cruelty and license would have been infamous even in mankind. And +yet the priests, and Salii, and Flamens, and Augurs continued to fulfil +their solemn functions, and the highest title of the Emperor himself was +that of _Pontifex Maximus_, or Chief Priest, which he claimed as the +recognized head of the national religion. "The common worship was +regarded," says Gibbon, "by the people as equally true, by the +philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally +useful." And this famous remark is little more than a translation from +Seneca, who, after exposing the futility of the popular beliefs, adds: +"And yet the wise man will observe them all, not as pleasing to the +gods, but as commanded by the laws. We shall so adore _all that ignoble +crowd of gods_ which long superstition has heaped together in a long +period of years, as to remember that their worship has more to do with +custom than with reality." "Because he was an illustrious senator of the +Roman people," observes St. Augustine, who has preserved for us this +fragment, "he worshipped what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he +adored that with which he found fault." Could anything be more hollow or +heartless than this? Is there anything which is more certain to sap the +very foundations of morality than the public maintenance of a creed +which has long ceased to command the assent, and even the respect of its +recognized defenders? Seneca, indeed, and a few enlightened +philosophers, might have taken refuge from the superstitions which they +abandoned in a truer and purer form of faith. "Accordingly," says +Lactantius, one of the Christian Fathers, "he has said many things like +ourselves concerning God." [18] He utters what Tertullian finely calls +"the testimony of A MIND NATURALLY CHRISTIAN." But, meanwhile, what +became of the common multitude? They too, like their superiors, learnt +to disbelieve or to question the power of the ancient deities; but, as +the mind absolutely requires _some_ religion on which to rest, they gave +their real devotion to all kinds of strange and foreign deities,--to +Isis and Osiris, and the dog Anubus, to Chaldaean magicians, to Jewish +exercisers, to Greek quacks, and to the wretched vagabond priests of +Cybele, who infested all the streets with their Oriental dances and +tinkling tambourines. The visitor to the ruins of Pompeii may still see +in her temple the statue of Isis, through whose open lips the gaping +worshippers heard the murmured answers they came to seek. No doubt they +believed as firmly that the image spoke, as our forefathers believed +that their miraculous Madonnas nodded and winked. But time has exposed +the cheat. By the ruined shrine the worshipper may now see the secret +steps by which the priest got to the back of the statue, and the pipe +entering the back of its head through which he whispered the answers of +the oracle. + +[Footnote 16: JUV. _Sat_. ii. 149. Cf. Sen. _Ep_. xxiv. "Nemo tam puer +est at Cerberum timeat, et tenebras," &c.] + +[Footnote 17: Fragm. xxxiv.] + +[Footnote 18: Lactantius, _Divin. Inst_. i. 4.] + +III. It was an age of boundless luxury,--an age in which women +recklessly vied with one another in the race of splendour and +extravagance, and in which men plunged headlong, without a single +scruple of conscience, and with every possible resource at their +command, into the pursuit of pleasure. There was no form of luxury, +there was no refinement of vice invented by any foreign nation, which +had not been eagerly adopted by the Roman patricians. "The softness of +Sybaris, the manners of Rhodes and Antioch, and of perfumed, drunken, +flower-crowned Miletus," were all to be found at Rome. There was no +more of the ancient Roman severity and dignity and self-respect. The +descendants of Aemilius and Gracchus--even generals and consuls and +praetors--mixed familiarly with the lowest _canaille_ of Rome in their +vilest and most squalid purlieus of shameless vice. They fought as +amateur gladiators in the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on +the race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors on the +stage. They devoted themselves with such frantic eagerness to the +excitement of gambling, that we read of their staking hundreds of pounds +on a single throw of the dice, when they could not even restore the +pawned tunics to their shivering slaves. Under the cold marble statues, +or amid the waxen likenesses of their famous stately ancestors, they +turned night into day with long and foolish orgies, and exhausted land +and sea with the demands of their gluttony. "Woe to that city," says an +ancient proverb, "in which a fish costs more than an ox;" and this +exactly describes the state of Rome. A banquet would sometimes cost the +price of an estate; shell-fish were brought from remote and unknown +shores, birds from Parthia and the banks of the Phasis; single dishes +were made of the brains of the peacocks and the tongues of nightingales +and flamingoes. Apicius, after squandering nearly a million of money in +the pleasures of the table, committed suicide, Seneca tells us, because +he found that he had only 80,000_l_. left. Cowley speaks of-- + + "Vitellius' table, which did hold + As many creatures as the ark of old." + +"They eat," said Seneca, "and then they vomit; they vomit, and then +they eat." But even in this matter we cannot tell anything like the +worst facts about-- + + "Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts + On citron tables and Atlantic stone, + Their wines of Setia, Gales, and Falerne, + Chios, and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, + Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems + And studs of pearl." [19] + +Still less can we pretend to describe the unblushing and unutterable +degradation of this period as it is revealed to us by the poets and the +satirists. "All things," says Seneca, "are full of iniquity and vice; +more crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint. We struggle +in a huge contest of criminality: daily the passion for sin is greater, +the shame in committing it is less.... Wickedness is no longer committed +in secret: it flaunts before our eyes, and + + "The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems, + ... whatever is known + Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs, + Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food, + And flavoured Chian wines, with incense fumed, + To slake patrician thirst: for these their rights + In the vile atreets they prostitute for sale, + Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws, + Their native glorious freedom. + +has been sent forth so openly into public sight, and has prevailed so +completely in the breast of all, that innocence is not _rare_, but +_non-existent_." + +[Footnote 19: Compare the lines in Dyer's little-remembered _Ruins of +Rome_.] + +IV. And it was an age of deep sadness. That it should have been so is an +instructive and solemn lesson. In proportion to the luxury of the age +were its misery and its exhaustion. The mad pursuit of pleasure was the +death and degradation of all true happiness. Suicide--suicide out of +pure _ennui_ and discontent at a life overflowing with every possible +means of indulgence--was extraordinarily prevalent. The Stoic +philosophy, especially as we see it represented in the tragedies +attributed to Seneca, rang with the glorification of it. Men ran to +death because their mode of life had left them no other refuge. They +died because it seemed so tedious and so superfluous to be seeing and +doing and saying the same things over and over again; and because they +had exhausted the very possibility of the only pleasures of which they +had left themselves capable. The satirical epigram of Destouches,-- + + "Ci-gît Jean Rosbif, écuyer, + Qui se pendit pour se désennuyer," + +was literally and strictly true of many Romans during this epoch. +Marcellinus, a young and wealthy noble, starved himself, and then had +himself suffocated in a warm bath, merely because he was attacked with a +perfectly curable illness. The philosophy which alone professed itself +able to heal men's sorrows applauded the supposed courage of a voluntary +death, and it was of too abstract, too fantastic, and too purely +theoretical a character to furnish them with any real or lasting +consolations. No sentiment caused more surprise to the Roman world than +the famous one preserved in the fragment of Maecenas,-- + + "Debilem facito manu, + Debilem pede, coxâ, + Tuber adstrue gibberum, + Lubricos quate dentes; + Vita dum superest bene est; + Hanc mihi vel acutâ + Si sedeam cruce sustine;" + +which may be paraphrased,-- + + "Numb my hands with palsy, + Rack my feet with gout, + Hunch my back and shoulder, + Let my teeth fall out; + Still, if _Life_ be granted, + I prefer the loss; + Save my life, and give me + Anguish on the cross." + +Seneca, in his 101st Letter, calls this "a most disgraceful and most +contemptible wish;" but it may be paralleled out of Euripides, and still +more closely out of Homer. "Talk not," says the shade of Achilles to +Ulysses in the Odyssey,-- + + "'Talk not of reigning in this dolorous gloom, + Nor think vain lies,' he cried, 'can ease my doom. + _Better by far laboriously to bear + A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air, + Slave to the meanest hind that begs his bread, + Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead_.'" + +But this falsehood of extremes was one of the sad outcomes of the +popular Paganism. Either, like the natural savage, they dreaded death +with an intensity of terror; or, when their crimes and sorrows had made +life unsupportable, they slank to it as a refuge, with a cowardice which +vaunted itself as courage. + +V. And it was an age of cruelty. The shows of gladiators, the sanguinary +combats of wild beasts, the not unfrequent spectacle of savage tortures +and capital punishments, the occasional sight of innocent martyrs +burning to death in their shirts of pitchy fire, must have hardened and +imbruted the public sensibility. The immense prevalence of slavery +tended still more inevitably to the general corruption. "Lust," as +usual, was "hard by hate." One hears with perfect amazement of the +number of slaves in the wealthy houses. A thousand slaves was no +extravagant number, and the vast majority of them were idle, uneducated +and corrupt. Treated as little better than animals, they lost much of +the dignity of men. Their masters possessed over them the power of life +and death, and it is shocking to read of the cruelty with which they +were often treated. An accidental murmur, a cough, a sneeze, was +punished with rods. Mute, motionless, fasting, the slaves had to stand +by while their masters supped; A brutal and stupid barbarity often +turned a house into the shambles of an executioner, sounding with +scourges, chains, and yells.[20] One evening the Emperor Augustus was +supping at the house of Vedius Pollio, when one of the slaves, who was +carrying a crystal goblet, slipped down, and broke it. Transported with +rage Vedius at once ordered the slave to be seized, and plunged into the +fish-pond as food to the lampreys. The boy escaped from the hands of his +fellow-slaves, and fled to Caesar's feet to implore, not that his life +should be spared--a pardon which he neither expected nor hoped--but that +he might die by a mode of death less horrible than being devoured by +fishes. Common as it was to torment slaves, and to put them to death, +Augustus, to his honor be it spoken, was horrified by the cruelty of +Vedius, and commanded both that the slave should be set free, that every +crystal vase in the house of Vedius should be broken in his presence and +that the fish pond should be filled up. Even women inflicted upon their +female slaves punishments of the most cruel atrocity for faults of the +most venial character. A brooch wrongly placed, a tress of hair +ill-arranged, and the enraged matron orders her slave to be lashed and +crucified. If her milder husband interferes, she not only justifies the +cruelty, but asks in amazement: "What! is a slave so much of a human +being?" No wonder that there was a proverb, "As many slaves, so many +foes." No wonder that many masters lived in perpetual fear, and that +"the tyrant's devilish plea, necessity," might be urged in favor of that +odious law which enacted that, if a master was murdered by an unknown +hand, the whole body of his slaves should suffer death,--a law which +more than once was carried into effect under the reigns of the Emperors. +Slavery, as we see in the case of Sparta and many other nations, always +involves its own retribution. The class of free peasant proprietors +gradually disappears. Long before this time Tib. Gracchus, in coming +home from Sardinia, had observed that there was scarcely a single +freeman to be seen in the fields. The slaves were infinitely more +numerous than their owners. Hence arose the constant dread of servile +insurrections; the constant hatred of a slave population to which any +conspirator revolutionist might successfully appeal; and the constant +insecurity of life, which must have struck terror into many hearts. + +[Footnote 20: Juv. _Sat_. i. 219--222.] + +Such is but a faint and broad outline of some of the features of +Seneca's age; and we shall be unjust if we do not admit that much at +least of the life he lived, and nearly all the sentiments he uttered, +gain much in grandeur and purity from the contrast they offer to the +common life of-- + + "That people victor once, now vile and base, + Deservedly made vassal, who, once just, + Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well, + But govern ill the nations under yoke, + Peeling their provinces, exhausted all + By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown + Of triumph, that insulting vanity; + Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured + Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed, + Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still, + And from the daily scene effeminate. + What wise and valient men would seek to free + These thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved; + Or could of inward slaves make outward free?" + MILTON, _Paradise Regained_, iv. 132-145. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS. + +The personal notices of Seneca's life up to the period of his manhood +are slight and fragmentary. From an incidental expression we conjecture +that he visited his aunt in Egypt when her husband was Prefect of that +country, and that he shared with her the dangers of shipwreck when her +husband had died on board ship during the homeward voyage. Possibly the +visit may have excited in his mind that deep interest and curiosity +about the phenomena of the Nile which appear so strongly in several +passages of his _Natural Questions_; and, indeed nothing is more likely +than that he suggested to Nero the earliest recorded expedition to +discover the source of the mysterious river. No other allusion to his +travels occur in his writings, but we may infer that from very early +days he had felt an interest for physical inquiry, since while still a +youth he had written a book on earthquakes; which has not come down +to us. + +Deterred by his father from the pursuit of philosophy, he entered on the +duties of a profession. He became an advocate, and distinguished himself +by his genius and eloquence in pleading causes. Entering on a political +career, he became a successful candidate for the quaestorship, which +was an important step towards the highest offices of the state. During +this period of his life he married a lady whose name has not been +preserved to us, and to whom we have only one allusion, which is a +curious one. As in our own history it has been sometimes the fashion for +ladies of rank to have dwarves and negroes among their attendants, so it +seems to have been the senseless and revolting custom of the Roman +ladies of this time to keep idiots among the number of their servants. +The first wife of Seneca had followed this fashion, and Seneca in his +fiftieth letter to his friend Lucilius[21] makes the following +interesting allusion to the fact. "You know," he says, "that my wife's +idiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For +personally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind. +If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for +one. I laugh at myself. This idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now, +incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious +of her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere, +because the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we +laugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is +avaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide; _we_ wander about +without a guide." + +[Footnote 21: It will be observed that the main biographical facts about +the life of Seneca are to be gleaned from his letters to Lucilius, who +was his constant friend from youth to old age, and to whom he has +dedicated his Natural Questions. Lucilius was a procurator of Sicily, a +man of cultivated taste and high principle. He was the author of a poem +on Aetna, which in the opinion of many competent judges is the poem +which has come down to us, and has been attributed to Varus, Virgil, and +others. It has been admirably edited by Mr. Munro. (See _Nat. Quaest._, +iv. _ad init. Ep_. lxxix.) He also wrote a poem on the fountain +Arethusa. _(Nat. Quaest_. iii, 26.)] + +This passage will furnish us with an excellent example of Seneca's +invariable method of improving every occasion and circumstance into an +opportunity for a philosophic harangue. + +By this wife, who died shortly before Seneca's banishment to Corsica, he +had two sons, one of whom expired in the arms and amid the kisses of +Helvia less than a month before Seneca's departure for Corsica. To the +other, whose name was Marcus, he makes the following pleasant allusion. +After urging his mother Helvia to find consolation in the devotion of +his brothers Gallio and Mela, he adds, "From these turn your eyes also +on your grandsons--to Marcus, that most charming little boy, in sight of +whom no melancholy can last long. No misfortune in the breast of any one +can have been so great or so recent as not to be soothed by his +caresses. Whose tears would not his mirth repress? whose mind would not +his prattling loose from the pressure of anxiety? whom will not that +joyous manner of his incline to jesting? whose attention, even though he +be fixed in thought, will not be attracted and absorbed by that +childlike garrulity of which no one can grow tired? God grant that he +may survive me: may all the cruelty of destiny be weared out on me!" + +Whether the prayer of Seneca was granted we do not know; but, as we do +not again hear of Marcus, it is probable that he died before his father, +and that the line of Seneca, like that of so many great men, became +extinct in the second generation. + +It was probably during this period that Seneca laid the foundations of +that enormous fortune which excited the hatred and ridicule of his +opponents. There is every reason to believe that this fortune was +honourably gained. As both his father and mother were wealthy, he had +doubtless inherited an ample competency; this was increased by the +lucrative profession of a successful advocate, and was finally swollen +by the princely donations of his pupil Nero. It is not improbable that +Seneca, like Cicero, and like all the wealthy men of their day, +increased his property by lending money upon interest. No disgrace +attached to such a course; and as there is no proof for the charges of +Dio Cassius on this head, we may pass them over with silent contempt. +Dio gravely informs us that Seneca excited an insurrection in Britain, +by suddenly calling in the enormous sum of 40,000,000 sesterces; but +this is in all probability the calumny of a professed enemy. We shall +refer again to Seneca's wealth; but we may here admit that it was +undoubtedly ungraceful and incongruous in a philosopher who was +perpetually dwelling on the praises of poverty, and that even in his own +age it attracted unfavourable notice, as we may see from the epithet +_Proedives_, "the over-wealthy," which is applied to him alike by a +satiric poet and by a grave historian. Seneca was perfectly well aware +that this objection could be urged against him, and it must be admitted +that the grounds on which he defends himself in his treatise _On a Happy +Life_ are not very conclusive or satisfactory. + +The boyhood of Seneca fell in the last years of the Emperor Augustus, +when, in spite of the general decorum and amiability of their ruler, +people began to see clearly that nothing was left of liberty except the +name. His youth and early manhood were spent during those +three-and-twenty years of the reign of Tiberius, that reign of terror, +during which the Roman world was reduced to a frightful silence and +torpor as of death;[22] and, although he was not thrown into personal +collision with that "brutal monster," he not unfrequently alludes to +him, and to the dangerous power and headlong ruin of his wicked minister +Sejanus. Up to this time he had not experienced in his own person those +crimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who are brought into +close contact with tyrants. This first happened to him in the reign of +Caius Caesar, of whom we are enabled, from the writings of Seneca alone, +to draw a full-length portrait. + +[Footnote 22: Milton, _Paradise Regained_, iv. 128. For a picture of +Tiberius as he appeared in his old age at Capreae, "hated of all and +hating," see Id. 90-97.] + +Caius Caesar was the son of Germanicus and the elder Agrippina. +Germanicus was the bravest and most successful general, and one of the +wisest and most virtuous men, of his day. His wife Agrippina, in her +fidelity, her chastity, her charity, her nobility of mind, was the very +model of a Roman matron of the highest and purest stamp. Strange that +the son of such parents should have been one of the vilest, cruelest, +and foulest of the human race. So, however, it was; and it is a +remarkable fact that scarcely one of the six children of this marriage +displayed the virtues of their father and mother, while two of them, +Caius Caesar and the younger Agrippina, lived to earn an exceptional +infamy by their baseness and their crimes. Possibly this unhappy result +may have been partly due to the sad circumstances of their early +education. Their father, Germanicus, who by his virtue and his successes +had excited the suspicious jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, was by his +distinct connivance, if not by his actual suggestion, atrociously +poisoned in Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless cruel +insults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the island of +Pandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and Drusus Germanicus, were +proclaimed public enemies: Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and +there put to death; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison +of the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known by the name +Caligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his wicked retirement at Capreae, +and there only saved his life by the most abject flattery and the most +adroit submission. + +Capreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming one +extremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea bright and +limpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated by its position, it is +yet within easy reach of Rome. At that time, before Vesuvius had +rekindled those wasteful fires which first shook down, and then deluged +under lava and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, +the scene which it commanded was even more pre-eminently beautiful than +now. Vineyards and olive-groves clothed the sides of that matchless bay, +down to the very line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with +their ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, with its +sides dotted with picturesque villas and happy villages, towered the +giant cone of the volcano which for centuries had appeared to be +extinct, and which was clothed up to the very crater with luxurious +vegetation. Such was the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for +ever by the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself to every +refinement of wickedness, and from hence, being by common consent the +most miserable of men, he wrote to the Senate that memorable letter in +which he confesses his daily and unutterable misery under the stings of +a guilty conscience, which neither solitude nor power enabled him +to escape. + +Never did a fairer scene undergo a worse degradation; and here, in one +or other of the twelve villas which Tiberius had built, and among the +azure grottoes which he caused to be constructed, the youthful Caius[23] +grew up to manhood. It would have been a terrible school even for a +noble nature; for a nature corrupt and bloodthirsty like that of Caius +it was complete and total ruin. But, though he was so obsequious to the +Emperor as to originate the jest that never had there been a worse +master and never a more cringing slave,--though he suppressed every sign +of indignation at the horrid deaths of his mother and his +brothers,--though he assiduously reflected the looks, and carefully +echoed the very words, of his patron,--yet not even by the deep +dissimulation which such a position required did he succeed in +concealing from the penetrating eye of Tiberius the true ferocity of his +character. Not being the acknowledged heir to the kingdom,--for Tiberius +Gemellus, the youthful grandson of Tiberius, was living, and Caius was +by birth only his grand-nephew,--he became a tool for the machinations +of Marco the praetorian praefect and his wife Ennia. One of his chief +friends was the cruel Herod Agrippa,[24] who put to death St. James and +imprisoned St. Peter, and whose tragical fate is recorded in the 12th +chap. of the Acts. On one occasion, when Caius had been abusing the +dictator Sulla, Tiberius scornfully remarked that he would have all +Sulla's vices and none of his virtues; and on another, after a quarrel +between Caius and his cousin, the Emperor embraced with tears his young +grandson, and said to the frowning Caius, with one of those strange +flashes of prevision of which we sometimes read in history. "Why are you +so eager? Some day you will kill this boy, and some one else will murder +you." There were some who believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished +the intention of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman +world might relent towards his own memory under the tyranny of a worse +monster than himself. Even the Romans, who looked up to the family of +Germanicus with extraordinary affection, seem early to have lost all +hopes about Caius. They looked for little improvement under the +government of a vicious boy, "ignorant of all things, or nurtured only +in the worst," who would be likely to reflect the influence of Macro, +and present the spectacle of a worse Tiberius under a worse Sejanus. + +[Footnote 23: We shall call him Caius, because it is as little correct +to write of him by the _sobriquet_ Caligula as it would be habitually to +write of our kings Edward or John as Longshanks or Lackland. The name +Caligula means "a little shoe," and was the pet name given to him by the +soldiers of his father, in whose camp he was born.] + +[Footnote 24: Josephus adds some curious and interesting particulars to +the story of this Herod and his death which are not mentioned in the +narrative of St. Luke (_Antiq_. xix. 7, 8. Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, +§ cxxvi.)] + +At last health and strength failed Tiberius, but not his habitual +dissimulation. He retained the same unbending soul, and by his fixed +countenance and measured language, sometimes by an artificial +affability, he tried to conceal his approaching end. After many restless +changes, he finally settled down in a villa at Misenum which had once +belonged to the luxurious Lucullus. There the real state of his health +was discovered. Charicles, a distinguished physician, who had been +paying him a friendly visit on kissing his hand to bid farewell, managed +to ascertain the state of his pulse. Suspecting that this was the case +Tiberius, concealing his displeasure, ordered a banquet to be spread, +as though in honour of his friend's departure, and stayed longer than +usual at table. A similar story is told of Louis XIV. who, noticing from +the whispers of his courtiers that they believed him to be dying, ate an +unusually large dinner on the very day of his death, and sarcastically +observed, "Il me semble que pour un homme qui va mourir je ne mange pas +mal." But, in spite of the precautions of Tiberius, Charicles informed +Macro that the Emperor could not last beyond two days. + +A scene of secret intrigue at once began. The court broke up into knots +and cliques. Hasty messengers were sent to the provinces and their +armies, until at last, on the 16th of March, it was believed that +Tiberius had breathed his last. Just as on the death of Louis XV. a +sudden noise was heard as of thunder, the sound of courtiers rushing +along the corridors to congratulate Louis XVI. in the famous words, "Le +roi est mort, vive le roi," so a crowd instantly thronged round Caius +with their congratulations, as he went out of the palace to assume his +imperial authority. Suddenly a message reached him that Tiberius had +recovered voice and sight. Seneca says, that feeling his last hour to be +near, he had taken off his ring, and, holding it in his shut left hand, +had long lain motionless; then calling his servants, since no one +answered his call, he rose from his couch, and, his strength failing +him, after a few tottering steps fell prostrate on the ground. + +The news produced the same consternation as that which was produced +among the conspirators at Adonijah's banquet, when they heard of the +measures taken by the dying David. There was a panic-stricken +dispersion, and every one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what +was going on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of +empire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind. With the utmost +intrepidity, he gave orders that the old man should be suffocated by +heaping over him a mass of clothes, and that every one should then leave +the chamber. Such was the miserable and unpitied end of the Emperor +Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Such was the death, and +so miserable had been the life, of the man to whom the Tempter had +already given "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," when he +tried to tempt with them the Son of God. That this man should have been +the chief Emperor of the earth at a time when its true King was living +as a peasant in his village home at Nazareth, is a fact suggestive of +many and of solemn thoughts. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE REIGN OF CAIUS. + +The poet Gray, in describing the deserted deathbed of our own great +Edward III., says:-- + + "Low on his funeral couch he lies! + No pitying heart, no eye afford + A tear to grace his obsequies! + + * * * * * + + "The swarm that in the noontide beam were born? + Gone to salute the rising Morn. + Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows, + While proudly riding o'er the azure realm, + In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; + Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm; + Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway, + That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey." + +The last lines of this passage would alone have been applicable to Caius +Caesar. There was nothing fair or gay even about the beginning of his +reign. From first to last it was a reign of fury and madness, and lust +and blood. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in this family, +which was developed by their being placed on the dizzy pinnacle of +imperial despotism, and which usually took the form of monstrous and +abnormal crime. If we would seek a parallel for Caius Caesar, we must +look for it in the history of Christian VII. of Denmark, and Paul of +Russia. In all three we find the same ghastly pallor, the same +sleeplessness which compelled them to rise, and pace their rooms at +night, the same incessant suspicion; the same inordinate thirst for +cruelty and torture. He took a very early opportunity to disembarrass +himself of his benefactors, Macro and Ennia, and of his rival, the young +Tiberius. The rest of his reign was a series of brutal extravagances. We +have lost the portion of those matchless Annals of Tacitus which +contained the reign of Caius, but more than enough to revolt and horrify +is preserved in the scattered notices of Seneca, and in the narratives +of Suetonius in Latin and Dio Cassius in Greek. + +His madness showed itself sometimes in gluttonous extravagance, as when +he ordered a supper which cost more than 8,000_l_; sometimes in a +_bizarre_ and disgraceful mode of dress, as when he appeared in public +in women's stockings, embroidered with gold and pearls; sometimes in a +personality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank and class in +Rome, which made him ask a senator to supper, and ply him with drunken +toasts, on the very evening on which he had condemned his son to death; +sometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed his furious +indignation against Jupiter for presuming to thunder while he was +supping, or looking at the pantomimes; but most of all in a ferocity +which makes Seneca apply to him the name of "Bellua," or "wild monster," +and say that he seems to have been produced "for the disgrace and +destruction of the human race." + +We will quote from the pages of Seneca but one single passage to justify +his remark "that he was most greedy for human blood, which he ordered +to stream in his very presence with such eagerness as though he were +going to drink it up with his lips." He says that in one day he scourged +and tortured men of consular and quaestorial parentage, knights and +senators, not by way of examination, but out of pure caprice and rage; +he seriously meditated the butchery of the entire senate; he expressed a +wish that the Roman people had but a single neck, that he might strike +it off at one blow; he silenced the screams or reproaches of his victims +sometimes by thrusting a sponge in their mouths, sometimes by having +their mouths gagged with their own torn robes, sometimes by ordering +their tongues to be cut out before they were thrown to the wild beasts. +On one occasion, rising from a banquet, he called for his slippers, +which were kept by the slaves while the guests reclined on the purple +couches, and so impatient was he for the sight of death, that, walking +up and down his covered portico by lamplight with ladies and senators, +he then and there ordered some of his wretched victims to be beheaded in +his sight. + +It is a singular proof of the unutterable dread and detestation inspired +by some of these Caesars, that their mere countenance is said to have +inspired anguish. Tacitus, in the life of his father-in-law Agricola, +mentions the shuddering recollection of the red face of Domitian, as it +looked on at the games. Seneca speaks in one place of wretches doomed to +undergo stones, sword, fire, and _Caius_; in another he says that he had +tortured the noblest Romans with everything which could possibly cause +the intensest agony,--with cords, plates, rack, fire, and, as though it +were the worst torture of all, with his look! What that look was, we +learn from Seneca himself, "His face was ghastly pale, with a look of +insanity; his fierce, dull eyes were half-hidden under a wrinkled brow; +his ill-shaped head was partly bald, partly covered with dyed-hair; his +neck covered with bristles, his legs thin, and his feet mis-shapen." Woe +to the nation that lies under the heel of a brutal despotism; treble woe +to the nation that can tolerate a despot so brutal as this! Yet this was +the nation in the midst of which Seneca lived, and this was the despot +under whom his early manhood was spent. + + "But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, + And by their vices brought to servitude, + Than to love bondage more than liberty, + Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?" + +It was one of the peculiarities of Caius Caesar that he hated the very +existence of any excellence. He used to bully and insult the gods +themselves, frowning even at the statues of Apollo and Jupiter of the +Capitol. He thought of abolishing Homer, and order the works of Livy and +Virgil to be removed from all libraries, because he could not bear that +they should be praised. He ordered Julius Graecinus to be put to death +for no other reason than this, "That he was a better man than it was +expedient for a tyrant that any one should be;" for, as Pliny tells us, +the Caesars deliberately preferred that their people should be vicious +than that they should be virtuous. It was hardly likely that such a man +should view with equanimity the rising splendour of Seneca's reputation. +Hitherto, the young man, who was thirty-five years old at the accession +of Caius, had not written any of his philosophic works, but in all +probability he had published his early, and no longer extant, treatises +on earthquakes, on superstitions, and the books _On India_, and _On the +Manners of Egypt_, which had been the fruit of his early travels. It is +probable, too, that he had recited in public some of those tragedies +which have come down to us under his name, and in the composition of +which he was certainly concerned. All these works, and especially the +applause won by the public reading of his poems, would have given him +that high literary reputation which we know him to have earned. It was +not, however, this reputation, but the brilliancy and eloquence of his +orations at the bar which excited the jealous hatred of the Emperor. +Caius piqued himself on the possession of eloquence; and, strange to +say, there are isolated expressions of his which seem to show that, in +lucid intervals, he was by no means devoid of intellectual acuteness. +For instance, there is real humour and insight in the nicknames of "a +golden sheep" which he gave to the rich and placid Silanus, and of +"Ulysses in petticoats," by which he designated his grandmother, the +august Livia. The two epigrammetic criticisms which he passed upon the +style of Seneca are not wholly devoid of truth; he called his works +_Commissiones meras_, or mere displays.[25] In this expression he hit +off, happily enough, the somewhat theatrical, the slightly pedantic and +pedagogic and professorial character of Seneca's diction, its rhetorical +ornament and antitheses, and its deficiency in stern masculine +simplicity and strength. In another remark he showed himself a still +more felicitous critic. He called Seneca's writings _Arenu sine Calce_, +"sand without lime," or, as we might say, "a rope of sand." This epigram +showed a real critical faculty. It exactly hits off Seneca's short and +disjointed sentences, consisting as they often do of detached +antitheses. It accords with the amusing comparison of Malebranche, that +Seneca's composition, with its perpetual and futile recurrences, calls +up to him the image of a dancer who ends where he begins. + +[Footnote 25: Suet. _Calig._ liii.] + +But Caius did not confine himself to clever and malignant criticism. On +one occasion, when Seneca was pleading in his presence, he was so +jealous and displeased at the brilliancy and power of the orator that he +marked him out for immediate execution. Had Seneca died at this period +he would probably have been little known, and he might have left few +traces of his existence beyond a few tragedies of uncertain +authenticity, and possibly a passing notice in the page of Dio or +Tacitus. But destiny reserved him for a more splendid and more +questionable career. One of Caius's favourites whispered to the Emperor +that it was useless to extinguish a waning lamp; that the health of the +orator was so feeble that a natural death by the progress of his +consumptive tendencies would, in a very short time, remove him out of +the tyrant's way. + +Throughout the remainder of the few years during which the reign of +Caius continued, Seneca, warned in time, withdrew himself into complete +obscurity, employing his enforced leisure in that unbroken industry +which stored his mind with such encyclopaedic wealth. "None of my days," +he says, in describing at a later period the way in which he spent his +time, "is passed in complete ease. I claim even a part of the night for +my studies. I do not _find leisure_ for sleep, but I _succumb_ to it, +and I keep my eyes at their work even when they are wearied and drooping +with watchfulness. I have retired, not only from men, but from affairs, +and especially from my own. I am doing the work for posterity; I am +writing out things which may prove of advantage to them. I am +intrusting to writing healthful admonitions--compositions, as it were, +of useful medicines." + +But the days of Caius drew rapidly to an end. His gross and unheard-of +insults to Valerius Asiaticus and Cassius Chaereas brought on him +condign vengeance. It is an additional proof, if proof were wanting, of +the degradation of Imperial Rome, that the deed of retribution was due, +not to the people whom he taxed; not to the soldiers, whole regiments of +whom he had threatened to decimate; not to the knights, of whom scores +had been put to death by his orders; not to the nobles, multitudes of +whom had been treated by him with conspicuous infamy; not even to the +Senate, which illustrious body he had on all occasions deliberately +treated with contumely and hatred,--but to the private revenge of an +insulted soldier. The weak thin voice of Cassius Chaereas, tribune of +the praetorian cohort, had marked him out for the coarse and calumnious +banter of the imperial buffoon; and he determined to avenge himself, and +at the same time rid the world of a monster. He engaged several +accomplices in the conspiracy, which was nearly frustrated by their want +of resolution. For four whole days they hesitated, while day after day, +Caius presided in person at the bloody games of the amphitheatre. On the +fifth day (Jan. 24, A.D. 41), feeling unwell after one of his gluttonous +suppers, he was indisposed to return to the shows, but at last rose to +do so at the solicitation of his attendants. A vaulted corridor led from +the palace to the circus, and in that corridor Caius met a body of noble +Asiatic boys, who were to dance a Pyrrhic dance and sing a laudatory ode +upon the stage. Caius wished them at once to practice a rehearsal in his +presence, but their leader excused himself on the grounds of +hoarseness. At this moment Chaereas asked him for the watchword of the +night. He gave the watchword, "Jupiter." "Receive him in his wrath!" +exclaimed Chaereas, striking him on the throat, while almost at the same +moment the blow of Sabinus cleft the tyrant's jaw, and brought him to +his knee. He crouched his limbs together to screen himself from further +blows, screaming aloud, "I live! I live!" The bearers of his litter +rushed to his assistance, and fought with their poles, but Caius fell +pierced with thirty wounds; and, leaving the body weltering in its +blood, the conspirators rushed out of the palace, and took measures to +concert with the Senate a restoration of the old Republic. On the very +night after the murder the consuls gave to Chaereas the long-forgotten +watchword of "Liberty." But this little gleam of hope proved delusive to +the last degree. It was believed that the unquiet ghost of the murdered +madman haunted the palace, and long before it had been laid to rest by +the forms of decent sepulchre, a new emperor of the great Julian family +was securely seated upon the throne. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA. + +While the senators were deliberating, the soldiers were acting. They +felt a true, though degraded, instinct that to restore the ancient forms +of democratic freedom would be alike impossible and useless, and with +them the only question lay between the rival claimants for the vacant +power. Strange to say that, among these claimants, no one seems ever to +have thought of mentioning the prince who became the actual successor. + +There was living in the palace at this time a brother of the great +Germanicus, and consequently an uncle of the late emperor, whose name +was Claudius Caesar. Weakened both in mind and body by the continuous +maladies of an orphaned infancy, kept under the cruel tyranny of a +barbarous slave, the unhappy youth had lived in despised obscurity among +the members of a family who were utterly ashamed of him. His mother +Antonia called him a monstrosity, which Nature had begun but never +finished; and it became a proverbial expression with her, as is said to +have been the case with the mother of the great Wellington, to say of a +dull person, "that he was a greater fool than her son Claudius." His +grandmother Livia rarely deigned to address him except in the briefest +and bitterest terms. His sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of +his ever becoming emperor. Augustus, his grandfather by adoption, took +pains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a +wool-gathering[26] and discreditable member of the family, denied him +all public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when +looking out for a successor, deliberately passed him over as a man of +deficient intellect. Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and +blows, and for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the unhappy +Claudius came late for dinner, he would find every place occupied, and +peer about disconsolately amid insulting smiles. If, as was his usual +custom, he dropped asleep, after a meal, he was pelted with olives and +date-stones, or rough stockings were drawn over his hands that he might +be seen rubbing his face with them when he was suddenly awaked. + +[Footnote 26: He calls him [Greek meteoros] which implies awkwardness +and constant absence of mind.] + +This was the unhappy being who was now summoned to support the falling +weight of empire. While rummaging the palace for plunder, a common +soldier had spied a pair of feet protruding from under the curtains +which shaded the sides of an upper corridor. Seizing these feet, and +inquiring who owned them, he dragged out an uncouth, panic-stricken +mortal, who immediately prostrated himself at his knees and begged hard +for mercy. It was Claudius, who scared out of his wits by the tragedy +which he had just beheld, had thus tried to conceal himself until the +storm was passed. "Why, this is Germanicus!" [27] exclaimed the soldier, +"let's make him emperor." Half joking and half in earnest, they hoisted +him on their shoulders--for terror had deprived him of the use of his +legs--and hurried him off to the camp of the Praetorians. Miserable and +anxious he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd of +passers-by, who believed that he was being hurried off to execution. But +the soldiers, who well knew their own interests, accepted him with +acclamations, the more so as, by a fatal precedent, he promised them a +largess of more than 80_l_. apiece. The supple Agrippa (the Herod of +Acts xii.), seeing how the wind lay, offered to plead his cause with the +Senate, and succeeded partly by arguments, partly by intimidation, and +partly by holding out the not unreasonable hopes of a great improvement +on the previous reign. + +[Footnote 27: The full name of Claudius was Tiberius Claudius Drusus +Caesar Germanicus.] + +For although Claudius had been accused of gambling and drunkenness, not +only were no _worse_ sins laid to his charge, but he had successfully +established some claim to being considered a learned man. Had fortune +blessed him till death with a private station, he might have been the +Lucien Bonaparte of his family--a studious prince, who preferred the +charms of literature to the turmoil of ambition. The anecdotes which +have been recorded of him show that he was something of an +archaeologist, and something of a philologian. The great historian Livy, +pitying the neglect with which the poor young man was treated, had +encouraged him in the study of history; and he had written memoirs of +his own time, memoirs of Augustus, and even a history of the civil wars +since the battle of Actium, which was so correct and so candid that his +family indignantly suppressed it as a fresh proof of his stupidity. + +Such was the man who, at the age of fifty, became master of the +civilized world. He offers some singular points of resemblance to our +own "most mighty and dread sovereign," King James I. Both were learned, +and both were eminently unwise;[28] both of them were authors, and both +of them were pedants; both of them delegated their highest powers to +worthless favourites, and both of them enriched these favourites with +such foolish liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them +had been terrified into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary +presence at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good +dispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of cruelty; and both +of them, though laborious in the discharge of duty, succeeded only in +rendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir Walter Raleigh in +prison, and Claudius drove Seneca into exile. The parallel, so far as I +am aware, has never been noticed, but is susceptible of being drawn out +into the minutest particulars. + +[Footnote 28: "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," says our own poet. +Heraclitus had said the same thing more than two thousand years before +him, [Greek: polumaoiae ou didasho].] + +One of his first acts was to recall his nieces, Julia and Agrippina, +from the exile into which their brother had driven them; and both these +princesses were destined to effect a powerful influence on the life of +our philosopher. + +What part Seneca had taken during the few troubled days after the murder +of Caius we do not know. Had he taken a leading part--had he been one of +those who, like Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being +merely the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic,--or who, like +Sabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Caesar,--we should +perhaps have heard of it; and we must therefore assume either that he +was still absent from Rome in the retirement into which he had been +driven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with +quietly watching the course of events. It will be observed that his +biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted +in most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on +isolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest +shade long and important periods of his history. Nor are his letters and +other writings full of those political and personal allusions which +convert them into an autobiography. They are, without exception, +occupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they only +refer to such personal reminiscences as may best be converted into the +text for some Stoical paradox or moral declamation. It is, however, +certain from the sequel that Seneca must have seized the opportunity of +Caius's death to emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a +conspicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court. + +It would have been well for his own happiness and fame if he had adopted +the wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doctrines he professed. +A court at most periods is, as the poet says, + + "A golden but a fatal circle, + Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils + In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence, + And beckon early Virtue from its centre;" + +but the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was indeed a +place wherein few of the wise could find a footing, and still fewer of +the good. And all that Seneca gained from his career of ambition was to +be suspected by the first of these Emperors, banished by the second, and +murdered by the third. + +The first few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and kindly disposition; +but it soon became fatally obvious that the real powers of the +government would be wielded, not by the timid and absent-minded +Emperor, but by any one who for the time being could acquire an +ascendency over his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the +friends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen from the ranks +of his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and Don Miguel, the barbers of these +monarchs were the real governors, so Claudius was but the minister +rather than the master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius +his literary adviser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third person, with +whose name Scripture has made us familiar, was a freedman of Claudius. +This was Felix, the brother of Pallas, and that Procurator who, though +he had been the husband or the paramour of three queens, trembled before +the simple eloquence of a feeble and imprisoned Jew.[29] These men +became proverbial for their insolence and wealth; and once, when +Claudius was complaining of his own poverty, some one wittily replied, +"that he would have abundance if two of his freedmen would but admit him +into partnership with them." + +[Footnote 29: Acts xix.] + +But these men gained additional power from the countenance and intrigues +of the young and beautiful wife of Claudius, Valeria Messalina. In his +marriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune. +He lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was +that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men; and it was +the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been +united by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the +Berenice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the +sacred historians were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of +them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. He was +betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined +for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended +Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By +his first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he +had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidentally choked in +boyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the +air. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the +unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the +child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, Aelia +Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he +divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal +infamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the +younger for her unscrupulous ambition. + +Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old, +yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of +the most unblushing wickedness. + +But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own +jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and +Agrippina, the two nieces of the Emperor. They were, no less than +herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to +make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the +supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their +wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal +fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when +the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy. It is unlikely that, even +in the first flush of her husband's strange and unexpected triumph, +Messalina should have contemplated with any satisfaction their return +from exile. In this respect it is probable that the Emperor succeeded in +resisting her expressed wishes; so that the mere appearance of the two +daughters of Germanicus in her presence was a standing witness of the +limitations to which her influence was subjected. + +At this period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the history of the +Romans degenerates into mere anecdotes of their rulers. Happily, +however, it is not our duty to enter on the _chronique scandaleuse_ of +plots and counterplots, as little tolerable to contemplate as the +factions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We +can only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a +court? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of +his philosophical professions; and that we can contemplate his presence +there with as little satisfaction as we look on the figure of the +worldly and frivolous bishop in Mr. Frith's picture of "The Last Sunday +of Charles II. at Whitehall." + +And such inconsistencies involve their own retribution, not only in loss +of influence and fair fame, but even in direct consequences. It was so +with Seneca. Circumstances--possibly a genuine detestation of +Messalina's exceptional infamy--seem to have thrown him among the +partisans of her rivals. Messalina was only waiting her opportunity to +strike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the younger and the less +powerful of the two sisters, was marked out as the first victim, and the +opportunity seemed a favourable one for involving Seneca in her ruin. +His enormous wealth, his high reputation, his splendid abilities, made +him a formidable opponent to the Empress, and a valuable ally to her +rivals. It was determined to get rid of both by a single scheme. Julia +was accused of an intrigue with Seneca, and was first driven into exile +and then put to death. Seneca was banished to the barren and +pestilential shores of the island of Corsica. + +Seneca, as one of the most enlightened men of his age, should have aimed +at a character which would have been above the possibility of suspicion: +but we must remember that charges such as those which were brought +against him were the easiest of all to make, and the most impossible to +refute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we are not forced +to believe his guilt; his character was indeed deplorably weak, and the +laxity of the age in such matters was fearfully demoralising; but there +are sufficient circumstances in his favour to justify us in returning a +verdict of "Not guilty." Unless we attach an unfair importance to the +bitter calumny of his open enemies, we may consider that the general +tenor of his life has sufficient weight to exculpate him from an +unsupported accusation. + +Of Julia, Suetonius expressly says that the crime of which she was +accused was uncertain, and that she was condemned unheard. Seneca, on +the other hand, was tried in the Senate and found guilty. He tells us +that it was not Claudius who flung him down, but rather that, when he +was falling headlong, the Emperor supported him with the moderation of +his divine hand; "he entreated the Senate on my behalf; he not only +_gave_ me life, but even _begged_ it for me. Let it be his to consider," +adds Seneca, with the most dulcet flattery, "in what light he may wish +my cause to be regarded; either his justice will find, or his mercy will +make, it a good cause. He will alike be worthy of my gratitude, whether +his ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to his knowledge or to +his will." + +This passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood. The avarice of +Messalina was so insatiable that the non-confiscation of Seneca's +immense wealth is a proof that, for some reason, her fear or hatred of +him was not implacable. Although it is a remarkable fact that she is +barely mentioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, yet +there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation +before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at +all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability; +that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him +guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation +of his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for +literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some +powerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I. +remitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on +Francis Bacon. + +Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate +furnish the slightest valid proofs against him. The Senate at this time +were so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word +of accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make +them fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot +with their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his administration of +justice, patient and laborious as it was, had already grown into a +public joke. On one occasion he wrote down and delivered the wise +decision, "that he agreed with the side which had set forth the truth." +On another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came before him grew so +impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, "You are an old fool." +We are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a +good deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one +occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial +smile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. "At you," +said the man, "you look such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck +with the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A +Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing +Claudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidence +against him, indignantly abused him for his cruel stupidity, and flung +his pen and tablets in his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In +fact, the Emperor's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless +anecdotes. Among other things, when some condemned criminals were to +fight as gladiators, and addressed him before the games in the sublime +formula--"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!" ("Hail, Caesar! doomed +to die, we salute thee!") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer, +"Avete vos!" ("Hail ye also!") which they took as a sign of pardon, and +were unwilling to fight until they were actually forced to do so by the +gestures of the Emperor. + +The decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very +little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence +was that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SENECA IN EXILE. + +So, in A.D. 41, in the prime of life and the full vigour of his +faculties, with a name stained by a charge of which he may have been +innocent, but of which he was condemned as guilty, Seneca bade farewell +to his noble-minded mother, to his loving aunt, to his brothers, the +beloved Gallio and the literary Mela, to his nephew, the ardent and +promising young Lucan, and, above all--which cost him the severest +pang--to Marcus, his sweet and prattling boy. It was a calamity which +might have shaken the fortitude of the very noblest soul, and it had by +no means come upon him single handed. Already he had lost his wife, he +had suffered from acute and chronic ill-health, he had been bereaved but +three weeks previously of another little son. He had been cut short by +the jealousy of one emperor from a career of splendid success; he was +now banished by the imbecile subservience of another from all that he +held most dear. + +We are hardly able to conceive the intensity of anguish with which an +ancient Roman generally regarded the thought of banishment. In the long +melancholy wail of Ovid's "Tristia;" in the bitter and heart-rending +complaints of Cicero's "Epistles," we may see something of that intense +absorption in the life of Rome which to most of her eminent citizens +made a permanent separation from the city and its interests a thought +almost as terrible as death itself. Even the stoical and heroic Thrasea +openly confessed that he should prefer death to exile. To a heart so +affectionate, to a disposition so social, to a mind so active and +ambitious as that of Seneca, it must have been doubly bitter to exchange +the happiness of his family circle, the splendour of an imperial court, +the luxuries of enormous wealth, the refined society of statesmen, and +the ennobling intercourse of philosophers for the savage wastes of a +rocky island and the society of boorish illiterate islanders, or at the +best, of a few other political exiles, all of whom would be as miserable +as himself, and some of whom would probably have deserved their fate. + +The Mediteranean rocks selected for political exiles--Gyaros, Seriphos, +Scyathos, Patmos, Pontia, Pandataria--were generally rocky, barren, +fever-stricken places, chosen by design as the most wretched conceivable +spots in which human life could be maintained at all. Yet these islands +were crowded with exiles, and in them were to be found not a few +princesses of Caesarian origin. We must not draw a parallel to their +position from that of an Eleanor, the wife of Duke Humphrey, immured in +Peel Castle in the Isle of Man, or of a Mary Stuart in the Isle of Loch +Levin--for it was something incomparably worse. No care was taken even +to provide for their actual wants. Their very lives were not secure. +Agrippa Posthumus and Nero, the brothers of the Emperor Caligula, had +been so reduced by starvation that both of the wretched youths had been +driven to support life by eating the materials with which their beds +were stuffed. The Emperor Caius had once asked an exile, whom he had +recalled from banishment, in what manner he had been accustomed to +employ his time on the island. "I used," said the flatterer, "to pray +that Tiberius might die, and that you might succeed." It immediately +struck Caius that the exiles whom he had banished might be similarly +employed, and accordingly he sent centurions round the islands to put +them all to death. Such were the miserable circumstances which might be +in store for a political outlaw.[30] If we imagine what must have been +the feelings of a d'Espréménil, when a _lettee de cachet_ consigned him +to a prison in the Isle d'Hières; or what a man like Burke might have +felt, if he had been compelled to retire for life to the Bermudas; we +may realize to some extent the heavy trial which now befel the life +of Seneca. + +[Footnote 30: Among the Jews the homicides who had fled to a city of +refuge were set free on the high priest's death, and, in order _to +prevent them from praying for his death_, the mother and other relatives +of the high priest used to supply them with clothes and other +necessaries. See the author's article on "Asylum" in Kitto's +_Encyclopedia_ (ed. Alexander.)] + +Corsica was the island chosen for his place of banishment, and a spot +more uninviting could hardly have been selected. It was an island +"shaggy and savage," intersected from north to south by a chain of wild, +inaccessible mountains, clothed to their summits with gloomy and +impenetrable forests of pine and fir. Its untamable inhabitants are +described by the geographer Strabo as being "wilder than the wild +beasts." It produced but little corn, and scarcely any fruit-trees. It +abounded, indeed, in swarms of wild bees, but its very honey was bitter +and unpalatable, from being infected with the acrid taste of the +box-flowers on which they fed. Neither gold nor silver were found +there; it produced nothing worth exporting, and barely sufficient for +the mere necessaries of its inhabitants; it rejoiced in no great +navigable rivers, and even the trees, in which it abounded, were neither +beautiful nor fruitful. Seneca describes it in more than one of his +epigrams, as a + + "Terrible isle, when earliest summer glows + Yet fiercer when his face the dog-star shows;" + +and again as a + + "Barbarous land, which rugged rocks surround, + Whose horrent cliffs with idle wastes are crowned, + No autumn fruit, no tilth the summer yields, + Nor olives cheer the winter-silvered fields: + Nor joyous spring her tender foliage lends, + Nor genial herb the luckless soil befriends; + Nor bread, nor sacred fire, nor freshening wave;-- + Nought here--save exile, and the exile's grave!" + +In such a place, and under such conditions, Seneca had ample need for +all his philosophy. And at first it did not fail him. Towards the close +of his first year of exile he wrote the "Consolation to his mother +Helvia," which is one of the noblest and most charming of all his works. + +He had often thought, he said, of writing to console her under this deep +and wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto he had abstained from doing +so, lest, while his own anguish and hers were fresh, he should only +renew the pain of the wound by his unskilful treatment. He waited, +therefore till time had laid its healing hand upon her sorrows, +especially because he found no precedent for one in his position +condoling with others when he himself seemed more in need of +consolation, and because something new and admirable would be required +of a man who, as it were, raised his head from the funeral pyre to +console his friends. Still he now feels impelled to write to her, +because to alleviate her regrets will be to lay aside his own. He does +not attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, because +so far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has tasted it from her +earliest years in all its varieties; and because his purpose was to +conquer her grief, not to extenuate its causes. Those many miseries +would indeed have been in vain, if they had not taught her how to bear +wretchedness. He will prove to her therefore that she has no cause to +grieve either on his account, or on her own. Not on his--because he is +happy among circumstances which others would think miserable and because +he assures her with his own lips that not only is he _not_ miserable, +but that he can never be made so. Every one can secure his own +happiness, if he learns to seek it, not in external circumstances, but +in himself. He cannot indeed claim for himself the title of wise, for, +if so, he would be the most fortunate of men, and near to God Himself; +but, which is the next best thing, he has devoted himself to the study +of wise men, and from them he has learnt to expect nothing and to be +prepared for all things. The blessings which Fortune had hitherto +bestowed on him,--wealth, honours, glory,--he had placed in such a +position that she might rob him of them all without disturbing him. +There was a great _space_ between them and himself, so that they could +be _taken_ but not _torn_ away. Undazzled by the glamour of prosperity, +he was unshaken by the blow of adversity. In circumstances which were +the envy of all men he had never seen any real or solid blessing, but +rather a painted emptiness, a gilded deception; and similarly he found +nothing really hard or terrible in ills which the common voice has so +described. + +What, for instance, was exile? it was but a change of place, an absence +from one's native land; and, if you looked at the swarming multitudes in +Rome itself, you would find that the majority of them were practically +in contented and willing exile, drawn thither by necessity, by ambition, +or by the search for the best opportunities of vice. No isle so wretched +and so bleak which did not attract some voluntary sojourners; even this +precipitous and naked rock of Corsica, the hungriest, roughest, most +savage, most unhealthy spot conceivable, had more foreigners in it than +native inhabitants. The natural restlessness and mobility of the human +mind, which arose from its aetherial origin, drove men to change from +place to place. The colonies of different nations, scattered all over +the civilized and uncivilized world even in spots the most chilly and +uninviting, show that the condition of place is no necessary ingredient +in human happiness. Even Corsica had often changed its owners; Greeks +from Marseilles had first lived there, then Ligurians and Spaniards, +then some Roman colonists, whom the aridity and thorniness of the rock +had not kept away. + +"Varro thought that nature, Brutus that the consciousness of virtue, +were sufficient consolations for any exile. How little have I lost in +comparison with those two fairest possessions which I shall everywhere +enjoy--nature and my own integrity! Whoever or whatever made the +world--whether it were a deity, or disembodied reason, or a divine +interfusing spirit, or destiny, or an immutable series of connected +causes--the result was that nothing, except our very meanest +possessions, should depend on the will of another. Man's best gifts lie +beyond the power of man either to give or to take away. This Universe, +the grandest and loveliest work of nature, and the Intellect which was +created to observe and to admire it, are our special and eternal +possessions, which shall last as long as we last ourselves. Cheerful, +therefore, and erect, let us hasten with undaunted footsteps +whithersoever our fortunes lead us. + +"There is no land where man cannot dwell,--no land where he cannot +uplift his eyes to heaven; wherever we are, the distance of the divine +from the human remains the same. So then, as long as my eyes are not +robbed of that spectacle with which they cannot be satiated, so long as +I may look upon the sun and moon, and fix my lingering gaze on the other +constellations, and consider their rising and setting and the spaces +between them and the causes of their less and greater speed,--while I +may contemplate the multitude of stars glittering throughout the heaven, +some stationary, some revolving, some suddenly blazing forth, others +dazzling the gaze with a flood of fire as though they fell, and others +leaving over a long space their trails of light; while I am in the midst +of such phenomena, and mingle myself, as far as a man may, with things +celestial,--while my soul is ever occupied in contemplations so sublime +as these, what matters it what ground I tread? + +"What though fortune has thrown me where the most magnificent abode is +but a cottage? the humblest cottage, if it be but the home of virtue, +may be more beautiful than all temples; no place is narrow which can +contain the crowd of glorious virtues; no exile severe into which you +may go with such a reliance. When Brutus left Marcellus at Mitylene, he +seemed to be himself going into exile because he left that illustrious +exile behind him. Caesar would not land at Mitylene, because he blushed +to see him. Marcellus therefore, though he was living in exile and +poverty, was living a most happy and a most noble life. + + "'One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs + Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; + And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, + Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.' + +"And as for poverty every one who is not corrupted by the madness of +avarice and luxury know that it is no evil. How little does man need, +and how easily can he secure that! As for me, I consider myself as +having lost not wealth, but the trouble of looking after it. Bodily +wants are few--warmth and food, nothing more. May the gods and goddesses +confound that gluttony which sweeps the sky, and sea and land for birds, +and animals, and fish; which eats to vomit and vomits to eat, and hunts +over the whole world for that which after all it cannot even digest! +They might satisfy their hunger with little, and they excite it with +much. What harm can poverty inflict on a man who despises such excesses? +Look at the god-like and heroic poverty of our ancestors, and compare +the simple glory of a Camillus with the lasting infamy of a luxurious +Apicius! Even exile will yield a sufficiency of necessaries, but not +even kingdoms are enough for superfluities. It is the soul that makes us +rich or poor: and the soul follows us into exile, and finds and enjoys +its own blessings even in the most barren solitudes. + +"But it does not even need philosophy to enable us to despise poverty. +Look at the poor: are they not often obviously happier than the rich? +And the times are so changed that what we would now consider the poverty +of an exile would then have been regarded as the patrimony of a prince. +Protected by such precedents as those of Homer, and Zeno, and Menenius +Agrippa, and Regulus, and Scipio, poverty becomes not only safe but +even estimable. + +"And if you make the objection that the ills which assail me are not +exile only, or poverty only, but disgrace as well, I reply that the soul +which is hard enough to resist one wound is invulnerable to all. If we +have utterly conquered the fear of death, nothing else can daunt us. +What is disgrace to one who stands above the opinion of the multitude? +what was even a death of disgrace to Socrates, who by entering a prison +made it cease to be disgraceful? Cato was twice defeated in his +candidature for the praetorship and consulship: well, this was the +disgrace of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised by +another until he has learned to despise himself. The man who has learned +to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred +fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man +bravely wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. Some +indeed say that death is preferable to contempt; to whom I reply that he +who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more +an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred +buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood. + +"On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no cause for endless +weeping: nor have you on your own. You cannot grieve for me on selfish +grounds, in consequence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were +ever eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your dealings +with your sons, and you were always a help and a benefactor to them +rather than they to you. Nor should you give way out of a regret and +longing for me in my absence. We have often previously been separated, +and, although it is natural that you should miss that delightful +conversation, that unrestricted confidence, that electrical sympathy of +heart and intellect that always existed between us, and that boyish glee +wherewith your visits always affected me, yet, as you rise above the +common herd of women in virtue, the simplicity, the purity of your life, +you must abstain from feminine tears as you have done from all feminine +follies. Consider how Cornelia, who had lost ten children by death, +instead of wailing for her dead sons, thanked fortune that had made her +sons _Gracchi_. Rutilia followed her son Cotta into exile so dearly did +she love him, yet no one saw her shed a tear after his burial. She had +shown her affection when it was needful, she restrained her sorrow when +it was superflous. Imitate the example of these great women as you have +imitated their virtues. I want you not to _beguile_ your sorrow by +amusements or occupations, but to _conquer_ it. For you may now return +to those philosophical studies in which you once showed yourself so apt +a proficient, and which formerly my father checked. They will gradually +sustain and comfort you in your hour of grief. + +"And meanwhile consider how many sources of consolation already exist +for you. My brothers are still with you; the dignity of Gallio, the +leisure of Mela, will protect you; the ever-sparkling mirth of my +darling little Marcus will cheer you up; the training of my little +favourite Novatilla will be a duty which will assuage your sorrow. For +your father's sake, too, though he is absent from you, you must moderate +your lamentations. Above all, your sister--that truly faithful, loving, +and high-souled lady, to whom I owe so deep a debt of affection for her +kindness to me from my cradle until now,--she will yield you the +fondest sympathy and the truest consolation. + +"But since I know that after all your thoughts will constantly revert to +me, and that none of your children will be more frequently before your +mind than I,--not because they are less dear to you than I, but because +it is natural to lay the hand most often upon the spot which pains,--I +will tell you how you are to think of me. Think of me as happy and +cheerful, as though I were in the midst of blessings; as indeed I am, +while my mind, free from every care, has leisure for its own pursuits, +and sometimes amuses itself with lighter studies, sometimes, eager for +truth, soars upwards to the contemplation of its own nature, and the +nature of the universe. It inquires first of all about the lands and +their situation; then into the condition of the surrounding sea, its +ebbings and flowings; then it carefully studies all this terror-fraught +interspace between heaven and earth, tumultuous with thunders and +lightnings, and the blasts of winds, and the showers of rain, and snow +and hail; then, having wandered through all the lower regions, it bursts +upwards to the highest things, and revels in the most lovely--spectacle +of that which is divine, and, mindful of its own eternity, passes into +all that hath been and all that shall be throughout all ages." + +Such in briefest outline, and without any of that grace of language with +which Seneca has invested it, is a sketch of the little treatise which +many have regarded as among the most delightful of Seneca's works. It +presents the picture of that grandest of all spectacles-- + + "A good man struggling with the storms of fate." + +So far there was something truly Stoical in the aspect of Seneca's +exile. But was this grand attitude consistently maintained? Did his +little raft of philosophy sink under him, or did it bear him safely over +the stormy waves of this great sea of adversity. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +SENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY. + +There are some misfortunes of which the very essence consists in their +continuance. They are tolerable so long as they are illuminated by a ray +of hope. Seclusion and hardship might even come at first with some charm +of novelty to a philosopher who, as was not unfrequent among the amateur +thinkers of his time, occasionally practised them in the very midst of +wealth and friends. But as the hopeless years rolled on, as the efforts +of friends proved unavailing, as the loving son, and husband, and father +felt himself cut off from the society of those whom he cherished in such +tender affection, as the dreary island seemed to him ever more barbarous +and more barren, while season after season added to its horrors without +revealing a single compensation, Seneca grew more and more disconsolate +and depressed. It seemed to be his miserable destiny to rust away, +useless, unbefriended, and forgotten. Formed to fascinate society, here +there were none for him to fascinate; gifted with an eloquence which +could keep listening senates hushed, here he found neither subject nor +audience; and his life began to resemble a river which, long before it +has reached the sea, is lost in dreary marshes and choking sands. + +Like the brilliant Ovid, when he was banished to the frozen wilds of +Tomi, Seneca vented his anguish in plaintive wailing and bitter verse. +In his handful of epigrams he finds nothing too severe for the place of +his exile. He cries-- + + "Spare thou thine exiles, lightly o'er thy dead, + Alive, yet buried, be thy dust bespread." + +And addressing some malignant enemy-- + + "Whoe'er thou art,--thy name shall I repeat?-- + Who o'er mine ashes dar'st to press thy feet, + And, uncontented with a fall so dread, + Draw'st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head, + Beware! for nature, pitying, guards the tomb, + And ghosts avenge th' invaders of their gloom, + Hear, Envy, hear the gods proclaim a truth, + Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth, + WRETCHES ARE SACRED THINGS,--thy hands refrain: + E'en sacrilegious hands from TOMBS abstain." + +The one fact that seems to have haunted him most was that his abode in +Corsica was a living death. + +But the most complete picture of his state of mind, and the most +melancholy memorial of his inconsistency as a philosopher, is to be +found in his "Consolation to Polybius." Polybius was one of those +freedmen of the Emperor whose bloated wealth and servile insolence were +one of the darkest and strangest phenomena of the time. Claudius, more +than any of his class, from the peculiar imbecility of his character, +was under the powerful influence of this class of men; and so dangerous +was their power that Messalina herself was forced to win her ascendency +over her husband's mind by making these men her supporters, and +cultivating their favour. Such were "the most excellent Felix," the +judge of St. Paul, and the slave who became a husband to three +queens,--Narcissus, in whose household (which moved the envy of the +Emperor) were some of those Christians to whom St. Paul sends greetings +from the Christians of Corinth,[31]--Pallas, who never deigned to speak +to his own slaves, but gave all his commands by signs, and who actually +condescended to receive the thanks of the Senate, because he, the +descendant of Etruscan kings, yet condescended to serve the Emperor and +the Commonwealth; a preposterous and outrageous compliment, which +appears to have been solely due to the fact of his name being identical +with that of Virgil's young hero, the son of the mythic Evander! + +[Footnote 31: Rom. xvi. 11.] + +Among this unworthy crew a certain Polybius was not the least +conspicuous. He was the director of the Emperor's studies,--a worthy +Alcuin to such a Charlemagne. All that we know about him is that he was +once the favourite of Messalina, and afterwards her victim, and that in +the day of his eminence the favour of the Emperor placed him so high +that he was often seen walking between the two consuls. Such was the man +to whom, on the occasion of his brother's death, Seneca addressed this +treatise of consolation. It has come down to us as a fragment, and it +would have been well for Seneca's fame if it had not come down to us at +all. Those who are enthusiastic for his reputation would gladly prove it +spurious, but we believe that no candid reader can study it without +perceiving its genuineness. It is very improbable that he ever intended +it to be published, and whoever suffered it to see the light was the +successful enemy of its illustrious author. + +Its sad and abject tone confirms the inference, drawn from an allusion +which it contains, that it was written towards the close of the third +year of Seneca's exile. He apologises for its style by saying that if it +betrayed any weakness of thought or inelegance of expression this was +only what might be expected from a man who had so long been surrounded +by the coarse and offensive _patois_ of barbarians. We need hardly +follow him into the ordinary topics of moral philosophy with which it +abounds, or expose the inconsistency of its tone with that of Seneca's +other writings. He consoles the freedman with the "common commonplaces" +that death is inevitable; that grief is useless; that we are all born to +sorrow; that the dead would not wish us to be miserable for their sakes. +He reminds him that, owing to his illustrious position, all eyes are +upon him. He bids him find consolation in the studies in which he has +always shown himself so pre-eminent, and lastly he refers him to those +shining examples of magnanimous fortitude, for the climax of which, no +doubt, the whole piece of interested flattery was composed. For this +passage, written in a _crescendo_ style, culminates, as might have been +expected, in the sublime spectacle of Claudius Caesar. So far from +resenting his exile, he crawls in the dust to kiss Caesar's beneficent +feet for saving him from death; so far from asserting his +innocence--which, perhaps, was impossible, since to do so might have +involved him in a fresh charge of treason--he talks with all the +abjectness of guilt. He belauds the clemency of a man, who, he tells us +elsewhere, used to kill men with as much _sang froid_ as a dog eats +offal; the prodigious powers of memory of a divine creature who used to +ask people to dice and to dinner whom he had executed the day before, +and who even inquired as to the cause of his wife's absence a few days +after having given the order for her execution; the extraordinary +eloquence of an indistinct stutterer, whose head shook and whose broad +lips seemed to be in contortions whenever he spoke.[32] If Polybius +feels sorrowful, let him turn his eyes to Caesar; the splendour of that +most great and radiant deity will so dazzle his eyes that all their +tears will be dried up in the admiring gaze. Oh that the bright +occidental star which has beamed on a world which, before its rising, +was plunged in darkness and deluge, would only shed one little beam +upon him! + +[Footnote 32: These slight discrepancies of description are taken from +counter passages of _Consol, ad Polyb._. and the _Ludus de Morte +Caesaris._] + +No doubt these grotesque and gorgeous flatteries, contrasting strangely +with the bitter language of intense hatred and scathing contempt which +Seneca poured out on the memory of Claudius after his death, were penned +with the sole purpose of being repeated in those divine and benignant +ears. No doubt the superb freedman, who had been allowed so rich a share +of the flatteries lavished on his master, would take the opportunity--if +not out of good nature, at least out of vanity,--to retail them in the +imperial ear. If the moment were but favourable, who knows but what at +some oblivious and crapulous moment the Emperor might be induced to sign +an order for our philosopher's recall? + +Let us not be hard on him. Exile and wretchedness are stern trials, and +it is difficult for him to brave a martyr's misery who has no conception +of a martyr's crown. To a man who, like Seneca, aimed at being not only +a philosopher, but also a man of the world--who in this very treatise +criticises the Stoics for their ignorance of life--there would not have +seemed to be even the shadow of disgrace in a private effusion of +insincere flattery intended to win the remission of a deplorable +banishment. Or, if we condemn Seneca, let us remember that Christians, +no less than philosophers, have attained a higher eminence only to +exemplify a more disastrous fall. The flatteries of Seneca to Claudius +are not more fulsome, and are infinitely less disgraceful, than those +which fawning bishops exuded on his counterpart, King James. And if the +Roman Stoic can gain nothing from a comparison with the yet more +egregious moral failure of the greatest of Christian thinkers---Francis +Bacon, Viscount St. Alban's--let us not forget that a Savonarola and a +Cranmer recanted under torment, and that the anguish of exile drew even +from the starry and imperial spirit of Dante Alighieri words and +sentiments for which in his noblest moments he might have blushed. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE. + +Of the last five years of Seneca's weary exile no trace has been +preserved to us. What were his alternations of hope and fear, of +devotion to philosophy and of hankering after the world which he had +lost, we cannot tell. Any hopes which he may have entertained respecting +the intervention of Polybius in his favour must have been utterly +quenched when he heard that the freedman, though formerly powerful with +Messalina, had forfeited his own life in consequence of her +machinations. But the closing period of his days in Corsica must have +brought him thrilling news, which would save him from falling into +absolute despair. + +For the career of Messalina was drawing rapidly to a close. The life of +this beautiful princess, short as it was, for she died at a very early +age, was enough to make her name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a +time she appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won for her +an unlimited sway over the facile mind of Claudius, and she had either +won over by her intrigues, or terrified by her pitiless severity, the +noblest of the Romans and the most powerful of the freedmen. But we see +in her fate, as we see on every page of history, that vice ever carries +with it the germ of its own ruin, and that a retribution, which is all +the more inevitable from being often slow, awaits every violation of the +moral law. + +There is something almost incredible in the penal infatuation which +brought about her fall. During the absence of her husband at Ostia, she +wedded in open day with C. Silius, the most beautiful and the most +promising of the young Roman nobles. She had apparently persuaded +Claudius that this was merely a mock-marriage, intended to avert some +ominous auguries which threatened to destroy "the husband of Messalina;" +but, whatever Claudius may have imagined, all the rest of the world knew +the marriage to be real, and regarded it not only as a vile enormity, +but also as a direct attempt to bring about a usurpation of the +imperial power. + +It was by this view of the case that the freedman Narcissus roused the +inert spirit and timid indignation of the injured Emperor. While the +wild revelry of the wedding ceremony was at its height, Vettius Valens, +a well-known physician of the day, had in the license of the festival +struggled up to the top of a lofty tree, and when they asked him what he +saw, he replied in words which, though meant for jest, were full of +dreadful significance, "I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia." He +had scarcely uttered the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then +numerous messengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, and was +coming to take vengeance. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the +assembled guests. Silius, as though nothing had happened, went to +transact his public duties in the Forum; Messalina instantly sending for +her children, Octavia and Britannicus, that she might meet her husband +with them by her side, implored the protection of Vibidia, the eldest of +the chaste virgins of Vesta, and, deserted by all but three companions, +fled on foot and unpitied, through the whole breadth of the city, until +she reached the Ostian gate, and mounted the rubbish-cart of a market +gardener which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed both the +looks and the attention of the Emperor by the proofs and the narrative +of her crimes, and, getting rid of the Vestal by promising her that the +cause of Messalina should be tried, he hurried Claudius forward, first +to the house of Silius, which abounded with the proofs of his guilt, and +then to the camp of the Praetorians, where swift vengeance was taken on +the whole band of those who had been involved in Messalina's crimes. She +meanwhile, in alternative paroxysms of fury and abject terror, had taken +refuge in the garden of Lucullus, which she had coveted and made her own +by injustice. Claudius, who had returned home, and had recovered some of +his facile equanimity in the pleasures of the table, showed signs of +relenting; but Narcissus knew that delay was death, and on his own +authority sent a tribune and centurions to despatch the Empress. They +found her prostrate on the ground at the feet of her mother Lepida, with +whom in her prosperity she had quarrelled, but who now came to pity and +console her misery, and to urge her to that voluntary death which alone +could save her from imminent and more cruel infamy. But the mind of +Messalina, like that of Nero afterwards, was so corrupted by wickedness +that not even such poor nobility was left in her as is implied in the +courage of despair. While she wasted the time in tears and lamentations, +a noise was heard of battering at the doors, and the tribune stood by +her in stern silence, the freedman with slavish vituperation. First she +took the dagger in her irresolute hand, and after she had twice stabbed +herself in vain, the tribune drove home the fatal blow, and the corpse +of Messalina, like that of Jezebel, lay weltering in its blood in the +plot of ground of which her crimes had robbed its lawful owner. +Claudius, still lingering at his dinner, was informed that she had +perished, and neither asked a single question at the time, nor +subsequently displayed the slightest sign of anger, of hatred, of pity, +or of any human emotion. + +The absolute silence of Seneca respecting the woman who had caused him +the bitterest anguish and humiliation of his life is, as we have +remarked already, a strange and significant phenomenon. It is clearly +not due to accident, for the vices which he is incessantly describing +and denouncing would have found in this miserable woman their most +flagrant illustration, nor could contemporary history have furnished a +more apposite example of the vindication by her fate of the stern +majesty of the moral law. But yet, though Seneca had every reason to +loathe her character and to detest her memory, though he could not have +rendered to his patrons a more welcome service than by blackening her +reputation, he never so much as mentions her name. And this honourable +silence gives us a favourable insight into his character. For it can +only be due to his pitying sense of the fact that even Messalina, bad as +she undoubtedly was, had been judged already by a higher Power, and had +met her dread punishment at the hand of God. It has been conjectured, +with every appearance of probability, that the blackest of the scandals +which were believed and circulated respecting her had their origin in +the published autobiography of her deadly enemy and victorious +successor. The many who had had a share in Messalina's fall would be +only too glad to poison every reminiscence of her life; and the deadly +implacable hatred of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar +gratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace over the +acts of a rival whose young children it was her dearest object to +supplant. That Seneca did not deign to chronicle even of an enemy what +Agrippina was not ashamed to write,--that he spared one whom it was +every one's interest and pleasure to malign,--that he regarded her +terrible fall as a sufficient claim to pity, as it was a sufficient +Nemesis upon her crimes,--is a trait in the character of the philosopher +which has hardly yet received the credit which it deserves. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO. + +Scarcely had the grave closed over Messalina when the court was plunged +into the most violent factions about the appointment of her successor. +There were three principal candidates for the honour of the aged +Emperor's hand. They were his former wife, Aelia Petina, who had only +been divorced in consequence of trivial disagreements, and who was +supported by Narcissus; Lollia Paulina, so celebrated in antiquity for +her beauty and splendour, and who for a short time had been the wife of +Caius; and Agrippina the younger, the daughter of the great Germanicus, +and the niece of Claudius himself. Claudius, indeed, who had been as +unlucky as Henry VIII. himself in the unhappiness which had attended his +five experiments of matrimony, had made the strongest possible +asseverations that he would never again submit himself to such a yoke. +But he was so completely a tool in the hands of his own courtiers that +no one attached the slightest importance to anything which he had said. + +The marriage of an uncle with his own niece was considered a violation +of natural laws, and was regarded with no less horror among the Romans +than it would be among ourselves. But Agrippina, by the use of means the +most unscrupulous, prevailed over all her rivals, and managed her +interests with such consummate skill that, before many months had +elapsed, she had become the spouse of Claudius and the Empress of Rome. + +With this princess the destinies of Seneca were most closely +intertwined, and it will enable us the better to understand his +position, and his writings, if we remember that all history discloses to +us no phenomenon more portentous and terrible than that presented to us +in the character of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. + +Of the virtues of her great parents she, like their other children, had +inherited not one; and she had exaggerated their family tendencies into +passions which urged her into every form of crime. Her career from the +very cradle had been a career of wickedness, nor had any one of the many +fierce vicissitudes of her life called forth in her a single noble or +amiable trait. Born at Oppidum Ubiorum (afterwards called in her honour +Colonia Agrippina, and still retaining its name in the form Cologne), +she lost her father at the age of three, and her mother (by banishment) +at the age of twelve. She was educated with bad sisters, with a wild and +wicked brother, and under a grandmother whom she detested. At the age of +fourteen she was married to Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the most +worthless and ill-reputed of the young Roman nobles of his day. The +gossiping biographies of the time still retain some anecdotes of his +cruelty and selfishness. They tell us how he once, without the slightest +remorse, ran over a poor boy who was playing on the Appian Road; how on +another occasion he knocked out the eye of a Roman knight who had given +him a hasty answer; and how, when his friend congratulated him on the +birth of his son (the young Claudius Domitius, afterwards the Emperor +Nero), he brutally remarked that from people like himself and Agrippina +could only be born some monster destined for the public ruin. + +Domitius was forty years old when he married Agrippina, and the young +Nero was not born till nine years afterwards. Whatever there was of +possible affection in the tigress-nature of Agrippina was now absorbed +in the person of her child. For that child, from its cradle to her own +death by his means, she toiled and sinned. The fury of her own ambition, +inextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierceness of her love for +this only son, henceforth directed every action of her life. Destiny had +made her the sister of one Emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife +of another; her own crimes made her the mother of a third. And at first +sight her career might have seemed unusually successful, for while still +in the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband, +and then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of +the Roman world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, whose +stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track +through page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to +her with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of +gratified love and pride to which she had waded through so many a deed +of sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and violent +shameful death, by the hand of that very son for whose sake she had so +often violated the laws of virtue and integrity, and spurned so often +the pure and tender obligations which even the heathen had been taught +by the voice of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore. + +Intending that her son should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, +her first step was to drive to death Silanus, a young nobleman to whom +Octavia had already been betrothed. Her next care was to get rid of all +rivals possible or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia +and her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the latter was the +wealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she trumped up an accusation of +sorcery and treason, upon which her wealth was confiscated, but her life +spared by the Emperor, who banished her from Italy. This half-vengeance +was not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the daughter of Herodias in +sacred history, she despatched a tribune with orders to bring her the +head of her enemy; and when it was brought to her, and she found a +difficulty in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a +once-celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have lifted one +of the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this was indeed the head +of Lollia. To such horrors may a woman sink, when she has abandoned the +love of God; and a fair face may hide a soul "leprous as sin itself." +Well may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and +husband-murdering Gertrude are mere children by the side of this awful +giant-shape of steely feminine cruelty. + +Such was the princess who, in the year A.D. 49, recalled Seneca from +exile.[33] She saw that her cruelties were inspiring horror even into a +city that had long been accustomed to blood, and Tacitus expressly tells +us that she hoped to counterbalance this feeling by a stroke of +popularity in recalling from the waste solitudes of Corsica the +favourite philosopher and most popular author of the Roman world. Nor +was she content with this public proof of her belief in his innocence +of the crime which had been laid to his charge, for she further procured +for him the Praetorship, and appointed him tutor and governor to her +youthful son. Even in taking this step she did not forget her ambitious +views; for she knew that Seneca cherished a secret indignation against +Claudius, and that Nero could have no more wise adviser in taking steps +to secure the fruition of his imperial hopes. It might perhaps have been +better for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, or set his +foot again in that Circean and bloodstained court. Let it, however, be +added in his exculpation, that another man of undoubted and scrupulous +honesty,--Afranius Burrus--a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of +Roman manliness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the +Praetorian cohorts, was willing to share his danger and his +responsibilities. Yet he must have lived from the first in the very +atmosphere of base and criminal intrigues. He must have formed an +important member of Agrippina's party, which was in daily and deadly +enmity against the party of Narcissus. He must have watched the +incessant artifices by which Agrippina secured the adoption of her son +Nero by an Emperor whose own son Britannicus was but three years his +junior. He must have seen Nero always honoured, promoted, paraded before +the eyes of the populace as the future hope of Rome, whilst Britannicus, +like the young Edward V. under the regency of his uncle, was neglected, +surrounded with spies, kept as much as possible out of his father's +sight, and so completely thrust into the background from all observation +that the populace began seriously to doubt whether he were alive or +dead. He must have seen Agrippina, who had now received the +unprecedented honour of the title "Augusta" in her lifetime, acting +with such haughty insolence that there could be little doubt as to her +ulterior designs upon the throne. He must have known that his splendid +intellect was practically at the service of a woman in whom avarice, +haughtiness, violence, treachery, and every form of unscrupulous +criminality had reached a point hitherto unmatched even in a corrupt and +pagan world. From this time forth the biography of Seneca must assume +the form of an apology rather than of a panegyric. + +[Footnote 33: Gallio was Proconsul of Achaia about A.D. 53, when St. +Paul was brought before his tribunal. Very possibly his elevation may +have been due to the restoration of Seneca's influence.] + +The Emperor could not but feel that in Agrippina he had chosen a wife +even more intolerable than Messalina herself. Messalina had not +interfered with the friends he loved, had not robbed him of the insignia +of empire, had not filled his palace with a hard and unfeminine tyranny, +and had of course watched with a mother's interest over the lives and +fortunes of his children. Narcissus would not be likely to leave him +long in ignorance that, in addition to her other plots and crimes, +Agrippina had been as little true to him as his former unhappy wife. The +information sank deep into his heart, and he was heard to mutter that it +had been his destiny all along first to bear, and then to avenge, the +enormities of his wives. Agrippina, whose spies filled the palace, could +not long remain uninformed of so significant a speech; and she probably +saw with an instinct quickened by the awful terrors of her own guilty +conscience that the Emperor showed distinct signs of his regret for +having married his niece, and adopted her child to the prejudice, if not +to the ruin, of his own young son. If she wanted to reach the goal which +she had held so long in view no time was to be lost. Let us hope that +Seneca and Burrus were at least ignorant of the means which she took to +effect her purpose. + +Fortune favoured her. The dreaded Narcissus, the most formidable +obstacle to her murderous plans, was seized with an attack of the gout. +Agrippina managed that his physician should recommend him the waters of +Sinuessa in Campania by way of cure. He was thus got out of the way, and +she proceeded at once to her work of blood. Entrusting the secret to +Halotus, the Emperor's _praegustator_--the slave whose office it was to +protect him from poison by tasting every dish before him--and to his +physician, Xenophon of Cos, she consulted Locusta, the Mrs. Turner of +the period of this classical King James, as to the poison best suited to +her purpose. Locusta was mistress of her art, in which long practice had +given her a consummate skill. The poison must not be too rapid, lest it +should cause suspicion; nor too slow, lest it should give the Emperor +time to consult for the interests of his son Britannicus; but it was to +be one which should disturb his intellect without causing immediate +death. Claudius was a glutton, and the poison was given him with all the +more ease because it was mixed with a dish of mushrooms, of which he was +extravagantly fond. Agrippina herself handed him the choicest mushroom +in the dish, and the poison at once reduced him to silence. As was too +frequently the case, Claudius was intoxicated at the time, and was +carried off to his bed as if nothing had happened. A violent colic +ensued, and it was feared that this, with a quantity of wine which he +had drunk, would render the poison innocuous. But Agrippina had gone too +far for retreat, and Xenophon, who knew that great crimes if frustrated +are perilous, if successful are rewarded, came to her assistance. Under +pretence of causing him to vomit, he tickled the throat of the Emperor +with a feather smeared with a swift and deadly poison. It did its work, +and before morning the Caesar was a corpse.[34] + +[Footnote 34: There is usually found among the writings of Seneca a most +remarkable burlesque called _Ludus de Morte Caesaris_. As to its +authorship opinions will always vary, but it is a work of such undoubted +genius, so interesting, and so unique in its character, that I have +thought it necessary to give in an Appendix a brief sketch of its +argument. We may at least _hope_ that this satire, which overflows with +the deadliest contempt of Claudius, is not from the same pen which wrote +for Nero his funeral oration. It has, however, been supposed (without +sufficient grounds) to be the lost [Greek: Apokolokuntoois] which Seneca +is said to have written on the apotheosis of Claudius. The very name is +a bitter satire. It imagines the Emperor transformed, not into a God, +but into a gourd--one of those "bloated gourds which sun their speckled +bellies before the doors of the Roman peasants." "The Senate decreed his +_divinity_; Seneca translated it into _pumpkinity_" (Merivale, _Rom. +Emp_. v. 601). The _Ludus_ begins by spattering mud on the memory of the +divine Claudius; it ends with a shower of poetic roses over the glory of +the diviner Nero!] + +As has been the case not unfrequently in history, from the times of +Tarquinius Priscus to those of Charles II., the death was concealed +until everything had been prepared for the production of a successor. +The palace was carefully watched; no one was even admitted into it +except Agrippina's most trusty partisans. The body was propped up with +pillows; actors were sent for "by his own desire" to afford it some +amusement; and priests and consuls were bidden to offer up their vows +for the life of the dead. Giving out that the Emperor was getting +better, Agrippina took care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters, +Octavia and Antonia, under her own immediate eye. As though overwhelmed +with sorrow she wept, and embraced them, and above all kept Britannicus +by her side, kissing him with the exclamation "that he was the very +image of his father," and taking care that he should on no account +leave her room. So the day wore on till it was the hour which the +Chaldaeans declared would be the only lucky hour in that unlucky +October day. + +Noon came; the palace doors were suddenly thrown open: and Nero with +Burrus at his side went out to the Praetorian cohort which was on guard. +By the order of their commandant, they received him with cheers. A few +only hesitated, looking round them and asking "Where was Britannicus?" +Since, however, he was not to be seen, and no one stirred in his favour, +they followed the multitude. Nero was carried in triumph to the camp, +made the soldiers a short speech, and promised to each man of them a +splendid donative. He was at once saluted Emperor. The Senate followed +the choice of the soldiers, and the provinces made no demur. Divine +honors were decreed to the murdered man, and preparations made for a +funeral which was to rival in its splendour the one which Livia had +ordered for Augustus. But the will--which beyond all doubt had provided +for the succession of Britannicus--was quietly done away with, and its +exact provisions were never known. + +And on the first evening of his imperial power, Nero, well aware to whom +he owed his throne, gave to the sentinel who came to ask him the pass +for the night the grateful and significant watchword of "Optima +Mater,"--"the best of mothers!" + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +NERO AND HIS TUTOR. + +The imperial youth, whose destinies are now inextricably mingled with +those of Seneca, was accompanied to the throne by the acclamations of +the people. Wearied by the astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath +of a Tiberius, the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of +a Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and +beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his shoulders, and whose +features displayed the finest type of Roman beauty. There was nothing in +his antecedents to give a sinister augury to his future development, and +all classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We can +understand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own +countrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the +youthful virtue and gentleness of Edward VI. Happy would it have been +for Nero if his reign, like that of Edward, could have been cut short +before the thick night of many crimes had settled down upon the promise +of its dawn. For the first five years of Nero's reign--the famous +_Quinquennium Neronis_--were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period +of almost ideal happiness. In reality, it was Seneca who was ruling in +Nero's, name. Even so excellent an Emperor as Trajan is said to have +admitted "that no other prince had nearly equalled the praise of that +period." It is indeed probable that those years appeared to shine with +an exaggerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded them; +yet we can see in them abundant circumstances which were quite +sufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope and joy. The young Nero was +at first modest and docile. His opening speeches, written with all the +beauty of thought and language which betrayed the _style_ of Seneca no +less than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises. All +those things which had been felt to be injurious or oppressive he +promised to eschew. He would not, he said, reserve to himself, as +Claudius had done, the irresponsible decision in all matters of +business; no office or dignity should be won from him by flattery or +purchased by bribes; he would not confuse his own personal interests +with those of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient +prerogatives of the Senate; he would confine his own immediate attention +to the provinces and the army. + +Nor were such promises falsified by his immediate conduct. The odious +informers who had flourished in previous reigns were frowned upon and +punished. Offices of public dignity were relieved from unjust and +oppressive burdens. Nero prudently declined the gold and silver statues +and other extravagant honours which were offered to him by the corrupt +and servile Senate, but he treated that body, which, fallen as it was, +continued still to be the main representative of constitutional +authority, with favour and respect. Nobles and officials begun to +breathe more freely, and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was +perceptibly relaxed. Severity was reserved for notorious criminals, and +was only inflicted in a regular and authorized manner, when no one +could doubt that it had been deserved. Above all, Seneca had +disseminated an anecdote about his young pupil which tended more than +any other circumstance to his wide spread popularity. England has +remembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluctance of her +youthful Edward to sign the death-warrant of Joan Boucher; Rome, +accustomed to a cruel indifference to human life, regarded with +something like transport the sense of pity which had made Nero, when +asked to affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, "_How I +wish that I did not know how to write_!" + +It is admitted that no small share of the happiness of this period was +due to the firmness of the honest Burrus, and the wise, high-minded +precepts of Seneca. They deserve the amplest gratitude and credit for +this happy interregnum, for they had no easy task to perform. Besides +the difficulties which arose from the base and frivolous character of +their pupil, besides the infinite delicacy which was requisite for the +restraint of a youth who was absolute master of such gigantic destinies, +they had the task of curbing the wild and imperious ambition of +Agrippina, and of defeating the incessant intrigues of her many powerful +dependents. Agrippina had no doubt persuaded herself that her crimes had +been mainly committed in the interest of her son; but her conduct showed +that she wished him to be a mere instrument in her hands. She wished to +govern him, and had probably calculated on doing so by the assistance of +Seneca, just as our own Queen Caroline completely managed George II. +with the aid of Sir Robert Walpole. She rode in a litter with him; +without his knowledge she ordered the poisoning of M. Silanus, a brother +of her former victim, she goaded Narcissus to death, against his will; +through her influence the Senate was sometimes assembled in the palace, +and she took no pains to conceal from the senators that she was herself +seated behind a curtain where she could hear every word of their +deliberations;--nay, on one occasion, when Nero was about to give +audience to an important Armenian legation, she had the audacity to +enter the audience-chamber, and advance to take her seat by the side of +the Emperor. Every one else was struck dumb with amazement, and even +terror, at a proceeding so unusual; but Seneca, with ready and admirable +tact, suggested to Nero that he should rise and meet his mother, thus +obviating a public scandal under the pretext of filial affection. + +But Seneca from the very first had been guilty of a fatal error in the +education of his pupil. He had governed him throughout on the ruinous +principle of _concession_. Nero was not devoid of talent; he had a +decided turn for Latin versification, and the few lines of his +composition which have come down to us, _bizarre_ and effected as they +are, yet display a certain sense of melody and power of language. But +his vivid imagination was accompained by a want of purpose; and Seneca, +instead of trying to train him in habits of serious attention and +sustained thought, suffered him to waste his best efforts in pursuits +and amusements which were considered partly frivolous and partly +disreputable, such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca +might have argued that there was, at any rate, no great harm in such +employments, and that they probably kept Nero out of worse mischief. But +we respect Nero the less for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging +just as we respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks; and, if +Seneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the first, Rome +might have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero's subsequent +buffooneries in the cities of Greece and the theatres of Rome. We may +lay it down as an invariable axiom in all high education, that it is +_never_ sensible to permit what is bad for the supposed sake of +preventing what is worse. Seneca very probably persuaded himself that +with a mind like Nero's--the innate worthlessness of which he must early +have recognised--success of any high description would be simply +impossible. But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble +means by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable. +Let us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly +in matters which he regarded as indifferent--or, at the worst, as +discreditable--rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably +arose from an error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in +moral character. + +Yet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the worse for this +laxity of training. We have already seen that, in his maiden-speech +before the Senate, every one recognized the hand of Seneca, and many +observed with a sigh that this was the first occasion on which an +Emperor had not been able, at least to all appearance, to address the +Senate in his own words and with his own thoughts. Tiberius, as an +orator, had been dignified and forcible; Claudius had been learned and +polished; even the disturbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in +a capacity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but Nero's +youth had been frittered away in paltry and indecorus accomplishments, +which had left him neither time nor inclination for weightier and +nobler pursuits. + +The fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously from the +subsequent infamy of his pupil; and it is obvious that the dislike of +Tacitus to his memory is due to his connexion with Nero. Now, even +though the tutor's system had not been so wise as, when judged by an +inflexible standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to +make him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and it must be +remembered, to Seneca's eternal honour, that the evidence of facts, the +testimony of contemporaries, and even the grudging admission of Tacitus +himself, establishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation +characterized the earlier years of Nero's reign were due to his +counsels; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the virtuous Burrus; +that he helped to check the sanguinary audacities of Agrippina; that the +writings which he addressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for +him, breathed the loftiest counsels; and that it was not until he was +wholly removed from power and influence that Nero, under the fierce +impulses of despotic power, developed those atrocious tendencies of +which the seeds had long been latent in his disposition. An ancient +writer records the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a +savagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate; and that to +his intimate friends he used to observe that, "when once the lion tasted +human blood, his innate cruelty would return." + +But while we give Seneca this credit, and allow that his _intentions_ +were thoroughly upright, we cannot but impugn his _judgment_ for having +thus deliberately adopted the morality of expedience; and we believe +that to this cause, more than to any other, was due the extent of his +failure and the misery of his life. We may, indeed, be permitted to +doubt whether Nero himself--a vain and loose youth, the son of bad +parents, and heir to boundless expectations--would, under any +circumstances, have grown up much better than he did; but it is clear +that Seneca might have been held in infinitely higher honour but for the +share which he had in his education. Had Seneca been as firm and wise as +Socrates, Nero in all probability would not have been much worse than +Alcibiades. If the tutor had set before his pupil no ideal but the very +highest, if he had inflexibly opposed to the extent of his ability every +tendency which was dishonourable and wrong, he might _possibly_ have +been rewarded by success, and have earned the indelible gratitude of +mankind; and if he had failed he would at least have failed nobly, and +have carried with him into a calm and honourable retirement the respect, +if not the affection, of his imperial pupil. Nay, even if he had failed +_completely_, and lost his life in the attempt, it would have been +infinitely better both for him and for mankind. Even Homer might have +taught him that "it is better to die than live in sin." At any rate he +might have known from study and observation that an education founded on +compromise must always and necessarily fail. It must fail because it +overlooks that great eternal law of retribution for and continuity in +evil, which is illustrated by every single history of individuals and of +nations. And the education which Seneca gave to Nero--noble as it was in +many respects, and eminent as was its partial and temporary success--was +yet an education of compromises. Alike in the studies of Nero's boyhood +and the graver temptations of his manhood, he acted on the +foolishly-fatal principle that + + "Had the wild oat not been sown, + The soil left barren scarce had grown, + The grain whereby a man may live." + +Any Christian might have predicted the result; one would have thought +that even a pagan philosopher might have been enlightened enough to +observe it. We often quote the lines-- + + "The child is father of the man," + +and + + "Just as the twig is bent the tree inclines." + +But the ancients were quite as familiar with the same truth under other +images. "The cask," wrote Horace, "will long retain the odour of that +which has once been poured into it when new." Quintilian, describing the +depraved influences which surrounded even the infancy of a Roman child, +said, "From these arise _first familiarity, then nature_." + +No one has laid down the principle more emphatically than Seneca +himself. Take, for instance, the following passage from his Letters, on +evil conversation. "The conversation," he says, "of these men is very +injurious; for, even if it does no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds +in the mind, and follows us even when we have gone from the speakers,--a +plague sure to spring up in future resurrection. Just as those who have +heard a symphony carry in their ears the tune and sweetness of the song +which entangles their thoughts, and does not suffer them to give their +whole energy to serious matters; so the conversation of flatterers and +of those who praise evil things, lingers longer in the mind than the +time of hearing it. Nor is it easy to shake out of the soul a sweet +sound; it pursues us, and lingers with us, and at perpetual intervals +recurs. Our ears therefore must be closed to evil words, and that to the +very first we hear. For when they have once begun and been admitted, +they acquire more and more audacity;" and so he adds a little +afterwards, "our days flow on, and irreparable life passes beyond our +reach." Yet he who wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to +his imperial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encouraged +him in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named Acte, into which Nero +fell. It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the +youthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to +whom he had been bound by every tie of honour and affection, and his +union with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical +usurpation. But princes rarely love the wives to whom they owe any part +of their elevation. Henry VII. treated Elizabeth of York with many +slights. The union of William III. with Mary was overshadowed by her +superior claim to the royal power; and Nero from the first regarded with +aversion, which ended in assassination, the poor young orphan girl who +recalled to the popular memory his slender pretensions to hereditary +empire, and whom he regarded as a possible rival, if her cowed and +plastic nature should ever become a tool in the hands of more powerful +intriguers. But we do not hear of any attempt on Seneca's part to urge +upon Nero the fulfillment of this high duty, and we find him sinking +into the degraded position of an accomplice with young profligates like +Otho, as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, which +would have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to a Stoic +disgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the very principle to +which we have been pointing,--the principle of moral compromise, the +principle of permitting and encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of +thereby preventing what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca +should have erred in this way, for compromise was the character of his +entire life. He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible +task of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the +Caesars. He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a +man of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he +failed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man +_must_ make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of +Mammon and the service of God. No man ever gained anything but contempt +and ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions. + +And by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or an Antisthenes +would have taken, Seneca became more or less involved in some of the +most dreadful events of Nero's reign. Every one of the terrible doubts +under which his reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted +the principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue. One or two +of these events we must briefly narrate. + +We have already pointed out that the Nemesis which for so many years had +been secretly dogging the footsteps of Agrippina made her tremble under +the weight of its first cruel blows when she seemed to have attained the +highest summit of her ambition. Very early indeed Nero began to be +galled and irritated by the insatiate assumption and swollen authority +of "the best of mothers." The furious reproaches which she heaped upon +him when she saw in Acte a possible rival to her power drove him to take +refuge in the facile and unphilosophic worldliness of Seneca's +concessions, and goaded him almost immediately afterwards into an +atrocious crime. He naturally looked on Britannicus, the youthful son of +Claudius, with even more suspicion and hatred than that with which he +regarded Octavia. Kings have rarely been able to abstain from acts of +severity against those who might become claimants to the throne. The +feelings of King John towards Prince Arthur, of Henry IV. towards the +Earl of March, of Mary towards Lady Jane Grey, of Elizabeth towards Mary +Stuart, of King James towards Lady Arabella Stuart, resembled, but +probably by no means equalled in intensity, those of Nero towards his +kinsman and adoptive brother. To show him any affection was a dangerous +crime, and it furnished a sufficient cause for immediate removal if any +attendant behaved towards him with fidelity. Such a line of treatment +foreshadowed the catastrophe which was hastened by the rage of +Agrippina. She would go, she said, and take with her to the camp the +noble boy who was now of full age to undertake those imperial duties +which a usurper was exercising in virtue of crimes which she was now +prepared to confess. Then let the mutilated Burrus and the glib-tongued +Seneca see whether they could be a match for the son of Claudius and the +daughter of Germanicus. Such language, uttered with violent gestures and +furious imprecations, might well excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And +that alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all +the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During +the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with +all the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot +as "governor of the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue +his orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates which +would not make them blush; but Britannicus in violation of every +principle of Roman decorum, was ordered to stand up in the middle and +sing a song. The boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and +wholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well have faltered; +but he at once rose, and with a steady voice began a strain--probably +the magnificent wail of Andromache over the fall of Troy, which has been +preserved to us from a lost play of Ennius--in which he indicated his +own disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights. His courage and his +misfortunes woke in the guests a feeling of pity which night and wine +made them less careful to disguise. From that moment the fate of +Britannicus was sealed. Locusta, the celebrated poisoner of ancient +Rome, was summoned to the councils of Nero to get rid of Britannicus, as +she had already been summoned to those of his mother when she wished to +disembarrass herself of Britannicus's father. The main difficulty was to +avoid discovery, since nothing was eaten or drunk at the imperial table +till it had been tasted by the _praegustator_. To avoid this difficulty +a very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he wished for +something cooler a swift and subtle poison was dropped into the cold +water with which it was tempered. The boy drank, and instantly sank from +his seat, gasping and speechless. The guests started up in +consternation, and fixed their eyes on Nero. He with the utmost coolness +assured them that it was merely a fit of epilepsy, to which his brother +was accustomed, and from which he would soon recover. The terror and +agitation of Agrippina showed to every one that she at least was +guiltless of this dark deed; but the unhappy Octavia, young as she was, +and doubly terrible on every ground as the blow must have been to her, +sat silent and motionless, having already learnt by her misfortunes the +awful necessity for suppressing under an impassive exterior her +affections and sorrows, her hopes and fears. In the dead of night, amid +storms and murky rain, which were thought to indicate the wrath of +heaven, the last of the Claudii was hastily and meanly hurried into a +dishonourable grave. + +We may believe that in this crime Seneca had no share whatever, but we +can hardly believe that he was ignorant of it after it had been +committed, or that he had no share in the intensely hypocritical edict +in which Nero bewailed the fact of his adoptive brother's death, excused +his hurried funeral, and threw himself on the additional indulgence and +protection of the Senate. Nero showed the consciousness of guilt by the +immense largesses which he distributed to the most powerful of his +friends, "Nor were there wanting men," says Tacitus, in a most +significant manner, "_who accused certain people, notorious for their +high professions, of having at that period divided among them villas and +houses as though they had been so much spoil_." There can hardly be a +doubt that the great historian intends by this remark to point at +Seneca, to whom he tries to be fair, but whom he could never quite +forgive for his share in the disgraces of Nero's reign. That avarice was +one of Seneca's temptations is too probable; that expediency was a +guiding principle of his conduct is but too evident; and for a man with +such a character to rebut an innuendo is never an easy task. Nay more, +it was _after_ this foul event, at the close of Nero's first year, that +Seneca addressed him in the extravagant and glowing language of his +treatise on Clemency. "The quality of mercy," and the duty of princes to +practise it, has never been more eloquently extolled; but it is +accompanied by a fulsome flattery which has in it something painfully +grotesque as addressed by a philosopher to one whom he knew to have been +guilty, that very year, of an inhuman fratricide. Imagine some Jewish +Pharisee,--a Nicodemus or a Gamaliel--pronouncing an eulogy on the +tenderness of a Herod, and you have some picture of the appearance which +Seneca's consistency must have worn in the eyes of his contemporaries. + +This event took place A.D. 55, in the first year of Nero's +_Quinquennium_, and the same year was nearly signalized by the death of +his mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy was invented against her, +and it is probable that but for the intervention of Burrus, who with +Seneca was appointed to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a +very sudden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred of her +son. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of her defence created a +reaction in her favour, and secured the punishment of her accusers. But +the ties of affection could not long unite two such wicked and imperious +natures as those of Agrippina and her son. All history shows that there +can be no real love between souls exceptionally wicked, and that this is +still more impossible when the alliance between them has been sealed by +a complicity in crime. Nero had now fallen into a deep infatuation for +Poppaea Sabina, the beautiful wife of Otho, and she refused him her hand +so long as he was still under the control of his mother. At this time +Agrippina, as the just consequence of her many crimes, was regarded by +all classes with a fanaticism of hatred which in Poppaea Sabina was +intensified by manifest self-interest. Nero, always weak, had long +regarded his mother with real terror and disgust, and he scarcely needed +the urgency of constant application to make him long to get rid of her. +But the daughter of Germanicus could not be openly destroyed, while her +own precautions helped to secure her against secret assassination. It +only remained to compass her death by treachery. Nero had long compelled +her to live in suburban retirement, and had made no attempt to conceal +the open rapture which existed between them. Anicetus, admiral of the +fleet at Misenum, and a former instructor of Nero, suggested the +expedient of a pretended public reconciliation, in virtue of which +Agrippina should be invited to Baiae, and on her return should be placed +on board a vessel so constructed as to come to pieces by the removal of +bolts. The disaster might then be attributed to a mere naval accident, +and Nero might make the most ostentatious display of his affection +and regret. + +The invitation was sent, and a vessel specially decorated was ordered to +await her movements. But, either from suspicion or from secret +information, she declined to avail herself of it, and was conveyed to +Baiae in a litter. The effusion of hypocritical affection with which she +was received, the unusual tenderness and honour with which she was +treated, the earnest gaze, the warm embrace, the varied conversation, +removed her suspicions, and she consented to return in the vessel of +honour. As though for the purpose of revealing the crime, the night was +starry and the sea calm. The ship had not sailed far, and Crepereius +Gallus, one of her friends, was standing near the helm, while a lady +named Acerronia was seated at her feet as she reclined, and both were +vieing with each other in the warmth of their congratulations upon the +recent interview, when a crash was heard, and the canopy above them +which had been weighted with a quantity of lead, was suddenly let go. +Crepereius was crushed to death upon the spot; Agrippina and Acerronia +were saved by the projecting sides of the couch on which they were +resting; in the hurry and alarm, as accomplices were mingled with a +greater number who were innocent of the plot, the machinery of the +treacherous vessel failed. Some of the rowers rushed to one side of the +ship, hoping in that manner to sink it, but here too their councils were +divided and confused. Acerronia, in the selfish hope of securing +assistance, exclaimed that she was Agrippina, and was immediately +despatched with oars and poles; Agrippina, silent and unrecognized, +received a wound upon the shoulder, but succeeded in keeping herself +afloat till she was picked up by fishermen and carried in safety to +her villa. + +The hideous attempt from which she had been thus miraculously rescued +did not escape her keen intuition, accustomed as it was to deeds of +guilt; but, seeing that her only chance of safety rested in +dissimulation and reticense, she sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her +son that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible +accident, but to beg him not to be alarmed, and not to come to see her +because she needed rest. + +The news filled Nero with the wildest terror, and the expectation of an +immediate revenge. In horrible agitation and uncertainty he instantly +required the presence of Burrus and Seneca. Tacitus doubts whether they +may not have been already aware of what he had attempted, and Dion, to +whose gross calumnies, however, we need pay no attention, declares that +Seneca had frequently urged Nero to the deed, either in the hope of +overshadowing his own guilt, or of involving Nero in a crime which +should hasten his most speedy destruction at the hands of gods and men. +In the absence of all evidence we may with perfect confidence acquit the +memory of these eminent men from having gone so far as this. + +It must have been a strange and awful scene. The young man, for Nero was +but twenty-two years old, poured into the ears their tumult of his +agitation and alarm. White with fear, weak with dissipation, and +tormented by the furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth +looked from one to another of his aged ministers. A long and painful +pause ensued. If they dissuaded him in vain from the crime which he +meditated their lives would have been in danger; and perhaps they +sincerely thought that things had gone so far that, unless Agrippina +were anticipated, Nero would be destroyed. Seneca was the first to break +that silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus whether the soldiery +could be entrusted to put her to death. His reply was that the +praetorians would do nothing against a daughter of Germanicus and that +Anicetus should accomplish what he had promised. Anicetus showed himself +prompt to crime, and Nero thanked him in a rapture of gratitude. While +the freedman Agerinus was delivering to Nero his mother's message, +Anicetus dropped a dagger at his feet, declared that he had caught him +in the very act of attempting the Emperor's assassination, and hurried +off with a band of soldiers to punish Agrippina as the author of +the crime. + +The multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excitement along the shore; +their torches were seen glimmering in evident commotion about the scene +of the calamity, where some were wading into the water in search of the +body, and others were shouting incoherent questions and replies. At the +rumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed off in a body to her villa to +express their congratulations, where they were dispersed by the soldiers +of Anicetus, who had already token possession of it. Scattering or +seizing the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage +from door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted chamber, +attended only by a single handmaid. "Dost thou too desert me?" +exclaimed the wretched woman to her servant, as she rose to slip away. +In silent determination the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus +was the first to strike her with a stick. "Strike my womb," she cried to +him faintly, as he drew his sword, "for it bore Nero." The blow of +Anicetus was the signal for her immediate destruction: she was +dispatched with many wounds, and was buried that night at Misenum on a +common couch and with a mean funeral. Such an end, many years +previously, this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had +anticipated and despised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her that +her son would become Emperor, and would murder her, she is said to have +exclaimed, "Occidat dum imperet," "Let him slay me if he but reign." + +It only remained to account for the crime, and offer for it such lying +defences as were most likely to gain credit. Flying to Naples from a +scene which had now become awful to him,--for places do not change as +men's faces change, and, besides this, his disturbed conscience made him +fancy that he heard from the hill of Misenum the blowing of a ghostly +trumpet and wailings about his mother's tomb in the hours of night,--he +sent from thence a letter to the Senate, saying that his mother had been +punished for an attempt upon his life, and adding a list of her crimes, +real and imaginary, the narrative of her _accidental_ shipwreck, and his +opinion that her death was a public blessing. The author of this +shameful document was Seneca, and in composing it he reached the nadir +of his moral degradation. Even the lax morality of a most degenerate age +condemned him for calmly sitting down to decorate with the graces of +rhetoric and antithesis an atrocity too deep for the powers of +indignation. A Seneca could stoop to write what a Thrasea Paetus could +scarcely stoop to hear; for in the meeting of the Senate at which the +letter was recited, Thrasea rose in indignation, and went straight home +rather than seem to sanction by his presence the adulation of a +matricide. + +And the composition of that guily, elaborate, shameful letter was the +last prominent act of Seneca's public life. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE BEGINNING OF THE END + +Nor was it unnatural that it should be. Moral precepts, philosophic +guidance were no longer possible to one whose compliances or whose +timidity had led him so far as first to sanction matricide, and then to +defend it. He might indeed be still powerful to recommend principles of +common sense and political expediency, but the loftier lessons of +Stoicism, nay, even the better utterances of a mere ordinary Pagan +morality, could henceforth only fall from his lips with something of a +hollow ring. He might interfere, as we know he did, to render as +innocuous as possible the pernicious vanity which made Nero so ready to +degrade his imperial rank by public appearances on the orchestra or in +the race-course, but he could hardly address again such noble teachings +as that of the treatise on Clemency to one whom, on grounds of political +expediency, he had not dissuaded from the treacherous murder of a +mother, who, whatever her enormities, yet for his sake had sold her +very soul. + +Although there may have been a strong suspicion that foul play had been +committed, the actual facts and details of the death of Agrippina would +rest between Nero and Seneca as a guilty secret, in the guilt of which +Seneca himself must have his share. Such a position of things was the +inevitable death-blow, not only to all friendship, but to all +confidence, and ultimately to all intercourse. We see in sacred history +that Joab's participation in David's guilty secret gave him the absolute +mastery over his own sovereign; we see repeatedly in profane history +that the mutual knowledge of some crime is the invariable cause of +deadly hatred between a subject and a king. Such feelings as King John +may be supposed to have had to Hubert de Burgh, or King Richard III. to +Sir James Tyrrel, or King James I. to the Earl of Somerset, such +probably, in still more virulent intensity, were the feelings of Nero +towards his whilome "guide, philosopher, and friend." + +For Nero very soon learnt that Seneca was no longer _necessary_ to him. +For a time he lingered in Campania, guiltily dubious as to the kind of +reception that awaited him in the capital. The assurances of the vile +crew which surrounded him soon made that fear wear off, and when he +plucked up the courage to return to his palace, he might himself have +been amazed at the effusion of infamous loyalty and venal acclamation +with which he was received. All Rome poured itself forth to meet him; +the Senate appeared in festal robes with their wives and girls and boys +in long array; seats and scaffoldings were built up along the road by +which he had to pass, as though the populace had gone forth to see a +triumph. With haughty mein, the victor of a nation of slaves, he +ascended the Capitol, gave thanks to the gods, and went home to betray +henceforth the full perversity of a nature which the reverence for his +mother, such as it was, had hitherto in part restrained. But the +instincts of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. They +hung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the old punishment +of parricides, who were sentenced to be flung into the sea, tied up in a +sack with a serpent, a monkey, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the +Forum with a tablet on which was written, "I refuse to rear thee, lest +thou shouldst slay thy mother." They scrawled upon the blank walls of +Rome an iambic line which reminded all who read it that Nero, Orestes, +and Alcmaeon were murderers of their mothers. Even Nero must have been +well aware that he presented a hideous spectacle in the eyes of all who +had the faintest shade of righteousness among the people whom he ruled. + +All this took place in A.D. 59, and we hear no more of Seneca till the +year 62, a year memorable for the death of Burrus, who had long been his +honest, friendly, and faithful colleague. In these dark times, when all +men seemed to be speaking in a whisper, almost every death of a +conspicuous and high-minded man, if not caused by open violence, falls +under the suspicion of secret poison. The death of Burrus may have been +due (from the description) to diphtheria, but the popular voice charged +Nero with having hastened his death by a pretended remedy, and declared +that, when the Emperor visited his sick bed, the dying man turned away +from his inquiries with the laconic answer, "I am well." + +His death was regretted, not only from the memory of his virtues, but +also from the fact that Nero appointed two men as his successors, of +whom the one, Fenius Rufus, was honorable but indolent; the other and +more powerful, Sofonius Tigellinus had won for himself among cruel and +shameful associates a pre-eminence of hatred and of shame. + +However faulty and inconsistent Seneca may have been, there was at any +rate no possibility that he should divide with a Tigellinus the +direction of his still youthful master. He was by no means deceived as +to the position in which he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in +whom any spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant +calumnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tigellinus and his +friends dwelt on his enormous wealth and his magnificent villas and +gardens, which could only have been acquired with ulterior objects, and +which threw into the shade the splendour of the Emperor himself. They +tried to kindle the inflammable jealousies of Nero's feeble mind by +representing Seneca as attempting to rival him in poetry, and as +claiming the entire credit of his eloquence, while he mocked his divine +singing, and disparaged his accomplishments as a harper and charioteer +because he himself was unable to acquire them. Nero, they urged was a +boy no longer; let him get rid of his schoolmaster, and find sufficient +instruction in the example of his ancestors. + +Foreseeing how such arguments must end; Seneca requested an interview +with Nero; begged to be suffered to retire altogether from public life; +pleaded age and increasing infirmities as an excuse for desiring a calm +retreat; and offered unconditionally to resign the wealth and honours +which had excited the cupidity of his enemies, but which were simply due +to Nero's unexampled liberality during the eight years of his +government, towards one whom he had regarded as a benefactor and a +friend. But Nero did not choose to let Seneca escape so lightly. He +argued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to +accept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for +generosity. A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under +deceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and +assurances of friendship. Seneca thanked him--the usual termination, as +Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler--but nevertheless +altered his entire manner of life, forbade his friends to throng to his +levees, avoided all companions, and rarely appeared in public--wishing +it to be believed that he was suffering from weak health, or was wholly +occupied in the pursuit of philosophy. He well knew the arts of courts, +for in his book on Anger he has told an anecdote of one who, being asked +how he had managed to attain so rare a gift as old age in a palace, +replied, "By submitting to injuries, and _returning thanks for them_." +But he must have known that his life hung upon a thread, for in the very +same year an attempt was made to involve him in a charge of treason as +one of the friends of C. Calpurnius Piso, an illustrious nobleman whose +wealth and ability made him an object of jealousy and suspicion, though +he was naturally unambitious and devoid of energy. The attempt failed at +the time, and Seneca was able triumphantly to refute the charge of any +treasonable design. But the fact of such a charge being made showed how +insecure was the position of any man of eminence under the deepening +tyranny of Nero, and it precipitated the conspiracy which two years +afterwards was actually formed. + +Not long after the death of Burrus, when Nero began to add sacrilege to +his other crimes, Seneca made one more attempt to retire from Rome; and, +when permission was a second time refused, he feigned a severe illness, +and confined himself to his chamber. It was asserted, and believed, that +about this time Nero made an attempt to poison him by the +instrumentality of his freedman Cleonicus, which was only defeated by +the confession of an accomplice or by the abstemious habits of the +philosopher who now took nothing but bread and fruit, and never quenched +his thirst except out of the running stream. + +It was during those two years of Seneca's seclusion and disgrace that an +event happened of imperishable interest. On the orgies of a shameful +court, on the supineness of a degenerate people, there burst--as upon +the court of Charles II.--a sudden lightning-flash of retribution. In +its character, in its extent, in the devastation and anguish of which it +was the cause, in the improvements by which it was followed, in the +lying origin to which it was attributed, even in the general +circumstances of the period and character of the reign in which it +happened, there is a close and singular analogy between the Great Fire +of London in 1666 and the Great Fire of Rome in 64. Beginning in the +crowded part of the city, under the Palatine and Caelian Hills, it +raged, first for six, and then again for three days, among the +inflammable material of booths and shops, and driven along by a furious +wind, amid feeble and ill-directed efforts to check its course, it burst +irresistibly over palaces, temples, and porticoes, and amid the narrow +tortuous streets of old Rome, involving in a common destruction the most +magnificent works of ancient art, the choicest manuscripts of ancient +literature, and the most venerable monuments of ancient superstition. In +a few touches of inimitable compression, such as the stern genius of the +Latin language permits, but which are too condensed for direct +translation, Tacitus has depicted the horror of the scene,--wailing of +panic-stricken women, the helplessness of the very aged and the very +young, the passionate eagerness for themselves and for others, the +dragging along of the feeble or the waiting for them, the lingering and +the hurry, the common and inextricable confusion. Many, while they +looked backward, were cut off by the flames in front or at the sides; if +they sought some neighboring refuge, they found it in the grasp of the +conflagration; if they hurried to some more distant spot, that too was +found to be involved in the same calamity. At last, uncertain what to +seek or what to avoid, they crowded the streets, they lay huddled +together in the fields. Some, having lost all their possessions, died +from the want of daily food; and others, who might have escaped died of +a broken heart from the anguish of being bereaved of those whom they had +been unable to rescue; while, to add to the universal horror, it was +believed that all attempts to repress the flames were checked by +authoritive prohibition; nay more, that hired incendiaries were seen +flinging firebrands in new directions, either because they had been +bidden to do so, or that they might exercise their rapine undisturbed. + +The historians and anecdotists of the time, whose accounts must be taken +for what they are worth, attribute to Nero the origin of the +conflagration; and it is certain that he did not return to Rome until +the fire had caught the galleries of his palace. In vain did he use +every exertion to assist the homeless and ruined population; in vain did +he order food to be sold to them at a price unprecedentedly low, and +throw open to them the monuments of Agrippa, his own gardens, and a +multitude of temporary sheds. A rumour had been spread that, during the +terrible unfolding of that great "flower of flame," he had mounted to +the roof of his distant villa, and delighted with the beauty of the +spectacle, exulting in the safe sensation of a new excitement, had +dressed himself in theatrical attire, and sung to his harp a poem on the +burning of Troy. Such a heartless mixture of buffoonery and affectation +had exasperated the people too deeply for forgiveness, and Nero thought +it necessary to draw off the general odium into a new channel, since +neither his largesses nor any other popular measures succeeded in +removing from himself the ignominy of this terrible suspicion. What +follows is so remarkable, and, to a Christian reader, so deeply +interesting, that I will give it in the very words of that great +historian whom I have been so closely following. + +"Therefore, to get rid of this report, Nero trumped up an accusation +against a sect, detested for their atrocities, whom the common people +called Christians, and inflicted on them the most recondite punishments. +Christ, the founder of this sect, had been capitally punished by the +Procurator Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; and this damnable +superstition, repressed for the present, was again breaking out, not +only through Judaea, where the evil originated, but even through the +City, whither from all regions all things that are atrocious or shameful +flow together and gain a following. Those, therefore, were first +arrested who confessed their religion, and then on their evidence a vast +multitude were condemned, not so much on the charge of incendiarism, as +for their hatred towards the human race. And mockery was added to their +death; for they were covered in the skins of wild beasts and were torn +to death by dogs, or crucified, or set apart for burning, and after the +close of the day were reserved for the purpose of nocturnal +illumination. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a +chariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer, +or driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a +feeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, +and deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being +exterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the savage +cruelty of one man." + +Such are the brief but deeply pathetic particulars which have come down +to us respecting the first great persecution of the Christians, and such +must have been the horrid events of which Seneca was a contemporary, and +probably an actual eye-witness, in the very last year of his life. +Profoundly as in all likelihood he must have despised the very name of +Christian, a heart so naturally mild and humane as his must have +shuddered at the monstrous cruelties devised against the unhappy +votaries of this new religion. But to the relations of Christianity with +the Pagan world we shall return in a subsequent chapter and we must now +hasten to the end of our biography. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE DEATH OF SENECA. + +The false charge which had been brought against Seneca, and in which the +name of Piso had been involved, tended to urge that nobleman and his +friends into a real and formidable conspiracy. Many men of influence and +distinction joined in it, and among others Annaeus Lucanus, the +celebrated poet-nephew of Seneca, and Fenius Rufus the colleague of +Tigellinus in the command of the imperial guards. The plot was long +discussed, and many were admitted into the secret, which was +nevertheless marvellously well kept. One of the most eager conspirators +was Subrius Flavus, an officer of the guards, who suggested the plan of +stabbing Nero as he sang upon the stage, or of attacking him as he went +about without guards at night in the galleries of his burning palace. +Flavus is even said to have cherished the design of subsequently +murdering Piso likewise, and of offering the imperial power to Seneca, +with the full cognisance of the philosopher himself.[35] However this +may have been--and the story has no probability--many schemes were +discussed and rejected, from the difficulty of finding a man +sufficiently bold and sufficiently in earnest to put his own life to +such imminent risk. While things were still under discussion, the plot +was nearly ruined by the information of Volusius Proculus, an admiral of +the fleet, to whom it had been mentioned by a freedwoman of the name of +Ephicharis. Although no sufficient evidence could be adduced against +her, the conspirators thought it advisable to hasten matters, and one of +them, a senator named Scaevinus, undertook the dangerous task of +assassination. Plautius Lateranus, the cousul-elect, was to pretend to +offer a petition, in which he was to embrace the Emperor's knees and +throw him to the ground, and then Scaevinus was to deal the fatal blow. +The theatrical conduct of Scaevinus--who took an antique dagger from the +Temple of Safety, made his will, ordered the dagger to be sharpened, sat +down to an unusually luxurious banquet, manumitted or made presents to +his slaves, showed great agitation, and finally ordered ligaments for +wounds to be prepared,--awoke the suspicions of one of his freedmen +named Milichus, who hastened to claim a reward for revealing his +suspicions. Confronted with Milichus, Scaevinus met and refuted his +accusations with the greatest firmness; but when Milichus mentioned +among other things that, the day before, Scaevinus had held a long and +secret conversation with another friend of Piso named Natalis, and when +Natalis, on being summoned, gave a very different account of the subject +of this conversation from that which Scaevinus had given, they were both +put in chains; and, unable to endure the threats and the sight of +tortures, revealed the entire conspiracy. Natalis was the first to +mentioned the name of Piso, and he added the hated name of Seneca, +either because he had been the confidential messenger between the two, +or because he knew that he could not do a greater favour to Nero than by +giving him the opportunity of injuring a man whom he had long sought +every possible opportunity to crush. Scaevinus, with equal weakness, +perhaps because he thought that Natalis had left nothing to reveal, +mentioned the names of the others, and among them of Lucan, whose +complicity in the plot would undoubtedly tend to give greater +probability to the supposed guilt of Seneca. Lucan, after long denying +all knowledge of the design, corrupted by the promise of impunity, was +guilty of the incredible baseness of making up for the slowness of his +confession by its completeness, and of naming among the conspirators his +chief friend Gallus and Pollio, and his own mother Atilla. The woman +Ephicharis, slave though she had once been, alone showed the slightest +constancy, and, by her brave unshaken reticence under the most +excruciating and varied tortures, put to shame the pusillanimous +treachery of senators and knights. On the second day, when, with limbs +too dislocated to admit of her standing, she was again brought to the +presence of her executioners, she succeeded, by a sudden movement, in +strangling herself with her own girdle. + +[Footnote 35: See Juv. _Sat_. viii. 212.] + +In the hurry and alarm of the moment the slightest show of resolution +would have achieved the object of the conspiracy. Fenius Rufus had not +yet been named among the conspirators, and as he sat by the side of the +Emperor, and presided over the torture of his associates, Subrius Flavus +made him a secret sign to inquire whether even then and there he should +stab Nero. Rufus not only made a sign of dissent, but actually held the +hand of Subrius as it was grasping the hilt of his sword. Perhaps it +would have been better for him if he had not done so, for it was not +likely that the numerous conspirators would long permit the same man to +be at once their accomplice and the fiercest of their judges. Shortly +afterwards, as he was urging and threatening, Scaevinus remarked, with a +quiet smile, "that nobody knew more about the matter than he did +himself, and that he had better show his gratitude to so excellent a +prince by telling all he knew." The confusion and alarm of Rufus +betrayed his consciousness of guilt; he was seized and bound on the +spot, and subsequently put to death. + +Meanwhile the friends of Piso were urging to take some bold and sudden +step, which, if it did not succeed in retrieving his fortunes, would at +least shed lustre on his death. But his somewhat slothful nature, +weakened still further by a luxurious life, was not to be aroused, and +he calmly awaited the end. It was customary among the Roman Emperors at +this period to avoid the disgrace and danger of public executions by +sending a messenger to a man's house, and ordering him to put himself to +death by whatever means he preferred. Some raw recruits--for Nero dared +not intrust any veterans with the duty--brought the mandate to Piso, who +proceeded to make a will full of disgraceful adulation towards Nero, +opened his veins, and died. Plautius Lateranus was not even allowed the +poor privilege of choosing his own death, but, without time even to +embrace his children, was hurried off to a place set apart for the +punishment of slaves, and there died, without a word, by the sword of a +tribune whom he knew to be one his own accomplices. + +Lucan, in the prime of his life and the full bloom of his genius, was +believed to have joined the plot from his indignation at the manner in +which Nero's jealousy had repressed his poetic fame, and forbidden him +the opportunity of public rectitations. He too opened his veins; and as +he felt the deathful chill creeping upwards from the extremities of his +limbs, he recited some verses from his own "Pharsalia," in which he had +described the similar death of the soldier Lycidas. They were his last +words. His mother Atilla, whom to his everlasting infamy, he had +betrayed, was passed over as a victim too insignificant for notice, and +was neither pardoned nor punished. + +But, of all the many deaths which were brought about by this unhappy and +ill-managed conspiracy, none caused more delight to Nero than that of +Seneca, whom he was now able to dispatch by the sword, since he had been +unable to do so by secret poison. What share Seneca really had in the +conspiracy is unknown. If he were really cognisant of it, he must have +acted with consummate tact, for no particle of convincing evidence was +adduced against him. All that even Natalis could relate was, that when +Piso had sent him to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to +more of his intercourse, Seneca had replied "that it was better for them +both to hold aloof from each other, but that his own safety depended on +that of Piso." A tribune was sent to ask Seneca as to the truth of this +story, and found,--which was in itself regarded as a suspicious +circumstance,--that on that very day he had returned from Campania to a +villa four miles from the city. The tribune arrived in the evening, and +surrounded the villa with soldiers. Seneca was at supper, with his wife +Paulina and two friends. He entirely denied the truth of the evidence, +and said that "the only reason which he had assigned to Piso for seeing +so little of him was his weak health and love of retirement. Nero, who +knew how little prone he was to flattery, might judge whether or no it +was likely that he, a man of consular rank, would prefer the safety of a +man of private station to his own." Such was the message which the +tribune took back to Nero, whom he found sitting with his dearest and +most detestable advisers, his wife Poppaea and his minister Tigellinus. +Nero asked "whether Seneca was preparing a voluntary death." On the +tribune replying that he showed no gloom or terror in his language or +countenance, Nero ordered that he should at once be bidden to die. The +message was taken, and Seneca, without any sign of alarm, quietly +demanded leave to revise his will. This was refused him, and he then +turned to his friends with the remark that, as he was unable to reward +their merits as they had deserved, he would bequeath to them the only, +and yet the most precious, possession left to him, namely, the example +of his life, and if they were mindful of it they would win the +reputation alike for integrity and for faithful friendship. At the same +time he checked their tears, sometimes by his conversation, and +sometimes with serious reproaches, asking them "where were their +precepts of philosophy, and where the fortitude under trials which +should have been learnt from the studies of many years? Did not every +one know the cruelty of Nero? and what was left for him to do but to +make an end of his master and tutor after the murder of his mother and +his brother?" He then embraced his wife Paulina, and, with a slight +faltering of his lofty sternness, begged and entreated her not to enter +on an endless sorrow, but to endure the loss of her husband by the aid +of those noble consolations which she must derive from the contemplation +of his virtuous life. But Paulina declared that she would die with him, +and Seneca, not opposing the deed which would win her such permanent +glory, and at the same time unwilling to leave her to future wrongs, +yielded to her wish. The veins of their arms were opened by the same +blow; but the blood of Seneca, impoverished by old age and temperate +living, flowed so slowly that it was necessary also to open the veins of +his legs. This mode of death, chosen by the Romans as comparatively +painless, is in fact under certain circumstances most agonizing. Worn +out by these cruel tortures, and unwilling to weaken his wife's +fortitude by so dreadful a spectacle, glad at the same time to spare +himself the sight of _her_ sufferings, he persuaded her to go to another +room. Even then his eloquence did not fail. It is told of Andrè Chénier, +the French poet, that on his way to execution he asked for writing +materials to record some of the strange thoughts which filled his mind. +The wish was denied him, but Seneca had ample liberty to record his last +utterances. Amanuenses were summoned, who took down those dying +admonitions, and in the time of Tacitus they still were extant. To us, +however, this interesting memorial of a Pagan deathbed is +irrevocably lost. + +Nero, meanwhile, to whom the news of these circumstances was taken, +having no dislike to Paulina, and unwilling to incur the odium of too +much bloodshed, ordered her death to be prohibited and her wounds to be +bound. She was already unconscious, but her slaves and freedmen +succeeded in saving her life. She lived a few years longer, cherishing +her husband's memory, and bearing in the attenuation of her frame, and +the ghastly pallor of her countenance, the lasting proofs of that deep +affection which had characterised their married life. + +Seneca was not yet dead, and, to shorten these protracted and useless +sufferings, he begged his friend and physician Statius Annaeus to give +him a draught of hemlock, the same poison by which the great philosopher +of Athens had been put to death. But his limbs were already cold, and +the draught proved fruitless. He then entered a bath of hot water, +sprinkling the slaves who stood nearest to him, with the words that he +was pouring a libation to Jupiter the Liberator.[36] Even the warm +water failed to make the blood flow more speedily, and he was finally +carried into one of those vapour baths which the Romans called +_sudatoria_, and stifled with its steam. His body was burned privately, +without any of the usual ceremonies. Such had been his own wish, +expressed, not after the fall of his fortunes, but at a time when his +thoughts had been directed to his latter end, in the zenith of his great +wealth and conspicuous power. + +[Footnote 36: Sicco Polentone, an Italian, who wrote a Life of Seneca +(d. 1461), makes Seneca a secret Christian, and represents this as an +invocation of Christ, and says that he baptized himself with the water +of the bath!] + +So died a Pagan philosopher, whose life must always excite our interest +and pity, although we cannot apply to him the titles of great or good. +He was a man of high genius, of great susceptibility, of an ardent and +generous temperament, of far-sighted and sincere humanity. Some of his +sentiments are so remarkable for their moral beauty and profundity that +they forcibly remind us of the expressions of St. Paul. But Seneca fell +infinitely short of his own high standard, and has contemptuously been +called "the father of all them that wear shovel hats." Inconsistency is +written on the entire history of his life, and it has earned him the +scathing contempt with which many writers have treated his memory. "The +business of a philosopher," says Lord Macaulay, in his most scornful +strain, "was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling +out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of +luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about +liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant; +to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had +just before written a defence of the murder of a mother by a son." +"Seneca," says Niebuhr, "was an accomplished man of the world, who +occupied himself very much with virtue, and may have considered himself +to be an ancient Stoic. He certainly believed that he was a most +ingenious and virtuous philosopher; but he acted on the principle that, +as far as he himself was concerned, he could dispense with the laws of +morality which he laid down for others, and that he might give way to +his natural propensities." + +In Seneca's life, then, we see as clearly as in those of many professing +Christians that it is impossible to be at once worldly and righteous. +Seneca's utter failure was due to the vain attempt to combine in his own +person two opposite characters--that of a Stoic and that of a courtier. +Had he been a true philosopher, or a mere courtier, he would have been +happier, and even more respected. To be both was absurd: hence, even in +his writings, he was driven into inconsistency. He is often compelled to +abandon the lofty utterances of Stoicism, and to charge philosophers +with ignorance of life. In his treatise on a Happy Life he is obliged to +introduce a sort of indirect autobiographical apology for his wealth and +position.[37] In spite of his lofty pretensions to simplicity, in spite +of that sort of amateur asceticism which, in common with other wealthy +Romans, he occasionally practised, in spite of his final offer to +abandon his entire patrimony to the Emperor, we fear that he cannot be +acquitted of an almost insatiable avarice. We need not indeed believe +the fierce calumnies which charged him with exhausting Italy by a +boundless usury, and even stirring up a war in Britain by the severity +of his exactions; but it is quite clear that he deserved the title of +_Proedives_, "the over-wealthy," by which he has been so pointedly +signalized. It is strange that the most splendid intellects should so +often have sunk under the slavery of this meanest vice. In the Bible we +read how the "rewards of divination" seduced from his allegiance to God +the splendid enchanter of Mesopotamia: + + "In outline dim and vast + Their fearful shadows cast + The giant form of Empires on their way + To ruin:--one by one + They tower and they are gone, + Yet in the prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay. + + "No sun or star so bright, + In all the world of light, + That they should draw to heaven his downward eye: + He hears the Almighty's word, + He sees the angel's sword, + Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie." + +[Footnote 37: See _Ad. Polyb_. 37: _Ep_. 75; _De Vit. Beat_. 17, 18, +22.] + +And in Seneca we see some of the most glowing pictures of the nobility +of poverty combined with the most questionable avidity in the pursuit of +wealth. Yet how completely did he sell himself for naught. It is the +lesson which we see in every conspicuously erring life, and it was +illustrated less than three years afterwards in the terrible fate of the +tyrant who had driven him to death. For a short period of his life, +indeed, Seneca was at the summit of power; yet, courtier as he was, he +incurred the hatred, the suspicion, and the punishment of all the three +Emperors during whose reigns his manhood was passed. "Of all +unsuccessful men," says Mr. Froude, "in every shape, whether divine or +human, or devilish, there is none equal to Bunyan's Mr. +Facing-both-ways--the fellow with one eye on heaven and one on +earth--who sincerely preaches one thing and sincerely does another, and +from the intensity of his unreality is unable either to see or feel the +contradiction. He is substantially trying to cheat both God and the +devil, and is in reality only cheating himself and his neighbours. This +of all characters upon the earth appears to us to be the one of which +there is no hope at all, a character becoming in these days alarmingly +abundant; and the aboundance of which makes us find even in a Reineke an +inexpressible relief." And, in point of fact, the inconsistency of +Seneca's life was a _conscious_ inconsistency. "To the student," he +says, "who professes his wish to rise to a loftier grade of virtue, I +would answer that this is my _wish_ also, but I dare not hope it. _I am +preoccupied with vices. All I require of myself is, not to be equal to +the best_, but only _to be better than the bad_." No doubt Seneca meant +this to be understood merely for modest depreciation; but it was far +truer than he would have liked seriously to confess. He must have often +and deeply felt that he was not living in accordance with the light +which was in him. + +It would indeed be cheap and easy, to attribute the general inferiority +and the many shortcomings of Seneca's life and character to the fact +that he was a Pagan, and to suppose that if he had known Christianity he +would necessarily have attained to a loftier ideal. But such a style of +reasoning and inference, commonly as it is adopted for rhetorical +purposes, might surely be refused by any intelligent child. A more +intellectual assent to the lessons of Christianity would have probably +been but of little avail to inspire in Seneca a nobler life. The fact +is, that neither the gift of genius nor the knowledge of Christianity +are adequate to the ennoblement of the human heart, nor does the grace +of God flow through the channels of surpassing intellect or of orthodox +belief. Men there have been in all ages, Pagan no less than Christian, +who with scanty mental enlightenment and spiritual knowledge have yet +lived holy and noble lives: men there have been in all ages, Christian +no less than Pagan, who with consummate gifts and profound erudition +have disgraced some of the noblest words which ever were uttered by some +of the meanest lives which were ever lived. In the twelfth century was +there any mind that shone more brightly, was there any eloquence which +flowed more mightily, than that of Peter Abelard? Yet Abelard sank +beneath the meanest of his scholastic cotemporaries in the degradation +of his career as much as he towered above the highest of them in the +grandeur of his genius. In the seventeenth century was there any +philosopher more profound, any moralist more elevated, than Francis +Bacon? Yet Bacon could flatter a tyrant, and betray a friend, and +receive a bribe, and be one of the latest of English judges to adopt the +brutal expedient of enforcing confession by the exercise of torture. If +Seneca defended the murder of Agrippina, Bacon blackened the character +of Essex. "What I would I do not; but the thing that I would not, that I +do," might be the motto for many a confession of the sins of genius; and +Seneca need not blush if we compare him with men who were his equals in +intellectual power, but whose "means of grace," whose privileges, whose +knowledge of the truth, were infinitely higher than his own. Let the +noble constancy of his death shed a light over his memory which may +dissipate something of those dark shades which rest on portions of his +history. We think of Abelard, humble, silent, patient, God-fearing, +tended by the kindly-hearted Peter in the peaceful gardens of Clugny; we +think of Bacon, neglected, broken, and despised, dying of the chill +caught in a philosophical experiment and leaving his memory to the +judgment of posterity; let us think of Seneca, quietly yielding to his +destiny without a murmur, cheering the constancy of the mourners round +him during the long agonies of his enforced suicide and dictating some +of the purest utterances of Pagan wisdom almost with his latest breath. +The language of his great contemporary, the Apostle St. Paul, will best +help us to understand his position. He was one of those who was _seeking +the Lord, if haply he might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be +not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have +our being_. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +SENECA AND ST. PAUL. + +In the spring of the year 61, not long after the time when the murder of +Agrippina, and Seneca's justifications of it, had been absorbing the +attention of the Roman world, there disembarked at Puteoli a troop of +prisoners, whom the Procurator of Judaea had sent to Rome under the +charge of a centurion. Walking among them, chained and weary, but +affectionately tended by two younger companions,[38] and treated with +profound respect by little deputations of friends who met him at Appii +Forum and the Three Taverns, was a man of mean presence and +weather-beaten aspect, who was handed over like the rest to the charge +of Burrus, the Praefect of the Praetorian Guards. Learning from the +letters of the Jewish Procurator that the prisoner had been guilty of no +serious offence,[39] but had used his privilege of Roman citizenship to +appeal to Caesar for protection against the infuriated malice of his +co-religionists--possibly also having heard from the centurion Julius +some remarkable facts about his behaviour and history--Burrus allowed +him, pending the hearing of his appeal, to live in his own hired +apartments.[40] This lodging was in all probability in that quarter of +the city opposite the island in the Tiber, which corresponds to the +modern Trastevere. It was the resort of the very lowest and meanest of +the populace--that promiscuous jumble of all nations which makes Tacitus +call Rome at this time "the sewer of the universe." It was here +especially that the Jews exercised some of the meanest trades in Rome, +selling matches, and old clothes, and broken glass, or begging and +fortune-telling on the Cestian or Fabrican bridges.[41] In one of these +narrow, dark, and dirty streets, thronged by the dregs of the Roman +populace, St. Mark and St. Peter had in all probability lived when they +founded the little Christian Church at Rome. It was undoubtedly in the +same despised locality that St. Paul,--the prisoner who had been +consigned to the care of Burrus,--hired a room, sent for the principle +Jews, and for two years taught to Jews and Christians, to any Pagans who +would listen to him, the doctrines which were destined to regenerate +the world. + +[Footnote 38: Luke and Aristarchus.] + +[Footnote 39: Acts xxiv. 23, xxvii. 3.] + +[Footnote 40: Acts xxviii. 30, [Greek: en idio misthomati].] + +[Footnote 41: MART. _Ep_. i. 42: JUV. xiv. 186. In these few paragraphs +I follow M. Aubertin, who (as well as many other authors) has collected +many of the principal passages in which Roman writers allude to the Jews +and Christians.] + +Any one entering that mean and dingy room would have seen a Jew with +bent body and furrowed countenance, and with every appearance of age, +weakness, and disease chained by the arm to a Roman soldier. But it is +impossible that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not also +have seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, the fire of inspiration, +the serene light of exalted hope and dauntless courage upon those +withered features. And though _he_ was chained, "the Word of God was not +chained." [42] Had they listened to the words which he occasionally +dictated, or overlooked the large handwriting which alone his weak +eyesight and bodily infirmities, as well as the inconvenience of his +chains, permitted, they would have heard or read the immortal utterances +which strengthened the faith of the nascent and struggling Churches in +Ephesus, Philippi, and Colossae, and which have since been treasured +among the most inestimable possessions of a Christian world. + +[Footnote 42: 2 Tim. ii. 9.] + +His efforts were not unsuccessful; his misfortunes were for the +furtherance of the Gospel; his chains were manifest "in all the palace, +and in all other places;" [43] and many waxing confident by his bonds +were much more bold to speak the word without fear. Let us not be misled +by assuming a wrong explanation of these words, or by adopting the +Middle Age traditions which made St. Paul convert some of the immediate +favourites of the Emperor, and electrify with his eloquence an admiring +Senate. The word here rendered "palace" [44] may indeed have that +meaning, for we know that among the early converts were "they of +Caesar's household;" [45] but these were in all probability--if not +certainly--Jews of the lowest rank, who were, as we know, to be found +among the _hundreds_ of unfortunates of every age and country who +composed a Roman _familia_. And it is at least equally probable that the +word "praetorium" simply means the barrack of that detachment of Roman +soldiers from which Paul's gaolers were taken in turn. In such labours +St. Paul in all probability spent two years (61-63), during which +occurred the divorce of Octavia, the marriage with Poppaea, the death of +Burrus, the disgrace of Seneca, and the many subsequent infamies +of Nero. + +[Footnote 43: Phil. i. 12.] + +[Footnote 44: [Greek: en olo to praitorio].] + +[Footnote 45: Phil. iv. 22.] + +It is out of such materials that some early Christian forger thought it +edifying to compose the work which is supposed to contain the +correspondence of Seneca and St. Paul. The undoubted spuriousness of +that work is now universally admitted, and indeed the forgery is too +clumsy to be even worth reading. But it is worth while inquiring whether +in the circumstances of the time there is even a bare possibility that +Seneca should ever have been among the readers or the auditors of Paul. + +And the answer is, There is absolutely no such probability. A vivid +imagination is naturally attracted by the points of contrast and +resemblance offered by two such characters, and we shall see that there +is a singular likeness between many of their sentiments and expressions. +But this was a period in which, as M. Villemain observes, "from one +extremity of the social world to the other truths met each other without +recognition." Stoicism, noble as were many of its precepts, lofty as was +the morality it professed, deeply as it was imbued in many respects with +a semi-Christian piety, looked upon Christianity with profound contempt. +The Christians disliked the Stoics, the Stoics despised and persecuted +the Christians. "The world knows nothing of its greatest men." Seneca +would have stood aghast at the very notion of his receiving the lessons, +still more of his adopting the religion, of a poor, accused, and +wandering Jew. The haughty, wealthy, eloquent, prosperous, powerful +philosopher would have smiled at the notion that any future ages would +suspect him of having borrowed any of his polished and epigrammatic +lessons of philosophic morals or religion from one whom, if he heard of +him, he would have regarded as a poor wretch, half fanatic and half +barbarian. + +We learn from St. Paul himself that the early converts of Christianity +were men in the very depths of poverty,[46] and that its preachers were +regarded as fools, and weak, and were despised, and naked, and +buffeted--persecuted and homeless labourers--a spectacle to the world, +and to angels, and to men, "made as the filth of the earth and the +off-scouring of all things." We know that their preaching was to the +Greeks "foolishness," and that, when they spoke of Jesus and the +resurrection, their hearers mocked[47] and jeered. And these indications +are more than confirmed by many contemporary passages of ancient +writers. We have already seen the violent expressions of hatred which +the ardent and high-toned soul of Tacitus thought applicable to the +Christians; and such language is echoed by Roman writers of every +character and class. The fact is that at this time and for centuries +afterwards the Romans regarded the Christians with such lordly +indifference that--like Festus, and Felix and Seneca's brother +Gallio--they never took the trouble to distinguish them from the Jews. +The distinction was not fully realized by the Pagan world till the cruel +and wholesale massacre of the Christians by the pseudo-Messiah +Barchochebas in the reign of Adrian opened their eyes to the fact of the +irreconcilable differences which existed between the two religions. And +pages might be filled with the ignorant and scornful allusions which the +heathen applied to the Jews. They confused them with the whole degraded +mass of Egyptian and Oriental impostors and brute-worshippers; they +disdained them as seditious, turbulent, obstinate, and avaricious; they +regarded them as mainly composed of the very meanest slaves out of the +gross and abject multitude; their proselytism they considered as the +clandestine initiation into some strange and revolting mystery, which +involved as its direct teachings contempt of the gods, and the negation +of all patriotism and all family affection; they firmly believed that +they worshipped the head of an ass; they thought it natural that none +but the vilest slaves and the silliest woman should adopt so +misanthropic and degraded a superstition; they characterized their +customs as "absurd, sordid, foul, and depraved," and their nation as +"prone to superstition, opposed to religion." [48] And as far as they +made _any_ distinction between Jews and Christians, it was for the +latter that they reserved their choicest and most concentrated epithets +of hatred and abuse. A "new," "pernicious," "detestable," "execrable," +superstition is the only language with which Suetonius and Tacitus +vouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,--though he must have heard the name of +Christian during the reign of Claudius (when both they and the Jews were +expelled from Rome, "because of their perpetual turbulence, at the +instigation of Chrestus," as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and during +the Neronian persecution--never once alludes to them, and only mentions +the Jews to apply a few contemptuous remarks to the idleness of their +sabbaths, and to call them "a most abandoned race." + +[Footnote 46: 2 Cor. viii. 2.] + +[Footnote 47: [Greek: _Echleuazon_], Acts xvii. 32. The word expresses +the most profound and unconcealed contempt.] + +[Footnote 48: Tac. _Hist_. i. 13: ib. v. 5: JUV. xiv. 85: Pers. v. 190, +&c.] + +The reader will now judge whether there is the slightest probability +that Seneca had any intercourse with St. Paul, or was likely to have +stooped from his superfluity of wealth, and pride of power, to take +lessons from obscure and despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by +the crowded households of Caesar or Narcissus. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. + +And yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be called, as he is +called in the title of this book, a Seeker after God; and the +resemblances to the sacred writings which may be found in the pages of +his works are numerous and striking. A few of these will probably +interest our readers, and will put them in a better position for +understanding how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had +rewarded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We will place a +few such passages side by side with the texts of Scripture which they +resemble or recall. + +1. _God's Indwelling Presence_. + +"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God +dwelleth in you?" asks St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 16). + +"_God is near you, is with you, is within you_," writes Seneca to his +friend Lucilius, in the 41st of those _Letters_ which abound in his most +valuable moral reflections; "_a sacred Spirit dwells within us, the +observer and guardian of all our evil and our good ... there is no good +man without God_." + +And again (_Ep._ 73): "_Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God +comes to men: nay, what is yet nearer; He comes into men. No good mind +is holy without God_." + +2. _The Eye of God_. + +"All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have +to do." (Heb. iv. 13.) + +"Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in +secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt. vi. 6.) + +Seneca (_On Providence_, 1): "_It is no advantage that conscience is +shut within us; we lie open to God_." + +_Letter_ 83: "_What advantage is it that anything is hidden from man? +Nothing is closed to God: He is present to our minds, and enters into +our central thoughts_." + +_Letter_ 83: "_We must live as if we were living in sight of all men; we +must think as though some one could and can gaze into our +inmost breast_." + +3. _God is a Spirit_. + +St. Paul, "We ought not to think that the God-head is like unto gold, or +silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." (Acts xvii. 29.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 31): "_Even from a corner it is possible to spring up +into heaven: rise, therefore, and form thyself into a fashion worthy of +God; thou canst not do this, however, with gold and silver: an image +like to God cannot be formed out of such materials as these_." + +4. _Imitating God_. + +"Be ye therefore followers ([Greek: _mimaetai_], imitators) of God, as +dear children." (Eph. v. 1.) + +"He that in these things [righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost] +serveth Christ is acceptable to God." (Rom. xiv. 18.) + +Seneca _(Letter_ 95): "_Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be +virtuous. To honour them it is enough to imitate them_." + +_Letter_ 124: "_Let man aim at the good which belongs to him. What is +this good? A mind reformed and pure, the imitator of God, raising itself +above things human, confining all its desires within itself_." + +5. _Hypocrites like whited Sepulchres_. + +"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto +whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within +full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matt, xxiii. 27.) + +Seneca: "_Those whom you regard as happy, if you saw them, not in their +externals, but in their hidden aspect, are wretched, sordid, base; like +their own walls adorned outwardly. It is no solid and genuine felicity; +it is a plaster, and that a thin one; and so, as long as they can stand +and be seen at their pleasure, they shine and impose on us: when +anything has fallen which disturbs and uncovers them, it is evident how +much deep and real foulness an extraneous splendour has concealed_." + +6. _Teaching compared to Seed_. + +"But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit; some an +hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold." (Matt xiii. 8.) + +Seneca (Letter 38): "_Words must be sown like seed; which, although it +be small, when it hath found a suitable ground, unfolds its strength, +and from very small size is expanded into the largest increase. Reason +does the same.... The things spoken are few; but if the mind have +received them well, they gain strength and grow_." + +7. _All Men are Sinners_. + +"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is +not in us." (1 John i. 8.) + +Seneca (_On Anger_, i. 14, ii. 27): "_If we wish to be just judges of +all things, let us first persuade ourselves of this:--that there is not +one of us without fault.... No man is found who can acquit himself; and +he who calls himself innocent does so with reference to a witness, and +not to his conscience_." + +8. _Avarice_. + +"The love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Tim. vi. 10.) + +Seneca (_On Tranquillity of Soul_, 8): "_Riches ... the greatest source +of human trouble_." + +"Be content with such things as ye have." (Heb. xiii. 5.) + +"Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." (1 Tim. vi. 8.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 114): "_We shall be wise if we desire but little; if +each man takes count of himself, and at the same time measures his own +body, he will know how little it can contain, and for how short +a time_." + +_Letter_ 110: "_We have polenta, we have water; let us challenge Jupiter +himself to a comparison of bliss!_" + +"Godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Tim. vi. 6.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 110): "_Why are you struck with wonder and +astonishment? It is all display! Those things are shown, not +possessed_.... _Turn thyself rather to the true riches, learn to be +content with little_." + +"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a +rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matt. xix. 24.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 20): "_He is a high-souled man who sees riches spread +around him, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It is much +not to be corrupted by fellowship with riches: great is he who in the +midst of wealth is poor, but safer he who has no wealth at all_." + +9. _The Duty of Kindness_. + +"Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love." (Rom. xii. +10.) + +Seneca (_On Anger_, i. 5): "_Man is born for mutual assistance_." + +"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Lev. xiv. 18.) + +_Letter_ 48: "_You must live for another, if you wish to live for +yourself_." + +_On Anger_, iii. 43: "_While we are among men let us cultivate kindness; +let us not be to any man a cause either of peril or of fear_." + +10. _Our common Membership_. + +"Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." (1 Cor. xii. +27.) + +"We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of +another." (Rom. xii. 5.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 95): "_Do we teach that he should stretch his hand to +the shipwrecked, show his path to the wanderer, divide his bread with +the hungry_?... _when I could briefly deliver to him the formula of +human duty: all this that you see, in which things divine and human are +included, is one: we are members of one great body_." + +11. _Secrecy in doing Good_. + +"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." (Matt. vi. 3.) + +Seneca (_On Benefits_, ii. 11): "_Let him who hath conferred a favour +hold his tongue_.... _In conferring a favour nothing should be more +avoided than pride_." + +12. _God's impartial Goodness_. + +"He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain +on the just and on the unjust." (Matt. v. 45.) + +Seneca (_On Benefits_, i. 1): "_How many are unworthy of the light! and +yet the day dawns_." + +Id. vii. 31: "_The gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize +them not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them.... +They distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations +and peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir +the seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the +constellations, they temper the winter and summer by the intervention of +a gentler air_." + +It would be a needless task to continue these parallels, because by +reading any treatise of Seneca a student might add to them by scores; +and they prove incontestably that, as far as moral illumination was +concerned, Seneca "was not far from the kingdom of heaven." They have +been collected by several writers; and all of these here adduced, +together with many others, may be found in the pages of Fleury, +Troplong, Aubertin, and others. Some authors, like M. Fleury, have +endeavoured to show that they can only be accounted for by the +supposition that Seneca had some acquaintance with the sacred writings. +M. Aubertin, on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this +could not have been the case. Many words and expressions detached from +their context have been forced into a resemblance with the words of +Scripture, when the context wholly militates against its spirit; many +belong to that great common stock of moral truths which had been +elaborated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers; and +there is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enunciated which may +not be found even more nobly and more distinctly expressed in the +writings of Plato and of Cicero. In a subsequent chapter we shall show +that, in spite of them all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of +Christianity are at least as remarkable as the closest of his +resemblances; but it will be more convenient to do this when we have +also examined the doctrines of those two other great representatives of +spiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus the slave and Marcus +Aurelius the emperor. + +Meanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings such as these give +us a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of the Lord has entered +into holy men, and made them sons of God and prophets. God "left not +Himself without witness" among them. The language of St. Thomas Aquinas, +that many a heathen has had an "implicit faith," is but another way of +expressing St. Paul's statement that "not having the law they were a law +unto themselves, and showed the work of the law written in their +hearts." [49] To them the Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the +things that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the +voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate, +knowledge. To them "the voice of nature was the voice of God." Their +revelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and +extended, but _not_ suspended, by the written law of God.[50] + +[Footnote 49: Rom. i. 2.] + +[Footnote 50: Hooker, _Eccl. Pol_. iii. 8.] + +The knowledge thus derived, i.e. the sum-total of religious impressions +resulting from the combination of reason and experience, has been called +"natural religion;" the term is in itself a convenient and +unobjectionable one, so long as it is remembered that natural religion +is itself a revelation. No _antithesis_ is so unfortunate and pernicious +as that of natural with revealed religion. It is "a contrast rather of +words than of ideas; it is an opposition of abstractions to which no +facts really correspond." God has revealed Himself, not in one but in +many ways, not only by inspiring the hearts of a few, but by vouchsafing +His guidance to all who seek it. "The spirit of man is the candle of the +Lord," and it is not religion but apostasy to deny the reality of any of +God's revelations of truth to man, merely because they have not +descended through a single channel. On the contrary, we ought to hail +with gratitude, instead of viewing with suspicion, the enunciation by +heathen writers of truths which we might at first sight have been +disposed to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. In +Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato,--in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus +Aurelius--we see the light of heaven struggling its impeded way through +clouds of darkness and ignorance; we thankfully recognize that the souls +of men in the Pagan world, surrounded as they were by perplexities and +dangers, were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface of silver, +some image of what was divine and true; we hail, with the great and +eloquent Bossuet, "THE CHRISTIANITY OF NATURE." "The divine image in +man," says St. Bernard, "may be burned, but it cannot be burnt out." + +And this is the pleasantest side on which to consider the life and the +writings of Seneca. It is true that his style partakes of the defects of +his age, that the brilliancy of his rhetoric does not always compensate +for the defectiveness of his reasoning; that he resembles, not a mirror +which clearly reflects the truth, but "a glass fantastically cut into a +thousand spangles;" that side by side with great moral truths we +sometimes find his worst errors, contradictions, and paradoxes; that his +eloquent utterances about God often degenerate into a vague Pantheism; +and that even on the doctrine of immortality his hold is too slight to +save him from waverings and contradictions;[51] yet as a moral teacher +he is full of real greatness, and was often far in advance of the +general opinion of his age. Few men have written more finely, or with +more evident sincerity, about truth and courage, about the essential +equality of man,[52] about the duty of kindness and consideration to +slaves,[53] about tenderness even in dealing with sinners,[54] about the +glory of unselfishness,[55] about the great idea of humanity[56] as +something which transcends all the natural and artificial prejudices of +country and of caste. Many of his writings are Pagan sermons and moral +essays of the best and highest type. The style, as Quintilian says, +"abounds in delightful faults," but the strain of sentiment is never +otherwise than high and true. + +[Footnote 51: Consol. ad Polyb. 27; Ad Helv. 17; Ad Marc. 24, _seqq_.] + +[Footnote 52: Ep. 32; De Benef. iii. 2.] + +[Footnote 53: De Irâ, iii. 29, 32.] + +[Footnote 54: Ibid. i. 14; De Vit. beat. 24.] + +[Footnote 55: Ep. 55, 9.] + +[Footnote 56: Ibid. 28; De Oti Sapientis, 31.] + +He is to be regarded rather as a wealthy, eminent, and successful Roman, +who devoted most of his leisure to moral philosophy, than as a real +philosopher by habit and profession. And in this point of view his very +inconsistencies have their charm, as illustrating his ardent, impulsive, +imaginative temperament. He was no apathetic, self-contained, impassible +Stoic, but a passionate, warm-hearted man, who could break into a flood +of unrestrained tears at the death of his friend Annaeus Serenus,[57] +and feel a trembling solicitude for the welfare of his wife and little +ones. His was no absolute renunciation, no impossible perfection;[58] +but few men have painted more persuasively, with deeper emotion, or more +entire conviction, the pleasures of virtue, the calm of a +well-regulated soul, the strong and severe joys of a lofty self-denial. +In his youth, he tells us, he was preparing himself for a righteous +life, in his old age for a noble death.[59] And let us not forget, that +when the hour of crisis came which tested the real calm and bravery of +his soul, he was not found wanting. "With no dread," he writes to +Lucilius, "I am preparing myself for that day on which, laying aside all +artifice or subterfuge, I shall be able to judge respecting myself +whether I merely _speak_ or really _feel_ as a brave man should; whether +all those words of haughty obstinacy which I have hurled against fortune +were mere pretence and pantomime.... Disputations and literary talks, +and words collected from the precepts of philosophers, and eloquent +discourse, do not prove the true strength of the soul. For the mere +_speech_ of even the most cowardly is bold; what you have really +achieved will then be manifest when your end is near. I accept the +terms, I do not shrink from the decision." [60] + +[Footnote 57: Ep. 63.] + +[Footnote 58: Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 61.] + +[Footnote 59: Ep. 61.] + +[Footnote 60: Ep. 26.] + +"_Accipio conditionem, non reformido judicrum_." They were courageous +and noble words, and they were justified in the hour of trial. When we +remember the sins of Seneca's life, let us recall also the constancy of +his death; while we admit the inconsistencies of his systematic +philosophy, let us be grateful for the genius, the enthusiasm, the glow +of intense conviction, with which he clothes his repeated utterance of +truths, which, when based upon a surer basis, were found adequate for +the moral regeneration of the world. Nothing is more easy than to sneer +at Seneca, or to write clever epigrams on one whose moral attainments +fell infinitely short of his own great ideal. But after all he was not +more inconsistent than thousands of those who condemn him. With all his +faults he yet lived a nobler and a better life, he had loftier aims, he +was braver, more self-denying--nay, even more consistent--than the +majority of professing Christians. It would be well for us all if those +who pour such scorn upon his memory attempted to achieve one tithe of +the good which he achieved for humanity and for Rome. His thoughts +deserve our imperishable gratitude: let him who is without sin among us +be eager to fling stones at his failures and his sins! + + + +EPICTETUS. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT. + +In the court of Nero, Seneca must have been thrown into more or less +communication with the powerful freedmen of that Emperor, and especially +with his secretary or librarian, Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was a +constant companion of the Emperor; he was the earliest to draw Nero's +attention to the conspiracy in which Seneca himself perished. There can +be no doubt that Seneca knew him, and had visited at his house. Among +the slaves who thronged that house, the natural kindliness of the +philosopher's heart may have drawn his attentions to one little lame +Phrygian boy, deformed and mean-looking, whose face--if it were any +index of the mind within--must even from boyhood have worn a serene and +patient look. The great courtier, the great tutor of the Emperor, the +great Stoic and favourite writer of his age, would indeed have been +astonished if he had been suddenly told that that wretched-looking +little slave-lad was destined to attain purer and clearer heights of +philosophy than he himself had ever done, and to become quite as +illustrious as himself, and far more respected as an exponent of Stoic +doctrines. For that lame boy was Epictetus--Epictetus for whom was +written the memorable epitaph: "I was Epictetus, a slave, and maimed in +body, and a beggar for poverty, _and dear to the immortals_." + +Although we have a clear sketch of his philosophical doctrines, we have +no materials whatever for any but the most meagre description of his +life. The picture of his mind--an effigy of that which he alone regarded +as his true self--may be seen in his works, and to this we can add +little except a few general facts and uncertain anecdotes. + +Epictetus was probably born in about the fiftieth year of the Christian +era; but we do not know the exact date of his birth, nor do we even know +his real name. "Epictetus" means "bought" or "acquired," and is simply a +servile designation. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a town +between the rivers Lycus and Meander, and considered by some to be the +capital of the province. The town possessed several natural +wonders--sacred springs, stalactite grottoes, and a deep cavern +remarkable for its mephitic exhalations. It is more interesting to us to +know that it was within a few miles of Colossae and Laodicea, and is +mentioned by St. Paul (Col. iv. 13) in connexion with those two cities. +It must, therefore, have possessed a Christian Church from the earliest +times, and, if Epictetus spent any part of his boyhood there, he might +have conversed with men and women of humble rank who had heard read in +their obscure place of meeting the Epistle of St. Paul to the +Colossians, and the other, now lost, which he addressed to the Church of +Laodicea.[61] + +[Footnote 61: Col. iv. 16.] + +It is probable, however, that Hierapolis and its associations produced +very little influence on the mind of Epictetus. His parents were people +in the very lowest and humblest class, and their moral character could +hardly have been high, or they would not have consented under any +circumstance to sell into slavery their sickly child. Certainly it could +hardly have been possible for Epictetus to enter into the world under +less enviable or less promising auspices. But the whole system of life +is full of divine and memorable compensations, and Epictetus experienced +them. God kindles the light of genius where He will, and He can inspire +the highest and most regal thoughts even into the meanest slave:-- + + "Such seeds are scattered night and day + By the soft wind from Heaven, + And in the poorest human clay + Have taken root and thriven." + +What were the accidents--or rather, what was "the unseen Providence, by +man nicknamed chance"--which assigned Epictetus to the house of +Epaphroditus we do not know. To a heart refined and noble there could +hardly have been a more trying position. The slaves of a Roman _familia_ +were crowded together in immense gangs; they were liable to the most +violent and capricious punishments; they might be subjected to the most +degraded and brutalising influences. Men sink too often to the level to +which they are supposed to belong. Treated with infamy for long years, +they are apt to deem themselves worthy of infamy--to lose that +self-respect which is the invariable concomitant of religious feeling, +and which, apart from religious feeling, is the sole preventive of +personal degradation. Well may St. Paul say, "Art thou called, being a +servant? care not for it: _but if thou mayest be made free, use it +rather_." [62] + +[Footnote 62: 1 Cor. vii. 21.] + +It is true that even in the heathen world there began at this time to +be disseminated among the best and wisest thinkers a sense that slaves +were made of the same clay as their masters, that they differed from +freeborn men only in the externals and accidents of their position, and +that kindness to them and consideration for their difficulties was a +common and elementary duty of humanity. "I am glad to learn," says +Seneca, in one of his interesting letters to Lucilius, "that you live on +terms of familiarity with your slaves; it becomes your prudence and your +erudition. Are they slaves? Nay, they are men. Slaves? Nay, companions. +Slaves? Nay, humble friends. Slaves? _Nay, fellow-slaves,_ if you but +consider that fortune has power over you both." He proceeds, in a +passage to which we have already alluded, to reprobate the haughty and +inconsiderate fashion of keeping them standing for hours, mute and +fasting, while their masters gorged themselves at the banquet. He +deplores the cruelty which thinks it necessary to punish with terrible +severity an accidental cough or sneeze. He quotes the proverb--a proverb +which reveals a whole history--"So many slaves, so many foes," and +proves that they are not foes, but that men _made_ them so; whereas, +when kindly treated, when considerately addressed, they would be silent, +even under torture, rather than speak to their master's disadvantage. +"Are they not sprung," he asks, "from the same origin, do they not +breathe the same air, do they not live and die just as we do?" The +blows, the broken limbs, the clanking chains, the stinted food of the +_ergastula_ or slave-prisons, excited all Seneca's compassion, and in +all probability presented a picture of misery which the world has rarely +seen surpassed, unless it were in that nefarious trade which England to +her shame once practised, and, to her eternal glory, resolutely +swept away. + +But Seneca's inculcation of tenderness towards slaves was in reality +one of the most original of his moral teachings; and, from all that we +know of Roman life, it is to be feared that the number of those who +acted in accordance with it was small. Certainly Epaphroditus, the +master of Epictetus, was not one of them. The historical facts which we +know of this man are slight. He was one of the four who accompanied the +tragic and despicable flight of Nero from Rome in the year 69, and when, +after many waverings of cowardice, Nero at last, under imminent peril of +being captured and executed, put the dagger to his breast, it was +Epaphroditus who helped the tyrant to drive it home into his heart, for +which he was subsequently banished, and finally executed by the +Emperor Domitian. + +Epictetus was accustomed to tell one or two anecdotes which, although +given without comment, show the narrowness and vulgarity of the man. +Among his slaves was a certain worthless cobbler named Felicio; as the +cobbler was quite useless, Epaphroditus sold him, and by some chance he +was bought by some one of Caesar's household, and made Caesar's cobbler. +Instantly Epaphroditus began to pay him the profoundest respect, and to +address him in the most endearing terms, so that if any one asked what +Epaphroditus was doing, the answer, as likely as not, would be, "He is +holding an important consultation with Felicio." + +On one occasion, some one came to him bewailing, and weeping, and +embracing his knees in a paroxysm of grief, because of all his fortune +little more than 50,000_l_. was left! "What did Epaphroditus do?" asks +Epictetus; "did he laugh at the man as we did? Not at all; on the +contrary, he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 'Poor +fellow! how could you possibly keep silence and endure such a +misfortune?'" + +How brutally he could behave, and how little respect he inspired, we may +see in the following anecdote. When Plautius Lateranus, the brave +nobleman whose execution during Piso's conspiracy we have already +related, had received on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's +sword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not abstain from +pressing him with questions. The only reply which he received from the +dying man was the contemptuous remark, "Should I wish to say anything, I +will say it (not to a slave like you, but) to _your master_." + +Under a man of this calibre it is hardly likely that a lame Phrygian boy +would experience much kindness. An anecdote, indeed, has been handed +down to us by several writers, which would show that he was treated with +atrocious cruelty. Epaphroditus, it is said, once gratified his cruelty +by twisting his slave's leg in some instrument of torture. "If you go +on, you will break it," said Epictetus. The wretch did go on, and did +break it. "I told you that you would break it," said Epictetus quietly, +not giving vent to his anguish by a single word or a single groan. +Stories of heroism no less triumphant have been authenticated both in +ancient and modern times; but we may hope for the sake of human nature +that this story is false, since another authority tells us that +Epictetus became lame in consequence of a natural disease. Be that +however as it may, some of the early writers against Christianity--such, +for instance, as the physician Celsus--were fond of adducing this +anecdote in proof of a magnanimity which not even Christianity could +surpass; to which use of the anecdote Origen opposed the awful silence +of our Saviour upon the cross, and Gregory of Nazianzen pointed out +that, though it was a noble thing to endure inevitable evils, it was yet +more noble to undergo them voluntarily with an equal fortitude. But even +if Epaphroditus were not guilty of breaking the leg of Epictetus, it is +clear that the life of the poor youth was surrounded by circumstances of +the most depressing and miserable character; circumstances which would +have forced an ordinary man to the low and animal level of existence +which appears to have contented the great majority of Roman slaves. Some +of the passages in which he speaks about the consideration due to this +unhappy class show a very tender feeling towards them. "It would be +best," he says, "if, both while making your preparations and while +feasting at your banquets, you distribute among the attendants some of +the provisions. But if such a plan, at any particular time, be difficult +to carry out, remember that you who are not fatigued are being waited +upon by those who are fatigued; you who are eating and drinking by those +who are not eating and drinking; you who are conversing by those who are +mute--you who are at your ease by people under painful constraint. And +thus you will neither yourself be kindled into unseemly passion, nor +will you in a fit of fury do harm to any one else." No doubt Epictetus +is here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of which he had +himself experienced the degradation. But he had early acquired a +loftiness of soul and an insight into truth which enabled him to +distinguish the substance from the shadow, to separate the realities of +life from its accidents, and so to turn his very misfortunes into fresh +means of attaining to moral nobility. In proof of this let us see some +of his own opinions as to his state of life. + +At the very beginning of his _Discourses_ he draws a distinction +between the things which the gods _have_ and the things which they _have +not_ put in our own power, and he held (being deficient here in that +light which Christianity might have furnished to him) that the blessings +denied to us are denied not because the gods _would_ not, but because +they _could_ not grant them to us. And then he supposes that Jupiter +addresses him:-- + +"O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both your little +body and your little property free and unentangled; but now, do not be +mistaken, it is not yours at all, but only clay finely kneaded. Since, +however, I could not do this, I gave you a portion of ourselves, namely, +this power of pursuing and avoiding, of desiring and of declining, and +generally the power of _dealing with appearances_: and if you cultivate +this power, and regard it as that which constitutes your real +possession, you will never be hindered or impeded, nor will you groan or +find fault with, or flatter any one. Do these advantages then appear to +you to be trifling? Heaven forbid! Be content therefore with these, and +thank the gods." + +And again in one of his _Fragments_ (viii. ix.):-- + +"Freedom and slavery are but names, respectively, of virtue and of vice: +and both of them depend upon the will. But neither of them have anything +to do with those things in which the will has no share. For no one is a +slave whose will is free." + +"Fortune is an evil bond of the body, vice of the soul; for he is a +slave whose body is free but whose soul is bound, and, on the contrary, +he is free whose body is bound but whose soul is free." + +Who does not catch in these passages the very tone of St, Paul when he +says, "He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's +freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is +Christ's servant?" + +Nor is his independence less clearly express when he speaks of his +deformity. Being but the deformity of a body which he despised, he spoke +of himself as "an ethereal existence staggering under the burden of a +corpse." In his admirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays +down that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense that "the +universe is not made for our individual satisfaction." "_Must my leg be +lame_?" he supposes some querulous objector to inquire. "Slave!" he +replies, "do you then because of one miserable little leg find fault +with the universe? Will you not concede that accident to the existence +of general laws? Will you not dismiss the thought of it? Will you not +cheerfully assent to it for the sake of him who gave it. And will you be +indignant and displeased at the ordinances of Zeus, which he ordained +and appointed with the Destinies, who were present and wove the web of +your being? Know you not what an atom you are compared with the +whole?--that is, as regards your body, since as regards your reason you +are no whit inferior to, or less than the gods. For the greatness of +reason is not estimated by size or height, but by the doctrines which it +embraces. Will you not then lay up your treasure in those matters +wherein you are equal to the gods?" And, thanks to such principles, a +poor and persecuted slave was able to raise his voice in sincere and +eloquent thanksgiving to that God to whom he owed his "creation, +preservation, and all the blessings of this life." + +Speaking of the multitude of our natural gifts, he says, "Are these the +only gifts of Providence towards us? Nay, what power of speech suffices +adequately to praise, or to set them forth? for, had we but true +intelligence, what duty would be more perpetually incumbent on us than +both in public and in private to hymn the Divine, and bless His name and +praise His benefits? Ought we not, when we dig, and when we plough, and +when we eat, to sing this hymn to God? 'Great is God, because He hath +given us these implements whereby we may till the soil; great is God, +because He hath given us hands, and the means of nourishment by food, +and insensible growth, and breathing sleep;' these things in each +particular we ought to hymn, and to chant the greatest and the divinest +hymn, because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings, +and continuously to use them. What then? Since the most of you are +blinded, ought there not to be some one to fulfil this province for you, +and on behalf of all to sing his hymn to God? And what else can _I_ do, +who am a lame old man, except sing praises to God? Now, had I been a +nightingale, I should have sung the songs of a nightingale, or had I +been a swan the songs of a swan; but, being a reasonable being, it is my +duty to hymn God. This is my task, and I accomplish it; nor, so far as +may be granted to me, will I ever abandon this post, and you also do I +exhort to this same song." + +There is an almost lyric beauty about these expressions of resignation +and faith in God, and it is the utterance of such warm feelings towards +Divine Providence that constitutes the chief originality of Epictetus. +It is interesting to think that the oppressed heathen philosopher found +the same consolation, and enjoyed the same contentment, as the +persecuted Christian Apostle. "Whether ye eat or drink," says St. Paul, +"or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." "Think of God," says +Epictetus, "oftener than you breathe. Let discourse of God be renewed +daily more surely than your food." + +Here, again, are his views about his poverty (_Fragment_ xix.):-- + +"Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy; and if you +wish to be rich, know that it neither is a blessing, nor is it +altogether in your own power; but if to be happy, know that it both _is_ +a blessing, and is in your own power; since the former is but a +temporary loan of fortune, but the gift of happiness depends upon +the will." + +"Just as when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, in a casket of +ivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate them on the splendour of +their material, but because their nature is pernicious you turn from and +loathe them, so likewise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the +pomp of circumstance do not be astounded at the glory of its +surroundings, but despise the meanness of its character." + +"Wealth is _not_ among the number of good things; extravagance _is_ +among the number of evils, sober-mindedness of good things. Now +sober-mindedness invites us to frugality and the acquisition of real +advantages; but wealth to extravagance, and it drags us away from +sober-mindedness. It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be +sober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich." + +The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own +words, "How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel +passage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for +them that _trust_ in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God." + +But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and +Epictetus continues:-- + +"Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in +Greece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in +poverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in +poverty, and so be happy?" + +"As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little +truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it +is better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires, +than in the midst of superfluities to be discontented." + +This, too, is a thought which many have expressed. "Gentle sleep," says +Horace, "despises not the humble cottages of rustics, nor the shaded +banks, nor valleys whose foliage waves with the western wind;" and every +reader will recall the magnificent words of our own great Shakespeare-- + + "Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, + Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, + And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, + Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, + Under the canopies of costly state, + And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?" + +To the subject of freedom, and to the power which man possesses to make +himself entirely independent of all surrounding circumstances, Epictetus +incessantly recurs. With the possibility of banishment to an +_ergastulum_ perpetually before his eyes, he defines a prison as being +any situation in which a man is placed against his will; to Socrates for +instance the prison was no prison, for he was there willingly, and no +man _need_ be in prison, against his will if he has learnt, as one of +his primary duties, a cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable. By the +expression of such sentiments Epictetus had anticipated by fifteen +hundred years the immortal truth so sweetly expressed by Lovelace: + + "_Stone walls do not a prison make, + Nor iron bars a cage_; + Minds innocent and quiet take + That for a hermitage." + +Situated as he was, we can hardly wonder that thoughts like these +occupied a large share of the mind of Epictetus, or that he had taught +himself to lay hold of them with the firmest possible grasp. When asked, +"Who among men is rich?" he replied, "He who suffices for himself;" an +expression which contains the germ of the truth so forcibly expressed in +the Book of Proverbs, "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his +own ways, and a good man _shall be satisfied from himself_". Similarly, +when asked, "Who is free?" he replies, "The man who masters his own +self," with much the same tone of expressions as that of Solomon, "He +that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his +spirit than he that taketh a city." Socrates was one of the great models +whom Epictetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the +anecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When Archelaus +sent a message to express the intention of making him rich, Socrates +bade the messenger inform him that at Athens four quarts of meal might +be bought for three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. "If +then my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any rate I am +sufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient for me. Do you not +see that Polus acted the part of Oedipus in his royal state with no less +beauty of voice than that of Oedipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar? +Shall then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act well +every character imposed upon him by Divine Providence; and shall he not +imitate Ulysses, who even in rags was no less conspicuous than in the +curled nap of his purple cloak?" + +Generally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life is always +simple, and always consistent; it is a view which gave him consolation +among life's troubles, and strength to display some of its noblest +virtues, and it may be summed up in the following passages of his famous +_Manual_:-- + +"Remember," he says, "that you are an actor of just such a part as is +assigned you by the Poet of the play; of a short part, if the part be +short; of a long part, if it be long. Should He wish you to act the part +of a beggar, take care to act it naturally and nobly; and the same if it +be the part of a lame man, or a ruler, or a private man; for _this_ is +in your power, to act well the part assigned to you; but to _choose_ +that part is the function of another." + +"Let not these considerations afflict you: 'I shall live despised, and +the merest nobody;' for if dishonour be an evil, you cannot be involved +in evil any more than you can be involved in baseness through any one +else's means. Is it then at all _your_ business to be a leading man, or +to be entertained at a banquet? By no means. How then can it be a +dishonor not to be so? And how will you be a mere nobody, since it is +your duty to be somebody only in those circumstances which are in your +own power, in which you may be a person of the greatest importance?" + +"Honour, precedence, confidence," he argues in another passage, "whether +they be good things or evil things, are at any rate things for which +their own definite price must be paid. Lettuces are sold for a penny, +and if you want your lettuce you must pay your penny; and similarly, if +you want to be asked out to a person's house, you must pay the price +which he demands for asking people, whether the coin he requires be +praise or attention; but if you do not give these, do not expect the +other. Have you then gained nothing in lieu of your supper? Indeed you +have; you have escaped praising a person whom you did not want to +praise, and you have escaped the necessity of tolerating the upstart +impertinence of his menials." + +Some parts of this last thought have been so beautifully expressed by +the American poet Lowell that I will conclude this chapter in his words: + + "Earth hath her price for what earth gives us; + The beggar is tax'd for a corner to die in; + The priest hath his fee who comes and shrieves us; + We bargain for the graves we lie in: + At the devil's mart are all things sold, + Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold, + For a cap and bells our lives we pay. + Bubbles we earn with our whole soul's tasking, + '_Tis only God that is given away, + 'Tis only heaven may be had for the asking_." + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS _(continued)_. + +Whether any of these great thoughts would have suggested themselves +_spontaneously_ to Epictetus--whether there was an inborn wisdom and +nobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to +elaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do +not, however, express _his_ sentiments only, but belong in fact to the +moral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doctrines of which he +had received instruction. + +It may sound strange to the reader that one situated as Epictetus was +should yet have had a regular tutor to train him in Stoic doctrines. +That such should have been the case appears at first sight inconsistent +with the cruelty with which he was treated, but it is a fact which is +capable of easy explanation. In times of universal luxury and +display--in times when a sort of surface-refinement is found among all +the wealthy--some sort of respect is always paid to intellectual +eminence, and intellectual amusements are cultivated as well as those of +a coarser character. Hence a rich Roman liked to have people of literary +culture among his slaves; he liked to have people at hand who would get +him any information which he might desire about books, who could act as +his amanuenses, who could even correct and supply information for his +original compositions. Such learned slaves formed part of every large +establishment, and among them were usually to be found some who bore, if +they did not particularly merit, the title of "philosophers." These +men--many of whom are described as having been mere impostors, +ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites--acted somewhat like +domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an +amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative +innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in +lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he +wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an +illiterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of +high art in his drawing-room, and books of reference in his +well-furnished library. + +Accordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly useless for all +physical purposes, and since his thoughtfulness and intelligence could +not fail to command attention, his master determined to make him useful +in the only way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be +trained in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy. + +Musonius was the son of a Roman knight. His learning and eloquence, no +less than his keen appreciation of Stoic truths, had so deeply kindled +the suspicions of Nero, that he banished him to the rocky little island +of Gyaros, on the charge of his having been concerned in Piso's +conspiracy. He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived in +great distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to remain in the +city when the Emperor Vespasian banished all the other philosophers of +any eminence. + +The works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a few notices of +him, which are scattered in the _Discourses_ of his greater pupil, show +us what kind of man he was. The following anecdotes will show that he +was a philosopher of the strictest school. + +Speaking of the value of logic as a means of training the reason, +Epictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a mere error in +reasoning is no very serious fault. He points out that it _is_ a fault, +and that is sufficient. "I too," he says, "once made this very remark to +Rufus when he rebuked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in +some syllogism. 'What!' said I, 'have I then set the Capitol on fire, +that you rebuke me thus?' 'Slave!' he answered, 'what has the Capitol to +do with it? Is there no _other_ fault then short of setting the Capitol +on fire? Yes! to use one's own mere fancies rashly, at random, anyhow; +not to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or a sophism; not, in +short, to see what makes for oneself or not, in questioning and +answering--is none of these things a fault?'" + +Sometimes he used to test the Stoical endurance of his pupil by pointing +out the indignities and tortures which his master might at any moment +inflict upon him; and when Epictetus answered that, after all, such +treatment was what man _had_ borne, and therefore _could_ bear, he would +reply approvingly that every man's destiny was in his own hands; that he +need lack nothing from any one else; that, since he could derive from +himself magnanimity and nobility of soul, he might despise the notion of +receiving lands or money or office. "But," he continued, "when any one +is cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters about such a +person to speak of him as a corpse, and to say, 'Favour us with the +corpse and blood of So-and-so,' For? in fact, such a man _is_ a mere +corpse, and nothing more; for if he were anything more, he would have +perceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by another's +means." I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is a student of Epictetus, but +he, among others, has forcibly expressed the same truth. "My friends, do +you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died? +How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and +carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his +table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered +to you, in plain words, as it _is_ offered to you in dire facts, that +you should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought +yourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the +death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet +practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; +many of us grasp at it in the fulness of horror." + +The way in which Musonius treated would-be pupils much resembled the +plan adopted by Socrates. "It is not easy," says Epictetus, "to train +effeminate youths, any more than it is easy to take up whey with a hook. +But those of fine nature, even if you discourage them, desire +instruction all the more. For which reason Rufus often discouraged +pupils, using this as a criterion of fine and of common natures; for he +used to say, that just as a stone, even if you fling it into the air, +will fall down to the earth by its own gravitating force, so also a +noble nature, in proportion as it is repulsed, in that proportion tends +more in its own natural direction." As Emerson says,-- + + "Yet on the nimble air benign + Speed nimbler messages, + That waft the breath of grace divine + To hearts in sloth and ease. + So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,' + The youth replies, 'I CAN.'" + +One more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply +Epictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him. In his +_Discourse on Ostentation_, Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit +of remarking to his pupils, "If you have leisure to praise me, I can +have done you no good." "He used indeed so to address us that each one +of us, sitting there, thought that some one had been privately telling +tales against _him_ in particular, so completely did Rufus seize hold of +his characteristics, so vividly did he portray our individual faults." + +Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it +was evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were +somewhat chilling and austere. It formed an epoch in the slave's life; +it remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings +so inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were +counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt. +He would probably have admitted that it was _better_ for him to have +been sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in +freedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis. So that +Epictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an +additional argument in favour of Divine Providence: an additional proof +that God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of +conviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least +dominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the +whole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most +honestly and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again and +again that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world +has to offer, _if we are willing to pay the price by which they are +obtained_. But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should +scorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even +cast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by +that which we deliberately refuse to give. Every good and just man may +gain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness. Let no one +regard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and +definite meaning. There are certain things which all men desire, and +which all men would _gladly_, if they could _lawfully_ and _innocently_ +obtain. These things are health, wealth, ease, comfort, influence, +honour, freedom from opposition and from pain; and yet, if you were to +place all these blessings on the one side, and on the other side to +place poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and +contempt,--yet, if on _this_ side also you were to place truth and +justice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds may gather about +our life, the light of God will be visible beyond them, all the noblest +men who ever lived would choose, as without hesitation they always have +chosen, the _latter_ destiny. It is not that they like failure, but they +prefer failure to falsity; it is not that they love persecution, but +they prefer persecution to meanness; it is not that they relish +opposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty acquiescence; +it is not that they do not shrink from agony, but they would not escape +agony by crime. The selfishness of Dives in his purple is to them less +enviable than the innocence of Lazarus in rags; they would be chained +with John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast; they +would fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than be steeped in +the foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is not happiness, but it is +something higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is +satisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give +it, nor take it away,--it is something indescribable--it is the gift +of God. + +"The fallacy" of being surprised at wickedness in prosperity, and +righteousness in misery, "can only lie," says Mr. Froude, in words which +would have delighted Epictetus, and which would express the inmost +spirit of his philosophy, "in the supposed _right_ to happiness.... +Happiness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be true to the +best we know, to seek that, and do that; and if by 'virtue is its own +reward' be meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring +nothing more, then it is a true and a noble saying.... Let us do right, +and then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very mighty +matter. If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be +bitter--bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.... The well-being of our +souls depends only on what we _are_; and nobleness of character is +nothing else but _steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil_.... +Only to those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish +enjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. Man +will have what he desires, and will find what is really best for him, +exactly as he honestly seeks for it. _Happiness may fly away, pleasure +pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove +unkind; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is +never rejected_." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (_continued._) + +Of the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there is +unfortunately little more to be told. The life of + + "That halting slave, who in Nicopolis + Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son + Cleared Rome of what most shamed him," + +is not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded it are very +circumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest +biographies; their real life is in their books. + +At some period of his life, but how or when we do not know, Epictetus +was manumitted by his master, and was henceforward regarded by the world +as free. Probably the change made little or no difference in his life. +If it saved him from a certain amount of brutality, if it gave him more +uninterrupted leisure, it probably did not in the slightest degree +modify the hardships of his existence, and may have caused him some +little anxiety as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. He, +of all men, would have attached the least importance to the external +conditions under which he lived; he always regarded them as falling +under the category of things which lay beyond the sphere of his own +influence, and therefore as things with which he had nothing to do. Even +in his most oppressed days, he considered himself, by the grace of +heaven, to be more free--free in a far truer and higher sense--than +thousands of those who owed allegiance to no master's will. Whether he +had saved any small sum of money, or whether his needs were supplied by +the many who loved and honoured him, we do not know. He was a man who +was content with the barest necessaries of life, and we may be sure that +he would have refused to be indebted to any one for more than these. + +It is probable that he never married. This may have been due to that +shade of indifference to the female character of which we detect traces +here and there in his writings. In one passage he complains that women +seemed to think of nothing but admiration and getting married; and, in +another, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman ladies were +fond of Plato's _Republic_ because he allowed some very liberal marriage +regulations. We can only infer from these passages that he had been very +unfortunate in the specimens of women with whom he had been thrown. The +Roman ladies of his time were certainly not models of character; he was +not likely to fall in with very exalted females among the slaves of +Epaphroditus or the ladies of his family, and he had probably never +known the love of a sister or a mother's care. He did not, however, go +the length of condemning marriage altogether; on the contrary, he blames +the philosophers who did so. But it is equally obvious that he approves +of celibacy as a "counsel of perfection," and indeed his views on the +subject have so close and remarkable a resemblance to those of St. Paul +that our readers will be interested in seeing them side by side. + +In 1 Cor. vii. St. Paul, after speaking of the nobleness of virginity, +proceeds, nevertheless, to sanction matrimony as in itself a hallowed +and honourable estate. It was not given to all, he says, to abide even +as he was, and therefore marriage should be adopted as a sacred and +indissoluble bond. Still, without being sure that he has any divine +sanction for what he is about to say, he considers celibacy good "for +the present distress," and warns those that marry that they "shall have +trouble in the flesh." For marriage involves a direct multiplication of +the cares of the flesh: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that +belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married +careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his +wife.... And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a +snare upon you, _but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend +upon the Lord without distraction_." + +It is clear, then, that St. Paul regarded virginity as a "counsel of +perfection," and Epictetus uses respecting it almost identically the +same language. Marriage was perfectly permissible in his view, but it +was much better for a Cynic (i.e. for all who carried out most fully +their philosophical obligations) to remain single: "Since the condition +of things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve of battle, +_ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distraction_" [the Greek +word being the very same as that used by St. Paul] "_for the service of +God_? ought he not to be able to move about among mankind free from the +entanglement of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he +neglect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise and good +man, and which if he observe he will lose the function of a messenger, +and sentinel, and herald of the gods?" Epictetus proceeds to point out +that if he is married he can no longer look after the spiritual +interests of all with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer +maintain the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the genuine +philosopher. He _must_, for instance, have a bath for his child, +provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and +money to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a +general increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified +distractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing +manifestation of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a +celebrated cynic, was married, but it was to a lady as self-denying as +himself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to share +hardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetus does not venture to say +in so many words that Crates in this matter made a mistake, he takes +pains to point out that the circumstances were far too exceptional to be +accepted as a precedent for the imitation of others. + +"But," inquires the interlocutor, "how then is the world to get on?" The +question seems quite to disturb the bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it +makes him use language of the strongest and most energetic contempt: and +it is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems to lose +the nobility and grace, the "sweetness and light," which are the general +characteristic of his utterances. In spite of his complete self-mastery +he was evidently a man of strong feelings, and with a natural tendency +to express them strongly. "Heaven bless us," he exclaims in reply, "are +_they_ greater benefactors of mankind who bring into the world two or +three evilly-squalling brats,[63] or those who, to the best of their +power, keep a beneficent eye on the lives, and habits, and tendencies of +all mankind? Were the Thebans who had large families more useful to +their country than the childless Epaminondas; or was Homer less useful +to mankind than Priam with his fifty good-for-nothing sons?... Why, sir, +the true cynic is a father to all men; all men are his sons and all +women his daughters; he has a bond of union, a lien of affection with +them all." (_Dissert_. iii. 22.) + +[Footnote 63: [Greek: kakorrugcha paidia]. Another reading is [Greek: +kokorugcha], which M. Martha renders, "_Marmots à vilain petit museau_!" +It is evident that Epictetus did not like children, which makes his +subsequently mentioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more +creditable to him.] + +The whole character of Epictetus is sufficient to prove that he would +only do what he considered _most_ desirable and most exalted; and +passages like these, the extreme asperity of which I have necessarily, +softened down, are, I think, decisive in favour of the tradition which +pronounces him to have been unmarried. + +We are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest and even meanest +description: it neither needed nor possessed a fastening of any kind, +for within it there was no furniture except a lamp and the poor straw +pallet on which he slept. About his lamp there was current in antiquity +a famous story, to which he himself alludes. As a piece of unwonted +luxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which burned in front of the +images of his household deities. It was the only possession which he +had, and a thief stole it. "He will be finely disappointed when he comes +again," quietly observed Epictetus. "for he will only find an +earthenware lamp next time." At his death the little earthenware lamp +was bought by some genuine hero-worshipper for 3,000 drachmas. "The +purchaser hoped," says the satirical Lucian, "that if he read philosophy +at night by that lamp, he would at once acquire in dreams the wisdom of +the admirable old man who once possessed it." + +But, in spite of his deep poverty, it must not be supposed that there +was anything eccentric or ostentatious in the life of Epictetus. On the +contrary, his writings abound in directions as to the proper bearing of +a philosopher in life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule +to endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the _gamins_ of +Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair game," and think it fine +fun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the +sneers of much more dignified people. "If," says Epictetus, "you want to +know how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who had the +highest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present, +happened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had +received an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I _cannot_ endure it; you +are killing me; why, you'll make me _like him_! pointing to me," +evidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And, +again he says in the _Manual_. "If you wish to be a philosopher, prepare +yourself to be thoroughly laughed at since many will certainly sneer and +jeer at you, and will say, 'He has come back to us as a philosopher all +of a sudden,' and 'Where in the world did he get this superciliousness?' +Now do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which appear +best to you in such a manner as though you were conscious of having been +appointed by God to this position." Again in the little discourse _On +the Desire of Admiration_, he warns the philosopher "_not to walk as if +he had swallowed a poker_" or to care for the applause of those +multitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error. For all display, and +pretence, and hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, and boasting, and mere +fruitless book-learning he seems to have felt a genuine and profound +contempt. Recommendations to simplicity of conduct, courtesy of manner, +and moderation of language were among his practical precepts. It is +refreshing, too, to know that with the strongest and manliest good +sense, he entirely repudiated that dog-like brutality of behaviour, and +repulsive eccentricity of self-neglect, which characterised not a few of +the Cynic leaders. He expressly argues that the Cynic should be a man of +ready tact, and attractive presence; and there is something of almost +indignant energy in his words when he urges upon a pupil the plain duty +of scrupulous cleanliness. In this respect our friends the Hermits would +not quite have satisfied him, although he might possibly have pardoned +them on the plea that they abode in desert solitudes, since he bids +those who neglect the due care of their bodies to live "either in the +wilderness or alone." + +Late in life Epictetus increased his establishment by taking in an old +woman as a servant. The cause of his doing so shows an almost Christian +tenderness of character. According to the hideous custom of infanticide +which prevailed in the pagan world, a man with whom Epictetus was +acquainted exposed his infant son to perish. Epictetus in pity took the +child home to save its life, and the services of a female were necessary +to supply its wants. Such kindness and self-denial were all the more +admirable because pity, like all other deep emotions, was regarded by +the Stoics in the light rather of a vice than of a virtue. In this +respect, however, both Seneca and Epictetus, and to a still greater +extent Marcus Aurelius, were gloriously false to the rigidity of the +school to which they professed to belong. We see with delight that one +of the _Discourses_ of Epictetus was _On the Tenderness and Forbearance +due to Sinners_; and he abounds in exhortations to forbearance in +judging others. In one of his _Fragments_ he tells the following +anecdote:--A person who had seen a poor ship-wrecked and almost dying +pirate took pity on him, carried him home, gave him clothes, and +furnished him with all the necessaries of life. Somebody reproached him +for doing good to the wicked--"I have honoured," he replied, "not the +man, but humanity in his person." + +But one fact more is known in the life of Epictetus, Domitian, the +younger son of Vespasian, succeeded his far nobler brother the Emperor +Titus; and in the course of his reign a decree was passed which banished +all the philosophers from Italy. Epictetus was not exempted from this +unjust and absurd decree. That he bore it with equanimity may be +inferred from the approval with which he tells an anecdote about +Agrippinus, who while his cause was being tried in the Senate went on +with all his usual avocations, and on being informed on his return from +bathing that he had been condemned, quietly asked, "To death or +banishment?" "To banishment," said the messenger. "Is my property +confiscated?" "No," "Very well, then let us go as far as Aricia" (about +sixteen miles from Rome), "and dine there." + +There was a certain class of philosophers whose external mark and whose +sole claim to distinction rested in the length of their beards; and when +the decree of Domitian was passed these gentleman contented themselves +with shaving. Epictetus alludes to this in his second _Discourse_, +"Come, Epictetus, shave off your beard," he imagines some one to say to +him. "If I am a philosopher I will not," he replies. "Then I will take +off your head." "By all means, if that will do you any good." + +He went to Nicopolis, a town of Epirus, which had been built by Augustus +in commemoration of his victory at Actium. Whether he ever revisited +Rome is uncertain, but it is probable that he did so, for we know that +he enjoyed the friendship of several eminent philosophers and statesmen, +and was esteemed and honoured by the Emperor Hadrian himself. He is said +to have lived to a good old age, surrounded by affectionate and eager +disciples, and to have died with the same noble simplicity which had +marked his life. The date of his death is as little known as that of his +birth. It only remains to give a sketch of those thoughts which, poor +though he was, and despised, and a slave, yet made him "dear to the +immortals." + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE "MANUAL" AND "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS. + +It is nearly certain that Epictetus never committed any of his doctrines +to writing. Like his great exemplar. Socrates, he contented himself with +oral instruction, and the bulk of what has come down to us in his name +consists in the _Discourses_ reproduced for us by his pupil Arrian. It +was the ambition of Arrian "to be to Epictetus what Xenophon had been to +Socrates," that is, to hand down to posterity a noble and faithful +picture of the manner in which his master had lived and taught. With +this view, he wrote four books on Epictetus,--a life, which is now +unhappily lost; a book of conversation or "table talk," which is also +lost; and two books which have come down to us, viz. the _Discourses_ +and the _Manual_. It is from these two invaluable books, and from a good +many isolated fragments, that we are enabled to judge what was the +practical morality of Stoicism, as expounded by the holy and +upright slave. + +The _Manual_ is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles, +which, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are +also explained in the _Discourses_. Both books were so popular that by +their means Arrian first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately +attained the highest eminence and rank. The _Manual_ was to antiquity +what the _Imitatio_ of Thomas à Kempis was to later times, and what +Woodhead's _Whole Duty of Man_ or Wilberforce's _Practical View of +Christianity_ have been to large sections of modern Englishmen. It was a +clear, succinct, and practical statement of common daily duties, and the +principles upon which they rest. Expressed in a manner entirely simple +and unornate, its popularity was wholly due to the moral elevation of +the thoughts which it expressed. Epictetus did not aim at style; his one +aim was to excite his hearers to virtue, and Arrian tells us that in +this endeavour he created a deep impression by his manner and voice. It +is interesting to know that the _Manual_ was widely accepted among +Christians no less than among Pagans, and that, so late as the fifth +century, paraphrases were written of it for Christian use. No systematic +treatise of morals so simply beautiful was ever composed, and to this +day the best Christian may study it, not with interest only, but with +real advantage. It is like the voice of the Sybil, which, uttering +things simple, and unperfumed, and unadorned, by God's grace reacheth +through innumerable years. We proceed to give a short sketch of +its contents. + +Epictetus began by laying down the broad comprehensive statement that +there are some things which are in our power, and depend upon ourselves; +other things which are beyond our power, and wholly independent of us. +The things which are in our power are our opinions, our aims, our +desires, our aversions--in a word, _our actions_. The things beyond our +power are bodily accidents, possessions, fame, rank, and whatever lies +_beyond_ the sphere of our actions. To the former of these classes of +things our whole attention must be confined. In that region we may be +noble, unperturbed, and free; in the other we shall be dependent, +frustrated, querulous, miserable. Both classes cannot be successfully +attended to; they are antagonistic, antipathetic; we cannot serve God +and Mammon. + +Now, if we take a right view of all these things which in no way depend +on ourselves we shall regard them as mere semblances--as shadows which +are to be distinguished from the true substance. We shall not look upon +them as fit subjects for aversion or desire. Sin and cruelty, and +falsehood we may hate, because we can avoid them if we will; but we must +look upon sickness, and poverty, and death as things which are _not_ fit +subjects for our avoidance, because they lie wholly beyond our control. + +This, then,--endurance of the inevitable, avoidance of the evil--is the +keynote of the Epictetean philosophy. It has been summed up in the three +words, [Greek: Anechou kai apechou], "_sustine et abstine_," "Bear and +forbear,"--bear whatever God assigns to you, abstain from that which +He forbids. + +The earlier part of the _Manual_ is devoted to practical advice which +may enable men to endure nobly. For instance, "If there be anything," +says Epictetus, "which you highly value or tenderly love, estimate at +the same time its true nature. Is it some possession? remember that it +may be destroyed. Is it wife or child? remember that they may die." +"Death," says an epitaph in Chester Cathedral-- + + "Death, the great monitor, comes oft to prove, + 'Tis dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love." + +"Desire nothing too much. If you are going to the public baths and are +annoyed or hindered by the rudeness, the pushing, the abuse, the +thievish propensities of others, do not lose your temper: remind +yourself that it is more important that you should keep your will in +harmony with nature than that you should bathe. And so with all +troubles; men suffer far less from the things themselves than from the +opinions they have of them." + +"If you cannot frame your circumstances in accordance with your wishes, +frame your will into harmony with your circumstances.[64] When you lose +the best gifts of life, consider them as not lost but only resigned to +Him who gave them. You have a remedy in your own heart against all +trials--continence as a bulwark against passion, patience against +opposition, fortitude against pain. Begin with trifles: if you are +robbed, remind yourself that your peace of mind is of more value and +importance than the thing which has been stolen from you. Follow the +guidance of nature; that is the great thing; regret nothing, desire +nothing, which can disturb that end. Behave as at a banquet--take with +gratitude and in moderation what is set before you, and seek for nothing +more; a higher and diviner step will be to be ready and able to forego +even that which is given you, or which you might easily obtain. +Sympathise with others, at least externally, when they are in sorrow and +misfortune; but remember in your own heart that to the brave and wise +and true there is really no such thing as misfortune; it is but an ugly +semblance; the croak of the raven can portend no harm to such a man, he +is elevated above its power." + +[Footnote 64: "When what thou willest befalls not, thou then must will +what befalleth."] + +"We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with +those parts; our simple duty is confined to playing them well. The slave +may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it +dwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant, with it all +others become needless, without it no others are possible. No one can +insult you if you will not regard his words or deeds as insults.[65] +Keep your eye steadily fixed on the great reality of death, and all +other things will shrink to their true proportions. As in a voyage, when +a ship has come to anchor, if you have gone out to find water, you may +amuse yourself with picking up a little shell or bulb, but you must keep +your attention steadily fixed upon the ship, in case the captain should +call, and then you must leave all such things lest you should be flung +on board, bound like sheep. So in life; if, instead of a little shell or +bulb, some wifeling or childling be granted you, well and good; but, if +the captain call, run to the ship and leave such possessions behind you, +not looking back. But if you be an old man, take care not to go a long +distance from the ship at all, lest you should be called and come too +late." The metaphor is a significant one, and perhaps the following +lines of Sir Walter Scott, prefixed anonymously to one of the chapters +of the Waverley Novels, may help to throw light upon it: + + "Death finds us 'midst our playthings; snatches us, + As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, + From all our toys and baubles--the rough call + Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth: + And well if they are such as may be answered + In yonder world, where all is judged of truly." + +[Footnote 65: Compare Cowper's _Conversation_:-- + "Am I to set my life upon a throw + Because a bear is rude and surly?--No.-- + A modest, sensible, and well-bred man + Will not insult me, and _no other can_."] + +"Preserve your just relations to other men; their misconduct does not +affect your duties. Has your father done wrong, or your brother been +unjust? Still he _is_ your father, he _is_ your brother; and you must +consider your relation to him, not whether he be worthy of it or no. + +"Your duty towards the gods is to form just and true opinions respecting +them. Believe that they do all things well, and then you need never +murmur or complain." + +"As rules of practice," says Epictetus, "prescribe to yourself an ideal, +and then act up to it. Be mostly silent; or, if you converse, do not let +it be about vulgar and insignificant topics, such as dogs, horses, +racing, or prize-fighting. Avoid foolish and immoderate laughter, vulgar +entertainments, impurity, display, spectacles, recitations, and all +egotistical remarks. Set before you the examples of the great and good. +Do not be dazzled by mere appearances. Do what is right quite +irrespective of what people will say or think. Remember that your body +is a very small matter and needs but very little; just as all that the +foot needs is a shoe, and not a dazzling ornament of gold, purple, or +jewelled embroidery. To spend all one's time on the body, or on bodily +exercises, shows a weak intellect. Do not be fond of criticising others, +and do not resent their criticisms of you. Everything," he says, and +this is one of his most characteristic precepts, "has two handles! one +by which it may be borne, the other by which it cannot. If your brother +be unjust, do not take up the matter by that handle--the handle of his +injustice--for that handle is the one by which it cannot be taken up; +but rather by the handle that he is your brother and brought up with +you; and then you will be taking it up as it can be borne." + +All these precepts have a general application, but Epictetus adds +others on the right bearing of a philosopher; that is, of one whose +professed ideal is higher than the multitude. He bids him above all +things not to be censorious, and not to be ostentatious. "Feed on your +own principles; do not throw them up to show how much you have eaten. Be +self-denying, but do not boast of it. Be independent and moderate, and +regard not the opinion or censure of others, but keep a watch upon +yourself as your own most dangerous enemy. Do not plume yourself on an +_intellectual_ knowledge of philosophy, which is in itself quite +valueless, but on a consistent nobleness of action. Never relax your +efforts, but aim at perfection. Let everything which seems best be to +you a law not to be transgressed; and whenever anything painful, or +pleasurable, or glorious, or inglorious, is set before you, remember +that now is the struggle, now is the hour of the Olympian contest, and +it may not be put off, and that by a single defeat or yielding your +advance in virtue may be either secured or lost. It was thus that +Socrates attained perfection, by giving his heart to reason, and to +reason only. And thou, even if as yet thou art not a Socrates, yet +shouldst live as though it were thy wish to be one." These are noble +words, but who that reads them will not be reminded of those sacred and +far more deeply-reaching words, "_Be ye perfect, even as your Father +which is in heaven is perfect" Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, +now is the day of salvation_. + +In this brief sketch we have included all the most important thoughts in +the _Manual_. It ends in these words. "On all occasions we may keep in +mind these three sentiments:--" + +'Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me +to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be +unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the same.' +(Cleanthes.) + +'Whosoever hath nobly yielded to necessity, I hold him wise, and he +knoweth the things of God.' (Euripides.) + +And this third one also, 'O Crito, be it so, if so be the will of +heaven. Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, but harm me they cannot.' +(Socrates.) + +To this last conception of life; quoted from the end of Plato's +_Apology_, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: "What resources have we," he +asks, "in circumstances of great peril? What other than the remembrance +of what is or what is not in our own power; what is possible to us and +what is not? I must die. Be it so; but need I die groaning? I must be +bound; but must I be bound bewailing? I must be driven into exile, well, +who prevent me then from going with laughter, and cheerfulness, and +calm of mind? + +"'Betray secrets.' + +"'Indeed I will not, for _that_ rests in my own hands.' + +"'Then I will put you in chains.' + +"'My good sir, what are you talking about? Put _me_ in chains? No, no! +you may put my leg in chains, but not even Zeus himself can master +my will.' + +"'I will throw you into prison.' + +"'My poor little body; yes, no doubt.' + +"'I will cut off your head.' + +"'Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one which could not +be cut off?' + +"Such are the things of which philosophers should think, and write them +daily, and exercise themselves therein." + +There are many other passages in which Epictetus shows that the +free-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that we should not "sell +it for a trifle;" or, as Scripture still more sternly expresses it, +should not "sell ourselves for nought." He relates, for instance, the +complete failure of the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus +not to go to the Senate. "While I am a Senator," said Helvidius, "I +_must_ go." "Well, then, at least be silent there." "Ask me no +questions, and I will be silent." "But I _must_ ask your opinion." "And +_I_ must say what is right." "But I will put you to death." "Did I ever +tell you I was immortal? Do _your_ part, and _I_ will do _mine_. It is +yours to kill me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to +go into banishment without grief." + +We see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of the heathen +had, by God's grace, attained to the sense that life was subject to a +divine guidance. Yet how dim was their vision of this truth, how +insecure their hold upon it, in comparison with that which the meanest +Christian may attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of +immortality. They never quite got rid of a haunting dread that perhaps, +after all, they might be nothing better than insignificant and unheeded +atoms, swept hither and thither in the mighty eddies of an unseen, +impersonal, mysterious agency, and destined hereafter "to be sealed amid +the iron hills," or + + "To be imprisoned in the viewless winds. + And blown with reckless violence about + The pendent world." + +Their belief in a personal deity was confused with their belief in +nature, which, in the language of a modern sceptic, "acts with fearful +uniformity: stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as death; too +vast to praise, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer, +no heart for sympathy, no arm to save." How different the soothing and +tender certainty of the Christian's hope, for whom Christ has brought +life and immortality to light! For "chance" is not only "the daughter of +forethought," as the old Greek lyric poet calls her, but the daughter +also of love. How different the prayer of David, even in the hours of +his worst agony and shame, "_Let Thy loving Spirit lead me forth into +the land of righteousness_." Guidance, and guidance by the hand of love, +was--as even in that dark season he recognised--the very law of his +life; and his soul, purged by affliction, had but a single wish--the +wish to be led, not into prosperity, not into a recovery of his lost +glory, not even into the restoration of his lost innocence; but +only,--through paths however hard--only into the land of righteousness. +And because he knew that God would lead him thitherward, he had no wish, +no care for anything beyond. We will end this chapter by translating a +few of the isolated fragments of Epictetus which have been preserved for +us by other writers. The wisdom and beauty of these fragments will +interest the reader, for Epictetus was one of the few "in the very dust +of whose thoughts was gold." + + * * * * * + +"A life entangled with accident is like a wintry torrent, for it is +turbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and tyrannous, and loud, +and brief." + +"A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; for it is +pure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and serviceable, and +rich, and innocent, and uninjurious." + + * * * * * + +"If you wish to be good? first believe that you are bad." + +Compare Matt. ix. 12, "They that be whole need not a physician, but +they that are sick;" John ix. 41, "Now ye say, We see, therefore your +sin remaineth;" and 1 John i. 8, "If we say that we have no sin, we +deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." + + * * * * * + +"It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks with the gifts of +bees, to embitter by vice his reason, which is the gift of God." + + * * * * * + +"Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and +insolence: nothing nobler than high-mindedness, and gentleness, and +philanthropy, and doing good." + + * * * * * + +"The vine bears three clusters: the first of pleasure; the second of +drunkenness; the third of insult." + +"He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; even if he be not +drunken, he has exceeded moderation." + +Our own George Herbert has laid down the same limit:-- + + "Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay, + _Stay at the third cup, or forego the place_, + Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface." + + * * * * * + +"Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a great blaze by +means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over +the sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city, +himself content with little, effects great blessings for his +fellow-citizens." + +The thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare: + + "How far yon little candle throws its beams, + So shines a good deed in a naughty world." + +But the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly adopts is one no less +beautiful. "What good," asked some one, "did Helvidius Priscus do in +resisting Vespasian, being but a single person?" "What good," answers +Epictetus, "does the purple do on the garment? Why, _it is splendid in +itself, and splendid also in the example which it affords_." + + * * * * * + +"As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations that he may rise, +but shines at once, and is greeted by all; so neither wait thou for +applause, and shouts, and eulogies, that thou mayst do well;--but be a +spontaneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved like the sun." + + * * * * * + +"Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all possessions, answered, +'Hope; for even those who have nothing else have hope.'" + +"Lead, lead me on, my hopes," says Mr. Macdonald; "I know that ye are +true and not vain. Vanish from my eyes day after day, but arise in new +forms. I will follow your holy deception; follow till ye have brought me +to the feet of my Father in heaven, where I shall find you all, with +folded wings, spangling the sapphire dusk whereon stands His throne +which is our home. + +"What ought not to be done do not even think of doing." + +Compare + + "_Guard well your thoughts for thoughts are heard in heaven_.'" + + * * * * * + +Epictetus, when asked how a man could grieve his enemy, replied, "By +preparing himself to act in the noblest way." + +Compare Rom. xii. 20, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, +give him drink: _for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on +his head_" + + * * * * * + +"If you always remember that in all you do in soul or body God stands by +as a witness, in all your prayers and your actions you will not err; and +you shall have God dwelling with you." + +Compare Rev. iii. 30, "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man +hear my voice, and open the door, _I will come in to him and will sup +with him, and he with me."_ + +In the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch upon human +actions, Epictetus touches again on the same topic, saying that God has +placed beside each one of us his own guardian spirit--a spirit that +sleeps not and cannot be beguiled--and has handed us each over to that +spirit to protect us. "And to what better or more careful guardian could +He have entrusted us? So that when you have closed your doors and made +darkness within, _remember never to say that you are alone_. For you are +not alone. God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit; and +what need have _they_ of light to see what you are doing." + +There is in this passage an almost startling coincidence of thought with +those eloquent words in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: "A man that breaketh +wedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? _I am compassed about +with darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth me_: what need I to +fear? the Most Highest will not remember my sins: _such a man only +feareth the eyes of man_, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are +ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, +and considering the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever they +were created: so also after they were perfected He looked upon all. This +man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he expecteth +not he shall be taken." (Ecclus. xxiii. 11-21.) + +"When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a tutor who kept a +continual watch that we might not suffer harm; but, when we grow to +manhood, God hands us over to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must, +therefore, by no means despise this guardianship, since in that case we +shall both be displeasing to God and enemies to our own conscience." + +Beautiful and remarkable as these fragments are we have no space for +more, and must conclude by comparing the last with the celebrated lines +of George Herbert:-- + + "Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round; + _Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters + Deliver us to laws. They send us bound + To rules of reason_. Holy messengers; + Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin; + Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes; + Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in! + Bibles laid open; millions of surprises; + Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness; + The sound of glory ringing in our ears; + Without one shame; _within our consciences_; + Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears! + Yet all these fences and their whole array, + One cunning bosom sin blows quite away." + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS. + +The _Discourses_ of Epictetus, as originally published by Arrian, +contained eight books, of which only four have come down to us. They are +in many respects the most valuable expression of his views. There is +something slightly repellent in the stern concision, the "imperious +brevity," of the _Manual_. In the _Manual_, says M. Martha,[66] "the +reason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassibility which is +little human; it imposes silence on all the passions, even the most +respectable; it glories in waging against them an internecine war, and +seems even to wish to repress the most legitimate impulses of generous +sensibility. In reading these rigorous maxims one might be tempted to +believe that this legislator of morality is a man without a heart, and, +if we were not touched by the original sincerity of the language, one +would only see in this lapidary style the conventional precepts of a +chimerical system or the aspirations of an impossible perfection." The +_Discourses_ are more illustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse, +more human. In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human +being, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. The style, +indeed, is simple, but its "athletic nudity" is well suited to this +militant morality; its picturesque and incisive character, its vigorous +metaphors, its vulgar expressions, its absence of all conventional +elegance, display a certain "plebeian originality" which gives them an +almost autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid +conviction "he wrestles with the passions, questions them, makes them +answer, and confounds them in a few words which are often sublime. This +Socrates without grace does not amuse us by making his adversary fall +into the long entanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes +and often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence of +Phocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which is lifted +and falls." + +[Footnote 66: Moralistes sous l'Empire, p. 200.] + +Epictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher; a preacher with less wealth of +genius, less eloquence of expression, less width of culture, but with +far more bravery, clearness, consistency, and grasp of his subject. His +doctrine and his life were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit +of brief expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, or +chequered with any lights and shades. The _Discourses_ differ from the +_Manual_ only in their manner, their frequent anecdotes, their pointed +illustrations, and their vivid interlocutory form. The remark of Pascal, +that Epictetus knew the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know +its weakness, applies to the _Manual_ but can hardly be maintained when +we judge him by some of the answers which he gave to those who came to +seek for his consolation or advice. + +The _Discourses_ are not systematic in their character, and, even if +they were, the loss of the last four books would prevent us from working +out their system with any completeness. Our sketch of the _Manual_ will +already have put the reader in possession of the main principles and +ideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the +schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a +moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He +neither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical +reality. All that remains for us to do is to choose from the +_Discourses_ some of his most characteristic views, and the modes by +which he brought them home to his hearers. + +It was one of the most essential peculiarities of Stoicism to aim at +absolute independence, or _self_-independence. Now, as the weaknesses +and servilities of men arise most frequently from their desire for +superfluities, the true man must absolutely get rid of any such desire. +He must increase his wealth by moderating his wishes; he must despise +_all_ the luxuries for which men long, and he must greatly diminish the +number of supposed necessaries. We have already seen some of the +arguments which point in this direction, and we may add another from the +third book of _Discourses_. + +A certain magnificent orator, who was going to Rome on a lawsuit, had +called on Epictetus. The philosopher threw cold water on his visit, +because he did not believe in his sincerity. "You will get no more from +me," he said, "than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for +you have only come because it happened to be convenient, and you will +only criticise my style, not really wishing to learn _principles_" +"Well, but," answered the orator, "if I attend to that sort of thing, I +shall be a mere pauper like you, with no plate, or equipage, or land." +"I don't _want_ such things," replied Epictetus; "and, besides, you are +poorer than I am, after all." "Why, how so?" "You have no constancy, no +unanimity with nature, no freedom from perturbations. Patron or no +patron, what care I? You _do_ care. I am richer than you. _I_ don't care +what Caesar thinks of me. _I_ flatter no one. This is what I have +instead of your silver and gold plate. You have _silver_ vessels, but +_earthenware_ reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom +is, and it furnishes me abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your +restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you, mine seem +great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied." The +comparison with which he ends the discussion is very remarkable. I once +had the privilege of hearing Sir William Hooker explain to the late +Queen Adelaide the contents of the Kew Museum. Among them was a +cocoa-nut with a hole in it, and Sir William explained to the Queen that +in certain parts of India, when the natives want to catch the monkeys +they make holes in cocoa-nuts, and fill them with sugar. The monkeys +thrust in their hands and fill them with sugar; the aperture is too +small to draw the paws out again when thus increased in size; the +monkeys have not the sense to loose their hold of the sugar, and so they +are caught. This little anecdote will enable the reader to relish the +illustration of Epictetus. "When little boys thrust their hands into +narrow-mouthed jars full of figs and almonds, when they have filled +their hands they cannot draw them out again, and so begin to howl. Let +go a few of the figs and almonds, and you'll get your hand out. And so +_you_, let go your desires. Don't desire many things, and you'll get +what you _do_ desire." "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he +shall not be disappointed!" + +Another of the constant precepts of Epictetus is that we should aim +high; we are not to be common threads in the woof of life, but like the +laticlave on the robe of a senator, the broad purple stripe which gave +lustre and beauty to the whole. But how are we to know that we are +qualified for this high function? How does the bull know, when the lion +approaches, that it is his place to expose himself for all the herd? If +we have high powers we shall soon be conscious of them, and if we have +them not we may gradually acquire them. Nothing great is produced at +once,--the vine must blossom, and bear fruit, and ripen, before we have +the purple clusters of the grape,--"first the blade, then the ear, after +that the full corn in the ear." + +But whence are we to derive this high sense of duty and possible +eminence? Why, if Caesar had adopted you, would you not show your proud +sense of ennoblement in haughty looks; how is it that you are not proud +of being sons of God? You have, indeed, a body, by virtue of which many +men sink into close kinship with pernicious wolves, and savage lions, +and crafty foxes, destroying the rational within them, and so becoming +greedy cattle or mischievous vermin; but above and beyond this, "If," +says Epictetus, "a man have once been worthily interpenetrated with the +belief that we all have been in some special manner born of God, and +that God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never have +any ignoble, any humble thoughts about himself." Our own great Milton +has hardly expressed this high truth more nobly when he says, that "He +that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of +God's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he +thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit +person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than +to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, +himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and filial +relation with God." + +"And how are we to know that we have made progress? We may know it if +our own wills are bent to live in conformity with nature; if we be +noble, free, faithful, humble; if desiring nothing, and shunning nothing +which lies beyond our power, we sit loose to all earthly interests; if +our lives are under the distinct governance of immutable and noble laws. + +"But shall we not meet with troubles in life? Yes, undoubtedly; and are +there none at Olympia? Are you not burnt with heat, and pressed for +room, and wetted with showers when it rains? Is there not more than +enough clamour, and shouting, and other troubles? Yet I suppose you +tolerate and endure all these when you balance them against the +magnificence of the spectacle? And, come now, have you not received +powers wherewith to bear whatever occurs? Have you not received +magnanimity, courage, fortitude? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I +care for anything that can possibly happen? what shall alarm or trouble +me, or seem painful? Shall I not use the faculty for the ends for which +it was granted me, or shall I grieve and groan at all the accidents of +life? On the contrary, these troubles and difficulties are strong +antagonists pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in +the Olympic game of life. + +"But if life and its burdens become absolutely intolerable, may we not +go back to God, from whom we came? may we not show thieves and robbers, +and tyrants who claim power over us by means of our bodies and +possessions, that they have _no power_? In a word, may we not commit +suicide?" We know how Shakespeare treats this question:-- + + "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, + Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, + The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, + The insolence of office, and the spurns + Which patient merit of the unworthy takes, + When he himself might his quietus make + With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, + To grunt and sweat under a weary life, + _But that the dread of something after death, + The undiscovered country from whose bourne + No traveller returns, puzzles the will: + And makes us rather bear those ills we have + Than fly to others that we know not of_?" + +But Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I do not remember a +single passage in which he refers to immortality or the life to come, +and it is therefore probable either that he did not believe in it at +all, or that he put it aside as one of those things which are out of our +own power. Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we +find throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one of the +commonplaces of Stoicism. "My friends," he says, "wait God's good time +till He gives you the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then +dismiss yourself to go to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves, +inhabiting the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after +all, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for those who are +thus disposed; for what tyrant, or thief, or judgment-halls, are objects +of dread to those who thus absolutely disesteem the body and its +belongings? Stay, then, and do not depart without due cause." + +It will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without extolling it, +for in another place (ii. 1) he says: "What is pain? A mere ugly mask; +turn it, and see that it is so. This little flesh of ours is acted on +roughly, and then again smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear +it, the door is open; if it is for your interest--endure. It is right +that under all circumstances the door should be open, since so men end +all trouble." + +This power of _endurance_ is completely the keynote of the Stoical view +of life, and the method of attaining to it, by practising contempt for +all external accidents, is constantly inculcated. I have already told +the anecdote about Agrippinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that +no extreme of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a +single expression of indignation or of sorrow. + +The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from God, and it +is our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding +conception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too, +our duties spring directly from our relation to God. It is that relation +which makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us +honour others. "Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has +God for his father no less than you? But they are wicked, +perhaps--thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more +pity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their +misfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are +wicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so _very_ wise?" + +Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often +pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for +instance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), +and the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones. +He points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act +is a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which make up +our daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are +adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever +may be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with +the diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them. + +Take the instance of anger. "Do you wish not to be passionate? do not +then cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto. +Be calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in +a rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day, +then every third, then every fourth day. But should you have passed even +thirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to God. For the +habit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to +vexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but +I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say +_that_, that it will soon be all right with you." + +But _how_ is one to do all this? that is the great question, and +Epictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he can. We have, +for instance, already quoted one passage in which (unlike the majority +of Pagan moralists) he shows that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical +importance of controlling even the _thought_ of wickedness. Another +anecdote about Agrippinus will further illustrate the same doctrine. It +was the wicked practice of Nero to make noble Romans appear on the stage +or in gladiatorial shows, in order that he might thus seem to have their +sanction for his own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who +was doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, consulted +Agrippinus on the subject. "_Go by all means_," replied Agrippinus. +"But why don't _you_ go, then?" asked Florus. "_Because"_, said +Agrippinus, "_I do not deliberate about it_." He implied by this answer +that to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act +always on _principles_, we must never pause to calculate _consequences_. +"But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head cut off." +"Well, then, go, but _I_ won't." "Why won't you go?" "Because I do not +care to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the +purple sewn upon it." + +And if we want a due _motive_ for such lofty choice Epictetus will +supply it. "Wish," he says, "to win the suffrages of your own inward +approval, wish to appear beautiful to God. Desire to be pure with your +own pure self, and with God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato +says, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of +the gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even +rise and depart to the society of the noble and the good, to live +according to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the +living or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery +over temptation and passion; consider how glorious was the conscious +victory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place +him to Hercules himself.' So that, by heaven, one might justly salute +him, 'Hail, marvellous conqueror, who hast conquered, not these +miserable boxers and athletes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.' +And should you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what +shoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of mere +babblements, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who +trains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Great is the +struggle, divine the deed; it is for kingdom, for freedom, for +tranquillity, for peace. Think on God; call upon Him as thine aid and +champion, as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. And +indeed what storm is greater than that which rises from powerful +semblances that dash reason out of its course? What indeed but semblance +is a storm itself? Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring +as many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt know how +great is the tranquillity and calm in that reason which is the ruling +faculty of the soul. But should you once be worsted, and say that you +will conquer _hereafter_, and then the same again and again, know that +thus your condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will +not even know that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to +provide excuses for your sin; and then you will confirm the truth of +that saying of Hesiod,-- + + "'The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.'" + +Even so! So early did a heathen moralist learn the solemn fact that +"only this once" ends in "there is no harm in it." Well does Mr. +Coventry Patmore sing:-- + + "How easy to keep free from sin; + How hard that freedom to recall; + For awful truth it is that men + _Forget_ the heaven from which they fall." + +In another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be too easily +discouraged in our attempts after good;--and, above all, never to +_despair_. "In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he +is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has +acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor +wretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be swept along as by +a torrent. You need but _will_" he says, "and it is done; but if you +relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both +from within.--And what will you gain by all this? You will gain modesty +for inpudence, purity for vileness, moderation for drunkenness. If you +think there are any better ends than these, then by all means go on in +sin, for you are beyond the power of any god to save." + +But Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us that to +_profess_ these principles and _talk_ about them is one thing--to act up +to them quite another. He draws a humorous picture of an inconsistent +and unreal philosopher, who--after eloquently proving that nothing is +good but what pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to +vice, and that all other things are indifferent--goes to sea. A storm +comes on, and the masts creak, and the philosopher screams; and an +impertinent person stands by and asks in surprise, "Is it then _vice_ to +suffer shipwreck? because, if not, it can be no evil;" a question which +makes our philosopher so angry that he is inclined to fling a log at his +interlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that the +philosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the +schools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and +conceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name +of Stoic was usurped. + +"Why," he asks in another passage, "why do you call yourself a Stoic? +Why do you deceive the multitude? Why do you act the Jew when you are a +Greek? Don't you see on what terms each person is called a Jew? or a +Syrian? or an Egyptian? And when we see some mere _trimmer_ we are in +the habit of saying, 'This is no Jew; he is only acting the part of +one,' but when a man takes up the entire condition of a proselyte, +thoroughly imbued with Jewish doctrines, then he both _is_ in reality +and is _called_ a Jew. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye, +_are Jews in name, but in reality are something else_.... We call +ourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the part of men, as +though a man should try to heave the stone of Ajax who cannot lift ten +pounds." The passage is interesting not only on its own account, but +because of its curious similarity both with the language and with the +sentiment of St. Paul--"He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is +that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is +one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and +not in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." + +The best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by a mere study of +books and knowledge of doctrines, but by a steady diligence of actions +and adherence to original principles, to which must be added consistency +and self control. "These principles," says Epictetus, "produce +friendship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations; they make +a man grateful to God, bold under all circumstances, as though dealing +with things alien and valueless. Now we are capable of writing these +things, and reading them, and praising them when they are read, but we +are far enough off following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of +the Lacedaemonians, that they are 'lions at home, foxes at Ephesus,' +will also apply to us; in the school we are lions, out of it foxes." + +These passages include, I think, all the most original, important, and +characteristic conceptions which are to be found in the _Discourses_. +They are most prominently illustrated in the long and important chapter +on the Cynic philosophy. A genuine Cynic--one who was so, not in +brutality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a Cynic +in life and in his inmost principles--was evidently in the eyes of +Epictetus one of the loftiest of human beings. He drew a sketch of his +ideal conception to one of his scholars who inquired of him upon +the subject. + +He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who +undertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him +the anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the +imperial office of an Agamemnon. "If you think," he tells the young +student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and +sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and +rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple, +you don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a +Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider +how great a thing you are undertaking. + +"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of +God. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life +must be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal +their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your +house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must +conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as +the spy and messenger of God among mankind. + +"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their +blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and +Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not +in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for +Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their +hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances. +It lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of +every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of +contentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile, +disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this +Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face +the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped? + +"Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be +beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an +unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men +would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair. + +"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a +friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The +friend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a +friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry; +marriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, +its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted +to the service of heaven. + +"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth +is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind. + +"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of +his indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a +power of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be +clear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To +abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place +all fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this: +before you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of +God you are capable of achieving it." + +I have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chapter, but fully +to enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader should study it entire, +and observe its generous impatience, its noble ardour, its vivid +interrogations, "in which," says M. Martha, "one feels as it were a +frenzy of virtue and of piety, and in which the plenitude of a great +heart tumultuously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts." + +Epictetus was not a Christian. He has only once alluded to the +Christians in his works, and there it is under the opprobrious title of +"Galileans," who practised a kind of insensibility in painful +circumstances and an indifference to worldly interests which Epictetus +unjustly sets down to "mere habit." Unhappily it was not granted to +these heathen philosophers in any true sense to know what Christianity +was. They ignorantly thought that it was an attempt to imitate the +results of philosophy, without having passed through the necessary +discipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it with +injustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, they +would have found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest +conceptions. Nor was it only an impossible _ideal_; it was an ideal +rendered attainable by the impressive sanction of the highest authority, +and one which supported men to bear the difficulties of life with +fortitude, with peacefulness, and even with an inward joy; it ennobled +their faculties without overstraining them; it enabled them to +disregard the burden of present trials, not by vainly attempting to deny +their bitterness or ignore their weight, but in the high certainty that +they are the brief and necessary prelude to "a far more exceeding and +eternal weight of glory." + + + +MARCUS AURELIUS. + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR. + +The life of the noblest of Pagan Emperors may well follow that of the +noblest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the purer and brighter from +the midst of a corrupt and deplorable society. Epictetus showed that a +Phrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation; Aurelius +proved that a Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility. +The one--a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in squalor, bred +in degradation, the despised chattel of a despicable freedman, +surrounded by every depressing, ignoble, and pitiable circumstance of +life--showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win noble +happiness and immortal memory; the other--a Roman, a patrician, strong, +of heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the +favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher, +the greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be +virtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, +even on an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the two, +the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly +and touchingly resigned, than the slave. In him, Stoicism loses all its +haughty self-assertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly +melancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart. "It seems," says +M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, +draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it +despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown +God.' In the sad _Meditations_ of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, +sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were +unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not +yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which +Christianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction, +and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, +without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fénélon. +We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate +ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to +which profane doctrines have attained--how they laid down their pride, +and how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity. To +make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the +Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these +simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur--that +charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and +humbleness of heart by an Emperor." + +Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of +eminent men "If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the +Christian verities," says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, +"search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object +than the Antonines.... One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this +Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of +emotion. He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better +of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind." +"It is more delightful," says the great historian Niebuhr, "to speak of +Marcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime +human virtue it is his. He was certainly the noblest character of his +time, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, +mildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards +himself. We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his +time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an +expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius." + +Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, A.D. 121. His more correct +designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several +different names at different periods of his life, and since at that age +nothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth +while to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His +father, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a +line of illustrious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King +of Rome. His mother, Domitia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and +kingly race. The character of both seems to have been worthy of their +high dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since Annius died +when Aurelius was a mere infant; but in his _Meditations_ he has left us +a grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his +grandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the +government of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his +father, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence, +and _abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts_; +and, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of +the rich. + +The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian. +The times were better than those which we have contemplated in the +reigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of +Galba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time +under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of +Titus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother Titus, +was scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero; +but that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden +neck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate +that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was +fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan, +Hadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus +Aurelius were among the very gentlest and noblest sovereigns whom the +world has ever seen. + +Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial +Emperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It +is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at +the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues +which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of +mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when +he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's +paternal name of _Verus_, he called him _Verissimus_, 'the most true.'" +It is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early +developed in one who thought that all men "should speak as they think, +with an accent of heroic verity." + +Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness, +Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a +man who had few recommendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death, +which took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the senators +round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future +Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he +won by his gratitude to the memory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been +older--he was then but seventeen--it is known that Hadrian would have +chosen _him_, and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, indeed, who +was then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition +that he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the +deceased Ceionius. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even +from his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw +himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world. + +We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch +of the influences and the education which had formed him for this +exalted station. + +He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been +three times consul. He makes it a matter of congratulation, and +thankfulness to the gods, that he had not been sent to any public +school, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that +frightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had +fallen. He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for +having supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction +that on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing +jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond +of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and +he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, +his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his +public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a +beautiful and manly mould. There are, however, three respects in which +his education seems especially worthy of notice;--I mean the +_diligence_, the _gratitude_, and the _hardiness_ in which he was +encouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of +generous conviction. + +1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was _diligent_. He alludes +more than once in his _Meditations_ to the inestimable value of time, +and to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits. +He flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into +every branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he +toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the +administration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman +jurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which he expresses gratitude +to his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being +satisfied with the superficial understanding of a book. In fact, so +strenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his +health suffered by the combination of the two. + +2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his teachers--even +the most insignificant--with sincere _gratitude_. He regarded each one +of them as a man from whom something could be learnt, and from whom he +actually _did_ learn that something. Hence the honourable respect--a +respect as honourable to himself as to them--which he paid to Fronto, to +Rusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom his noble and +conscientious gratitude raised to the highest dignities of the State. He +even thanks the gods that "he made haste to place those who brought him +up in the station of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting +them off with mere _hopes_ of his doing it some time after, because they +were then still young." He was far the superior of these men, not only +socially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his +exalted rank and character he delighted to associate with them on the +most friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with +affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household +gods, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims. + +3. His _hardiness_ and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I +wish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel +second-class, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their +buttonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a +poor man for a year, would learn how _infinitely more noble_ was the +abstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of +splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of +gluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early +in life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not +only a duty but a pleasure + + "To scorn delights, and live laborious days," + +and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work +with his own hands." In his eleventh year he became acquainted with +Diognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his +twelfth year he assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to +prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to +the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the skin" was a concession to +the entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself +would have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he +acted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. His friends +found him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity +and thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a +pure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or +with gloom. + +The guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around him all the most +distinguished literary teachers of the age. Never had a prince a greater +number of eminent instructors; never were any teachers made happy by a +more grateful, a more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and +glorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, during his +campaign among the Quadi, he wrote a sketch of what he owed to them. +This sketch forms the first book of his _Meditations_, and is +characterised throughout by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty. + +The _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his private diary, +they are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, an honest examination of +his own conscience; there is not the slightest trace of their having +been intended for any eye but his own. In them he was acting on the +principle of St. Augustine: "Go up into the tribunal of thy conscience, +and set thyself before thyself." He was ever bearing about-- + + "A silent court of justice in himself, + Himself the judge and jury, and himself + The prisoner at the bar." + +And writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war which he +detested, he averted his eyes from the manifold wearinesses which daily +vexed his soul, and calmly sat down to meditate on all the great +qualities which he had observed, and all the good lessons that he might +have learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and surrounded +his manly years. + +And what had he learnt?--learnt heartily to admire, and (_we_ may say) +learnt to practise also? A sketch of his first book will show us. What +he had gained from his immediate parents we have seen already, and we +will make a brief abstract of his other obligations. + +From "his governor"--to which of his teachers this name applies we are +not sure--he had learnt to avoid factions at the races, to work hard, +and to avoid listening to slander; from Diognetus, to despise frivolous +superstitions, and to practise self-denial; from Apollonius, undeviating +steadiness of purpose, endurance of misfortune, and the reception of +favours without being humbled by them; from Sextus of Chaeronea (a +grandson of the celebrated Plutarch), tolerance of the ignorant, gravity +without affectation, and benevolence of heart; from Alexander, delicacy +in correcting others; from Severus, "a disposition to do good, and to +give to others readily, and to cherish good hope, and, to believe that I +am beloved of my friends;" from Maximus, "sweetness and dignity, and to +do what was set before me without complaining;" from Alexander the +Platonic, "_not frequently to say to any one, nor to write in a letter, +that I have no leisure_; nor continually to excuse the neglect of +ordinary duties by alleging urgent occupations." + +To one or two others his obligations were still more characteristic and +important. From Rusticus, for instance, an excellent and able man, whose +advice for years he was accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise +sophistry and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified, +to be accurate, and--an inestimable benefit this, and one which tinged +the colour of his whole life--to become acquainted with the _Discourses_ +of Epictetus. And from his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he +had derived advantages still more considerable. In him he saw the +example of a sovereign and statesman firm, self-controlled, modest, +faithful, and even tempered; a man who despised flattery and hated +meanness; who honoured the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who +was indifferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest +business; one, in short, "who had a perfect and invincible soul," who, +like Socrates, "was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things +which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without +excess." [67] Piety, serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame, +calmness, simplicity, patience, are virtues which he attributes to him +in another full-length portrait (vi. 30) which he concludes with the +words, "Imitate all this, that thou mayest have as good a conscience +when thy last hour comes as he had." + +[Footnote 67: My quotations from Marcus Aurelius will be made (by +permission) from the forcible and admirably accurate translation of Mr. +Long. In thanking Mr. Long, I may be allowed to add that the English +reader will find in his version the best means of becoming acquainted +with the purest-and noblest book of antiquity.] + +He concludes these reminiscenses of thankfulness with a summary of what +he owed to the gods. And for what does he thanks the gods? for being +wealthy, and noble, and an emperor? Nay, for no vulgar or dubious +blessings such as these, but for the guidance which trained him in +philosophy, and for the grace which kept him from sin. And here it is +that his genuine modesty comes out. As the excellent divine used to say +when he saw a criminal led past for execution, "There, but for the grace +of God, goes John Bradford," so, after thanking the gods for the +goodness of all his family and relatives, Aurelius says, "Further, I owe +it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of +them, _though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered_, +might have led me to do something of this kind; but through their favour +there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the +trial. Further, that I was subjected to a ruler and father who took away +all pride from me, and taught me that it was possible to live in a +palace without guards, or embroidered dresses, or torches, and statues, +and such-like show, but to live very near to the fashion of a private +person, without being either mean in thought or remiss in action; that +after having fallen into amatory passions I was cured; that though it +was my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life +with me; that whenever I wished to help any man, I was never told that I +had not the means of doing it;--that I had abundance of good masters for +my children: for all these thing require the help of the gods +and fortune." + +The whole of the Emperor's _Meditations_ deserve the profound study of +this age. The self-denial which they display is a rebuke to our +ever-growing luxury; their generosity contrasts favourably with the +increasing bitterness of our cynicism; their contented acquiescence in +God's will rebukes our incessant restlessness; above all, their constant +elevation shames that multitude of little vices, and little meannesses, +which lie like a scurf over the conventionality of modern life. But this +earlier chapter has also a special value for the young. It offers a +picture which it would indeed be better for them and for us if they +could be induced to study. If even under + + "That fierce light that beats upon the throne," + +the life of Marcus Aurelius shows no moral stain, it is still more +remarkable that the free and beautiful boyhood of this Roman prince had +early learnt to recognise only the excellences of his teachers, their +patience and firmness, their benevolence and sweetness, their integrity +and virtue. Amid the frightful universality of moral corruption he +preserved a stainless conscience and a most pure soul; he thanked God in +language which breathes the most crystalline delicacy of sentiment and +language, that he had preserved uninjured the flower of his early life, +and that under the calm influences of his home in the country, and the +studies of philosophy, he had learnt to value chastity as the sacred +girdle of youth, to be retained and honoured to his latest years. +"Surely," says Mr. Carlyle, "a day is coming when it will be known again +what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush +of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable is the +duty laid on every creature in regard to these particulars. Well, if +such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come. +Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of +heart and of eye; noble pious valour to amend us and the age of bronze +and lacquers, how can they ever come? The scandalous bronze-lacquer age +of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies, and mendacities will have +to run its course till the pit swallow it." + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. + +On the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded to the +throne, and, in accordance with the late Emperor's conditions, adopted +Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the +age of fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor +broke off the engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter +Faustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven years +afterwards, A.D. 146. + +The long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy periods that have +no history. An almost unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes +were lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation +were rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. Throughout the +whole extent of his vast domain the people loved and valued their +Emperor, and the Emperor's one aim was to further, the happiness of his +people. He, too, like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the +bee was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil administrator, +of an unaggressive and united republic; he disliked war, did not value +the military title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph. + +With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his private +relations as he was admirable in the discharge of his public duties, +Marcus Aurelius spent the next twenty-three years of his life. So close +and intimate was their union, so completely did they regard each other +as father and son, that during all that period Aurelius never slept more +than twice away from the house of Antoninus. There was not a shade of +jealousy between them; each was the friend and adviser of the other, +and, so far from regarding his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor +gave him the designation "Caesar," and heaped upon him all the honours +of the Roman Commonwealth. It was in vain that the whisper of malignant +tongues attempted to shake this mutual confidence. Antoninus once saw +the mother of Aurelius in earnest prayer before the statue of Apollo. +"What do you think she is praying for so intently?" asked a wretched +mischief-maker of the name of Valerius Omulus: "it is that you may die, +and her son reign." This wicked suggestion might have driven a prince of +meaner character into violence and disgust, but Antoninus passed it over +with the silence of contempt. + +It was the main delight of Antoninus to enjoy the quiet of his country +villa. Unlike Hadrian, who traversed immense regions of his vast +dominion, Antoninus lived entirely either at Rome, or in his beautiful +villa at Lorium, a little seacoast village about twelve miles from the +capital. In this villa he had been born, and here he died, surrounded by +the reminiscences of his childhood. In this his real home it was his +special pleasure to lay aside the pomp and burden of his imperial rank. +"He did not," says Marcus, "take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was +not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he eat, nor about +the texture and colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his +slaves." Even the dress he wore was the work of the provincial artist +in his little native place. So far from checking the philosophic tastes +of his adopted son he fostered them, and sent for Apollonius of Chalcis +to be his teacher in the doctrines of Stoicism. In one of his notes to +Fronto, Marcus draws the picture of their simple country occupations and +amusements. Hunting, fishing, boxing, wrestling, occupied the leisure of +the two princes, and they shared the rustic festivities of the vintage. +"I have dined," he writes, "on a little bread.... We perspired a great +deal, shouted a great deal, and left some gleanings of the vintage +hanging on the trellis work.... When I got home I studied a little, but +not to much advantage I had a long talk with my mother, who was lying on +her couch." Who knows how much Aurelius and how much the world may have +gained from such conversation as this with a mother from whom he had +learnt to hate even the thought of evil? Nor will any one despise the +simplicity of heart which made him mingle with the peasants as an +amateur vintager, unless he is so tasteless and so morose as to think +with scorn of Scipio and Laelius as they gathered shells on the +seashore, or of Henry IV. as he played at horses with his little boys on +all-fours. The capability of unbending thus, the genuine cheerfulness +which enters at due times into simple amusements, has been found not +rarely in the highest and purest minds. + +For many years no incident of importance broke the even tenor of +Aurelius's life. He lived peaceful, happy, prosperous, and beloved, +watching without envy the increasing years of his adopted father. But in +the year 161, when Marcus was now forty years old, Antoninus Pius, who +had reached the age of seventy-five, caught a fever at Lorium. Feeling +that his end was near, he summoned his friends and the chief men of +Rome to his bedside, and there (without saying a word about his other +adopted son, who is generally known by the name of Lucius Verus) +solemnly recommended Marcus to them as his successor; and then, giving +to the captain of the guard the watchword of "Equanimity," as though his +earthly task was over he ordered to be transferred to the bedroom of +Marcus the little golden statue of Fortune, which was kept in the +private chamber of the Emperors as an omen of public prosperity. + +The very first public act of the new Emperor was one of splendid +generosity, namely, the admission of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus +into the fullest participation of imperial honours, the Tribunitian and +proconsular powers, and the titles Caesar and Augustus. The admission of +Lucius Verus to a share of the empire was due to the innate modesty of +Marcus. As he was a devoted student, and cared less for manly exercises, +in which Verus excelled, he thought that his adoptive brother would be a +better and more useful general than himself, and that he could best +serve the State by retaining the civil administration, and entrusting to +his brother the management of war. Verus, however, as soon as he got +away from the immediate influence and ennobling society of Marcus, broke +loose from all decency, and showed himself to be a weak and worthless +personage, as unfit for war as he was for all the nobler duties of +peace, and capable of nothing but enormous gluttony and disgraceful +self-indulence. Two things only can be said in his favour; the one, +that, though depraved, he was wholly free from cruelty; and the other, +that he had the good sense to submit himself entirely to his brother, +and to treat him with the gratitude and deference which were his due. + +Marcus had a large family by Faustina, and in the first year of his +reign his wife bore twins, of whom the one who survived became the +wicked and detested Emperor Commodus. As though the birth of such a +child were in itself an omen of ruin, a storm of calamity began at once +to burst over the long tranquil State. An inundation of the Tiber flung +down houses and streets over a great part of Rome, swept away multitudes +of cattle, spoiled the harvests, devastated the fields, and caused a +distress which ended in wide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified +by earthquakes, by the burning of cities, and by plagues or noxious +insects. To these miseries, which the Emperors did their best to +alleviate, was added the horrors of wars and rumours of wars. The +Partians, under their king Vologeses, defeated and all but destroyed a +Roman army, and devastated with impunity the Roman province of Syria. +The wild tribes of the Catti burst over Germany with fire and sword; and +the news from Britain was full of insurrection and tumult. Such were the +elements of trouble and discord which overshadowed the reign of Marcus +Aurelius from its very beginning down to its weary close. + +As the Partian war was the most important of the three, Verus was sent +to quell it, and but for the ability of his generals--the greatest of +whom was Avidius Cassius--would have ruined irretrievably the fortunes +of the Empire. These generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the +Roman name, and Verus returned in triumph, bringing back with him from +the East the seeds of a terrible pestilence which devastated the whole +Empire and by which, on the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus himself was +carried off at Aquileia. + +Worthless as he was, Marcus, who in his lifetime had so often pardoned +and concealed his faults, paid him the highest honours of sepulcre, and +interred his ashes in the mausoleum of Hadrian. There were not wanting +some who charged him with the guilt of fratricide, asserting that the +death of Verus had been hastened by his means! + +I have only one reason for alluding to atrocious and contemptible +calumnies like these, and that is because--since no doubt such whispers +reached his ears--they help to account for that deep unutterable +melancholy which breathes through the little golden book of the +Emperor's _Meditations_. We find, for instance, among them this isolated +fragment:-- + +"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical." + +We know not of whom he was thinking--perhaps of Nero, perhaps of +Caligula, but undoubtedly also of men whom he had seen and known, and +whose very existence darkened his soul. The same sad spirit breathes +also through the following passages:-- + +"Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name, +or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are +much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling, and _little +dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and +then straightway weeping. But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and +truth are fled_ + + "'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.'" + +(v. 33.) + +"It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having +had a taste of lying, and hypocrisy, and luxury, and pride. However to +_breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of those things_ is +the next best voyage, as the saying is." (ix. 2.) + +"_Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles._ Why +art thou thus disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles +thee?... Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and +better." (ix. 37.) The thought is like that which dominates through the +Penitential Psalms of David,--that we may take refuge from men, their +malignity and their meanness, and find rest for our souls in God. From +men David has _no_ hope; mockery, treachery, injustice, are all that he +expects from them,--the bitterness of his enemies, the far-off +indifference of his friends. Nor does this greatly trouble him, so long +as he does not wholly lose the light of _God's_ countenance. "I had no +place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O +Lord, and said, _Thou_ art my hope, and my portion in the land of the +living." "Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy +Spirit from me." + +But whatever may have been his impulse at times to give up in despair +all attempt to improve the "little breed" of men around him, Marcus had +schooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings. +Were men contemptible? It was all the more reason why he should himself +be noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust? In +that proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and +tenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his +ability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus +Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the +vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from +suffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws +fresh lessons of humanity and love. + +He says, for instance, "Begin the morning by saying to thyself, _I shall +meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, +unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance +of what is good and evil_. But I who have seen the nature of the good +that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of +him that does wrong that is akin to me,... and that it partakes of the +same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, +for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my +kinsman, nor hate him. _For we are made for co-operation,_ like feet, +like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To +act against one another then is contrary to nature; and _it_ is acting +against one another to be vexed and turn away." (ii. 1.) Another of his +rules, and an eminently wise one, was to fix his thoughts as much as +possible on the virtues of others, rather than on their vices. "When +thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the _virtues_ of those who +live with thee--the activity of one, the modesty of another, the +liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth." What a +rebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are daily tempted to +display! "An infinite being comes before us," says Robertson, "with a +whole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and we _proceed to +classify him, put a label upon him, as we would upon a jar, saying, This +is rice, that is jelly, and this pomatum_; and then we think we have +saved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How differently +our Lord treated the people who came to Him!... consequently, at His +touch each one gave out his peculiar spark of light." + +Here, again, is a singularly pithy, comprehensive, and beautiful piece +of advice:-- + +"Men exist for the sake of one another. _Teach them or bear with them_" +(viii. 59.) + +And again: "The best way of revenging thyself is not to become like the +wrong doer." + +And again, "If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps +he has not done wrong." (ix. 38.) + +Most remarkable, however, are the nine rules which he drew up for +himself, as subjects for reflection when any one had offended +him, viz.-- + +1. That men were made for each other: even the inferior for the sake of +the superior, and these for the sake of one another. + +2. The invincible influences that act upon men, and mould their opinions +and their acts. + +3. That sin is mainly error and ignorance,--an involuntary slavery. + +4. That we are ourselves feeble, and by no means immaculate; and that +often our very abstinence from faults is due more to cowardice and a +care for our reputation than to any freedom from the disposition to +commit them. + +5. That our judgments are apt to be very rash and premature. "And in +short a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct +judgment on another man's acts." + +6. When thou art much vexed or grieved, consider that man's life is only +a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead. + +7. That no wrongful act of another can bring shame on us, and that it +is not men's acts which disturb us, but our own opinions of them. + +8. That our own anger hurts us more than the acts themselves. + +9. That _benevolence is invincible, if it be not an affected smile,_ nor +acting a part. "For what will the most violent man do to thee if thou +continuest benevolent to him? gently and calmly correcting him, +admonishing him when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, '_Not so, my +child: we are constituted by nature for something else: I shall +certainly not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my child_' And +show him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and +that even bees do not do as he does, nor any gregarious animal. And this +you must do simply, unreproachfully, affectionately; without rancour, +and if possible when you and he are alone." (xi. 18.) + +"_Not so, my child_; thou art injuring thyself, my child." Can all +antiquity show anything tenderer than this, or anything more close to +the spirit of Christian teaching than these nine rules? They were worthy +of the men who, unlike the Stoics in general, considered gentleness to +be a virtue, and a proof at once of philosophy and of true manhood. They +are written with that effusion of sadness and benevolence to which it is +difficult to find a parallel. They show how completely Marcus had +triumphed over all petty malignity, and how earnestly he strove to +fulfil his own precept of always keeping the thoughts so sweet and +clear, that "if any one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That,'" In short, to give them their highest praise, they would have +delighted the great Christian Apostle who wrote,-- + +"Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the +weak, be patient towards all men. See that none render evil for evil +unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, +and to all men." (1 Thess. iv. 14. 15.) + +"Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." (2. Thess. +iv. 15.) + +"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a +quarrel against any." (Col. iii. 13.) + +Nay, are they not even in full accordance with the mind and spirit of +Him who said,-- + +"If thy brother trespass against thee, _go and tell him his fault +between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy +brother_." + +In the life of Marcus Aurelius, as in so many lives, we are able to +trace the great law of compensation. His exalted station, during the +later years of his life, threw him among many who were false and +Pharisaical and base; but his youth had been spent under happier +conditions, and this saved him from falling into the sadness of those +whom neither man nor woman please. In his earlier years it had been his +lot to see the fairer side of humanity, and the recollection of those +pure and happy days was like a healing tree thrown into the bitter and +turbid waters of his reign. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS _(continued)._ + +Marcus was now the undisputed lord of the Roman world. He was seated on +the dizziest and most splendid eminence which it was possible for human +grandeur to obtain. + +But this imperial elevation kindled no glow of pride or +self-satisfaction in his meek and chastened nature. He regarded himself +as being in fact the servant of all. It was his duty, like that of the +bull in the herd, or the ram among the flocks, to confront every peril +in his own person, to be foremost in all the hardships of war and the +most deeply immersed in all the toils of peace. The registry of the +citizens, the suppression of litigation, the elevation of public morals, +the restraining of consanguineous marriages, the care of minors, the +retrenchment of public expenses, the limitation of gladitorial games and +shows, the care of roads, the restoration of senatorial privileges, the +appointment of none but worthy magistrates--even the regulation of +street traffic--these and numberless other duties so completely absorbed +his attention that, in spite of indifferent health, they often kept him +at severe labour from early morning till long after midnight. His +position indeed often necessitated his presence at games and shows, but +on these occasions he occupied himself either in reading, or being read +to, or in writing notes. He was one of those who held that nothing +should be done hastily, and that few crimes were worse than the waste of +time. It is to such views and such habits that we owe the compositions +of his works. His _Meditations_ were written amid the painful +self-denial and distracting anxieties of his wars with the Quadi and the +Marcomanni, and he was the author of other works which unhappily have +perished. Perhaps of all the lost treasures of antiquity there are few +which we should feel a greater wish to recover than the lost +autobiography of this wisest of Emperors and holiest of Pagan men. + +As for the external trappings of his rank,--those gorgeous adjuncts and +pompous circumstances which excite the wonder and envy of mankind,--no +man could have shown himself more indifferent to them. He recognized +indeed the necessity of maintaining the dignity of his high position. +"Every moment," he says, "think steadily as a Roman and a man _to do +what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity_, and affection, +and freedom, and justice" (ii. 5); and again, "Let the Deity which is in +thee be the guardian of a living being, _manly and of ripe age, and +engaged in matters political, and a Roman, and a ruler_, who has taken +his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life" +(iii. 5). But he did _not_ think it necessary to accept the fulsome +honours and degrading adulations which were so dear to many of his +predecessors. He refused the pompous blasphemy of temples and altars, +saying that for every true ruler the world was a temple, and all good +men were priests. He declined as much as possible all golden statues and +triumphal designations. All inevitable luxuries and splendour, such as +his public duties rendered indispensable, he regarded as a mere hollow +show. Marcus Aurelius felt as deeply as our own Shakespeare seems to +have felt the unsubstantiality, the fleeting evanescence of all earthly +things: he would have delighted in the sentiment that, + + "_We are such stuff + As dreams are made on, and our little life + Is rounded by a sleep_." + +"When we have meat before us," he says, "and such eatables, we receive +the impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this is the +dead body of a bird, or of a pig; _and, again, that this Falerian is +only a little grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed +with the blood of a shellfish_: such then are these impressions, and +they reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what +kind of things they are. Just in the same way.... where there are things +which appear most worthy of our approbation, _we ought to lay them bare, +and look at their worthlessness_, and strip them of all the words by +which they are exalted." (vi. 13.) + +"What is worth being valued? To be received with clapping of hands? No. +Neither must we value the clapping of tongues, for the praise which +comes from the many is a clapping of tongues." (vi. 16.) + +"Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe; all the sea is a drop in the +universe; Athos a little clod of the universe; all the present time is a +point in eternity. All things are _little, changeable, perishable"_ +(vi. 36.) + +And to Marcus too, no less than to Shakespeare, it seemed that-- + + "All the world's a stage, + And all the men and women merely players;" + +for he writes these remarkable words:-- + +"_The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, +exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread in +fishponds, labourings of ants, and burden-carrying runnings about of +frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings_--this is what life +resembles. It is thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good +humour, and not a proud air; to understand however that _every man is +worth just so much as the things are worth about which he +busies himself_." + +In fact, the Court was to Marcus a burden; he tells us himself that +Philosophy was his mother, Empire only his stepmother; it was only his +repose in the one that rendered even tolerable to him the burdens of the +other. Emperor as he was, he thanked the gods for having enabled him to +enter into the souls of a Thrasea, an Helvidius, a Cato, a Brutus. Above +all, he seems to have had a horror of ever becoming like some of his +predecessors; he writes:-- + +"Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar;[68] take care thou art +not dyed with this dye. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, +free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, +kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Reverence the gods and +help men. Short is life. There _is only one fruit of this terrene life; +a pious disposition and social acts_." (iv. 19,) + +[Footnote 68: Marcus here invents what M. Martha justly calls "an +admirable barbarism" to express his disgust towards such men--[Greek: +ora mae apukaidaoosaes]--"take care not to be _Caesarised_."] + +It is the same conclusion as that which sorrow forced from another +weary and less admirable king: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole +matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole +duty of man." + +But it is time for us to continue the meagre record of the life of +Marcus, so far as the bare and gossiping compilations of Dion +Cassius,[69] and Capitolinus, and the scattered allusions of other +writers can enable us to do so. + +[Footnote 69: As epitomised by Xiphilinus.] + +It must have been with a heavy heart that he set out once more for +Germany to face the dangerous rising of the Quadi and Marcomanni. To +obtain soldiers sufficient to fill up the vacancies in his army which +had been decimated by the plague, he was forced to enrol slaves; and to +obtain money he had to sell the ornaments of the palace, and even some +of the Empress's jewels. Immediately before he started his heart was +wrung by the death of his little boy, the twin-brother of Commodus, +whose beautiful features are still preserved for us on coins. Early in +the war, as he was trying the depth of a ford, he was assailed by the +enemy with a sudden storm of missiles, and was only saved from imminent +death by being sheltered beneath the shields of his soldiers. One battle +was fought on the ice of the wintry Danube. But by far the most +celebrated event of the war took place in a great victory over the Quadi +which he won in A.D. 174, and which was attributed by the Christians to +what is known as the "Miracle of the Thundering Legion." + +Divested of all extraneous additions, the fact which occurred,--as +established by the evidence of medals, and by one of the bass-relievi on +the "Column of Antonine,"--appears to have been as follows. Marcus +Aurelius and his army had been entangled in a mountain defile, into +which they had too hastily pursued a sham retreat of the barbarian +archers. In this defile, unable either to fight or to fly, pent in by +the enemy, burned up with the scorching heat and tormented by thirst, +they lost all hope, burst into wailing and groans, and yielded to a +despair from which not even the strenuous efforts of Marcus could arouse +them. At the most critical moment of their danger and misery the clouds +began to gather, and heavy shows of rain descended, which the soldiers +caught in their shields and helmets to quench their own thirst and that +of their horses. While they were thus engaged the enemy attacked them; +but the rain was mingled with hail, and fell with blinding fury in the +faces of the barbarians. The storm was also accompanied with thunder and +lightning, which seems to have damaged the enemy, and filled them with +terror, while no casualty occured in the Roman ranks. The Romans +accordingly regarded this as a Divine interposition, and achieved a most +decisive victory, which proved to be the practical conclusion of a +hazardous and important war. + +The Christians regarded the event not as _providential but as +miraculous_, and attributed it to the prayers of their brethren in a +legion which, from this circumstance, received the name of the +"Thundering Legion." It is however now known that one of the legions, +distinguished by a flash of lightning which was represented on their +shields, had been known by this name since the time of Augustus; and the +Pagans themselves attributed the assistance which they had received +sometimes to a prayer of the pious Emperor and sometimes to the +incantations of an Egyptian sorcerer named Arnuphis. + +One of the Fathers, the passionate and eloquent Tertullian, attributes +to this deliverance an interposition of the Emperor in favour of the +Christians, and appeals to a letter of his to the Senate in which he +acknowledged how effectual had been the aid he had received from +Christian prayers, and forbade any one hereafter to molest the followers +of the new religion, lest they should use against him the weapon of +supplication which had been so powerful in his favour. This letter is +preserved at the end of the _Apology_ of Justin Martyr, and it adds +that, not only are no Christians to be injured or persecuted, but that +any one who informed against them is to be burned alive! We see at once +that this letter is one of those impudent and transparent forgeries in +which the literature of the first five centuries unhappily abounds. What +was the real relation of Marcus to the Christians we shall consider +hereafter. + +To the gentle heart of Marcus, all war, even when accompanied with +victories, was eminently distasteful; and in such painful and ungenial +occupations no small part of his life was passed. What he thought of war +and of its successes is graphically set forth in the following remark:-- + +"A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another when he has +caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a +net, and another when he has taken wild boars or bears, _and another +when he has taken Sarmatians._ Are not these robbers, when thou +examinest their principles?" He here condemns his own involuntary +actions; but it was his unhappy destiny not to have trodden out the +embers of this war before he was burdened with another far more painful +and formidable. + +This was the revolt of Avidius Cassius, a general of the old blunt Roman +type, whom, in spite of some ominous warnings, Marcus both loved and +trusted. The ingratitude displayed by such a man caused Marcus the +deepest anguish; but he was saved from all dangerous consequences by the +wide-spread affection which he had inspired by his virtuous reign. + +The very soldiers of the rebellious general fell away from him; and, +after he had been a nominal Emperor for only three months and six days, +he was assassinated by some of his own officers. His head was sent to +Marcus, who received it with sorrow, and did not hold out to the +murderers the slightest encouragement. The joy of success was swallowed +up in regret that his enemy had not lived to allow him the luxury of a +genuine forgiveness. He begged the Senate to pardon all the family of +Cassius, and to suffer this single life to be the only one forfeited in +consequence of civil war. The Fathers received these proofs of clemency +with the rapture which they deserved, and the Senate-house resounded +with acclamations and blessings. + +Never had a formidable conspiracy been more quietly and effectually +crushed. Marcus travelled through the provinces which had favoured the +cause of Avidius Cassius, and treated them all with the most complete +and indulgent forbearance. When he arrived in Syria, the correspondence +of Cassius was brought to him, and, with a glorious magnanimity of which +history affords but few examples, he consigned it all to the +flames unread. + +During this journey of pacification, he lost his wife Faustina, who died +suddenly in one of the valleys of Mount Taurus. History, or the +collection of anecdotes which at this period often passes as history, +has assigned to Faustina a character of the darkest infamy, and it has +even been made a charge against Aurelius that he overlooked or condoned +her offences. As far as Faustina is concerned, we have not much to say, +although there is strong reason to believe that many of the stories told +of her are scandalously exaggerated, if not absolutely false. Certain it +is, that most of the imputations upon her memory rest on the malignant +anecdotes recorded by Dion, who dearly loved every piece of scandal +which degraded human nature. The _specific_ charge brought against her +of having tempted Cassius from his allegiance is wholly unsupported, +even if it be not absolutely incompatible with what we find in her own +existent letters; and, finally, Marcus himself not only loved her +tenderly, as the kind mother of his eleven children, but in his +_Meditations_ actually thanks the gods for having granted him "such a +wife, so obedient so affectionate, and so simple." No doubt Faustina was +unworthy of her husband; but surely it is the glory and not the shame of +a noble nature to be averse from jealousy and suspicion, and to trust to +others more deeply than they deserve. + +So blameless was the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that neither the +malignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of posthumous scandal has +succeeded in discovering any flaw in the extreme integrity of his life +and principles. But meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The +hatred of all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the memory +of great men rages, though less openly, in the minds of many. They +delight to degrade human life into that dull and barren plain "in which +every molehill is a mountain, and every thistle a forest-tree." Great +men are as small in their eyes as they are said to be in the eyes of +their valets; and there are multitudes who, if they find + + "Some stain or blemish in a name of note, + Not grieving that their greatest are so small, + Innate themselves with some insane delight, + And judge all nature from her feet of clay, + Without the will to lift their eyes, and see + Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire, + And touching other worlds." + +This I suppose is the reason why, failing to drag down Marcus Aurelius +from his moral elevation, some have attempted to assail his reputation +because of the supposed vileness of Faustina and the actual depravity of +Commodus. Of Faustina I have spoken already. Respecting Commodus, I +think it sufficient to ask with Solomon: "Who knoweth whether his son +shall be a wise man or a fool?" Commodus was but nineteen when his +father died; for the first three years of his reign he ruled respectably +and acceptably. Marcus Aurelius had left no effort untried to have him +trained aright by the first teachers and the wisest men whom the age +produced; and Herodian distinctly tells us that he had lived virtuously +up to the time of his father's death. Setting aside natural affection +altogether, and even assuming (as I should conjecture from one or two +passages of his _Meditations_) that Marcus had misgivings about his son, +would it have been easy, would it have been even possible, to set aside +on general grounds a son who had attained to years of maturity? However +this may be, if there are any who think it worth while to censure Marcus +because, after all, Commodus turned out to be but "a warped slip of +wilderness," their censure is hardly sufficiently discriminating to +deserve the trouble of refutation. + +"But Marcus Aurelius cruelly persecuted the Christians." Let us briefly +consider this charge. That persecutions took place in his reign is an +undeniable fact, and is sufficiently evidenced by the Apologies of +Justin Martyr, of Melito Bishop of Sardis, of Athenagoras, and of +Apollinarius, as well as by the Letter of the Church of Smyrna +describing the martyrdom of Polycarp, and that of the Churches of Lyons +and Vienne to their brethren in Asia Minor. It is fair, however, to +mention that there is some documentary evidence on the other side; +Lactantius clearly asserts that under the reigns of those excellent +princes who succeeded Domitian the Church suffered no violence from her +enemies, and "spread her hands towards the East and the West:" +Tertullian, writing but twenty years after the death of Marcus, +distinctly says (and Eusebius quotes the assertion), that there were +letters of the Emperor, in which he not only attributed his delivery +among the Quadi to the prayers of Christian soldiers in the "Thundering +Legion," but ordered any who informed against the Christians to be most +severely punished; and at the end of the works of Justin Martyr is found +a letter of similar purport, which is asserted to have been addressed by +Marcus to the Senate of Rome. We may set aside these peremptory +testimonies, we may believe that Tertullian and Eusebius were mistaken, +and that the documents to which they referred were spurious; but this +should make us also less certain about the prominent participation of +the Emperor in these persecutions. My own belief is (and it is a belief +which could be supported by many critical arguments), that his share in +causing them was almost infinitesimal. If those who love his memory +reject the evidence of Fathers in his favour, they may be at least +permitted to withhold assent from some of the assertions in virtue of +which he is condemned. + +Marcus in his _Meditations_ alludes to the Christians once only, and +then it is to make a passing complaint of the indifference to death, +which appeared to him, as it appeared to Epictetus, to arise, not from +any noble principles, but from mere obstinacy and perversity. That he +shared the profound dislike with which Christians were regarded is very +probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent persecutor is utterly +unlike his whole character, essentially at variance with his habitual +clemency, alien to the spirit which made him interfere in every possible +instance to mitigate the severity of legal punishments, and may in short +be regarded as an assertion which is altogether false. Who will believe +that a man who during his reign built and dedicated but one single +temple, and that a Temple to Beneficence; that a man who so far from +showing any jealousy respecting foreign religions allowed honour to be +paid to them all; that a man whose writings breathe on every page the +inmost spirit of philanthropy and tenderness, went out of his way to +join in a persecution of the most innocent, the most courageous, and the +most inoffensive of his subjects? + +The true state of the case seems to have been this. The deep calamities +in which, during the whole reign of Marcus the Empire was involved, +caused wide-spread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the feelings +of the provincials against men whose atheism (for such they considered +it to be) had kindled the anger of the gods. This fury often broke out +into paroxisms of popular excitement, which none but the firmest-minded +governers were able to moderate or to repress. Marcus, when appealed to, +simply let the existing law take its usual course. That law was as old +as the time of Trajan. The young Pliny, Governor of Bithynia, had +written to ask Trajan how he was to deal with the Christians, whose +blamelessness of life he fully admitted, but whose doctrines, he said, +had emptied the temples of the gods, and exasperated their worshippers. +Trajan in reply had ordered that the Christians should not be _sought_ +for, but that, if they were brought before the governor, and proved to +be contumacious in refusing to adjure their religion, they were then to +be put to death. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius had continued the same +policy, and Marcus Aurilius saw no reason to alter it. But this law, +which in quiet times might become a mere dead letter, might at more +troubled periods be converted into a dangerous engine of persecution, as +it was in the case of the venerable Polycarp, and in the unfortunate +Churches of Lyons and Vienne. The Pagans believed that the reason why +their gods were smiling in secret,-- + + "Looking over wasted lands, + Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery + sands,-- + + "Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying + hands,--" + +was the unbelief and impiety of these hated Galileans, causes of offence +which could only be expiated by the death of the guilty. "Their +enemies," says Tertullian, "call aloud for the blood of the innocent, +alleging this vain pretext for their hatred, that they believe the +Christians to be the cause of every public misfortune. If the Tiber has +overflowed its banks, or the Nile has not overflowed, if heaven has +refused its rain, if famine or the plague has spread its ravages, the +cry is immediate, 'The Christians to the lions.'" In the first three +centuries the cry of "No Christianity" became at times as brutal, as +violent, and as unreasoning as the cry of "No Popery" has often been in +modern days. It was infinitely less disgraceful to Marcus to lend his +ear to the one than it has been to some eminent modern statesmen to be +carried away by the insensate fury of the other. + +To what extent is Marcus Aurelius to be condemned for the martyrdoms +which took place in his reign? Not, I think, heavily or +indiscriminately, or with vehement sweeping censure. Common justice +surely demands that we should not confuse the present with the past, or +pass judgment on the conduct of the Emperor as though he were living in +the nineteenth century, or as though he had been acting in full +cognisance of the Gospels and the stones of the Saints. Wise and good +men before him had, in their haughty ignorance, spoken of Christianity +with execration and contempt. The philosophers who surrounded his throne +treated it with jealousy and aversion. The body of the nation firmly +believed the current rumours which charged its votaries with horrible +midnight assemblies, rendered infamous by Thyestian banquets and the +atrocities of nameless superstitions. These foul calumnies--these +hideous charges of cannibalism and incest,--were supported by the +reiterated perjury of slaves under torture, which in that age, as well +as long afterwards, was preposterously regarded as a sure criterion +of truth. + +Christianity in that day was confounded with a multitude of debased and +foreign superstitions; and the Emperor in his judicial capacity, if he +ever encountered Christians at all, was far more likely to encounter +those who were unworthy of the name, than to become acquainted with the +meek, unworldly, retiring virtues of the calmest, the holiest, and the +best. When we have given their due weight to considerations such as +these we shall be ready to pardon Marcus Aurelius for having, in this +matter, acted ignorantly, and to admit that in persecuting Christianity +he may most honestly have thought that he was doing God service. The +very sincerity of his belief, the conscientiousness of his rule, the +intensity of his philanthrophy, the grandeur of his own philosophical +tenets, all conspired to make him a worse enemy of the Church than a +brutal Commodus or a disgusting Heliogabalus. And yet that there was not +in him the least _propensity_ to persecute; that these persecutions were +for the most part spontaneous and accidental; that they were in no +measure due to his direct instigation, or in special accordance with his +desire, is clear from the fact that the martyrdoms took place in Gaul +and Asia Minor, _not in Rome_. There must have been hundreds of +Christians in Rome, and under the very eye of the Emperor; nay, there +were even multitudes of Christians in his own army; yet we never hear of +his having molested any of them. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in addressing +the Emperor, expresses a doubt as to whether he was really aware of the +manner in which his Christian subjects were treated. Justin Martyr, in +his _Apology_, addresses him in terms of perfect confidence and deep +respect. In short he was in this matter "blameless, but unfortunate." It +is painful to think that the venerable Polycarp, and the thoughtful +Justin may have forfeited their lives for their principles, not only in +the reign of so good a man, but even by virtue of his authority; but we +must be very uncharitable or very unimaginative if we cannot readily +believe that, though they had received the crown of martyrdom from his +hands, the redeemed spirits of those great martyrs would have been the +first to welcome this holiest of the heathen into the presence of a +Saviour whose Church he persecuted, but to whose indwelling Spirit his +virtues were due? whom ignorantly and unconsciously he worshipped, and +whom had he ever heard of Him and known Him, he would have loved in his +heart and glorified by the consistency of his noble and stainless life. + +The persecution of the Churches in Lyons and Vienne happened in A.D. +177. Shortly after this period fresh wars recalled the Emperor to the +North. It is said that, in despair of ever seeing him again, the chief +men of Rome entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, and +that for three days he discoursed to them on philosophical questions. +When he arrived at the seat of war, victory again crowned his arms. But +Marcus was now getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials, +and travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties +and bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia, either +at Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of +his age and the twentieth of his reign. + +Death to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that "there is no man +so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who +are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and +wise man, will there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let us at +last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster. It is true +that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns +us.'... Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart +more contentedly by reflecting thus: 'I am going away _from a life in +which even my associates, on behalf of whom I have striven, and cared, +and prayed so much, themselves wish me to depart_, hoping perchance to +get some little advantage by it.' Why then should a man cling to a +longer stay here? _Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindly +disposed to them, but preserving thy own character, and continuing +friendly, and benevolent, and kind_" And dreading death far less than he +dreaded any departure from the laws of virtue, he exclaims, "Come +quickly, O Death, for fear that at last I should forget myself." This +utterance has been well compared to the language which Bossuet put into +the mouth of a Christian soul:--"O Death; thou dost not trouble my +designs, thou accomplishest them. Haste, then, O favourable Death!... +_Nunc Dimittis_." + +A nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul,--a soul less elated by +prosperity, or more constant in adversity--a soul more fitted by virtue, +and chastity, and self-denial to enter into the eternal peace, never +passed into the presence of its Heavenly Father. We are not surprised +that all, whose means permitted it, possessed themselves of his statues, +and that they were to be seen for years afterwards among the household +gods of heathen families, who felt themselves more hopeful and more +happy from the glorious sense of possibility which was inspired by the +memory of one who, in the midst of difficulties, and breathing an +atmosphere heavy with corruption, yet showed himself so wise, so great, +so good a man. + + O framed for nobler times and calmer hearts! + O studious thinker, eloquent for truth! + Philosopher, despising wealth and death, + But patient, childlike, full of life and love! + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE "MEDITATIONS" OF MARCUS AURELIUS. + +Emperor as he was, Marcus Aurelius found himself in a hollow and +troublous world; but he did not give himself up to idle regret or +querulous lamentations. If these sorrows and perturbations came from the +gods, he kissed the hand that smote him; "he delivered up his broken +sword to Fate the conqueror with a humble and a manly heart." In any +case he had _duties_ to do, and he set himself to perform them with a +quiet heroism--zealously, conscientiously, even cheerfully. + +The principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the hard and definite +lines of a philosophic system. But the great laws which guided his +actions and moulded his views of life were few and simple, and in his +book of _Meditations_, which is merely his private diary written to +relieve his mind amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to +them again and again. "Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery," he +says to himself, "will wipe out those holy principles of thine;" and +this is why he committed those principles to writing. Some of these I +have already adduced, and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as +before, of the beautiful and scholar-like translation of Mr. +George Long. + +All pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Emperor to be most +wisely regarded under a threefold aspect, namely, if considered in +reference to the gods, as being due to laws beyond their control; if +considered with reference to the nature of things, as being subservient +and necessary; and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being +dependent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with which we +endure them. + +The following passages will elucidate these points of view:-- + +"The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly it has made the +inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the +superior to one another." (v. 30.) + +"Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain +immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is +within.... _The Universe is Transformation; life is opinion_" (iv. 3.) + +"To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs +water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why +then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power +than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a +mad dog?" (vi. 52.) + +"How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is +troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity." +(v. 2.) + +The passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a _relative_ thing,--as +being good in the making,--the unripe and bitter bud of that which shall +be hereafter a beautiful flower,--although not expressed with perfect +clearness, yet indicate his belief that our view of evil things rises in +great measure from our inability to perceive the great whole of which +they are but subservient parts. + +"All things," he says, "come from that universal ruling power, either +directly or by way of consequence. _And accordingly the lion's gaping +jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, +as mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful_. Do not therefore +imagine that they are of another kind from that which thou dost +venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all." + +In another curious passage he says that all things which are natural and +congruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and +attractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and +corrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked. "And again, +figs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very +circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty +to the fruit. And _the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars_, and +many other things--though they are far from being beautiful, if a man +should examine them severally--still, because they are consequent upon +the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they +please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper +insight about the things found in the universe there is hardly _one of +those which follow by way of consequence_ which will not seem to him to +be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure." (iv. 2.) + +This congruity to nature--the following of nature, and obedience to all +her laws--is the key-formula to the doctrines of the Roman Stoics. + +"Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and +terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither +worse, then, nor better is a thing made by being praised.... _Is such a +thing as an emerald made worse than it was, if it is not praised? or +gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a flower, a shrub_?" +(iv. 20.) + +"Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. +Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. +Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature! from thee +are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. _The +poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear city of +God_?" (iv. 23.) + +"Willingly give thyself up to fate, allowing her to spin thy thread into +whatever thing she pleases." (iv. 34.) + +And here, in a very small matter--getting out of bed in a morning--is +one practical application of the formula:-- + +"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let these thoughts be +present--'I am rising to the work of a human being. _Why, then, am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and for +which I was brought into the world_? Or have I been made for this, to +lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?' 'But this is more +pleasant.' _Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not for +action or exertion_? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little +birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order +their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the +work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is +according to thy nature?" (v. 1.) ["Go to the ant, thou sluggard; +consider her ways, and be wise!"] + +The same principle, that Nature has assigned to us our proper +place--that a task has been given us to perform, and that our only care +should be to perform it aright, for the blessing of the great Whole of +which we are but insignificant parts--dominates through the admirable +precepts which the Emperor lays down for the regulation of our conduct +towards others. Some men, he says, do benefits to others only because +they expect a return; some men even, if they do not demand any return, +are not _forgetful_ that they have rendered a benefit; but others do not +even know what they have done, but _are like a vine which has produced +grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its proper +fruit_. So we ought to do good to others as simple and as naturally as a +horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after +season, without thinking of the grapes which it has borne. And in +another passage, "What more dost thou want when thou hast done a service +to another? Art thou not content to have done an act conformable to thy +nature, and must thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye +demanded a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking?" + +"Judge every word and deed which is according to nature to be fit for +thee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows...but if a thing is +good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee." (v. 3.) + +Sometimes, indeed, Marcus Aurelius wavers. The evils of life overpower +him. "Such as bathing appears to thee," he says, "_oil, sweat, dirt, +filthy water, all things disgusting--so is every part of life and +everything_" (viii. 24); and again:--"Of human life the time is a point, +and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the +composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a +whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment." +But more often he retains his perfect tranquillity, and says, "Either +thou livest here, and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou +art going away, and this was thine own will; or thou art dying, and hast +discharged thy duty. _But besides these things there is nothing. Be of +good cheer, then_." (x. 22.) "Take me, and cast me where thou wilt, for +then I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can +feel and act conformably to its proper constitution." (viii. 45.) + +There is something delightful in the fact that even in the Stoic +philosophy there was some comfort to keep men from despair. To a holy +and scrupulous conscience like that of Marcus, there would have been an +inestimable preciousness in the Christian doctrine of the "forgiveness +of the sins." Of that divine mercy--of that sin-uncreating power--the +ancient world knew nothing; but in Marcus we find some dim and faint +adumbration of the doctrine, expressed in a manner which might at least +breathe calm into the spirit of the philosopher, though it could never +reach the hearts of the suffering multitude. For "suppose," he says, +"that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast +made by nature a part, but now hast cut thyself off--_yet here is the +beautiful provision that it is in thy power again to unite thyself_. God +has allowed this to no other part--after it has been separated and cut +asunder, to come together again. _But consider the goodness with which +He has privileged man; for He has put it in his power, when he has been +separated, to return and to be reunited, and to resume his place_" And +elsewhere he says, "If you cannot maintain a true and magnanimous +character, go courageously into some corner where you _can_ maintain +them; or if even there you fail, depart at once from life, not with +passion, but with modest and simple freedom--which will be to have done +at least _one_ laudable act." Sad that even to Marcus Aurelius death +should have seemed the only refuge from the despair of ultimate failure +in the struggle to be wise and good! + +Marcus valued temperance and self-denial as being the best means of +keeping his heart strong and pure; but we are glad to learn he did _not_ +value the rigours of asceticism. Life brought with it enough, and more +than enough, of antagonism to brace his nerves; enough, and more than +enough, of the rough wind of adversity in his face to make it +unnecessary to add more by his own actions. "It is not fit," he says, +"that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given +pain even to another." (viii. 42.) + +It was a commonplace of ancient philosophy that the life of the wise man +should be a contemplation of, and a preparation for, death. It certainly +was so with Marcus Aurelius. The thoughts of the nothingness of man, and +of that great sea of oblivion which shall hereafter swallow up all that +he is and does, are ever present to his mind; they are thoughts to which +he recurs more constantly than any other, and from which he always draws +the same moral lesson. + +"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very +moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.... Death certainly, +and life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, all these things +happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither +better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil." (ii. 11.) + +Elsewhere he says that Hippocrates cured diseases and died; and the +Chaldaeans foretold the future and died; and Alexander, and Pompey, and +Caesar killed thousands, and then died; and lice destroyed Democritus, +and other lice killed Socrates; and Augustus, and his wife, and +daughter, and all his descendants, and all his ancestors, are dead; and +Vespasian and all his Court, and all who in his day feasted, and +married, and were sick and chaffered, and fought, and flattered, and +plotted, and grumbled, and wished other people to die, and pined to +become kings or consuls, are dead; and all the idle people who are doing +the same things now are doomed to die; and all human things are smoke, +and nothing at all; and it is not for us, but for the gods, to settle +whether we play the play out, or only a part of it. "_There are many +grains of frankincense on the same altar; one falls before, another +falls after; but it makes no difference._" And the moral of all these +thoughts is, "Death hangs over thee while thou livest: while it is in +thy power be good." (iv. 17.) "Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the +voyage, thou hast come to shore; get out. If, indeed, to another life +there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without +sensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures." (iii. 3.) + +Nor was Marcus at all comforted under present annoyances by the thought +of posthumous fame. "How ephemeral and worthless human things are," he +says, "and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy +or ashes." "Many who are now praising thee, will very soon blame thee, +and neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor +anything else." What has become of all great and famous men, and all +they desired, and all they loved? They are "smoke, and ash, and a tale, +or not even a tale." After all their rages and envyings, men are +stretched out quiet and dead at last. Soon thou wilt have forgotten all, +and soon all will have forgotten thee. But here, again, after such +thoughts, the same moral is always introduced again:--"Pass then through +the little space of time conformably to nature, and end the journey in +content, _just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature +who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew_" "One thing +only troubles me, lest I should do something which the constitution of +man does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow, or what it +does not allow now." + +To quote the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius is to me a fascinating task. But +I have already let him speak so largely for himself that by this time +the reader will have some conception of his leading motives. It only +remains to adduce a few more of the weighty and golden sentences in +which he lays down his rule of life. + +"To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, +and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour; and life is a +warfare, and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. What, +then, is that which is able to enrich a man? One thing, and only +one--philosophy. But this consists in keeping the guardian spirit within +a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, +_doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely, and with +hypocrisy_... _accepting all that happens and all that is +allotted_ ... _and finally waiting for death with a cheerful +mind_" (ii. 17.) + +"If thou findest in human life anything better than justice, truth, +temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than thine own soul's +satisfaction in the things which it enables thee to do according to +right reason, and In the condition that is assigned to thee without thy +own choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, turn to it +with all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou hast found to be the best. +But ... if thou findest everything else smaller and of less value than +this, give place to nothing else.... Simply and freely choose the +better, and hold to it." (iii. 6.) + +"Body, soul, intelligence: to the body belong sensations, to the soul +appetites, to the intelligence principles." To be impressed by the +senses is peculiar to animals; to be pulled by the strings of desire +belongs to effeminate men, and to men like Phalaris or Nero; to be +guided only by intelligence belongs to atheists and traitors, and "men +who do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors.... There +remains that which is peculiar to the good man, _to be pleased and +content with what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him; +and not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast_, nor +disturb it by a crowd of images; but to preserve it tranquil, following +it obediently as a god, neither saying anything contrary to truth, nor +doing anything contrary to justice. (iii. 16.) + +"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, +and mountains, and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. +But this is altogether a mark of the commonest sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt chose to retire into thyself. For _nowhere +either with more quiet or with more freedom does a man retire than into +his own soul_, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by +looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity,--which is +nothing else than the good ordering of the mind." (iv. 3.) + +"Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am I +_though_ this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain; +neither crushed by the present, nor fearing the future." (iv. 19.) + +It is just possible that in some of these passages some readers may +detect a trace of painful self-consciousness, and _imagine_ that they +detect a little grain of self-complacence. Something of +self-consciousness is perhaps inevitable in the diary and examination +of his own conscience by one who sat on such a lonely height; but +self-complacency there is none. Nay, there is sometimes even a cruel +sternness in the way in which the Emperor speaks of his own self. He +certainly dealt not with himself in the manner of a dissembler with God. +"When," he says (x. 8), "thou hast assumed the names of a man who is +good, modest, rational, magnanimous, cling to those names; and if thou +shouldst lose them, quickly return to them.... _For to continue to_ _be +such as thou hast hitherto been_, and to be torn in pieces, and defiled +in such a life, is the character of a very stupid man, and one over-fond +of his life, and _like those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, +who, though covered with wounds and gore, still entreat to be kept till +the following day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the +same claws and bites_. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these +few names: and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou were +removed to the Islands of the Blest." Alas! to Aurelius, in this life, +the Islands of the Blest were very far away. Heathen philosophy was +exalted and eloquent, but all its votaries were sad; to "the peace of +God, which passeth all understanding," it was not given them to attain. +We see Marcus "wise, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless," says +Mr. Arnold, "yet with all this agitated, stretching out his arms for +something beyond--_tendentemque manue ripae ulterioris amore_" + +I will quote in conclusion but three short precepts:-- + +"Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tranquillity which +others give. _A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by +others_." (iv. 5.) + +"_Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but +it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it_" (iv. 49.) + +This comparison has been used many a time since the days of Marcus +Aurelius. The reader will at once recall Goldsmith's famous lines:-- + + "As some tall cliff that rears its awful form, + Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, + Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, + Eternal sunshine settles on its head." + +"Short is the little that remains to thee of life. _Live as on a +mountain_. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here, +if he lives everywhere in the world as in a civil community. Let men +see, let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live. If they +cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live as +men do." (x. 15.) + +Such were some of the thoughts which Marcus Aurelius wrote in his diary +after days of battle with the Quadi, and the Marcomanni, and the +Sarmatae. Isolated from others no less by moral grandeur than by the +supremacy of his sovereign rank, he sought the society of his own noble +soul. I sometimes imagine that I see him seated on the borders of some +gloomy Pannonian forest or Hungarian marsh; through the darkness the +watchfires of the enemy gleam in the distance; but both among them, and +in the camp around him, every sound is hushed, except the tread of the +sentinel outside the imperial tent; and in that tent long after midnight +sits the patient Emperor by the light of his solitary lamp, and ever and +anon, amid his lonely musings, he pauses to write down the pure and holy +thoughts which shall better enable him, even in a Roman palace, even on +barbarian battlefields, daily to tolerate the meanness and the +malignity of the men around him; daily to amend his own shortcomings, +and, as the sun of earthly life begins to set, daily to draw nearer and +nearer to the Eternal Light. And when I thus think of him, I know not +whether the whole of heathen antiquity, out of its gallery of stately +and royal figures, can furnish a nobler, or purer, or more lovable +picture than that of this crowned philosopher and laurelled hero, who +was yet one of the humblest and one of the most enlightened of all +ancient "Seekers after God." + + + +CONCLUSION. + +A sceptical writer has observed, with something like a sneer, that the +noblest utterances of Gospel morality may be paralleled from the +writings of heathen philosophers. The sneer is pointless, and Christian +moralists have spontaneously drawn attention to the fact. In this +volume, so far from trying to conceal that it is so, I have taken +pleasure in placing side by side the words of Apostles and of +Philosophers. The divine origin of Christianity does not rest on its +morality alone. By the aid of the light which was within them, by +deciphering the law written on their own consciences, however much its +letters may have been obliterated or dimmed, Plato, and Cicero, and +Seneca, and Epictetus, and Aurelius were enabled to grasp and to +enunciate a multitude of great and memorable truths; yet they themselves +would have been the first to admit the wavering uncertainty of their +hopes and speculations, and the absolute necessity of a further +illumination. So strong did that necessity appear to some of the wisest +among them, that Socrates ventures in express words to prophesy the +future advent of some heaven-sent Guide.[70] Those who imagine that +_without_ a written revelation it would have been possible to learn all +that is necessary for man's well-being, are speaking in direct +contradiction of the greatest heathen teachers, in contradiction even of +those very teachers to whose writing they point as the proof of their +assertion. Augustine was expressing a very deep conviction when he said +that in Plato and in Cicero he met with many utterances which were +beautiful and wise, but among them all he never found, "Come unto me, +all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." +Glorious as was the wisdom of ancient thought, its knowledge respecting +the indwelling of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and the +forgiveness of sins, was but fragmentary and vague. Bishop Butler has +justly remarked that "The great doctrines of a future state, the dangers +of a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance are not only +_confirmed_ in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with +a degree of light to which that of nature is darkness." + +[Footnote 70: Xen. Mem. 1, iv. 14; Plato, Alcib. ii.] + +The morality of Paganism was, on its own confession, _insufficient_. It +was tentative, where Christianity is authoritative: it was dim and +partial, where Christianity is bright and complete; it was inadequate to +rouse the sluggish carelessness of mankind, where Christianity came in +with an imperial and awakening power; it gives only a _rule_, where +Christianity supplies a _principle_. And even where its teachings were +absolutely coincident with those of Scripture, it failed to ratify them +with a sufficient sanction; it failed to announce them with the same +powerful and contagious ardour; it failed to furnish an absolutely +faultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire them +with an irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a powerful +comfort under the difficulties which were sure to be encountered in the +aim after a consistent and holy life. + +The attempts of the Christian Fathers to show that the truths of ancient +philosophy were borrowed from Scripture are due in some cases to +ignorance and in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial +dealing. That Gideon (Jerubbaal) is identical with the priest +Hierombalos who supplied information to Sanchoniathon, the Berytian; +that Thales pieced together a philosophy from fragments of Jewish truth +learned in Phoenicia; that Pythagoras and Democritus availed themselves +of Hebraic traditions, collected during their travels; that Plato is a +mere "Atticising Moses;" that Aristotle picked up his ethical system +from a Jew whom he met in Asia; that Seneca corresponded with St. Paul: +are assertions every bit as unhistorical and false as that Homer was +thinking of Genesis when he described the shield of Achilles, or (as +Clemens of Alexandria gravely informs us) that Miltiades won the battle +of Marathon by copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say +that Pagan morality "kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, +whether furtively or unconsciously taken," and that it "dissembled the +obligation, and made a boast of the splendour as though it were +originally her own, or were sufficient in her hands for the moral +illumination of the world;" is to make an assertion wholly +untenable.[71] Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius, are among the truest and +loftiest of Pagan moralists, yet Seneca ignored the Christians, +Epictetus despised, and Aurelius persecuted them. All three, so far as +they knew anything about the Christians at all, had unhappily been +taught to look upon them as the most detestable sect of what they had +long regarded as the most degraded and the most detestable of religions. + +[Footnote 71: See for various statements in this passage, Josephus, _c. +Apion_. ii. Section 36; Cic. _De Fin_. v. 25; Clem. Alex. _Strom_, 1, +xxii. 150, xxv. v. 14; Euseb.; _Prof. Evang_. x. 4, ix. 5, &c.; Lactant. +_Inst. Div_. iv. 2, &c.] + +There is something very touching in this fact; but, if there be +something very touching, there is also something very encouraging. God +was their God as well as ours--their Creator, their Preserver, who left +not Himself without witness among them; who, as they blindly felt after +Him, suffered their groping hands to grasp the hem of His robe; who sent +them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with +joy and gladness. And His Spirit was with them, dwelling in them, though +unseen and unknown, purifying and sanctifying the temple of their +hearts, sending gleams of illuminating light through the gross darkness +which encompassed them, comforting their uncertainties, making +intercession for them with groaning which cannot be uttered. And more +than all, _our_ Saviour was _their_ Saviour, too; He, whom they regarded +as a crucified malefactor was their true invisible King; through His +righteousness their poor merits were accepted; their inward sicknesses +were healed; He whose worship they denounced as an "execrable +superstition" stood supplicating for them at the right hand of the +Majesty on high, helping them (though they knew Him not) to crush all +that was evil within them, and pleading for them when they persecuted +even the most beloved of His saints, "Father, forgive them; for they +know not what they do." + +Yes, they too were all His offspring. Even if they had not been, should +we grudge that some of the children's meat should be given unto dogs? +Shall we deny to these "unconscious prophecies of heathendom" their +oracular significance? Shall we be jealous of the ethical loftiness of +a Plato or an Aurelius? Shall we be loth to admit that some power of the +Spirit of Christ, even mid the dark wanderings of Seneca's life, kept +him still conscious of a nobler and a better way, or that some sweetness +of a divine hope inspired the depressions of Epictetus in his slavery? +Shall our eye be evil because God in His goodness granted the heathen +also to know such truths as enabled them "to overcome the allurements of +the visible and the terrors of the invisible world?" Yes, if we have of +the Christian Church so mean a conception that we look upon it as a mere +human society, "set up in the world to defend a certain religion against +a certain other religion." But if on the other hand we believe "that it +was _a society established by God as a witness for the true condition of +all human beings_, we shall rejoice to acknowledge its members to be +what they believed themselves to be,--confessors and martyrs for a truth +which they could not fully embrace or comprehend, but which, through +their lives and deaths, through the right and wrong acts, the true and +false words, of those who understand them least, was to manifest and +prove itself. Those who hold this conviction dare not conceal, or +misrepresent, or undervalue, any one of those weighty and memorable +sentences which are to be found in the _Meditation_ of Marcus Aurelius. +_If they did, they would be underrating a portion of that very truth +which the preachers of the Gospel were appointed to set forth_; they +would be adopting the error of the philosophical Emperor without his +excuse for it. Nor dare they pretend that the Christian teaching had +unconsciously imparted to him a portion of its own light while he seemed +to exclude it. They will believe that it was God's good pleasure that a +certain truth should be seized and apprehended by this age, and they +will see indications of what that truth was in the efforts of Plutarch +to understand the 'Daemon' which guided Socrates, in the courageous +language of Ignatius, in the bewildering dreams of the Gnostics, in the +eagerness of Justin Martyr to prove Christianity a philosophy ... in the +apprehension of Christian principles by Marcus Aurelius, and in his +hatred of the Christians. From every side they will derive evidence, +_that a doctrine and society which were meant for mankind cannot depend +upon, the partial views and apprehensions of men, must go on justifying, +reconciling, confuting, those views and apprehensions by the +demonstration of facts_" [72] + +[Footnote 72: Maurice, _Philos. of the First Six Centuries_, p. 37. We +venture specially to recommend this weighty and beautiful passage to the +reader's serious attention.] + +But perhaps some reader will say, What advantage, then, can we gain by +studying in Pagan writers truths which are expressed more nobly, more +clearly, and infinitely more effectually in our own sacred books? Before +answering the question, let me mention the traditional anecdote[73] of +the Caliph Omar. When he conquered Alexandria, he was shown its +magnificent library, in which were collected untold treasures of +literature, gathered together by the zeal, the labour, and the +liberality of a dynasty of kings. "What is the good of all those books?" +he said. "They are either in accordance with the Koran, or contrary to +it. If the former they are superfluous; if the latter they are +pernicious. In either case let them be burnt." Burnt they were, as +legend tells; but all the world has condemned the Caliph's reasoning as +a piece of stupid Philistinism and barbarous bigotry. Perhaps the +question as to the _use_ of reading Pagan ethics is equally +unphilosophical; at any rate, we can spare but very few words to its +consideration. The answer obviously is, that God has spoken to men, +[Greek: polymeros kai polytropos], "at sundry times and in divers +manners," [74] with a richly variegated wisdom.[75] Sometimes He has +taught truth by the voice of Hebrew prophets, sometimes by the voice of +Pagan philosophers. And _all_ His voices demand our listening ear. If it +was given to the Jew to speak with diviner insight and intenser power, +it is given to the Gentile also to speak at times with a large and lofty +utterance, and we may learn truth from men of alien lips and another +tongue. They, too, had the dream, the vision, the dark saying upon the +harp, the "daughter of a voice," the mystic flashes upon the graven +gems. And such truths come to us with a singular force and freshness; +with a strange beauty as the doctrines of a less brightly illuminated +manhood; with a new power of conviction from their originality of form, +which, because it is less familiar to us, is well calculated to arrest +our attention after it has been paralysed by familiar repetitions. We +cannot afford to lose these heathen testimonies to Christian truth; or +to hush the glorious utterances of Muse and Sibyl which have justly +outlived "the drums and tramplings of a hundred triumphs." We may make +them infinitely profitable to us. If St. Paul quotes Aratus, and +Menander, and Epimenides,[76] and perhaps more than one lyrical melody +besides, with earnest appreciation,--if the inspired Apostle could both +learn himself and teach others out of the utterances of a Cretan +philosopher and an Attic comedian, we may be sure that many of Seneca's +apophthegams would have filled him with pleasure, and that he would have +been able to read Epictetus and Aurelius with the same noble admiration +which made him see with thankful emotion that memorable altar TO THE +UNKNOWN GOD. + +[Footnote 73: Now known to be unhistorical.] + +[Footnote 74: Heb. i. 1.] + +[Footnote 75: [Greek: polypoikilos dophia].] + +[Footnote 76: See Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor.; Tit. i. 12.] + +Let us then make a brief and final sketch of the three great Stoics +whose lives we have been contemplating, with a view to summing up their +specialties, their deficiencies, and the peculiar relations to, or +divergences from, Christian truth, which their writings present to us. + +"Seneca saepe noster," "Seneca, often our own," is the expression of +Tertullian, and he uses it as an excuse for frequent references to his +works. Yet if, of the three, he be most like Christianity in particular +passages, he diverges most widely from it in his general spirit. + +He diverges from Christianity in many of his modes of regarding life, +and in many of his most important beliefs. What, for instance, is his +main conception of the Deity? Seneca is generally a Pantheist. No doubt +he speaks of God's love and goodness, but with him God is no personal +living Father, but the soul of the universe--the fiery, primaeval, +eternal principle which transfuses an inert, and no less eternal, +matter, and of which our souls are, as it were, but divine particles or +passing sparks. "God," he says, "is Nature, is Fate, is Fortune, is the +Universe, is the all-pervading Mind. He cannot change the substance of +the universe, He is himself under the power of Destiny, which is +uncontrollable and immutable. It is not God who rolls the thunder, it is +Fate. He does not rejoice in His works, but is identical with them." In +fact, Seneca would have heartily adopted the words of Pope: + + "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, + Whose body nature is, and God the soul." + +Though there may be a vague sense in which those words may be admitted +and explained by Christians, yet, in the mind of Seneca, they led to +conclusions directly opposed to those of Christianity. With him, for +instance, the wise man is the _equal_ of God; not His adorer, not His +servant, not His suppliant, but His associate, His relation. He differs +from God in time alone. Hence all prayer is needless he says, and the +forms of external worship are superfluous and puerile. It is foolish to +beg for that which you can impart to yourself. "What need is there of +_vows_? Make _yourself_ happy." Nay, in the intolerable arrogance which +marked the worst aberration of Stoicism, the wise man is under certain +aspects placed even higher than God--higher than God Himself--because +God is beyond the reach of misfortunes, but the wise man is superior to +their anguish; and because God is good of necessity, but the wise man +from choice. This wretched and inflated paradox occurs in Seneca's +treatise _On Providence_, and in the same treatise he glorifies suicide, +and expresses a doubt as to the immortality of the soul. + +Again, the two principles on which Seneca relied as the basis of all his +moral system are: first, the principle that we ought to follow Nature; +and, secondly, the supposed perfectibility of the ideal man. + +1. Now, of course, if we explain this precept of "following Nature" as +Juvenal has explained it, and say that the voice of Nature is always +coincident with the voice of philosophy--if we prove that our real +nature is none other than the dictate of our highest and most nobly +trained reason, and if we can establish the fact that every deed of +cruelty, of shame, of lust, or of selfishness, is essentially +_contrary_ to our nature--then we may say with Bishop Butler, that the +precept to "follow Nature" is "a manner of speaking not loose and +undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." But how +complete must be the system, how long the preliminary training, which +alone can enable us to find any practical value, any appreciable aid to +a virtuous life, in a dogma such as this! And, in the hands of Seneca, +it becomes a very empty formula. He entirely lacked the keen insight and +dialectic subtlety of such a writer as Bishop Butler; and, in his +explanation of this Stoical shibboleth, any real meaning which it may +possess is evaporated into a gorgeous mist of confused declamation and +splendid commonplace. + +2. Nor is he much more fortunate with his ideal man. This pompous +abstraction presents us with a conception at once ambitious and sterile. +The Stoic wise man is a sort of moral Phoenix, impossible and repulsive. +He is intrepid in dangers, free from all passion, happy in adversity, +calm in the storm; he alone knows how to live, because he alone knows +how to die; he is the master of the world, because he is master of +himself, and the equal of God; he looks down upon everything with +sublime imperturbability, despising the sadnesses of humanity and +smiling with irritating loftiness at all our hopes and all our fears. +But, in another sketch of this faultless and unpleasant monster, Seneca +presents us, not the proud athlete who challenges the universe and is +invulnerable to all the stings and arrows of passion or of fate, but a +hero in the serenity of absolute triumph, more tender, indeed, but still +without desires, without passions, without needs, who can fell no pity, +because pity is a weakness which disturbs his sapient calm! Well might +the eloquent Bossuet exclaim, as he read of these chimerical +perfections, "It is to take a tone too lofty for feeble and mortal men. +But, O maxims truly pompous! O affected insensibility! O false and +imaginary wisdom! which fancies itself strong because it is hard, and +generous because it is puffed up! How are these principles opposed to +the modest simplicity of the Saviour of souls, who, in our Gospel +contemplating His faithful ones in affliction, confesses that they will +be saddened by it! _Ye shall weep and lament_." Shall Christians be +jealous of such wisdom as Stoicism did really attain, when they compare +this dry and bloodless ideal with Him who wept over Jerusalem and +mourned by the grave of Lazarus, who had a mother and a friend, who +disdained none, who pitied all, who humbled Himself to death, even the +death of the cross, whose divine excellence we cannot indeed attain +because He is God, but whose example we can imitate because He was +very man?[77] + +[Footnote 77: See Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 50; Aubertin, _Sénèque et +St. Paul_ p. 250.] + +The one grand aim of the life and philosophy of Seneca was _Ease_. It is +the topic which constantly recurs in his books _On a Happy Life, On +Tranquility of Mind, On Anger_, and _On the Ease_ and _On the Firmness +of the Sage_. It is the pitiless apathy, the stern repression, of every +form of emotion, which was constantly glorified as the aim of +philosophy. It made Stilpo exclaim, when he had lost wife, property, and +children, that he had lost nothing, because he carried in his own person +everything which he possessed. It led Seneca into all that is most +unnatural, all that is most fantastic, and all that is least sincere in +his writings; it was the bitter source of disgrace and failure in his +life. It comes out worst of all in his book _On Anger_. Aristotle had +said that "Anger was a good servant but a bad master;" Plato had +recognized the immense value and importance of the irascible element in +the moral constitution. Even Christian writers, in spite of Bishop +Butler, have often lost sight of this truth, and have forgotten that to +a noble nature "the hate of hate" and the "scorn of scorn" are as +indispensable as "the love of love." But Seneca almost gets angry +himself at the very notion of the wise man being angry and indignant +even against moral evil. No, he must not get angry, because it would +disturb his sublime calm; and, if he allowed himself to be angry at +wrong-doing, he would have to be angry all day long. This practical +Epicureanism, this idle acquiescence in the supposed incurability of +evil, poisoned all Seneca's career. "He had tutored himself," says +Professor Maurice, "to endure personal injuries without indulging an +anger; he had tutored himself to look upon all moral evil without anger. +If the doctrine is sound and the discipline desirable, we must be +content to take the whole result of them. If we will not do that, we +must resolve to hate oppression and wrong, _even at the cost of +philosophical composure"_ But repose is not to be our aim:-- + + "We have no right to bliss, + No title from the gods to welfare and repose." + +It is one of the truths which seems to me most needed in the modern +religious world, that the type of a Christian's virtue must be very +miserable, and ordinary, and ineffectual, if he does not feel his whole +soul burn within him with an almost implacable moral indignation at the +sight of cruelty and injustice, of Pharisaic faithlessness and +social crimes. + +I have thus freely criticised the radical defects of Stoicism, so far +as Seneca is its legitimate exponent; but I cannot consent to leave him +with the language of depreciation, and therefore here I will once more +endorse what an anonymous writer has said of him: "An unconscious +Christianity covers all his sentiments. If the fair fame of the man is +sullied, the aspiration to a higher life cannot be denied to the +philosopher; if the tinkling cymbal of a stilted Stoicism sometimes +sounds through the nobler music, it still leaves the truer melody +vibrating on the ear." + +2. If Seneca sought for EASE, the grand aim of Epictetus was FREEDOM, of +Marcus Aurelius was SELF-GOVERNMENT. This difference of aim +characterises their entire philosophy, though all three of them are +filled with precepts which arise from the Stoical contempt of opinion, +of fortune, and of death. "Epictetus, the slave, with imperturbable +calm, voluntarily strikes off the desire for all those blessings of +which fortune had already deprived him. Seneca, who lived in the Court, +fenced himself beforehand against misfortune with the spirit of a man of +the world and the emphasis of a master of eloquence. Marcus Aurelius, at +the zenith of human power--having nothing to dread except his passions, +and finding nothing above him except immutable necessity,--surveys his +own soul and meditates especially on the eternal march of things. The +one is the resigned slave, who neither desires nor fears; the other, the +great lord, who has everything to lose; the third, finally, the emperor, +who is dependent only on himself and upon God." + +Of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius we shall have very little to say by way +of summary, for they show no inconsistencies and very few of the +imperfections which characterise Seneca's ideal of the Stoic philosophy. +The "moral peddling," the pedagogic display, the puerile ostentation, +the antithetic brilliancy, which we have had to point out in Seneca, are +wanting in them. The picture of the _inner_ life, indeed, of Seneca, his +efforts after self-discipline, his untiring asceticism, his enthusiasm +for all that he esteems holy and of good report-this picture, marred as +it is by rhetoric and vain self-conceit, yet "stands out in noble +contrast to the swinishness of the Campanian villas, and is, in its +complex entirety, very sad and affecting." And yet we must admit, in the +words of the same writer, that when we go from Seneca to Epictetus and +Marcus Aurelius, "it is going from the florid to the severe, from varied +feeling to the impersonal simplicity of the teacher, often from idle +rhetoric to devout earnestness." As far as it goes, the morality of +these two great Stoics is entirely noble and entirely beautiful. If +there be even in Epictetus some passing and occasional touch of Stoic +arrogance and Stoic apathy; if there be in Marcus Aurelius a depth and +intensity of sadness which shows how comparatively powerless for comfort +was a philosophy which glorified suicide, which knew but little of +immortality, and which lost in vague Pantheism the unspeakable blessing +of realizing a personal relation to a personal God and Father--there is +yet in both of them enough and more than enough to show that in all ages +and in all countries they who have sought for God have found Him, that +they have attained to high principles of thought and to high standards +of action--that they have been enabled, even in the thick darkness, +resolutely to place their feet at least on the lowest rounds of that +ladder of sunbeams which winds up through the darkness to the great +Father of Lights. + +And yet the very existence of such men is in itself a significant +comment upon the Scriptural decision that "the world by wisdom knew not +God." For how many like them, out of all the records of antiquity, is it +possible for us to count? Are there five men in the whole circle of +ancient history and ancient literature to whom we could, without a sense +of incongruity, accord the title of "holy?" When we have mentioned +Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, I hardly know of another. +_Just_ men there were in multitudes--men capable of high actions; men +eminently worthy to be loved; men, I doubt not, who, when the children +of the kingdom shall be rejected, shall be gathered from the east and +the west with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into the kingdom of heaven. +Yes, _just_ men in multitudes; but how many _righteous_, how many +_holy_? Some, doubtless, whom we do not know, whose names were never +written, even for a few years, on the records of mankind--men and women +in unknown villages and humble homes, "the faithful who were not +famous." We do not doubt that there were such--but were they +_relatively_ numerous? If those who rose above the level of the +multitude--if those whom some form of excellence, and often of virtue, +elevated into the reverence of their fellows--present to us a few +examples of stainless life, can we hope that a tolerable ideal of +sanctity was attained by any large proportion of the ordinary myriads? +Seeing that the dangerous lot of the majority was cast amid the +weltering sea of popular depravity, can we venture to hope that many of +them succeeded in reaching some green island of purity, integrity, and +calm? We can hardly think it; and yet, in the dispensation of the +Kingdom of Heaven we see such a condition daily realized. Not only do we +see many of the eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and +obscure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with a light +from heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not known such men in +person, and whose hopes and habits have not caught some touch of +radiance reflected from the nobility and virtue of lives like these. The +thought has been well expressed by the author of _Ecce Homo_, and we may +well ask with him, "If this be so, has Christ failed, or can +Christianity die?" + +No, it has not failed; it cannot die; for the saving knowledge which it +has imparted is the most inestimable blessing which God has granted to +our race. We have watched philosophy in its loftiest flight, but that +flight rose as far above the range of the Pagan populace as Ida or +Olympus rises above the plain: and even the topmost crests of Ida and +Olympus are immeasurably below the blue vault, the body of heaven in its +clearness, to which it has been granted to some Christians to attain. As +regards the multitude, philosophy had no influence over the heart and +character; "it was sectarian, not universal; the religion of the few, +not of the many. It exercised no creative power over political or social +life; it stood in no such relation to the past as the New Testament to +the Old. Its best thoughts were but views and aspects of the truth; +there was no centre around which they moved, no divine life by which +they were impelled; they seemed to vanish and flit in uncertain +succession of light." But Christianity, on the other hand, glowed with a +steady and unwavering brightness; it not only swayed the hearts of +individuals by stirring them to their utmost depths, but it moulded the +laws of nations, and regenerated the whole condition of society. It +gave to mankind a fresh sanction in the word of Christ, a perfect +example in His life, a powerful motive in His love, an all sufficient +comfort in the life of immortality made sure and certain to us by His +Resurrection and Ascension. But if without this sanction, and example, +and motive, and comfort, the pagans could learn to do His will,--if, +amid the gross darkness through which glitters the degraded civilization +of imperial Rome, an Epictetus and an Aurelius could live blameless +lives in a cell and on a throne, and a Seneca could practise simplicity +and self-denial in the midst of luxury and pride--how much loftier +should be both the zeal and the attainments of us to whom God has spoken +by His Son? What manner of men ought we to be? If Tyre and Sidon and +Sodom shall rise in the judgment to bear witness against Chorazin and +Bethsaida, may not the pure lives of these great Seekers after God add a +certain emphasis of condemnation to the vice, the pettiness, the +mammon-worship of many among us to whom His love, His nature, His +attributes have been revealed with a clearness and fullness of knowledge +for which kings and philosophers have sought indeed and sought +earnestly, but sought in vain? + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10846 *** diff --git a/10846-h/10846-h.htm b/10846-h/10846-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1d9a86 --- /dev/null +++ b/10846-h/10846-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8720 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Seekers after God, by Frederic William Farrar</title> + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * { font-family: Times;} + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 14pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + blockquote {text-align: justify; + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 15%;} + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + // --> + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10846 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Seekers after God, by Frederic William Farrar</h1> + + +</pre> +<center><b>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner,<br> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>SEEKERS AFTER GOD</h2> +<br> + +<h3>BY THE</h3> + +<h2>REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.,</h2> + +<h3>CANON OF WESTMINSTER.</h3> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<a href="#SENECA.">SENECA.</a> +<br><br> +<ul> +<li><a href="#INTRODUCTORY.">INTRODUCTORY.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I.">CHAPTER I.</a> THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II.">CHAPTER II.</a> THE EDUCATION OF SENECA.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III.">CHAPTER III.</a> THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV.">CHAPTER IV.</a> POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V.">CHAPTER V.</a> THE REIGN OF CAIUS.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI.">CHAPTER VI.</a> THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII.">CHAPTER VII.</a> SENECA IN EXILE.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII.">CHAPTER VIII.</a> SENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX.">CHAPTER IX.</a> SENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X.">CHAPTER X.</a> AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI.">CHAPTER XI.</a> NERO AND HIS TUTOR.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII.">CHAPTER XII.</a> THE BEGINNING OF THE END.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII.">CHAPTER XIII.</a> THE DEATH OF SENECA.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV.">CHAPTER XIV.</a> SENECA AND ST. PAUL.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV.">CHAPTER XV.</a> SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE.</li> +</ul> +<br><br> +<a href="#EPICTETUS.">EPICTETUS.</a> +<br><br> +<ul> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IE.">CHAPTER I.</a> THE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IIE.">CHAPTER II.</a> LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS <i>(continued)</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIE.">CHAPTER III.</a> LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (<i>continued.</i>)</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IVE.">CHAPTER IV.</a> THE "MANUAL" AND "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VE.">CHAPTER V.</a> THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS.</li> +</ul> +<br><br> +<a href="#MARCUS_AURELIUS.">MARCUS AURELIUS.</a> +<br><br> +<ul> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IA.">CHAPTER I.</a> THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IIA.">CHAPTER II.</a> THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIA.">CHAPTER III.</a> THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS <i>(continued).</i></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IVA.">CHAPTER IV.</a> THE "MEDITATIONS" OF MARCUS AURELIUS.</li> +</ul> +<br><br> +<a href="#CONCLUSION.">CONCLUSION.</a> +<br><br> +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h1><a name="SENECA."></a>SENECA.</h1> + + +<center>"Ce nuage frangé de rayons qui toucbe presqu' à l'immortelle aurore<br> + des vérités chrétiennes."--PONTMAOTIN.</center> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTORY."></a>INTRODUCTORY.</h2> + +<p>On the banks of the Baetis--the modern Guadalquiver,--and under the +woods that crown the southern slopes of the Sierra Morena, lies the +beautiful and famous city of Cordova. It had been selected by Marcellus +as the site of a Roman colony; and so many Romans and Spaniards of high +rank chose it for their residence, that it obtained from Augustus the +honourable surname of the "Patrician Colony." Spain, during this period +of the Empire, exercised no small influence upon the literature and +politics of Rome. No less than three great Emperors--Trajan, Hadrian, +and Theodosius,--were natives of Spain. Columella, the writer on +agriculture, was born at Cadiz; Quintilian, the great writer on the +education of an orator, was born at Calahorra; the poet Martial was a +native of Bilbilis; but Cordova could boast the yet higher honour of +having given birth to the Senecas, an honour which won for it the +epithet of "The Eloquent." A ruin is shown to modern travellers which +is popularly called the House of Seneca, and the fact is at least a +proof that the city still retains some memory of its illustrious sons.</p> + +<p>Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher, was by rank a +Roman knight. What causes had led him or his family to settle in Spain +we do not know, and the names Annaeus and Seneca are alike obscure. It +has been vaguely conjectured that both names may involve an allusion to +the longevity of some of the founders of the family, for Annaeus seems +to be connected with <i>annus</i>, a year, and Seneca with <i>senex</i>, an old +man. The common English composite plant ragwort is called <i>senecio</i> from +the white and feathery pappus or appendage of its seeds; and similarly, +Isidore says that the first Seneca was so named because "he was born +with white hair."</p> + +<p>Although the father of Seneca was of knightly rank, his family had never +risen to any eminence; it belonged to the class of <i>nouveaux riches</i>, +and we do not know whether it was of Roman or of Spanish descent. But +his mother Helvia--an uncommon name, which, by a curious coincidence, +belonged also to the mother of Cicero--was a Spanish lady; and it was +from her that Seneca, as well as his famous nephew, the poet Lucan, +doubtless derived many of the traits which mark their intellect and +their character. There was in the Spaniard a richness and splendour of +imagination, an intensity and warmth, a touch of "phantasy and flame," +which we find in these two men of genius, and which was wholly wanting +to the Roman temperament.</p> + +<p>Of Cordova itself, except in a single epigram, Seneca makes no mention; +but this epigram suffices to show that he must have been familiar with +its stirring and memorable traditions. The elder Seneca must have been +living at Cordova during all the troublous years of civil war, when his +native city caused equal offence to Pompey and to Caesar. Doubtless, +too, he would have had stories to tell of the noble Sertorius, and of +the tame fawn which gained for him the credit of divine assistance; and +contemporary reminiscences of that day of desperate disaster when +Caesar, indignant that Cordova should have embraced the cause of the +sons of Pompey, avenged himself by a massacre of 22,000 of the citizens. +From his mother Helvia, Seneca must often have heard about the fierce +and gallant struggle in which her country had resisted the iron yoke of +Rome. Many a time as a boy must he have been told how long and how +heroically Saguntum had withstood the assaults and baffled the triumph +of Hannibal; how bravely Viriathus had fought, and how shamefully he +fell; and how at length the unequal contest, which reduced Spain to the +condition of a province, was closed, when the heroic defenders of +Numantia, rather than yield to Scipio, reduced their city to a heap of +blood-stained ruins.</p> + +<p>But, whatever may have been the extent to which Seneca was influenced by +the Spanish blood which flowed in his veins, and the Spanish legends on +which his youth was fed, it was not in Spain that his lot was cast. When +he was yet an infant in arms his father, with all his family, emigrated +from Cordova to Rome. What may have been the special reason for this +important step we do not know; possibly, like the father of Horace, the +elder Seneca may have sought a better education for his sons than could +be provided by even so celebrated a provincial town as Cordova; +possibly--for he belonged to a somewhat pushing family--he may have +desired to gain fresh wealth and honour in the imperial city.</p> + +<p>Thither we must follow him; and, as it is our object not only to depict +a character but also to sketch the characteristics of a very memorable +age in the world's history, we must try to get a glimpse of the family +in the midst of which our young philosopher grew up, of the kind of +education which he received, and of the influences which were likely to +tell upon him during his childish and youthful years. Only by such means +shall we be able to judge of him aright. And it is worth while to try +and gain a right conception of the man, not only because he was very +eminent as a poet, an author, and a politician, not only because he +fills a very prominent place in the pages of the great historian, who +has drawn so immortal a picture of Rome under the Emperors; not only +because in him we can best study the inevitable signs which mark, even +in the works of men of genius, a degraded people and a decaying +literature; but because he was, as the title of this volume designates +him, a "SEEKER AFTER GOD." Whatever may have been the dark and +questionable actions of his life--and in this narrative we shall +endeavor to furnish a plain and unvarnished picture of the manner in +which he lived,--it is certain that, as a philosopher and as a moralist, +he furnishes us with the grandest and most eloquent series of truths to +which, unilluminated by Christianity, the thoughts of man have ever +attained. The purest and most exalted philosophic sect of antiquity was +"the sect of the Stoics;" and Stoicism never found a literary exponent +more ardent, more eloquent, or more enlightened than Lucius Annaeus +Seneca. So nearly, in fact, does he seem to have arrived at the truths +of Christianity, that to many it seemed a matter for marvel that he +could have known them without having heard them from inspired lips. He +is constantly cited with approbation by some of the most eminent +Christian fathers. Tertullian, Lactantius, even St. Augustine himself, +quote his words with marked admiration, and St. Jerome appeals to him as +"<i>our</i> Seneca." The Council of Trent go further still, and quote him as +though he were an acknowledged father of the Church. For many centuries +there were some who accepted as genuine the spurious letters supposed to +have been interchanged between Seneca and St. Paul, in which Seneca is +made to express a wish to hold among the Pagans the same beneficial +position which St. Paul held in the Christian world. The possibility of +such an intercourse, the nature and extent of such supposed obligations, +will come under our consideration hereafter. All that I here desire to +say is, that in considering the life of Seneca we are not only dealing +with a life which was rich in memorable incidents, and which was cast +into an age upon which Christianity dawned as a new light in the +darkness, but also the life of one who climbed the loftiest peaks of the +moral philosophy of Paganism, and who in many respects may be regarded +as the Coryphaeus of what has been sometimes called a Natural Religion.</p> + +<p>It is not my purpose to turn aside from the narrative in order to +indulge in moral reflections, because such reflections will come with +tenfold force if they are naturally suggested to the reader's mind by +the circumstances of the biography. But from first to last it will be +abundantly obvious to every thoughtful mind that alike the morality and +the philosophy of Paganism, as contrasted with the splendour of revealed +truth and the holiness of Christian life, are but as moonlight is to +sunlight. The Stoical philosophy may be compared to a torch which flings +a faint gleam here and there in the dusky recesses of a mighty cavern; +Christianity to the sun pouring into the inmost depths of the same +cavern its sevenfold illumination. The torch had a value and brightness +of its own, but compared with the dawning of that new glory it appears +to be dim and ineffectual, even though its brightness was a real +brightness, and had been drawn from the same etherial source.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I."></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA.</h3> + +<p>The exact date of Seneca's birth is uncertain, but it took place in all +probability about seven years before the commencement of the Christian +era. It will give to his life a touch of deep and solemn interest if we +remember that, during all those guilty and stormy scenes amid which his +earlier destiny was cast, there lived and taught in Palestine the Son of +God, the Saviour of the world.</p> + +<p>The problems which for many years tormented his mind were beginning to +find their solution, amid far other scenes, by men whose creed and +condition he despised. While Seneca was being guarded by his attendant +slave through the crowded and dangerous streets of Rome on his way to +school, St. Peter and St. John were fisher-lads by the shores of +Gennesareth; while Seneca was ardently assimilating the doctrine of the +stoic Attalus, St. Paul, with no less fervancy of soul, sat learning at +the feet of Gamaliel; and long before Seneca had made his way, through +paths dizzy and dubious, to the zenith of his fame, unknown to him that +Saviour had been crucified through whose only merits he and we can ever +attain to our final rest.</p> + +<p>Seneca was about two years old when he was carried to Rome in his +nurse's arms. Like many other men who have succeeded in attaining +eminence, he suffered much from ill-health in his early years. He tells +us of one serious illness from which he slowly recovered under the +affectionate and tender nursing of his mother's sister. All his life +long he was subject to attacks of asthma, which, after suffering every +form of disease, he says that he considers to be the worst. At one time +his personal sufferings weighed so heavily on his spirits that nothing +save a regard for his father's wishes prevented him from suicide: and +later in life he was only withheld from seeking the deliverance of death +by the tender affection of his wife Paulina. He might have used with +little alteration the words of Pope, that his various studies but served +to help him</p> + +<blockquote> +"Through <i>this long disease, my life</i>."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The recovery from this tedious illness is the only allusion which Seneca +has made to the circumstances of his childhood. The ancient writers, +even the ancient poets, but rarely refer, even in the most cursory +manner, to their early years. The cause of this reticence offers a +curious problem for our inquiry, but the fact is indisputable. Whereas +there is scarcely a single modern poet who has not lingered with +undisguised feelings of happiness over the gentle memories of his +childhood, not one of the ancient poets has systematically touched upon +the theme at all. From Lydgate down to Tennyson, it would be easy to +quote from our English poets a continuous line of lyric songs on the +subject of boyish years. How to the young child the fir-trees seemed to +touch the sky, how his heart leaped up at the sight of the rainbow, how +he sat at his mother's feet and pricked into paper the tissued flowers +of her dress, how he chased the bright butterfly, or in his tenderness +feared to brush even the dust from off its wings, how he learnt sweet +lessons and said innocent prayers at his father's knee; trifles like +these, yet trifles which may have been rendered noble and beautiful by a +loving imagination, have been narrated over and over again in the songs +of our poets. The lovely lines of Henry Vaughan might be taken as a type +of thousands more:--</p> + +<blockquote><center> +"Happy those early days, when I<br> + Shined in my Angel infancy.<br> + Before I understood this place<br> + Appointed for my second race,<br> + Or taught my soul to fancy aught<br> + But a white celestial thought;<br> +</center></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<blockquote><center> + "Before I taught my tongue to wound<br> + My conscience with a sinful sound<br> + Or had the black art to dispense<br> + A several sin to every sense;<br> + But felt through all this fleshy dress,<br> + Bright shoots of everlastingness."<br> +</center></blockquote> + +<p>The memory of every student of English poetry will furnish countless +parallels to thoughts like these. How is it that no similar poem could +be quoted from the whole range of ancient literature? How is it that to +the Greek and Roman poets that morning of life, which should have been +so filled with "natural blessedness," seems to have been a blank? How is +it that writers so voluminous, so domestic, so affectionate as Cicero, +Virgil, and Horace do not make so much as a single allusion to the +existence of their own mothers?</p> + +<p>To answer this question fully would be to write an entire essay on the +difference between ancient and modern life, and would carry me far away +from my immediate subject.<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1">[1]</a> But I may say generally, that the +explanation rests in the fact that in all probability childhood among +the ancients was a disregarded, and in most cases a far less happy, +period than it is with us. The birth of a child in the house of a Greek +or a Roman was not necessarily a subject for rejoicing. If the father, +when the child was first shown to him, stooped down and took it in his +arms, it was received as a member of the family; if he left it unnoticed +then it was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or barren +place to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first passer by. And +even if a child escaped this fate, yet for the first seven or eight +years of life he was kept in the gynaeceum, or women's apartments, and +rarely or never saw his father's face. No halo of romance or poetry was +shed over those early years. Until the child was full grown the absolute +power of life or death rested in his father's hands; he had no freedom, +and met with little notice. For individual life the ancients had a very +slight regard; there was nothing autobiographic or introspective in +their temperament. With them public life, the life of the State, was +everything; domestic life, the life of the individual, occupied but a +small share of their consideration. All the innocent pleasures of +infancy, the joys of the hearth, the charm of the domestic circle, the +flow and sparkle of childish gaity, were by them but little appreciated. +The years before manhood were years of prospect, and in most cases they +offered but little to make them worth the retrospect. It is a mark of +the more modern character which stamps the writings of Seneca, as +compared with earlier authors, that he addresses his mother in terms of +the deepest affection, and cannot speak of his darling little son except +in a voice that seems to break with tears.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a> See, however, the same question treated from a somewhat +different point of view by M. Nisard, in his charming <i>Études sur les +Poëtes de la Décadence</i>, ii. 17, <i>sqq</i>. +</blockquote> + +<p>Let us add another curious consideration. The growth of the personal +character, the reminiscences of a life advancing into perfect +consciousness, are largely moulded by the gradual recognition of moral +laws, by the sense of mystery evolved in the inevitable struggle between +duty and pleasure,--between the desire to do right and the temptation to +do wrong. But among the ancients the conception of morality was so +wholly different from ours, their notions of moral obligation were, in +the immense majority of cases, so much less stringent and so much less +important, they had so faint a disapproval for sins which we condemn, +and so weak an indignation against vices which we abhor, that in their +early years we can hardly suppose them to have often fathomed those +"abysmal deeps of personality," the recognition of which is a necessary +element of marked individual growth.</p> + +<p>We have, therefore, no materials for forming any vivid picture of +Seneca's childhood; but, from what we gather about the circumstances and +the character of his family, we should suppose that he was exceptionally +fortunate. The Senecas were wealthy; they held a good position in +society; they were a family of cultivated taste, of literary pursuits, +of high character, and of amiable dispositions. Their wealth raised them +above the necessity of those mean cares and degrading shifts to eke out +a scanty livelihood which mark the career of other literary men who were +their contemporaries. Their rank and culture secured them the intimacy +of all who were best worth knowing in Roman circles; and the general +dignity and morality which marked their lives would free them from all +likelihood of being thrown into close intercourse with the numerous +class of luxurious epicureans, whose unblushing and unbounded vice gave +an infamous notority to the capital of the world.</p> + +<p>Of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of our philosopher, we know few +personal particulars, except that he was a professional rhetorician, who +drew up for the use of his sons and pupils a number of oratorical +exercises, which have come down to us under the names of <i>Suasoriae</i> and +<i>Controversiae</i>. They are a series of declamatory arguments on both +sides, respecting a number of historical or purely imaginary subjects; +and it would be impossible to conceive any reading more utterly +unprofitable. But the elder Seneca was steeped to the lips in an +artificial rhetoric; and these highly elaborated arguments, invented in +order to sharpen the faculties for purposes of declamation and debate, +were probably due partly to his note-book and partly to his memory. His +memory was so prodigious that after hearing two thousand words he could +repeat them again in the same order. Few of those who have possessed +such extraordinary powers of memory have been men of first-rate talent, +and the elder Seneca was no exception. But if his memory did not improve +his original genius, it must at any rate have made him a very agreeable +member of society, and have furnished him with an abundant store of +personal and political anecdotes. In short, Marcus Seneca was a +well-to-do, intelligent man of the world, with plenty of common sense, +with a turn for public speaking, with a profound dislike and contempt +for anything which he considered philosophical or fantastic, and with a +keen eye to the main advantage.</p> + +<p>His wife Helvia, if we may trust the panegyric of her son, was on the +other hand a far less common-place character. But for her husband's +dislike to learning and philosophy she would have become a proficient in +both, and in a short period of study she had made a considerable +advance. Yet her intellect was less remarkable than the nobility and +sweetness of her mind; other mothers loved their sons because their own +ambition was gratified by their honours, and their feminine wants +supplied by their riches; but Helvia loved her sons for their own sakes, +treated them with liberal generosity, but refused to reap any personal +benefit from their wealth, managed their patrimonies with disinterested +zeal, and spent her own money to bear the expenses of their political +career. She rose superior to the foibles and vices of her time. +Immodesty, the plague-spot of her age, had never infected her pure life. +Gems and pearls had little charms for her. She was never ashamed of her +children, as though their presence betrayed her own advancing age. "You +never stained your face," says her son, when writing to console her in +his exile, "with walnut-juice or rouge; you never delighted in dresses +indelicately low; your single ornament was a loveliness which no age +could destroy; your special glory was a conspicuous chastity." We may +well say with Mr. Tennyson--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Happy he<br> + With such a mother! faith in womankind<br> + Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high<br> + Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall,<br> + He shall not blind his soul with clay."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Nor was his mother Helvia the only high-minded lady in whose society +the boyhood of Seneca was spent. Her sister, whose name is unknown, that +aunt who had so tenderly protected the delicate boy, and nursed him +through the sickness of his infancy, seems to have inspired him with an +affection of unusual warmth. He tells us how, when her husband was +Prefect of Egypt, so far was she from acting as was usual with the wives +of provincial governors, that she was as much respected and beloved as +they were for the most part execrated and shunned. So serious was the +evil caused by these ladies, so intolerable was their cruel rapacity, +that it had been seriously debated in the Senate whether they should +ever be allowed to accompany their husbands. Not so with Helvia's +sister. She was never seen in public; she allowed no provincial to visit +her house; she begged no favour for herself, and suffered none to be +begged from her. The province not only praised her, but, what was still +more to her credit, barely knew anything about her, and longed in vain +for another lady who should imitate her virtue and self-control. Egypt +was the headquarters for biting and loquacious calumny, yet even Egypt +never breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. And when during +their homeward voyage her husband died, in spite of danger and tempest +and the deeply-rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail +with a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of shipwreck could +drive her to separate herself from her husband's body until she had +provided for its safe and honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of a +good and heroic woman; and that she reciprocated the regard which makes +her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact +that, when he made his <i>début</i> as a candidate for the honours of the +State, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time +her matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced +for his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the +crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets of Rome.</p> + +<p>Two brothers, very different from each other in their habits and +character, completed the family circle, Marcus Annaeus Novatus and +Lucius Annaeus Mela, of whom the former was older the latter younger, +than their more famous brother.</p> + +<p>Marcus Annaeus Novatus is known to history under the name of Junius +Gallio, which he took when adopted by the orator of that name, who was a +friend of his father. He is none other than the Gallio of the Acts, the +Proconsul of Achaia, whose name has passed current among Christians as a +proverb of complacent indifference.<a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2">[2]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a> Acts xxv. 19. +</blockquote> + +<p>The scene, however, in which Scripture gives us a glimpse of him has +been much misunderstood, and to talk of him as "careless Gallio," or to +apply the expression that "he cared for none of these things," to +indifference in religious matters, is entirely to misapply the spirit of +the narrative. What really happened was this. The Jews, indignant at the +success of Paul's preaching, dragged him before the tribunal of Gallio, +and accused him of introducing illegal modes of worship. When the +Apostle was about to defend himself, Gallio contemptuously cut him short +by saying to the Jews, "If in truth there were in question any act of +injustice or wicked misconduct, I should naturally have tolerated your +complaint. But if this is some verbal inquiry about mere technical +matters of your law, look after it yourselves. I do not choose to be a +judge of such matters." With these words he drove them from his +judgment-seat with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the Jews and +their religious affairs as was subsequently expressed by Festus to the +sceptical Agrippa, and as had been expressed previously by Pontius +Pilate<a name="FNanchor3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3">[3]</a> to the tumultous Pharisees. Exulting at this discomfiture of +the hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in +a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat +him in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal. This was the +event at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What +could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks +beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not? So long as they did not make a riot, +or give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat +Sosthenes or any number of Jews black and blue if it pleased them, for +all he was likely to care.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a> Matt. xxvii. 24, "See ye to it." Cf. Acts xiv. 15, "Look ye +to it." Toleration existed in the Roman Empire, and the magistrates +often interfered to protect the Jews from massacre; but they absolutely +and persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to +understand their doctrines or enter into their disputes. The tradition +that Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is +utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written +nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Conybeare and +Howson, <i>St. Paul</i>, vol. i. Ch. xii.; Aubertin, <i>Sénèque et St. Paul</i>.) +</blockquote> + +<p>What a vivid glimpse do we here obtain, from the graphic picture of an +eye-witness, of the daily life in an ancient provincial forum; how +completely do we seem to catch sight for a moment of that habitual +expression of contempt which curled the thin lips of a Roman aristocrat +in the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews! If Seneca +had come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in his Egyptian travels, the +only impression left on his mind was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal, +and Suetonius, who never mention the Jews without execration. In a +passage, quoted by St. Augustine (<i>De Civit. Dei</i>, iv. 11) from his lost +book on Superstitions, Seneca speaks of the multitude of their +proselytes, and calls them "<i>gens sceleratissima</i>," a "<i>most criminal +race</i>." It has been often conjectured--it has even been seriously +believed--that Seneca had personal intercourse with St. Paul and learnt +from him some lessons of Christianity. The scene on which we have just +been gazing will show us the utter unlikelihood of such a supposition. +Probably the nearest opportunity which ever occurred to bring the +Christian Apostle into intellectual contact with the Roman philosopher +was this occasion, when St. Paul was dragged as a prisoner into the +presence of Seneca's elder brother. The utter contempt and indifference +with which he was treated, the manner in which he was summarily cut +short before he could even open his lips in his own defence, will give +us a just estimate of the manner in which Seneca would have been likely +to regard St. Paul. It is highly improbable that Gallio ever retained +the slightest impression or memory of so every-day a circumstance as +this, by which alone he is known to the world. It is possible that he +had not even heard the mere name of Paul, and that, if he ever thought +of him at all, it was only as a miserable, ragged, fanatical Jew, of dim +eyes and diminutive stature, who had once wished to inflict upon him a +harangue, and who had once come for a few moments "betwixt the wind and +his nobility." He would indeed have been unutterably amazed if anyone +had whispered to him that well nigh the sole circumstance which would +entitle him to be remembered by posterity, and the sole event of his +life by which he would be at all generally known, was that momentary and +accidental relation to his despised prisoner.</p> + +<p>But Novatus--or, to give him his adopted name, Gallio--presented to his +brother Seneca, and to the rest of the world, a very different aspect +from that under which we are wont to think of him. By them he was +regarded as an illustrious declaimer, in an age when declamation was the +most valued of all accomplishments. It was true that there was a sort of +"tinkle," a certain falsetto tone in his style, which offended men of +robust and severe taste; but this meretricious resonance of style was a +matter of envy and admiration when affectation was the rage, and when +the times were too enervated and too corrupt for the manly conciseness +and concentrated force of an eloquence dictated by liberty and by +passion. He seems to have acquired both among his friends and among +strangers the epithet of "dulcis," "the charming or fascinating Gallio:" +"This is more," says the poet Statius, "than to have given Seneca to the +world, and to have begotten the sweet Gallio." Seneca's portrait of him +is singularly faultless. He says that no one was so gentle to any one as +Gallio was to every one; that his charm of manner won over even the +people whom mere chance threw in his way, and that such was the force of +his natural goodness that no one suspected his behaviour, as though it +were due to art or simulation. Speaking of flattery, in his fourth book +of Natural Questions, he says to his friend Lucilius, "I used to say to +you that my brother Gallio <i>(whom every one loves a little, even people +who cannot love him more)</i> was wholly <i>ignorant</i> of other vices, but +even <i>detested</i> this. You might try him in any direction. You began to +praise his intellect--an intellect of the highest and worthiest kind,... +and he walked away! You began to praise his moderation, he instantly cut +short your first words. You began to express admiration for his +blandness and natural suavity of manner,... yet even here he resisted +your compliments; and if you were led to exclaim that you had found a +man who could not be overcome by those insidious attacks which every one +else admits, and hoped that he would at least tolerate <i>this</i> compliment +because of its truth, even on this ground he would resist your flattery; +not as though you had been awkward, or as though he suspected that you +were jesting with him, or had some secret end in view, but simply +because he had a horror of every form of adulation." We can easily +imagine that Gallio was Seneca's favorite brother, and we are not +surprised to find that the philosopher dedicates to him his three books +on Anger, and his charming little treatise "On a Happy Life."</p> + +<p>Of the third brother, L. Annaeus Mela, we have fewer notices; but, from +what we know, we should conjecture that his character no less than his +reputation was inferior to that of his brothers; yet he seems to have +been the favorite of his father, who distinctly asserts that his +intellect was capable of every excellence, and superior to that of his +brothers.<a name="FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4">[4]</a> This, however, may have been because Mela, "longing only to +long for nothing," was content with his father's rank, and devoted +himself wholly to the study of eloquence. Instead of entering into +public life, he deliberately withdrew himself from all civil duties, and +devoted himself to tranquility and ease. Apparently he preferred to be a +farmer-general (<i>publicanus</i>) and not a consul. His chief fame rests in +the fact that he was father of Lucan, the poet of the decadence or +declining literature of Rome. The only anecdote about him which has come +down to us is one that sets his avarice in a very unfavourable light. +When his famous son, the unhappy poet, had forfeited his life, as well +as covered himself with infamy by denouncing his own mother Attila in +the conspiracy of Piso, Mela, instead of being overwhelmed with shame +and agony, immediately began to collect with indecent avidity his son's +debts, as though to show Nero that he felt no great sorrow for his +bereavement. But this was not enough for Nero's malice; he told Mela +that he must follow his son, and Mela was forced to obey the order, +and to die.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a> M. Ann. Senec. <i>Controv</i>. ii. <i>Praef</i>. +</blockquote> + +<p>Doubtless Helvia, if she survived her sons and grandsons, must have +bitterly rued the day when, with her husband and her young children, she +left the quiet retreat of a life in Cordova. Each of the three boys grew +up to a man of genius, and each of them grew up to stain his memory with +deeds that had been better left undone, and to die violent deaths by +their own hands or by a tyrant's will. Mela died as we have seen; his +son Lucan and his brother Seneca were driven to death by the cruel +orders of Nero. Gallio, after stooping to panic-stricken supplications +for his preservation, died ultimately by suicide. It was a shameful and +miserable end for them all, but it was due partly to their own errors, +partly to the hard necessity of the degraded times in which they lived.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II."></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>THE EDUCATION OF SENECA.</h3> + +<p>For a reason which I have already indicated--I mean the habitual +reticence of the ancient writers respecting the period of their +boyhood--it is not easy to form a very vivid conception of the kind of +education given to a Roman boy of good family up to the age of fifteen, +when he laid aside the golden amulet and embroidered toga to assume a +more independent mode of life.</p> + +<p>A few facts, however, we can gather from the scattered allusions of the +poets Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Persius. From these we learn that +the school-masters were for the most part underpaid and despised,<a name="FNanchor5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5">[5]</a> +while at the same time an erudition alike minute and useless was rigidly +demanded of them. We learn also that they were exceedingly severe in the +infliction of corporeal punishment; Orbilius, the schoolmaster of +Horace, appears to have been a perfect Dr. Busby, and the poet Martial +records with indignation the barbarities of chastisement which he daily +witnessed.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor5">[5]</a> For the miseries of the literary class, and especially of +schoolmasters, see Juv, <i>Sat</i>. vii. +</blockquote> + +<p>The things taught were chiefly arithmetic, grammar--both Greek and +Latin--reading, and repetition of the chief Latin poets. There was also +a good deal of recitation and of theme-writing on all kinds of trite +historical subjects. The arithmetic seems to have been mainly of a very +simple and severely practical kind, especially the computation of +interest and compound interest; and the philology generally, both +grammar and criticism, was singularly narrow, uninteresting, and +useless. Of what conceivable advantage can it have been to any human +being to know the name of the mother of Hecuba, of the nurse of +Anchises, of the stepmother of Anchemolus, the number of years Acestes +lived, and how many casks of wine the Sicilians gave to the Phrygians? +Yet these were the dispicable <i>minutiae</i> which every schoolmaster was +then expected to have at his fingers' ends, and every boy-scholar to +learn at the point of the ferule--trash which was only fit to be +unlearned the moment it was known.</p> + +<p>For this kind of verbal criticism and fantastic archaeology Seneca, who +had probably gone through it all, expresses a profound and very rational +contempt. In a rather amusing passage<a name="FNanchor6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6">[6]</a> he contrasts the kind of use +which would be made of a Virgil lesson by a philosopher and a +grammarian. Coming to the lines,</p> + +<blockquote> +"Each happiest day for mortals speeds the first,<br> + Then crowds disease behind and age accurst,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>the philosopher will point out why and in what sense the early days of +life are the best days, and how rapidly the evil days succeed them, and +consequently how infinitely important it is to use well the golden dawn +of our being. But the verbal critic will content himself with the +remark that Virgil always uses <i>fugio</i> of the flight of time, and +always joins "old age" with "disease," and consequently that these are +tags to be remembered, and plagiarized hereafter in the pupils' +"<i>original</i> composition." Similarly, if the book in hand be Cicero's +treatise "On the Commonwealth," instead of entering into great political +questions, our grammarian will note that one of the Roman kings had no +father (to speak of), and another no mother; that dictators used +formerly to be called "masters of the people;" that Romulus perished +during an eclipse; that the old form of <i>reipsa</i> was <i>reapse</i>, and of +<i>se ipse</i> was <i>sepse</i>; that the starting point in the circus which is +now called <i>creta</i>, or "chalk," used to be called <i>caix</i>, or <i>carcer</i>; +that in the time of Ennuis <i>opera</i> meant not only "work," but also +"assistance," and so on, and so on. Is this true education? or rather, +should our great aim ever be to translate noble precepts into daily +action? "Teach me," he says, "to despise pleasure and glory; +<i>afterwards</i> you shall teach me to disentangle difficulties, to +distinguish ambiguities, to see through obscurities; <i>now</i> teach me what +is necessary." Considering the condition of much which in modern times +passes under the name of "education," we may possibly find that the +hints of Seneca are not yet wholly obsolete.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor6">[6]</a> Ep. cviii. +</blockquote> + +<p>What kind of schoolmaster taught the little Seneca when under the care +of the slave who was called <i>pedagogus</i>, or a "boy-leader" (whence our +word <i>pedagogue</i>), he daily went with his brothers to school through the +streets of Rome, we do not know. He may have been a severe Orbilius, or +he may have been one of those noble-minded tutors whose ideal +portraiture is drawn in such beautiful colours by the learned and +amiable Quintilian. Seneca has not alluded to any one who taught him +during his early days. The only schoolfellow whom he mentions by name +in his voluminous writings is a certain Claranus, a deformed boy, whom, +after leaving school, Seneca never met again until they were both old +men, but of whom he speaks with great admiration. In spite of his +hump-back, Claranus appeared even beautiful in the eyes of those who +knew him well, because his virtue and good sense left a stronger +impression than his deformity, and "his body was adorned by the beauty +of his soul."</p> + +<p>It was not until mere school-lessons were finished that a boy began +seriously to enter upon the studies of eloquence and philosophy, which +therefore furnish some analogy to what we should call "a university +education." Gallio and Mela, Seneca's elder and younger brothers, +devoted themselves heart and soul to the theory and practice of +eloquence; Seneca made the rarer and the wiser choice in giving his +entire enthusiasm to the study of philosophy.</p> + +<p>I say the wiser choice, because eloquence is not a thing for which one +can give a receipt as one might give a receipt for making +<i>eau-de-Cologne</i>. Eloquence is the noble, the harmonious, the passionate +expression of truths profoundly realized, or of emotions intensely felt. +It is a flame which cannot be kindled by artificial means. <i>Rhetoric</i> +may be taught if any one thinks it worth learning; but <i>eloquence</i> is a +gift as innate as the genius from which it springs. "<i>Cujus vita fulgur, +ejus verba tonitrua</i>"--"if a man's life be lightning, his words will be +thunders." But the kind of oratory to be obtained by a constant practice +of declamation such as that which occupied the schools of the Rhetors +will be a very artificial lightning and a very imitated thunder--not the +artillery of heaven, but the Chinese fire and rolled bladders of the +stage. Nothing could be more false, more hollow, more pernicious than +the perpetual attempt to drill numerous classes of youths into a +reproduction of the mere manner of the ancient orators. An age of +unlimited declamation, an age of incessant talk, is a hotbed in which +real depth and nobility of feeling runs miserably to seed. Style is +never worse than it is in ages which employ themselves in teaching +little else. Such teaching produces an emptiness of thought concealed +under a plethora of words. This age of countless oratorical masters was +emphatically the period of decadence and decay. There is a hollow ring +about it, a falsetto tone in its voice; a fatiguing literary grimace in +the manner of its authors. Even its writers of genius were injured and +corrupted by the prevailing mode. They can say nothing simply; they are +always in contortions. Their very indignation and bitterness of heart, +genuine as it is, assumes a theatrical form of expression.<a name="FNanchor7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7">[7]</a> They +abound in unrealities: their whole manner is defaced with would-be +cleaverness, with antitheses, epigrams, paradoxes, forced expressions, +figures and tricks of speech, straining after originality and profundity +when they are merely repeating very commonplace remarks. What else could +one expect in an age of salaried declaimers, educated in a false +atmosphere of superficial talk, for ever haranguing and perorating about +great passions which they had never felt, and great deeds which they +would have been the last to imitate? After perpetually immolating the +Tarquins and the Pisistratids in inflated grandiloquence, they would go +to lick the dust off a tyrant's shoes. How could eloquence survive when +the magnanimity and freedom which inspired it were dead, and when the +men and books which professed to teach it were filled with despicable +directions about the exact position in which the orator was to use his +hands, and as to whether it was a good thing or not for him to slap his +forehead and disarrange his hair?</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor7">[7]</a> +<blockquote> +"Juvénal, élevé dans les cris de l'école<br> + Poussa jusqu'à l'excès sa mordante hyperbole."--<br> + BOILEAU.<br> +</blockquote> +</blockquote> + +<p>The philosophic teaching which even from boyhood exercised a powerful +fascination on the eager soul of Seneca was at least something better +than this; and more than one of his philosophic teachers succeeded in +winning his warm affection, and in moulding the principles and habits of +his life. Two of them he mentions with special regard, namely Sotion the +Pythagorean, and Attalus the Stoic. He also heard the lectures of the +fluent and musical Fabianus Papirius, but seems to have owed less to him +than to his other teachers.</p> + +<p>Sotion had embraced the views of Pythagoras respecting the +transmigration of souls, a doctrine which made the eating of animal food +little better than cannibalism or parricide. But, even if any of his +followers rejected this view, Sotion would still maintain that the +eating of animals, if not an impiety, was at least a cruelty and a +waste. "What hardship does my advice inflict on you?" he used to ask. "I +do but deprive you of the food of vultures and lions." The ardent +boy--for at this time he could not have been more than seventeen years +old--was so convinced by these considerations that he became a +vegetarian. At first the abstinence from meat was painful, but after a +year he tells us (and many vegetarians will confirm his experience) it +was not only easy but delightful; and he used to believe, though he +would not assert it as a fact, that it made his intellect more keen and +active. He only ceased to be a vegetarian in obedience to the +remonstrance of his unphilosophical father, who would have easily +tolerated what he regarded as a mere vagary had it not involved the +danger of giving rise to a calumny. For about this time Tiberius +banished from Rome all the followers of strange and foreign religions; +and, as fasting was one of the rites practiced in some of them, Seneca's +father thought that perhaps his son might incur, by abstaining from +meat, the horrible suspicion of being a Christian or a Jew!</p> + +<p>Another Pythagorean philosopher whom he admired and whom he quotes was +Sextius, from whom he learnt the admirable practice of daily +self-examination:--"When the day was over, and he betook himself to his +nightly rest, he used to ask himself, What evil have you cured to day? +What vice have you resisted? In what particular have you improved?" "I +too adopt this custom," says Seneca, in his book on Anger, "and I daily +plead my cause before myself, when the light has been taken away, and my +wife, who is now aware of my habit, has become silent; I carefully +consider in my heart the entire day, and take a deliberate estimate of +my deeds and words."</p> + +<p>It was however the Stoic Attalus who seems to have had the main share in +the instruction of Seneca; and <i>his</i> teaching did not involve any +practical results which the elder Seneca considered objectionable. He +tells us how he used to haunt the school of the eloquent philosopher, +being the first to enter and the last to leave it. "When I heard him +declaiming," he says, "against vice, and error, and the ills of life, I +often felt compassion for the human race, and believed my teacher to be +exalted above the ordinary stature of mankind. In Stoic fashion he used +to call himself a king; but to me his sovereignty seemed more than +royal, seeing that it was in his power to pass his judgments on kings +themselves. When he began to set forth the praises of poverty, and to +show how heavy and superfluous was the burden of all that exceeded the +ordinary wants of life, I often longed to leave school a poor man. When +he began to reprehend our pleasures, to praise a chaste body, a moderate +table, and a mind pure not from all unlawful but even from all +superfluous pleasures, it was my delight to set strict limits to all +voracity and gluttony. And these precepts, my Lucilius, have left some +permanent results; for I embraced them with impetuous eagerness, and +afterwards, when I entered upon a political career, I retained a few of +my good beginnings. In consequence of them, I have all my life long +renounced eating oysters and mushrooms, which do not satisfy hunger but +only sharpen appetite; for this reason I habitually abstain from +perfumes, because the sweetest perfume for the body is none at all: for +this reason I do without wines and baths. Other habits which I once +abandoned have come back to me, but in such a way that I merely +substitute moderation for abstinence, which perhaps is a still more +difficult task; since there are some things which it is easier for the +mind to cut away altogether than to enjoy in moderation. Attalus used to +recommend a hard couch in which the body could not sink; and, even in my +old age, I use one of such a kind that it leaves no impress of the +sleeper. I have told you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager +impulses our little scholars would have to all that is good, if any one +were to exhort them and urge them on. But the harm springs partly from +the fault of preceptors, who teach us how to <i>argue</i>, not how to <i>live</i>; +and partly from the fault of pupils, who bring to their teacher a +purpose of training their intellect and not their souls. Thus it is +that philosophy has been degraded into mere philology."</p> + +<p>In another lively passage, Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of +the various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers. After +observing that philosophy exercises some influence even over those who +do not go deeply in it, just as people sitting in a shop of perfumes +carry away with them some of the odour, he adds, "Do we not, however, +know some who have been among the audience of a philosopher for many +years, and have been even entirely uncoloured by his teaching? Of course +I do, even most persistent and continuous hearers; whom I do not call +pupils, but mere passing auditors of philosophers. Some come to hear, +not to learn, just as we are brought into a theatre for pleasure's sake, +to delight our ears with language, or with the voice, or with plays. You +will observe a large portion of the audience to whom the philosopher's +school is a mere haunt of their leisure. Their object is not to lay +aside any vices there, or to accept any law in accordance with which +they may conform their life, but that they may enjoy a mere tickling of +their ears. Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, to +catch up not <i>things</i> but <i>words</i>. Some with eager countenances and +spirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, and these are charmed by +the beauty of the thoughts, not by the sound of empty words; but the +impression is not lasting. Few only have attained the power of carrying +home with them the frame of mind into which they had been elevated."</p> + +<p>It was to this small latter class that Seneca belonged. He became a +Stoic from very early years. The Stoic philosophers, undoubtedly the +noblest and purest of ancient sects, received their name from the fact +that their founder Zeno had lectured in the Painted Porch or Stoa +Paecile of Athens. The influence of these austere and eloquent masters, +teaching high lessons of morality and continence, and inspiring their +young audience with the glow of their own enthusiasm for virtue, must +have been invaluable in that effete and drunken age. Their doctrines +were pushed to yet more extravagant lengths by the Cynics, who were so +called from a Greek word meaning "dog," from what appeared to the +ancients to be the dog-like brutality of their manners. Juvenal +scornfully remarks, that the Stoics only differed from the Cynics "by a +tunic," which the Stoics wore and the Cynics discarded. Seneca never +indeed adopted the practices of Cynicism, but he often speaks admiringly +of the arch-Cynic Diogenes, and repeatedly refers to the Cynic +Demetrius, as a man deserving of the very highest esteem. "I take with +me everywhere," writes he to Lucilius, "that best of men, Demetrius; +and, leaving those who wear purple robes, I talk with him who is half +naked. Why should I not admire him? I have seen that he has no want. Any +one may despise all things, but no one <i>can</i> possess all things. The +shortest road to riches lies through contempt of riches. But our +Demetrius lives not as though he <i>despised</i> all things, but as though he +simply suffered others to possess them."</p> + +<p>These habits and sentiments throw considerable light on Seneca's +character. They show that even from his earliest days he was capable of +adopting self-denial as a principle, and that to his latest days he +retained many private habits of a simple and honourable character, even +when the exigencies of public life had compelled him to modify others. +Although he abandoned an unusual abstinence out of respect for his +father, we have positive evidence that he resumed in his old age the +spare practices which in his enthusiastic youth he had caught from the +lessons of high-minded teachers. These facts are surely sufficient to +refute at any rate those gross charges against the private character of +Seneca, venomously retailed by a jealous Greekling like Dio Cassius, +which do not rest on a tittle of evidence, and seem to be due to a mere +spirit of envy and calumny. I shall not again allude to these scandals +because I utterly disbelieve them. A man who in his "History" could, as +Dio Cassius has done, put into the mouth of a Roman senator such insane +falsehoods as he has pretended that Fufius Calenus uttered in full +senate against Cicero, was evidently actuated by a spirit which +disentitles his statements to my credence. Seneca was an inconsistent +philosopher both in theory and in practice; he fell beyond all question +into serious errors, which deeply compromise his character; but, so far +from being a dissipated or luxurious man, there is every reason to +believe that in the very midst of wealth and splendour, and all the +temptations which they involve, he retained alike the simplicity of his +habits and the rectitude of his mind. Whatever may have been the almost +fabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar and ivory, they were +rarely spread with any more sumptuous entertainment than water, +vegetables, and fruit. Whatever may have been the amusements common +among his wealthy and noble contemporaries, we know that he found his +highest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of his garden, and took some +of his exercise by running races there with a little slave.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III."></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY.</h3> + +<p>We have gleaned from Seneca's own writings what facts we could +respecting his early education. But in the life of every man there are +influences of a far more real and penetrating character than those which +come through the medium of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age; +the general tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social intercourse, +the political tendencies which were moulding the destiny of the +nation,--these must have told, more insensibly indeed but more +powerfully, on the mind of Seneca than even the lectures of Sotion and +of Attalus. And, if we have had reason to fear that there was much which +was hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the general +aspect of the society by which our young philosopher was surrounded from +the cradle was yet more injurious and deplorable.</p> + +<p>The darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never did a grosser +darkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence brood over the surface of +Pagan society than at the period when the Sun of Righteousness arose +with healing in His wings. There have been many ages when the dense +gloom of a heartless immorality seemed to settle down with unusual +weight; there have been many places where, under the gaslight of an +artificial system, vice has seemed to acquire an unusual audacity; but +never probably was there any age or any place where the worst forms of +wickedness were practiced with a more unblushing effrontery than in the +city of Rome under the government of the Caesars. A deeply-seated +corruption seemed to have fastened upon the very vitals of the national +existence. It is surely a lesson of deep moral significance that just as +they became most polished in their luxury they became most vile in their +manner of life. Horace had already bewailed that "the age of our +fathers, worse than that of our grandsires, has produced us who are yet +baser, and who are doomed to give birth to a still more degraded +offspring." But fifty years later it seemed to Juvenal that in his times +the very final goal of iniquity had been attained, and he exclaims, in a +burst of despair, that "posterity will add <i>nothing</i> to our immorality; +our descendents can but do and desire the same crimes as ourselves." He +who would see but for a moment and afar off to what the Gentile world +had sunk, at the very period when Christianity began to spread, may form +some faint and shuddering conception from the picture of it drawn in the +Epistle to the Romans.</p> + +<p>We ought to realize this fact if we would judge of Seneca aright. Let us +then glance at the condition of the society in the midst of which he +lived. Happily we can but glance at it. The worst cannot be told. Crimes +may be spoken of; but things monstrous and inhuman should for ever be +concealed. We can but stand at the cavern's mouth, and cast a single ray +of light into its dark depths. Were we to enter, our lamp would be +quenched by the foul things which would cluster round it.</p> + +<p>In the age of Augustus began that "long slow agony," that melancholy +process of a society gradually going to pieces under the dissolving +influence of its own vices which lasted almost without interruption till +nothing was left for Rome except the fire and sword of barbaric +invasions. She saw not only her glories but also her virtues "star by +star expire." The old heroism, the old beliefs, the old manliness and +simplicity, were dead and gone; they had been succeeded by prostration +and superstition by luxury and lust.</p> + +<blockquote> +"There is the moral of all human tales,<br> +'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,<br> +First freedom, and then glory; when that fails,<br> +Wealth, vice, corruption,--barbarism at last:<br> +And history, with all her volumes vast,<br> +Hath but one page; 'tis better written here<br> +Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed<br> +All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,<br> +Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The mere elements of society at Rome during this period were very +unpromising. It was a mixture of extremes. There was no middle class. At +the head of it was an emperor, often deified in his lifetime, and +separated from even the noblest of the senators by a distance of +immeasurable superiority. He, was, in the startling language of Gibbon, +at once "a priest, an atheist, and a god." <a name="FNanchor8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8">[8]</a> Surrounding his person and +forming his court were usually those of the nobility who were the most +absolutely degraded by their vices, their flatteries, or their abject +subservience. But even these men were not commonly the repositories of +political power. The people of the greatest influence were the freedmen +of the emperors--men who had been slaves, Egyptians and Bithynians who +had come to Rome with bored ears and with chalk on their naked feet to +show that they were for sale, or who had bawled "sea-urchins all alive" +in the Velabrum or the Saburra--who had acquired enormous wealth by +means often the most unscrupulous and the most degraded, and whose +insolence and baseness had kept pace with their rise to power. Such a +man was the Felix before whom St. Paul was tried, and such was his +brother Pallas,<a name="FNanchor9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9">[9]</a> whose golden statue might have been seen among the +household gods of the senator, afterwards the emperor, Vitellius. +Another of them might often have been observed parading the streets +between two consuls. Imagine an Edward II. endowed with absolute and +unquestioned powers of tyranny,--imagine some pestilent Piers Gaveston, +or Hugh de le Spenser exercising over nobles and people a hideous +despotism of the back stairs,--and you have some faint picture of the +government of Rome under some of the twelve Caesars. What the barber +Olivier le Diable was under Louis XI., what Mesdames du Barri and +Pompadour were under Louis XV., what the infamous Earl of Somerset was +under James I., what George Villiers became under Charles I., will +furnish us with a faint analogy of the far more exaggerated and +detestable position held by the freedman Glabrio under Domitian, by the +actor Tigellinus under Nero, by Pallus and Narcissus under Claudius, by +the obscure knight Sejanus under the iron tyranny of the +gloomy Tiberius.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor8">[8]</a> +<blockquote> +"To the sound<br> +Of fifes and drums they danced, or in the shade<br> +Sung Caesar great and terrible in war,<br> +Immortal Caesar! 'Lo, a god! a god!<br> +He cleaves the yielding skies!' Caesar meanwhile<br> +Gathers the ocean pebbles, or the gnat<br> +Enraged pursues; or at his lonely meal<br> +Starves a wide province; tastes, dislikes, and flings<br> +To dogs and sycophants. 'A god! a god!'<br> +The flowery shades and shrines obscene return."<br> +DYER, <i>Ruins of Rome</i>.<br> +</blockquote> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor9">[9]</a> The pride of this man was such that he never deigned to +speak a word in the presence of his own slaves, but only made known his +wishes by signs!--TACITUS. +</blockquote> + +<p>I. It was an age of the most enormous wealth existing side by side with +the most abject poverty. Around the splendid palaces wandered hundreds +of mendicants, who made of their mendicity a horrible trade, and even +went so far as to steal or mutilate infants in order to move compassion +by their hideous maladies. This class was increased by the exposure of +children, and by that overgrown accumulation of landed property which +drove the poor from their native fields. It was increased also by the +ambitious attempt of people whose means were moderate to imitate the +enormous display of the numerous millionaires. The great Roman conquests +in the East, the plunder of the ancient kingdoms of Antiochus, of +Attalus, of Mithridates, had caused a turbid stream of wealth to flow +into the sober current of Roman life. One reads with silent astonishment +of the sums expended by wealthy Romans on their magnificence or their +pleasures. And as commerce was considered derogatory to rank and +position, and was therefore pursued by men who had no character to lose, +these overgrown fortunes were often acquired by wretches of the meanest +stamp--by slaves brought from over the sea, who had to conceal the holes +bored in their ears;<a name="FNanchor10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10">[10]</a> or even by malefactors who had to obliterate, +by artificial means, the three letters<a name="FNanchor11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11">[11]</a> which had been branded by the +executioner on their foreheads. But many of the richest men in Rome, who +had not sprung from this convict origin, were fully as well deserving of +the same disgraceful stigma. Their houses were built, their coffers were +replenished, from the drained resources of exhausted provincials. Every +young man of active ambition or noble birth, whose resources had been +impoverished by debauchery and extravagance, had but to borrow fresh +sums in order to give magnificent gladiatorial shows, and then, if he +could once obtain an aedileship, and mount to the higher offices of the +State, he would in time become the procurator or proconsul of a +province, which he might pillage almost at his will. Enter the house of +a Felix or a Verres. Those splendid pillars of mottled green marble were +dug by the forced labour of Phrygians from the quarry of Synnada; that +embossed silver, those murrhine vases, those jeweled cups, those +masterpieces of antique sculpture, have all been torn from the homes or +the temples of Sicily or Greece. Countries were pilaged and nations +crushed that an Apicius might dissolve pearls<a name="FNanchor12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12">[12]</a> in the wine he drank, +or that Lollia Paulina might gleam in a second-best dress of emeralds +and pearls which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or more than +32,000<i>l</i>.<a name="FNanchor13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13">[13]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor10">[10]</a> This was a common ancient practice; the very words +"thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots +"thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. +<i>Cic</i>. 26; and Juv. <i>Sat</i>. i. 104.) +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor11">[11]</a> <i>Fur</i>, "thief." (See Martial, ii. 29.) +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor12">[12]</a> "Dissolved pearls, Apicius' diet 'gainst the +epilepsy."--BEN JONSON. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor13">[13]</a> Pliny actually saw her thus arrayed. (Nat. Hist. ix. 35, +36.) +</blockquote> + +<p>Each of these "gorgeous criminals" lived in the midst of an humble +crowd of flatterers, parasites, clients, dependents, and slaves. Among +the throng that at early morning jostled each other in the marble +<i>atrium</i> were to be found a motley and hetrogeneous set of men. Slaves +of every age and nation--Germans, Egyptians, Gauls, Goths, Syrians, +Britons, Moors, pampered and consequential freedmen, impudent +confidential servants, greedy buffoons, who lived by making bad jokes at +other people's tables; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a +trade; philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length of +their beards; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, ready to +flatter and lie with consummate skill, and spreading their vile +character like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a +number of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a +thousand forms of contumely<a name="FNanchor14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14">[14]</a> and insult, and living in discontented +idleness on the <i>sportula</i> or daily largesse which was administered by +the grudging liberality of their haughty patrons. The stout old Roman +burgher had well-nigh disappeared; the sturdy independence, the manly +self-reliance of an industrial population were all but unknown. The +insolent loungers who bawled in the Forum were often mere stepsons of +Italy, who had been dragged thither in chains,--the dregs of all +nations, which had flowed into Rome as into a common sewer,<a name="FNanchor15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15">[15]</a> bringing +with them no heritage except the specialty of their national vices. +Their two wants were bread and the shows of the circus; so long as the +<i>sportula</i> of their patron, the occasional donative of an emperor, and +the ambition of political candidates supplied these wants, they lived in +contented abasement, anxious neither for liberty nor for power.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor14">[14]</a> Few of the many sad pictures in the <i>Satires</i> of Juvenal +are more pitiable than that of the wretched "Quirites" struggling at +their patrons' doors for the pittance which formed their daily dole. +(Sat i. 101.) +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor15">[15]</a> See Juv. <i>Sat</i>. iii. 62. Scipio, on being interrupted by +the mob in the Forum, exclaimed,--"Silence, ye stepsons of Italy! What! +shall I fear these fellows now they are free, whom I myself have brought +in chains to Rome?" (See Cic. <i>De Orat</i>. ii. 61.) +</blockquote> + +<p>II. It was an age at once of atheism and superstition. Strange to say, +the two things usually go together. Just as Philippe Egalité, Duke of +Orleans, disbelieved in God, and yet tried to conjecture his fate from +the inspection of coffee-grounds at the bottom of a cup,--just as Louis +XI. shrank from no perjury and no crime, and yet retained a profound +reverence for a little leaden image which he carried in his cap,--so the +Romans under the Empire sneered at all the whole crowd of gods and +goddesses whom their fathers had worshipped, but gave an implicit +credence to sorcerers, astrologers, spirit-rappers, exorcists, and every +species of imposter and quack. The ceremonies of religion were performed +with ritualistic splendour, but all belief in religion was dead and +gone. "That there are such things as ghosts and subterranean realms not +even boys believe," says Juvenal, "except those who are still too young +to pay a farthing for a bath." <a name="FNanchor16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16">[16]</a> Nothing can exceed the cool +impertinence with which the poet Martial prefers the favour of Domitian +to that of the great Jupiter of the Capitol. Seneca, in his lost book +"Against Superstitions,"<a name="FNanchor17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17">[17]</a> openly sneered at the old mythological +legends of gods married and gods unmarried, and at the gods Panic and +Paleness, and at Cloacina, the goddess of sewers, and at other deities +whose cruelty and license would have been infamous even in mankind. And +yet the priests, and Salii, and Flamens, and Augurs continued to fulfil +their solemn functions, and the highest title of the Emperor himself was +that of <i>Pontifex Maximus</i>, or Chief Priest, which he claimed as the +recognized head of the national religion. "The common worship was +regarded," says Gibbon, "by the people as equally true, by the +philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally +useful." And this famous remark is little more than a translation from +Seneca, who, after exposing the futility of the popular beliefs, adds: +"And yet the wise man will observe them all, not as pleasing to the +gods, but as commanded by the laws. We shall so adore <i>all that ignoble +crowd of gods</i> which long superstition has heaped together in a long +period of years, as to remember that their worship has more to do with +custom than with reality." "Because he was an illustrious senator of the +Roman people," observes St. Augustine, who has preserved for us this +fragment, "he worshipped what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he +adored that with which he found fault." Could anything be more hollow or +heartless than this? Is there anything which is more certain to sap the +very foundations of morality than the public maintenance of a creed +which has long ceased to command the assent, and even the respect of its +recognized defenders? Seneca, indeed, and a few enlightened +philosophers, might have taken refuge from the superstitions which they +abandoned in a truer and purer form of faith. "Accordingly," says +Lactantius, one of the Christian Fathers, "he has said many things like +ourselves concerning God." <a name="FNanchor18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18">[18]</a> He utters what Tertullian finely calls +"the testimony of A MIND NATURALLY CHRISTIAN." But, meanwhile, what +became of the common multitude? They too, like their superiors, learnt +to disbelieve or to question the power of the ancient deities; but, as +the mind absolutely requires <i>some</i> religion on which to rest, they gave +their real devotion to all kinds of strange and foreign deities,--to +Isis and Osiris, and the dog Anubus, to Chaldaean magicians, to Jewish +exercisers, to Greek quacks, and to the wretched vagabond priests of +Cybele, who infested all the streets with their Oriental dances and +tinkling tambourines. The visitor to the ruins of Pompeii may still see +in her temple the statue of Isis, through whose open lips the gaping +worshippers heard the murmured answers they came to seek. No doubt they +believed as firmly that the image spoke, as our forefathers believed +that their miraculous Madonnas nodded and winked. But time has exposed +the cheat. By the ruined shrine the worshipper may now see the secret +steps by which the priest got to the back of the statue, and the pipe +entering the back of its head through which he whispered the answers of +the oracle.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor16">[16]</a> JUV. <i>Sat</i>. ii. 149. Cf. Sen. <i>Ep</i>. xxiv. "Nemo tam puer +est at Cerberum timeat, et tenebras," &c. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor17">[17]</a> Fragm. xxxiv. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor18">[18]</a> Lactantius, <i>Divin. Inst</i>. i. 4. +</blockquote> + +<p>III. It was an age of boundless luxury,--an age in which women +recklessly vied with one another in the race of splendour and +extravagance, and in which men plunged headlong, without a single +scruple of conscience, and with every possible resource at their +command, into the pursuit of pleasure. There was no form of luxury, +there was no refinement of vice invented by any foreign nation, which +had not been eagerly adopted by the Roman patricians. "The softness of +Sybaris, the manners of Rhodes and Antioch, and of perfumed, drunken, +flower-crowned Miletus," were all to be found at Rome. There was no +more of the ancient Roman severity and dignity and self-respect. The +descendants of Aemilius and Gracchus--even generals and consuls and +praetors--mixed familiarly with the lowest <i>canaille</i> of Rome in their +vilest and most squalid purlieus of shameless vice. They fought as +amateur gladiators in the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on +the race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors on the +stage. They devoted themselves with such frantic eagerness to the +excitement of gambling, that we read of their staking hundreds of pounds +on a single throw of the dice, when they could not even restore the +pawned tunics to their shivering slaves. Under the cold marble statues, +or amid the waxen likenesses of their famous stately ancestors, they +turned night into day with long and foolish orgies, and exhausted land +and sea with the demands of their gluttony. "Woe to that city," says an +ancient proverb, "in which a fish costs more than an ox;" and this +exactly describes the state of Rome. A banquet would sometimes cost the +price of an estate; shell-fish were brought from remote and unknown +shores, birds from Parthia and the banks of the Phasis; single dishes +were made of the brains of the peacocks and the tongues of nightingales +and flamingoes. Apicius, after squandering nearly a million of money in +the pleasures of the table, committed suicide, Seneca tells us, because +he found that he had only 80,000<i>l</i>. left. Cowley speaks of--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Vitellius' table, which did hold<br> + As many creatures as the ark of old."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"They eat," said Seneca, "and then they vomit; they vomit, and then +they eat." But even in this matter we cannot tell anything like the +worst facts about--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts<br> + On citron tables and Atlantic stone,<br> + Their wines of Setia, Gales, and Falerne,<br> + Chios, and Crete, and how they quaff in gold,<br> + Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems<br> + And studs of pearl." <a name="FNanchor19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19">[19]</a><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Still less can we pretend to describe the unblushing and unutterable +degradation of this period as it is revealed to us by the poets and the +satirists. "All things," says Seneca, "are full of iniquity and vice; +more crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint. We struggle +in a huge contest of criminality: daily the passion for sin is greater, +the shame in committing it is less.... Wickedness is no longer committed +in secret: it flaunts before our eyes, and</p> + +<blockquote> +"The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems,<br> + ... whatever is known<br> + Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs,<br> + Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food,<br> + And flavoured Chian wines, with incense fumed,<br> + To slake patrician thirst: for these their rights<br> + In the vile atreets they prostitute for sale,<br> + Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws,<br> + Their native glorious freedom.<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>has been sent forth so openly into public sight, and has prevailed so +completely in the breast of all, that innocence is not <i>rare</i>, but +<i>non-existent</i>."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor19">[19]</a> Compare the lines in Dyer's little-remembered <i>Ruins of +Rome</i>. +</blockquote> + +<p>IV. And it was an age of deep sadness. That it should have been so is an +instructive and solemn lesson. In proportion to the luxury of the age +were its misery and its exhaustion. The mad pursuit of pleasure was the +death and degradation of all true happiness. Suicide--suicide out of +pure <i>ennui</i> and discontent at a life overflowing with every possible +means of indulgence--was extraordinarily prevalent. The Stoic +philosophy, especially as we see it represented in the tragedies +attributed to Seneca, rang with the glorification of it. Men ran to +death because their mode of life had left them no other refuge. They +died because it seemed so tedious and so superfluous to be seeing and +doing and saying the same things over and over again; and because they +had exhausted the very possibility of the only pleasures of which they +had left themselves capable. The satirical epigram of Destouches,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Ci-gît Jean Rosbif, écuyer,<br> + Qui se pendit pour se désennuyer,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>was literally and strictly true of many Romans during this epoch. +Marcellinus, a young and wealthy noble, starved himself, and then had +himself suffocated in a warm bath, merely because he was attacked with a +perfectly curable illness. The philosophy which alone professed itself +able to heal men's sorrows applauded the supposed courage of a voluntary +death, and it was of too abstract, too fantastic, and too purely +theoretical a character to furnish them with any real or lasting +consolations. No sentiment caused more surprise to the Roman world than +the famous one preserved in the fragment of Maecenas,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Debilem facito manu,<br> + Debilem pede, coxâ,<br> + Tuber adstrue gibberum,<br> + Lubricos quate dentes;<br> + Vita dum superest bene est;<br> + Hanc mihi vel acutâ<br> + Si sedeam cruce sustine;"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>which may be paraphrased,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Numb my hands with palsy,<br> + Rack my feet with gout,<br> + Hunch my back and shoulder,<br> + Let my teeth fall out;<br> + Still, if <i>Life</i> be granted,<br> + I prefer the loss;<br> + Save my life, and give me<br> + Anguish on the cross."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Seneca, in his 101st Letter, calls this "a most disgraceful and most +contemptible wish;" but it may be paralleled out of Euripides, and still +more closely out of Homer. "Talk not," says the shade of Achilles to +Ulysses in the Odyssey,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"'Talk not of reigning in this dolorous gloom,<br> + Nor think vain lies,' he cried, 'can ease my doom.<br> + <i>Better by far laboriously to bear<br> + A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air,<br> + Slave to the meanest hind that begs his bread,<br> + Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead</i>.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>But this falsehood of extremes was one of the sad outcomes of the +popular Paganism. Either, like the natural savage, they dreaded death +with an intensity of terror; or, when their crimes and sorrows had made +life unsupportable, they slank to it as a refuge, with a cowardice which +vaunted itself as courage.</p> + +<p>V. And it was an age of cruelty. The shows of gladiators, the sanguinary +combats of wild beasts, the not unfrequent spectacle of savage tortures +and capital punishments, the occasional sight of innocent martyrs +burning to death in their shirts of pitchy fire, must have hardened and +imbruted the public sensibility. The immense prevalence of slavery +tended still more inevitably to the general corruption. "Lust," as +usual, was "hard by hate." One hears with perfect amazement of the +number of slaves in the wealthy houses. A thousand slaves was no +extravagant number, and the vast majority of them were idle, uneducated +and corrupt. Treated as little better than animals, they lost much of +the dignity of men. Their masters possessed over them the power of life +and death, and it is shocking to read of the cruelty with which they +were often treated. An accidental murmur, a cough, a sneeze, was +punished with rods. Mute, motionless, fasting, the slaves had to stand +by while their masters supped; A brutal and stupid barbarity often +turned a house into the shambles of an executioner, sounding with +scourges, chains, and yells.<a name="FNanchor20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20">[20]</a> One evening the Emperor Augustus was +supping at the house of Vedius Pollio, when one of the slaves, who was +carrying a crystal goblet, slipped down, and broke it. Transported with +rage Vedius at once ordered the slave to be seized, and plunged into the +fish-pond as food to the lampreys. The boy escaped from the hands of his +fellow-slaves, and fled to Caesar's feet to implore, not that his life +should be spared--a pardon which he neither expected nor hoped--but that +he might die by a mode of death less horrible than being devoured by +fishes. Common as it was to torment slaves, and to put them to death, +Augustus, to his honor be it spoken, was horrified by the cruelty of +Vedius, and commanded both that the slave should be set free, that every +crystal vase in the house of Vedius should be broken in his presence and +that the fish pond should be filled up. Even women inflicted upon their +female slaves punishments of the most cruel atrocity for faults of the +most venial character. A brooch wrongly placed, a tress of hair +ill-arranged, and the enraged matron orders her slave to be lashed and +crucified. If her milder husband interferes, she not only justifies the +cruelty, but asks in amazement: "What! is a slave so much of a human +being?" No wonder that there was a proverb, "As many slaves, so many +foes." No wonder that many masters lived in perpetual fear, and that +"the tyrant's devilish plea, necessity," might be urged in favor of that +odious law which enacted that, if a master was murdered by an unknown +hand, the whole body of his slaves should suffer death,--a law which +more than once was carried into effect under the reigns of the Emperors. +Slavery, as we see in the case of Sparta and many other nations, always +involves its own retribution. The class of free peasant proprietors +gradually disappears. Long before this time Tib. Gracchus, in coming +home from Sardinia, had observed that there was scarcely a single +freeman to be seen in the fields. The slaves were infinitely more +numerous than their owners. Hence arose the constant dread of servile +insurrections; the constant hatred of a slave population to which any +conspirator revolutionist might successfully appeal; and the constant +insecurity of life, which must have struck terror into many hearts.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor20">[20]</a> Juv. <i>Sat</i>. i. 219--222. +</blockquote> + +<p>Such is but a faint and broad outline of some of the features of +Seneca's age; and we shall be unjust if we do not admit that much at +least of the life he lived, and nearly all the sentiments he uttered, +gain much in grandeur and purity from the contrast they offer to the +common life of--</p> + +<blockquote> +"That people victor once, now vile and base,<br> + Deservedly made vassal, who, once just,<br> + Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well,<br> + But govern ill the nations under yoke,<br> + Peeling their provinces, exhausted all<br> + By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown<br> + Of triumph, that insulting vanity;<br> + Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured<br> + Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed,<br> + Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still,<br> + And from the daily scene effeminate.<br> + What wise and valient men would seek to free<br> + These thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved;<br> + Or could of inward slaves make outward free?"<br> + MILTON, <i>Paradise Regained</i>, iv. 132-145.<br> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS.</h3> + +<p>The personal notices of Seneca's life up to the period of his manhood +are slight and fragmentary. From an incidental expression we conjecture +that he visited his aunt in Egypt when her husband was Prefect of that +country, and that he shared with her the dangers of shipwreck when her +husband had died on board ship during the homeward voyage. Possibly the +visit may have excited in his mind that deep interest and curiosity +about the phenomena of the Nile which appear so strongly in several +passages of his <i>Natural Questions</i>; and, indeed nothing is more likely +than that he suggested to Nero the earliest recorded expedition to +discover the source of the mysterious river. No other allusion to his +travels occur in his writings, but we may infer that from very early +days he had felt an interest for physical inquiry, since while still a +youth he had written a book on earthquakes; which has not come down +to us.</p> + +<p>Deterred by his father from the pursuit of philosophy, he entered on the +duties of a profession. He became an advocate, and distinguished himself +by his genius and eloquence in pleading causes. Entering on a political +career, he became a successful candidate for the quaestorship, which +was an important step towards the highest offices of the state. During +this period of his life he married a lady whose name has not been +preserved to us, and to whom we have only one allusion, which is a +curious one. As in our own history it has been sometimes the fashion for +ladies of rank to have dwarves and negroes among their attendants, so it +seems to have been the senseless and revolting custom of the Roman +ladies of this time to keep idiots among the number of their servants. +The first wife of Seneca had followed this fashion, and Seneca in his +fiftieth letter to his friend Lucilius<a name="FNanchor21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21">[21]</a> makes the following +interesting allusion to the fact. "You know," he says, "that my wife's +idiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For +personally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind. +If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for +one. I laugh at myself. This idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now, +incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious +of her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere, +because the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we +laugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is +avaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide; <i>we</i> wander about +without a guide."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor21">[21]</a> It will be observed that the main biographical facts about +the life of Seneca are to be gleaned from his letters to Lucilius, who +was his constant friend from youth to old age, and to whom he has +dedicated his Natural Questions. Lucilius was a procurator of Sicily, a +man of cultivated taste and high principle. He was the author of a poem +on Aetna, which in the opinion of many competent judges is the poem +which has come down to us, and has been attributed to Varus, Virgil, and +others. It has been admirably edited by Mr. Munro. (See <i>Nat. Quaest.</i>, +iv. <i>ad init. Ep</i>. lxxix.) He also wrote a poem on the fountain +Arethusa. <i>(Nat. Quaest</i>. iii, 26.) +</blockquote> + +<p>This passage will furnish us with an excellent example of Seneca's +invariable method of improving every occasion and circumstance into an +opportunity for a philosophic harangue.</p> + +<p>By this wife, who died shortly before Seneca's banishment to Corsica, he +had two sons, one of whom expired in the arms and amid the kisses of +Helvia less than a month before Seneca's departure for Corsica. To the +other, whose name was Marcus, he makes the following pleasant allusion. +After urging his mother Helvia to find consolation in the devotion of +his brothers Gallio and Mela, he adds, "From these turn your eyes also +on your grandsons--to Marcus, that most charming little boy, in sight of +whom no melancholy can last long. No misfortune in the breast of any one +can have been so great or so recent as not to be soothed by his +caresses. Whose tears would not his mirth repress? whose mind would not +his prattling loose from the pressure of anxiety? whom will not that +joyous manner of his incline to jesting? whose attention, even though he +be fixed in thought, will not be attracted and absorbed by that +childlike garrulity of which no one can grow tired? God grant that he +may survive me: may all the cruelty of destiny be weared out on me!"</p> + +<p>Whether the prayer of Seneca was granted we do not know; but, as we do +not again hear of Marcus, it is probable that he died before his father, +and that the line of Seneca, like that of so many great men, became +extinct in the second generation.</p> + +<p>It was probably during this period that Seneca laid the foundations of +that enormous fortune which excited the hatred and ridicule of his +opponents. There is every reason to believe that this fortune was +honourably gained. As both his father and mother were wealthy, he had +doubtless inherited an ample competency; this was increased by the +lucrative profession of a successful advocate, and was finally swollen +by the princely donations of his pupil Nero. It is not improbable that +Seneca, like Cicero, and like all the wealthy men of their day, +increased his property by lending money upon interest. No disgrace +attached to such a course; and as there is no proof for the charges of +Dio Cassius on this head, we may pass them over with silent contempt. +Dio gravely informs us that Seneca excited an insurrection in Britain, +by suddenly calling in the enormous sum of 40,000,000 sesterces; but +this is in all probability the calumny of a professed enemy. We shall +refer again to Seneca's wealth; but we may here admit that it was +undoubtedly ungraceful and incongruous in a philosopher who was +perpetually dwelling on the praises of poverty, and that even in his own +age it attracted unfavourable notice, as we may see from the epithet +<i>Proedives</i>, "the over-wealthy," which is applied to him alike by a +satiric poet and by a grave historian. Seneca was perfectly well aware +that this objection could be urged against him, and it must be admitted +that the grounds on which he defends himself in his treatise <i>On a Happy +Life</i> are not very conclusive or satisfactory.</p> + +<p>The boyhood of Seneca fell in the last years of the Emperor Augustus, +when, in spite of the general decorum and amiability of their ruler, +people began to see clearly that nothing was left of liberty except the +name. His youth and early manhood were spent during those +three-and-twenty years of the reign of Tiberius, that reign of terror, +during which the Roman world was reduced to a frightful silence and +torpor as of death;<a name="FNanchor22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22">[22]</a> and, although he was not thrown into personal +collision with that "brutal monster," he not unfrequently alludes to +him, and to the dangerous power and headlong ruin of his wicked minister +Sejanus. Up to this time he had not experienced in his own person those +crimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who are brought into +close contact with tyrants. This first happened to him in the reign of +Caius Caesar, of whom we are enabled, from the writings of Seneca alone, +to draw a full-length portrait.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor22">[22]</a> Milton, <i>Paradise Regained</i>, iv. 128. For a picture of +Tiberius as he appeared in his old age at Capreae, "hated of all and +hating," see Id. 90-97. +</blockquote> + +<p>Caius Caesar was the son of Germanicus and the elder Agrippina. +Germanicus was the bravest and most successful general, and one of the +wisest and most virtuous men, of his day. His wife Agrippina, in her +fidelity, her chastity, her charity, her nobility of mind, was the very +model of a Roman matron of the highest and purest stamp. Strange that +the son of such parents should have been one of the vilest, cruelest, +and foulest of the human race. So, however, it was; and it is a +remarkable fact that scarcely one of the six children of this marriage +displayed the virtues of their father and mother, while two of them, +Caius Caesar and the younger Agrippina, lived to earn an exceptional +infamy by their baseness and their crimes. Possibly this unhappy result +may have been partly due to the sad circumstances of their early +education. Their father, Germanicus, who by his virtue and his successes +had excited the suspicious jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, was by his +distinct connivance, if not by his actual suggestion, atrociously +poisoned in Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless cruel +insults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the island of +Pandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and Drusus Germanicus, were +proclaimed public enemies: Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and +there put to death; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison +of the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known by the name +Caligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his wicked retirement at Capreae, +and there only saved his life by the most abject flattery and the most +adroit submission.</p> + +<p>Capreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming one +extremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea bright and +limpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated by its position, it is +yet within easy reach of Rome. At that time, before Vesuvius had +rekindled those wasteful fires which first shook down, and then deluged +under lava and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, +the scene which it commanded was even more pre-eminently beautiful than +now. Vineyards and olive-groves clothed the sides of that matchless bay, +down to the very line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with +their ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, with its +sides dotted with picturesque villas and happy villages, towered the +giant cone of the volcano which for centuries had appeared to be +extinct, and which was clothed up to the very crater with luxurious +vegetation. Such was the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for +ever by the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself to every +refinement of wickedness, and from hence, being by common consent the +most miserable of men, he wrote to the Senate that memorable letter in +which he confesses his daily and unutterable misery under the stings of +a guilty conscience, which neither solitude nor power enabled him +to escape.</p> + +<p>Never did a fairer scene undergo a worse degradation; and here, in one +or other of the twelve villas which Tiberius had built, and among the +azure grottoes which he caused to be constructed, the youthful Caius<a name="FNanchor23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23">[23]</a> +grew up to manhood. It would have been a terrible school even for a +noble nature; for a nature corrupt and bloodthirsty like that of Caius +it was complete and total ruin. But, though he was so obsequious to the +Emperor as to originate the jest that never had there been a worse +master and never a more cringing slave,--though he suppressed every sign +of indignation at the horrid deaths of his mother and his +brothers,--though he assiduously reflected the looks, and carefully +echoed the very words, of his patron,--yet not even by the deep +dissimulation which such a position required did he succeed in +concealing from the penetrating eye of Tiberius the true ferocity of his +character. Not being the acknowledged heir to the kingdom,--for Tiberius +Gemellus, the youthful grandson of Tiberius, was living, and Caius was +by birth only his grand-nephew,--he became a tool for the machinations +of Marco the praetorian praefect and his wife Ennia. One of his chief +friends was the cruel Herod Agrippa,<a name="FNanchor24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24">[24]</a> who put to death St. James and +imprisoned St. Peter, and whose tragical fate is recorded in the 12th +chap. of the Acts. On one occasion, when Caius had been abusing the +dictator Sulla, Tiberius scornfully remarked that he would have all +Sulla's vices and none of his virtues; and on another, after a quarrel +between Caius and his cousin, the Emperor embraced with tears his young +grandson, and said to the frowning Caius, with one of those strange +flashes of prevision of which we sometimes read in history. "Why are you +so eager? Some day you will kill this boy, and some one else will murder +you." There were some who believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished +the intention of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman +world might relent towards his own memory under the tyranny of a worse +monster than himself. Even the Romans, who looked up to the family of +Germanicus with extraordinary affection, seem early to have lost all +hopes about Caius. They looked for little improvement under the +government of a vicious boy, "ignorant of all things, or nurtured only +in the worst," who would be likely to reflect the influence of Macro, +and present the spectacle of a worse Tiberius under a worse Sejanus.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor23">[23]</a> We shall call him Caius, because it is as little correct +to write of him by the <i>sobriquet</i> Caligula as it would be habitually to +write of our kings Edward or John as Longshanks or Lackland. The name +Caligula means "a little shoe," and was the pet name given to him by the +soldiers of his father, in whose camp he was born. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor24">[24]</a> Josephus adds some curious and interesting particulars to +the story of this Herod and his death which are not mentioned in the +narrative of St. Luke (<i>Antiq</i>. xix. 7, 8. Jahn, <i>Hebr. Commonwealth</i>, +§ cxxvi.) +</blockquote> + +<p>At last health and strength failed Tiberius, but not his habitual +dissimulation. He retained the same unbending soul, and by his fixed +countenance and measured language, sometimes by an artificial +affability, he tried to conceal his approaching end. After many restless +changes, he finally settled down in a villa at Misenum which had once +belonged to the luxurious Lucullus. There the real state of his health +was discovered. Charicles, a distinguished physician, who had been +paying him a friendly visit on kissing his hand to bid farewell, managed +to ascertain the state of his pulse. Suspecting that this was the case +Tiberius, concealing his displeasure, ordered a banquet to be spread, +as though in honour of his friend's departure, and stayed longer than +usual at table. A similar story is told of Louis XIV. who, noticing from +the whispers of his courtiers that they believed him to be dying, ate an +unusually large dinner on the very day of his death, and sarcastically +observed, "Il me semble que pour un homme qui va mourir je ne mange pas +mal." But, in spite of the precautions of Tiberius, Charicles informed +Macro that the Emperor could not last beyond two days.</p> + +<p>A scene of secret intrigue at once began. The court broke up into knots +and cliques. Hasty messengers were sent to the provinces and their +armies, until at last, on the 16th of March, it was believed that +Tiberius had breathed his last. Just as on the death of Louis XV. a +sudden noise was heard as of thunder, the sound of courtiers rushing +along the corridors to congratulate Louis XVI. in the famous words, "Le +roi est mort, vive le roi," so a crowd instantly thronged round Caius +with their congratulations, as he went out of the palace to assume his +imperial authority. Suddenly a message reached him that Tiberius had +recovered voice and sight. Seneca says, that feeling his last hour to be +near, he had taken off his ring, and, holding it in his shut left hand, +had long lain motionless; then calling his servants, since no one +answered his call, he rose from his couch, and, his strength failing +him, after a few tottering steps fell prostrate on the ground.</p> + +<p>The news produced the same consternation as that which was produced +among the conspirators at Adonijah's banquet, when they heard of the +measures taken by the dying David. There was a panic-stricken +dispersion, and every one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what +was going on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of +empire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind. With the utmost +intrepidity, he gave orders that the old man should be suffocated by +heaping over him a mass of clothes, and that every one should then leave +the chamber. Such was the miserable and unpitied end of the Emperor +Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Such was the death, and +so miserable had been the life, of the man to whom the Tempter had +already given "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," when he +tried to tempt with them the Son of God. That this man should have been +the chief Emperor of the earth at a time when its true King was living +as a peasant in his village home at Nazareth, is a fact suggestive of +many and of solemn thoughts.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V."></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>THE REIGN OF CAIUS.</h3> + +<p>The poet Gray, in describing the deserted deathbed of our own great +Edward III., says:--</p> + +<blockquote><center> +"Low on his funeral couch he lies!<br> + No pitying heart, no eye afford<br> + A tear to grace his obsequies!<br> +</center></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<blockquote><center> + "The swarm that in the noontide beam were born?<br> + Gone to salute the rising Morn.<br> + Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows,<br> + While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,<br> + In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;<br> + Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm;<br> + Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway,<br> + That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey."<br> +</center></blockquote> + +<p>The last lines of this passage would alone have been applicable to Caius +Caesar. There was nothing fair or gay even about the beginning of his +reign. From first to last it was a reign of fury and madness, and lust +and blood. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in this family, +which was developed by their being placed on the dizzy pinnacle of +imperial despotism, and which usually took the form of monstrous and +abnormal crime. If we would seek a parallel for Caius Caesar, we must +look for it in the history of Christian VII. of Denmark, and Paul of +Russia. In all three we find the same ghastly pallor, the same +sleeplessness which compelled them to rise, and pace their rooms at +night, the same incessant suspicion; the same inordinate thirst for +cruelty and torture. He took a very early opportunity to disembarrass +himself of his benefactors, Macro and Ennia, and of his rival, the young +Tiberius. The rest of his reign was a series of brutal extravagances. We +have lost the portion of those matchless Annals of Tacitus which +contained the reign of Caius, but more than enough to revolt and horrify +is preserved in the scattered notices of Seneca, and in the narratives +of Suetonius in Latin and Dio Cassius in Greek.</p> + +<p>His madness showed itself sometimes in gluttonous extravagance, as when +he ordered a supper which cost more than 8,000<i>l</i>; sometimes in a +<i>bizarre</i> and disgraceful mode of dress, as when he appeared in public +in women's stockings, embroidered with gold and pearls; sometimes in a +personality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank and class in +Rome, which made him ask a senator to supper, and ply him with drunken +toasts, on the very evening on which he had condemned his son to death; +sometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed his furious +indignation against Jupiter for presuming to thunder while he was +supping, or looking at the pantomimes; but most of all in a ferocity +which makes Seneca apply to him the name of "Bellua," or "wild monster," +and say that he seems to have been produced "for the disgrace and +destruction of the human race."</p> + +<p>We will quote from the pages of Seneca but one single passage to justify +his remark "that he was most greedy for human blood, which he ordered +to stream in his very presence with such eagerness as though he were +going to drink it up with his lips." He says that in one day he scourged +and tortured men of consular and quaestorial parentage, knights and +senators, not by way of examination, but out of pure caprice and rage; +he seriously meditated the butchery of the entire senate; he expressed a +wish that the Roman people had but a single neck, that he might strike +it off at one blow; he silenced the screams or reproaches of his victims +sometimes by thrusting a sponge in their mouths, sometimes by having +their mouths gagged with their own torn robes, sometimes by ordering +their tongues to be cut out before they were thrown to the wild beasts. +On one occasion, rising from a banquet, he called for his slippers, +which were kept by the slaves while the guests reclined on the purple +couches, and so impatient was he for the sight of death, that, walking +up and down his covered portico by lamplight with ladies and senators, +he then and there ordered some of his wretched victims to be beheaded in +his sight.</p> + +<p>It is a singular proof of the unutterable dread and detestation inspired +by some of these Caesars, that their mere countenance is said to have +inspired anguish. Tacitus, in the life of his father-in-law Agricola, +mentions the shuddering recollection of the red face of Domitian, as it +looked on at the games. Seneca speaks in one place of wretches doomed to +undergo stones, sword, fire, and <i>Caius</i>; in another he says that he had +tortured the noblest Romans with everything which could possibly cause +the intensest agony,--with cords, plates, rack, fire, and, as though it +were the worst torture of all, with his look! What that look was, we +learn from Seneca himself, "His face was ghastly pale, with a look of +insanity; his fierce, dull eyes were half-hidden under a wrinkled brow; +his ill-shaped head was partly bald, partly covered with dyed-hair; his +neck covered with bristles, his legs thin, and his feet mis-shapen." Woe +to the nation that lies under the heel of a brutal despotism; treble woe +to the nation that can tolerate a despot so brutal as this! Yet this was +the nation in the midst of which Seneca lived, and this was the despot +under whom his early manhood was spent.</p> + +<blockquote> +"But what more oft in nations grown corrupt,<br> + And by their vices brought to servitude,<br> + Than to love bondage more than liberty,<br> + Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was one of the peculiarities of Caius Caesar that he hated the very +existence of any excellence. He used to bully and insult the gods +themselves, frowning even at the statues of Apollo and Jupiter of the +Capitol. He thought of abolishing Homer, and order the works of Livy and +Virgil to be removed from all libraries, because he could not bear that +they should be praised. He ordered Julius Graecinus to be put to death +for no other reason than this, "That he was a better man than it was +expedient for a tyrant that any one should be;" for, as Pliny tells us, +the Caesars deliberately preferred that their people should be vicious +than that they should be virtuous. It was hardly likely that such a man +should view with equanimity the rising splendour of Seneca's reputation. +Hitherto, the young man, who was thirty-five years old at the accession +of Caius, had not written any of his philosophic works, but in all +probability he had published his early, and no longer extant, treatises +on earthquakes, on superstitions, and the books <i>On India</i>, and <i>On the +Manners of Egypt</i>, which had been the fruit of his early travels. It is +probable, too, that he had recited in public some of those tragedies +which have come down to us under his name, and in the composition of +which he was certainly concerned. All these works, and especially the +applause won by the public reading of his poems, would have given him +that high literary reputation which we know him to have earned. It was +not, however, this reputation, but the brilliancy and eloquence of his +orations at the bar which excited the jealous hatred of the Emperor. +Caius piqued himself on the possession of eloquence; and, strange to +say, there are isolated expressions of his which seem to show that, in +lucid intervals, he was by no means devoid of intellectual acuteness. +For instance, there is real humour and insight in the nicknames of "a +golden sheep" which he gave to the rich and placid Silanus, and of +"Ulysses in petticoats," by which he designated his grandmother, the +august Livia. The two epigrammetic criticisms which he passed upon the +style of Seneca are not wholly devoid of truth; he called his works +<i>Commissiones meras</i>, or mere displays.<a name="FNanchor25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25">[25]</a> In this expression he hit +off, happily enough, the somewhat theatrical, the slightly pedantic and +pedagogic and professorial character of Seneca's diction, its rhetorical +ornament and antitheses, and its deficiency in stern masculine +simplicity and strength. In another remark he showed himself a still +more felicitous critic. He called Seneca's writings <i>Arenu sine Calce</i>, +"sand without lime," or, as we might say, "a rope of sand." This epigram +showed a real critical faculty. It exactly hits off Seneca's short and +disjointed sentences, consisting as they often do of detached +antitheses. It accords with the amusing comparison of Malebranche, that +Seneca's composition, with its perpetual and futile recurrences, calls +up to him the image of a dancer who ends where he begins.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor25">[25]</a> Suet. <i>Calig.</i> liii. +</blockquote> + +<p>But Caius did not confine himself to clever and malignant criticism. On +one occasion, when Seneca was pleading in his presence, he was so +jealous and displeased at the brilliancy and power of the orator that he +marked him out for immediate execution. Had Seneca died at this period +he would probably have been little known, and he might have left few +traces of his existence beyond a few tragedies of uncertain +authenticity, and possibly a passing notice in the page of Dio or +Tacitus. But destiny reserved him for a more splendid and more +questionable career. One of Caius's favourites whispered to the Emperor +that it was useless to extinguish a waning lamp; that the health of the +orator was so feeble that a natural death by the progress of his +consumptive tendencies would, in a very short time, remove him out of +the tyrant's way.</p> + +<p>Throughout the remainder of the few years during which the reign of +Caius continued, Seneca, warned in time, withdrew himself into complete +obscurity, employing his enforced leisure in that unbroken industry +which stored his mind with such encyclopaedic wealth. "None of my days," +he says, in describing at a later period the way in which he spent his +time, "is passed in complete ease. I claim even a part of the night for +my studies. I do not <i>find leisure</i> for sleep, but I <i>succumb</i> to it, +and I keep my eyes at their work even when they are wearied and drooping +with watchfulness. I have retired, not only from men, but from affairs, +and especially from my own. I am doing the work for posterity; I am +writing out things which may prove of advantage to them. I am +intrusting to writing healthful admonitions--compositions, as it were, +of useful medicines."</p> + +<p>But the days of Caius drew rapidly to an end. His gross and unheard-of +insults to Valerius Asiaticus and Cassius Chaereas brought on him +condign vengeance. It is an additional proof, if proof were wanting, of +the degradation of Imperial Rome, that the deed of retribution was due, +not to the people whom he taxed; not to the soldiers, whole regiments of +whom he had threatened to decimate; not to the knights, of whom scores +had been put to death by his orders; not to the nobles, multitudes of +whom had been treated by him with conspicuous infamy; not even to the +Senate, which illustrious body he had on all occasions deliberately +treated with contumely and hatred,--but to the private revenge of an +insulted soldier. The weak thin voice of Cassius Chaereas, tribune of +the praetorian cohort, had marked him out for the coarse and calumnious +banter of the imperial buffoon; and he determined to avenge himself, and +at the same time rid the world of a monster. He engaged several +accomplices in the conspiracy, which was nearly frustrated by their want +of resolution. For four whole days they hesitated, while day after day, +Caius presided in person at the bloody games of the amphitheatre. On the +fifth day (Jan. 24, A.D. 41), feeling unwell after one of his gluttonous +suppers, he was indisposed to return to the shows, but at last rose to +do so at the solicitation of his attendants. A vaulted corridor led from +the palace to the circus, and in that corridor Caius met a body of noble +Asiatic boys, who were to dance a Pyrrhic dance and sing a laudatory ode +upon the stage. Caius wished them at once to practice a rehearsal in his +presence, but their leader excused himself on the grounds of +hoarseness. At this moment Chaereas asked him for the watchword of the +night. He gave the watchword, "Jupiter." "Receive him in his wrath!" +exclaimed Chaereas, striking him on the throat, while almost at the same +moment the blow of Sabinus cleft the tyrant's jaw, and brought him to +his knee. He crouched his limbs together to screen himself from further +blows, screaming aloud, "I live! I live!" The bearers of his litter +rushed to his assistance, and fought with their poles, but Caius fell +pierced with thirty wounds; and, leaving the body weltering in its +blood, the conspirators rushed out of the palace, and took measures to +concert with the Senate a restoration of the old Republic. On the very +night after the murder the consuls gave to Chaereas the long-forgotten +watchword of "Liberty." But this little gleam of hope proved delusive to +the last degree. It was believed that the unquiet ghost of the murdered +madman haunted the palace, and long before it had been laid to rest by +the forms of decent sepulchre, a new emperor of the great Julian family +was securely seated upon the throne.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI."></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA.</h3> + +<p>While the senators were deliberating, the soldiers were acting. They +felt a true, though degraded, instinct that to restore the ancient forms +of democratic freedom would be alike impossible and useless, and with +them the only question lay between the rival claimants for the vacant +power. Strange to say that, among these claimants, no one seems ever to +have thought of mentioning the prince who became the actual successor.</p> + +<p>There was living in the palace at this time a brother of the great +Germanicus, and consequently an uncle of the late emperor, whose name +was Claudius Caesar. Weakened both in mind and body by the continuous +maladies of an orphaned infancy, kept under the cruel tyranny of a +barbarous slave, the unhappy youth had lived in despised obscurity among +the members of a family who were utterly ashamed of him. His mother +Antonia called him a monstrosity, which Nature had begun but never +finished; and it became a proverbial expression with her, as is said to +have been the case with the mother of the great Wellington, to say of a +dull person, "that he was a greater fool than her son Claudius." His +grandmother Livia rarely deigned to address him except in the briefest +and bitterest terms. His sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of +his ever becoming emperor. Augustus, his grandfather by adoption, took +pains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a +wool-gathering<a name="FNanchor26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26">[26]</a> and discreditable member of the family, denied him +all public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when +looking out for a successor, deliberately passed him over as a man of +deficient intellect. Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and +blows, and for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the unhappy +Claudius came late for dinner, he would find every place occupied, and +peer about disconsolately amid insulting smiles. If, as was his usual +custom, he dropped asleep, after a meal, he was pelted with olives and +date-stones, or rough stockings were drawn over his hands that he might +be seen rubbing his face with them when he was suddenly awaked.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor26">[26]</a> He calls him [Greek meteoros] which implies awkwardness +and constant absence of mind. +</blockquote> + +<p>This was the unhappy being who was now summoned to support the falling +weight of empire. While rummaging the palace for plunder, a common +soldier had spied a pair of feet protruding from under the curtains +which shaded the sides of an upper corridor. Seizing these feet, and +inquiring who owned them, he dragged out an uncouth, panic-stricken +mortal, who immediately prostrated himself at his knees and begged hard +for mercy. It was Claudius, who scared out of his wits by the tragedy +which he had just beheld, had thus tried to conceal himself until the +storm was passed. "Why, this is Germanicus!" <a name="FNanchor27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27">[27]</a> exclaimed the soldier, +"let's make him emperor." Half joking and half in earnest, they hoisted +him on their shoulders--for terror had deprived him of the use of his +legs--and hurried him off to the camp of the Praetorians. Miserable and +anxious he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd of +passers-by, who believed that he was being hurried off to execution. But +the soldiers, who well knew their own interests, accepted him with +acclamations, the more so as, by a fatal precedent, he promised them a +largess of more than 80<i>l</i>. apiece. The supple Agrippa (the Herod of +Acts xii.), seeing how the wind lay, offered to plead his cause with the +Senate, and succeeded partly by arguments, partly by intimidation, and +partly by holding out the not unreasonable hopes of a great improvement +on the previous reign.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor27">[27]</a> The full name of Claudius was Tiberius Claudius Drusus +Caesar Germanicus. +</blockquote> + +<p>For although Claudius had been accused of gambling and drunkenness, not +only were no <i>worse</i> sins laid to his charge, but he had successfully +established some claim to being considered a learned man. Had fortune +blessed him till death with a private station, he might have been the +Lucien Bonaparte of his family--a studious prince, who preferred the +charms of literature to the turmoil of ambition. The anecdotes which +have been recorded of him show that he was something of an +archaeologist, and something of a philologian. The great historian Livy, +pitying the neglect with which the poor young man was treated, had +encouraged him in the study of history; and he had written memoirs of +his own time, memoirs of Augustus, and even a history of the civil wars +since the battle of Actium, which was so correct and so candid that his +family indignantly suppressed it as a fresh proof of his stupidity.</p> + +<p>Such was the man who, at the age of fifty, became master of the +civilized world. He offers some singular points of resemblance to our +own "most mighty and dread sovereign," King James I. Both were learned, +and both were eminently unwise;<a name="FNanchor28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28">[28]</a> both of them were authors, and both +of them were pedants; both of them delegated their highest powers to +worthless favourites, and both of them enriched these favourites with +such foolish liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them +had been terrified into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary +presence at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good +dispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of cruelty; and both +of them, though laborious in the discharge of duty, succeeded only in +rendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir Walter Raleigh in +prison, and Claudius drove Seneca into exile. The parallel, so far as I +am aware, has never been noticed, but is susceptible of being drawn out +into the minutest particulars.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor28">[28]</a> "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," says our own poet. +Heraclitus had said the same thing more than two thousand years before +him, [Greek: polumaoiae ou didasho]. +</blockquote> + +<p>One of his first acts was to recall his nieces, Julia and Agrippina, +from the exile into which their brother had driven them; and both these +princesses were destined to effect a powerful influence on the life of +our philosopher.</p> + +<p>What part Seneca had taken during the few troubled days after the murder +of Caius we do not know. Had he taken a leading part--had he been one of +those who, like Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being +merely the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic,--or who, like +Sabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Caesar,--we should +perhaps have heard of it; and we must therefore assume either that he +was still absent from Rome in the retirement into which he had been +driven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with +quietly watching the course of events. It will be observed that his +biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted +in most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on +isolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest +shade long and important periods of his history. Nor are his letters and +other writings full of those political and personal allusions which +convert them into an autobiography. They are, without exception, +occupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they only +refer to such personal reminiscences as may best be converted into the +text for some Stoical paradox or moral declamation. It is, however, +certain from the sequel that Seneca must have seized the opportunity of +Caius's death to emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a +conspicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court.</p> + +<p>It would have been well for his own happiness and fame if he had adopted +the wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doctrines he professed. +A court at most periods is, as the poet says,</p> + +<blockquote> +"A golden but a fatal circle,<br> + Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils<br> + In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence,<br> + And beckon early Virtue from its centre;"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>but the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was indeed a +place wherein few of the wise could find a footing, and still fewer of +the good. And all that Seneca gained from his career of ambition was to +be suspected by the first of these Emperors, banished by the second, and +murdered by the third.</p> + +<p>The first few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and kindly disposition; +but it soon became fatally obvious that the real powers of the +government would be wielded, not by the timid and absent-minded +Emperor, but by any one who for the time being could acquire an +ascendency over his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the +friends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen from the ranks +of his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and Don Miguel, the barbers of these +monarchs were the real governors, so Claudius was but the minister +rather than the master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius +his literary adviser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third person, with +whose name Scripture has made us familiar, was a freedman of Claudius. +This was Felix, the brother of Pallas, and that Procurator who, though +he had been the husband or the paramour of three queens, trembled before +the simple eloquence of a feeble and imprisoned Jew.<a name="FNanchor29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29">[29]</a> These men +became proverbial for their insolence and wealth; and once, when +Claudius was complaining of his own poverty, some one wittily replied, +"that he would have abundance if two of his freedmen would but admit him +into partnership with them."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor29">[29]</a> Acts xix. +</blockquote> + +<p>But these men gained additional power from the countenance and intrigues +of the young and beautiful wife of Claudius, Valeria Messalina. In his +marriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune. +He lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was +that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men; and it was +the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been +united by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the +Berenice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the +sacred historians were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of +them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. He was +betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined +for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended +Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By +his first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he +had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidentally choked in +boyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the +air. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the +unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the +child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, Aelia +Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he +divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal +infamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the +younger for her unscrupulous ambition.</p> + +<p>Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old, +yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of +the most unblushing wickedness.</p> + +<p>But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own +jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and +Agrippina, the two nieces of the Emperor. They were, no less than +herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to +make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the +supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their +wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal +fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when +the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy. It is unlikely that, even +in the first flush of her husband's strange and unexpected triumph, +Messalina should have contemplated with any satisfaction their return +from exile. In this respect it is probable that the Emperor succeeded in +resisting her expressed wishes; so that the mere appearance of the two +daughters of Germanicus in her presence was a standing witness of the +limitations to which her influence was subjected.</p> + +<p>At this period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the history of the +Romans degenerates into mere anecdotes of their rulers. Happily, +however, it is not our duty to enter on the <i>chronique scandaleuse</i> of +plots and counterplots, as little tolerable to contemplate as the +factions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We +can only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a +court? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of +his philosophical professions; and that we can contemplate his presence +there with as little satisfaction as we look on the figure of the +worldly and frivolous bishop in Mr. Frith's picture of "The Last Sunday +of Charles II. at Whitehall."</p> + +<p>And such inconsistencies involve their own retribution, not only in loss +of influence and fair fame, but even in direct consequences. It was so +with Seneca. Circumstances--possibly a genuine detestation of +Messalina's exceptional infamy--seem to have thrown him among the +partisans of her rivals. Messalina was only waiting her opportunity to +strike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the younger and the less +powerful of the two sisters, was marked out as the first victim, and the +opportunity seemed a favourable one for involving Seneca in her ruin. +His enormous wealth, his high reputation, his splendid abilities, made +him a formidable opponent to the Empress, and a valuable ally to her +rivals. It was determined to get rid of both by a single scheme. Julia +was accused of an intrigue with Seneca, and was first driven into exile +and then put to death. Seneca was banished to the barren and +pestilential shores of the island of Corsica.</p> + +<p>Seneca, as one of the most enlightened men of his age, should have aimed +at a character which would have been above the possibility of suspicion: +but we must remember that charges such as those which were brought +against him were the easiest of all to make, and the most impossible to +refute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we are not forced +to believe his guilt; his character was indeed deplorably weak, and the +laxity of the age in such matters was fearfully demoralising; but there +are sufficient circumstances in his favour to justify us in returning a +verdict of "Not guilty." Unless we attach an unfair importance to the +bitter calumny of his open enemies, we may consider that the general +tenor of his life has sufficient weight to exculpate him from an +unsupported accusation.</p> + +<p>Of Julia, Suetonius expressly says that the crime of which she was +accused was uncertain, and that she was condemned unheard. Seneca, on +the other hand, was tried in the Senate and found guilty. He tells us +that it was not Claudius who flung him down, but rather that, when he +was falling headlong, the Emperor supported him with the moderation of +his divine hand; "he entreated the Senate on my behalf; he not only +<i>gave</i> me life, but even <i>begged</i> it for me. Let it be his to consider," +adds Seneca, with the most dulcet flattery, "in what light he may wish +my cause to be regarded; either his justice will find, or his mercy will +make, it a good cause. He will alike be worthy of my gratitude, whether +his ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to his knowledge or to +his will."</p> + +<p>This passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood. The avarice of +Messalina was so insatiable that the non-confiscation of Seneca's +immense wealth is a proof that, for some reason, her fear or hatred of +him was not implacable. Although it is a remarkable fact that she is +barely mentioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, yet +there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation +before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at +all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability; +that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him +guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation +of his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for +literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some +powerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I. +remitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on +Francis Bacon.</p> + +<p>Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate +furnish the slightest valid proofs against him. The Senate at this time +were so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word +of accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make +them fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot +with their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his administration of +justice, patient and laborious as it was, had already grown into a +public joke. On one occasion he wrote down and delivered the wise +decision, "that he agreed with the side which had set forth the truth." +On another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came before him grew so +impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, "You are an old fool." +We are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a +good deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one +occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial +smile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. "At you," +said the man, "you look such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck +with the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A +Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing +Claudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidence +against him, indignantly abused him for his cruel stupidity, and flung +his pen and tablets in his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In +fact, the Emperor's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless +anecdotes. Among other things, when some condemned criminals were to +fight as gladiators, and addressed him before the games in the sublime +formula--"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!" ("Hail, Caesar! doomed +to die, we salute thee!") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer, +"Avete vos!" ("Hail ye also!") which they took as a sign of pardon, and +were unwilling to fight until they were actually forced to do so by the +gestures of the Emperor.</p> + +<p>The decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very +little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence +was that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII."></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA IN EXILE.</h3> + +<p>So, in A.D. 41, in the prime of life and the full vigour of his +faculties, with a name stained by a charge of which he may have been +innocent, but of which he was condemned as guilty, Seneca bade farewell +to his noble-minded mother, to his loving aunt, to his brothers, the +beloved Gallio and the literary Mela, to his nephew, the ardent and +promising young Lucan, and, above all--which cost him the severest +pang--to Marcus, his sweet and prattling boy. It was a calamity which +might have shaken the fortitude of the very noblest soul, and it had by +no means come upon him single handed. Already he had lost his wife, he +had suffered from acute and chronic ill-health, he had been bereaved but +three weeks previously of another little son. He had been cut short by +the jealousy of one emperor from a career of splendid success; he was +now banished by the imbecile subservience of another from all that he +held most dear.</p> + +<p>We are hardly able to conceive the intensity of anguish with which an +ancient Roman generally regarded the thought of banishment. In the long +melancholy wail of Ovid's "Tristia;" in the bitter and heart-rending +complaints of Cicero's "Epistles," we may see something of that intense +absorption in the life of Rome which to most of her eminent citizens +made a permanent separation from the city and its interests a thought +almost as terrible as death itself. Even the stoical and heroic Thrasea +openly confessed that he should prefer death to exile. To a heart so +affectionate, to a disposition so social, to a mind so active and +ambitious as that of Seneca, it must have been doubly bitter to exchange +the happiness of his family circle, the splendour of an imperial court, +the luxuries of enormous wealth, the refined society of statesmen, and +the ennobling intercourse of philosophers for the savage wastes of a +rocky island and the society of boorish illiterate islanders, or at the +best, of a few other political exiles, all of whom would be as miserable +as himself, and some of whom would probably have deserved their fate.</p> + +<p>The Mediteranean rocks selected for political exiles--Gyaros, Seriphos, +Scyathos, Patmos, Pontia, Pandataria--were generally rocky, barren, +fever-stricken places, chosen by design as the most wretched conceivable +spots in which human life could be maintained at all. Yet these islands +were crowded with exiles, and in them were to be found not a few +princesses of Caesarian origin. We must not draw a parallel to their +position from that of an Eleanor, the wife of Duke Humphrey, immured in +Peel Castle in the Isle of Man, or of a Mary Stuart in the Isle of Loch +Levin--for it was something incomparably worse. No care was taken even +to provide for their actual wants. Their very lives were not secure. +Agrippa Posthumus and Nero, the brothers of the Emperor Caligula, had +been so reduced by starvation that both of the wretched youths had been +driven to support life by eating the materials with which their beds +were stuffed. The Emperor Caius had once asked an exile, whom he had +recalled from banishment, in what manner he had been accustomed to +employ his time on the island. "I used," said the flatterer, "to pray +that Tiberius might die, and that you might succeed." It immediately +struck Caius that the exiles whom he had banished might be similarly +employed, and accordingly he sent centurions round the islands to put +them all to death. Such were the miserable circumstances which might be +in store for a political outlaw.<a name="FNanchor30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30">[30]</a> If we imagine what must have been +the feelings of a d'Espréménil, when a <i>lettee de cachet</i> consigned him +to a prison in the Isle d'Hières; or what a man like Burke might have +felt, if he had been compelled to retire for life to the Bermudas; we +may realize to some extent the heavy trial which now befel the life +of Seneca.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor30">[30]</a> Among the Jews the homicides who had fled to a city of +refuge were set free on the high priest's death, and, in order <i>to +prevent them from praying for his death</i>, the mother and other relatives +of the high priest used to supply them with clothes and other +necessaries. See the author's article on "Asylum" in Kitto's +<i>Encyclopedia</i> (ed. Alexander.) +</blockquote> + +<p>Corsica was the island chosen for his place of banishment, and a spot +more uninviting could hardly have been selected. It was an island +"shaggy and savage," intersected from north to south by a chain of wild, +inaccessible mountains, clothed to their summits with gloomy and +impenetrable forests of pine and fir. Its untamable inhabitants are +described by the geographer Strabo as being "wilder than the wild +beasts." It produced but little corn, and scarcely any fruit-trees. It +abounded, indeed, in swarms of wild bees, but its very honey was bitter +and unpalatable, from being infected with the acrid taste of the +box-flowers on which they fed. Neither gold nor silver were found +there; it produced nothing worth exporting, and barely sufficient for +the mere necessaries of its inhabitants; it rejoiced in no great +navigable rivers, and even the trees, in which it abounded, were neither +beautiful nor fruitful. Seneca describes it in more than one of his +epigrams, as a</p> + +<blockquote> +"Terrible isle, when earliest summer glows<br> + Yet fiercer when his face the dog-star shows;"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>and again as a</p> + +<blockquote> +"Barbarous land, which rugged rocks surround,<br> + Whose horrent cliffs with idle wastes are crowned,<br> + No autumn fruit, no tilth the summer yields,<br> + Nor olives cheer the winter-silvered fields:<br> + Nor joyous spring her tender foliage lends,<br> + Nor genial herb the luckless soil befriends;<br> + Nor bread, nor sacred fire, nor freshening wave;--<br> + Nought here--save exile, and the exile's grave!"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>In such a place, and under such conditions, Seneca had ample need for +all his philosophy. And at first it did not fail him. Towards the close +of his first year of exile he wrote the "Consolation to his mother +Helvia," which is one of the noblest and most charming of all his works.</p> + +<p>He had often thought, he said, of writing to console her under this deep +and wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto he had abstained from doing +so, lest, while his own anguish and hers were fresh, he should only +renew the pain of the wound by his unskilful treatment. He waited, +therefore till time had laid its healing hand upon her sorrows, +especially because he found no precedent for one in his position +condoling with others when he himself seemed more in need of +consolation, and because something new and admirable would be required +of a man who, as it were, raised his head from the funeral pyre to +console his friends. Still he now feels impelled to write to her, +because to alleviate her regrets will be to lay aside his own. He does +not attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, because +so far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has tasted it from her +earliest years in all its varieties; and because his purpose was to +conquer her grief, not to extenuate its causes. Those many miseries +would indeed have been in vain, if they had not taught her how to bear +wretchedness. He will prove to her therefore that she has no cause to +grieve either on his account, or on her own. Not on his--because he is +happy among circumstances which others would think miserable and because +he assures her with his own lips that not only is he <i>not</i> miserable, +but that he can never be made so. Every one can secure his own +happiness, if he learns to seek it, not in external circumstances, but +in himself. He cannot indeed claim for himself the title of wise, for, +if so, he would be the most fortunate of men, and near to God Himself; +but, which is the next best thing, he has devoted himself to the study +of wise men, and from them he has learnt to expect nothing and to be +prepared for all things. The blessings which Fortune had hitherto +bestowed on him,--wealth, honours, glory,--he had placed in such a +position that she might rob him of them all without disturbing him. +There was a great <i>space</i> between them and himself, so that they could +be <i>taken</i> but not <i>torn</i> away. Undazzled by the glamour of prosperity, +he was unshaken by the blow of adversity. In circumstances which were +the envy of all men he had never seen any real or solid blessing, but +rather a painted emptiness, a gilded deception; and similarly he found +nothing really hard or terrible in ills which the common voice has so +described.</p> + +<p>What, for instance, was exile? it was but a change of place, an absence +from one's native land; and, if you looked at the swarming multitudes in +Rome itself, you would find that the majority of them were practically +in contented and willing exile, drawn thither by necessity, by ambition, +or by the search for the best opportunities of vice. No isle so wretched +and so bleak which did not attract some voluntary sojourners; even this +precipitous and naked rock of Corsica, the hungriest, roughest, most +savage, most unhealthy spot conceivable, had more foreigners in it than +native inhabitants. The natural restlessness and mobility of the human +mind, which arose from its aetherial origin, drove men to change from +place to place. The colonies of different nations, scattered all over +the civilized and uncivilized world even in spots the most chilly and +uninviting, show that the condition of place is no necessary ingredient +in human happiness. Even Corsica had often changed its owners; Greeks +from Marseilles had first lived there, then Ligurians and Spaniards, +then some Roman colonists, whom the aridity and thorniness of the rock +had not kept away.</p> + +<p>"Varro thought that nature, Brutus that the consciousness of virtue, +were sufficient consolations for any exile. How little have I lost in +comparison with those two fairest possessions which I shall everywhere +enjoy--nature and my own integrity! Whoever or whatever made the +world--whether it were a deity, or disembodied reason, or a divine +interfusing spirit, or destiny, or an immutable series of connected +causes--the result was that nothing, except our very meanest +possessions, should depend on the will of another. Man's best gifts lie +beyond the power of man either to give or to take away. This Universe, +the grandest and loveliest work of nature, and the Intellect which was +created to observe and to admire it, are our special and eternal +possessions, which shall last as long as we last ourselves. Cheerful, +therefore, and erect, let us hasten with undaunted footsteps +whithersoever our fortunes lead us.</p> + +<p>"There is no land where man cannot dwell,--no land where he cannot +uplift his eyes to heaven; wherever we are, the distance of the divine +from the human remains the same. So then, as long as my eyes are not +robbed of that spectacle with which they cannot be satiated, so long as +I may look upon the sun and moon, and fix my lingering gaze on the other +constellations, and consider their rising and setting and the spaces +between them and the causes of their less and greater speed,--while I +may contemplate the multitude of stars glittering throughout the heaven, +some stationary, some revolving, some suddenly blazing forth, others +dazzling the gaze with a flood of fire as though they fell, and others +leaving over a long space their trails of light; while I am in the midst +of such phenomena, and mingle myself, as far as a man may, with things +celestial,--while my soul is ever occupied in contemplations so sublime +as these, what matters it what ground I tread?</p> + +<p>"What though fortune has thrown me where the most magnificent abode is +but a cottage? the humblest cottage, if it be but the home of virtue, +may be more beautiful than all temples; no place is narrow which can +contain the crowd of glorious virtues; no exile severe into which you +may go with such a reliance. When Brutus left Marcellus at Mitylene, he +seemed to be himself going into exile because he left that illustrious +exile behind him. Caesar would not land at Mitylene, because he blushed +to see him. Marcellus therefore, though he was living in exile and +poverty, was living a most happy and a most noble life.</p> + +<blockquote> +"'One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs<br> + Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas;<br> + And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,<br> + Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.'<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"And as for poverty every one who is not corrupted by the madness of +avarice and luxury know that it is no evil. How little does man need, +and how easily can he secure that! As for me, I consider myself as +having lost not wealth, but the trouble of looking after it. Bodily +wants are few--warmth and food, nothing more. May the gods and goddesses +confound that gluttony which sweeps the sky, and sea and land for birds, +and animals, and fish; which eats to vomit and vomits to eat, and hunts +over the whole world for that which after all it cannot even digest! +They might satisfy their hunger with little, and they excite it with +much. What harm can poverty inflict on a man who despises such excesses? +Look at the god-like and heroic poverty of our ancestors, and compare +the simple glory of a Camillus with the lasting infamy of a luxurious +Apicius! Even exile will yield a sufficiency of necessaries, but not +even kingdoms are enough for superfluities. It is the soul that makes us +rich or poor: and the soul follows us into exile, and finds and enjoys +its own blessings even in the most barren solitudes.</p> + +<p>"But it does not even need philosophy to enable us to despise poverty. +Look at the poor: are they not often obviously happier than the rich? +And the times are so changed that what we would now consider the poverty +of an exile would then have been regarded as the patrimony of a prince. +Protected by such precedents as those of Homer, and Zeno, and Menenius +Agrippa, and Regulus, and Scipio, poverty becomes not only safe but +even estimable.</p> + +<p>"And if you make the objection that the ills which assail me are not +exile only, or poverty only, but disgrace as well, I reply that the soul +which is hard enough to resist one wound is invulnerable to all. If we +have utterly conquered the fear of death, nothing else can daunt us. +What is disgrace to one who stands above the opinion of the multitude? +what was even a death of disgrace to Socrates, who by entering a prison +made it cease to be disgraceful? Cato was twice defeated in his +candidature for the praetorship and consulship: well, this was the +disgrace of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised by +another until he has learned to despise himself. The man who has learned +to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred +fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man +bravely wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. Some +indeed say that death is preferable to contempt; to whom I reply that he +who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more +an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred +buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood.</p> + +<p>"On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no cause for endless +weeping: nor have you on your own. You cannot grieve for me on selfish +grounds, in consequence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were +ever eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your dealings +with your sons, and you were always a help and a benefactor to them +rather than they to you. Nor should you give way out of a regret and +longing for me in my absence. We have often previously been separated, +and, although it is natural that you should miss that delightful +conversation, that unrestricted confidence, that electrical sympathy of +heart and intellect that always existed between us, and that boyish glee +wherewith your visits always affected me, yet, as you rise above the +common herd of women in virtue, the simplicity, the purity of your life, +you must abstain from feminine tears as you have done from all feminine +follies. Consider how Cornelia, who had lost ten children by death, +instead of wailing for her dead sons, thanked fortune that had made her +sons <i>Gracchi</i>. Rutilia followed her son Cotta into exile so dearly did +she love him, yet no one saw her shed a tear after his burial. She had +shown her affection when it was needful, she restrained her sorrow when +it was superflous. Imitate the example of these great women as you have +imitated their virtues. I want you not to <i>beguile</i> your sorrow by +amusements or occupations, but to <i>conquer</i> it. For you may now return +to those philosophical studies in which you once showed yourself so apt +a proficient, and which formerly my father checked. They will gradually +sustain and comfort you in your hour of grief.</p> + +<p>"And meanwhile consider how many sources of consolation already exist +for you. My brothers are still with you; the dignity of Gallio, the +leisure of Mela, will protect you; the ever-sparkling mirth of my +darling little Marcus will cheer you up; the training of my little +favourite Novatilla will be a duty which will assuage your sorrow. For +your father's sake, too, though he is absent from you, you must moderate +your lamentations. Above all, your sister--that truly faithful, loving, +and high-souled lady, to whom I owe so deep a debt of affection for her +kindness to me from my cradle until now,--she will yield you the +fondest sympathy and the truest consolation.</p> + +<p>"But since I know that after all your thoughts will constantly revert to +me, and that none of your children will be more frequently before your +mind than I,--not because they are less dear to you than I, but because +it is natural to lay the hand most often upon the spot which pains,--I +will tell you how you are to think of me. Think of me as happy and +cheerful, as though I were in the midst of blessings; as indeed I am, +while my mind, free from every care, has leisure for its own pursuits, +and sometimes amuses itself with lighter studies, sometimes, eager for +truth, soars upwards to the contemplation of its own nature, and the +nature of the universe. It inquires first of all about the lands and +their situation; then into the condition of the surrounding sea, its +ebbings and flowings; then it carefully studies all this terror-fraught +interspace between heaven and earth, tumultuous with thunders and +lightnings, and the blasts of winds, and the showers of rain, and snow +and hail; then, having wandered through all the lower regions, it bursts +upwards to the highest things, and revels in the most lovely--spectacle +of that which is divine, and, mindful of its own eternity, passes into +all that hath been and all that shall be throughout all ages."</p> + +<p>Such in briefest outline, and without any of that grace of language with +which Seneca has invested it, is a sketch of the little treatise which +many have regarded as among the most delightful of Seneca's works. It +presents the picture of that grandest of all spectacles--</p> + +<blockquote> +"A good man struggling with the storms of fate."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>So far there was something truly Stoical in the aspect of Seneca's +exile. But was this grand attitude consistently maintained? Did his +little raft of philosophy sink under him, or did it bear him safely over +the stormy waves of this great sea of adversity.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII."></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY.</h3> + +<p>There are some misfortunes of which the very essence consists in their +continuance. They are tolerable so long as they are illuminated by a ray +of hope. Seclusion and hardship might even come at first with some charm +of novelty to a philosopher who, as was not unfrequent among the amateur +thinkers of his time, occasionally practised them in the very midst of +wealth and friends. But as the hopeless years rolled on, as the efforts +of friends proved unavailing, as the loving son, and husband, and father +felt himself cut off from the society of those whom he cherished in such +tender affection, as the dreary island seemed to him ever more barbarous +and more barren, while season after season added to its horrors without +revealing a single compensation, Seneca grew more and more disconsolate +and depressed. It seemed to be his miserable destiny to rust away, +useless, unbefriended, and forgotten. Formed to fascinate society, here +there were none for him to fascinate; gifted with an eloquence which +could keep listening senates hushed, here he found neither subject nor +audience; and his life began to resemble a river which, long before it +has reached the sea, is lost in dreary marshes and choking sands.</p> + +<p>Like the brilliant Ovid, when he was banished to the frozen wilds of +Tomi, Seneca vented his anguish in plaintive wailing and bitter verse. +In his handful of epigrams he finds nothing too severe for the place of +his exile. He cries--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Spare thou thine exiles, lightly o'er thy dead,<br> + Alive, yet buried, be thy dust bespread."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>And addressing some malignant enemy--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Whoe'er thou art,--thy name shall I repeat?--<br> + Who o'er mine ashes dar'st to press thy feet,<br> + And, uncontented with a fall so dread,<br> + Draw'st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head,<br> + Beware! for nature, pitying, guards the tomb,<br> + And ghosts avenge th' invaders of their gloom,<br> + Hear, Envy, hear the gods proclaim a truth,<br> + Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth,<br> + WRETCHES ARE SACRED THINGS,--thy hands refrain:<br> + E'en sacrilegious hands from TOMBS abstain."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The one fact that seems to have haunted him most was that his abode in +Corsica was a living death.</p> + +<p>But the most complete picture of his state of mind, and the most +melancholy memorial of his inconsistency as a philosopher, is to be +found in his "Consolation to Polybius." Polybius was one of those +freedmen of the Emperor whose bloated wealth and servile insolence were +one of the darkest and strangest phenomena of the time. Claudius, more +than any of his class, from the peculiar imbecility of his character, +was under the powerful influence of this class of men; and so dangerous +was their power that Messalina herself was forced to win her ascendency +over her husband's mind by making these men her supporters, and +cultivating their favour. Such were "the most excellent Felix," the +judge of St. Paul, and the slave who became a husband to three +queens,--Narcissus, in whose household (which moved the envy of the +Emperor) were some of those Christians to whom St. Paul sends greetings +from the Christians of Corinth,<a name="FNanchor31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31">[31]</a>--Pallas, who never deigned to speak +to his own slaves, but gave all his commands by signs, and who actually +condescended to receive the thanks of the Senate, because he, the +descendant of Etruscan kings, yet condescended to serve the Emperor and +the Commonwealth; a preposterous and outrageous compliment, which +appears to have been solely due to the fact of his name being identical +with that of Virgil's young hero, the son of the mythic Evander!</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor31">[31]</a> Rom. xvi. 11. +</blockquote> + +<p>Among this unworthy crew a certain Polybius was not the least +conspicuous. He was the director of the Emperor's studies,--a worthy +Alcuin to such a Charlemagne. All that we know about him is that he was +once the favourite of Messalina, and afterwards her victim, and that in +the day of his eminence the favour of the Emperor placed him so high +that he was often seen walking between the two consuls. Such was the man +to whom, on the occasion of his brother's death, Seneca addressed this +treatise of consolation. It has come down to us as a fragment, and it +would have been well for Seneca's fame if it had not come down to us at +all. Those who are enthusiastic for his reputation would gladly prove it +spurious, but we believe that no candid reader can study it without +perceiving its genuineness. It is very improbable that he ever intended +it to be published, and whoever suffered it to see the light was the +successful enemy of its illustrious author.</p> + +<p>Its sad and abject tone confirms the inference, drawn from an allusion +which it contains, that it was written towards the close of the third +year of Seneca's exile. He apologises for its style by saying that if it +betrayed any weakness of thought or inelegance of expression this was +only what might be expected from a man who had so long been surrounded +by the coarse and offensive <i>patois</i> of barbarians. We need hardly +follow him into the ordinary topics of moral philosophy with which it +abounds, or expose the inconsistency of its tone with that of Seneca's +other writings. He consoles the freedman with the "common common-places" +that death is inevitable; that grief is useless; that we are all born to +sorrow; that the dead would not wish us to be miserable for their sakes. +He reminds him that, owing to his illustrious position, all eyes are +upon him. He bids him find consolation in the studies in which he has +always shown himself so pre-eminent, and lastly he refers him to those +shining examples of magnanimous fortitude, for the climax of which, no +doubt, the whole piece of interested flattery was composed. For this +passage, written in a <i>crescendo</i> style, culminates, as might have been +expected, in the sublime spectacle of Claudius Caesar. So far from +resenting his exile, he crawls in the dust to kiss Caesar's beneficent +feet for saving him from death; so far from asserting his +innocence--which, perhaps, was impossible, since to do so might have +involved him in a fresh charge of treason--he talks with all the +abjectness of guilt. He belauds the clemency of a man, who, he tells us +elsewhere, used to kill men with as much <i>sang froid</i> as a dog eats +offal; the prodigious powers of memory of a divine creature who used to +ask people to dice and to dinner whom he had executed the day before, +and who even inquired as to the cause of his wife's absence a few days +after having given the order for her execution; the extraordinary +eloquence of an indistinct stutterer, whose head shook and whose broad +lips seemed to be in contortions whenever he spoke.<a name="FNanchor32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32">[32]</a> If Polybius +feels sorrowful, let him turn his eyes to Caesar; the splendour of that +most great and radiant deity will so dazzle his eyes that all their +tears will be dried up in the admiring gaze. Oh that the bright +occidental star which has beamed on a world which, before its rising, +was plunged in darkness and deluge, would only shed one little beam +upon him!</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor32">[32]</a> These slight discrepancies of description are taken from +counter passages of <i>Consol, ad Polyb.</i>. and the <i>Ludus de Morte +Caesaris.</i> +</blockquote> + +<p>No doubt these grotesque and gorgeous flatteries, contrasting strangely +with the bitter language of intense hatred and scathing contempt which +Seneca poured out on the memory of Claudius after his death, were penned +with the sole purpose of being repeated in those divine and benignant +ears. No doubt the superb freedman, who had been allowed so rich a share +of the flatteries lavished on his master, would take the opportunity--if +not out of good nature, at least out of vanity,--to retail them in the +imperial ear. If the moment were but favourable, who knows but what at +some oblivious and crapulous moment the Emperor might be induced to sign +an order for our philosopher's recall?</p> + +<p>Let us not be hard on him. Exile and wretchedness are stern trials, and +it is difficult for him to brave a martyr's misery who has no conception +of a martyr's crown. To a man who, like Seneca, aimed at being not only +a philosopher, but also a man of the world--who in this very treatise +criticises the Stoics for their ignorance of life--there would not have +seemed to be even the shadow of disgrace in a private effusion of +insincere flattery intended to win the remission of a deplorable +banishment. Or, if we condemn Seneca, let us remember that Christians, +no less than philosophers, have attained a higher eminence only to +exemplify a more disastrous fall. The flatteries of Seneca to Claudius +are not more fulsome, and are infinitely less disgraceful, than those +which fawning bishops exuded on his counterpart, King James. And if the +Roman Stoic can gain nothing from a comparison with the yet more +egregious moral failure of the greatest of Christian thinkers---Francis +Bacon, Viscount St. Alban's--let us not forget that a Savonarola and a +Cranmer recanted under torment, and that the anguish of exile drew even +from the starry and imperial spirit of Dante Alighieri words and +sentiments for which in his noblest moments he might have blushed.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX."></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE.</h3> + +<p>Of the last five years of Seneca's weary exile no trace has been +preserved to us. What were his alternations of hope and fear, of +devotion to philosophy and of hankering after the world which he had +lost, we cannot tell. Any hopes which he may have entertained respecting +the intervention of Polybius in his favour must have been utterly +quenched when he heard that the freedman, though formerly powerful with +Messalina, had forfeited his own life in consequence of her +machinations. But the closing period of his days in Corsica must have +brought him thrilling news, which would save him from falling into +absolute despair.</p> + +<p>For the career of Messalina was drawing rapidly to a close. The life of +this beautiful princess, short as it was, for she died at a very early +age, was enough to make her name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a +time she appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won for her +an unlimited sway over the facile mind of Claudius, and she had either +won over by her intrigues, or terrified by her pitiless severity, the +noblest of the Romans and the most powerful of the freedmen. But we see +in her fate, as we see on every page of history, that vice ever carries +with it the germ of its own ruin, and that a retribution, which is all +the more inevitable from being often slow, awaits every violation of the +moral law.</p> + +<p>There is something almost incredible in the penal infatuation which +brought about her fall. During the absence of her husband at Ostia, she +wedded in open day with C. Silius, the most beautiful and the most +promising of the young Roman nobles. She had apparently persuaded +Claudius that this was merely a mock-marriage, intended to avert some +ominous auguries which threatened to destroy "the husband of Messalina;" +but, whatever Claudius may have imagined, all the rest of the world knew +the marriage to be real, and regarded it not only as a vile enormity, +but also as a direct attempt to bring about a usurpation of the +imperial power.</p> + +<p>It was by this view of the case that the freedman Narcissus roused the +inert spirit and timid indignation of the injured Emperor. While the +wild revelry of the wedding ceremony was at its height, Vettius Valens, +a well-known physician of the day, had in the license of the festival +struggled up to the top of a lofty tree, and when they asked him what he +saw, he replied in words which, though meant for jest, were full of +dreadful significance, "I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia." He +had scarcely uttered the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then +numerous messengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, and was +coming to take vengeance. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the +assembled guests. Silius, as though nothing had happened, went to +transact his public duties in the Forum; Messalina instantly sending for +her children, Octavia and Britannicus, that she might meet her husband +with them by her side, implored the protection of Vibidia, the eldest of +the chaste virgins of Vesta, and, deserted by all but three companions, +fled on foot and unpitied, through the whole breadth of the city, until +she reached the Ostian gate, and mounted the rubbish-cart of a market +gardener which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed both the +looks and the attention of the Emperor by the proofs and the narrative +of her crimes, and, getting rid of the Vestal by promising her that the +cause of Messalina should be tried, he hurried Claudius forward, first +to the house of Silius, which abounded with the proofs of his guilt, and +then to the camp of the Praetorians, where swift vengeance was taken on +the whole band of those who had been involved in Messalina's crimes. She +meanwhile, in alternative paroxysms of fury and abject terror, had taken +refuge in the garden of Lucullus, which she had coveted and made her own +by injustice. Claudius, who had returned home, and had recovered some of +his facile equanimity in the pleasures of the table, showed signs of +relenting; but Narcissus knew that delay was death, and on his own +authority sent a tribune and centurions to despatch the Empress. They +found her prostrate on the ground at the feet of her mother Lepida, with +whom in her prosperity she had quarrelled, but who now came to pity and +console her misery, and to urge her to that voluntary death which alone +could save her from imminent and more cruel infamy. But the mind of +Messalina, like that of Nero afterwards, was so corrupted by wickedness +that not even such poor nobility was left in her as is implied in the +courage of despair. While she wasted the time in tears and lamentations, +a noise was heard of battering at the doors, and the tribune stood by +her in stern silence, the freedman with slavish vituperation. First she +took the dagger in her irresolute hand, and after she had twice stabbed +herself in vain, the tribune drove home the fatal blow, and the corpse +of Messalina, like that of Jezebel, lay weltering in its blood in the +plot of ground of which her crimes had robbed its lawful owner. +Claudius, still lingering at his dinner, was informed that she had +perished, and neither asked a single question at the time, nor +subsequently displayed the slightest sign of anger, of hatred, of pity, +or of any human emotion.</p> + +<p>The absolute silence of Seneca respecting the woman who had caused him +the bitterest anguish and humiliation of his life is, as we have +remarked already, a strange and significant phenomenon. It is clearly +not due to accident, for the vices which he is incessantly describing +and denouncing would have found in this miserable woman their most +flagrant illustration, nor could contemporary history have furnished a +more apposite example of the vindication by her fate of the stern +majesty of the moral law. But yet, though Seneca had every reason to +loathe her character and to detest her memory, though he could not have +rendered to his patrons a more welcome service than by blackening her +reputation, he never so much as mentions her name. And this honourable +silence gives us a favourable insight into his character. For it can +only be due to his pitying sense of the fact that even Messalina, bad as +she undoubtedly was, had been judged already by a higher Power, and had +met her dread punishment at the hand of God. It has been conjectured, +with every appearance of probability, that the blackest of the scandals +which were believed and circulated respecting her had their origin in +the published autobiography of her deadly enemy and victorious +successor. The many who had had a share in Messalina's fall would be +only too glad to poison every reminiscence of her life; and the deadly +implacable hatred of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar +gratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace over the +acts of a rival whose young children it was her dearest object to +supplant. That Seneca did not deign to chronicle even of an enemy what +Agrippina was not ashamed to write,--that he spared one whom it was +every one's interest and pleasure to malign,--that he regarded her +terrible fall as a sufficient claim to pity, as it was a sufficient +Nemesis upon her crimes,--is a trait in the character of the philosopher +which has hardly yet received the credit which it deserves.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X."></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO.</h3> + +<p>Scarcely had the grave closed over Messalina when the court was plunged +into the most violent factions about the appointment of her successor. +There were three principal candidates for the honour of the aged +Emperor's hand. They were his former wife, Aelia Petina, who had only +been divorced in consequence of trivial disagreements, and who was +supported by Narcissus; Lollia Paulina, so celebrated in antiquity for +her beauty and splendour, and who for a short time had been the wife of +Caius; and Agrippina the younger, the daughter of the great Germanicus, +and the niece of Claudius himself. Claudius, indeed, who had been as +unlucky as Henry VIII. himself in the unhappiness which had attended his +five experiments of matrimony, had made the strongest possible +asseverations that he would never again submit himself to such a yoke. +But he was so completely a tool in the hands of his own courtiers that +no one attached the slightest importance to anything which he had said.</p> + +<p>The marriage of an uncle with his own niece was considered a violation +of natural laws, and was regarded with no less horror among the Romans +than it would be among ourselves. But Agrippina, by the use of means the +most unscrupulous, prevailed over all her rivals, and managed her +interests with such consummate skill that, before many months had +elapsed, she had become the spouse of Claudius and the Empress of Rome.</p> + +<p>With this princess the destinies of Seneca were most closely +intertwined, and it will enable us the better to understand his +position, and his writings, if we remember that all history discloses to +us no phenomenon more portentous and terrible than that presented to us +in the character of Agrippina, the mother of Nero.</p> + +<p>Of the virtues of her great parents she, like their other children, had +inherited not one; and she had exaggerated their family tendencies into +passions which urged her into every form of crime. Her career from the +very cradle had been a career of wickedness, nor had any one of the many +fierce vicissitudes of her life called forth in her a single noble or +amiable trait. Born at Oppidum Ubiorum (afterwards called in her honour +Colonia Agrippina, and still retaining its name in the form Cologne), +she lost her father at the age of three, and her mother (by banishment) +at the age of twelve. She was educated with bad sisters, with a wild and +wicked brother, and under a grandmother whom she detested. At the age of +fourteen she was married to Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the most +worthless and ill-reputed of the young Roman nobles of his day. The +gossiping biographies of the time still retain some anecdotes of his +cruelty and selfishness. They tell us how he once, without the slightest +remorse, ran over a poor boy who was playing on the Appian Road; how on +another occasion he knocked out the eye of a Roman knight who had given +him a hasty answer; and how, when his friend congratulated him on the +birth of his son (the young Claudius Domitius, afterwards the Emperor +Nero), he brutally remarked that from people like himself and Agrippina +could only be born some monster destined for the public ruin.</p> + +<p>Domitius was forty years old when he married Agrippina, and the young +Nero was not born till nine years afterwards. Whatever there was of +possible affection in the tigress-nature of Agrippina was now absorbed +in the person of her child. For that child, from its cradle to her own +death by his means, she toiled and sinned. The fury of her own ambition, +inextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierceness of her love for +this only son, henceforth directed every action of her life. Destiny had +made her the sister of one Emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife +of another; her own crimes made her the mother of a third. And at first +sight her career might have seemed unusually successful, for while still +in the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband, +and then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of +the Roman world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, whose +stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track +through page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to +her with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of +gratified love and pride to which she had waded through so many a deed +of sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and violent +shameful death, by the hand of that very son for whose sake she had so +often violated the laws of virtue and integrity, and spurned so often +the pure and tender obligations which even the heathen had been taught +by the voice of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore.</p> + +<p>Intending that her son should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, +her first step was to drive to death Silanus, a young nobleman to whom +Octavia had already been betrothed. Her next care was to get rid of all +rivals possible or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia +and her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the latter was the +wealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she trumped up an accusation of +sorcery and treason, upon which her wealth was confiscated, but her life +spared by the Emperor, who banished her from Italy. This half-vengeance +was not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the daughter of Herodias in +sacred history, she despatched a tribune with orders to bring her the +head of her enemy; and when it was brought to her, and she found a +difficulty in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a +once-celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have lifted one +of the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this was indeed the head +of Lollia. To such horrors may a woman sink, when she has abandoned the +love of God; and a fair face may hide a soul "leprous as sin itself." +Well may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and +husband-murdering Gertrude are mere children by the side of this awful +giant-shape of steely feminine cruelty.</p> + +<p>Such was the princess who, in the year A.D. 49, recalled Seneca from +exile.<a name="FNanchor33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33">[33]</a> She saw that her cruelties were inspiring horror even into a +city that had long been accustomed to blood, and Tacitus expressly tells +us that she hoped to counterbalance this feeling by a stroke of +popularity in recalling from the waste solitudes of Corsica the +favourite philosopher and most popular author of the Roman world. Nor +was she content with this public proof of her belief in his innocence +of the crime which had been laid to his charge, for she further procured +for him the Praetorship, and appointed him tutor and governor to her +youthful son. Even in taking this step she did not forget her ambitious +views; for she knew that Seneca cherished a secret indignation against +Claudius, and that Nero could have no more wise adviser in taking steps +to secure the fruition of his imperial hopes. It might perhaps have been +better for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, or set his +foot again in that Circean and bloodstained court. Let it, however, be +added in his exculpation, that another man of undoubted and scrupulous +honesty,--Afranius Burrus--a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of +Roman manliness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the +Praetorian cohorts, was willing to share his danger and his +responsibilities. Yet he must have lived from the first in the very +atmosphere of base and criminal intrigues. He must have formed an +important member of Agrippina's party, which was in daily and deadly +enmity against the party of Narcissus. He must have watched the +incessant artifices by which Agrippina secured the adoption of her son +Nero by an Emperor whose own son Britannicus was but three years his +junior. He must have seen Nero always honoured, promoted, paraded before +the eyes of the populace as the future hope of Rome, whilst Britannicus, +like the young Edward V. under the regency of his uncle, was neglected, +surrounded with spies, kept as much as possible out of his father's +sight, and so completely thrust into the background from all observation +that the populace began seriously to doubt whether he were alive or +dead. He must have seen Agrippina, who had now received the +unprecedented honour of the title "Augusta" in her lifetime, acting +with such haughty insolence that there could be little doubt as to her +ulterior designs upon the throne. He must have known that his splendid +intellect was practically at the service of a woman in whom avarice, +haughtiness, violence, treachery, and every form of unscrupulous +criminality had reached a point hitherto unmatched even in a corrupt and +pagan world. From this time forth the biography of Seneca must assume +the form of an apology rather than of a panegyric.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor33">[33]</a> Gallio was Proconsul of Achaia about A.D. 53, when St. +Paul was brought before his tribunal. Very possibly his elevation may +have been due to the restoration of Seneca's influence. +</blockquote> + +<p>The Emperor could not but feel that in Agrippina he had chosen a wife +even more intolerable than Messalina herself. Messalina had not +interfered with the friends he loved, had not robbed him of the insignia +of empire, had not filled his palace with a hard and unfeminine tyranny, +and had of course watched with a mother's interest over the lives and +fortunes of his children. Narcissus would not be likely to leave him +long in ignorance that, in addition to her other plots and crimes, +Agrippina had been as little true to him as his former unhappy wife. The +information sank deep into his heart, and he was heard to mutter that it +had been his destiny all along first to bear, and then to avenge, the +enormities of his wives. Agrippina, whose spies filled the palace, could +not long remain uninformed of so significant a speech; and she probably +saw with an instinct quickened by the awful terrors of her own guilty +conscience that the Emperor showed distinct signs of his regret for +having married his niece, and adopted her child to the prejudice, if not +to the ruin, of his own young son. If she wanted to reach the goal which +she had held so long in view no time was to be lost. Let us hope that +Seneca and Burrus were at least ignorant of the means which she took to +effect her purpose.</p> + +<p>Fortune favoured her. The dreaded Narcissus, the most formidable +obstacle to her murderous plans, was seized with an attack of the gout. +Agrippina managed that his physician should recommend him the waters of +Sinuessa in Campania by way of cure. He was thus got out of the way, and +she proceeded at once to her work of blood. Entrusting the secret to +Halotus, the Emperor's <i>praegustator</i>--the slave whose office it was to +protect him from poison by tasting every dish before him--and to his +physician, Xenophon of Cos, she consulted Locusta, the Mrs. Turner of +the period of this classical King James, as to the poison best suited to +her purpose. Locusta was mistress of her art, in which long practice had +given her a consummate skill. The poison must not be too rapid, lest it +should cause suspicion; nor too slow, lest it should give the Emperor +time to consult for the interests of his son Britannicus; but it was to +be one which should disturb his intellect without causing immediate +death. Claudius was a glutton, and the poison was given him with all the +more ease because it was mixed with a dish of mushrooms, of which he was +extravagantly fond. Agrippina herself handed him the choicest mushroom +in the dish, and the poison at once reduced him to silence. As was too +frequently the case, Claudius was intoxicated at the time, and was +carried off to his bed as if nothing had happened. A violent colic +ensued, and it was feared that this, with a quantity of wine which he +had drunk, would render the poison innocuous. But Agrippina had gone too +far for retreat, and Xenophon, who knew that great crimes if frustrated +are perilous, if successful are rewarded, came to her assistance. Under +pretence of causing him to vomit, he tickled the throat of the Emperor +with a feather smeared with a swift and deadly poison. It did its work, +and before morning the Caesar was a corpse.<a name="FNanchor34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34">[34]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor34">[34]</a> There is usually found among the writings of Seneca a most +remarkable burlesque called <i>Ludus de Morte Caesaris</i>. As to its +authorship opinions will always vary, but it is a work of such undoubted +genius, so interesting, and so unique in its character, that I have +thought it necessary to give in an Appendix a brief sketch of its +argument. We may at least <i>hope</i> that this satire, which overflows with +the deadliest contempt of Claudius, is not from the same pen which wrote +for Nero his funeral oration. It has, however, been supposed (without +sufficient grounds) to be the lost [Greek: Apokolokuntoois] which Seneca +is said to have written on the apotheosis of Claudius. The very name is +a bitter satire. It imagines the Emperor transformed, not into a God, +but into a gourd--one of those "bloated gourds which sun their speckled +bellies before the doors of the Roman peasants." "The Senate decreed his +<i>divinity</i>; Seneca translated it into <i>pumpkinity</i>" (Merivale, <i>Rom. +Emp</i>. v. 601). The <i>Ludus</i> begins by spattering mud on the memory of the +divine Claudius; it ends with a shower of poetic roses over the glory of +the diviner Nero! +</blockquote> + +<p>As has been the case not unfrequently in history, from the times of +Tarquinius Priscus to those of Charles II., the death was concealed +until everything had been prepared for the production of a successor. +The palace was carefully watched; no one was even admitted into it +except Agrippina's most trusty partisans. The body was propped up with +pillows; actors were sent for "by his own desire" to afford it some +amusement; and priests and consuls were bidden to offer up their vows +for the life of the dead. Giving out that the Emperor was getting +better, Agrippina took care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters, +Octavia and Antonia, under her own immediate eye. As though overwhelmed +with sorrow she wept, and embraced them, and above all kept Britannicus +by her side, kissing him with the exclamation "that he was the very +image of his father," and taking care that he should on no account +leave her room. So the day wore on till it was the hour which the +Chaldaeans declared would be the only lucky hour in that unlucky +October day.</p> + +<p>Noon came; the palace doors were suddenly thrown open: and Nero with +Burrus at his side went out to the Praetorian cohort which was on guard. +By the order of their commandant, they received him with cheers. A few +only hesitated, looking round them and asking "Where was Britannicus?" +Since, however, he was not to be seen, and no one stirred in his favour, +they followed the multitude. Nero was carried in triumph to the camp, +made the soldiers a short speech, and promised to each man of them a +splendid donative. He was at once saluted Emperor. The Senate followed +the choice of the soldiers, and the provinces made no demur. Divine +honors were decreed to the murdered man, and preparations made for a +funeral which was to rival in its splendour the one which Livia had +ordered for Augustus. But the will--which beyond all doubt had provided +for the succession of Britannicus--was quietly done away with, and its +exact provisions were never known.</p> + +<p>And on the first evening of his imperial power, Nero, well aware to whom +he owed his throne, gave to the sentinel who came to ask him the pass +for the night the grateful and significant watchword of "Optima +Mater,"--"the best of mothers!"</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI."></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>NERO AND HIS TUTOR.</h3> + +<p>The imperial youth, whose destinies are now inextricably mingled with +those of Seneca, was accompanied to the throne by the acclamations of +the people. Wearied by the astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath +of a Tiberius, the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of +a Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and +beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his shoulders, and whose +features displayed the finest type of Roman beauty. There was nothing in +his antecedents to give a sinister augury to his future development, and +all classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We can +understand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own +countrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the +youthful virtue and gentleness of Edward VI. Happy would it have been +for Nero if his reign, like that of Edward, could have been cut short +before the thick night of many crimes had settled down upon the promise +of its dawn. For the first five years of Nero's reign--the famous +<i>Quinquennium Neronis</i>--were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period +of almost ideal happiness. In reality, it was Seneca who was ruling in +Nero's, name. Even so excellent an Emperor as Trajan is said to have +admitted "that no other prince had nearly equalled the praise of that +period." It is indeed probable that those years appeared to shine with +an exaggerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded them; +yet we can see in them abundant circumstances which were quite +sufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope and joy. The young Nero was +at first modest and docile. His opening speeches, written with all the +beauty of thought and language which betrayed the <i>style</i> of Seneca no +less than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises. All +those things which had been felt to be injurious or oppressive he +promised to eschew. He would not, he said, reserve to himself, as +Claudius had done, the irresponsible decision in all matters of +business; no office or dignity should be won from him by flattery or +purchased by bribes; he would not confuse his own personal interests +with those of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient +prerogatives of the Senate; he would confine his own immediate attention +to the provinces and the army.</p> + +<p>Nor were such promises falsified by his immediate conduct. The odious +informers who had flourished in previous reigns were frowned upon and +punished. Offices of public dignity were relieved from unjust and +oppressive burdens. Nero prudently declined the gold and silver statues +and other extravagant honours which were offered to him by the corrupt +and servile Senate, but he treated that body, which, fallen as it was, +continued still to be the main representative of constitutional +authority, with favour and respect. Nobles and officials begun to +breathe more freely, and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was +perceptibly relaxed. Severity was reserved for notorious criminals, and +was only inflicted in a regular and authorized manner, when no one +could doubt that it had been deserved. Above all, Seneca had +disseminated an anecdote about his young pupil which tended more than +any other circumstance to his wide spread popularity. England has +remembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluctance of her +youthful Edward to sign the death-warrant of Joan Boucher; Rome, +accustomed to a cruel indifference to human life, regarded with +something like transport the sense of pity which had made Nero, when +asked to affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, "<i>How I +wish that I did not know how to write</i>!"</p> + +<p>It is admitted that no small share of the happiness of this period was +due to the firmness of the honest Burrus, and the wise, high-minded +precepts of Seneca. They deserve the amplest gratitude and credit for +this happy interregnum, for they had no easy task to perform. Besides +the difficulties which arose from the base and frivolous character of +their pupil, besides the infinite delicacy which was requisite for the +restraint of a youth who was absolute master of such gigantic destinies, +they had the task of curbing the wild and imperious ambition of +Agrippina, and of defeating the incessant intrigues of her many powerful +dependents. Agrippina had no doubt persuaded herself that her crimes had +been mainly committed in the interest of her son; but her conduct showed +that she wished him to be a mere instrument in her hands. She wished to +govern him, and had probably calculated on doing so by the assistance of +Seneca, just as our own Queen Caroline completely managed George II. +with the aid of Sir Robert Walpole. She rode in a litter with him; +without his knowledge she ordered the poisoning of M. Silanus, a brother +of her former victim, she goaded Narcissus to death, against his will; +through her influence the Senate was sometimes assembled in the palace, +and she took no pains to conceal from the senators that she was herself +seated behind a curtain where she could hear every word of their +deliberations;--nay, on one occasion, when Nero was about to give +audience to an important Armenian legation, she had the audacity to +enter the audience-chamber, and advance to take her seat by the side of +the Emperor. Every one else was struck dumb with amazement, and even +terror, at a proceeding so unusual; but Seneca, with ready and admirable +tact, suggested to Nero that he should rise and meet his mother, thus +obviating a public scandal under the pretext of filial affection.</p> + +<p>But Seneca from the very first had been guilty of a fatal error in the +education of his pupil. He had governed him throughout on the ruinous +principle of <i>concession</i>. Nero was not devoid of talent; he had a +decided turn for Latin versification, and the few lines of his +composition which have come down to us, <i>bizarre</i> and effected as they +are, yet display a certain sense of melody and power of language. But +his vivid imagination was accompained by a want of purpose; and Seneca, +instead of trying to train him in habits of serious attention and +sustained thought, suffered him to waste his best efforts in pursuits +and amusements which were considered partly frivolous and partly +disreputable, such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca +might have argued that there was, at any rate, no great harm in such +employments, and that they probably kept Nero out of worse mischief. But +we respect Nero the less for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging +just as we respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks; and, if +Seneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the first, Rome +might have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero's subsequent +buffooneries in the cities of Greece and the theatres of Rome. We may +lay it down as an invariable axiom in all high education, that it is +<i>never</i> sensible to permit what is bad for the supposed sake of +preventing what is worse. Seneca very probably persuaded himself that +with a mind like Nero's--the innate worthlessness of which he must early +have recognised--success of any high description would be simply +impossible. But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble +means by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable. +Let us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly +in matters which he regarded as indifferent--or, at the worst, as +discreditable--rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably +arose from an error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in +moral character.</p> + +<p>Yet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the worse for this +laxity of training. We have already seen that, in his maiden-speech +before the Senate, every one recognized the hand of Seneca, and many +observed with a sigh that this was the first occasion on which an +Emperor had not been able, at least to all appearance, to address the +Senate in his own words and with his own thoughts. Tiberius, as an +orator, had been dignified and forcible; Claudius had been learned and +polished; even the disturbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in +a capacity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but Nero's +youth had been frittered away in paltry and indecorus accomplishments, +which had left him neither time nor inclination for weightier and +nobler pursuits.</p> + +<p>The fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously from the +subsequent infamy of his pupil; and it is obvious that the dislike of +Tacitus to his memory is due to his connexion with Nero. Now, even +though the tutor's system had not been so wise as, when judged by an +inflexible standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to +make him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and it must be +remembered, to Seneca's eternal honour, that the evidence of facts, the +testimony of contemporaries, and even the grudging admission of Tacitus +himself, establishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation +characterized the earlier years of Nero's reign were due to his +counsels; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the virtuous Burrus; +that he helped to check the sanguinary audacities of Agrippina; that the +writings which he addressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for +him, breathed the loftiest counsels; and that it was not until he was +wholly removed from power and influence that Nero, under the fierce +impulses of despotic power, developed those atrocious tendencies of +which the seeds had long been latent in his disposition. An ancient +writer records the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a +savagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate; and that to +his intimate friends he used to observe that, "when once the lion tasted +human blood, his innate cruelty would return."</p> + +<p>But while we give Seneca this credit, and allow that his <i>intentions</i> +were thoroughly upright, we cannot but impugn his <i>judgment</i> for having +thus deliberately adopted the morality of expedience; and we believe +that to this cause, more than to any other, was due the extent of his +failure and the misery of his life. We may, indeed, be permitted to +doubt whether Nero himself--a vain and loose youth, the son of bad +parents, and heir to boundless expectations--would, under any +circumstances, have grown up much better than he did; but it is clear +that Seneca might have been held in infinitely higher honour but for the +share which he had in his education. Had Seneca been as firm and wise as +Socrates, Nero in all probability would not have been much worse than +Alcibiades. If the tutor had set before his pupil no ideal but the very +highest, if he had inflexibly opposed to the extent of his ability every +tendency which was dishonourable and wrong, he might <i>possibly</i> have +been rewarded by success, and have earned the indelible gratitude of +mankind; and if he had failed he would at least have failed nobly, and +have carried with him into a calm and honourable retirement the respect, +if not the affection, of his imperial pupil. Nay, even if he had failed +<i>completely</i>, and lost his life in the attempt, it would have been +infinitely better both for him and for mankind. Even Homer might have +taught him that "it is better to die than live in sin." At any rate he +might have known from study and observation that an education founded on +compromise must always and necessarily fail. It must fail because it +overlooks that great eternal law of retribution for and continuity in +evil, which is illustrated by every single history of individuals and of +nations. And the education which Seneca gave to Nero--noble as it was in +many respects, and eminent as was its partial and temporary success--was +yet an education of compromises. Alike in the studies of Nero's boyhood +and the graver temptations of his manhood, he acted on the +foolishly-fatal principle that</p> + +<blockquote> +"Had the wild oat not been sown,<br> + The soil left barren scarce had grown,<br> + The grain whereby a man may live."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Any Christian might have predicted the result; one would have thought +that even a pagan philosopher might have been enlightened enough to +observe it. We often quote the lines--</p> + +<blockquote> +"The child is father of the man,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>and</p> + +<blockquote> +"Just as the twig is bent the tree inclines."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>But the ancients were quite as familiar with the same truth under other +images. "The cask," wrote Horace, "will long retain the odour of that +which has once been poured into it when new." Quintilian, describing the +depraved influences which surrounded even the infancy of a Roman child, +said, "From these arise <i>first familiarity, then nature</i>."</p> + +<p>No one has laid down the principle more emphatically than Seneca +himself. Take, for instance, the following passage from his Letters, on +evil conversation. "The conversation," he says, "of these men is very +injurious; for, even if it does no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds +in the mind, and follows us even when we have gone from the speakers,--a +plague sure to spring up in future resurrection. Just as those who have +heard a symphony carry in their ears the tune and sweetness of the song +which entangles their thoughts, and does not suffer them to give their +whole energy to serious matters; so the conversation of flatterers and +of those who praise evil things, lingers longer in the mind than the +time of hearing it. Nor is it easy to shake out of the soul a sweet +sound; it pursues us, and lingers with us, and at perpetual intervals +recurs. Our ears therefore must be closed to evil words, and that to the +very first we hear. For when they have once begun and been admitted, +they acquire more and more audacity;" and so he adds a little +afterwards, "our days flow on, and irreparable life passes beyond our +reach." Yet he who wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to +his imperial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encouraged +him in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named Acte, into which Nero +fell. It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the +youthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to +whom he had been bound by every tie of honour and affection, and his +union with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical +usurpation. But princes rarely love the wives to whom they owe any part +of their elevation. Henry VII. treated Elizabeth of York with many +slights. The union of William III. with Mary was overshadowed by her +superior claim to the royal power; and Nero from the first regarded with +aversion, which ended in assassination, the poor young orphan girl who +recalled to the popular memory his slender pretensions to hereditary +empire, and whom he regarded as a possible rival, if her cowed and +plastic nature should ever become a tool in the hands of more powerful +intriguers. But we do not hear of any attempt on Seneca's part to urge +upon Nero the fulfillment of this high duty, and we find him sinking +into the degraded position of an accomplice with young profligates like +Otho, as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, which +would have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to a Stoic +disgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the very principle to +which we have been pointing,--the principle of moral compromise, the +principle of permitting and encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of +thereby preventing what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca +should have erred in this way, for compromise was the character of his +entire life. He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible +task of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the +Caesars. He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a +man of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he +failed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man +<i>must</i> make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of +Mammon and the service of God. No man ever gained anything but contempt +and ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions.</p> + +<p>And by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or an Antisthenes +would have taken, Seneca became more or less involved in some of the +most dreadful events of Nero's reign. Every one of the terrible doubts +under which his reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted +the principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue. One or two +of these events we must briefly narrate.</p> + +<p>We have already pointed out that the Nemesis which for so many years had +been secretly dogging the footsteps of Agrippina made her tremble under +the weight of its first cruel blows when she seemed to have attained the +highest summit of her ambition. Very early indeed Nero began to be +galled and irritated by the insatiate assumption and swollen authority +of "the best of mothers." The furious reproaches which she heaped upon +him when she saw in Acte a possible rival to her power drove him to take +refuge in the facile and unphilosophic worldliness of Seneca's +concessions, and goaded him almost immediately afterwards into an +atrocious crime. He naturally looked on Britannicus, the youthful son of +Claudius, with even more suspicion and hatred than that with which he +regarded Octavia. Kings have rarely been able to abstain from acts of +severity against those who might become claimants to the throne. The +feelings of King John towards Prince Arthur, of Henry IV. towards the +Earl of March, of Mary towards Lady Jane Grey, of Elizabeth towards Mary +Stuart, of King James towards Lady Arabella Stuart, resembled, but +probably by no means equalled in intensity, those of Nero towards his +kinsman and adoptive brother. To show him any affection was a dangerous +crime, and it furnished a sufficient cause for immediate removal if any +attendant behaved towards him with fidelity. Such a line of treatment +foreshadowed the catastrophe which was hastened by the rage of +Agrippina. She would go, she said, and take with her to the camp the +noble boy who was now of full age to undertake those imperial duties +which a usurper was exercising in virtue of crimes which she was now +prepared to confess. Then let the mutilated Burrus and the glib-tongued +Seneca see whether they could be a match for the son of Claudius and the +daughter of Germanicus. Such language, uttered with violent gestures and +furious imprecations, might well excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And +that alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all +the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During +the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with +all the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot +as "governor of the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue +his orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates which +would not make them blush; but Britannicus in violation of every +principle of Roman decorum, was ordered to stand up in the middle and +sing a song. The boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and +wholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well have faltered; +but he at once rose, and with a steady voice began a strain--probably +the magnificent wail of Andromache over the fall of Troy, which has been +preserved to us from a lost play of Ennius--in which he indicated his +own disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights. His courage and his +misfortunes woke in the guests a feeling of pity which night and wine +made them less careful to disguise. From that moment the fate of +Britannicus was sealed. Locusta, the celebrated poisoner of ancient +Rome, was summoned to the councils of Nero to get rid of Britannicus, as +she had already been summoned to those of his mother when she wished to +disembarrass herself of Britannicus's father. The main difficulty was to +avoid discovery, since nothing was eaten or drunk at the imperial table +till it had been tasted by the <i>praegustator</i>. To avoid this difficulty +a very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he wished for +something cooler a swift and subtle poison was dropped into the cold +water with which it was tempered. The boy drank, and instantly sank from +his seat, gasping and speechless. The guests started up in +consternation, and fixed their eyes on Nero. He with the utmost coolness +assured them that it was merely a fit of epilepsy, to which his brother +was accustomed, and from which he would soon recover. The terror and +agitation of Agrippina showed to every one that she at least was +guiltless of this dark deed; but the unhappy Octavia, young as she was, +and doubly terrible on every ground as the blow must have been to her, +sat silent and motionless, having already learnt by her misfortunes the +awful necessity for suppressing under an impassive exterior her +affections and sorrows, her hopes and fears. In the dead of night, amid +storms and murky rain, which were thought to indicate the wrath of +heaven, the last of the Claudii was hastily and meanly hurried into a +dishonourable grave.</p> + +<p>We may believe that in this crime Seneca had no share whatever, but we +can hardly believe that he was ignorant of it after it had been +committed, or that he had no share in the intensely hypocritical edict +in which Nero bewailed the fact of his adoptive brother's death, excused +his hurried funeral, and threw himself on the additional indulgence and +protection of the Senate. Nero showed the consciousness of guilt by the +immense largesses which he distributed to the most powerful of his +friends, "Nor were there wanting men," says Tacitus, in a most +significant manner, "<i>who accused certain people, notorious for their +high professions, of having at that period divided among them villas and +houses as though they had been so much spoil</i>." There can hardly be a +doubt that the great historian intends by this remark to point at +Seneca, to whom he tries to be fair, but whom he could never quite +forgive for his share in the disgraces of Nero's reign. That avarice was +one of Seneca's temptations is too probable; that expediency was a +guiding principle of his conduct is but too evident; and for a man with +such a character to rebut an innuendo is never an easy task. Nay more, +it was <i>after</i> this foul event, at the close of Nero's first year, that +Seneca addressed him in the extravagant and glowing language of his +treatise on Clemency. "The quality of mercy," and the duty of princes to +practise it, has never been more eloquently extolled; but it is +accompanied by a fulsome flattery which has in it something painfully +grotesque as addressed by a philosopher to one whom he knew to have been +guilty, that very year, of an inhuman fratricide. Imagine some Jewish +Pharisee,--a Nicodemus or a Gamaliel--pronouncing an eulogy on the +tenderness of a Herod, and you have some picture of the appearance which +Seneca's consistency must have worn in the eyes of his contemporaries.</p> + +<p>This event took place A.D. 55, in the first year of Nero's +<i>Quinquennium</i>, and the same year was nearly signalized by the death of +his mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy was invented against her, +and it is probable that but for the intervention of Burrus, who with +Seneca was appointed to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a +very sudden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred of her +son. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of her defence created a +reaction in her favour, and secured the punishment of her accusers. But +the ties of affection could not long unite two such wicked and imperious +natures as those of Agrippina and her son. All history shows that there +can be no real love between souls exceptionally wicked, and that this is +still more impossible when the alliance between them has been sealed by +a complicity in crime. Nero had now fallen into a deep infatuation for +Poppaea Sabina, the beautiful wife of Otho, and she refused him her hand +so long as he was still under the control of his mother. At this time +Agrippina, as the just consequence of her many crimes, was regarded by +all classes with a fanaticism of hatred which in Poppaea Sabina was +intensified by manifest self-interest. Nero, always weak, had long +regarded his mother with real terror and disgust, and he scarcely needed +the urgency of constant application to make him long to get rid of her. +But the daughter of Germanicus could not be openly destroyed, while her +own precautions helped to secure her against secret assassination. It +only remained to compass her death by treachery. Nero had long compelled +her to live in suburban retirement, and had made no attempt to conceal +the open rapture which existed between them. Anicetus, admiral of the +fleet at Misenum, and a former instructor of Nero, suggested the +expedient of a pretended public reconciliation, in virtue of which +Agrippina should be invited to Baiae, and on her return should be placed +on board a vessel so constructed as to come to pieces by the removal of +bolts. The disaster might then be attributed to a mere naval accident, +and Nero might make the most ostentatious display of his affection +and regret.</p> + +<p>The invitation was sent, and a vessel specially decorated was ordered to +await her movements. But, either from suspicion or from secret +information, she declined to avail herself of it, and was conveyed to +Baiae in a litter. The effusion of hypocritical affection with which she +was received, the unusual tenderness and honour with which she was +treated, the earnest gaze, the warm embrace, the varied conversation, +removed her suspicions, and she consented to return in the vessel of +honour. As though for the purpose of revealing the crime, the night was +starry and the sea calm. The ship had not sailed far, and Crepereius +Gallus, one of her friends, was standing near the helm, while a lady +named Acerronia was seated at her feet as she reclined, and both were +vieing with each other in the warmth of their congratulations upon the +recent interview, when a crash was heard, and the canopy above them +which had been weighted with a quantity of lead, was suddenly let go. +Crepereius was crushed to death upon the spot; Agrippina and Acerronia +were saved by the projecting sides of the couch on which they were +resting; in the hurry and alarm, as accomplices were mingled with a +greater number who were innocent of the plot, the machinery of the +treacherous vessel failed. Some of the rowers rushed to one side of the +ship, hoping in that manner to sink it, but here too their councils were +divided and confused. Acerronia, in the selfish hope of securing +assistance, exclaimed that she was Agrippina, and was immediately +despatched with oars and poles; Agrippina, silent and unrecognized, +received a wound upon the shoulder, but succeeded in keeping herself +afloat till she was picked up by fishermen and carried in safety to +her villa.</p> + +<p>The hideous attempt from which she had been thus miraculously rescued +did not escape her keen intuition, accustomed as it was to deeds of +guilt; but, seeing that her only chance of safety rested in +dissimulation and reticense, she sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her +son that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible +accident, but to beg him not to be alarmed, and not to come to see her +because she needed rest.</p> + +<p>The news filled Nero with the wildest terror, and the expectation of an +immediate revenge. In horrible agitation and uncertainty he instantly +required the presence of Burrus and Seneca. Tacitus doubts whether they +may not have been already aware of what he had attempted, and Dion, to +whose gross calumnies, however, we need pay no attention, declares that +Seneca had frequently urged Nero to the deed, either in the hope of +overshadowing his own guilt, or of involving Nero in a crime which +should hasten his most speedy destruction at the hands of gods and men. +In the absence of all evidence we may with perfect confidence acquit the +memory of these eminent men from having gone so far as this.</p> + +<p>It must have been a strange and awful scene. The young man, for Nero was +but twenty-two years old, poured into the ears their tumult of his +agitation and alarm. White with fear, weak with dissipation, and +tormented by the furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth +looked from one to another of his aged ministers. A long and painful +pause ensued. If they dissuaded him in vain from the crime which he +meditated their lives would have been in danger; and perhaps they +sincerely thought that things had gone so far that, unless Agrippina +were anticipated, Nero would be destroyed. Seneca was the first to break +that silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus whether the soldiery +could be entrusted to put her to death. His reply was that the +praetorians would do nothing against a daughter of Germanicus and that +Anicetus should accomplish what he had promised. Anicetus showed himself +prompt to crime, and Nero thanked him in a rapture of gratitude. While +the freedman Agerinus was delivering to Nero his mother's message, +Anicetus dropped a dagger at his feet, declared that he had caught him +in the very act of attempting the Emperor's assassination, and hurried +off with a band of soldiers to punish Agrippina as the author of +the crime.</p> + +<p>The multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excitement along the shore; +their torches were seen glimmering in evident commotion about the scene +of the calamity, where some were wading into the water in search of the +body, and others were shouting incoherent questions and replies. At the +rumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed off in a body to her villa to +express their congratulations, where they were dispersed by the soldiers +of Anicetus, who had already token possession of it. Scattering or +seizing the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage +from door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted chamber, +attended only by a single handmaid. "Dost thou too desert me?" +exclaimed the wretched woman to her servant, as she rose to slip away. +In silent determination the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus +was the first to strike her with a stick. "Strike my womb," she cried to +him faintly, as he drew his sword, "for it bore Nero." The blow of +Anicetus was the signal for her immediate destruction: she was +dispatched with many wounds, and was buried that night at Misenum on a +common couch and with a mean funeral. Such an end, many years +previously, this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had +anticipated and despised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her that +her son would become Emperor, and would murder her, she is said to have +exclaimed, "Occidat dum imperet," "Let him slay me if he but reign."</p> + +<p>It only remained to account for the crime, and offer for it such lying +defences as were most likely to gain credit. Flying to Naples from a +scene which had now become awful to him,--for places do not change as +men's faces change, and, besides this, his disturbed conscience made him +fancy that he heard from the hill of Misenum the blowing of a ghostly +trumpet and wailings about his mother's tomb in the hours of night,--he +sent from thence a letter to the Senate, saying that his mother had been +punished for an attempt upon his life, and adding a list of her crimes, +real and imaginary, the narrative of her <i>accidental</i> shipwreck, and his +opinion that her death was a public blessing. The author of this +shameful document was Seneca, and in composing it he reached the nadir +of his moral degradation. Even the lax morality of a most degenerate age +condemned him for calmly sitting down to decorate with the graces of +rhetoric and antithesis an atrocity too deep for the powers of +indignation. A Seneca could stoop to write what a Thrasea Paetus could +scarcely stoop to hear; for in the meeting of the Senate at which the +letter was recited, Thrasea rose in indignation, and went straight home +rather than seem to sanction by his presence the adulation of a +matricide.</p> + +<p>And the composition of that guily, elaborate, shameful letter was the +last prominent act of Seneca's public life.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII."></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>THE BEGINNING OF THE END.</h3> + +<p>Nor was it unnatural that it should be. Moral precepts, philosophic +guidance were no longer possible to one whose compliances or whose +timidity had led him so far as first to sanction matricide, and then to +defend it. He might indeed be still powerful to recommend principles of +common sense and political expediency, but the loftier lessons of +Stoicism, nay, even the better utterances of a mere ordinary Pagan +morality, could henceforth only fall from his lips with something of a +hollow ring. He might interfere, as we know he did, to render as +innocuous as possible the pernicious vanity which made Nero so ready to +degrade his imperial rank by public appearances on the orchestra or in +the race-course, but he could hardly address again such noble teachings +as that of the treatise on Clemency to one whom, on grounds of political +expediency, he had not dissuaded from the treacherous murder of a +mother, who, whatever her enormities, yet for his sake had sold her +very soul.</p> + +<p>Although there may have been a strong suspicion that foul play had been +committed, the actual facts and details of the death of Agrippina would +rest between Nero and Seneca as a guilty secret, in the guilt of which +Seneca himself must have his share. Such a position of things was the +inevitable death-blow, not only to all friendship, but to all +confidence, and ultimately to all intercourse. We see in sacred history +that Joab's participation in David's guilty secret gave him the absolute +mastery over his own sovereign; we see repeatedly in profane history +that the mutual knowledge of some crime is the invariable cause of +deadly hatred between a subject and a king. Such feelings as King John +may be supposed to have had to Hubert de Burgh, or King Richard III. to +Sir James Tyrrel, or King James I. to the Earl of Somerset, such +probably, in still more virulent intensity, were the feelings of Nero +towards his whilome "guide, philosopher, and friend."</p> + +<p>For Nero very soon learnt that Seneca was no longer <i>necessary</i> to him. +For a time he lingered in Campania, guiltily dubious as to the kind of +reception that awaited him in the capital. The assurances of the vile +crew which surrounded him soon made that fear wear off, and when he +plucked up the courage to return to his palace, he might himself have +been amazed at the effusion of infamous loyalty and venal acclamation +with which he was received. All Rome poured itself forth to meet him; +the Senate appeared in festal robes with their wives and girls and boys +in long array; seats and scaffoldings were built up along the road by +which he had to pass, as though the populace had gone forth to see a +triumph. With haughty mein, the victor of a nation of slaves, he +ascended the Capitol, gave thanks to the gods, and went home to betray +henceforth the full perversity of a nature which the reverence for his +mother, such as it was, had hitherto in part restrained. But the +instincts of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. They +hung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the old punishment +of parricides, who were sentenced to be flung into the sea, tied up in a +sack with a serpent, a monkey, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the +Forum with a tablet on which was written, "I refuse to rear thee, lest +thou shouldst slay thy mother." They scrawled upon the blank walls of +Rome an iambic line which reminded all who read it that Nero, Orestes, +and Alcmaeon were murderers of their mothers. Even Nero must have been +well aware that he presented a hideous spectacle in the eyes of all who +had the faintest shade of righteousness among the people whom he ruled.</p> + +<p>All this took place in A.D. 59, and we hear no more of Seneca till the +year 62, a year memorable for the death of Burrus, who had long been his +honest, friendly, and faithful colleague. In these dark times, when all +men seemed to be speaking in a whisper, almost every death of a +conspicuous and high-minded man, if not caused by open violence, falls +under the suspicion of secret poison. The death of Burrus may have been +due (from the description) to diphtheria, but the popular voice charged +Nero with having hastened his death by a pretended remedy, and declared +that, when the Emperor visited his sick bed, the dying man turned away +from his inquiries with the laconic answer, "I am well."</p> + +<p>His death was regretted, not only from the memory of his virtues, but +also from the fact that Nero appointed two men as his successors, of +whom the one, Fenius Rufus, was honorable but indolent; the other and +more powerful, Sofonius Tigellinus had won for himself among cruel and +shameful associates a pre-eminence of hatred and of shame.</p> + +<p>However faulty and inconsistent Seneca may have been, there was at any +rate no possibility that he should divide with a Tigellinus the +direction of his still youthful master. He was by no means deceived as +to the position in which he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in +whom any spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant +calumnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tigellinus and his +friends dwelt on his enormous wealth and his magnificent villas and +gardens, which could only have been acquired with ulterior objects, and +which threw into the shade the splendour of the Emperor himself. They +tried to kindle the inflammable jealousies of Nero's feeble mind by +representing Seneca as attempting to rival him in poetry, and as +claiming the entire credit of his eloquence, while he mocked his divine +singing, and disparaged his accomplishments as a harper and charioteer +because he himself was unable to acquire them. Nero, they urged was a +boy no longer; let him get rid of his schoolmaster, and find sufficient +instruction in the example of his ancestors.</p> + +<p>Foreseeing how such arguments must end; Seneca requested an interview +with Nero; begged to be suffered to retire altogether from public life; +pleaded age and increasing infirmities as an excuse for desiring a calm +retreat; and offered unconditionally to resign the wealth and honours +which had excited the cupidity of his enemies, but which were simply due +to Nero's unexampled liberality during the eight years of his +government, towards one whom he had regarded as a benefactor and a +friend. But Nero did not choose to let Seneca escape so lightly. He +argued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to +accept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for +generosity. A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under +deceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and +assurances of friendship. Seneca thanked him--the usual termination, as +Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler--but nevertheless +altered his entire manner of life, forbade his friends to throng to his +levees, avoided all companions, and rarely appeared in public--wishing +it to be believed that he was suffering from weak health, or was wholly +occupied in the pursuit of philosophy. He well knew the arts of courts, +for in his book on Anger he has told an anecdote of one who, being asked +how he had managed to attain so rare a gift as old age in a palace, +replied, "By submitting to injuries, and <i>returning thanks for them</i>." +But he must have known that his life hung upon a thread, for in the very +same year an attempt was made to involve him in a charge of treason as +one of the friends of C. Calpurnius Piso, an illustrious nobleman whose +wealth and ability made him an object of jealousy and suspicion, though +he was naturally unambitious and devoid of energy. The attempt failed at +the time, and Seneca was able triumphantly to refute the charge of any +treasonable design. But the fact of such a charge being made showed how +insecure was the position of any man of eminence under the deepening +tyranny of Nero, and it precipitated the conspiracy which two years +afterwards was actually formed.</p> + +<p>Not long after the death of Burrus, when Nero began to add sacrilege to +his other crimes, Seneca made one more attempt to retire from Rome; and, +when permission was a second time refused, he feigned a severe illness, +and confined himself to his chamber. It was asserted, and believed, that +about this time Nero made an attempt to poison him by the +instrumentality of his freedman Cleonicus, which was only defeated by +the confession of an accomplice or by the abstemious habits of the +philosopher who now took nothing but bread and fruit, and never quenched +his thirst except out of the running stream.</p> + +<p>It was during those two years of Seneca's seclusion and disgrace that an +event happened of imperishable interest. On the orgies of a shameful +court, on the supineness of a degenerate people, there burst--as upon +the court of Charles II.--a sudden lightning-flash of retribution. In +its character, in its extent, in the devastation and anguish of which it +was the cause, in the improvements by which it was followed, in the +lying origin to which it was attributed, even in the general +circumstances of the period and character of the reign in which it +happened, there is a close and singular analogy between the Great Fire +of London in 1666 and the Great Fire of Rome in 64. Beginning in the +crowded part of the city, under the Palatine and Caelian Hills, it +raged, first for six, and then again for three days, among the +inflammable material of booths and shops, and driven along by a furious +wind, amid feeble and ill-directed efforts to check its course, it burst +irresistibly over palaces, temples, and porticoes, and amid the narrow +tortuous streets of old Rome, involving in a common destruction the most +magnificent works of ancient art, the choicest manuscripts of ancient +literature, and the most venerable monuments of ancient superstition. In +a few touches of inimitable compression, such as the stern genius of the +Latin language permits, but which are too condensed for direct +translation, Tacitus has depicted the horror of the scene,--wailing of +panic-stricken women, the helplessness of the very aged and the very +young, the passionate eagerness for themselves and for others, the +dragging along of the feeble or the waiting for them, the lingering and +the hurry, the common and inextricable confusion. Many, while they +looked backward, were cut off by the flames in front or at the sides; if +they sought some neighboring refuge, they found it in the grasp of the +conflagration; if they hurried to some more distant spot, that too was +found to be involved in the same calamity. At last, uncertain what to +seek or what to avoid, they crowded the streets, they lay huddled +together in the fields. Some, having lost all their possessions, died +from the want of daily food; and others, who might have escaped died of +a broken heart from the anguish of being bereaved of those whom they had +been unable to rescue; while, to add to the universal horror, it was +believed that all attempts to repress the flames were checked by +authoritive prohibition; nay more, that hired incendiaries were seen +flinging firebrands in new directions, either because they had been +bidden to do so, or that they might exercise their rapine undisturbed.</p> + +<p>The historians and anecdotists of the time, whose accounts must be taken +for what they are worth, attribute to Nero the origin of the +conflagration; and it is certain that he did not return to Rome until +the fire had caught the galleries of his palace. In vain did he use +every exertion to assist the homeless and ruined population; in vain did +he order food to be sold to them at a price unprecedentedly low, and +throw open to them the monuments of Agrippa, his own gardens, and a +multitude of temporary sheds. A rumour had been spread that, during the +terrible unfolding of that great "flower of flame," he had mounted to +the roof of his distant villa, and delighted with the beauty of the +spectacle, exulting in the safe sensation of a new excitement, had +dressed himself in theatrical attire, and sung to his harp a poem on the +burning of Troy. Such a heartless mixture of buffoonery and affectation +had exasperated the people too deeply for forgiveness, and Nero thought +it necessary to draw off the general odium into a new channel, since +neither his largesses nor any other popular measures succeeded in +removing from himself the ignominy of this terrible suspicion. What +follows is so remarkable, and, to a Christian reader, so deeply +interesting, that I will give it in the very words of that great +historian whom I have been so closely following.</p> + +<p>"Therefore, to get rid of this report, Nero trumped up an accusation +against a sect, detested for their atrocities, whom the common people +called Christians, and inflicted on them the most recondite punishments. +Christ, the founder of this sect, had been capitally punished by the +Procurator Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; and this damnable +superstition, repressed for the present, was again breaking out, not +only through Judaea, where the evil originated, but even through the +City, whither from all regions all things that are atrocious or shameful +flow together and gain a following. Those, therefore, were first +arrested who confessed their religion, and then on their evidence a vast +multitude were condemned, not so much on the charge of incendiarism, as +for their hatred towards the human race. And mockery was added to their +death; for they were covered in the skins of wild beasts and were torn +to death by dogs, or crucified, or set apart for burning, and after the +close of the day were reserved for the purpose of nocturnal +illumination. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a +chariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer, +or driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a +feeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, +and deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being +exterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the savage +cruelty of one man."</p> + +<p>Such are the brief but deeply pathetic particulars which have come down +to us respecting the first great persecution of the Christians, and such +must have been the horrid events of which Seneca was a contemporary, and +probably an actual eye-witness, in the very last year of his life. +Profoundly as in all likelihood he must have despised the very name of +Christian, a heart so naturally mild and humane as his must have +shuddered at the monstrous cruelties devised against the unhappy +votaries of this new religion. But to the relations of Christianity with +the Pagan world we shall return in a subsequent chapter and we must now +hasten to the end of our biography.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII."></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>THE DEATH OF SENECA.</h3> + +<p>The false charge which had been brought against Seneca, and in which the +name of Piso had been involved, tended to urge that nobleman and his +friends into a real and formidable conspiracy. Many men of influence and +distinction joined in it, and among others Annaeus Lucanus, the +celebrated poet-nephew of Seneca, and Fenius Rufus the colleague of +Tigellinus in the command of the imperial guards. The plot was long +discussed, and many were admitted into the secret, which was +nevertheless marvellously well kept. One of the most eager conspirators +was Subrius Flavus, an officer of the guards, who suggested the plan of +stabbing Nero as he sang upon the stage, or of attacking him as he went +about without guards at night in the galleries of his burning palace. +Flavus is even said to have cherished the design of subsequently +murdering Piso likewise, and of offering the imperial power to Seneca, +with the full cognisance of the philosopher himself.<a name="FNanchor35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35">[35]</a> However this +may have been--and the story has no probability--many schemes were +discussed and rejected, from the difficulty of finding a man +sufficiently bold and sufficiently in earnest to put his own life to +such imminent risk. While things were still under discussion, the plot +was nearly ruined by the information of Volusius Proculus, an admiral of +the fleet, to whom it had been mentioned by a freedwoman of the name of +Ephicharis. Although no sufficient evidence could be adduced against +her, the conspirators thought it advisable to hasten matters, and one of +them, a senator named Scaevinus, undertook the dangerous task of +assassination. Plautius Lateranus, the cousul-elect, was to pretend to +offer a petition, in which he was to embrace the Emperor's knees and +throw him to the ground, and then Scaevinus was to deal the fatal blow. +The theatrical conduct of Scaevinus--who took an antique dagger from the +Temple of Safety, made his will, ordered the dagger to be sharpened, sat +down to an unusually luxurious banquet, manumitted or made presents to +his slaves, showed great agitation, and finally ordered ligaments for +wounds to be prepared,--awoke the suspicions of one of his freedmen +named Milichus, who hastened to claim a reward for revealing his +suspicions. Confronted with Milichus, Scaevinus met and refuted his +accusations with the greatest firmness; but when Milichus mentioned +among other things that, the day before, Scaevinus had held a long and +secret conversation with another friend of Piso named Natalis, and when +Natalis, on being summoned, gave a very different account of the subject +of this conversation from that which Scaevinus had given, they were both +put in chains; and, unable to endure the threats and the sight of +tortures, revealed the entire conspiracy. Natalis was the first to +mentioned the name of Piso, and he added the hated name of Seneca, +either because he had been the confidential messenger between the two, +or because he knew that he could not do a greater favour to Nero than by +giving him the opportunity of injuring a man whom he had long sought +every possible opportunity to crush. Scaevinus, with equal weakness, +perhaps because he thought that Natalis had left nothing to reveal, +mentioned the names of the others, and among them of Lucan, whose +complicity in the plot would undoubtedly tend to give greater +probability to the supposed guilt of Seneca. Lucan, after long denying +all knowledge of the design, corrupted by the promise of impunity, was +guilty of the incredible baseness of making up for the slowness of his +confession by its completeness, and of naming among the conspirators his +chief friend Gallus and Pollio, and his own mother Atilla. The woman +Ephicharis, slave though she had once been, alone showed the slightest +constancy, and, by her brave unshaken reticence under the most +excruciating and varied tortures, put to shame the pusillanimous +treachery of senators and knights. On the second day, when, with limbs +too dislocated to admit of her standing, she was again brought to the +presence of her executioners, she succeeded, by a sudden movement, in +strangling herself with her own girdle.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor35">[35]</a> See Juv. <i>Sat</i>. viii. 212. +</blockquote> + +<p>In the hurry and alarm of the moment the slightest show of resolution +would have achieved the object of the conspiracy. Fenius Rufus had not +yet been named among the conspirators, and as he sat by the side of the +Emperor, and presided over the torture of his associates, Subrius Flavus +made him a secret sign to inquire whether even then and there he should +stab Nero. Rufus not only made a sign of dissent, but actually held the +hand of Subrius as it was grasping the hilt of his sword. Perhaps it +would have been better for him if he had not done so, for it was not +likely that the numerous conspirators would long permit the same man to +be at once their accomplice and the fiercest of their judges. Shortly +afterwards, as he was urging and threatening, Scaevinus remarked, with a +quiet smile, "that nobody knew more about the matter than he did +himself, and that he had better show his gratitude to so excellent a +prince by telling all he knew." The confusion and alarm of Rufus +betrayed his consciousness of guilt; he was seized and bound on the +spot, and subsequently put to death.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the friends of Piso were urging to take some bold and sudden +step, which, if it did not succeed in retrieving his fortunes, would at +least shed lustre on his death. But his somewhat slothful nature, +weakened still further by a luxurious life, was not to be aroused, and +he calmly awaited the end. It was customary among the Roman Emperors at +this period to avoid the disgrace and danger of public executions by +sending a messenger to a man's house, and ordering him to put himself to +death by whatever means he preferred. Some raw recruits--for Nero dared +not intrust any veterans with the duty--brought the mandate to Piso, who +proceeded to make a will full of disgraceful adulation towards Nero, +opened his veins, and died. Plautius Lateranus was not even allowed the +poor privilege of choosing his own death, but, without time even to +embrace his children, was hurried off to a place set apart for the +punishment of slaves, and there died, without a word, by the sword of a +tribune whom he knew to be one his own accomplices.</p> + +<p>Lucan, in the prime of his life and the full bloom of his genius, was +believed to have joined the plot from his indignation at the manner in +which Nero's jealousy had repressed his poetic fame, and forbidden him +the opportunity of public rectitations. He too opened his veins; and as +he felt the deathful chill creeping upwards from the extremities of his +limbs, he recited some verses from his own "Pharsalia," in which he had +described the similar death of the soldier Lycidas. They were his last +words. His mother Atilla, whom to his everlasting infamy, he had +betrayed, was passed over as a victim too insignificant for notice, and +was neither pardoned nor punished.</p> + +<p>But, of all the many deaths which were brought about by this unhappy and +ill-managed conspiracy, none caused more delight to Nero than that of +Seneca, whom he was now able to dispatch by the sword, since he had been +unable to do so by secret poison. What share Seneca really had in the +conspiracy is unknown. If he were really cognisant of it, he must have +acted with consummate tact, for no particle of convincing evidence was +adduced against him. All that even Natalis could relate was, that when +Piso had sent him to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to +more of his intercourse, Seneca had replied "that it was better for them +both to hold aloof from each other, but that his own safety depended on +that of Piso." A tribune was sent to ask Seneca as to the truth of this +story, and found,--which was in itself regarded as a suspicious +circumstance,--that on that very day he had returned from Campania to a +villa four miles from the city. The tribune arrived in the evening, and +surrounded the villa with soldiers. Seneca was at supper, with his wife +Paulina and two friends. He entirely denied the truth of the evidence, +and said that "the only reason which he had assigned to Piso for seeing +so little of him was his weak health and love of retirement. Nero, who +knew how little prone he was to flattery, might judge whether or no it +was likely that he, a man of consular rank, would prefer the safety of a +man of private station to his own." Such was the message which the +tribune took back to Nero, whom he found sitting with his dearest and +most detestable advisers, his wife Poppaea and his minister Tigellinus. +Nero asked "whether Seneca was preparing a voluntary death." On the +tribune replying that he showed no gloom or terror in his language or +countenance, Nero ordered that he should at once be bidden to die. The +message was taken, and Seneca, without any sign of alarm, quietly +demanded leave to revise his will. This was refused him, and he then +turned to his friends with the remark that, as he was unable to reward +their merits as they had deserved, he would bequeath to them the only, +and yet the most precious, possession left to him, namely, the example +of his life, and if they were mindful of it they would win the +reputation alike for integrity and for faithful friendship. At the same +time he checked their tears, sometimes by his conversation, and +sometimes with serious reproaches, asking them "where were their +precepts of philosophy, and where the fortitude under trials which +should have been learnt from the studies of many years? Did not every +one know the cruelty of Nero? and what was left for him to do but to +make an end of his master and tutor after the murder of his mother and +his brother?" He then embraced his wife Paulina, and, with a slight +faltering of his lofty sternness, begged and entreated her not to enter +on an endless sorrow, but to endure the loss of her husband by the aid +of those noble consolations which she must derive from the contemplation +of his virtuous life. But Paulina declared that she would die with him, +and Seneca, not opposing the deed which would win her such permanent +glory, and at the same time unwilling to leave her to future wrongs, +yielded to her wish. The veins of their arms were opened by the same +blow; but the blood of Seneca, impoverished by old age and temperate +living, flowed so slowly that it was necessary also to open the veins of +his legs. This mode of death, chosen by the Romans as comparatively +painless, is in fact under certain circumstances most agonizing. Worn +out by these cruel tortures, and unwilling to weaken his wife's +fortitude by so dreadful a spectacle, glad at the same time to spare +himself the sight of <i>her</i> sufferings, he persuaded her to go to another +room. Even then his eloquence did not fail. It is told of Andrè Chénier, +the French poet, that on his way to execution he asked for writing +materials to record some of the strange thoughts which filled his mind. +The wish was denied him, but Seneca had ample liberty to record his last +utterances. Amanuenses were summoned, who took down those dying +admonitions, and in the time of Tacitus they still were extant. To us, +however, this interesting memorial of a Pagan deathbed is +irrevocably lost.</p> + +<p>Nero, meanwhile, to whom the news of these circumstances was taken, +having no dislike to Paulina, and unwilling to incur the odium of too +much bloodshed, ordered her death to be prohibited and her wounds to be +bound. She was already unconscious, but her slaves and freedmen +succeeded in saving her life. She lived a few years longer, cherishing +her husband's memory, and bearing in the attenuation of her frame, and +the ghastly pallor of her countenance, the lasting proofs of that deep +affection which had characterised their married life.</p> + +<p>Seneca was not yet dead, and, to shorten these protracted and useless +sufferings, he begged his friend and physician Statius Annaeus to give +him a draught of hemlock, the same poison by which the great philosopher +of Athens had been put to death. But his limbs were already cold, and +the draught proved fruitless. He then entered a bath of hot water, +sprinkling the slaves who stood nearest to him, with the words that he +was pouring a libation to Jupiter the Liberator.<a name="FNanchor36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36">[36]</a> Even the warm +water failed to make the blood flow more speedily, and he was finally +carried into one of those vapour baths which the Romans called +<i>sudatoria</i>, and stifled with its steam. His body was burned privately, +without any of the usual ceremonies. Such had been his own wish, +expressed, not after the fall of his fortunes, but at a time when his +thoughts had been directed to his latter end, in the zenith of his great +wealth and conspicuous power.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor36">[36]</a> Sicco Polentone, an Italian, who wrote a Life of Seneca +(d. 1461), makes Seneca a secret Christian, and represents this as an +invocation of Christ, and says that he baptized himself with the water +of the bath! +</blockquote> + +<p>So died a Pagan philosopher, whose life must always excite our interest +and pity, although we cannot apply to him the titles of great or good. +He was a man of high genius, of great susceptibility, of an ardent and +generous temperament, of far-sighted and sincere humanity. Some of his +sentiments are so remarkable for their moral beauty and profundity that +they forcibly remind us of the expressions of St. Paul. But Seneca fell +infinitely short of his own high standard, and has contemptuously been +called "the father of all them that wear shovel hats." Inconsistency is +written on the entire history of his life, and it has earned him the +scathing contempt with which many writers have treated his memory. "The +business of a philosopher," says Lord Macaulay, in his most scornful +strain, "was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling +out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of +luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about +liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant; +to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had +just before written a defence of the murder of a mother by a son." +"Seneca," says Niebuhr, "was an accomplished man of the world, who +occupied himself very much with virtue, and may have considered himself +to be an ancient Stoic. He certainly believed that he was a most +ingenious and virtuous philosopher; but he acted on the principle that, +as far as he himself was concerned, he could dispense with the laws of +morality which he laid down for others, and that he might give way to +his natural propensities."</p> + +<p>In Seneca's life, then, we see as clearly as in those of many professing +Christians that it is impossible to be at once worldly and righteous. +Seneca's utter failure was due to the vain attempt to combine in his own +person two opposite characters--that of a Stoic and that of a courtier. +Had he been a true philosopher, or a mere courtier, he would have been +happier, and even more respected. To be both was absurd: hence, even in +his writings, he was driven into inconsistency. He is often compelled to +abandon the lofty utterances of Stoicism, and to charge philosophers +with ignorance of life. In his treatise on a Happy Life he is obliged to +introduce a sort of indirect autobiographical apology for his wealth and +position.<a name="FNanchor37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37">[37]</a> In spite of his lofty pretensions to simplicity, in spite +of that sort of amateur asceticism which, in common with other wealthy +Romans, he occasionally practised, in spite of his final offer to +abandon his entire patrimony to the Emperor, we fear that he cannot be +acquitted of an almost insatiable avarice. We need not indeed believe +the fierce calumnies which charged him with exhausting Italy by a +boundless usury, and even stirring up a war in Britain by the severity +of his exactions; but it is quite clear that he deserved the title of +<i>Proedives</i>, "the over-wealthy," by which he has been so pointedly +signalized. It is strange that the most splendid intellects should so +often have sunk under the slavery of this meanest vice. In the Bible we +read how the "rewards of divination" seduced from his allegiance to God +the splendid enchanter of Mesopotamia:</p> + +<blockquote> + "In outline dim and vast<br> + Their fearful shadows cast<br> + The giant form of Empires on their way<br> + To ruin:--one by one<br> + They tower and they are gone,<br> + Yet in the prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.<br> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + "No sun or star so bright,<br> + In all the world of light,<br> + That they should draw to heaven his downward eye:<br> + He hears the Almighty's word,<br> + He sees the angel's sword,<br> + Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie."<br> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor37">[37]</a> See <i>Ad. Polyb</i>. 37: <i>Ep</i>. 75; <i>De Vit. Beat</i>. 17, 18, +22. +</blockquote> + +<p>And in Seneca we see some of the most glowing pictures of the nobility +of poverty combined with the most questionable avidity in the pursuit of +wealth. Yet how completely did he sell himself for naught. It is the +lesson which we see in every conspicuously erring life, and it was +illustrated less than three years afterwards in the terrible fate of the +tyrant who had driven him to death. For a short period of his life, +indeed, Seneca was at the summit of power; yet, courtier as he was, he +incurred the hatred, the suspicion, and the punishment of all the three +Emperors during whose reigns his manhood was passed. "Of all +unsuccessful men," says Mr. Froude, "in every shape, whether divine or +human, or devilish, there is none equal to Bunyan's Mr. +Facing-both-ways--the fellow with one eye on heaven and one on +earth--who sincerely preaches one thing and sincerely does another, and +from the intensity of his unreality is unable either to see or feel the +contradiction. He is substantially trying to cheat both God and the +devil, and is in reality only cheating himself and his neighbours. This +of all characters upon the earth appears to us to be the one of which +there is no hope at all, a character becoming in these days alarmingly +abundant; and the aboundance of which makes us find even in a Reineke an +inexpressible relief." And, in point of fact, the inconsistency of +Seneca's life was a <i>conscious</i> inconsistency. "To the student," he +says, "who professes his wish to rise to a loftier grade of virtue, I +would answer that this is my <i>wish</i> also, but I dare not hope it. <i>I am +preoccupied with vices. All I require of myself is, not to be equal to +the best</i>, but only <i>to be better than the bad</i>." No doubt Seneca meant +this to be understood merely for modest depreciation; but it was far +truer than he would have liked seriously to confess. He must have often +and deeply felt that he was not living in accordance with the light +which was in him.</p> + +<p>It would indeed be cheap and easy, to attribute the general inferiority +and the many shortcomings of Seneca's life and character to the fact +that he was a Pagan, and to suppose that if he had known Christianity he +would necessarily have attained to a loftier ideal. But such a style of +reasoning and inference, commonly as it is adopted for rhetorical +purposes, might surely be refused by any intelligent child. A more +intellectual assent to the lessons of Christianity would have probably +been but of little avail to inspire in Seneca a nobler life. The fact +is, that neither the gift of genius nor the knowledge of Christianity +are adequate to the ennoblement of the human heart, nor does the grace +of God flow through the channels of surpassing intellect or of orthodox +belief. Men there have been in all ages, Pagan no less than Christian, +who with scanty mental enlightenment and spiritual knowledge have yet +lived holy and noble lives: men there have been in all ages, Christian +no less than Pagan, who with consummate gifts and profound erudition +have disgraced some of the noblest words which ever were uttered by some +of the meanest lives which were ever lived. In the twelfth century was +there any mind that shone more brightly, was there any eloquence which +flowed more mightily, than that of Peter Abelard? Yet Abelard sank +beneath the meanest of his scholastic cotemporaries in the degradation +of his career as much as he towered above the highest of them in the +grandeur of his genius. In the seventeenth century was there any +philosopher more profound, any moralist more elevated, than Francis +Bacon? Yet Bacon could flatter a tyrant, and betray a friend, and +receive a bribe, and be one of the latest of English judges to adopt the +brutal expedient of enforcing confession by the exercise of torture. If +Seneca defended the murder of Agrippina, Bacon blackened the character +of Essex. "What I would I do not; but the thing that I would not, that I +do," might be the motto for many a confession of the sins of genius; and +Seneca need not blush if we compare him with men who were his equals in +intellectual power, but whose "means of grace," whose privileges, whose +knowledge of the truth, were infinitely higher than his own. Let the +noble constancy of his death shed a light over his memory which may +dissipate something of those dark shades which rest on portions of his +history. We think of Abelard, humble, silent, patient, God-fearing, +tended by the kindly-hearted Peter in the peaceful gardens of Clugny; we +think of Bacon, neglected, broken, and despised, dying of the chill +caught in a philosophical experiment and leaving his memory to the +judgment of posterity; let us think of Seneca, quietly yielding to his +destiny without a murmur, cheering the constancy of the mourners round +him during the long agonies of his enforced suicide and dictating some +of the purest utterances of Pagan wisdom almost with his latest breath. +The language of his great contemporary, the Apostle St. Paul, will best +help us to understand his position. He was one of those who was <i>seeking +the Lord, if haply he might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be +not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have +our being</i>.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV."></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA AND ST. PAUL.</h3> + +<p>In the spring of the year 61, not long after the time when the murder of +Agrippina, and Seneca's justifications of it, had been absorbing the +attention of the Roman world, there disembarked at Puteoli a troop of +prisoners, whom the Procurator of Judaea had sent to Rome under the +charge of a centurion. Walking among them, chained and weary, but +affectionately tended by two younger companions,<a name="FNanchor38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38">[38]</a> and treated with +profound respect by little deputations of friends who met him at Appii +Forum and the Three Taverns, was a man of mean presence and +weather-beaten aspect, who was handed over like the rest to the charge +of Burrus, the Praefect of the Praetorian Guards. Learning from the +letters of the Jewish Procurator that the prisoner had been guilty of no +serious offence,<a name="FNanchor39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39">[39]</a> but had used his privilege of Roman citizenship to +appeal to Caesar for protection against the infuriated malice of his +co-religionists--possibly also having heard from the centurion Julius +some remarkable facts about his behaviour and history--Burrus allowed +him, pending the hearing of his appeal, to live in his own hired +apartments.<a name="FNanchor40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40">[40]</a> This lodging was in all probability in that quarter of +the city opposite the island in the Tiber, which corresponds to the +modern Trastevere. It was the resort of the very lowest and meanest of +the populace--that promiscuous jumble of all nations which makes Tacitus +call Rome at this time "the sewer of the universe." It was here +especially that the Jews exercised some of the meanest trades in Rome, +selling matches, and old clothes, and broken glass, or begging and +fortune-telling on the Cestian or Fabrican bridges.<a name="FNanchor41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41">[41]</a> In one of these +narrow, dark, and dirty streets, thronged by the dregs of the Roman +populace, St. Mark and St. Peter had in all probability lived when they +founded the little Christian Church at Rome. It was undoubtedly in the +same despised locality that St. Paul,--the prisoner who had been +consigned to the care of Burrus,--hired a room, sent for the principle +Jews, and for two years taught to Jews and Christians, to any Pagans who +would listen to him, the doctrines which were destined to regenerate +the world.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor38">[38]</a> Luke and Aristarchus. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor39">[39]</a> Acts xxiv. 23, xxvii. 3. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor40">[40]</a> Acts xxviii. 30, [Greek: en idio misthomati]. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor41">[41]</a> MART. <i>Ep</i>. i. 42: JUV. xiv. 186. In these few paragraphs +I follow M. Aubertin, who (as well as many other authors) has collected +many of the principal passages in which Roman writers allude to the Jews +and Christians. +</blockquote> + +<p>Any one entering that mean and dingy room would have seen a Jew with +bent body and furrowed countenance, and with every appearance of age, +weakness, and disease chained by the arm to a Roman soldier. But it is +impossible that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not also +have seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, the fire of inspiration, +the serene light of exalted hope and dauntless courage upon those +withered features. And though <i>he</i> was chained, "the Word of God was not +chained." <a name="FNanchor42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42">[42]</a> Had they listened to the words which he occasionally +dictated, or overlooked the large handwriting which alone his weak +eyesight and bodily infirmities, as well as the inconvenience of his +chains, permitted, they would have heard or read the immortal utterances +which strengthened the faith of the nascent and struggling Churches in +Ephesus, Philippi, and Colossae, and which have since been treasured +among the most inestimable possessions of a Christian world.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor42">[42]</a> 2 Tim. ii. 9. +</blockquote> + +<p>His efforts were not unsuccessful; his misfortunes were for the +furtherance of the Gospel; his chains were manifest "in all the palace, +and in all other places;" <a name="FNanchor43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43">[43]</a> and many waxing confident by his bonds +were much more bold to speak the word without fear. Let us not be misled +by assuming a wrong explanation of these words, or by adopting the +Middle Age traditions which made St. Paul convert some of the immediate +favourites of the Emperor, and electrify with his eloquence an admiring +Senate. The word here rendered "palace" <a name="FNanchor44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44">[44]</a> may indeed have that +meaning, for we know that among the early converts were "they of +Caesar's household;" <a name="FNanchor45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45">[45]</a> but these were in all probability--if not +certainly--Jews of the lowest rank, who were, as we know, to be found +among the <i>hundreds</i> of unfortunates of every age and country who +composed a Roman <i>familia</i>. And it is at least equally probable that the +word "praetorium" simply means the barrack of that detachment of Roman +soldiers from which Paul's gaolers were taken in turn. In such labours +St. Paul in all probability spent two years (61-63), during which +occurred the divorce of Octavia, the marriage with Poppaea, the death of +Burrus, the disgrace of Seneca, and the many subsequent infamies +of Nero.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor43">[43]</a> Phil. i. 12. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor44">[44]</a> [Greek: en olo to praitorio]. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor45">[45]</a> Phil. iv. 22. +</blockquote> + +<p>It is out of such materials that some early Christian forger thought it +edifying to compose the work which is supposed to contain the +correspondence of Seneca and St. Paul. The undoubted spuriousness of +that work is now universally admitted, and indeed the forgery is too +clumsy to be even worth reading. But it is worth while inquiring whether +in the circumstances of the time there is even a bare possibility that +Seneca should ever have been among the readers or the auditors of Paul.</p> + +<p>And the answer is, There is absolutely no such probability. A vivid +imagination is naturally attracted by the points of contrast and +resemblance offered by two such characters, and we shall see that there +is a singular likeness between many of their sentiments and expressions. +But this was a period in which, as M. Villemain observes, "from one +extremity of the social world to the other truths met each other without +recognition." Stoicism, noble as were many of its precepts, lofty as was +the morality it professed, deeply as it was imbued in many respects with +a semi-Christian piety, looked upon Christianity with profound contempt. +The Christians disliked the Stoics, the Stoics despised and persecuted +the Christians. "The world knows nothing of its greatest men." Seneca +would have stood aghast at the very notion of his receiving the lessons, +still more of his adopting the religion, of a poor, accused, and +wandering Jew. The haughty, wealthy, eloquent, prosperous, powerful +philosopher would have smiled at the notion that any future ages would +suspect him of having borrowed any of his polished and epigrammatic +lessons of philosophic morals or religion from one whom, if he heard of +him, he would have regarded as a poor wretch, half fanatic and half +barbarian.</p> + +<p>We learn from St. Paul himself that the early converts of Christianity +were men in the very depths of poverty,<a name="FNanchor46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46">[46]</a> and that its preachers were +regarded as fools, and weak, and were despised, and naked, and +buffeted--persecuted and homeless labourers--a spectacle to the world, +and to angels, and to men, "made as the filth of the earth and the +off-scouring of all things." We know that their preaching was to the +Greeks "foolishness," and that, when they spoke of Jesus and the +resurrection, their hearers mocked<a name="FNanchor47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47">[47]</a> and jeered. And these indications +are more than confirmed by many contemporary passages of ancient +writers. We have already seen the violent expressions of hatred which +the ardent and high-toned soul of Tacitus thought applicable to the +Christians; and such language is echoed by Roman writers of every +character and class. The fact is that at this time and for centuries +afterwards the Romans regarded the Christians with such lordly +indifference that--like Festus, and Felix and Seneca's brother +Gallio--they never took the trouble to distinguish them from the Jews. +The distinction was not fully realized by the Pagan world till the cruel +and wholesale massacre of the Christians by the pseudo-Messiah +Barchochebas in the reign of Adrian opened their eyes to the fact of the +irreconcilable differences which existed between the two religions. And +pages might be filled with the ignorant and scornful allusions which the +heathen applied to the Jews. They confused them with the whole degraded +mass of Egyptian and Oriental impostors and brute-worshippers; they +disdained them as seditious, turbulent, obstinate, and avaricious; they +regarded them as mainly composed of the very meanest slaves out of the +gross and abject multitude; their proselytism they considered as the +clandestine initiation into some strange and revolting mystery, which +involved as its direct teachings contempt of the gods, and the negation +of all patriotism and all family affection; they firmly believed that +they worshipped the head of an ass; they thought it natural that none +but the vilest slaves and the silliest woman should adopt so +misanthropic and degraded a superstition; they characterized their +customs as "absurd, sordid, foul, and depraved," and their nation as +"prone to superstition, opposed to religion." <a name="FNanchor48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48">[48]</a> And as far as they +made <i>any</i> distinction between Jews and Christians, it was for the +latter that they reserved their choicest and most concentrated epithets +of hatred and abuse. A "new," "pernicious," "detestable," "execrable," +superstition is the only language with which Suetonius and Tacitus +vouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,--though he must have heard the name of +Christian during the reign of Claudius (when both they and the Jews were +expelled from Rome, "because of their perpetual turbulence, at the +instigation of Chrestus," as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and during +the Neronian persecution--never once alludes to them, and only mentions +the Jews to apply a few contemptuous remarks to the idleness of their +sabbaths, and to call them "a most abandoned race."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor46">[46]</a> 2 Cor. viii. 2. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor47">[47]</a> [Greek: <i>Echleuazon</i>], Acts xvii. 32. The word expresses +the most profound and unconcealed contempt. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor48">[48]</a> Tac. <i>Hist</i>. i. 13: ib. v. 5: JUV. xiv. 85: Pers. v. 190, +&c. +</blockquote> + +<p>The reader will now judge whether there is the slightest probability +that Seneca had any intercourse with St. Paul, or was likely to have +stooped from his superfluity of wealth, and pride of power, to take +lessons from obscure and despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by +the crowded households of Caesar or Narcissus.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV."></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE.</h3> + +<p>And yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be called, as he is +called in the title of this book, a Seeker after God; and the +resemblances to the sacred writings which may be found in the pages of +his works are numerous and striking. A few of these will probably +interest our readers, and will put them in a better position for +understanding how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had +rewarded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We will place a +few such passages side by side with the texts of Scripture which they +resemble or recall.</p> + +<p>1. <i>God's Indwelling Presence</i>.</p> + +<p>"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God +dwelleth in you?" asks St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 16).</p> + +<p>"<i>God is near you, is with you, is within you</i>," writes Seneca to his +friend Lucilius, in the 41st of those <i>Letters</i> which abound in his most +valuable moral reflections; "<i>a sacred Spirit dwells within us, the +observer and guardian of all our evil and our good ... there is no good +man without God</i>."</p> + +<p>And again (<i>Ep.</i> 73): "<i>Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God +comes to men: nay, what is yet nearer; He comes into men. No good mind +is holy without God</i>."</p> + +<p>2. <i>The Eye of God</i>.</p> + +<p>"All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have +to do." (Heb. iv. 13.)</p> + +<p>"Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in +secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt. vi. 6.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Providence</i>, 1): "<i>It is no advantage that conscience is +shut within us; we lie open to God</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 83: "<i>What advantage is it that anything is hidden from man? +Nothing is closed to God: He is present to our minds, and enters into +our central thoughts</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 83: "<i>We must live as if we were living in sight of all men; we +must think as though some one could and can gaze into our +inmost breast</i>."</p> + +<p>3. <i>God is a Spirit</i>.</p> + +<p>St. Paul, "We ought not to think that the God-head is like unto gold, or +silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." (Acts xvii. 29.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 31): "<i>Even from a corner it is possible to spring up +into heaven: rise, therefore, and form thyself into a fashion worthy of +God; thou canst not do this, however, with gold and silver: an image +like to God cannot be formed out of such materials as these</i>."</p> + +<p>4. <i>Imitating God</i>.</p> + +<p>"Be ye therefore followers ([Greek: <i>mimaetai</i>], imitators) of God, as +dear children." (Eph. v. 1.)</p> + +<p>"He that in these things [righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost] +serveth Christ is acceptable to God." (Rom. xiv. 18.)</p> + +<p>Seneca <i>(Letter</i> 95): "<i>Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be +virtuous. To honour them it is enough to imitate them</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 124: "<i>Let man aim at the good which belongs to him. What is +this good? A mind reformed and pure, the imitator of God, raising itself +above things human, confining all its desires within itself</i>."</p> + +<p>5. <i>Hypocrites like whited Sepulchres</i>.</p> + +<p>"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto +whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within +full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matt, xxiii. 27.)</p> + +<p>Seneca: "<i>Those whom you regard as happy, if you saw them, not in their +externals, but in their hidden aspect, are wretched, sordid, base; like +their own walls adorned outwardly. It is no solid and genuine felicity; +it is a plaster, and that a thin one; and so, as long as they can stand +and be seen at their pleasure, they shine and impose on us: when +anything has fallen which disturbs and uncovers them, it is evident how +much deep and real foulness an extraneous splendour has concealed</i>."</p> + +<p>6. <i>Teaching compared to Seed</i>.</p> + +<p>"But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit; some an +hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold." (Matt xiii. 8.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (Letter 38): "<i>Words must be sown like seed; which, although it +be small, when it hath found a suitable ground, unfolds its strength, +and from very small size is expanded into the largest increase. Reason +does the same.... The things spoken are few; but if the mind have +received them well, they gain strength and grow</i>."</p> + +<p>7. <i>All Men are Sinners</i>.</p> + +<p>"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is +not in us." (1 John i. 8.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Anger</i>, i. 14, ii. 27): "<i>If we wish to be just judges of +all things, let us first persuade ourselves of this:--that there is not +one of us without fault.... No man is found who can acquit himself; and +he who calls himself innocent does so with reference to a witness, and +not to his conscience</i>."</p> + +<p>8. <i>Avarice</i>.</p> + +<p>"The love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Tim. vi. 10.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Tranquillity of Soul</i>, 8): "<i>Riches ... the greatest source +of human trouble</i>."</p> + +<p>"Be content with such things as ye have." (Heb. xiii. 5.)</p> + +<p>"Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." (1 Tim. vi. 8.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 114): "<i>We shall be wise if we desire but little; if +each man takes count of himself, and at the same time measures his own +body, he will know how little it can contain, and for how short +a time</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 110: "<i>We have polenta, we have water; let us challenge Jupiter +himself to a comparison of bliss!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Tim. vi. 6.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 110): "<i>Why are you struck with wonder and +astonishment? It is all display! Those things are shown, not +possessed</i>.... <i>Turn thyself rather to the true riches, learn to be +content with little</i>."</p> + +<p>"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a +rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matt. xix. 24.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 20): "<i>He is a high-souled man who sees riches spread +around him, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It is much +not to be corrupted by fellowship with riches: great is he who in the +midst of wealth is poor, but safer he who has no wealth at all</i>."</p> + +<p>9. <i>The Duty of Kindness</i>.</p> + +<p>"Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love." (Rom. xii. +10.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Anger</i>, i. 5): "<i>Man is born for mutual assistance</i>."</p> + +<p>"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Lev. xiv. 18.)</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 48: "<i>You must live for another, if you wish to live for +yourself</i>."</p> + +<p><i>On Anger</i>, iii. 43: "<i>While we are among men let us cultivate kindness; +let us not be to any man a cause either of peril or of fear</i>."</p> + +<p>10. <i>Our common Membership</i>.</p> + +<p>"Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." (1 Cor. xii. +27.)</p> + +<p>"We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of +another." (Rom. xii. 5.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 95): "<i>Do we teach that he should stretch his hand to +the shipwrecked, show his path to the wanderer, divide his bread with +the hungry</i>?... <i>when I could briefly deliver to him the formula of +human duty: all this that you see, in which things divine and human are +included, is one: we are members of one great body</i>."</p> + +<p>11. <i>Secrecy in doing Good</i>.</p> + +<p>"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." (Matt. vi. 3.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Benefits</i>, ii. 11): "<i>Let him who hath conferred a favour +hold his tongue</i>.... <i>In conferring a favour nothing should be more +avoided than pride</i>."</p> + +<p>12. <i>God's impartial Goodness</i>.</p> + +<p>"He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain +on the just and on the unjust." (Matt. v. 45.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Benefits</i>, i. 1): "<i>How many are unworthy of the light! and +yet the day dawns</i>."</p> + +<p>Id. vii. 31: "<i>The gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize +them not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them.... +They distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations +and peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir +the seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the +constellations, they temper the winter and summer by the intervention of +a gentler air</i>."</p> + +<p>It would be a needless task to continue these parallels, because by +reading any treatise of Seneca a student might add to them by scores; +and they prove incontestably that, as far as moral illumination was +concerned, Seneca "was not far from the kingdom of heaven." They have +been collected by several writers; and all of these here adduced, +together with many others, may be found in the pages of Fleury, +Troplong, Aubertin, and others. Some authors, like M. Fleury, have +endeavoured to show that they can only be accounted for by the +supposition that Seneca had some acquaintance with the sacred writings. +M. Aubertin, on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this +could not have been the case. Many words and expressions detached from +their context have been forced into a resemblance with the words of +Scripture, when the context wholly militates against its spirit; many +belong to that great common stock of moral truths which had been +elaborated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers; and +there is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enunciated which may +not be found even more nobly and more distinctly expressed in the +writings of Plato and of Cicero. In a subsequent chapter we shall show +that, in spite of them all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of +Christianity are at least as remarkable as the closest of his +resemblances; but it will be more convenient to do this when we have +also examined the doctrines of those two other great representatives of +spiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus the slave and Marcus +Aurelius the emperor.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings such as these give +us a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of the Lord has entered +into holy men, and made them sons of God and prophets. God "left not +Himself without witness" among them. The language of St. Thomas Aquinas, +that many a heathen has had an "implicit faith," is but another way of +expressing St. Paul's statement that "not having the law they were a law +unto themselves, and showed the work of the law written in their +hearts." <a name="FNanchor49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49">[49]</a> To them the Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the +things that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the +voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate, +knowledge. To them "the voice of nature was the voice of God." Their +revelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and +extended, but <i>not</i> suspended, by the written law of God.<a name="FNanchor50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50">[50]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor49">[49]</a> Rom. i. 2. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor50">[50]</a> Hooker, <i>Eccl. Pol</i>. iii. 8. +</blockquote> + +<p>The knowledge thus derived, i.e. the sum-total of religious impressions +resulting from the combination of reason and experience, has been called +"natural religion;" the term is in itself a convenient and +unobjectionable one, so long as it is remembered that natural religion +is itself a revelation. No <i>antithesis</i> is so unfortunate and pernicious +as that of natural with revealed religion. It is "a contrast rather of +words than of ideas; it is an opposition of abstractions to which no +facts really correspond." God has revealed Himself, not in one but in +many ways, not only by inspiring the hearts of a few, but by vouchsafing +His guidance to all who seek it. "The spirit of man is the candle of the +Lord," and it is not religion but apostasy to deny the reality of any of +God's revelations of truth to man, merely because they have not +descended through a single channel. On the contrary, we ought to hail +with gratitude, instead of viewing with suspicion, the enunciation by +heathen writers of truths which we might at first sight have been +disposed to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. In +Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato,--in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus +Aurelius--we see the light of heaven struggling its impeded way through +clouds of darkness and ignorance; we thankfully recognize that the souls +of men in the Pagan world, surrounded as they were by perplexities and +dangers, were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface of silver, +some image of what was divine and true; we hail, with the great and +eloquent Bossuet, "THE CHRISTIANITY OF NATURE." "The divine image in +man," says St. Bernard, "may be burned, but it cannot be burnt out."</p> + +<p>And this is the pleasantest side on which to consider the life and the +writings of Seneca. It is true that his style partakes of the defects of +his age, that the brilliancy of his rhetoric does not always compensate +for the defectiveness of his reasoning; that he resembles, not a mirror +which clearly reflects the truth, but "a glass fantastically cut into a +thousand spangles;" that side by side with great moral truths we +sometimes find his worst errors, contradictions, and paradoxes; that his +eloquent utterances about God often degenerate into a vague Pantheism; +and that even on the doctrine of immortality his hold is too slight to +save him from waverings and contradictions;<a name="FNanchor51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51">[51]</a> yet as a moral teacher +he is full of real greatness, and was often far in advance of the +general opinion of his age. Few men have written more finely, or with +more evident sincerity, about truth and courage, about the essential +equality of man,<a name="FNanchor52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52">[52]</a> about the duty of kindness and consideration to +slaves,<a name="FNanchor53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53">[53]</a> about tenderness even in dealing with sinners,<a name="FNanchor54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54">[54]</a> about the +glory of unselfishness,<a name="FNanchor55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55">[55]</a> about the great idea of humanity<a name="FNanchor56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56">[56]</a> as +something which transcends all the natural and artificial prejudices of +country and of caste. Many of his writings are Pagan sermons and moral +essays of the best and highest type. The style, as Quintilian says, +"abounds in delightful faults," but the strain of sentiment is never +otherwise than high and true.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor51">[51]</a> Consol. ad Polyb. 27; Ad Helv. 17; Ad Marc. 24, <i>seqq</i>. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor52">[52]</a> Ep. 32; De Benef. iii. 2. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor53">[53]</a> De Irâ, iii. 29, 32. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor54">[54]</a> Ibid. i. 14; De Vit. beat. 24. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor55">[55]</a> Ep. 55, 9. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor56">[56]</a> Ibid. 28; De Oti Sapientis, 31. +</blockquote> + +<p>He is to be regarded rather as a wealthy, eminent, and successful Roman, +who devoted most of his leisure to moral philosophy, than as a real +philosopher by habit and profession. And in this point of view his very +inconsistencies have their charm, as illustrating his ardent, impulsive, +imaginative temperament. He was no apathetic, self-contained, impassible +Stoic, but a passionate, warm-hearted man, who could break into a flood +of unrestrained tears at the death of his friend Annaeus Serenus,<a name="FNanchor57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57">[57]</a> +and feel a trembling solicitude for the welfare of his wife and little +ones. His was no absolute renunciation, no impossible perfection;<a name="FNanchor58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58">[58]</a> +but few men have painted more persuasively, with deeper emotion, or more +entire conviction, the pleasures of virtue, the calm of a +well-regulated soul, the strong and severe joys of a lofty self-denial. +In his youth, he tells us, he was preparing himself for a righteous +life, in his old age for a noble death.<a name="FNanchor59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59">[59]</a> And let us not forget, that +when the hour of crisis came which tested the real calm and bravery of +his soul, he was not found wanting. "With no dread," he writes to +Lucilius, "I am preparing myself for that day on which, laying aside all +artifice or subterfuge, I shall be able to judge respecting myself +whether I merely <i>speak</i> or really <i>feel</i> as a brave man should; whether +all those words of haughty obstinacy which I have hurled against fortune +were mere pretence and pantomime.... Disputations and literary talks, +and words collected from the precepts of philosophers, and eloquent +discourse, do not prove the true strength of the soul. For the mere +<i>speech</i> of even the most cowardly is bold; what you have really +achieved will then be manifest when your end is near. I accept the +terms, I do not shrink from the decision." <a name="FNanchor60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60">[60]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor57">[57]</a> Ep. 63. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor58">[58]</a> Martha, <i>Les Moralistes</i>, p. 61. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor59">[59]</a> Ep. 61. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor60">[60]</a> Ep. 26. +</blockquote> + +<p>"<i>Accipio conditionem, non reformido judicrum</i>." They were courageous +and noble words, and they were justified in the hour of trial. When we +remember the sins of Seneca's life, let us recall also the constancy of +his death; while we admit the inconsistencies of his systematic +philosophy, let us be grateful for the genius, the enthusiasm, the glow +of intense conviction, with which he clothes his repeated utterance of +truths, which, when based upon a surer basis, were found adequate for +the moral regeneration of the world. Nothing is more easy than to sneer +at Seneca, or to write clever epigrams on one whose moral attainments +fell infinitely short of his own great ideal. But after all he was not +more inconsistent than thousands of those who condemn him. With all his +faults he yet lived a nobler and a better life, he had loftier aims, he +was braver, more self-denying--nay, even more consistent--than the +majority of professing Christians. It would be well for us all if those +who pour such scorn upon his memory attempted to achieve one tithe of +the good which he achieved for humanity and for Rome. His thoughts +deserve our imperishable gratitude: let him who is without sin among us +be eager to fling stones at his failures and his sins!</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h1><a name="EPICTETUS."></a>EPICTETUS.</h1> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IE."></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>THE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT.</h3> + +<p>In the court of Nero, Seneca must have been thrown into more or less +communication with the powerful freedmen of that Emperor, and especially +with his secretary or librarian, Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was a +constant companion of the Emperor; he was the earliest to draw Nero's +attention to the conspiracy in which Seneca himself perished. There can +be no doubt that Seneca knew him, and had visited at his house. Among +the slaves who thronged that house, the natural kindliness of the +philosopher's heart may have drawn his attentions to one little lame +Phrygian boy, deformed and mean-looking, whose face--if it were any +index of the mind within--must even from boyhood have worn a serene and +patient look. The great courtier, the great tutor of the Emperor, the +great Stoic and favourite writer of his age, would indeed have been +astonished if he had been suddenly told that that wretched-looking +little slave-lad was destined to attain purer and clearer heights of +philosophy than he himself had ever done, and to become quite as +illustrious as himself, and far more respected as an exponent of Stoic +doctrines. For that lame boy was Epictetus--Epictetus for whom was +written the memorable epitaph: "I was Epictetus, a slave, and maimed in +body, and a beggar for poverty, <i>and dear to the immortals</i>."</p> + +<p>Although we have a clear sketch of his philosophical doctrines, we have +no materials whatever for any but the most meagre description of his +life. The picture of his mind--an effigy of that which he alone regarded +as his true self--may be seen in his works, and to this we can add +little except a few general facts and uncertain anecdotes.</p> + +<p>Epictetus was probably born in about the fiftieth year of the Christian +era; but we do not know the exact date of his birth, nor do we even know +his real name. "Epictetus" means "bought" or "acquired," and is simply a +servile designation. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a town +between the rivers Lycus and Meander, and considered by some to be the +capital of the province. The town possessed several natural +wonders--sacred springs, stalactite grottoes, and a deep cavern +remarkable for its mephitic exhalations. It is more interesting to us to +know that it was within a few miles of Colossae and Laodicea, and is +mentioned by St. Paul (Col. iv. 13) in connexion with those two cities. +It must, therefore, have possessed a Christian Church from the earliest +times, and, if Epictetus spent any part of his boyhood there, he might +have conversed with men and women of humble rank who had heard read in +their obscure place of meeting the Epistle of St. Paul to the +Colossians, and the other, now lost, which he addressed to the Church of +Laodicea.<a name="FNanchor61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61">[61]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor61">[61]</a> Col. iv. 16. +</blockquote> + +<p>It is probable, however, that Hierapolis and its associations produced +very little influence on the mind of Epictetus. His parents were people +in the very lowest and humblest class, and their moral character could +hardly have been high, or they would not have consented under any +circumstance to sell into slavery their sickly child. Certainly it could +hardly have been possible for Epictetus to enter into the world under +less enviable or less promising auspices. But the whole system of life +is full of divine and memorable compensations, and Epictetus experienced +them. God kindles the light of genius where He will, and He can inspire +the highest and most regal thoughts even into the meanest slave:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Such seeds are scattered night and day<br> + By the soft wind from Heaven,<br> + And in the poorest human clay<br> + Have taken root and thriven."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>What were the accidents--or rather, what was "the unseen Providence, by +man nicknamed chance"--which assigned Epictetus to the house of +Epaphroditus we do not know. To a heart refined and noble there could +hardly have been a more trying position. The slaves of a Roman <i>familia</i> +were crowded together in immense gangs; they were liable to the most +violent and capricious punishments; they might be subjected to the most +degraded and brutalising influences. Men sink too often to the level to +which they are supposed to belong. Treated with infamy for long years, +they are apt to deem themselves worthy of infamy--to lose that +self-respect which is the invariable concomitant of religious feeling, +and which, apart from religious feeling, is the sole preventive of +personal degradation. Well may St. Paul say, "Art thou called, being a +servant? care not for it: <i>but if thou mayest be made free, use it +rather</i>." <a name="FNanchor62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62">[62]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor62">[62]</a> 1 Cor. vii. 21. +</blockquote> + +<p>It is true that even in the heathen world there began at this time to +be disseminated among the best and wisest thinkers a sense that slaves +were made of the same clay as their masters, that they differed from +freeborn men only in the externals and accidents of their position, and +that kindness to them and consideration for their difficulties was a +common and elementary duty of humanity. "I am glad to learn," says +Seneca, in one of his interesting letters to Lucilius, "that you live on +terms of familiarity with your slaves; it becomes your prudence and your +erudition. Are they slaves? Nay, they are men. Slaves? Nay, companions. +Slaves? Nay, humble friends. Slaves? <i>Nay, fellow-slaves,</i> if you but +consider that fortune has power over you both." He proceeds, in a +passage to which we have already alluded, to reprobate the haughty and +inconsiderate fashion of keeping them standing for hours, mute and +fasting, while their masters gorged themselves at the banquet. He +deplores the cruelty which thinks it necessary to punish with terrible +severity an accidental cough or sneeze. He quotes the proverb--a proverb +which reveals a whole history--"So many slaves, so many foes," and +proves that they are not foes, but that men <i>made</i> them so; whereas, +when kindly treated, when considerately addressed, they would be silent, +even under torture, rather than speak to their master's disadvantage. +"Are they not sprung," he asks, "from the same origin, do they not +breathe the same air, do they not live and die just as we do?" The +blows, the broken limbs, the clanking chains, the stinted food of the +<i>ergastula</i> or slave-prisons, excited all Seneca's compassion, and in +all probability presented a picture of misery which the world has rarely +seen surpassed, unless it were in that nefarious trade which England to +her shame once practised, and, to her eternal glory, resolutely +swept away.</p> + +<p>But Seneca's inculcation of tenderness towards slaves was in reality +one of the most original of his moral teachings; and, from all that we +know of Roman life, it is to be feared that the number of those who +acted in accordance with it was small. Certainly Epaphroditus, the +master of Epictetus, was not one of them. The historical facts which we +know of this man are slight. He was one of the four who accompanied the +tragic and despicable flight of Nero from Rome in the year 69, and when, +after many waverings of cowardice, Nero at last, under imminent peril of +being captured and executed, put the dagger to his breast, it was +Epaphroditus who helped the tyrant to drive it home into his heart, for +which he was subsequently banished, and finally executed by the +Emperor Domitian.</p> + +<p>Epictetus was accustomed to tell one or two anecdotes which, although +given without comment, show the narrowness and vulgarity of the man. +Among his slaves was a certain worthless cobbler named Felicio; as the +cobbler was quite useless, Epaphroditus sold him, and by some chance he +was bought by some one of Caesar's household, and made Caesar's cobbler. +Instantly Epaphroditus began to pay him the profoundest respect, and to +address him in the most endearing terms, so that if any one asked what +Epaphroditus was doing, the answer, as likely as not, would be, "He is +holding an important consultation with Felicio."</p> + +<p>On one occasion, some one came to him bewailing, and weeping, and +embracing his knees in a paroxysm of grief, because of all his fortune +little more than 50,000<i>l</i>. was left! "What did Epaphroditus do?" asks +Epictetus; "did he laugh at the man as we did? Not at all; on the +contrary, he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 'Poor +fellow! how could you possibly keep silence and endure such a +misfortune?'"</p> + +<p>How brutally he could behave, and how little respect he inspired, we may +see in the following anecdote. When Plautius Lateranus, the brave +nobleman whose execution during Piso's conspiracy we have already +related, had received on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's +sword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not abstain from +pressing him with questions. The only reply which he received from the +dying man was the contemptuous remark, "Should I wish to say anything, I +will say it (not to a slave like you, but) to <i>your master</i>."</p> + +<p>Under a man of this calibre it is hardly likely that a lame Phrygian boy +would experience much kindness. An anecdote, indeed, has been handed +down to us by several writers, which would show that he was treated with +atrocious cruelty. Epaphroditus, it is said, once gratified his cruelty +by twisting his slave's leg in some instrument of torture. "If you go +on, you will break it," said Epictetus. The wretch did go on, and did +break it. "I told you that you would break it," said Epictetus quietly, +not giving vent to his anguish by a single word or a single groan. +Stories of heroism no less triumphant have been authenticated both in +ancient and modern times; but we may hope for the sake of human nature +that this story is false, since another authority tells us that +Epictetus became lame in consequence of a natural disease. Be that +however as it may, some of the early writers against Christianity--such, +for instance, as the physician Celsus--were fond of adducing this +anecdote in proof of a magnanimity which not even Christianity could +surpass; to which use of the anecdote Origen opposed the awful silence +of our Saviour upon the cross, and Gregory of Nazianzen pointed out +that, though it was a noble thing to endure inevitable evils, it was yet +more noble to undergo them voluntarily with an equal fortitude. But even +if Epaphroditus were not guilty of breaking the leg of Epictetus, it is +clear that the life of the poor youth was surrounded by circumstances of +the most depressing and miserable character; circumstances which would +have forced an ordinary man to the low and animal level of existence +which appears to have contented the great majority of Roman slaves. Some +of the passages in which he speaks about the consideration due to this +unhappy class show a very tender feeling towards them. "It would be +best," he says, "if, both while making your preparations and while +feasting at your banquets, you distribute among the attendants some of +the provisions. But if such a plan, at any particular time, be difficult +to carry out, remember that you who are not fatigued are being waited +upon by those who are fatigued; you who are eating and drinking by those +who are not eating and drinking; you who are conversing by those who are +mute--you who are at your ease by people under painful constraint. And +thus you will neither yourself be kindled into unseemly passion, nor +will you in a fit of fury do harm to any one else." No doubt Epictetus +is here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of which he had +himself experienced the degradation. But he had early acquired a +loftiness of soul and an insight into truth which enabled him to +distinguish the substance from the shadow, to separate the realities of +life from its accidents, and so to turn his very misfortunes into fresh +means of attaining to moral nobility. In proof of this let us see some +of his own opinions as to his state of life.</p> + +<p>At the very beginning of his <i>Discourses</i> he draws a distinction +between the things which the gods <i>have</i> and the things which they <i>have +not</i> put in our own power, and he held (being deficient here in that +light which Christianity might have furnished to him) that the blessings +denied to us are denied not because the gods <i>would</i> not, but because +they <i>could</i> not grant them to us. And then he supposes that Jupiter +addresses him:--</p> + +<p>"O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both your little +body and your little property free and unentangled; but now, do not be +mistaken, it is not yours at all, but only clay finely kneaded. Since, +however, I could not do this, I gave you a portion of ourselves, namely, +this power of pursuing and avoiding, of desiring and of declining, and +generally the power of <i>dealing with appearances</i>: and if you cultivate +this power, and regard it as that which constitutes your real +possession, you will never be hindered or impeded, nor will you groan or +find fault with, or flatter any one. Do these advantages then appear to +you to be trifling? Heaven forbid! Be content therefore with these, and +thank the gods."</p> + +<p>And again in one of his <i>Fragments</i> (viii. ix.):--</p> + +<p>"Freedom and slavery are but names, respectively, of virtue and of vice: +and both of them depend upon the will. But neither of them have anything +to do with those things in which the will has no share. For no one is a +slave whose will is free."</p> + +<p>"Fortune is an evil bond of the body, vice of the soul; for he is a +slave whose body is free but whose soul is bound, and, on the contrary, +he is free whose body is bound but whose soul is free."</p> + +<p>Who does not catch in these passages the very tone of St, Paul when he +says, "He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's +freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is +Christ's servant?"</p> + +<p>Nor is his independence less clearly express when he speaks of his +deformity. Being but the deformity of a body which he despised, he spoke +of himself as "an ethereal existence staggering under the burden of a +corpse." In his admirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays +down that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense that "the +universe is not made for our individual satisfaction." "<i>Must my leg be +lame</i>?" he supposes some querulous objector to inquire. "Slave!" he +replies, "do you then because of one miserable little leg find fault +with the universe? Will you not concede that accident to the existence +of general laws? Will you not dismiss the thought of it? Will you not +cheerfully assent to it for the sake of him who gave it. And will you be +indignant and displeased at the ordinances of Zeus, which he ordained +and appointed with the Destinies, who were present and wove the web of +your being? Know you not what an atom you are compared with the +whole?--that is, as regards your body, since as regards your reason you +are no whit inferior to, or less than the gods. For the greatness of +reason is not estimated by size or height, but by the doctrines which it +embraces. Will you not then lay up your treasure in those matters +wherein you are equal to the gods?" And, thanks to such principles, a +poor and persecuted slave was able to raise his voice in sincere and +eloquent thanksgiving to that God to whom he owed his "creation, +preservation, and all the blessings of this life."</p> + +<p>Speaking of the multitude of our natural gifts, he says, "Are these the +only gifts of Providence towards us? Nay, what power of speech suffices +adequately to praise, or to set them forth? for, had we but true +intelligence, what duty would be more perpetually incumbent on us than +both in public and in private to hymn the Divine, and bless His name and +praise His benefits? Ought we not, when we dig, and when we plough, and +when we eat, to sing this hymn to God? 'Great is God, because He hath +given us these implements whereby we may till the soil; great is God, +because He hath given us hands, and the means of nourishment by food, +and insensible growth, and breathing sleep;' these things in each +particular we ought to hymn, and to chant the greatest and the divinest +hymn, because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings, +and continuously to use them. What then? Since the most of you are +blinded, ought there not to be some one to fulfil this province for you, +and on behalf of all to sing his hymn to God? And what else can <i>I</i> do, +who am a lame old man, except sing praises to God? Now, had I been a +nightingale, I should have sung the songs of a nightingale, or had I +been a swan the songs of a swan; but, being a reasonable being, it is my +duty to hymn God. This is my task, and I accomplish it; nor, so far as +may be granted to me, will I ever abandon this post, and you also do I +exhort to this same song."</p> + +<p>There is an almost lyric beauty about these expressions of resignation +and faith in God, and it is the utterance of such warm feelings towards +Divine Providence that constitutes the chief originality of Epictetus. +It is interesting to think that the oppressed heathen philosopher found +the same consolation, and enjoyed the same contentment, as the +persecuted Christian Apostle. "Whether ye eat or drink," says St. Paul, +"or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." "Think of God," says +Epictetus, "oftener than you breathe. Let discourse of God be renewed +daily more surely than your food."</p> + +<p>Here, again, are his views about his poverty (<i>Fragment</i> xix.):--</p> + +<p>"Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy; and if you +wish to be rich, know that it neither is a blessing, nor is it +altogether in your own power; but if to be happy, know that it both <i>is</i> +a blessing, and is in your own power; since the former is but a +temporary loan of fortune, but the gift of happiness depends upon +the will."</p> + +<p>"Just as when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, in a casket of +ivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate them on the splendour of +their material, but because their nature is pernicious you turn from and +loathe them, so likewise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the +pomp of circumstance do not be astounded at the glory of its +surroundings, but despise the meanness of its character."</p> + +<p>"Wealth is <i>not</i> among the number of good things; extravagance <i>is</i> +among the number of evils, sober-mindedness of good things. Now +sober-mindedness invites us to frugality and the acquisition of real +advantages; but wealth to extravagance, and it drags us away from +sober-mindedness. It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be +sober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich."</p> + +<p>The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own +words, "How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel +passage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for +them that <i>trust</i> in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God."</p> + +<p>But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and +Epictetus continues:--</p> + +<p>"Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in +Greece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in +poverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in +poverty, and so be happy?"</p> + +<p>"As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little +truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it +is better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires, +than in the midst of superfluities to be discontented."</p> + +<p>This, too, is a thought which many have expressed. "Gentle sleep," says +Horace, "despises not the humble cottages of rustics, nor the shaded +banks, nor valleys whose foliage waves with the western wind;" and every +reader will recall the magnificent words of our own great Shakespeare--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,<br> + Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,<br> + And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,<br> + Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,<br> + Under the canopies of costly state,<br> + And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>To the subject of freedom, and to the power which man possesses to make +himself entirely independent of all surrounding circumstances, Epictetus +incessantly recurs. With the possibility of banishment to an +<i>ergastulum</i> perpetually before his eyes, he defines a prison as being +any situation in which a man is placed against his will; to Socrates for +instance the prison was no prison, for he was there willingly, and no +man <i>need</i> be in prison, against his will if he has learnt, as one of +his primary duties, a cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable. By the +expression of such sentiments Epictetus had anticipated by fifteen +hundred years the immortal truth so sweetly expressed by Lovelace:</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Stone walls do not a prison make,<br> + Nor iron bars a cage</i>;<br> + Minds innocent and quiet take<br> + That for a hermitage."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Situated as he was, we can hardly wonder that thoughts like these +occupied a large share of the mind of Epictetus, or that he had taught +himself to lay hold of them with the firmest possible grasp. When asked, +"Who among men is rich?" he replied, "He who suffices for himself;" an +expression which contains the germ of the truth so forcibly expressed in +the Book of Proverbs, "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his +own ways, and a good man <i>shall be satisfied from himself</i>". Similarly, +when asked, "Who is free?" he replies, "The man who masters his own +self," with much the same tone of expressions as that of Solomon, "He +that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his +spirit than he that taketh a city." Socrates was one of the great models +whom Epictetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the +anecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When Archelaus +sent a message to express the intention of making him rich, Socrates +bade the messenger inform him that at Athens four quarts of meal might +be bought for three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. "If +then my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any rate I am +sufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient for me. Do you not +see that Polus acted the part of Oedipus in his royal state with no less +beauty of voice than that of Oedipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar? +Shall then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act well +every character imposed upon him by Divine Providence; and shall he not +imitate Ulysses, who even in rags was no less conspicuous than in the +curled nap of his purple cloak?"</p> + +<p>Generally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life is always +simple, and always consistent; it is a view which gave him consolation +among life's troubles, and strength to display some of its noblest +virtues, and it may be summed up in the following passages of his famous +<i>Manual</i>:--</p> + +<p>"Remember," he says, "that you are an actor of just such a part as is +assigned you by the Poet of the play; of a short part, if the part be +short; of a long part, if it be long. Should He wish you to act the part +of a beggar, take care to act it naturally and nobly; and the same if it +be the part of a lame man, or a ruler, or a private man; for <i>this</i> is +in your power, to act well the part assigned to you; but to <i>choose</i> +that part is the function of another."</p> + +<p>"Let not these considerations afflict you: 'I shall live despised, and +the merest nobody;' for if dishonour be an evil, you cannot be involved +in evil any more than you can be involved in baseness through any one +else's means. Is it then at all <i>your</i> business to be a leading man, or +to be entertained at a banquet? By no means. How then can it be a +dishonor not to be so? And how will you be a mere nobody, since it is +your duty to be somebody only in those circumstances which are in your +own power, in which you may be a person of the greatest importance?"</p> + +<p>"Honour, precedence, confidence," he argues in another passage, "whether +they be good things or evil things, are at any rate things for which +their own definite price must be paid. Lettuces are sold for a penny, +and if you want your lettuce you must pay your penny; and similarly, if +you want to be asked out to a person's house, you must pay the price +which he demands for asking people, whether the coin he requires be +praise or attention; but if you do not give these, do not expect the +other. Have you then gained nothing in lieu of your supper? Indeed you +have; you have escaped praising a person whom you did not want to +praise, and you have escaped the necessity of tolerating the upstart +impertinence of his menials."</p> + +<p>Some parts of this last thought have been so beautifully expressed by +the American poet Lowell that I will conclude this chapter in his words:</p> + +<blockquote> +"Earth hath her price for what earth gives us;<br> + The beggar is tax'd for a corner to die in;<br> + The priest hath his fee who comes and shrieves us;<br> + We bargain for the graves we lie in:<br> + At the devil's mart are all things sold,<br> + Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold,<br> + For a cap and bells our lives we pay.<br> + Bubbles we earn with our whole soul's tasking,<br> + '<i>Tis only God that is given away,<br> + 'Tis only heaven may be had for the asking</i>."<br> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIE."></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS <i>(continued)</i>.</h3> + +<p>Whether any of these great thoughts would have suggested themselves +<i>spontaneously</i> to Epictetus--whether there was an inborn wisdom and +nobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to +elaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do +not, however, express <i>his</i> sentiments only, but belong in fact to the +moral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doctrines of which he +had received instruction.</p> + +<p>It may sound strange to the reader that one situated as Epictetus was +should yet have had a regular tutor to train him in Stoic doctrines. +That such should have been the case appears at first sight inconsistent +with the cruelty with which he was treated, but it is a fact which is +capable of easy explanation. In times of universal luxury and +display--in times when a sort of surface-refinement is found among all +the wealthy--some sort of respect is always paid to intellectual +eminence, and intellectual amusements are cultivated as well as those of +a coarser character. Hence a rich Roman liked to have people of literary +culture among his slaves; he liked to have people at hand who would get +him any information which he might desire about books, who could act as +his amanuenses, who could even correct and supply information for his +original compositions. Such learned slaves formed part of every large +establishment, and among them were usually to be found some who bore, if +they did not particularly merit, the title of "philosophers." These +men--many of whom are described as having been mere impostors, +ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites--acted somewhat like +domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an +amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative +innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in +lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he +wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an +illiterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of +high art in his drawing-room, and books of reference in his +well-furnished library.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly useless for all +physical purposes, and since his thoughtfulness and intelligence could +not fail to command attention, his master determined to make him useful +in the only way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be +trained in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy.</p> + +<p>Musonius was the son of a Roman knight. His learning and eloquence, no +less than his keen appreciation of Stoic truths, had so deeply kindled +the suspicions of Nero, that he banished him to the rocky little island +of Gyaros, on the charge of his having been concerned in Piso's +conspiracy. He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived in +great distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to remain in the +city when the Emperor Vespasian banished all the other philosophers of +any eminence.</p> + +<p>The works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a few notices of +him, which are scattered in the <i>Discourses</i> of his greater pupil, show +us what kind of man he was. The following anecdotes will show that he +was a philosopher of the strictest school.</p> + +<p>Speaking of the value of logic as a means of training the reason, +Epictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a mere error in +reasoning is no very serious fault. He points out that it <i>is</i> a fault, +and that is sufficient. "I too," he says, "once made this very remark to +Rufus when he rebuked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in +some syllogism. 'What!' said I, 'have I then set the Capitol on fire, +that you rebuke me thus?' 'Slave!' he answered, 'what has the Capitol to +do with it? Is there no <i>other</i> fault then short of setting the Capitol +on fire? Yes! to use one's own mere fancies rashly, at random, anyhow; +not to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or a sophism; not, in +short, to see what makes for oneself or not, in questioning and +answering--is none of these things a fault?'"</p> + +<p>Sometimes he used to test the Stoical endurance of his pupil by pointing +out the indignities and tortures which his master might at any moment +inflict upon him; and when Epictetus answered that, after all, such +treatment was what man <i>had</i> borne, and therefore <i>could</i> bear, he would +reply approvingly that every man's destiny was in his own hands; that he +need lack nothing from any one else; that, since he could derive from +himself magnanimity and nobility of soul, he might despise the notion of +receiving lands or money or office. "But," he continued, "when any one +is cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters about such a +person to speak of him as a corpse, and to say, 'Favour us with the +corpse and blood of So-and-so,' For? in fact, such a man <i>is</i> a mere +corpse, and nothing more; for if he were anything more, he would have +perceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by another's +means." I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is a student of Epictetus, but +he, among others, has forcibly expressed the same truth. "My friends, do +you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died? +How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and +carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his +table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered +to you, in plain words, as it <i>is</i> offered to you in dire facts, that +you should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought +yourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the +death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet +practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; +many of us grasp at it in the fulness of horror."</p> + +<p>The way in which Musonius treated would-be pupils much resembled the +plan adopted by Socrates. "It is not easy," says Epictetus, "to train +effeminate youths, any more than it is easy to take up whey with a hook. +But those of fine nature, even if you discourage them, desire +instruction all the more. For which reason Rufus often discouraged +pupils, using this as a criterion of fine and of common natures; for he +used to say, that just as a stone, even if you fling it into the air, +will fall down to the earth by its own gravitating force, so also a +noble nature, in proportion as it is repulsed, in that proportion tends +more in its own natural direction." As Emerson says,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Yet on the nimble air benign<br> + Speed nimbler messages,<br> + That waft the breath of grace divine<br> + To hearts in sloth and ease.<br> + So nigh is grandeur to our dust,<br> + So near is God to man,<br> + When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,'<br> + The youth replies, 'I CAN.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>One more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply +Epictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him. In his +<i>Discourse on Ostentation</i>, Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit +of remarking to his pupils, "If you have leisure to praise me, I can +have done you no good." "He used indeed so to address us that each one +of us, sitting there, thought that some one had been privately telling +tales against <i>him</i> in particular, so completely did Rufus seize hold of +his characteristics, so vividly did he portray our individual faults."</p> + +<p>Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it +was evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were +somewhat chilling and austere. It formed an epoch in the slave's life; +it remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings +so inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were +counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt. +He would probably have admitted that it was <i>better</i> for him to have +been sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in +freedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis. So that +Epictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an +additional argument in favour of Divine Providence: an additional proof +that God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of +conviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least +dominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the +whole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most +honestly and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again and +again that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world +has to offer, <i>if we are willing to pay the price by which they are +obtained</i>. But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should +scorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even +cast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by +that which we deliberately refuse to give. Every good and just man may +gain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness. Let no one +regard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and +definite meaning. There are certain things which all men desire, and +which all men would <i>gladly</i>, if they could <i>lawfully</i> and <i>innocently</i> +obtain. These things are health, wealth, ease, comfort, influence, +honour, freedom from opposition and from pain; and yet, if you were to +place all these blessings on the one side, and on the other side to +place poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and +contempt,--yet, if on <i>this</i> side also you were to place truth and +justice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds may gather about +our life, the light of God will be visible beyond them, all the noblest +men who ever lived would choose, as without hesitation they always have +chosen, the <i>latter</i> destiny. It is not that they like failure, but they +prefer failure to falsity; it is not that they love persecution, but +they prefer persecution to meanness; it is not that they relish +opposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty acquiescence; +it is not that they do not shrink from agony, but they would not escape +agony by crime. The selfishness of Dives in his purple is to them less +enviable than the innocence of Lazarus in rags; they would be chained +with John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast; they +would fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than be steeped in +the foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is not happiness, but it is +something higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is +satisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give +it, nor take it away,--it is something indescribable--it is the gift +of God.</p> + +<p>"The fallacy" of being surprised at wickedness in prosperity, and +righteousness in misery, "can only lie," says Mr. Froude, in words which +would have delighted Epictetus, and which would express the inmost +spirit of his philosophy, "in the supposed <i>right</i> to happiness.... +Happiness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be true to the +best we know, to seek that, and do that; and if by 'virtue is its own +reward' be meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring +nothing more, then it is a true and a noble saying.... Let us do right, +and then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very mighty +matter. If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be +bitter--bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.... The well-being of our +souls depends only on what we <i>are</i>; and nobleness of character is +nothing else but <i>steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil</i>.... +Only to those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish +enjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. Man +will have what he desires, and will find what is really best for him, +exactly as he honestly seeks for it. <i>Happiness may fly away, pleasure +pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove +unkind; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is +never rejected</i>."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIE."></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (<i>continued.</i>)</h3> + +<p>Of the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there is +unfortunately little more to be told. The life of</p> + +<blockquote> +"That halting slave, who in Nicopolis<br> + Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son<br> + Cleared Rome of what most shamed him,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>is not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded it are very +circumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest +biographies; their real life is in their books.</p> + +<p>At some period of his life, but how or when we do not know, Epictetus +was manumitted by his master, and was henceforward regarded by the world +as free. Probably the change made little or no difference in his life. +If it saved him from a certain amount of brutality, if it gave him more +uninterrupted leisure, it probably did not in the slightest degree +modify the hardships of his existence, and may have caused him some +little anxiety as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. He, +of all men, would have attached the least importance to the external +conditions under which he lived; he always regarded them as falling +under the category of things which lay beyond the sphere of his own +influence, and therefore as things with which he had nothing to do. Even +in his most oppressed days, he considered himself, by the grace of +heaven, to be more free--free in a far truer and higher sense--than +thousands of those who owed allegiance to no master's will. Whether he +had saved any small sum of money, or whether his needs were supplied by +the many who loved and honoured him, we do not know. He was a man who +was content with the barest necessaries of life, and we may be sure that +he would have refused to be indebted to any one for more than these.</p> + +<p>It is probable that he never married. This may have been due to that +shade of indifference to the female character of which we detect traces +here and there in his writings. In one passage he complains that women +seemed to think of nothing but admiration and getting married; and, in +another, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman ladies were +fond of Plato's <i>Republic</i> because he allowed some very liberal marriage +regulations. We can only infer from these passages that he had been very +unfortunate in the specimens of women with whom he had been thrown. The +Roman ladies of his time were certainly not models of character; he was +not likely to fall in with very exalted females among the slaves of +Epaphroditus or the ladies of his family, and he had probably never +known the love of a sister or a mother's care. He did not, however, go +the length of condemning marriage altogether; on the contrary, he blames +the philosophers who did so. But it is equally obvious that he approves +of celibacy as a "counsel of perfection," and indeed his views on the +subject have so close and remarkable a resemblance to those of St. Paul +that our readers will be interested in seeing them side by side.</p> + +<p>In 1 Cor. vii. St. Paul, after speaking of the nobleness of virginity, +proceeds, nevertheless, to sanction matrimony as in itself a hallowed +and honourable estate. It was not given to all, he says, to abide even +as he was, and therefore marriage should be adopted as a sacred and +indissoluble bond. Still, without being sure that he has any divine +sanction for what he is about to say, he considers celibacy good "for +the present distress," and warns those that marry that they "shall have +trouble in the flesh." For marriage involves a direct multiplication of +the cares of the flesh: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that +belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married +careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his +wife.... And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a +snare upon you, <i>but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend +upon the Lord without distraction</i>."</p> + +<p>It is clear, then, that St. Paul regarded virginity as a "counsel of +perfection," and Epictetus uses respecting it almost identically the +same language. Marriage was perfectly permissible in his view, but it +was much better for a Cynic (i.e. for all who carried out most fully +their philosophical obligations) to remain single: "Since the condition +of things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve of battle, +<i>ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distraction</i>" [the Greek +word being the very same as that used by St. Paul] "<i>for the service of +God</i>? ought he not to be able to move about among mankind free from the +entanglement of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he +neglect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise and good +man, and which if he observe he will lose the function of a messenger, +and sentinel, and herald of the gods?" Epictetus proceeds to point out +that if he is married he can no longer look after the spiritual +interests of all with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer +maintain the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the genuine +philosopher. He <i>must</i>, for instance, have a bath for his child, +provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and +money to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a +general increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified +distractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing +manifestation of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a +celebrated cynic, was married, but it was to a lady as self-denying as +himself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to share +hardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetus does not venture to say +in so many words that Crates in this matter made a mistake, he takes +pains to point out that the circumstances were far too exceptional to be +accepted as a precedent for the imitation of others.</p> + +<p>"But," inquires the interlocutor, "how then is the world to get on?" The +question seems quite to disturb the bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it +makes him use language of the strongest and most energetic contempt: and +it is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems to lose +the nobility and grace, the "sweetness and light," which are the general +characteristic of his utterances. In spite of his complete self-mastery +he was evidently a man of strong feelings, and with a natural tendency +to express them strongly. "Heaven bless us," he exclaims in reply, "are +<i>they</i> greater benefactors of mankind who bring into the world two or +three evilly-squalling brats,<a name="FNanchor63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63">[63]</a> or those who, to the best of their +power, keep a beneficent eye on the lives, and habits, and tendencies of +all mankind? Were the Thebans who had large families more useful to +their country than the childless Epaminondas; or was Homer less useful +to mankind than Priam with his fifty good-for-nothing sons?... Why, sir, +the true cynic is a father to all men; all men are his sons and all +women his daughters; he has a bond of union, a lien of affection with +them all." (<i>Dissert</i>. iii. 22.)</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor63">[63]</a> [Greek: kakorrugcha paidia]. Another reading is [Greek: +kokorugcha], which M. Martha renders, "<i>Marmots à vilain petit museau</i>!" +It is evident that Epictetus did not like children, which makes his +subsequently mentioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more +creditable to him. +</blockquote> + +<p>The whole character of Epictetus is sufficient to prove that he would +only do what he considered <i>most</i> desirable and most exalted; and +passages like these, the extreme asperity of which I have necessarily, +softened down, are, I think, decisive in favour of the tradition which +pronounces him to have been unmarried.</p> + +<p>We are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest and even meanest +description: it neither needed nor possessed a fastening of any kind, +for within it there was no furniture except a lamp and the poor straw +pallet on which he slept. About his lamp there was current in antiquity +a famous story, to which he himself alludes. As a piece of unwonted +luxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which burned in front of the +images of his household deities. It was the only possession which he +had, and a thief stole it. "He will be finely disappointed when he comes +again," quietly observed Epictetus. "for he will only find an +earthenware lamp next time." At his death the little earthenware lamp +was bought by some genuine hero-worshipper for 3,000 drachmas. "The +purchaser hoped," says the satirical Lucian, "that if he read philosophy +at night by that lamp, he would at once acquire in dreams the wisdom of +the admirable old man who once possessed it."</p> + +<p>But, in spite of his deep poverty, it must not be supposed that there +was anything eccentric or ostentatious in the life of Epictetus. On the +contrary, his writings abound in directions as to the proper bearing of +a philosopher in life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule +to endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the <i>gamins</i> of +Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair game," and think it fine +fun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the +sneers of much more dignified people. "If," says Epictetus, "you want to +know how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who had the +highest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present, +happened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had +received an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I <i>cannot</i> endure it; you +are killing me; why, you'll make me <i>like him</i>! pointing to me," +evidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And, +again he says in the <i>Manual</i>. "If you wish to be a philosopher, prepare +yourself to be thoroughly laughed at since many will certainly sneer and +jeer at you, and will say, 'He has come back to us as a philosopher all +of a sudden,' and 'Where in the world did he get this superciliousness?' +Now do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which appear +best to you in such a manner as though you were conscious of having been +appointed by God to this position." Again in the little discourse <i>On +the Desire of Admiration</i>, he warns the philosopher "<i>not to walk as if +he had swallowed a poker</i>" or to care for the applause of those +multitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error. For all display, and +pretence, and hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, and boasting, and mere +fruitless book-learning he seems to have felt a genuine and profound +contempt. Recommendations to simplicity of conduct, courtesy of manner, +and moderation of language were among his practical precepts. It is +refreshing, too, to know that with the strongest and manliest good +sense, he entirely repudiated that dog-like brutality of behaviour, and +repulsive eccentricity of self-neglect, which characterised not a few of +the Cynic leaders. He expressly argues that the Cynic should be a man of +ready tact, and attractive presence; and there is something of almost +indignant energy in his words when he urges upon a pupil the plain duty +of scrupulous cleanliness. In this respect our friends the Hermits would +not quite have satisfied him, although he might possibly have pardoned +them on the plea that they abode in desert solitudes, since he bids +those who neglect the due care of their bodies to live "either in the +wilderness or alone."</p> + +<p>Late in life Epictetus increased his establishment by taking in an old +woman as a servant. The cause of his doing so shows an almost Christian +tenderness of character. According to the hideous custom of infanticide +which prevailed in the pagan world, a man with whom Epictetus was +acquainted exposed his infant son to perish. Epictetus in pity took the +child home to save its life, and the services of a female were necessary +to supply its wants. Such kindness and self-denial were all the more +admirable because pity, like all other deep emotions, was regarded by +the Stoics in the light rather of a vice than of a virtue. In this +respect, however, both Seneca and Epictetus, and to a still greater +extent Marcus Aurelius, were gloriously false to the rigidity of the +school to which they professed to belong. We see with delight that one +of the <i>Discourses</i> of Epictetus was <i>On the Tenderness and Forbearance +due to Sinners</i>; and he abounds in exhortations to forbearance in +judging others. In one of his <i>Fragments</i> he tells the following +anecdote:--A person who had seen a poor ship-wrecked and almost dying +pirate took pity on him, carried him home, gave him clothes, and +furnished him with all the necessaries of life. Somebody reproached him +for doing good to the wicked--"I have honoured," he replied, "not the +man, but humanity in his person."</p> + +<p>But one fact more is known in the life of Epictetus, Domitian, the +younger son of Vespasian, succeeded his far nobler brother the Emperor +Titus; and in the course of his reign a decree was passed which banished +all the philosophers from Italy. Epictetus was not exempted from this +unjust and absurd decree. That he bore it with equanimity may be +inferred from the approval with which he tells an anecdote about +Agrippinus, who while his cause was being tried in the Senate went on +with all his usual avocations, and on being informed on his return from +bathing that he had been condemned, quietly asked, "To death or +banishment?" "To banishment," said the messenger. "Is my property +confiscated?" "No," "Very well, then let us go as far as Aricia" (about +sixteen miles from Rome), "and dine there."</p> + +<p>There was a certain class of philosophers whose external mark and whose +sole claim to distinction rested in the length of their beards; and when +the decree of Domitian was passed these gentleman contented themselves +with shaving. Epictetus alludes to this in his second <i>Discourse</i>, +"Come, Epictetus, shave off your beard," he imagines some one to say to +him. "If I am a philosopher I will not," he replies. "Then I will take +off your head." "By all means, if that will do you any good."</p> + +<p>He went to Nicopolis, a town of Epirus, which had been built by Augustus +in commemoration of his victory at Actium. Whether he ever revisited +Rome is uncertain, but it is probable that he did so, for we know that +he enjoyed the friendship of several eminent philosophers and statesmen, +and was esteemed and honoured by the Emperor Hadrian himself. He is said +to have lived to a good old age, surrounded by affectionate and eager +disciples, and to have died with the same noble simplicity which had +marked his life. The date of his death is as little known as that of his +birth. It only remains to give a sketch of those thoughts which, poor +though he was, and despised, and a slave, yet made him "dear to the +immortals."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVE."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>THE "MANUAL" AND "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS.</h3> + +<p>It is nearly certain that Epictetus never committed any of his doctrines +to writing. Like his great exemplar. Socrates, he contented himself with +oral instruction, and the bulk of what has come down to us in his name +consists in the <i>Discourses</i> reproduced for us by his pupil Arrian. It +was the ambition of Arrian "to be to Epictetus what Xenophon had been to +Socrates," that is, to hand down to posterity a noble and faithful +picture of the manner in which his master had lived and taught. With +this view, he wrote four books on Epictetus,--a life, which is now +unhappily lost; a book of conversation or "table talk," which is also +lost; and two books which have come down to us, viz. the <i>Discourses</i> +and the <i>Manual</i>. It is from these two invaluable books, and from a good +many isolated fragments, that we are enabled to judge what was the +practical morality of Stoicism, as expounded by the holy and +upright slave.</p> + +<p>The <i>Manual</i> is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles, +which, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are +also explained in the <i>Discourses</i>. Both books were so popular that by +their means Arrian first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately +attained the highest eminence and rank. The <i>Manual</i> was to antiquity +what the <i>Imitatio</i> of Thomas à Kempis was to later times, and what +Woodhead's <i>Whole Duty of Man</i> or Wilberforce's <i>Practical View of +Christianity</i> have been to large sections of modern Englishmen. It was a +clear, succinct, and practical statement of common daily duties, and the +principles upon which they rest. Expressed in a manner entirely simple +and unornate, its popularity was wholly due to the moral elevation of +the thoughts which it expressed. Epictetus did not aim at style; his one +aim was to excite his hearers to virtue, and Arrian tells us that in +this endeavour he created a deep impression by his manner and voice. It +is interesting to know that the <i>Manual</i> was widely accepted among +Christians no less than among Pagans, and that, so late as the fifth +century, paraphrases were written of it for Christian use. No systematic +treatise of morals so simply beautiful was ever composed, and to this +day the best Christian may study it, not with interest only, but with +real advantage. It is like the voice of the Sybil, which, uttering +things simple, and unperfumed, and unadorned, by God's grace reacheth +through innumerable years. We proceed to give a short sketch of +its contents.</p> + +<p>Epictetus began by laying down the broad comprehensive statement that +there are some things which are in our power, and depend upon ourselves; +other things which are beyond our power, and wholly independent of us. +The things which are in our power are our opinions, our aims, our +desires, our aversions--in a word, <i>our actions</i>. The things beyond our +power are bodily accidents, possessions, fame, rank, and whatever lies +<i>beyond</i> the sphere of our actions. To the former of these classes of +things our whole attention must be confined. In that region we may be +noble, unperturbed, and free; in the other we shall be dependent, +frustrated, querulous, miserable. Both classes cannot be successfully +attended to; they are antagonistic, antipathetic; we cannot serve God +and Mammon.</p> + +<p>Now, if we take a right view of all these things which in no way depend +on ourselves we shall regard them as mere semblances--as shadows which +are to be distinguished from the true substance. We shall not look upon +them as fit subjects for aversion or desire. Sin and cruelty, and +falsehood we may hate, because we can avoid them if we will; but we must +look upon sickness, and poverty, and death as things which are <i>not</i> fit +subjects for our avoidance, because they lie wholly beyond our control.</p> + +<p>This, then,--endurance of the inevitable, avoidance of the evil--is the +keynote of the Epictetean philosophy. It has been summed up in the three +words, [Greek: Anechou kai apechou], "<i>sustine et abstine</i>," "Bear and +forbear,"--bear whatever God assigns to you, abstain from that which +He forbids.</p> + +<p>The earlier part of the <i>Manual</i> is devoted to practical advice which +may enable men to endure nobly. For instance, "If there be anything," +says Epictetus, "which you highly value or tenderly love, estimate at +the same time its true nature. Is it some possession? remember that it +may be destroyed. Is it wife or child? remember that they may die." +"Death," says an epitaph in Chester Cathedral--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Death, the great monitor, comes oft to prove,<br> + 'Tis dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Desire nothing too much. If you are going to the public baths and are +annoyed or hindered by the rudeness, the pushing, the abuse, the +thievish propensities of others, do not lose your temper: remind +yourself that it is more important that you should keep your will in +harmony with nature than that you should bathe. And so with all +troubles; men suffer far less from the things themselves than from the +opinions they have of them."</p> + +<p>"If you cannot frame your circumstances in accordance with your wishes, +frame your will into harmony with your circumstances.<a name="FNanchor64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64">[64]</a> When you lose +the best gifts of life, consider them as not lost but only resigned to +Him who gave them. You have a remedy in your own heart against all +trials--continence as a bulwark against passion, patience against +opposition, fortitude against pain. Begin with trifles: if you are +robbed, remind yourself that your peace of mind is of more value and +importance than the thing which has been stolen from you. Follow the +guidance of nature; that is the great thing; regret nothing, desire +nothing, which can disturb that end. Behave as at a banquet--take with +gratitude and in moderation what is set before you, and seek for nothing +more; a higher and diviner step will be to be ready and able to forego +even that which is given you, or which you might easily obtain. +Sympathise with others, at least externally, when they are in sorrow and +misfortune; but remember in your own heart that to the brave and wise +and true there is really no such thing as misfortune; it is but an ugly +semblance; the croak of the raven can portend no harm to such a man, he +is elevated above its power."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor64">[64]</a> "When what thou willest befalls not, thou then must will +what befalleth." +</blockquote> + +<p>"We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with +those parts; our simple duty is confined to playing them well. The slave +may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it +dwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant, with it all +others become needless, without it no others are possible. No one can +insult you if you will not regard his words or deeds as insults.<a name="FNanchor65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65">[65]</a> +Keep your eye steadily fixed on the great reality of death, and all +other things will shrink to their true proportions. As in a voyage, when +a ship has come to anchor, if you have gone out to find water, you may +amuse yourself with picking up a little shell or bulb, but you must keep +your attention steadily fixed upon the ship, in case the captain should +call, and then you must leave all such things lest you should be flung +on board, bound like sheep. So in life; if, instead of a little shell or +bulb, some wifeling or childling be granted you, well and good; but, if +the captain call, run to the ship and leave such possessions behind you, +not looking back. But if you be an old man, take care not to go a long +distance from the ship at all, lest you should be called and come too +late." The metaphor is a significant one, and perhaps the following +lines of Sir Walter Scott, prefixed anonymously to one of the chapters +of the Waverley Novels, may help to throw light upon it:</p> + +<blockquote> +"Death finds us 'midst our playthings; snatches us,<br> + As a cross nurse might do a wayward child,<br> + From all our toys and baubles--the rough call<br> + Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth:<br> + And well if they are such as may be answered<br> + In yonder world, where all is judged of truly."<br> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor65">[65]</a> Compare Cowper's <i>Conversation</i>:-- +<blockquote> +"Am I to set my life upon a throw<br> + Because a bear is rude and surly?--No.--<br> + A modest, sensible, and well-bred man<br> + Will not insult me, and <i>no other can</i>."<br> +</blockquote> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Preserve your just relations to other men; their misconduct does not +affect your duties. Has your father done wrong, or your brother been +unjust? Still he <i>is</i> your father, he <i>is</i> your brother; and you must +consider your relation to him, not whether he be worthy of it or no.</p> + +<p>"Your duty towards the gods is to form just and true opinions respecting +them. Believe that they do all things well, and then you need never +murmur or complain."</p> + +<p>"As rules of practice," says Epictetus, "prescribe to yourself an ideal, +and then act up to it. Be mostly silent; or, if you converse, do not let +it be about vulgar and insignificant topics, such as dogs, horses, +racing, or prize-fighting. Avoid foolish and immoderate laughter, vulgar +entertainments, impurity, display, spectacles, recitations, and all +egotistical remarks. Set before you the examples of the great and good. +Do not be dazzled by mere appearances. Do what is right quite +irrespective of what people will say or think. Remember that your body +is a very small matter and needs but very little; just as all that the +foot needs is a shoe, and not a dazzling ornament of gold, purple, or +jewelled embroidery. To spend all one's time on the body, or on bodily +exercises, shows a weak intellect. Do not be fond of criticising others, +and do not resent their criticisms of you. Everything," he says, and +this is one of his most characteristic precepts, "has two handles! one +by which it may be borne, the other by which it cannot. If your brother +be unjust, do not take up the matter by that handle--the handle of his +injustice--for that handle is the one by which it cannot be taken up; +but rather by the handle that he is your brother and brought up with +you; and then you will be taking it up as it can be borne."</p> + +<p>All these precepts have a general application, but Epictetus adds +others on the right bearing of a philosopher; that is, of one whose +professed ideal is higher than the multitude. He bids him above all +things not to be censorious, and not to be ostentatious. "Feed on your +own principles; do not throw them up to show how much you have eaten. Be +self-denying, but do not boast of it. Be independent and moderate, and +regard not the opinion or censure of others, but keep a watch upon +yourself as your own most dangerous enemy. Do not plume yourself on an +<i>intellectual</i> knowledge of philosophy, which is in itself quite +valueless, but on a consistent nobleness of action. Never relax your +efforts, but aim at perfection. Let everything which seems best be to +you a law not to be transgressed; and whenever anything painful, or +pleasurable, or glorious, or inglorious, is set before you, remember +that now is the struggle, now is the hour of the Olympian contest, and +it may not be put off, and that by a single defeat or yielding your +advance in virtue may be either secured or lost. It was thus that +Socrates attained perfection, by giving his heart to reason, and to +reason only. And thou, even if as yet thou art not a Socrates, yet +shouldst live as though it were thy wish to be one." These are noble +words, but who that reads them will not be reminded of those sacred and +far more deeply-reaching words, "<i>Be ye perfect, even as your Father +which is in heaven is perfect" Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, +now is the day of salvation</i>.</p> + +<p>In this brief sketch we have included all the most important thoughts in +the <i>Manual</i>. It ends in these words. "On all occasions we may keep in +mind these three sentiments:--"</p> + +<p>'Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me +to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be +unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the same.' +(Cleanthes.)</p> + +<p>'Whosoever hath nobly yielded to necessity, I hold him wise, and he +knoweth the things of God.' (Euripides.)</p> + +<p>And this third one also, 'O Crito, be it so, if so be the will of +heaven. Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, but harm me they cannot.' +(Socrates.)</p> + +<p>To this last conception of life; quoted from the end of Plato's +<i>Apology</i>, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: "What resources have we," he +asks, "in circumstances of great peril? What other than the remembrance +of what is or what is not in our own power; what is possible to us and +what is not? I must die. Be it so; but need I die groaning? I must be +bound; but must I be bound bewailing? I must be driven into exile, well, +who prevent me then from going with laughter, and cheerfulness, and +calm of mind?</p> + +<p>"'Betray secrets.'</p> + +<p>"'Indeed I will not, for <i>that</i> rests in my own hands.'</p> + +<p>"'Then I will put you in chains.'</p> + +<p>"'My good sir, what are you talking about? Put <i>me</i> in chains? No, no! +you may put my leg in chains, but not even Zeus himself can master +my will.'</p> + +<p>"'I will throw you into prison.'</p> + +<p>"'My poor little body; yes, no doubt.'</p> + +<p>"'I will cut off your head.'</p> + +<p>"'Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one which could not +be cut off?'</p> + +<p>"Such are the things of which philosophers should think, and write them +daily, and exercise themselves therein."</p> + +<p>There are many other passages in which Epictetus shows that the +free-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that we should not "sell +it for a trifle;" or, as Scripture still more sternly expresses it, +should not "sell ourselves for nought." He relates, for instance, the +complete failure of the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus +not to go to the Senate. "While I am a Senator," said Helvidius, "I +<i>must</i> go." "Well, then, at least be silent there." "Ask me no +questions, and I will be silent." "But I <i>must</i> ask your opinion." "And +<i>I</i> must say what is right." "But I will put you to death." "Did I ever +tell you I was immortal? Do <i>your</i> part, and <i>I</i> will do <i>mine</i>. It is +yours to kill me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to +go into banishment without grief."</p> + +<p>We see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of the heathen +had, by God's grace, attained to the sense that life was subject to a +divine guidance. Yet how dim was their vision of this truth, how +insecure their hold upon it, in comparison with that which the meanest +Christian may attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of +immortality. They never quite got rid of a haunting dread that perhaps, +after all, they might be nothing better than insignificant and unheeded +atoms, swept hither and thither in the mighty eddies of an unseen, +impersonal, mysterious agency, and destined hereafter "to be sealed amid +the iron hills," or</p> + +<blockquote> +"To be imprisoned in the viewless winds.<br> + And blown with reckless violence about<br> + The pendent world."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Their belief in a personal deity was confused with their belief in +nature, which, in the language of a modern sceptic, "acts with fearful +uniformity: stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as death; too +vast to praise, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer, +no heart for sympathy, no arm to save." How different the soothing and +tender certainty of the Christian's hope, for whom Christ has brought +life and immortality to light! For "chance" is not only "the daughter of +forethought," as the old Greek lyric poet calls her, but the daughter +also of love. How different the prayer of David, even in the hours of +his worst agony and shame, "<i>Let Thy loving Spirit lead me forth into +the land of righteousness</i>." Guidance, and guidance by the hand of love, +was--as even in that dark season he recognised--the very law of his +life; and his soul, purged by affliction, had but a single wish--the +wish to be led, not into prosperity, not into a recovery of his lost +glory, not even into the restoration of his lost innocence; but +only,--through paths however hard--only into the land of righteousness. +And because he knew that God would lead him thitherward, he had no wish, +no care for anything beyond. We will end this chapter by translating a +few of the isolated fragments of Epictetus which have been preserved for +us by other writers. The wisdom and beauty of these fragments will +interest the reader, for Epictetus was one of the few "in the very dust +of whose thoughts was gold."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"A life entangled with accident is like a wintry torrent, for it is +turbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and tyrannous, and loud, +and brief."</p> + +<p>"A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; for it is +pure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and serviceable, and +rich, and innocent, and uninjurious."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"If you wish to be good? first believe that you are bad."</p> + +<p>Compare Matt. ix. 12, "They that be whole need not a physician, but +they that are sick;" John ix. 41, "Now ye say, We see, therefore your +sin remaineth;" and 1 John i. 8, "If we say that we have no sin, we +deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks with the gifts of +bees, to embitter by vice his reason, which is the gift of God."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and +insolence: nothing nobler than high-mindedness, and gentleness, and +philanthropy, and doing good."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"The vine bears three clusters: the first of pleasure; the second of +drunkenness; the third of insult."</p> + +<p>"He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; even if he be not +drunken, he has exceeded moderation."</p> + +<p>Our own George Herbert has laid down the same limit:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay,<br> + <i>Stay at the third cup, or forego the place</i>,<br> + Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface."<br> +</blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a great blaze by +means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over +the sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city, +himself content with little, effects great blessings for his +fellow-citizens."</p> + +<p>The thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare:</p> + +<blockquote> +"How far yon little candle throws its beams,<br> + So shines a good deed in a naughty world."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>But the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly adopts is one no less +beautiful. "What good," asked some one, "did Helvidius Priscus do in +resisting Vespasian, being but a single person?" "What good," answers +Epictetus, "does the purple do on the garment? Why, <i>it is splendid in +itself, and splendid also in the example which it affords</i>."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations that he may rise, +but shines at once, and is greeted by all; so neither wait thou for +applause, and shouts, and eulogies, that thou mayst do well;--but be a +spontaneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved like the sun."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all possessions, answered, +'Hope; for even those who have nothing else have hope.'"</p> + +<p>"Lead, lead me on, my hopes," says Mr. Macdonald; "I know that ye are +true and not vain. Vanish from my eyes day after day, but arise in new +forms. I will follow your holy deception; follow till ye have brought me +to the feet of my Father in heaven, where I shall find you all, with +folded wings, spangling the sapphire dusk whereon stands His throne +which is our home.</p> + +<p>"What ought not to be done do not even think of doing."</p> + +<p>Compare</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Guard well your thoughts for thoughts are heard in heaven</i>.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>Epictetus, when asked how a man could grieve his enemy, replied, "By +preparing himself to act in the noblest way."</p> + +<p>Compare Rom. xii. 20, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, +give him drink: <i>for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on +his head</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"If you always remember that in all you do in soul or body God stands by +as a witness, in all your prayers and your actions you will not err; and +you shall have God dwelling with you."</p> + +<p>Compare Rev. iii. 30, "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man +hear my voice, and open the door, <i>I will come in to him and will sup +with him, and he with me."</i></p> + +<p>In the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch upon human +actions, Epictetus touches again on the same topic, saying that God has +placed beside each one of us his own guardian spirit--a spirit that +sleeps not and cannot be beguiled--and has handed us each over to that +spirit to protect us. "And to what better or more careful guardian could +He have entrusted us? So that when you have closed your doors and made +darkness within, <i>remember never to say that you are alone</i>. For you are +not alone. God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit; and +what need have <i>they</i> of light to see what you are doing."</p> + +<p>There is in this passage an almost startling coincidence of thought with +those eloquent words in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: "A man that breaketh +wedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? <i>I am compassed about +with darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth me</i>: what need I to +fear? the Most Highest will not remember my sins: <i>such a man only +feareth the eyes of man</i>, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are +ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, +and considering the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever they +were created: so also after they were perfected He looked upon all. This +man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he expecteth +not he shall be taken." (Ecclus. xxiii. 11-21.)</p> + +<p>"When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a tutor who kept a +continual watch that we might not suffer harm; but, when we grow to +manhood, God hands us over to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must, +therefore, by no means despise this guardianship, since in that case we +shall both be displeasing to God and enemies to our own conscience."</p> + +<p>Beautiful and remarkable as these fragments are we have no space for +more, and must conclude by comparing the last with the celebrated lines +of George Herbert:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round;<br> + <i>Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters<br> + Deliver us to laws. They send us bound<br> + To rules of reason</i>. Holy messengers;<br> + Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin;<br> + Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes;<br> + Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in!<br> + Bibles laid open; millions of surprises;<br> + Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness;<br> + The sound of glory ringing in our ears;<br> + Without one shame; <i>within our consciences</i>;<br> + Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears!<br> + Yet all these fences and their whole array,<br> + One cunning bosom sin blows quite away."<br> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VE."></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS.</h3> + +<p>The <i>Discourses</i> of Epictetus, as originally published by Arrian, +contained eight books, of which only four have come down to us. They are +in many respects the most valuable expression of his views. There is +something slightly repellent in the stern concision, the "imperious +brevity," of the <i>Manual</i>. In the <i>Manual</i>, says M. Martha,<a name="FNanchor66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66">[66]</a> "the +reason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassibility which is +little human; it imposes silence on all the passions, even the most +respectable; it glories in waging against them an internecine war, and +seems even to wish to repress the most legitimate impulses of generous +sensibility. In reading these rigorous maxims one might be tempted to +believe that this legislator of morality is a man without a heart, and, +if we were not touched by the original sincerity of the language, one +would only see in this lapidary style the conventional precepts of a +chimerical system or the aspirations of an impossible perfection." The +<i>Discourses</i> are more illustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse, +more human. In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human +being, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. The style, +indeed, is simple, but its "athletic nudity" is well suited to this +militant morality; its picturesque and incisive character, its vigorous +metaphors, its vulgar expressions, its absence of all conventional +elegance, display a certain "plebeian originality" which gives them an +almost autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid +conviction "he wrestles with the passions, questions them, makes them +answer, and confounds them in a few words which are often sublime. This +Socrates without grace does not amuse us by making his adversary fall +into the long entanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes +and often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence of +Phocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which is lifted +and falls."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor66">[66]</a> Moralistes sous l'Empire, p. 200. +</blockquote> + +<p>Epictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher; a preacher with less wealth of +genius, less eloquence of expression, less width of culture, but with +far more bravery, clearness, consistency, and grasp of his subject. His +doctrine and his life were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit +of brief expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, or +chequered with any lights and shades. The <i>Discourses</i> differ from the +<i>Manual</i> only in their manner, their frequent anecdotes, their pointed +illustrations, and their vivid interlocutory form. The remark of Pascal, +that Epictetus knew the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know +its weakness, applies to the <i>Manual</i> but can hardly be maintained when +we judge him by some of the answers which he gave to those who came to +seek for his consolation or advice.</p> + +<p>The <i>Discourses</i> are not systematic in their character, and, even if +they were, the loss of the last four books would prevent us from working +out their system with any completeness. Our sketch of the <i>Manual</i> will +already have put the reader in possession of the main principles and +ideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the +schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a +moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He +neither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical +reality. All that remains for us to do is to choose from the +<i>Discourses</i> some of his most characteristic views, and the modes by +which he brought them home to his hearers.</p> + +<p>It was one of the most essential peculiarities of Stoicism to aim at +absolute independence, or <i>self</i>-independence. Now, as the weaknesses +and servilities of men arise most frequently from their desire for +superfluities, the true man must absolutely get rid of any such desire. +He must increase his wealth by moderating his wishes; he must despise +<i>all</i> the luxuries for which men long, and he must greatly diminish the +number of supposed necessaries. We have already seen some of the +arguments which point in this direction, and we may add another from the +third book of <i>Discourses</i>.</p> + +<p>A certain magnificent orator, who was going to Rome on a lawsuit, had +called on Epictetus. The philosopher threw cold water on his visit, +because he did not believe in his sincerity. "You will get no more from +me," he said, "than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for +you have only come because it happened to be convenient, and you will +only criticise my style, not really wishing to learn <i>principles</i>" +"Well, but," answered the orator, "if I attend to that sort of thing, I +shall be a mere pauper like you, with no plate, or equipage, or land." +"I don't <i>want</i> such things," replied Epictetus; "and, besides, you are +poorer than I am, after all." "Why, how so?" "You have no constancy, no +unanimity with nature, no freedom from perturbations. Patron or no +patron, what care I? You <i>do</i> care. I am richer than you. <i>I</i> don't care +what Caesar thinks of me. <i>I</i> flatter no one. This is what I have +instead of your silver and gold plate. You have <i>silver</i> vessels, but +<i>earthenware</i> reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom +is, and it furnishes me abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your +restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you, mine seem +great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied." The +comparison with which he ends the discussion is very remarkable. I once +had the privilege of hearing Sir William Hooker explain to the late +Queen Adelaide the contents of the Kew Museum. Among them was a +cocoa-nut with a hole in it, and Sir William explained to the Queen that +in certain parts of India, when the natives want to catch the monkeys +they make holes in cocoa-nuts, and fill them with sugar. The monkeys +thrust in their hands and fill them with sugar; the aperture is too +small to draw the paws out again when thus increased in size; the +monkeys have not the sense to loose their hold of the sugar, and so they +are caught. This little anecdote will enable the reader to relish the +illustration of Epictetus. "When little boys thrust their hands into +narrow-mouthed jars full of figs and almonds, when they have filled +their hands they cannot draw them out again, and so begin to howl. Let +go a few of the figs and almonds, and you'll get your hand out. And so +<i>you</i>, let go your desires. Don't desire many things, and you'll get +what you <i>do</i> desire." "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he +shall not be disappointed!"</p> + +<p>Another of the constant precepts of Epictetus is that we should aim +high; we are not to be common threads in the woof of life, but like the +laticlave on the robe of a senator, the broad purple stripe which gave +lustre and beauty to the whole. But how are we to know that we are +qualified for this high function? How does the bull know, when the lion +approaches, that it is his place to expose himself for all the herd? If +we have high powers we shall soon be conscious of them, and if we have +them not we may gradually acquire them. Nothing great is produced at +once,--the vine must blossom, and bear fruit, and ripen, before we have +the purple clusters of the grape,--"first the blade, then the ear, after +that the full corn in the ear."</p> + +<p>But whence are we to derive this high sense of duty and possible +eminence? Why, if Caesar had adopted you, would you not show your proud +sense of ennoblement in haughty looks; how is it that you are not proud +of being sons of God? You have, indeed, a body, by virtue of which many +men sink into close kinship with pernicious wolves, and savage lions, +and crafty foxes, destroying the rational within them, and so becoming +greedy cattle or mischievous vermin; but above and beyond this, "If," +says Epictetus, "a man have once been worthily interpenetrated with the +belief that we all have been in some special manner born of God, and +that God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never have +any ignoble, any humble thoughts about himself." Our own great Milton +has hardly expressed this high truth more nobly when he says, that "He +that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of +God's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he +thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit +person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than +to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, +himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and filial +relation with God."</p> + +<p>"And how are we to know that we have made progress? We may know it if +our own wills are bent to live in conformity with nature; if we be +noble, free, faithful, humble; if desiring nothing, and shunning nothing +which lies beyond our power, we sit loose to all earthly interests; if +our lives are under the distinct governance of immutable and noble laws.</p> + +<p>"But shall we not meet with troubles in life? Yes, undoubtedly; and are +there none at Olympia? Are you not burnt with heat, and pressed for +room, and wetted with showers when it rains? Is there not more than +enough clamour, and shouting, and other troubles? Yet I suppose you +tolerate and endure all these when you balance them against the +magnificence of the spectacle? And, come now, have you not received +powers wherewith to bear whatever occurs? Have you not received +magnanimity, courage, fortitude? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I +care for anything that can possibly happen? what shall alarm or trouble +me, or seem painful? Shall I not use the faculty for the ends for which +it was granted me, or shall I grieve and groan at all the accidents of +life? On the contrary, these troubles and difficulties are strong +antagonists pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in +the Olympic game of life.</p> + +<p>"But if life and its burdens become absolutely intolerable, may we not +go back to God, from whom we came? may we not show thieves and robbers, +and tyrants who claim power over us by means of our bodies and +possessions, that they have <i>no power</i>? In a word, may we not commit +suicide?" We know how Shakespeare treats this question:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,<br> + Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,<br> + The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,<br> + The insolence of office, and the spurns<br> + Which patient merit of the unworthy takes,<br> + When he himself might his quietus make<br> + With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,<br> + To grunt and sweat under a weary life,<br> + <i>But that the dread of something after death,<br> + The undiscovered country from whose bourne<br> + No traveller returns, puzzles the will:<br> + And makes us rather bear those ills we have<br> + Than fly to others that we know not of</i>?"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>But Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I do not remember a +single passage in which he refers to immortality or the life to come, +and it is therefore probable either that he did not believe in it at +all, or that he put it aside as one of those things which are out of our +own power. Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we +find throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one of the +commonplaces of Stoicism. "My friends," he says, "wait God's good time +till He gives you the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then +dismiss yourself to go to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves, +inhabiting the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after +all, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for those who are +thus disposed; for what tyrant, or thief, or judgment-halls, are objects +of dread to those who thus absolutely disesteem the body and its +belongings? Stay, then, and do not depart without due cause."</p> + +<p>It will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without extolling it, +for in another place (ii. 1) he says: "What is pain? A mere ugly mask; +turn it, and see that it is so. This little flesh of ours is acted on +roughly, and then again smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear +it, the door is open; if it is for your interest--endure. It is right +that under all circumstances the door should be open, since so men end +all trouble."</p> + +<p>This power of <i>endurance</i> is completely the keynote of the Stoical view +of life, and the method of attaining to it, by practising contempt for +all external accidents, is constantly inculcated. I have already told +the anecdote about Agrippinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that +no extreme of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a +single expression of indignation or of sorrow.</p> + +<p>The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from God, and it +is our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding +conception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too, +our duties spring directly from our relation to God. It is that relation +which makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us +honour others. "Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has +God for his father no less than you? But they are wicked, +perhaps--thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more +pity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their +misfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are +wicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so <i>very</i> wise?"</p> + +<p>Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often +pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for +instance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), +and the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones. +He points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act +is a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which make up +our daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are +adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever +may be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with +the diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them.</p> + +<p>Take the instance of anger. "Do you wish not to be passionate? do not +then cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto. +Be calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in +a rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day, +then every third, then every fourth day. But should you have passed even +thirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to God. For the +habit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to +vexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but +I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say +<i>that</i>, that it will soon be all right with you."</p> + +<p>But <i>how</i> is one to do all this? that is the great question, and +Epictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he can. We have, +for instance, already quoted one passage in which (unlike the majority +of Pagan moralists) he shows that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical +importance of controlling even the <i>thought</i> of wickedness. Another +anecdote about Agrippinus will further illustrate the same doctrine. It +was the wicked practice of Nero to make noble Romans appear on the stage +or in gladiatorial shows, in order that he might thus seem to have their +sanction for his own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who +was doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, consulted +Agrippinus on the subject. "<i>Go by all means</i>," replied Agrippinus. +"But why don't <i>you</i> go, then?" asked Florus. "<i>Because"</i>, said +Agrippinus, "<i>I do not deliberate about it</i>." He implied by this answer +that to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act +always on <i>principles</i>, we must never pause to calculate <i>consequences</i>. +"But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head cut off." +"Well, then, go, but <i>I</i> won't." "Why won't you go?" "Because I do not +care to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the +purple sewn upon it."</p> + +<p>And if we want a due <i>motive</i> for such lofty choice Epictetus will +supply it. "Wish," he says, "to win the suffrages of your own inward +approval, wish to appear beautiful to God. Desire to be pure with your +own pure self, and with God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato +says, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of +the gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even +rise and depart to the society of the noble and the good, to live +according to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the +living or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery +over temptation and passion; consider how glorious was the conscious +victory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place +him to Hercules himself.' So that, by heaven, one might justly salute +him, 'Hail, marvellous conqueror, who hast conquered, not these +miserable boxers and athletes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.' +And should you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what +shoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of mere +babblements, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who +trains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Great is the +struggle, divine the deed; it is for kingdom, for freedom, for +tranquillity, for peace. Think on God; call upon Him as thine aid and +champion, as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. And +indeed what storm is greater than that which rises from powerful +semblances that dash reason out of its course? What indeed but semblance +is a storm itself? Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring +as many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt know how +great is the tranquillity and calm in that reason which is the ruling +faculty of the soul. But should you once be worsted, and say that you +will conquer <i>hereafter</i>, and then the same again and again, know that +thus your condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will +not even know that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to +provide excuses for your sin; and then you will confirm the truth of +that saying of Hesiod,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"'The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Even so! So early did a heathen moralist learn the solemn fact that +"only this once" ends in "there is no harm in it." Well does Mr. +Coventry Patmore sing:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"How easy to keep free from sin;<br> + How hard that freedom to recall;<br> + For awful truth it is that men<br> + <i>Forget</i> the heaven from which they fall."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>In another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be too easily +discouraged in our attempts after good;--and, above all, never to +<i>despair</i>. "In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he +is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has +acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor +wretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be swept along as by +a torrent. You need but <i>will</i>" he says, "and it is done; but if you +relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both +from within.--And what will you gain by all this? You will gain modesty +for inpudence, purity for vileness, moderation for drunkenness. If you +think there are any better ends than these, then by all means go on in +sin, for you are beyond the power of any god to save."</p> + +<p>But Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us that to +<i>profess</i> these principles and <i>talk</i> about them is one thing--to act up +to them quite another. He draws a humorous picture of an inconsistent +and unreal philosopher, who--after eloquently proving that nothing is +good but what pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to +vice, and that all other things are indifferent--goes to sea. A storm +comes on, and the masts creak, and the philosopher screams; and an +impertinent person stands by and asks in surprise, "Is it then <i>vice</i> to +suffer shipwreck? because, if not, it can be no evil;" a question which +makes our philosopher so angry that he is inclined to fling a log at his +interlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that the +philosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the +schools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and +conceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name +of Stoic was usurped.</p> + +<p>"Why," he asks in another passage, "why do you call yourself a Stoic? +Why do you deceive the multitude? Why do you act the Jew when you are a +Greek? Don't you see on what terms each person is called a Jew? or a +Syrian? or an Egyptian? And when we see some mere <i>trimmer</i> we are in +the habit of saying, 'This is no Jew; he is only acting the part of +one,' but when a man takes up the entire condition of a proselyte, +thoroughly imbued with Jewish doctrines, then he both <i>is</i> in reality +and is <i>called</i> a Jew. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye, +<i>are Jews in name, but in reality are something else</i>.... We call +ourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the part of men, as +though a man should try to heave the stone of Ajax who cannot lift ten +pounds." The passage is interesting not only on its own account, but +because of its curious similarity both with the language and with the +sentiment of St. Paul--"He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is +that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is +one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and +not in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."</p> + +<p>The best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by a mere study of +books and knowledge of doctrines, but by a steady diligence of actions +and adherence to original principles, to which must be added consistency +and self control. "These principles," says Epictetus, "produce +friendship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations; they make +a man grateful to God, bold under all circumstances, as though dealing +with things alien and valueless. Now we are capable of writing these +things, and reading them, and praising them when they are read, but we +are far enough off following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of +the Lacedaemonians, that they are 'lions at home, foxes at Ephesus,' +will also apply to us; in the school we are lions, out of it foxes."</p> + +<p>These passages include, I think, all the most original, important, and +characteristic conceptions which are to be found in the <i>Discourses</i>. +They are most prominently illustrated in the long and important chapter +on the Cynic philosophy. A genuine Cynic--one who was so, not in +brutality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a Cynic +in life and in his inmost principles--was evidently in the eyes of +Epictetus one of the loftiest of human beings. He drew a sketch of his +ideal conception to one of his scholars who inquired of him upon +the subject.</p> + +<p>He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who +undertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him +the anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the +imperial office of an Agamemnon. "If you think," he tells the young +student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and +sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and +rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple, +you don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a +Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider +how great a thing you are undertaking.</p> + +<p>"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of +God. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life +must be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal +their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your +house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must +conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as +the spy and messenger of God among mankind.</p> + +<p>"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their +blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and +Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not +in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for +Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their +hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances. +It lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of +every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of +contentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile, +disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this +Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face +the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped?</p> + +<p>"Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be +beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an +unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men +would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair.</p> + +<p>"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a +friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The +friend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a +friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry; +marriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, +its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted +to the service of heaven.</p> + +<p>"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth +is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind.</p> + +<p>"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of +his indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a +power of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be +clear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To +abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place +all fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this: +before you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of +God you are capable of achieving it."</p> + +<p>I have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chapter, but fully +to enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader should study it entire, +and observe its generous impatience, its noble ardour, its vivid +interrogations, "in which," says M. Martha, "one feels as it were a +frenzy of virtue and of piety, and in which the plenitude of a great +heart tumultuously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts."</p> + +<p>Epictetus was not a Christian. He has only once alluded to the +Christians in his works, and there it is under the opprobrious title of +"Galileans," who practised a kind of insensibility in painful +circumstances and an indifference to worldly interests which Epictetus +unjustly sets down to "mere habit." Unhappily it was not granted to +these heathen philosophers in any true sense to know what Christianity +was. They ignorantly thought that it was an attempt to imitate the +results of philosophy, without having passed through the necessary +discipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it with +injustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, they +would have found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest +conceptions. Nor was it only an impossible <i>ideal</i>; it was an ideal +rendered attainable by the impressive sanction of the highest authority, +and one which supported men to bear the difficulties of life with +fortitude, with peacefulness, and even with an inward joy; it ennobled +their faculties without overstraining them; it enabled them to +disregard the burden of present trials, not by vainly attempting to deny +their bitterness or ignore their weight, but in the high certainty that +they are the brief and necessary prelude to "a far more exceeding and +eternal weight of glory."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h1><a name="MARCUS_AURELIUS."></a>MARCUS AURELIUS.</h1> + + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IA."></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR.</h3> + +<p>The life of the noblest of Pagan Emperors may well follow that of the +noblest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the purer and brighter from +the midst of a corrupt and deplorable society. Epictetus showed that a +Phrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation; Aurelius +proved that a Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility. +The one--a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in squalor, bred +in degradation, the despised chattel of a despicable freedman, +surrounded by every depressing, ignoble, and pitiable circumstance of +life--showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win noble +happiness and immortal memory; the other--a Roman, a patrician, strong, +of heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the +favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher, +the greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be +virtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, +even on an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the two, +the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly +and touchingly resigned, than the slave. In him, Stoicism loses all its +haughty self-assertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly +melancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart. "It seems," says +M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, +draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it +despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown +God.' In the sad <i>Meditations</i> of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, +sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were +unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not +yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which +Christianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction, +and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, +without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fénélon. +We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate +ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to +which profane doctrines have attained--how they laid down their pride, +and how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity. To +make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the +Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these +simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur--that +charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and +humbleness of heart by an Emperor."</p> + +<p>Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of +eminent men "If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the +Christian verities," says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, +"search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object +than the Antonines.... One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this +Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of +emotion. He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better +of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind." +"It is more delightful," says the great historian Niebuhr, "to speak of +Marcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime +human virtue it is his. He was certainly the noblest character of his +time, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, +mildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards +himself. We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his +time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an +expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius."</p> + +<p>Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, A.D. 121. His more correct +designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several +different names at different periods of his life, and since at that age +nothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth +while to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His +father, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a +line of illustrious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King +of Rome. His mother, Domitia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and +kingly race. The character of both seems to have been worthy of their +high dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since Annius died +when Aurelius was a mere infant; but in his <i>Meditations</i> he has left us +a grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his +grandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the +government of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his +father, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence, +and <i>abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts</i>; +and, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of +the rich.</p> + +<p>The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian. +The times were better than those which we have contemplated in the +reigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of +Galba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time +under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of +Titus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother Titus, +was scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero; +but that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden +neck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate +that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was +fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan, +Hadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus +Aurelius were among the very gentlest and noblest sovereigns whom the +world has ever seen.</p> + +<p>Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial +Emperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It +is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at +the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues +which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of +mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when +he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's +paternal name of <i>Verus</i>, he called him <i>Verissimus</i>, 'the most true.'" +It is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early +developed in one who thought that all men "should speak as they think, +with an accent of heroic verity."</p> + +<p>Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness, +Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a +man who had few recommendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death, +which took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the senators +round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future +Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he +won by his gratitude to the memory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been +older--he was then but seventeen--it is known that Hadrian would have +chosen <i>him</i>, and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, indeed, who +was then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition +that he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the +deceased Ceionius. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even +from his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw +himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world.</p> + +<p>We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch +of the influences and the education which had formed him for this +exalted station.</p> + +<p>He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been +three times consul. He makes it a matter of congratulation, and +thankfulness to the gods, that he had not been sent to any public +school, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that +frightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had +fallen. He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for +having supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction +that on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing +jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond +of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and +he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, +his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his +public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a +beautiful and manly mould. There are, however, three respects in which +his education seems especially worthy of notice;--I mean the +<i>diligence</i>, the <i>gratitude</i>, and the <i>hardiness</i> in which he was +encouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of +generous conviction.</p> + +<p>1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was <i>diligent</i>. He alludes +more than once in his <i>Meditations</i> to the inestimable value of time, +and to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits. +He flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into +every branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he +toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the +administration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman +jurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which he expresses gratitude +to his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being +satisfied with the superficial understanding of a book. In fact, so +strenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his +health suffered by the combination of the two.</p> + +<p>2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his teachers--even +the most insignificant--with sincere <i>gratitude</i>. He regarded each one +of them as a man from whom something could be learnt, and from whom he +actually <i>did</i> learn that something. Hence the honourable respect--a +respect as honourable to himself as to them--which he paid to Fronto, to +Rusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom his noble and +conscientious gratitude raised to the highest dignities of the State. He +even thanks the gods that "he made haste to place those who brought him +up in the station of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting +them off with mere <i>hopes</i> of his doing it some time after, because they +were then still young." He was far the superior of these men, not only +socially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his +exalted rank and character he delighted to associate with them on the +most friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with +affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household +gods, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims.</p> + +<p>3. His <i>hardiness</i> and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I +wish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel +second-class, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their +buttonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a +poor man for a year, would learn how <i>infinitely more noble</i> was the +abstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of +splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of +gluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early +in life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not +only a duty but a pleasure</p> + +<blockquote> +"To scorn delights, and live laborious days,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work +with his own hands." In his eleventh year he became acquainted with +Diognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his +twelfth year he assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to +prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to +the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the skin" was a concession to +the entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself +would have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he +acted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. His friends +found him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity +and thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a +pure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or +with gloom.</p> + +<p>The guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around him all the most +distinguished literary teachers of the age. Never had a prince a greater +number of eminent instructors; never were any teachers made happy by a +more grateful, a more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and +glorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, during his +campaign among the Quadi, he wrote a sketch of what he owed to them. +This sketch forms the first book of his <i>Meditations</i>, and is +characterised throughout by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty.</p> + +<p>The <i>Meditations</i> of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his private diary, +they are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, an honest examination of +his own conscience; there is not the slightest trace of their having +been intended for any eye but his own. In them he was acting on the +principle of St. Augustine: "Go up into the tribunal of thy conscience, +and set thyself before thyself." He was ever bearing about--</p> + +<blockquote> +"A silent court of justice in himself,<br> + Himself the judge and jury, and himself<br> + The prisoner at the bar."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>And writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war which he +detested, he averted his eyes from the manifold wearinesses which daily +vexed his soul, and calmly sat down to meditate on all the great +qualities which he had observed, and all the good lessons that he might +have learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and surrounded +his manly years.</p> + +<p>And what had he learnt?--learnt heartily to admire, and (<i>we</i> may say) +learnt to practise also? A sketch of his first book will show us. What +he had gained from his immediate parents we have seen already, and we +will make a brief abstract of his other obligations.</p> + +<p>From "his governor"--to which of his teachers this name applies we are +not sure--he had learnt to avoid factions at the races, to work hard, +and to avoid listening to slander; from Diognetus, to despise frivolous +superstitions, and to practise self-denial; from Apollonius, undeviating +steadiness of purpose, endurance of misfortune, and the reception of +favours without being humbled by them; from Sextus of Chaeronea (a +grandson of the celebrated Plutarch), tolerance of the ignorant, gravity +without affectation, and benevolence of heart; from Alexander, delicacy +in correcting others; from Severus, "a disposition to do good, and to +give to others readily, and to cherish good hope, and, to believe that I +am beloved of my friends;" from Maximus, "sweetness and dignity, and to +do what was set before me without complaining;" from Alexander the +Platonic, "<i>not frequently to say to any one, nor to write in a letter, +that I have no leisure</i>; nor continually to excuse the neglect of +ordinary duties by alleging urgent occupations."</p> + +<p>To one or two others his obligations were still more characteristic and +important. From Rusticus, for instance, an excellent and able man, whose +advice for years he was accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise +sophistry and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified, +to be accurate, and--an inestimable benefit this, and one which tinged +the colour of his whole life--to become acquainted with the <i>Discourses</i> +of Epictetus. And from his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he +had derived advantages still more considerable. In him he saw the +example of a sovereign and statesman firm, self-controlled, modest, +faithful, and even tempered; a man who despised flattery and hated +meanness; who honoured the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who +was indifferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest +business; one, in short, "who had a perfect and invincible soul," who, +like Socrates, "was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things +which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without +excess." <a name="FNanchor67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67">[67]</a> Piety, serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame, +calmness, simplicity, patience, are virtues which he attributes to him +in another full-length portrait (vi. 30) which he concludes with the +words, "Imitate all this, that thou mayest have as good a conscience +when thy last hour comes as he had."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor67">[67]</a> My quotations from Marcus Aurelius will be made (by +permission) from the forcible and admirably accurate translation of Mr. +Long. In thanking Mr. Long, I may be allowed to add that the English +reader will find in his version the best means of becoming acquainted +with the purest-and noblest book of antiquity. +</blockquote> + +<p>He concludes these reminiscenses of thankfulness with a summary of what +he owed to the gods. And for what does he thanks the gods? for being +wealthy, and noble, and an emperor? Nay, for no vulgar or dubious +blessings such as these, but for the guidance which trained him in +philosophy, and for the grace which kept him from sin. And here it is +that his genuine modesty comes out. As the excellent divine used to say +when he saw a criminal led past for execution, "There, but for the grace +of God, goes John Bradford," so, after thanking the gods for the +goodness of all his family and relatives, Aurelius says, "Further, I owe +it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of +them, <i>though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered</i>, +might have led me to do something of this kind; but through their favour +there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the +trial. Further, that I was subjected to a ruler and father who took away +all pride from me, and taught me that it was possible to live in a +palace without guards, or embroidered dresses, or torches, and statues, +and such-like show, but to live very near to the fashion of a private +person, without being either mean in thought or remiss in action; that +after having fallen into amatory passions I was cured; that though it +was my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life +with me; that whenever I wished to help any man, I was never told that I +had not the means of doing it;--that I had abundance of good masters for +my children: for all these thing require the help of the gods +and fortune."</p> + +<p>The whole of the Emperor's <i>Meditations</i> deserve the profound study of +this age. The self-denial which they display is a rebuke to our +ever-growing luxury; their generosity contrasts favourably with the +increasing bitterness of our cynicism; their contented acquiescence in +God's will rebukes our incessant restlessness; above all, their constant +elevation shames that multitude of little vices, and little meannesses, +which lie like a scurf over the conventionality of modern life. But this +earlier chapter has also a special value for the young. It offers a +picture which it would indeed be better for them and for us if they +could be induced to study. If even under</p> + +<blockquote> +"That fierce light that beats upon the throne,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>the life of Marcus Aurelius shows no moral stain, it is still more +remarkable that the free and beautiful boyhood of this Roman prince had +early learnt to recognise only the excellences of his teachers, their +patience and firmness, their benevolence and sweetness, their integrity +and virtue. Amid the frightful universality of moral corruption he +preserved a stainless conscience and a most pure soul; he thanked God in +language which breathes the most crystalline delicacy of sentiment and +language, that he had preserved uninjured the flower of his early life, +and that under the calm influences of his home in the country, and the +studies of philosophy, he had learnt to value chastity as the sacred +girdle of youth, to be retained and honoured to his latest years. +"Surely," says Mr. Carlyle, "a day is coming when it will be known again +what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush +of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable is the +duty laid on every creature in regard to these particulars. Well, if +such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come. +Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of +heart and of eye; noble pious valour to amend us and the age of bronze +and lacquers, how can they ever come? The scandalous bronze-lacquer age +of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies, and mendacities will have +to run its course till the pit swallow it."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIA."></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.</h3> + +<p>On the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded to the +throne, and, in accordance with the late Emperor's conditions, adopted +Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the +age of fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor +broke off the engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter +Faustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven years +afterwards, A.D. 146.</p> + +<p>The long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy periods that have +no history. An almost unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes +were lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation +were rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. Throughout the +whole extent of his vast domain the people loved and valued their +Emperor, and the Emperor's one aim was to further, the happiness of his +people. He, too, like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the +bee was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil administrator, +of an unaggressive and united republic; he disliked war, did not value +the military title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph.</p> + +<p>With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his private +relations as he was admirable in the discharge of his public duties, +Marcus Aurelius spent the next twenty-three years of his life. So close +and intimate was their union, so completely did they regard each other +as father and son, that during all that period Aurelius never slept more +than twice away from the house of Antoninus. There was not a shade of +jealousy between them; each was the friend and adviser of the other, +and, so far from regarding his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor +gave him the designation "Caesar," and heaped upon him all the honours +of the Roman Commonwealth. It was in vain that the whisper of malignant +tongues attempted to shake this mutual confidence. Antoninus once saw +the mother of Aurelius in earnest prayer before the statue of Apollo. +"What do you think she is praying for so intently?" asked a wretched +mischief-maker of the name of Valerius Omulus: "it is that you may die, +and her son reign." This wicked suggestion might have driven a prince of +meaner character into violence and disgust, but Antoninus passed it over +with the silence of contempt.</p> + +<p>It was the main delight of Antoninus to enjoy the quiet of his country +villa. Unlike Hadrian, who traversed immense regions of his vast +dominion, Antoninus lived entirely either at Rome, or in his beautiful +villa at Lorium, a little seacoast village about twelve miles from the +capital. In this villa he had been born, and here he died, surrounded by +the reminiscences of his childhood. In this his real home it was his +special pleasure to lay aside the pomp and burden of his imperial rank. +"He did not," says Marcus, "take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was +not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he eat, nor about +the texture and colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his +slaves." Even the dress he wore was the work of the provincial artist +in his little native place. So far from checking the philosophic tastes +of his adopted son he fostered them, and sent for Apollonius of Chalcis +to be his teacher in the doctrines of Stoicism. In one of his notes to +Fronto, Marcus draws the picture of their simple country occupations and +amusements. Hunting, fishing, boxing, wrestling, occupied the leisure of +the two princes, and they shared the rustic festivities of the vintage. +"I have dined," he writes, "on a little bread.... We perspired a great +deal, shouted a great deal, and left some gleanings of the vintage +hanging on the trellis work.... When I got home I studied a little, but +not to much advantage I had a long talk with my mother, who was lying on +her couch." Who knows how much Aurelius and how much the world may have +gained from such conversation as this with a mother from whom he had +learnt to hate even the thought of evil? Nor will any one despise the +simplicity of heart which made him mingle with the peasants as an +amateur vintager, unless he is so tasteless and so morose as to think +with scorn of Scipio and Laelius as they gathered shells on the +seashore, or of Henry IV. as he played at horses with his little boys on +all-fours. The capability of unbending thus, the genuine cheerfulness +which enters at due times into simple amusements, has been found not +rarely in the highest and purest minds.</p> + +<p>For many years no incident of importance broke the even tenor of +Aurelius's life. He lived peaceful, happy, prosperous, and beloved, +watching without envy the increasing years of his adopted father. But in +the year 161, when Marcus was now forty years old, Antoninus Pius, who +had reached the age of seventy-five, caught a fever at Lorium. Feeling +that his end was near, he summoned his friends and the chief men of +Rome to his bedside, and there (without saying a word about his other +adopted son, who is generally known by the name of Lucius Verus) +solemnly recommended Marcus to them as his successor; and then, giving +to the captain of the guard the watchword of "Equanimity," as though his +earthly task was over he ordered to be transferred to the bedroom of +Marcus the little golden statue of Fortune, which was kept in the +private chamber of the Emperors as an omen of public prosperity.</p> + +<p>The very first public act of the new Emperor was one of splendid +generosity, namely, the admission of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus +into the fullest participation of imperial honours, the Tribunitian and +proconsular powers, and the titles Caesar and Augustus. The admission of +Lucius Verus to a share of the empire was due to the innate modesty of +Marcus. As he was a devoted student, and cared less for manly exercises, +in which Verus excelled, he thought that his adoptive brother would be a +better and more useful general than himself, and that he could best +serve the State by retaining the civil administration, and entrusting to +his brother the management of war. Verus, however, as soon as he got +away from the immediate influence and ennobling society of Marcus, broke +loose from all decency, and showed himself to be a weak and worthless +personage, as unfit for war as he was for all the nobler duties of +peace, and capable of nothing but enormous gluttony and disgraceful +self-indulence. Two things only can be said in his favour; the one, +that, though depraved, he was wholly free from cruelty; and the other, +that he had the good sense to submit himself entirely to his brother, +and to treat him with the gratitude and deference which were his due.</p> + +<p>Marcus had a large family by Faustina, and in the first year of his +reign his wife bore twins, of whom the one who survived became the +wicked and detested Emperor Commodus. As though the birth of such a +child were in itself an omen of ruin, a storm of calamity began at once +to burst over the long tranquil State. An inundation of the Tiber flung +down houses and streets over a great part of Rome, swept away multitudes +of cattle, spoiled the harvests, devastated the fields, and caused a +distress which ended in wide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified +by earthquakes, by the burning of cities, and by plagues or noxious +insects. To these miseries, which the Emperors did their best to +alleviate, was added the horrors of wars and rumours of wars. The +Partians, under their king Vologeses, defeated and all but destroyed a +Roman army, and devastated with impunity the Roman province of Syria. +The wild tribes of the Catti burst over Germany with fire and sword; and +the news from Britain was full of insurrection and tumult. Such were the +elements of trouble and discord which overshadowed the reign of Marcus +Aurelius from its very beginning down to its weary close.</p> + +<p>As the Partian war was the most important of the three, Verus was sent +to quell it, and but for the ability of his generals--the greatest of +whom was Avidius Cassius--would have ruined irretrievably the fortunes +of the Empire. These generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the +Roman name, and Verus returned in triumph, bringing back with him from +the East the seeds of a terrible pestilence which devastated the whole +Empire and by which, on the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus himself was +carried off at Aquileia.</p> + +<p>Worthless as he was, Marcus, who in his lifetime had so often pardoned +and concealed his faults, paid him the highest honours of sepulcre, and +interred his ashes in the mausoleum of Hadrian. There were not wanting +some who charged him with the guilt of fratricide, asserting that the +death of Verus had been hastened by his means!</p> + +<p>I have only one reason for alluding to atrocious and contemptible +calumnies like these, and that is because--since no doubt such whispers +reached his ears--they help to account for that deep unutterable +melancholy which breathes through the little golden book of the +Emperor's <i>Meditations</i>. We find, for instance, among them this isolated +fragment:--</p> + +<p>"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical."</p> + +<p>We know not of whom he was thinking--perhaps of Nero, perhaps of +Caligula, but undoubtedly also of men whom he had seen and known, and +whose very existence darkened his soul. The same sad spirit breathes +also through the following passages:--</p> + +<p>"Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name, +or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are +much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling, and <i>little +dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and +then straightway weeping. But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and +truth are fled</i></p> + +<blockquote> +"'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>(v. 33.)</p> + +<p>"It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having +had a taste of lying, and hypocrisy, and luxury, and pride. However to +<i>breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of those things</i> is +the next best voyage, as the saying is." (ix. 2.)</p> + +<p>"<i>Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles.</i> Why +art thou thus disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles +thee?... Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and +better." (ix. 37.) The thought is like that which dominates through the +Penitential Psalms of David,--that we may take refuge from men, their +malignity and their meanness, and find rest for our souls in God. From +men David has <i>no</i> hope; mockery, treachery, injustice, are all that he +expects from them,--the bitterness of his enemies, the far-off +indifference of his friends. Nor does this greatly trouble him, so long +as he does not wholly lose the light of <i>God's</i> countenance. "I had no +place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O +Lord, and said, <i>Thou</i> art my hope, and my portion in the land of the +living." "Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy +Spirit from me."</p> + +<p>But whatever may have been his impulse at times to give up in despair +all attempt to improve the "little breed" of men around him, Marcus had +schooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings. +Were men contemptible? It was all the more reason why he should himself +be noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust? In +that proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and +tenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his +ability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus +Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the +vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from +suffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws +fresh lessons of humanity and love.</p> + +<p>He says, for instance, "Begin the morning by saying to thyself, <i>I shall +meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, +unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance +of what is good and evil</i>. But I who have seen the nature of the good +that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of +him that does wrong that is akin to me,... and that it partakes of the +same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, +for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my +kinsman, nor hate him. <i>For we are made for co-operation,</i> like feet, +like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To +act against one another then is contrary to nature; and <i>it</i> is acting +against one another to be vexed and turn away." (ii. 1.) Another of his +rules, and an eminently wise one, was to fix his thoughts as much as +possible on the virtues of others, rather than on their vices. "When +thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the <i>virtues</i> of those who +live with thee--the activity of one, the modesty of another, the +liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth." What a +rebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are daily tempted to +display! "An infinite being comes before us," says Robertson, "with a +whole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and we <i>proceed to +classify him, put a label upon him, as we would upon a jar, saying, This +is rice, that is jelly, and this pomatum</i>; and then we think we have +saved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How differently +our Lord treated the people who came to Him!... consequently, at His +touch each one gave out his peculiar spark of light."</p> + +<p>Here, again, is a singularly pithy, comprehensive, and beautiful piece +of advice:--</p> + +<p>"Men exist for the sake of one another. <i>Teach them or bear with them</i>" +(viii. 59.)</p> + +<p>And again: "The best way of revenging thyself is not to become like the +wrong doer."</p> + +<p>And again, "If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps +he has not done wrong." (ix. 38.)</p> + +<p>Most remarkable, however, are the nine rules which he drew up for +himself, as subjects for reflection when any one had offended +him, viz.--</p> + +<p>1. That men were made for each other: even the inferior for the sake of +the superior, and these for the sake of one another.</p> + +<p>2. The invincible influences that act upon men, and mould their opinions +and their acts.</p> + +<p>3. That sin is mainly error and ignorance,--an involuntary slavery.</p> + +<p>4. That we are ourselves feeble, and by no means immaculate; and that +often our very abstinence from faults is due more to cowardice and a +care for our reputation than to any freedom from the disposition to +commit them.</p> + +<p>5. That our judgments are apt to be very rash and premature. "And in +short a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct +judgment on another man's acts."</p> + +<p>6. When thou art much vexed or grieved, consider that man's life is only +a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.</p> + +<p>7. That no wrongful act of another can bring shame on us, and that it +is not men's acts which disturb us, but our own opinions of them.</p> + +<p>8. That our own anger hurts us more than the acts themselves.</p> + +<p>9. That <i>benevolence is invincible, if it be not an affected smile,</i> nor +acting a part. "For what will the most violent man do to thee if thou +continuest benevolent to him? gently and calmly correcting him, +admonishing him when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, '<i>Not so, my +child: we are constituted by nature for something else: I shall +certainly not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my child</i>' And +show him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and +that even bees do not do as he does, nor any gregarious animal. And this +you must do simply, unreproachfully, affectionately; without rancour, +and if possible when you and he are alone." (xi. 18.)</p> + +<p>"<i>Not so, my child</i>; thou art injuring thyself, my child." Can all +antiquity show anything tenderer than this, or anything more close to +the spirit of Christian teaching than these nine rules? They were worthy +of the men who, unlike the Stoics in general, considered gentleness to +be a virtue, and a proof at once of philosophy and of true manhood. They +are written with that effusion of sadness and benevolence to which it is +difficult to find a parallel. They show how completely Marcus had +triumphed over all petty malignity, and how earnestly he strove to +fulfil his own precept of always keeping the thoughts so sweet and +clear, that "if any one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That,'" In short, to give them their highest praise, they would have +delighted the great Christian Apostle who wrote,--</p> + +<p>"Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the +weak, be patient towards all men. See that none render evil for evil +unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, +and to all men." (1 Thess. iv. 14. 15.)</p> + +<p>"Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." (2. Thess. +iv. 15.)</p> + +<p>"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a +quarrel against any." (Col. iii. 13.)</p> + +<p>Nay, are they not even in full accordance with the mind and spirit of +Him who said,--</p> + +<p>"If thy brother trespass against thee, <i>go and tell him his fault +between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy +brother</i>."</p> + +<p>In the life of Marcus Aurelius, as in so many lives, we are able to +trace the great law of compensation. His exalted station, during the +later years of his life, threw him among many who were false and +Pharisaical and base; but his youth had been spent under happier +conditions, and this saved him from falling into the sadness of those +whom neither man nor woman please. In his earlier years it had been his +lot to see the fairer side of humanity, and the recollection of those +pure and happy days was like a healing tree thrown into the bitter and +turbid waters of his reign.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIA."></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS <i>(continued).</i></h3> + +<p>Marcus was now the undisputed lord of the Roman world. He was seated on +the dizziest and most splendid eminence which it was possible for human +grandeur to obtain.</p> + +<p>But this imperial elevation kindled no glow of pride or +self-satisfaction in his meek and chastened nature. He regarded himself +as being in fact the servant of all. It was his duty, like that of the +bull in the herd, or the ram among the flocks, to confront every peril +in his own person, to be foremost in all the hardships of war and the +most deeply immersed in all the toils of peace. The registry of the +citizens, the suppression of litigation, the elevation of public morals, +the restraining of consanguineous marriages, the care of minors, the +retrenchment of public expenses, the limitation of gladitorial games and +shows, the care of roads, the restoration of senatorial privileges, the +appointment of none but worthy magistrates--even the regulation of +street traffic--these and numberless other duties so completely absorbed +his attention that, in spite of indifferent health, they often kept him +at severe labour from early morning till long after midnight. His +position indeed often necessitated his presence at games and shows, but +on these occasions he occupied himself either in reading, or being read +to, or in writing notes. He was one of those who held that nothing +should be done hastily, and that few crimes were worse than the waste of +time. It is to such views and such habits that we owe the compositions +of his works. His <i>Meditations</i> were written amid the painful +self-denial and distracting anxieties of his wars with the Quadi and the +Marcomanni, and he was the author of other works which unhappily have +perished. Perhaps of all the lost treasures of antiquity there are few +which we should feel a greater wish to recover than the lost +autobiography of this wisest of Emperors and holiest of Pagan men.</p> + +<p>As for the external trappings of his rank,--those gorgeous adjuncts and +pompous circumstances which excite the wonder and envy of mankind,--no +man could have shown himself more indifferent to them. He recognized +indeed the necessity of maintaining the dignity of his high position. +"Every moment," he says, "think steadily as a Roman and a man <i>to do +what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity</i>, and affection, +and freedom, and justice" (ii. 5); and again, "Let the Deity which is in +thee be the guardian of a living being, <i>manly and of ripe age, and +engaged in matters political, and a Roman, and a ruler</i>, who has taken +his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life" +(iii. 5). But he did <i>not</i> think it necessary to accept the fulsome +honours and degrading adulations which were so dear to many of his +predecessors. He refused the pompous blasphemy of temples and altars, +saying that for every true ruler the world was a temple, and all good +men were priests. He declined as much as possible all golden statues and +triumphal designations. All inevitable luxuries and splendour, such as +his public duties rendered indispensable, he regarded as a mere hollow +show. Marcus Aurelius felt as deeply as our own Shakespeare seems to +have felt the unsubstantiality, the fleeting evanescence of all earthly +things: he would have delighted in the sentiment that,</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>We are such stuff<br> + As dreams are made on, and our little life<br> + Is rounded by a sleep</i>."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"When we have meat before us," he says, "and such eatables, we receive +the impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this is the +dead body of a bird, or of a pig; <i>and, again, that this Falerian is +only a little grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed +with the blood of a shellfish</i>: such then are these impressions, and +they reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what +kind of things they are. Just in the same way.... where there are things +which appear most worthy of our approbation, <i>we ought to lay them bare, +and look at their worthlessness</i>, and strip them of all the words by +which they are exalted." (vi. 13.)</p> + +<p>"What is worth being valued? To be received with clapping of hands? No. +Neither must we value the clapping of tongues, for the praise which +comes from the many is a clapping of tongues." (vi. 16.)</p> + +<p>"Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe; all the sea is a drop in the +universe; Athos a little clod of the universe; all the present time is a +point in eternity. All things are <i>little, changeable, perishable"</i> +(vi. 36.)</p> + +<p>And to Marcus too, no less than to Shakespeare, it seemed that--</p> + +<blockquote> +"All the world's a stage,<br> + And all the men and women merely players;"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>for he writes these remarkable words:--</p> + +<p>"<i>The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, +exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread in +fishponds, labourings of ants, and burden-carrying runnings about of +frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings</i>--this is what life +resembles. It is thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good +humour, and not a proud air; to understand however that <i>every man is +worth just so much as the things are worth about which he +busies himself</i>."</p> + +<p>In fact, the Court was to Marcus a burden; he tells us himself that +Philosophy was his mother, Empire only his stepmother; it was only his +repose in the one that rendered even tolerable to him the burdens of the +other. Emperor as he was, he thanked the gods for having enabled him to +enter into the souls of a Thrasea, an Helvidius, a Cato, a Brutus. Above +all, he seems to have had a horror of ever becoming like some of his +predecessors; he writes:--</p> + +<p>"Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar;<a name="FNanchor68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68">[68]</a> take care thou art +not dyed with this dye. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, +free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, +kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Reverence the gods and +help men. Short is life. There <i>is only one fruit of this terrene life; +a pious disposition and social acts</i>." (iv. 19,)</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor68">[68]</a> Marcus here invents what M. Martha justly calls "an +admirable barbarism" to express his disgust towards such men--[Greek: +ora mae apukaidaoosaes]--"take care not to be <i>Caesarised</i>." +</blockquote> + +<p>It is the same conclusion as that which sorrow forced from another +weary and less admirable king: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole +matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole +duty of man."</p> + +<p>But it is time for us to continue the meagre record of the life of +Marcus, so far as the bare and gossiping compilations of Dion +Cassius,<a name="FNanchor69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69">[69]</a> and Capitolinus, and the scattered allusions of other +writers can enable us to do so.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor69">[69]</a> As epitomised by Xiphilinus. +</blockquote> + +<p>It must have been with a heavy heart that he set out once more for +Germany to face the dangerous rising of the Quadi and Marcomanni. To +obtain soldiers sufficient to fill up the vacancies in his army which +had been decimated by the plague, he was forced to enrol slaves; and to +obtain money he had to sell the ornaments of the palace, and even some +of the Empress's jewels. Immediately before he started his heart was +wrung by the death of his little boy, the twin-brother of Commodus, +whose beautiful features are still preserved for us on coins. Early in +the war, as he was trying the depth of a ford, he was assailed by the +enemy with a sudden storm of missiles, and was only saved from imminent +death by being sheltered beneath the shields of his soldiers. One battle +was fought on the ice of the wintry Danube. But by far the most +celebrated event of the war took place in a great victory over the Quadi +which he won in A.D. 174, and which was attributed by the Christians to +what is known as the "Miracle of the Thundering Legion."</p> + +<p>Divested of all extraneous additions, the fact which occurred,--as +established by the evidence of medals, and by one of the bass-relievi on +the "Column of Antonine,"--appears to have been as follows. Marcus +Aurelius and his army had been entangled in a mountain defile, into +which they had too hastily pursued a sham retreat of the barbarian +archers. In this defile, unable either to fight or to fly, pent in by +the enemy, burned up with the scorching heat and tormented by thirst, +they lost all hope, burst into wailing and groans, and yielded to a +despair from which not even the strenuous efforts of Marcus could arouse +them. At the most critical moment of their danger and misery the clouds +began to gather, and heavy shows of rain descended, which the soldiers +caught in their shields and helmets to quench their own thirst and that +of their horses. While they were thus engaged the enemy attacked them; +but the rain was mingled with hail, and fell with blinding fury in the +faces of the barbarians. The storm was also accompanied with thunder and +lightning, which seems to have damaged the enemy, and filled them with +terror, while no casualty occured in the Roman ranks. The Romans +accordingly regarded this as a Divine interposition, and achieved a most +decisive victory, which proved to be the practical conclusion of a +hazardous and important war.</p> + +<p>The Christians regarded the event not as <i>providential but as +miraculous</i>, and attributed it to the prayers of their brethren in a +legion which, from this circumstance, received the name of the +"Thundering Legion." It is however now known that one of the legions, +distinguished by a flash of lightning which was represented on their +shields, had been known by this name since the time of Augustus; and the +Pagans themselves attributed the assistance which they had received +sometimes to a prayer of the pious Emperor and sometimes to the +incantations of an Egyptian sorcerer named Arnuphis.</p> + +<p>One of the Fathers, the passionate and eloquent Tertullian, attributes +to this deliverance an interposition of the Emperor in favour of the +Christians, and appeals to a letter of his to the Senate in which he +acknowledged how effectual had been the aid he had received from +Christian prayers, and forbade any one hereafter to molest the followers +of the new religion, lest they should use against him the weapon of +supplication which had been so powerful in his favour. This letter is +preserved at the end of the <i>Apology</i> of Justin Martyr, and it adds +that, not only are no Christians to be injured or persecuted, but that +any one who informed against them is to be burned alive! We see at once +that this letter is one of those impudent and transparent forgeries in +which the literature of the first five centuries unhappily abounds. What +was the real relation of Marcus to the Christians we shall consider +hereafter.</p> + +<p>To the gentle heart of Marcus, all war, even when accompanied with +victories, was eminently distasteful; and in such painful and ungenial +occupations no small part of his life was passed. What he thought of war +and of its successes is graphically set forth in the following remark:--</p> + +<p>"A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another when he has +caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a +net, and another when he has taken wild boars or bears, <i>and another +when he has taken Sarmatians.</i> Are not these robbers, when thou +examinest their principles?" He here condemns his own involuntary +actions; but it was his unhappy destiny not to have trodden out the +embers of this war before he was burdened with another far more painful +and formidable.</p> + +<p>This was the revolt of Avidius Cassius, a general of the old blunt Roman +type, whom, in spite of some ominous warnings, Marcus both loved and +trusted. The ingratitude displayed by such a man caused Marcus the +deepest anguish; but he was saved from all dangerous consequences by the +wide-spread affection which he had inspired by his virtuous reign.</p> + +<p>The very soldiers of the rebellious general fell away from him; and, +after he had been a nominal Emperor for only three months and six days, +he was assassinated by some of his own officers. His head was sent to +Marcus, who received it with sorrow, and did not hold out to the +murderers the slightest encouragement. The joy of success was swallowed +up in regret that his enemy had not lived to allow him the luxury of a +genuine forgiveness. He begged the Senate to pardon all the family of +Cassius, and to suffer this single life to be the only one forfeited in +consequence of civil war. The Fathers received these proofs of clemency +with the rapture which they deserved, and the Senate-house resounded +with acclamations and blessings.</p> + +<p>Never had a formidable conspiracy been more quietly and effectually +crushed. Marcus travelled through the provinces which had favoured the +cause of Avidius Cassius, and treated them all with the most complete +and indulgent forbearance. When he arrived in Syria, the correspondence +of Cassius was brought to him, and, with a glorious magnanimity of which +history affords but few examples, he consigned it all to the +flames unread.</p> + +<p>During this journey of pacification, he lost his wife Faustina, who died +suddenly in one of the valleys of Mount Taurus. History, or the +collection of anecdotes which at this period often passes as history, +has assigned to Faustina a character of the darkest infamy, and it has +even been made a charge against Aurelius that he overlooked or condoned +her offences. As far as Faustina is concerned, we have not much to say, +although there is strong reason to believe that many of the stories told +of her are scandalously exaggerated, if not absolutely false. Certain it +is, that most of the imputations upon her memory rest on the malignant +anecdotes recorded by Dion, who dearly loved every piece of scandal +which degraded human nature. The <i>specific</i> charge brought against her +of having tempted Cassius from his allegiance is wholly unsupported, +even if it be not absolutely incompatible with what we find in her own +existent letters; and, finally, Marcus himself not only loved her +tenderly, as the kind mother of his eleven children, but in his +<i>Meditations</i> actually thanks the gods for having granted him "such a +wife, so obedient so affectionate, and so simple." No doubt Faustina was +unworthy of her husband; but surely it is the glory and not the shame of +a noble nature to be averse from jealousy and suspicion, and to trust to +others more deeply than they deserve.</p> + +<p>So blameless was the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that neither the +malignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of posthumous scandal has +succeeded in discovering any flaw in the extreme integrity of his life +and principles. But meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The +hatred of all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the memory +of great men rages, though less openly, in the minds of many. They +delight to degrade human life into that dull and barren plain "in which +every molehill is a mountain, and every thistle a forest-tree." Great +men are as small in their eyes as they are said to be in the eyes of +their valets; and there are multitudes who, if they find</p> + +<blockquote> +"Some stain or blemish in a name of note,<br> + Not grieving that their greatest are so small,<br> + Innate themselves with some insane delight,<br> + And judge all nature from her feet of clay,<br> + Without the will to lift their eyes, and see<br> + Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire,<br> + And touching other worlds."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>This I suppose is the reason why, failing to drag down Marcus Aurelius +from his moral elevation, some have attempted to assail his reputation +because of the supposed vileness of Faustina and the actual depravity of +Commodus. Of Faustina I have spoken already. Respecting Commodus, I +think it sufficient to ask with Solomon: "Who knoweth whether his son +shall be a wise man or a fool?" Commodus was but nineteen when his +father died; for the first three years of his reign he ruled respectably +and acceptably. Marcus Aurelius had left no effort untried to have him +trained aright by the first teachers and the wisest men whom the age +produced; and Herodian distinctly tells us that he had lived virtuously +up to the time of his father's death. Setting aside natural affection +altogether, and even assuming (as I should conjecture from one or two +passages of his <i>Meditations</i>) that Marcus had misgivings about his son, +would it have been easy, would it have been even possible, to set aside +on general grounds a son who had attained to years of maturity? However +this may be, if there are any who think it worth while to censure Marcus +because, after all, Commodus turned out to be but "a warped slip of +wilderness," their censure is hardly sufficiently discriminating to +deserve the trouble of refutation.</p> + +<p>"But Marcus Aurelius cruelly persecuted the Christians." Let us briefly +consider this charge. That persecutions took place in his reign is an +undeniable fact, and is sufficiently evidenced by the Apologies of +Justin Martyr, of Melito Bishop of Sardis, of Athenagoras, and of +Apollinarius, as well as by the Letter of the Church of Smyrna +describing the martyrdom of Polycarp, and that of the Churches of Lyons +and Vienne to their brethren in Asia Minor. It is fair, however, to +mention that there is some documentary evidence on the other side; +Lactantius clearly asserts that under the reigns of those excellent +princes who succeeded Domitian the Church suffered no violence from her +enemies, and "spread her hands towards the East and the West:" +Tertullian, writing but twenty years after the death of Marcus, +distinctly says (and Eusebius quotes the assertion), that there were +letters of the Emperor, in which he not only attributed his delivery +among the Quadi to the prayers of Christian soldiers in the "Thundering +Legion," but ordered any who informed against the Christians to be most +severely punished; and at the end of the works of Justin Martyr is found +a letter of similar purport, which is asserted to have been addressed by +Marcus to the Senate of Rome. We may set aside these peremptory +testimonies, we may believe that Tertullian and Eusebius were mistaken, +and that the documents to which they referred were spurious; but this +should make us also less certain about the prominent participation of +the Emperor in these persecutions. My own belief is (and it is a belief +which could be supported by many critical arguments), that his share in +causing them was almost infinitesimal. If those who love his memory +reject the evidence of Fathers in his favour, they may be at least +permitted to withhold assent from some of the assertions in virtue of +which he is condemned.</p> + +<p>Marcus in his <i>Meditations</i> alludes to the Christians once only, and +then it is to make a passing complaint of the indifference to death, +which appeared to him, as it appeared to Epictetus, to arise, not from +any noble principles, but from mere obstinacy and perversity. That he +shared the profound dislike with which Christians were regarded is very +probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent persecutor is utterly +unlike his whole character, essentially at variance with his habitual +clemency, alien to the spirit which made him interfere in every possible +instance to mitigate the severity of legal punishments, and may in short +be regarded as an assertion which is altogether false. Who will believe +that a man who during his reign built and dedicated but one single +temple, and that a Temple to Beneficence; that a man who so far from +showing any jealousy respecting foreign religions allowed honour to be +paid to them all; that a man whose writings breathe on every page the +inmost spirit of philanthropy and tenderness, went out of his way to +join in a persecution of the most innocent, the most courageous, and the +most inoffensive of his subjects?</p> + +<p>The true state of the case seems to have been this. The deep calamities +in which, during the whole reign of Marcus the Empire was involved, +caused widespread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the feelings +of the provincials against men whose atheism (for such they considered +it to be) had kindled the anger of the gods. This fury often broke out +into paroxisms of popular excitement, which none but the firmest-minded +governers were able to moderate or to repress. Marcus, when appealed to, +simply let the existing law take its usual course. That law was as old +as the time of Trajan. The young Pliny, Governor of Bithynia, had +written to ask Trajan how he was to deal with the Christians, whose +blamelessness of life he fully admitted, but whose doctrines, he said, +had emptied the temples of the gods, and exasperated their worshippers. +Trajan in reply had ordered that the Christians should not be <i>sought</i> +for, but that, if they were brought before the governor, and proved to +be contumacious in refusing to adjure their religion, they were then to +be put to death. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius had continued the same +policy, and Marcus Aurilius saw no reason to alter it. But this law, +which in quiet times might become a mere dead letter, might at more +troubled periods be converted into a dangerous engine of persecution, as +it was in the case of the venerable Polycarp, and in the unfortunate +Churches of Lyons and Vienne. The Pagans believed that the reason why +their gods were smiling in secret,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Looking over wasted lands,<br> + Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery<br> + sands,--<br> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + "Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying<br> + hands,--"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>was the unbelief and impiety of these hated Galileans, causes of offence +which could only be expiated by the death of the guilty. "Their +enemies," says Tertullian, "call aloud for the blood of the innocent, +alleging this vain pretext for their hatred, that they believe the +Christians to be the cause of every public misfortune. If the Tiber has +overflowed its banks, or the Nile has not overflowed, if heaven has +refused its rain, if famine or the plague has spread its ravages, the +cry is immediate, 'The Christians to the lions.'" In the first three +centuries the cry of "No Christianity" became at times as brutal, as +violent, and as unreasoning as the cry of "No Popery" has often been in +modern days. It was infinitely less disgraceful to Marcus to lend his +ear to the one than it has been to some eminent modern statesmen to be +carried away by the insensate fury of the other.</p> + +<p>To what extent is Marcus Aurelius to be condemned for the martyrdoms +which took place in his reign? Not, I think, heavily or +indiscriminately, or with vehement sweeping censure. Common justice +surely demands that we should not confuse the present with the past, or +pass judgment on the conduct of the Emperor as though he were living in +the nineteenth century, or as though he had been acting in full +cognisance of the Gospels and the stones of the Saints. Wise and good +men before him had, in their haughty ignorance, spoken of Christianity +with execration and contempt. The philosophers who surrounded his throne +treated it with jealousy and aversion. The body of the nation firmly +believed the current rumours which charged its votaries with horrible +midnight assemblies, rendered infamous by Thyestian banquets and the +atrocities of nameless superstitions. These foul calumnies--these +hideous charges of cannibalism and incest,--were supported by the +reiterated perjury of slaves under torture, which in that age, as well +as long afterwards, was preposterously regarded as a sure criterion +of truth.</p> + +<p>Christianity in that day was confounded with a multitude of debased and +foreign superstitions; and the Emperor in his judicial capacity, if he +ever encountered Christians at all, was far more likely to encounter +those who were unworthy of the name, than to become acquainted with the +meek, unworldly, retiring virtues of the calmest, the holiest, and the +best. When we have given their due weight to considerations such as +these we shall be ready to pardon Marcus Aurelius for having, in this +matter, acted ignorantly, and to admit that in persecuting Christianity +he may most honestly have thought that he was doing God service. The +very sincerity of his belief, the conscientiousness of his rule, the +intensity of his philanthrophy, the grandeur of his own philosophical +tenets, all conspired to make him a worse enemy of the Church than a +brutal Commodus or a disgusting Heliogabalus. And yet that there was not +in him the least <i>propensity</i> to persecute; that these persecutions were +for the most part spontaneous and accidental; that they were in no +measure due to his direct instigation, or in special accordance with his +desire, is clear from the fact that the martyrdoms took place in Gaul +and Asia Minor, <i>not in Rome</i>. There must have been hundreds of +Christians in Rome, and under the very eye of the Emperor; nay, there +were even multitudes of Christians in his own army; yet we never hear of +his having molested any of them. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in addressing +the Emperor, expresses a doubt as to whether he was really aware of the +manner in which his Christian subjects were treated. Justin Martyr, in +his <i>Apology</i>, addresses him in terms of perfect confidence and deep +respect. In short he was in this matter "blameless, but unfortunate." It +is painful to think that the venerable Polycarp, and the thoughtful +Justin may have forfeited their lives for their principles, not only in +the reign of so good a man, but even by virtue of his authority; but we +must be very uncharitable or very unimaginative if we cannot readily +believe that, though they had received the crown of martyrdom from his +hands, the redeemed spirits of those great martyrs would have been the +first to welcome this holiest of the heathen into the presence of a +Saviour whose Church he persecuted, but to whose indwelling Spirit his +virtues were due? whom ignorantly and unconsciously he worshipped, and +whom had he ever heard of Him and known Him, he would have loved in his +heart and glorified by the consistency of his noble and stainless life.</p> + +<p>The persecution of the Churches in Lyons and Vienne happened in A.D. +177. Shortly after this period fresh wars recalled the Emperor to the +North. It is said that, in despair of ever seeing him again, the chief +men of Rome entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, and +that for three days he discoursed to them on philosophical questions. +When he arrived at the seat of war, victory again crowned his arms. But +Marcus was now getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials, +and travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties +and bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia, either +at Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of +his age and the twentieth of his reign.</p> + +<p>Death to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that "there is no man +so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who +are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and +wise man, will there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let us at +last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster. It is true +that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns +us.'... Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart +more contentedly by reflecting thus: 'I am going away <i>from a life in +which even my associates, on behalf of whom I have striven, and cared, +and prayed so much, themselves wish me to depart</i>, hoping perchance to +get some little advantage by it.' Why then should a man cling to a +longer stay here? <i>Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindly +disposed to them, but preserving thy own character, and continuing +friendly, and benevolent, and kind</i>" And dreading death far less than he +dreaded any departure from the laws of virtue, he exclaims, "Come +quickly, O Death, for fear that at last I should forget myself." This +utterance has been well compared to the language which Bossuet put into +the mouth of a Christian soul:--"O Death; thou dost not trouble my +designs, thou accomplishest them. Haste, then, O favourable Death!... +<i>Nunc Dimittis</i>."</p> + +<p>A nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul,--a soul less elated by +prosperity, or more constant in adversity--a soul more fitted by virtue, +and chastity, and self-denial to enter into the eternal peace, never +passed into the presence of its Heavenly Father. We are not surprised +that all, whose means permitted it, possessed themselves of his statues, +and that they were to be seen for years afterwards among the household +gods of heathen families, who felt themselves more hopeful and more +happy from the glorious sense of possibility which was inspired by the +memory of one who, in the midst of difficulties, and breathing an +atmosphere heavy with corruption, yet showed himself so wise, so great, +so good a man.</p> + +<blockquote> +O framed for nobler times and calmer hearts!<br> +O studious thinker, eloquent for truth!<br> +Philosopher, despising wealth and death,<br> +But patient, childlike, full of life and love!<br> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVA."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>THE "MEDITATIONS" OF MARCUS AURELIUS.</h3> + +<p>Emperor as he was, Marcus Aurelius found himself in a hollow and +troublous world; but he did not give himself up to idle regret or +querulous lamentations. If these sorrows and perturbations came from the +gods, he kissed the hand that smote him; "he delivered up his broken +sword to Fate the conqueror with a humble and a manly heart." In any +case he had <i>duties</i> to do, and he set himself to perform them with a +quiet heroism--zealously, conscientiously, even cheerfully.</p> + +<p>The principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the hard and definite +lines of a philosophic system. But the great laws which guided his +actions and moulded his views of life were few and simple, and in his +book of <i>Meditations</i>, which is merely his private diary written to +relieve his mind amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to +them again and again. "Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery," he +says to himself, "will wipe out those holy principles of thine;" and +this is why he committed those principles to writing. Some of these I +have already adduced, and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as +before, of the beautiful and scholar-like translation of Mr. +George Long.</p> + +<p>All pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Emperor to be most +wisely regarded under a threefold aspect, namely, if considered in +reference to the gods, as being due to laws beyond their control; if +considered with reference to the nature of things, as being subservient +and necessary; and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being +dependent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with which we +endure them.</p> + +<p>The following passages will elucidate these points of view:--</p> + +<p>"The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly it has made the +inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the +superior to one another." (v. 30.)</p> + +<p>"Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain +immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is +within.... <i>The Universe is Transformation; life is opinion</i>" (iv. 3.)</p> + +<p>"To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs +water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why +then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power +than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a +mad dog?" (vi. 52.)</p> + +<p>"How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is +troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity." +(v. 2.)</p> + +<p>The passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a <i>relative</i> thing,--as +being good in the making,--the unripe and bitter bud of that which shall +be hereafter a beautiful flower,--although not expressed with perfect +clearness, yet indicate his belief that our view of evil things rises in +great measure from our inability to perceive the great whole of which +they are but subservient parts.</p> + +<p>"All things," he says, "come from that universal ruling power, either +directly or by way of consequence. <i>And accordingly the lion's gaping +jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, +as mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful</i>. Do not therefore +imagine that they are of another kind from that which thou dost +venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all."</p> + +<p>In another curious passage he says that all things which are natural and +congruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and +attractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and +corrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked. "And again, +figs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very +circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty +to the fruit. And <i>the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars</i>, and +many other things--though they are far from being beautiful, if a man +should examine them severally--still, because they are consequent upon +the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they +please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper +insight about the things found in the universe there is hardly <i>one of +those which follow by way of consequence</i> which will not seem to him to +be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure." (iv. 2.)</p> + +<p>This congruity to nature--the following of nature, and obedience to all +her laws--is the key-formula to the doctrines of the Roman Stoics.</p> + +<p>"Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and +terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither +worse, then, nor better is a thing made by being praised.... <i>Is such a +thing as an emerald made worse than it was, if it is not praised? or +gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a flower, a shrub</i>?" +(iv. 20.)</p> + +<p>"Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. +Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. +Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature! from thee +are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. <i>The +poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear city of +God</i>?" (iv. 23.)</p> + +<p>"Willingly give thyself up to fate, allowing her to spin thy thread into +whatever thing she pleases." (iv. 34.)</p> + +<p>And here, in a very small matter--getting out of bed in a morning--is +one practical application of the formula:--</p> + +<p>"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let these thoughts be +present--'I am rising to the work of a human being. <i>Why, then, am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and for +which I was brought into the world</i>? Or have I been made for this, to +lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?' 'But this is more +pleasant.' <i>Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not for +action or exertion</i>? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little +birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order +their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the +work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is +according to thy nature?" (v. 1.) ["Go to the ant, thou sluggard; +consider her ways, and be wise!"]</p> + +<p>The same principle, that Nature has assigned to us our proper +place--that a task has been given us to perform, and that our only care +should be to perform it aright, for the blessing of the great Whole of +which we are but insignificant parts--dominates through the admirable +precepts which the Emperor lays down for the regulation of our conduct +towards others. Some men, he says, do benefits to others only because +they expect a return; some men even, if they do not demand any return, +are not <i>forgetful</i> that they have rendered a benefit; but others do not +even know what they have done, but <i>are like a vine which has produced +grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its proper +fruit</i>. So we ought to do good to others as simple and as naturally as a +horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after +season, without thinking of the grapes which it has borne. And in +another passage, "What more dost thou want when thou hast done a service +to another? Art thou not content to have done an act conformable to thy +nature, and must thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye +demanded a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking?"</p> + +<p>"Judge every word and deed which is according to nature to be fit for +thee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows...but if a thing is +good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee." (v. 3.)</p> + +<p>Sometimes, indeed, Marcus Aurelius wavers. The evils of life overpower +him. "Such as bathing appears to thee," he says, "<i>oil, sweat, dirt, +filthy water, all things disgusting--so is every part of life and +everything</i>" (viii. 24); and again:--"Of human life the time is a point, +and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the +composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a +whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment." +But more often he retains his perfect tranquillity, and says, "Either +thou livest here, and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou +art going away, and this was thine own will; or thou art dying, and hast +discharged thy duty. <i>But besides these things there is nothing. Be of +good cheer, then</i>." (x. 22.) "Take me, and cast me where thou wilt, for +then I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can +feel and act conformably to its proper constitution." (viii. 45.)</p> + +<p>There is something delightful in the fact that even in the Stoic +philosophy there was some comfort to keep men from despair. To a holy +and scrupulous conscience like that of Marcus, there would have been an +inestimable preciousness in the Christian doctrine of the "forgiveness +of the sins." Of that divine mercy--of that sin-uncreating power--the +ancient world knew nothing; but in Marcus we find some dim and faint +adumbration of the doctrine, expressed in a manner which might at least +breathe calm into the spirit of the philosopher, though it could never +reach the hearts of the suffering multitude. For "suppose," he says, +"that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast +made by nature a part, but now hast cut thyself off--<i>yet here is the +beautiful provision that it is in thy power again to unite thyself</i>. God +has allowed this to no other part--after it has been separated and cut +asunder, to come together again. <i>But consider the goodness with which +He has privileged man; for He has put it in his power, when he has been +separated, to return and to be reunited, and to resume his place</i>" And +elsewhere he says, "If you cannot maintain a true and magnanimous +character, go courageously into some corner where you <i>can</i> maintain +them; or if even there you fail, depart at once from life, not with +passion, but with modest and simple freedom--which will be to have done +at least <i>one</i> laudable act." Sad that even to Marcus Aurelius death +should have seemed the only refuge from the despair of ultimate failure +in the struggle to be wise and good!</p> + +<p>Marcus valued temperance and self-denial as being the best means of +keeping his heart strong and pure; but we are glad to learn he did <i>not</i> +value the rigours of asceticism. Life brought with it enough, and more +than enough, of antagonism to brace his nerves; enough, and more than +enough, of the rough wind of adversity in his face to make it +unnecessary to add more by his own actions. "It is not fit," he says, +"that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given +pain even to another." (viii. 42.)</p> + +<p>It was a commonplace of ancient philosophy that the life of the wise man +should be a contemplation of, and a preparation for, death. It certainly +was so with Marcus Aurelius. The thoughts of the nothingness of man, and +of that great sea of oblivion which shall hereafter swallow up all that +he is and does, are ever present to his mind; they are thoughts to which +he recurs more constantly than any other, and from which he always draws +the same moral lesson.</p> + +<p>"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very +moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.... Death certainly, +and life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, all these things +happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither +better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil." (ii. 11.)</p> + +<p>Elsewhere he says that Hippocrates cured diseases and died; and the +Chaldaeans foretold the future and died; and Alexander, and Pompey, and +Caesar killed thousands, and then died; and lice destroyed Democritus, +and other lice killed Socrates; and Augustus, and his wife, and +daughter, and all his descendants, and all his ancestors, are dead; and +Vespasian and all his Court, and all who in his day feasted, and +married, and were sick and chaffered, and fought, and flattered, and +plotted, and grumbled, and wished other people to die, and pined to +become kings or consuls, are dead; and all the idle people who are doing +the same things now are doomed to die; and all human things are smoke, +and nothing at all; and it is not for us, but for the gods, to settle +whether we play the play out, or only a part of it. "<i>There are many +grains of frankincense on the same altar; one falls before, another +falls after; but it makes no difference.</i>" And the moral of all these +thoughts is, "Death hangs over thee while thou livest: while it is in +thy power be good." (iv. 17.) "Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the +voyage, thou hast come to shore; get out. If, indeed, to another life +there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without +sensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures." (iii. 3.)</p> + +<p>Nor was Marcus at all comforted under present annoyances by the thought +of posthumous fame. "How ephemeral and worthless human things are," he +says, "and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy +or ashes." "Many who are now praising thee, will very soon blame thee, +and neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor +anything else." What has become of all great and famous men, and all +they desired, and all they loved? They are "smoke, and ash, and a tale, +or not even a tale." After all their rages and envyings, men are +stretched out quiet and dead at last. Soon thou wilt have forgotten all, +and soon all will have forgotten thee. But here, again, after such +thoughts, the same moral is always introduced again:--"Pass then through +the little space of time conformably to nature, and end the journey in +content, <i>just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature +who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew</i>" "One thing +only troubles me, lest I should do something which the constitution of +man does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow, or what it +does not allow now."</p> + +<p>To quote the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius is to me a fascinating task. But +I have already let him speak so largely for himself that by this time +the reader will have some conception of his leading motives. It only +remains to adduce a few more of the weighty and golden sentences in +which he lays down his rule of life.</p> + +<p>"To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, +and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour; and life is a +warfare, and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. What, +then, is that which is able to enrich a man? One thing, and only +one--philosophy. But this consists in keeping the guardian spirit within +a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, +<i>doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely, and with +hypocrisy</i>... <i>accepting all that happens and all that is +allotted</i> ... <i>and finally waiting for death with a cheerful +mind</i>" (ii. 17.)</p> + +<p>"If thou findest in human life anything better than justice, truth, +temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than thine own soul's +satisfaction in the things which it enables thee to do according to +right reason, and In the condition that is assigned to thee without thy +own choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, turn to it +with all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou hast found to be the best. +But ... if thou findest everything else smaller and of less value than +this, give place to nothing else.... Simply and freely choose the +better, and hold to it." (iii. 6.)</p> + +<p>"Body, soul, intelligence: to the body belong sensations, to the soul +appetites, to the intelligence principles." To be impressed by the +senses is peculiar to animals; to be pulled by the strings of desire +belongs to effeminate men, and to men like Phalaris or Nero; to be +guided only by intelligence belongs to atheists and traitors, and "men +who do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors.... There +remains that which is peculiar to the good man, <i>to be pleased and +content with what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him; +and not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast</i>, nor +disturb it by a crowd of images; but to preserve it tranquil, following +it obediently as a god, neither saying anything contrary to truth, nor +doing anything contrary to justice. (iii. 16.)</p> + +<p>"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, +and mountains, and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. +But this is altogether a mark of the commonest sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt chose to retire into thyself. For <i>nowhere +either with more quiet or with more freedom does a man retire than into +his own soul</i>, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by +looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity,--which is +nothing else than the good ordering of the mind." (iv. 3.)</p> + +<p>"Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am I +<i>though</i> this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain; +neither crushed by the present, nor fearing the future." (iv. 19.)</p> + +<p>It is just possible that in some of these passages some readers may +detect a trace of painful self-consciousness, and <i>imagine</i> that they +detect a little grain of self-complacence. Something of +self-consciousness is perhaps inevitable in the diary and examination +of his own conscience by one who sat on such a lonely height; but +self-complacency there is none. Nay, there is sometimes even a cruel +sternness in the way in which the Emperor speaks of his own self. He +certainly dealt not with himself in the manner of a dissembler with God. +"When," he says (x. 8), "thou hast assumed the names of a man who is +good, modest, rational, magnanimous, cling to those names; and if thou +shouldst lose them, quickly return to them.... <i>For to continue to</i> <i>be +such as thou hast hitherto been</i>, and to be torn in pieces, and defiled +in such a life, is the character of a very stupid man, and one over-fond +of his life, and <i>like those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, +who, though covered with wounds and gore, still entreat to be kept till +the following day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the +same claws and bites</i>. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these +few names: and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou were +removed to the Islands of the Blest." Alas! to Aurelius, in this life, +the Islands of the Blest were very far away. Heathen philosophy was +exalted and eloquent, but all its votaries were sad; to "the peace of +God, which passeth all understanding," it was not given them to attain. +We see Marcus "wise, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless," says +Mr. Arnold, "yet with all this agitated, stretching out his arms for +something beyond--<i>tendentemque manue ripae ulterioris amore</i>"</p> + +<p>I will quote in conclusion but three short precepts:--</p> + +<p>"Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tranquillity which +others give. <i>A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by +others</i>." (iv. 5.)</p> + +<p>"<i>Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but +it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it</i>" (iv. 49.)</p> + +<p>This comparison has been used many a time since the days of Marcus +Aurelius. The reader will at once recall Goldsmith's famous lines:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"As some tall cliff that rears its awful form,<br> + Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,<br> + Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,<br> + Eternal sunshine settles on its head."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Short is the little that remains to thee of life. <i>Live as on a +mountain</i>. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here, +if he lives everywhere in the world as in a civil community. Let men +see, let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live. If they +cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live as +men do." (x. 15.)</p> + +<p>Such were some of the thoughts which Marcus Aurelius wrote in his diary +after days of battle with the Quadi, and the Marcomanni, and the +Sarmatae. Isolated from others no less by moral grandeur than by the +supremacy of his sovereign rank, he sought the society of his own noble +soul. I sometimes imagine that I see him seated on the borders of some +gloomy Pannonian forest or Hungarian marsh; through the darkness the +watchfires of the enemy gleam in the distance; but both among them, and +in the camp around him, every sound is hushed, except the tread of the +sentinel outside the imperial tent; and in that tent long after midnight +sits the patient Emperor by the light of his solitary lamp, and ever and +anon, amid his lonely musings, he pauses to write down the pure and holy +thoughts which shall better enable him, even in a Roman palace, even on +barbarian battlefields, daily to tolerate the meanness and the +malignity of the men around him; daily to amend his own shortcomings, +and, as the sun of earthly life begins to set, daily to draw nearer and +nearer to the Eternal Light. And when I thus think of him, I know not +whether the whole of heathen antiquity, out of its gallery of stately +and royal figures, can furnish a nobler, or purer, or more lovable +picture than that of this crowned philosopher and laurelled hero, who +was yet one of the humblest and one of the most enlightened of all +ancient "Seekers after God."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CONCLUSION."></a>CONCLUSION.</h2> + +<p>A sceptical writer has observed, with something like a sneer, that the +noblest utterances of Gospel morality may be paralleled from the +writings of heathen philosophers. The sneer is pointless, and Christian +moralists have spontaneously drawn attention to the fact. In this +volume, so far from trying to conceal that it is so, I have taken +pleasure in placing side by side the words of Apostles and of +Philosophers. The divine origin of Christianity does not rest on its +morality alone. By the aid of the light which was within them, by +deciphering the law written on their own consciences, however much its +letters may have been obliterated or dimmed, Plato, and Cicero, and +Seneca, and Epictetus, and Aurelius were enabled to grasp and to +enunciate a multitude of great and memorable truths; yet they themselves +would have been the first to admit the wavering uncertainty of their +hopes and speculations, and the absolute necessity of a further +illumination. So strong did that necessity appear to some of the wisest +among them, that Socrates ventures in express words to prophesy the +future advent of some heaven-sent Guide.<a name="FNanchor70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70">[70]</a> Those who imagine that +<i>without</i> a written revelation it would have been possible to learn all +that is necessary for man's well-being, are speaking in direct +contradiction of the greatest heathen teachers, in contradiction even of +those very teachers to whose writing they point as the proof of their +assertion. Augustine was expressing a very deep conviction when he said +that in Plato and in Cicero he met with many utterances which were +beautiful and wise, but among them all he never found, "Come unto me, +all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." +Glorious as was the wisdom of ancient thought, its knowledge respecting +the indwelling of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and the +forgiveness of sins, was but fragmentary and vague. Bishop Butler has +justly remarked that "The great doctrines of a future state, the dangers +of a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance are not only +<i>confirmed</i> in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with +a degree of light to which that of nature is darkness."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor70">[70]</a> Xen. Mem. 1, iv. 14; Plato, Alcib. ii. +</blockquote> + +<p>The morality of Paganism was, on its own confession, <i>insufficient</i>. It +was tentative, where Christianity is authoritative: it was dim and +partial, where Christianity is bright and complete; it was inadequate to +rouse the sluggish carelessness of mankind, where Christianity came in +with an imperial and awakening power; it gives only a <i>rule</i>, where +Christianity supplies a <i>principle</i>. And even where its teachings were +absolutely coincident with those of Scripture, it failed to ratify them +with a sufficient sanction; it failed to announce them with the same +powerful and contagious ardour; it failed to furnish an absolutely +faultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire them +with an irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a powerful +comfort under the difficulties which were sure to be encountered in the +aim after a consistent and holy life.</p> + +<p>The attempts of the Christian Fathers to show that the truths of ancient +philosophy were borrowed from Scripture are due in some cases to +ignorance and in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial +dealing. That Gideon (Jerubbaal) is identical with the priest +Hierombalos who supplied information to Sanchoniathon, the Berytian; +that Thales pieced together a philosophy from fragments of Jewish truth +learned in Phoenicia; that Pythagoras and Democritus availed themselves +of Hebraic traditions, collected during their travels; that Plato is a +mere "Atticising Moses;" that Aristotle picked up his ethical system +from a Jew whom he met in Asia; that Seneca corresponded with St. Paul: +are assertions every bit as unhistorical and false as that Homer was +thinking of Genesis when he described the shield of Achilles, or (as +Clemens of Alexandria gravely informs us) that Miltiades won the battle +of Marathon by copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say +that Pagan morality "kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, +whether furtively or unconsciously taken," and that it "dissembled the +obligation, and made a boast of the splendour as though it were +originally her own, or were sufficient in her hands for the moral +illumination of the world;" is to make an assertion wholly +untenable.<a name="FNanchor71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71">[71]</a> Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius, are among the truest and +loftiest of Pagan moralists, yet Seneca ignored the Christians, +Epictetus despised, and Aurelius persecuted them. All three, so far as +they knew anything about the Christians at all, had unhappily been +taught to look upon them as the most detestable sect of what they had +long regarded as the most degraded and the most detestable of religions.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor71">[71]</a> See for various statements in this passage, Josephus, <i>c. +Apion</i>. ii. Section 36; Cic. <i>De Fin</i>. v. 25; Clem. Alex. <i>Strom</i>, 1, +xxii. 150, xxv. v. 14; Euseb.; <i>Prof. Evang</i>. x. 4, ix. 5, &c.; Lactant. +<i>Inst. Div</i>. iv. 2, &c. +</blockquote> + +<p>There is something very touching in this fact; but, if there be +something very touching, there is also something very encouraging. God +was their God as well as ours--their Creator, their Preserver, who left +not Himself without witness among them; who, as they blindly felt after +Him, suffered their groping hands to grasp the hem of His robe; who sent +them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with +joy and gladness. And His Spirit was with them, dwelling in them, though +unseen and unknown, purifying and sanctifying the temple of their +hearts, sending gleams of illuminating light through the gross darkness +which encompassed them, comforting their uncertainties, making +intercession for them with groaning which cannot be uttered. And more +than all, <i>our</i> Saviour was <i>their</i> Saviour, too; He, whom they regarded +as a crucified malefactor was their true invisible King; through His +righteousness their poor merits were accepted; their inward sicknesses +were healed; He whose worship they denounced as an "execrable +superstition" stood supplicating for them at the right hand of the +Majesty on high, helping them (though they knew Him not) to crush all +that was evil within them, and pleading for them when they persecuted +even the most beloved of His saints, "Father, forgive them; for they +know not what they do."</p> + +<p>Yes, they too were all His offspring. Even if they had not been, should +we grudge that some of the children's meat should be given unto dogs? +Shall we deny to these "unconscious prophecies of heathendom" their +oracular significance? Shall we be jealous of the ethical loftiness of +a Plato or an Aurelius? Shall we be loth to admit that some power of the +Spirit of Christ, even mid the dark wanderings of Seneca's life, kept +him still conscious of a nobler and a better way, or that some sweetness +of a divine hope inspired the depressions of Epictetus in his slavery? +Shall our eye be evil because God in His goodness granted the heathen +also to know such truths as enabled them "to overcome the allurements of +the visible and the terrors of the invisible world?" Yes, if we have of +the Christian Church so mean a conception that we look upon it as a mere +human society, "set up in the world to defend a certain religion against +a certain other religion." But if on the other hand we believe "that it +was <i>a society established by God as a witness for the true condition of +all human beings</i>, we shall rejoice to acknowledge its members to be +what they believed themselves to be,--confessors and martyrs for a truth +which they could not fully embrace or comprehend, but which, through +their lives and deaths, through the right and wrong acts, the true and +false words, of those who understand them least, was to manifest and +prove itself. Those who hold this conviction dare not conceal, or +misrepresent, or undervalue, any one of those weighty and memorable +sentences which are to be found in the <i>Meditation</i> of Marcus Aurelius. +<i>If they did, they would be underrating a portion of that very truth +which the preachers of the Gospel were appointed to set forth</i>; they +would be adopting the error of the philosophical Emperor without his +excuse for it. Nor dare they pretend that the Christian teaching had +unconsciously imparted to him a portion of its own light while he seemed +to exclude it. They will believe that it was God's good pleasure that a +certain truth should be seized and apprehended by this age, and they +will see indications of what that truth was in the efforts of Plutarch +to understand the 'Daemon' which guided Socrates, in the courageous +language of Ignatius, in the bewildering dreams of the Gnostics, in the +eagerness of Justin Martyr to prove Christianity a philosophy ... in the +apprehension of Christian principles by Marcus Aurelius, and in his +hatred of the Christians. From every side they will derive evidence, +<i>that a doctrine and society which were meant for mankind cannot depend +upon, the partial views and apprehensions of men, must go on justifying, +reconciling, confuting, those views and apprehensions by the +demonstration of facts</i>" <a name="FNanchor72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72">[72]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor72">[72]</a> Maurice, <i>Philos. of the First Six Centuries</i>, p. 37. We +venture specially to recommend this weighty and beautiful passage to the +reader's serious attention. +</blockquote> + +<p>But perhaps some reader will say, What advantage, then, can we gain by +studying in Pagan writers truths which are expressed more nobly, more +clearly, and infinitely more effectually in our own sacred books? Before +answering the question, let me mention the traditional anecdote<a name="FNanchor73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73">[73]</a> of +the Caliph Omar. When he conquered Alexandria, he was shown its +magnificent library, in which were collected untold treasures of +literature, gathered together by the zeal, the labour, and the +liberality of a dynasty of kings. "What is the good of all those books?" +he said. "They are either in accordance with the Koran, or contrary to +it. If the former they are superfluous; if the latter they are +pernicious. In either case let them be burnt." Burnt they were, as +legend tells; but all the world has condemned the Caliph's reasoning as +a piece of stupid Philistinism and barbarous bigotry. Perhaps the +question as to the <i>use</i> of reading Pagan ethics is equally +unphilosophical; at any rate, we can spare but very few words to its +consideration. The answer obviously is, that God has spoken to men, +[Greek: polymeros kai polytropos], "at sundry times and in divers +manners," <a name="FNanchor74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74">[74]</a> with a richly variegated wisdom.<a name="FNanchor75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75">[75]</a> Sometimes He has +taught truth by the voice of Hebrew prophets, sometimes by the voice of +Pagan philosophers. And <i>all</i> His voices demand our listening ear. If it +was given to the Jew to speak with diviner insight and intenser power, +it is given to the Gentile also to speak at times with a large and lofty +utterance, and we may learn truth from men of alien lips and another +tongue. They, too, had the dream, the vision, the dark saying upon the +harp, the "daughter of a voice," the mystic flashes upon the graven +gems. And such truths come to us with a singular force and freshness; +with a strange beauty as the doctrines of a less brightly illuminated +manhood; with a new power of conviction from their originality of form, +which, because it is less familiar to us, is well calculated to arrest +our attention after it has been paralysed by familiar repetitions. We +cannot afford to lose these heathen testimonies to Christian truth; or +to hush the glorious utterances of Muse and Sibyl which have justly +outlived "the drums and tramplings of a hundred triumphs." We may make +them infinitely profitable to us. If St. Paul quotes Aratus, and +Menander, and Epimenides,<a name="FNanchor76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76">[76]</a> and perhaps more than one lyrical melody +besides, with earnest appreciation,--if the inspired Apostle could both +learn himself and teach others out of the utterances of a Cretan +philosopher and an Attic comedian, we may be sure that many of Seneca's +apophthegams would have filled him with pleasure, and that he would have +been able to read Epictetus and Aurelius with the same noble admiration +which made him see with thankful emotion that memorable altar TO THE +UNKNOWN GOD.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor73">[73]</a> Now known to be unhistorical. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor74">[74]</a> Heb. i. 1. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor75">[75]</a> [Greek: polypoikilos dophia]. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor76">[76]</a> See Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor.; Tit. i. 12. +</blockquote> + +<p>Let us then make a brief and final sketch of the three great Stoics +whose lives we have been contemplating, with a view to summing up their +specialties, their deficiencies, and the peculiar relations to, or +divergences from, Christian truth, which their writings present to us.</p> + +<p>"Seneca saepe noster," "Seneca, often our own," is the expression of +Tertullian, and he uses it as an excuse for frequent references to his +works. Yet if, of the three, he be most like Christianity in particular +passages, he diverges most widely from it in his general spirit.</p> + +<p>He diverges from Christianity in many of his modes of regarding life, +and in many of his most important beliefs. What, for instance, is his +main conception of the Deity? Seneca is generally a Pantheist. No doubt +he speaks of God's love and goodness, but with him God is no personal +living Father, but the soul of the universe--the fiery, primaeval, +eternal principle which transfuses an inert, and no less eternal, +matter, and of which our souls are, as it were, but divine particles or +passing sparks. "God," he says, "is Nature, is Fate, is Fortune, is the +Universe, is the all-pervading Mind. He cannot change the substance of +the universe, He is himself under the power of Destiny, which is +uncontrollable and immutable. It is not God who rolls the thunder, it is +Fate. He does not rejoice in His works, but is identical with them." In +fact, Seneca would have heartily adopted the words of Pope:</p> + +<blockquote> +"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,<br> + Whose body nature is, and God the soul."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Though there may be a vague sense in which those words may be admitted +and explained by Christians, yet, in the mind of Seneca, they led to +conclusions directly opposed to those of Christianity. With him, for +instance, the wise man is the <i>equal</i> of God; not His adorer, not His +servant, not His suppliant, but His associate, His relation. He differs +from God in time alone. Hence all prayer is needless he says, and the +forms of external worship are superfluous and puerile. It is foolish to +beg for that which you can impart to yourself. "What need is there of +<i>vows</i>? Make <i>yourself</i> happy." Nay, in the intolerable arrogance which +marked the worst aberration of Stoicism, the wise man is under certain +aspects placed even higher than God--higher than God Himself--because +God is beyond the reach of misfortunes, but the wise man is superior to +their anguish; and because God is good of necessity, but the wise man +from choice. This wretched and inflated paradox occurs in Seneca's +treatise <i>On Providence</i>, and in the same treatise he glorifies suicide, +and expresses a doubt as to the immortality of the soul.</p> + +<p>Again, the two principles on which Seneca relied as the basis of all his +moral system are: first, the principle that we ought to follow Nature; +and, secondly, the supposed perfectibility of the ideal man.</p> + +<p>1. Now, of course, if we explain this precept of "following Nature" as +Juvenal has explained it, and say that the voice of Nature is always +coincident with the voice of philosophy--if we prove that our real +nature is none other than the dictate of our highest and most nobly +trained reason, and if we can establish the fact that every deed of +cruelty, of shame, of lust, or of selfishness, is essentially +<i>contrary</i> to our nature--then we may say with Bishop Butler, that the +precept to "follow Nature" is "a manner of speaking not loose and +undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." But how +complete must be the system, how long the preliminary training, which +alone can enable us to find any practical value, any appreciable aid to +a virtuous life, in a dogma such as this! And, in the hands of Seneca, +it becomes a very empty formula. He entirely lacked the keen insight and +dialectic subtlety of such a writer as Bishop Butler; and, in his +explanation of this Stoical shibboleth, any real meaning which it may +possess is evaporated into a gorgeous mist of confused declamation and +splendid commonplace.</p> + +<p>2. Nor is he much more fortunate with his ideal man. This pompous +abstraction presents us with a conception at once ambitious and sterile. +The Stoic wise man is a sort of moral Phoenix, impossible and repulsive. +He is intrepid in dangers, free from all passion, happy in adversity, +calm in the storm; he alone knows how to live, because he alone knows +how to die; he is the master of the world, because he is master of +himself, and the equal of God; he looks down upon everything with +sublime imperturbability, despising the sadnesses of humanity and +smiling with irritating loftiness at all our hopes and all our fears. +But, in another sketch of this faultless and unpleasant monster, Seneca +presents us, not the proud athlete who challenges the universe and is +invulnerable to all the stings and arrows of passion or of fate, but a +hero in the serenity of absolute triumph, more tender, indeed, but still +without desires, without passions, without needs, who can fell no pity, +because pity is a weakness which disturbs his sapient calm! Well might +the eloquent Bossuet exclaim, as he read of these chimerical +perfections, "It is to take a tone too lofty for feeble and mortal men. +But, O maxims truly pompous! O affected insensibility! O false and +imaginary wisdom! which fancies itself strong because it is hard, and +generous because it is puffed up! How are these principles opposed to +the modest simplicity of the Saviour of souls, who, in our Gospel +contemplating His faithful ones in affliction, confesses that they will +be saddened by it! <i>Ye shall weep and lament</i>." Shall Christians be +jealous of such wisdom as Stoicism did really attain, when they compare +this dry and bloodless ideal with Him who wept over Jerusalem and +mourned by the grave of Lazarus, who had a mother and a friend, who +disdained none, who pitied all, who humbled Himself to death, even the +death of the cross, whose divine excellence we cannot indeed attain +because He is God, but whose example we can imitate because He was +very man?<a name="FNanchor77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77">[77]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor77">[77]</a> See Martha, <i>Les Moralistes</i>, p. 50; Aubertin, <i>Sénèque et +St. Paul</i> p. 250. +</blockquote> + +<p>The one grand aim of the life and philosophy of Seneca was <i>Ease</i>. It is +the topic which constantly recurs in his books <i>On a Happy Life, On +Tranquility of Mind, On Anger</i>, and <i>On the Ease</i> and <i>On the Firmness +of the Sage</i>. It is the pitiless apathy, the stern repression, of every +form of emotion, which was constantly glorified as the aim of +philosophy. It made Stilpo exclaim, when he had lost wife, property, and +children, that he had lost nothing, because he carried in his own person +everything which he possessed. It led Seneca into all that is most +unnatural, all that is most fantastic, and all that is least sincere in +his writings; it was the bitter source of disgrace and failure in his +life. It comes out worst of all in his book <i>On Anger</i>. Aristotle had +said that "Anger was a good servant but a bad master;" Plato had +recognized the immense value and importance of the irascible element in +the moral constitution. Even Christian writers, in spite of Bishop +Butler, have often lost sight of this truth, and have forgotten that to +a noble nature "the hate of hate" and the "scorn of scorn" are as +indispensable as "the love of love." But Seneca almost gets angry +himself at the very notion of the wise man being angry and indignant +even against moral evil. No, he must not get angry, because it would +disturb his sublime calm; and, if he allowed himself to be angry at +wrong-doing, he would have to be angry all day long. This practical +Epicureanism, this idle acquiescence in the supposed incurability of +evil, poisoned all Seneca's career. "He had tutored himself," says +Professor Maurice, "to endure personal injuries without indulging an +anger; he had tutored himself to look upon all moral evil without anger. +If the doctrine is sound and the discipline desirable, we must be +content to take the whole result of them. If we will not do that, we +must resolve to hate oppression and wrong, <i>even at the cost of +philosophical composure"</i> But repose is not to be our aim:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"We have no right to bliss,<br> + No title from the gods to welfare and repose."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>It is one of the truths which seems to me most needed in the modern +religious world, that the type of a Christian's virtue must be very +miserable, and ordinary, and ineffectual, if he does not feel his whole +soul burn within him with an almost implacable moral indignation at the +sight of cruelty and injustice, of Pharisaic faithlessness and +social crimes.</p> + +<p>I have thus freely criticised the radical defects of Stoicism, so far +as Seneca is its legitimate exponent; but I cannot consent to leave him +with the language of depreciation, and therefore here I will once more +endorse what an anonymous writer has said of him: "An unconscious +Christianity covers all his sentiments. If the fair fame of the man is +sullied, the aspiration to a higher life cannot be denied to the +philosopher; if the tinkling cymbal of a stilted Stoicism sometimes +sounds through the nobler music, it still leaves the truer melody +vibrating on the ear."</p> + +<p>2. If Seneca sought for EASE, the grand aim of Epictetus was FREEDOM, of +Marcus Aurelius was SELF-GOVERNMENT. This difference of aim +characterises their entire philosophy, though all three of them are +filled with precepts which arise from the Stoical contempt of opinion, +of fortune, and of death. "Epictetus, the slave, with imperturbable +calm, voluntarily strikes off the desire for all those blessings of +which fortune had already deprived him. Seneca, who lived in the Court, +fenced himself beforehand against misfortune with the spirit of a man of +the world and the emphasis of a master of eloquence. Marcus Aurelius, at +the zenith of human power--having nothing to dread except his passions, +and finding nothing above him except immutable necessity,--surveys his +own soul and meditates especially on the eternal march of things. The +one is the resigned slave, who neither desires nor fears; the other, the +great lord, who has everything to lose; the third, finally, the emperor, +who is dependent only on himself and upon God."</p> + +<p>Of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius we shall have very little to say by way +of summary, for they show no inconsistencies and very few of the +imperfections which characterise Seneca's ideal of the Stoic philosophy. +The "moral peddling," the pedagogic display, the puerile ostentation, +the antithetic brilliancy, which we have had to point out in Seneca, are +wanting in them. The picture of the <i>inner</i> life, indeed, of Seneca, his +efforts after self-discipline, his untiring asceticism, his enthusiasm +for all that he esteems holy and of good report-this picture, marred as +it is by rhetoric and vain self-conceit, yet "stands out in noble +contrast to the swinishness of the Campanian villas, and is, in its +complex entirety, very sad and affecting." And yet we must admit, in the +words of the same writer, that when we go from Seneca to Epictetus and +Marcus Aurelius, "it is going from the florid to the severe, from varied +feeling to the impersonal simplicity of the teacher, often from idle +rhetoric to devout earnestness." As far as it goes, the morality of +these two great Stoics is entirely noble and entirely beautiful. If +there be even in Epictetus some passing and occasional touch of Stoic +arrogance and Stoic apathy; if there be in Marcus Aurelius a depth and +intensity of sadness which shows how comparatively powerless for comfort +was a philosophy which glorified suicide, which knew but little of +immortality, and which lost in vague Pantheism the unspeakable blessing +of realizing a personal relation to a personal God and Father--there is +yet in both of them enough and more than enough to show that in all ages +and in all countries they who have sought for God have found Him, that +they have attained to high principles of thought and to high standards +of action--that they have been enabled, even in the thick darkness, +resolutely to place their feet at least on the lowest rounds of that +ladder of sunbeams which winds up through the darkness to the great +Father of Lights.</p> + +<p>And yet the very existence of such men is in itself a significant +comment upon the Scriptural decision that "the world by wisdom knew not +God." For how many like them, out of all the records of antiquity, is it +possible for us to count? Are there five men in the whole circle of +ancient history and ancient literature to whom we could, without a sense +of incongruity, accord the title of "holy?" When we have mentioned +Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, I hardly know of another. +<i>Just</i> men there were in multitudes--men capable of high actions; men +eminently worthy to be loved; men, I doubt not, who, when the children +of the kingdom shall be rejected, shall be gathered from the east and +the west with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into the kingdom of heaven. +Yes, <i>just</i> men in multitudes; but how many <i>righteous</i>, how many +<i>holy</i>? Some, doubtless, whom we do not know, whose names were never +written, even for a few years, on the records of mankind--men and women +in unknown villages and humble homes, "the faithful who were not +famous." We do not doubt that there were such--but were they +<i>relatively</i> numerous? If those who rose above the level of the +multitude--if those whom some form of excellence, and often of virtue, +elevated into the reverence of their fellows--present to us a few +examples of stainless life, can we hope that a tolerable ideal of +sanctity was attained by any large proportion of the ordinary myriads? +Seeing that the dangerous lot of the majority was cast amid the +weltering sea of popular depravity, can we venture to hope that many of +them succeeded in reaching some green island of purity, integrity, and +calm? We can hardly think it; and yet, in the dispensation of the +Kingdom of Heaven we see such a condition daily realized. Not only do we +see many of the eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and +obscure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with a light +from heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not known such men in +person, and whose hopes and habits have not caught some touch of +radiance reflected from the nobility and virtue of lives like these. The +thought has been well expressed by the author of <i>Ecce Homo</i>, and we may +well ask with him, "If this be so, has Christ failed, or can +Christianity die?"</p> + +<p>No, it has not failed; it cannot die; for the saving knowledge which it +has imparted is the most inestimable blessing which God has granted to +our race. We have watched philosophy in its loftiest flight, but that +flight rose as far above the range of the Pagan populace as Ida or +Olympus rises above the plain: and even the topmost crests of Ida and +Olympus are immeasurably below the blue vault, the body of heaven in its +clearness, to which it has been granted to some Christians to attain. As +regards the multitude, philosophy had no influence over the heart and +character; "it was sectarian, not universal; the religion of the few, +not of the many. It exercised no creative power over political or social +life; it stood in no such relation to the past as the New Testament to +the Old. Its best thoughts were but views and aspects of the truth; +there was no centre around which they moved, no divine life by which +they were impelled; they seemed to vanish and flit in uncertain +succession of light." But Christianity, on the other hand, glowed with a +steady and unwavering brightness; it not only swayed the hearts of +individuals by stirring them to their utmost depths, but it moulded the +laws of nations, and regenerated the whole condition of society. It +gave to mankind a fresh sanction in the word of Christ, a perfect +example in His life, a powerful motive in His love, an all sufficient +comfort in the life of immortality made sure and certain to us by His +Resurrection and Ascension. But if without this sanction, and example, +and motive, and comfort, the pagans could learn to do His will,--if, +amid the gross darkness through which glitters the degraded civilization +of imperial Rome, an Epictetus and an Aurelius could live blameless +lives in a cell and on a throne, and a Seneca could practise simplicity +and self-denial in the midst of luxury and pride--how much loftier +should be both the zeal and the attainments of us to whom God has spoken +by His Son? What manner of men ought we to be? If Tyre and Sidon and +Sodom shall rise in the judgment to bear witness against Chorazin and +Bethsaida, may not the pure lives of these great Seekers after God add a +certain emphasis of condemnation to the vice, the pettiness, the +mammon-worship of many among us to whom His love, His nature, His +attributes have been revealed with a clearness and fullness of knowledge +for which kings and philosophers have sought indeed and sought +earnestly, but sought in vain?</p> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<pre> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10846 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4dfdf4b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10846 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10846) diff --git a/old/10846-8.txt b/old/10846-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e33766b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10846-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8781 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Seekers after God, by Frederic William Farrar + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Seekers after God + +Author: Frederic William Farrar + +Release Date: January 28, 2004 [eBook #10846] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEKERS AFTER GOD*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +SEEKERS AFTER GOD + +BY THE REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., + +CANON OF WESTMINSTER. + + + + + + + +SENECA. + + + "Ce nuage frangé de rayons qui toucbe presqu' à l'immortelle aurore + des vérités chrétiennes."--PONTMAOTIN. + +INTRODUCTORY. + +On the banks of the Baetis--the modern Guadalquiver,--and under the +woods that crown the southern slopes of the Sierra Morena, lies the +beautiful and famous city of Cordova. It had been selected by Marcellus +as the site of a Roman colony; and so many Romans and Spaniards of high +rank chose it for their residence, that it obtained from Augustus the +honourable surname of the "Patrician Colony." Spain, during this period +of the Empire, exercised no small influence upon the literature and +politics of Rome. No less than three great Emperors--Trajan, Hadrian, +and Theodosius,--were natives of Spain. Columella, the writer on +agriculture, was born at Cadiz; Quintilian, the great writer on the +education of an orator, was born at Calahorra; the poet Martial was a +native of Bilbilis; but Cordova could boast the yet higher honour of +having given birth to the Senecas, an honour which won for it the +epithet of "The Eloquent." A ruin is shown to modern travellers which +is popularly called the House of Seneca, and the fact is at least a +proof that the city still retains some memory of its illustrious sons. + +Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher, was by rank a +Roman knight. What causes had led him or his family to settle in Spain +we do not know, and the names Annaeus and Seneca are alike obscure. It +has been vaguely conjectured that both names may involve an allusion to +the longevity of some of the founders of the family, for Annaeus seems +to be connected with _annus_, a year, and Seneca with _senex_, an old +man. The common English composite plant ragwort is called _senecio_ from +the white and feathery pappus or appendage of its seeds; and similarly, +Isidore says that the first Seneca was so named because "he was born +with white hair." + +Although the father of Seneca was of knightly rank, his family had never +risen to any eminence; it belonged to the class of _nouveaux riches_, +and we do not know whether it was of Roman or of Spanish descent. But +his mother Helvia--an uncommon name, which, by a curious coincidence, +belonged also to the mother of Cicero--was a Spanish lady; and it was +from her that Seneca, as well as his famous nephew, the poet Lucan, +doubtless derived many of the traits which mark their intellect and +their character. There was in the Spaniard a richness and splendour of +imagination, an intensity and warmth, a touch of "phantasy and flame," +which we find in these two men of genius, and which was wholly wanting +to the Roman temperament. + +Of Cordova itself, except in a single epigram, Seneca makes no mention; +but this epigram suffices to show that he must have been familiar with +its stirring and memorable traditions. The elder Seneca must have been +living at Cordova during all the troublous years of civil war, when his +native city caused equal offence to Pompey and to Caesar. Doubtless, +too, he would have had stories to tell of the noble Sertorius, and of +the tame fawn which gained for him the credit of divine assistance; and +contemporary reminiscences of that day of desperate disaster when +Caesar, indignant that Cordova should have embraced the cause of the +sons of Pompey, avenged himself by a massacre of 22,000 of the citizens. +From his mother Helvia, Seneca must often have heard about the fierce +and gallant struggle in which her country had resisted the iron yoke of +Rome. Many a time as a boy must he have been told how long and how +heroically Saguntum had withstood the assaults and baffled the triumph +of Hannibal; how bravely Viriathus had fought, and how shamefully he +fell; and how at length the unequal contest, which reduced Spain to the +condition of a province, was closed, when the heroic defenders of +Numantia, rather than yield to Scipio, reduced their city to a heap of +bloodstained ruins. + +But, whatever may have been the extent to which Seneca was influenced by +the Spanish blood which flowed in his veins, and the Spanish legends on +which his youth was fed, it was not in Spain that his lot was cast. When +he was yet an infant in arms his father, with all his family, emigrated +from Cordova to Rome. What may have been the special reason for this +important step we do not know; possibly, like the father of Horace, the +elder Seneca may have sought a better education for his sons than could +be provided by even so celebrated a provincial town as Cordova; +possibly--for he belonged to a somewhat pushing family--he may have +desired to gain fresh wealth and honour in the imperial city. + +Thither we must follow him; and, as it is our object not only to depict +a character but also to sketch the characteristics of a very memorable +age in the world's history, we must try to get a glimpse of the family +in the midst of which our young philosopher grew up, of the kind of +education which he received, and of the influences which were likely to +tell upon him during his childish and youthful years. Only by such means +shall we be able to judge of him aright. And it is worth while to try +and gain a right conception of the man, not only because he was very +eminent as a poet, an author, and a politician, not only because he +fills a very prominent place in the pages of the great historian, who +has drawn so immortal a picture of Rome under the Emperors; not only +because in him we can best study the inevitable signs which mark, even +in the works of men of genius, a degraded people and a decaying +literature; but because he was, as the title of this volume designates +him, a "SEEKER AFTER GOD." Whatever may have been the dark and +questionable actions of his life--and in this narrative we shall +endeavor to furnish a plain and unvarnished picture of the manner in +which he lived,--it is certain that, as a philosopher and as a moralist, +he furnishes us with the grandest and most eloquent series of truths to +which, unilluminated by Christianity, the thoughts of man have ever +attained. The purest and most exalted philosophic sect of antiquity was +"the sect of the Stoics;" and Stoicism never found a literary exponent +more ardent, more eloquent, or more enlightened than Lucius Annaeus +Seneca. So nearly, in fact, does he seem to have arrived at the truths +of Christianity, that to many it seemed a matter for marvel that he +could have known them without having heard them from inspired lips. He +is constantly cited with approbation by some of the most eminent +Christian fathers. Tertullian, Lactantius, even St. Augustine himself, +quote his words with marked admiration, and St. Jerome appeals to him as +"_our_ Seneca." The Council of Trent go further still, and quote him as +though he were an acknowledged father of the Church. For many centuries +there were some who accepted as genuine the spurious letters supposed to +have been interchanged between Seneca and St. Paul, in which Seneca is +made to express a wish to hold among the Pagans the same beneficial +position which St. Paul held in the Christian world. The possibility of +such an intercourse, the nature and extent of such supposed obligations, +will come under our consideration hereafter. All that I here desire to +say is, that in considering the life of Seneca we are not only dealing +with a life which was rich in memorable incidents, and which was cast +into an age upon which Christianity dawned as a new light in the +darkness, but also the life of one who climbed the loftiest peaks of the +moral philosophy of Paganism, and who in many respects may be regarded +as the Coryphaeus of what has been sometimes called a Natural Religion. + +It is not my purpose to turn aside from the narrative in order to +indulge in moral reflections, because such reflections will come with +tenfold force if they are naturally suggested to the reader's mind by +the circumstances of the biography. But from first to last it will be +abundantly obvious to every thoughtful mind that alike the morality and +the philosophy of Paganism, as contrasted with the splendour of revealed +truth and the holiness of Christian life, are but as moonlight is to +sunlight. The Stoical philosophy may be compared to a torch which flings +a faint gleam here and there in the dusky recesses of a mighty cavern; +Christianity to the sun pouring into the inmost depths of the same +cavern its sevenfold illumination. The torch had a value and brightness +of its own, but compared with the dawning of that new glory it appears +to be dim and ineffectual, even though its brightness was a real +brightness, and had been drawn from the same etherial source. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA. + +The exact date of Seneca's birth is uncertain, but it took place in all +probability about seven years before the commencement of the Christian +era. It will give to his life a touch of deep and solemn interest if we +remember that, during all those guilty and stormy scenes amid which his +earlier destiny was cast, there lived and taught in Palestine the Son of +God, the Saviour of the world. + +The problems which for many years tormented his mind were beginning to +find their solution, amid far other scenes, by men whose creed and +condition he despised. While Seneca was being guarded by his attendant +slave through the crowded and dangerous streets of Rome on his way to +school, St. Peter and St. John were fisher-lads by the shores of +Gennesareth; while Seneca was ardently assimilating the doctrine of the +stoic Attalus, St. Paul, with no less fervancy of soul, sat learning at +the feet of Gamaliel; and long before Seneca had made his way, through +paths dizzy and dubious, to the zenith of his fame, unknown to him that +Saviour had been crucified through whose only merits he and we can ever +attain to our final rest. + +Seneca was about two years old when he was carried to Rome in his +nurse's arms. Like many other men who have succeeded in attaining +eminence, he suffered much from ill-health in his early years. He tells +us of one serious illness from which he slowly recovered under the +affectionate and tender nursing of his mother's sister. All his life +long he was subject to attacks of asthma, which, after suffering every +form of disease, he says that he considers to be the worst. At one time +his personal sufferings weighed so heavily on his spirits that nothing +save a regard for his father's wishes prevented him from suicide: and +later in life he was only withheld from seeking the deliverance of death +by the tender affection of his wife Paulina. He might have used with +little alteration the words of Pope, that his various studies but served +to help him + + "Through _this long disease, my life_." + +The recovery from this tedious illness is the only allusion which Seneca +has made to the circumstances of his childhood. The ancient writers, +even the ancient poets, but rarely refer, even in the most cursory +manner, to their early years. The cause of this reticence offers a +curious problem for our inquiry, but the fact is indisputable. Whereas +there is scarcely a single modern poet who has not lingered with +undisguised feelings of happiness over the gentle memories of his +childhood, not one of the ancient poets has systematically touched upon +the theme at all. From Lydgate down to Tennyson, it would be easy to +quote from our English poets a continuous line of lyric songs on the +subject of boyish years. How to the young child the fir-trees seemed to +touch the sky, how his heart leaped up at the sight of the rainbow, how +he sat at his mother's feet and pricked into paper the tissued flowers +of her dress, how he chased the bright butterfly, or in his tenderness +feared to brush even the dust from off its wings, how he learnt sweet +lessons and said innocent prayers at his father's knee; trifles like +these, yet trifles which may have been rendered noble and beautiful by a +loving imagination, have been narrated over and over again in the songs +of our poets. The lovely lines of Henry Vaughan might be taken as a type +of thousands more:-- + + "Happy those early days, when I + Shined in my Angel infancy. + Before I understood this place + Appointed for my second race, + Or taught my soul to fancy aught + But a white celestial thought; + + * * * * * + + "Before I taught my tongue to wound + My conscience with a sinful sound + Or had the black art to dispense + A several sin to every sense; + But felt through all this fleshy dress, + Bright shoots of everlastingness." + +The memory of every student of English poetry will furnish countless +parallels to thoughts like these. How is it that no similar poem could +be quoted from the whole range of ancient literature? How is it that to +the Greek and Roman poets that morning of life, which should have been +so filled with "natural blessedness," seems to have been a blank? How is +it that writers so voluminous, so domestic, so affectionate as Cicero, +Virgil, and Horace do not make so much as a single allusion to the +existence of their own mothers? + +To answer this question fully would be to write an entire essay on the +difference between ancient and modern life, and would carry me far away +from my immediate subject.[1] But I may say generally, that the +explanation rests in the fact that in all probability childhood among +the ancients was a disregarded, and in most cases a far less happy, +period than it is with us. The birth of a child in the house of a Greek +or a Roman was not necessarily a subject for rejoicing. If the father, +when the child was first shown to him, stooped down and took it in his +arms, it was received as a member of the family; if he left it unnoticed +then it was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or barren +place to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first passer by. And +even if a child escaped this fate, yet for the first seven or eight +years of life he was kept in the gynaeceum, or women's apartments, and +rarely or never saw his father's face. No halo of romance or poetry was +shed over those early years. Until the child was full grown the absolute +power of life or death rested in his father's hands; he had no freedom, +and met with little notice. For individual life the ancients had a very +slight regard; there was nothing autobiographic or introspective in +their temperament. With them public life, the life of the State, was +everything; domestic life, the life of the individual, occupied but a +small share of their consideration. All the innocent pleasures of +infancy, the joys of the hearth, the charm of the domestic circle, the +flow and sparkle of childish gaity, were by them but little appreciated. +The years before manhood were years of prospect, and in most cases they +offered but little to make them worth the retrospect. It is a mark of +the more modern character which stamps the writings of Seneca, as +compared with earlier authors, that he addresses his mother in terms of +the deepest affection, and cannot speak of his darling little son except +in a voice that seems to break with tears. + +[Footnote 1: See, however, the same question treated from a somewhat +different point of view by M. Nisard, in his charming _Études sur les +Poëtes de la Décadence_, ii. 17, _sqq_.] + +Let us add another curious consideration. The growth of the personal +character, the reminiscences of a life advancing into perfect +consciousness, are largely moulded by the gradual recognition of moral +laws, by the sense of mystery evolved in the inevitable struggle between +duty and pleasure,--between the desire to do right and the temptation to +do wrong. But among the ancients the conception of morality was so +wholly different from ours, their notions of moral obligation were, in +the immense majority of cases, so much less stringent and so much less +important, they had so faint a disapproval for sins which we condemn, +and so weak an indignation against vices which we abhor, that in their +early years we can hardly suppose them to have often fathomed those +"abysmal deeps of personality," the recognition of which is a necessary +element of marked individual growth. + +We have, therefore, no materials for forming any vivid picture of +Seneca's childhood; but, from what we gather about the circumstances and +the character of his family, we should suppose that he was exceptionally +fortunate. The Senecas were wealthy; they held a good position in +society; they were a family of cultivated taste, of literary pursuits, +of high character, and of amiable dispositions. Their wealth raised them +above the necessity of those mean cares and degrading shifts to eke out +a scanty livelihood which mark the career of other literary men who were +their contemporaries. Their rank and culture secured them the intimacy +of all who were best worth knowing in Roman circles; and the general +dignity and morality which marked their lives would free them from all +likelihood of being thrown into close intercourse with the numerous +class of luxurious epicureans, whose unblushing and unbounded vice gave +an infamous notority to the capital of the world. + +Of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of our philosopher, we know few +personal particulars, except that he was a professional rhetorician, who +drew up for the use of his sons and pupils a number of oratorical +exercises, which have come down to us under the names of _Suasoriae_ and +_Controversiae_. They are a series of declamatory arguments on both +sides, respecting a number of historical or purely imaginary subjects; +and it would be impossible to conceive any reading more utterly +unprofitable. But the elder Seneca was steeped to the lips in an +artificial rhetoric; and these highly elaborated arguments, invented in +order to sharpen the faculties for purposes of declamation and debate, +were probably due partly to his note-book and partly to his memory. His +memory was so prodigious that after hearing two thousand words he could +repeat them again in the same order. Few of those who have possessed +such extraordinary powers of memory have been men of first-rate talent, +and the elder Seneca was no exception. But if his memory did not improve +his original genius, it must at any rate have made him a very agreeable +member of society, and have furnished him with an abundant store of +personal and political anecdotes. In short, Marcus Seneca was a +well-to-do, intelligent man of the world, with plenty of common sense, +with a turn for public speaking, with a profound dislike and contempt +for anything which he considered philosophical or fantastic, and with a +keen eye to the main advantage. + +His wife Helvia, if we may trust the panegyric of her son, was on the +other hand a far less commonplace character. But for her husband's +dislike to learning and philosophy she would have become a proficient in +both, and in a short period of study she had made a considerable +advance. Yet her intellect was less remarkable than the nobility and +sweetness of her mind; other mothers loved their sons because their own +ambition was gratified by their honours, and their feminine wants +supplied by their riches; but Helvia loved her sons for their own sakes, +treated them with liberal generosity, but refused to reap any personal +benefit from their wealth, managed their patrimonies with disinterested +zeal, and spent her own money to bear the expenses of their political +career. She rose superior to the foibles and vices of her time. +Immodesty, the plague-spot of her age, had never infected her pure life. +Gems and pearls had little charms for her. She was never ashamed of her +children, as though their presence betrayed her own advancing age. "You +never stained your face," says her son, when writing to console her in +his exile, "with walnut-juice or rouge; you never delighted in dresses +indelicately low; your single ornament was a loveliness which no age +could destroy; your special glory was a conspicuous chastity." We may +well say with Mr. Tennyson-- + + "Happy he + With such a mother! faith in womankind + Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high + Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall, + He shall not blind his soul with clay." + +Nor was his mother Helvia the only high-minded lady in whose society +the boyhood of Seneca was spent. Her sister, whose name is unknown, that +aunt who had so tenderly protected the delicate boy, and nursed him +through the sickness of his infancy, seems to have inspired him with an +affection of unusual warmth. He tells us how, when her husband was +Prefect of Egypt, so far was she from acting as was usual with the wives +of provincial governors, that she was as much respected and beloved as +they were for the most part execrated and shunned. So serious was the +evil caused by these ladies, so intolerable was their cruel rapacity, +that it had been seriously debated in the Senate whether they should +ever be allowed to accompany their husbands. Not so with Helvia's +sister. She was never seen in public; she allowed no provincial to visit +her house; she begged no favour for herself, and suffered none to be +begged from her. The province not only praised her, but, what was still +more to her credit, barely knew anything about her, and longed in vain +for another lady who should imitate her virtue and self-control. Egypt +was the headquarters for biting and loquacious calumny, yet even Egypt +never breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. And when during +their homeward voyage her husband died, in spite of danger and tempest +and the deeply-rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail +with a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of shipwreck could +drive her to separate herself from her husband's body until she had +provided for its safe and honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of a +good and heroic woman; and that she reciprocated the regard which makes +her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact +that, when he made his _début_ as a candidate for the honours of the +State, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time +her matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced +for his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the +crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets of Rome. + +Two brothers, very different from each other in their habits and +character, completed the family circle, Marcus Annaeus Novatus and +Lucius Annaeus Mela, of whom the former was older the latter younger, +than their more famous brother. + +Marcus Annaeus Novatus is known to history under the name of Junius +Gallio, which he took when adopted by the orator of that name, who was a +friend of his father. He is none other than the Gallio of the Acts, the +Proconsul of Achaia, whose name has passed current among Christians as a +proverb of complacent indifference.[2] + +[Footnote 2: Acts xxv. 19.] + +The scene, however, in which Scripture gives us a glimpse of him has +been much misunderstood, and to talk of him as "careless Gallio," or to +apply the expression that "he cared for none of these things," to +indifference in religious matters, is entirely to misapply the spirit of +the narrative. What really happened was this. The Jews, indignant at the +success of Paul's preaching, dragged him before the tribunal of Gallio, +and accused him of introducing illegal modes of worship. When the +Apostle was about to defend himself, Gallio contemptuously cut him short +by saying to the Jews, "If in truth there were in question any act of +injustice or wicked misconduct, I should naturally have tolerated your +complaint. But if this is some verbal inquiry about mere technical +matters of your law, look after it yourselves. I do not choose to be a +judge of such matters." With these words he drove them from his +judgment-seat with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the Jews and +their religious affairs as was subsequently expressed by Festus to the +sceptical Agrippa, and as had been expressed previously by Pontius +Pilate[3] to the tumultous Pharisees. Exulting at this discomfiture of +the hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in +a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat +him in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal. This was the +event at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What +could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks +beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not? So long as they did not make a riot, +or give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat +Sosthenes or any number of Jews black and blue if it pleased them, for +all he was likely to care. + +[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 24, "See ye to it." Cf. Acts xiv. 15, "Look ye +to it." Toleration existed in the Roman Empire, and the magistrates +often interfered to protect the Jews from massacre; but they absolutely +and persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to +understand their doctrines or enter into their disputes. The tradition +that Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is +utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written +nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Conybeare and +Howson, _St. Paul_, vol. i. Ch. xii.; Aubertin, _Sénèque et St. Paul_.)] + +What a vivid glimpse do we here obtain, from the graphic picture of an +eye-witness, of the daily life in an ancient provincial forum; how +completely do we seem to catch sight for a moment of that habitual +expression of contempt which curled the thin lips of a Roman aristocrat +in the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews! If Seneca +had come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in his Egyptian travels, the +only impression left on his mind was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal, +and Suetonius, who never mention the Jews without execration. In a +passage, quoted by St. Augustine (_De Civit. Dei_, iv. 11) from his lost +book on Superstitions, Seneca speaks of the multitude of their +proselytes, and calls them "_gens sceleratissima_," a "_most criminal +race_." It has been often conjectured--it has even been seriously +believed--that Seneca had personal intercourse with St. Paul and learnt +from him some lessons of Christianity. The scene on which we have just +been gazing will show us the utter unlikelihood of such a supposition. +Probably the nearest opportunity which ever occurred to bring the +Christian Apostle into intellectual contact with the Roman philosopher +was this occasion, when St. Paul was dragged as a prisoner into the +presence of Seneca's elder brother. The utter contempt and indifference +with which he was treated, the manner in which he was summarily cut +short before he could even open his lips in his own defence, will give +us a just estimate of the manner in which Seneca would have been likely +to regard St. Paul. It is highly improbable that Gallio ever retained +the slightest impression or memory of so every-day a circumstance as +this, by which alone he is known to the world. It is possible that he +had not even heard the mere name of Paul, and that, if he ever thought +of him at all, it was only as a miserable, ragged, fanatical Jew, of dim +eyes and diminutive stature, who had once wished to inflict upon him a +harangue, and who had once come for a few moments "betwixt the wind and +his nobility." He would indeed have been unutterably amazed if anyone +had whispered to him that well nigh the sole circumstance which would +entitle him to be remembered by posterity, and the sole event of his +life by which he would be at all generally known, was that momentary and +accidental relation to his despised prisoner. + +But Novatus--or, to give him his adopted name, Gallio--presented to his +brother Seneca, and to the rest of the world, a very different aspect +from that under which we are wont to think of him. By them he was +regarded as an illustrious declaimer, in an age when declamation was the +most valued of all accomplishments. It was true that there was a sort of +"tinkle," a certain falsetto tone in his style, which offended men of +robust and severe taste; but this meretricious resonance of style was a +matter of envy and admiration when affectation was the rage, and when +the times were too enervated and too corrupt for the manly conciseness +and concentrated force of an eloquence dictated by liberty and by +passion. He seems to have acquired both among his friends and among +strangers the epithet of "dulcis," "the charming or fascinating Gallio:" +"This is more," says the poet Statius, "than to have given Seneca to the +world, and to have begotten the sweet Gallio." Seneca's portrait of him +is singularly faultless. He says that no one was so gentle to any one as +Gallio was to every one; that his charm of manner won over even the +people whom mere chance threw in his way, and that such was the force of +his natural goodness that no one suspected his behaviour, as though it +were due to art or simulation. Speaking of flattery, in his fourth book +of Natural Questions, he says to his friend Lucilius, "I used to say to +you that my brother Gallio _(whom every one loves a little, even people +who cannot love him more)_ was wholly _ignorant_ of other vices, but +even _detested_ this. You might try him in any direction. You began to +praise his intellect--an intellect of the highest and worthiest kind,... +and he walked away! You began to praise his moderation, he instantly cut +short your first words. You began to express admiration for his +blandness and natural suavity of manner,... yet even here he resisted +your compliments; and if you were led to exclaim that you had found a +man who could not be overcome by those insidious attacks which every one +else admits, and hoped that he would at least tolerate _this_ compliment +because of its truth, even on this ground he would resist your flattery; +not as though you had been awkward, or as though he suspected that you +were jesting with him, or had some secret end in view, but simply +because he had a horror of every form of adulation." We can easily +imagine that Gallio was Seneca's favorite brother, and we are not +surprised to find that the philosopher dedicates to him his three books +on Anger, and his charming little treatise "On a Happy Life." + +Of the third brother, L. Annaeus Mela, we have fewer notices; but, from +what we know, we should conjecture that his character no less than his +reputation was inferior to that of his brothers; yet he seems to have +been the favorite of his father, who distinctly asserts that his +intellect was capable of every excellence, and superior to that of his +brothers.[4] This, however, may have been because Mela, "longing only to +long for nothing," was content with his father's rank, and devoted +himself wholly to the study of eloquence. Instead of entering into +public life, he deliberately withdrew himself from all civil duties, and +devoted himself to tranquility and ease. Apparently he preferred to be a +farmer-general (_publicanus_) and not a consul. His chief fame rests in +the fact that he was father of Lucan, the poet of the decadence or +declining literature of Rome. The only anecdote about him which has come +down to us is one that sets his avarice in a very unfavourable light. +When his famous son, the unhappy poet, had forfeited his life, as well +as covered himself with infamy by denouncing his own mother Attila in +the conspiracy of Piso, Mela, instead of being overwhelmed with shame +and agony, immediately began to collect with indecent avidity his son's +debts, as though to show Nero that he felt no great sorrow for his +bereavement. But this was not enough for Nero's malice; he told Mela +that he must follow his son, and Mela was forced to obey the order, +and to die. + +[Footnote 4: M. Ann. Senec. _Controv_. ii. _Praef_.] + +Doubtless Helvia, if she survived her sons and grandsons, must have +bitterly rued the day when, with her husband and her young children, she +left the quiet retreat of a life in Cordova. Each of the three boys grew +up to a man of genius, and each of them grew up to stain his memory with +deeds that had been better left undone, and to die violent deaths by +their own hands or by a tyrant's will. Mela died as we have seen; his +son Lucan and his brother Seneca were driven to death by the cruel +orders of Nero. Gallio, after stooping to panic-stricken supplications +for his preservation, died ultimately by suicide. It was a shameful and +miserable end for them all, but it was due partly to their own errors, +partly to the hard necessity of the degraded times in which they lived. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE EDUCATION OF SENECA. + +For a reason which I have already indicated--I mean the habitual +reticence of the ancient writers respecting the period of their +boyhood--it is not easy to form a very vivid conception of the kind of +education given to a Roman boy of good family up to the age of fifteen, +when he laid aside the golden amulet and embroidered toga to assume a +more independent mode of life. + +A few facts, however, we can gather from the scattered allusions of the +poets Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Persius. From these we learn that +the schoolmasters were for the most part underpaid and despised,[5] +while at the same time an erudition alike minute and useless was rigidly +demanded of them. We learn also that they were exceedingly severe in the +infliction of corporeal punishment; Orbilius, the schoolmaster of +Horace, appears to have been a perfect Dr. Busby, and the poet Martial +records with indignation the barbarities of chastisement which he daily +witnessed. + +[Footnote 5: For the miseries of the literary class, and especially of +schoolmasters, see Juv, _Sat_. vii.] + +The things taught were chiefly arithmetic, grammar--both Greek and +Latin--reading, and repetition of the chief Latin poets. There was also +a good deal of recitation and of theme-writing on all kinds of trite +historical subjects. The arithmetic seems to have been mainly of a very +simple and severely practical kind, especially the computation of +interest and compound interest; and the philology generally, both +grammar and criticism, was singularly narrow, uninteresting, and +useless. Of what conceivable advantage can it have been to any human +being to know the name of the mother of Hecuba, of the nurse of +Anchises, of the stepmother of Anchemolus, the number of years Acestes +lived, and how many casks of wine the Sicilians gave to the Phrygians? +Yet these were the dispicable _minutiae_ which every schoolmaster was +then expected to have at his fingers' ends, and every boy-scholar to +learn at the point of the ferule--trash which was only fit to be +unlearned the moment it was known. + +For this kind of verbal criticism and fantastic archaeology Seneca, who +had probably gone through it all, expresses a profound and very rational +contempt. In a rather amusing passage[6] he contrasts the kind of use +which would be made of a Virgil lesson by a philosopher and a +grammarian. Coming to the lines, + + "Each happiest day for mortals speeds the first, + Then crowds disease behind and age accurst," + +the philosopher will point out why and in what sense the early days of +life are the best days, and how rapidly the evil days succeed them, and +consequently how infinitely important it is to use well the golden dawn +of our being. But the verbal critic will content himself with the +remark that Virgil always uses _fugio_ of the flight of time, and +always joins "old age" with "disease," and consequently that these are +tags to be remembered, and plagiarized hereafter in the pupils' +"_original_ composition." Similarly, if the book in hand be Cicero's +treatise "On the Commonwealth," instead of entering into great political +questions, our grammarian will note that one of the Roman kings had no +father (to speak of), and another no mother; that dictators used +formerly to be called "masters of the people;" that Romulus perished +during an eclipse; that the old form of _reipsa_ was _reapse_, and of +_se ipse_ was _sepse_; that the starting point in the circus which is +now called _creta_, or "chalk," used to be called _caix_, or _carcer_; +that in the time of Ennuis _opera_ meant not only "work," but also +"assistance," and so on, and so on. Is this true education? or rather, +should our great aim ever be to translate noble precepts into daily +action? "Teach me," he says, "to despise pleasure and glory; +_afterwards_ you shall teach me to disentangle difficulties, to +distinguish ambiguities, to see through obscurities; _now_ teach me what +is necessary." Considering the condition of much which in modern times +passes under the name of "education," we may possibly find that the +hints of Seneca are not yet wholly obsolete. + +[Footnote 6: Ep. cviii.] + +What kind of schoolmaster taught the little Seneca when under the care +of the slave who was called _pedagogus_, or a "boy-leader" (whence our +word _pedagogue_), he daily went with his brothers to school through the +streets of Rome, we do not know. He may have been a severe Orbilius, or +he may have been one of those noble-minded tutors whose ideal +portraiture is drawn in such beautiful colours by the learned and +amiable Quintilian. Seneca has not alluded to any one who taught him +during his early days. The only schoolfellow whom he mentions by name +in his voluminous writings is a certain Claranus, a deformed boy, whom, +after leaving school, Seneca never met again until they were both old +men, but of whom he speaks with great admiration. In spite of his +hump-back, Claranus appeared even beautiful in the eyes of those who +knew him well, because his virtue and good sense left a stronger +impression than his deformity, and "his body was adorned by the beauty +of his soul." + +It was not until mere school-lessons were finished that a boy began +seriously to enter upon the studies of eloquence and philosophy, which +therefore furnish some analogy to what we should call "a university +education." Gallio and Mela, Seneca's elder and younger brothers, +devoted themselves heart and soul to the theory and practice of +eloquence; Seneca made the rarer and the wiser choice in giving his +entire enthusiasm to the study of philosophy. + +I say the wiser choice, because eloquence is not a thing for which one +can give a receipt as one might give a receipt for making +_eau-de-Cologne_. Eloquence is the noble, the harmonious, the passionate +expression of truths profoundly realized, or of emotions intensely felt. +It is a flame which cannot be kindled by artificial means. _Rhetoric_ +may be taught if any one thinks it worth learning; but _eloquence_ is a +gift as innate as the genius from which it springs. "_Cujus vita fulgur, +ejus verba tonitrua_"--"if a man's life be lightning, his words will be +thunders." But the kind of oratory to be obtained by a constant practice +of declamation such as that which occupied the schools of the Rhetors +will be a very artificial lightning and a very imitated thunder--not the +artillery of heaven, but the Chinese fire and rolled bladders of the +stage. Nothing could be more false, more hollow, more pernicious than +the perpetual attempt to drill numerous classes of youths into a +reproduction of the mere manner of the ancient orators. An age of +unlimited declamation, an age of incessant talk, is a hotbed in which +real depth and nobility of feeling runs miserably to seed. Style is +never worse than it is in ages which employ themselves in teaching +little else. Such teaching produces an emptiness of thought concealed +under a plethora of words. This age of countless oratorical masters was +emphatically the period of decadence and decay. There is a hollow ring +about it, a falsetto tone in its voice; a fatiguing literary grimace in +the manner of its authors. Even its writers of genius were injured and +corrupted by the prevailing mode. They can say nothing simply; they are +always in contortions. Their very indignation and bitterness of heart, +genuine as it is, assumes a theatrical form of expression.[7] They +abound in unrealities: their whole manner is defaced with would-be +cleaverness, with antitheses, epigrams, paradoxes, forced expressions, +figures and tricks of speech, straining after originality and profundity +when they are merely repeating very commonplace remarks. What else could +one expect in an age of salaried declaimers, educated in a false +atmosphere of superficial talk, for ever haranguing and perorating about +great passions which they had never felt, and great deeds which they +would have been the last to imitate? After perpetually immolating the +Tarquins and the Pisistratids in inflated grandiloquence, they would go +to lick the dust off a tyrant's shoes. How could eloquence survive when +the magnanimity and freedom which inspired it were dead, and when the +men and books which professed to teach it were filled with despicable +directions about the exact position in which the orator was to use his +hands, and as to whether it was a good thing or not for him to slap his +forehead and disarrange his hair? + +[Footnote 7: + "Juvénal, élevé dans les cris de l'école + Poussa jusqu'à l'excès sa mordante hyperbole."-- + BOILEAU.] + +The philosophic teaching which even from boyhood exercised a powerful +fascination on the eager soul of Seneca was at least something better +than this; and more than one of his philosophic teachers succeeded in +winning his warm affection, and in moulding the principles and habits of +his life. Two of them he mentions with special regard, namely Sotion the +Pythagorean, and Attalus the Stoic. He also heard the lectures of the +fluent and musical Fabianus Papirius, but seems to have owed less to him +than to his other teachers. + +Sotion had embraced the views of Pythagoras respecting the +transmigration of souls, a doctrine which made the eating of animal food +little better than cannibalism or parricide. But, even if any of his +followers rejected this view, Sotion would still maintain that the +eating of animals, if not an impiety, was at least a cruelty and a +waste. "What hardship does my advice inflict on you?" he used to ask. "I +do but deprive you of the food of vultures and lions." The ardent +boy--for at this time he could not have been more than seventeen years +old--was so convinced by these considerations that he became a +vegetarian. At first the abstinence from meat was painful, but after a +year he tells us (and many vegetarians will confirm his experience) it +was not only easy but delightful; and he used to believe, though he +would not assert it as a fact, that it made his intellect more keen and +active. He only ceased to be a vegetarian in obedience to the +remonstrance of his unphilosophical father, who would have easily +tolerated what he regarded as a mere vagary had it not involved the +danger of giving rise to a calumny. For about this time Tiberius +banished from Rome all the followers of strange and foreign religions; +and, as fasting was one of the rites practiced in some of them, Seneca's +father thought that perhaps his son might incur, by abstaining from +meat, the horrible suspicion of being a Christian or a Jew! + +Another Pythagorean philosopher whom he admired and whom he quotes was +Sextius, from whom he learnt the admirable practice of daily +self-examination:--"When the day was over, and he betook himself to his +nightly rest, he used to ask himself, What evil have you cured to day? +What vice have you resisted? In what particular have you improved?" "I +too adopt this custom," says Seneca, in his book on Anger, "and I daily +plead my cause before myself, when the light has been taken away, and my +wife, who is now aware of my habit, has become silent; I carefully +consider in my heart the entire day, and take a deliberate estimate of +my deeds and words." + +It was however the Stoic Attalus who seems to have had the main share in +the instruction of Seneca; and _his_ teaching did not involve any +practical results which the elder Seneca considered objectionable. He +tells us how he used to haunt the school of the eloquent philosopher, +being the first to enter and the last to leave it. "When I heard him +declaiming," he says, "against vice, and error, and the ills of life, I +often felt compassion for the human race, and believed my teacher to be +exalted above the ordinary stature of mankind. In Stoic fashion he used +to call himself a king; but to me his sovereignty seemed more than +royal, seeing that it was in his power to pass his judgments on kings +themselves. When he began to set forth the praises of poverty, and to +show how heavy and superfluous was the burden of all that exceeded the +ordinary wants of life, I often longed to leave school a poor man. When +he began to reprehend our pleasures, to praise a chaste body, a moderate +table, and a mind pure not from all unlawful but even from all +superfluous pleasures, it was my delight to set strict limits to all +voracity and gluttony. And these precepts, my Lucilius, have left some +permanent results; for I embraced them with impetuous eagerness, and +afterwards, when I entered upon a political career, I retained a few of +my good beginnings. In consequence of them, I have all my life long +renounced eating oysters and mushrooms, which do not satisfy hunger but +only sharpen appetite; for this reason I habitually abstain from +perfumes, because the sweetest perfume for the body is none at all: for +this reason I do without wines and baths. Other habits which I once +abandoned have come back to me, but in such a way that I merely +substitute moderation for abstinence, which perhaps is a still more +difficult task; since there are some things which it is easier for the +mind to cut away altogether than to enjoy in moderation. Attalus used to +recommend a hard couch in which the body could not sink; and, even in my +old age, I use one of such a kind that it leaves no impress of the +sleeper. I have told you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager +impulses our little scholars would have to all that is good, if any one +were to exhort them and urge them on. But the harm springs partly from +the fault of preceptors, who teach us how to _argue_, not how to _live_; +and partly from the fault of pupils, who bring to their teacher a +purpose of training their intellect and not their souls. Thus it is +that philosophy has been degraded into mere philology." + +In another lively passage, Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of +the various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers. After +observing that philosophy exercises some influence even over those who +do not go deeply in it, just as people sitting in a shop of perfumes +carry away with them some of the odour, he adds, "Do we not, however, +know some who have been among the audience of a philosopher for many +years, and have been even entirely uncoloured by his teaching? Of course +I do, even most persistent and continuous hearers; whom I do not call +pupils, but mere passing auditors of philosophers. Some come to hear, +not to learn, just as we are brought into a theatre for pleasure's sake, +to delight our ears with language, or with the voice, or with plays. You +will observe a large portion of the audience to whom the philosopher's +school is a mere haunt of their leisure. Their object is not to lay +aside any vices there, or to accept any law in accordance with which +they may conform their life, but that they may enjoy a mere tickling of +their ears. Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, to +catch up not _things_ but _words_. Some with eager countenances and +spirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, and these are charmed by +the beauty of the thoughts, not by the sound of empty words; but the +impression is not lasting. Few only have attained the power of carrying +home with them the frame of mind into which they had been elevated." + +It was to this small latter class that Seneca belonged. He became a +Stoic from very early years. The Stoic philosophers, undoubtedly the +noblest and purest of ancient sects, received their name from the fact +that their founder Zeno had lectured in the Painted Porch or Stoa +Paecile of Athens. The influence of these austere and eloquent masters, +teaching high lessons of morality and continence, and inspiring their +young audience with the glow of their own enthusiasm for virtue, must +have been invaluable in that effete and drunken age. Their doctrines +were pushed to yet more extravagant lengths by the Cynics, who were so +called from a Greek word meaning "dog," from what appeared to the +ancients to be the dog-like brutality of their manners. Juvenal +scornfully remarks, that the Stoics only differed from the Cynics "by a +tunic," which the Stoics wore and the Cynics discarded. Seneca never +indeed adopted the practices of Cynicism, but he often speaks admiringly +of the arch-Cynic Diogenes, and repeatedly refers to the Cynic +Demetrius, as a man deserving of the very highest esteem. "I take with +me everywhere," writes he to Lucilius, "that best of men, Demetrius; +and, leaving those who wear purple robes, I talk with him who is half +naked. Why should I not admire him? I have seen that he has no want. Any +one may despise all things, but no one _can_ possess all things. The +shortest road to riches lies through contempt of riches. But our +Demetrius lives not as though he _despised_ all things, but as though he +simply suffered others to possess them." + +These habits and sentiments throw considerable light on Seneca's +character. They show that even from his earliest days he was capable of +adopting self-denial as a principle, and that to his latest days he +retained many private habits of a simple and honourable character, even +when the exigencies of public life had compelled him to modify others. +Although he abandoned an unusual abstinence out of respect for his +father, we have positive evidence that he resumed in his old age the +spare practices which in his enthusiastic youth he had caught from the +lessons of high-minded teachers. These facts are surely sufficient to +refute at any rate those gross charges against the private character of +Seneca, venomously retailed by a jealous Greekling like Dio Cassius, +which do not rest on a tittle of evidence, and seem to be due to a mere +spirit of envy and calumny. I shall not again allude to these scandals +because I utterly disbelieve them. A man who in his "History" could, as +Dio Cassius has done, put into the mouth of a Roman senator such insane +falsehoods as he has pretended that Fufius Calenus uttered in full +senate against Cicero, was evidently actuated by a spirit which +disentitles his statements to my credence. Seneca was an inconsistent +philosopher both in theory and in practice; he fell beyond all question +into serious errors, which deeply compromise his character; but, so far +from being a dissipated or luxurious man, there is every reason to +believe that in the very midst of wealth and splendour, and all the +temptations which they involve, he retained alike the simplicity of his +habits and the rectitude of his mind. Whatever may have been the almost +fabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar and ivory, they were +rarely spread with any more sumptuous entertainment than water, +vegetables, and fruit. Whatever may have been the amusements common +among his wealthy and noble contemporaries, we know that he found his +highest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of his garden, and took some +of his exercise by running races there with a little slave. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY. + +We have gleaned from Seneca's own writings what facts we could +respecting his early education. But in the life of every man there are +influences of a far more real and penetrating character than those which +come through the medium of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age; +the general tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social intercourse, +the political tendencies which were moulding the destiny of the +nation,--these must have told, more insensibly indeed but more +powerfully, on the mind of Seneca than even the lectures of Sotion and +of Attalus. And, if we have had reason to fear that there was much which +was hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the general +aspect of the society by which our young philosopher was surrounded from +the cradle was yet more injurious and deplorable. + +The darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never did a grosser +darkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence brood over the surface of +Pagan society than at the period when the Sun of Righteousness arose +with healing in His wings. There have been many ages when the dense +gloom of a heartless immorality seemed to settle down with unusual +weight; there have been many places where, under the gaslight of an +artificial system, vice has seemed to acquire an unusual audacity; but +never probably was there any age or any place where the worst forms of +wickedness were practiced with a more unblushing effrontery than in the +city of Rome under the government of the Caesars. A deeply-seated +corruption seemed to have fastened upon the very vitals of the national +existence. It is surely a lesson of deep moral significance that just as +they became most polished in their luxury they became most vile in their +manner of life. Horace had already bewailed that "the age of our +fathers, worse than that of our grandsires, has produced us who are yet +baser, and who are doomed to give birth to a still more degraded +offspring." But fifty years later it seemed to Juvenal that in his times +the very final goal of iniquity had been attained, and he exclaims, in a +burst of despair, that "posterity will add _nothing_ to our immorality; +our descendents can but do and desire the same crimes as ourselves." He +who would see but for a moment and afar off to what the Gentile world +had sunk, at the very period when Christianity began to spread, may form +some faint and shuddering conception from the picture of it drawn in the +Epistle to the Romans. + +We ought to realize this fact if we would judge of Seneca aright. Let us +then glance at the condition of the society in the midst of which he +lived. Happily we can but glance at it. The worst cannot be told. Crimes +may be spoken of; but things monstrous and inhuman should for ever be +concealed. We can but stand at the cavern's mouth, and cast a single ray +of light into its dark depths. Were we to enter, our lamp would be +quenched by the foul things which would cluster round it. + +In the age of Augustus began that "long slow agony," that melancholy +process of a society gradually going to pieces under the dissolving +influence of its own vices which lasted almost without interruption till +nothing was left for Rome except the fire and sword of barbaric +invasions. She saw not only her glories but also her virtues "star by +star expire." The old heroism, the old beliefs, the old manliness and +simplicity, were dead and gone; they had been succeeded by prostration +and superstition by luxury and lust. + + "There is the moral of all human tales, + 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, + First freedom, and then glory; when that fails, + Wealth, vice, corruption,--barbarism at last: + And history, with all her volumes vast, + Hath but one page; 'tis better written here + Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed + All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, + Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask." + +The mere elements of society at Rome during this period were very +unpromising. It was a mixture of extremes. There was no middle class. At +the head of it was an emperor, often deified in his lifetime, and +separated from even the noblest of the senators by a distance of +immeasurable superiority. He, was, in the startling language of Gibbon, +at once "a priest, an atheist, and a god." [8] Surrounding his person and +forming his court were usually those of the nobility who were the most +absolutely degraded by their vices, their flatteries, or their abject +subservience. But even these men were not commonly the repositories of +political power. The people of the greatest influence were the freedmen +of the emperors--men who had been slaves, Egyptians and Bithynians who +had come to Rome with bored ears and with chalk on their naked feet to +show that they were for sale, or who had bawled "sea-urchins all alive" +in the Velabrum or the Saburra--who had acquired enormous wealth by +means often the most unscrupulous and the most degraded, and whose +insolence and baseness had kept pace with their rise to power. Such a +man was the Felix before whom St. Paul was tried, and such was his +brother Pallas,[9] whose golden statue might have been seen among the +household gods of the senator, afterwards the emperor, Vitellius. +Another of them might often have been observed parading the streets +between two consuls. Imagine an Edward II. endowed with absolute and +unquestioned powers of tyranny,--imagine some pestilent Piers Gaveston, +or Hugh de le Spenser exercising over nobles and people a hideous +despotism of the back stairs,--and you have some faint picture of the +government of Rome under some of the twelve Caesars. What the barber +Olivier le Diable was under Louis XI., what Mesdames du Barri and +Pompadour were under Louis XV., what the infamous Earl of Somerset was +under James I., what George Villiers became under Charles I., will +furnish us with a faint analogy of the far more exaggerated and +detestable position held by the freedman Glabrio under Domitian, by the +actor Tigellinus under Nero, by Pallus and Narcissus under Claudius, by +the obscure knight Sejanus under the iron tyranny of the +gloomy Tiberius. + +[Footnote 8: + "To the sound + Of fifes and drums they danced, or in the shade + Sung Caesar great and terrible in war, + Immortal Caesar! 'Lo, a god! a god! + He cleaves the yielding skies!' Caesar meanwhile + Gathers the ocean pebbles, or the gnat + Enraged pursues; or at his lonely meal + Starves a wide province; tastes, dislikes, and flings + To dogs and sycophants. 'A god! a god!' + The flowery shades and shrines obscene return." + DYER, _Ruins of Rome_.] + +[Footnote 9: The pride of this man was such that he never deigned to +speak a word in the presence of his own slaves, but only made known his +wishes by signs!--TACITUS.] + +I. It was an age of the most enormous wealth existing side by side with +the most abject poverty. Around the splendid palaces wandered hundreds +of mendicants, who made of their mendicity a horrible trade, and even +went so far as to steal or mutilate infants in order to move compassion +by their hideous maladies. This class was increased by the exposure of +children, and by that overgrown accumulation of landed property which +drove the poor from their native fields. It was increased also by the +ambitious attempt of people whose means were moderate to imitate the +enormous display of the numerous millionaires. The great Roman conquests +in the East, the plunder of the ancient kingdoms of Antiochus, of +Attalus, of Mithridates, had caused a turbid stream of wealth to flow +into the sober current of Roman life. One reads with silent astonishment +of the sums expended by wealthy Romans on their magnificence or their +pleasures. And as commerce was considered derogatory to rank and +position, and was therefore pursued by men who had no character to lose, +these overgrown fortunes were often acquired by wretches of the meanest +stamp--by slaves brought from over the sea, who had to conceal the holes +bored in their ears;[10] or even by malefactors who had to obliterate, +by artificial means, the three letters[11] which had been branded by the +executioner on their foreheads. But many of the richest men in Rome, who +had not sprung from this convict origin, were fully as well deserving of +the same disgraceful stigma. Their houses were built, their coffers were +replenished, from the drained resources of exhausted provincials. Every +young man of active ambition or noble birth, whose resources had been +impoverished by debauchery and extravagance, had but to borrow fresh +sums in order to give magnificent gladiatorial shows, and then, if he +could once obtain an aedileship, and mount to the higher offices of the +State, he would in time become the procurator or proconsul of a +province, which he might pillage almost at his will. Enter the house of +a Felix or a Verres. Those splendid pillars of mottled green marble were +dug by the forced labour of Phrygians from the quarry of Synnada; that +embossed silver, those murrhine vases, those jeweled cups, those +masterpieces of antique sculpture, have all been torn from the homes or +the temples of Sicily or Greece. Countries were pilaged and nations +crushed that an Apicius might dissolve pearls[12] in the wine he drank, +or that Lollia Paulina might gleam in a second-best dress of emeralds +and pearls which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or more than +32,000_l_.[13] + +[Footnote 10: This was a common ancient practice; the very words +"thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots +"thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. +_Cic_. 26; and Juv. _Sat_. i. 104.)] + +[Footnote 11: _Fur_, "thief." (See Martial, ii. 29.)] + +[Footnote 12: "Dissolved pearls, Apicius' diet 'gainst the +epilepsy."--BEN JONSON.] + +[Footnote 13: Pliny actually saw her thus arrayed. (Nat. Hist. ix. 35, +36.)] + +Each of these "gorgeous criminals" lived in the midst of an humble +crowd of flatterers, parasites, clients, dependents, and slaves. Among +the throng that at early morning jostled each other in the marble +_atrium_ were to be found a motley and hetrogeneous set of men. Slaves +of every age and nation--Germans, Egyptians, Gauls, Goths, Syrians, +Britons, Moors, pampered and consequential freedmen, impudent +confidential servants, greedy buffoons, who lived by making bad jokes at +other people's tables; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a +trade; philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length of +their beards; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, ready to +flatter and lie with consummate skill, and spreading their vile +character like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a +number of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a +thousand forms of contumely[14] and insult, and living in discontented +idleness on the _sportula_ or daily largesse which was administered by +the grudging liberality of their haughty patrons. The stout old Roman +burgher had well-nigh disappeared; the sturdy independence, the manly +self-reliance of an industrial population were all but unknown. The +insolent loungers who bawled in the Forum were often mere stepsons of +Italy, who had been dragged thither in chains,--the dregs of all +nations, which had flowed into Rome as into a common sewer,[15] bringing +with them no heritage except the specialty of their national vices. +Their two wants were bread and the shows of the circus; so long as the +_sportula_ of their patron, the occasional donative of an emperor, and +the ambition of political candidates supplied these wants, they lived in +contented abasement, anxious neither for liberty nor for power. + +[Footnote 14: Few of the many sad pictures in the _Satires_ of Juvenal +are more pitiable than that of the wretched "Quirites" struggling at +their patrons' doors for the pittance which formed their daily dole. +(Sat i. 101.)] + +[Footnote 15: See Juv. _Sat_. iii. 62. Scipio, on being interrupted by +the mob in the Forum, exclaimed,--"Silence, ye stepsons of Italy! What! +shall I fear these fellows now they are free, whom I myself have brought +in chains to Rome?" (See Cic. _De Orat_. ii. 61.)] + +II. It was an age at once of atheism and superstition. Strange to say, +the two things usually go together. Just as Philippe Egalité, Duke of +Orleans, disbelieved in God, and yet tried to conjecture his fate from +the inspection of coffee-grounds at the bottom of a cup,--just as Louis +XI. shrank from no perjury and no crime, and yet retained a profound +reverence for a little leaden image which he carried in his cap,--so the +Romans under the Empire sneered at all the whole crowd of gods and +goddesses whom their fathers had worshipped, but gave an implicit +credence to sorcerers, astrologers, spirit-rappers, exorcists, and every +species of imposter and quack. The ceremonies of religion were performed +with ritualistic splendour, but all belief in religion was dead and +gone. "That there are such things as ghosts and subterranean realms not +even boys believe," says Juvenal, "except those who are still too young +to pay a farthing for a bath." [16] Nothing can exceed the cool +impertinence with which the poet Martial prefers the favour of Domitian +to that of the great Jupiter of the Capitol. Seneca, in his lost book +"Against Superstitions,"[17] openly sneered at the old mythological +legends of gods married and gods unmarried, and at the gods Panic and +Paleness, and at Cloacina, the goddess of sewers, and at other deities +whose cruelty and license would have been infamous even in mankind. And +yet the priests, and Salii, and Flamens, and Augurs continued to fulfil +their solemn functions, and the highest title of the Emperor himself was +that of _Pontifex Maximus_, or Chief Priest, which he claimed as the +recognized head of the national religion. "The common worship was +regarded," says Gibbon, "by the people as equally true, by the +philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally +useful." And this famous remark is little more than a translation from +Seneca, who, after exposing the futility of the popular beliefs, adds: +"And yet the wise man will observe them all, not as pleasing to the +gods, but as commanded by the laws. We shall so adore _all that ignoble +crowd of gods_ which long superstition has heaped together in a long +period of years, as to remember that their worship has more to do with +custom than with reality." "Because he was an illustrious senator of the +Roman people," observes St. Augustine, who has preserved for us this +fragment, "he worshipped what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he +adored that with which he found fault." Could anything be more hollow or +heartless than this? Is there anything which is more certain to sap the +very foundations of morality than the public maintenance of a creed +which has long ceased to command the assent, and even the respect of its +recognized defenders? Seneca, indeed, and a few enlightened +philosophers, might have taken refuge from the superstitions which they +abandoned in a truer and purer form of faith. "Accordingly," says +Lactantius, one of the Christian Fathers, "he has said many things like +ourselves concerning God." [18] He utters what Tertullian finely calls +"the testimony of A MIND NATURALLY CHRISTIAN." But, meanwhile, what +became of the common multitude? They too, like their superiors, learnt +to disbelieve or to question the power of the ancient deities; but, as +the mind absolutely requires _some_ religion on which to rest, they gave +their real devotion to all kinds of strange and foreign deities,--to +Isis and Osiris, and the dog Anubus, to Chaldaean magicians, to Jewish +exercisers, to Greek quacks, and to the wretched vagabond priests of +Cybele, who infested all the streets with their Oriental dances and +tinkling tambourines. The visitor to the ruins of Pompeii may still see +in her temple the statue of Isis, through whose open lips the gaping +worshippers heard the murmured answers they came to seek. No doubt they +believed as firmly that the image spoke, as our forefathers believed +that their miraculous Madonnas nodded and winked. But time has exposed +the cheat. By the ruined shrine the worshipper may now see the secret +steps by which the priest got to the back of the statue, and the pipe +entering the back of its head through which he whispered the answers of +the oracle. + +[Footnote 16: JUV. _Sat_. ii. 149. Cf. Sen. _Ep_. xxiv. "Nemo tam puer +est at Cerberum timeat, et tenebras," &c.] + +[Footnote 17: Fragm. xxxiv.] + +[Footnote 18: Lactantius, _Divin. Inst_. i. 4.] + +III. It was an age of boundless luxury,--an age in which women +recklessly vied with one another in the race of splendour and +extravagance, and in which men plunged headlong, without a single +scruple of conscience, and with every possible resource at their +command, into the pursuit of pleasure. There was no form of luxury, +there was no refinement of vice invented by any foreign nation, which +had not been eagerly adopted by the Roman patricians. "The softness of +Sybaris, the manners of Rhodes and Antioch, and of perfumed, drunken, +flower-crowned Miletus," were all to be found at Rome. There was no +more of the ancient Roman severity and dignity and self-respect. The +descendants of Aemilius and Gracchus--even generals and consuls and +praetors--mixed familiarly with the lowest _canaille_ of Rome in their +vilest and most squalid purlieus of shameless vice. They fought as +amateur gladiators in the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on +the race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors on the +stage. They devoted themselves with such frantic eagerness to the +excitement of gambling, that we read of their staking hundreds of pounds +on a single throw of the dice, when they could not even restore the +pawned tunics to their shivering slaves. Under the cold marble statues, +or amid the waxen likenesses of their famous stately ancestors, they +turned night into day with long and foolish orgies, and exhausted land +and sea with the demands of their gluttony. "Woe to that city," says an +ancient proverb, "in which a fish costs more than an ox;" and this +exactly describes the state of Rome. A banquet would sometimes cost the +price of an estate; shell-fish were brought from remote and unknown +shores, birds from Parthia and the banks of the Phasis; single dishes +were made of the brains of the peacocks and the tongues of nightingales +and flamingoes. Apicius, after squandering nearly a million of money in +the pleasures of the table, committed suicide, Seneca tells us, because +he found that he had only 80,000_l_. left. Cowley speaks of-- + + "Vitellius' table, which did hold + As many creatures as the ark of old." + +"They eat," said Seneca, "and then they vomit; they vomit, and then +they eat." But even in this matter we cannot tell anything like the +worst facts about-- + + "Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts + On citron tables and Atlantic stone, + Their wines of Setia, Gales, and Falerne, + Chios, and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, + Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems + And studs of pearl." [19] + +Still less can we pretend to describe the unblushing and unutterable +degradation of this period as it is revealed to us by the poets and the +satirists. "All things," says Seneca, "are full of iniquity and vice; +more crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint. We struggle +in a huge contest of criminality: daily the passion for sin is greater, +the shame in committing it is less.... Wickedness is no longer committed +in secret: it flaunts before our eyes, and + + "The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems, + ... whatever is known + Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs, + Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food, + And flavoured Chian wines, with incense fumed, + To slake patrician thirst: for these their rights + In the vile atreets they prostitute for sale, + Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws, + Their native glorious freedom. + +has been sent forth so openly into public sight, and has prevailed so +completely in the breast of all, that innocence is not _rare_, but +_non-existent_." + +[Footnote 19: Compare the lines in Dyer's little-remembered _Ruins of +Rome_.] + +IV. And it was an age of deep sadness. That it should have been so is an +instructive and solemn lesson. In proportion to the luxury of the age +were its misery and its exhaustion. The mad pursuit of pleasure was the +death and degradation of all true happiness. Suicide--suicide out of +pure _ennui_ and discontent at a life overflowing with every possible +means of indulgence--was extraordinarily prevalent. The Stoic +philosophy, especially as we see it represented in the tragedies +attributed to Seneca, rang with the glorification of it. Men ran to +death because their mode of life had left them no other refuge. They +died because it seemed so tedious and so superfluous to be seeing and +doing and saying the same things over and over again; and because they +had exhausted the very possibility of the only pleasures of which they +had left themselves capable. The satirical epigram of Destouches,-- + + "Ci-gît Jean Rosbif, écuyer, + Qui se pendit pour se désennuyer," + +was literally and strictly true of many Romans during this epoch. +Marcellinus, a young and wealthy noble, starved himself, and then had +himself suffocated in a warm bath, merely because he was attacked with a +perfectly curable illness. The philosophy which alone professed itself +able to heal men's sorrows applauded the supposed courage of a voluntary +death, and it was of too abstract, too fantastic, and too purely +theoretical a character to furnish them with any real or lasting +consolations. No sentiment caused more surprise to the Roman world than +the famous one preserved in the fragment of Maecenas,-- + + "Debilem facito manu, + Debilem pede, coxâ, + Tuber adstrue gibberum, + Lubricos quate dentes; + Vita dum superest bene est; + Hanc mihi vel acutâ + Si sedeam cruce sustine;" + +which may be paraphrased,-- + + "Numb my hands with palsy, + Rack my feet with gout, + Hunch my back and shoulder, + Let my teeth fall out; + Still, if _Life_ be granted, + I prefer the loss; + Save my life, and give me + Anguish on the cross." + +Seneca, in his 101st Letter, calls this "a most disgraceful and most +contemptible wish;" but it may be paralleled out of Euripides, and still +more closely out of Homer. "Talk not," says the shade of Achilles to +Ulysses in the Odyssey,-- + + "'Talk not of reigning in this dolorous gloom, + Nor think vain lies,' he cried, 'can ease my doom. + _Better by far laboriously to bear + A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air, + Slave to the meanest hind that begs his bread, + Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead_.'" + +But this falsehood of extremes was one of the sad outcomes of the +popular Paganism. Either, like the natural savage, they dreaded death +with an intensity of terror; or, when their crimes and sorrows had made +life unsupportable, they slank to it as a refuge, with a cowardice which +vaunted itself as courage. + +V. And it was an age of cruelty. The shows of gladiators, the sanguinary +combats of wild beasts, the not unfrequent spectacle of savage tortures +and capital punishments, the occasional sight of innocent martyrs +burning to death in their shirts of pitchy fire, must have hardened and +imbruted the public sensibility. The immense prevalence of slavery +tended still more inevitably to the general corruption. "Lust," as +usual, was "hard by hate." One hears with perfect amazement of the +number of slaves in the wealthy houses. A thousand slaves was no +extravagant number, and the vast majority of them were idle, uneducated +and corrupt. Treated as little better than animals, they lost much of +the dignity of men. Their masters possessed over them the power of life +and death, and it is shocking to read of the cruelty with which they +were often treated. An accidental murmur, a cough, a sneeze, was +punished with rods. Mute, motionless, fasting, the slaves had to stand +by while their masters supped; A brutal and stupid barbarity often +turned a house into the shambles of an executioner, sounding with +scourges, chains, and yells.[20] One evening the Emperor Augustus was +supping at the house of Vedius Pollio, when one of the slaves, who was +carrying a crystal goblet, slipped down, and broke it. Transported with +rage Vedius at once ordered the slave to be seized, and plunged into the +fish-pond as food to the lampreys. The boy escaped from the hands of his +fellow-slaves, and fled to Caesar's feet to implore, not that his life +should be spared--a pardon which he neither expected nor hoped--but that +he might die by a mode of death less horrible than being devoured by +fishes. Common as it was to torment slaves, and to put them to death, +Augustus, to his honor be it spoken, was horrified by the cruelty of +Vedius, and commanded both that the slave should be set free, that every +crystal vase in the house of Vedius should be broken in his presence and +that the fish pond should be filled up. Even women inflicted upon their +female slaves punishments of the most cruel atrocity for faults of the +most venial character. A brooch wrongly placed, a tress of hair +ill-arranged, and the enraged matron orders her slave to be lashed and +crucified. If her milder husband interferes, she not only justifies the +cruelty, but asks in amazement: "What! is a slave so much of a human +being?" No wonder that there was a proverb, "As many slaves, so many +foes." No wonder that many masters lived in perpetual fear, and that +"the tyrant's devilish plea, necessity," might be urged in favor of that +odious law which enacted that, if a master was murdered by an unknown +hand, the whole body of his slaves should suffer death,--a law which +more than once was carried into effect under the reigns of the Emperors. +Slavery, as we see in the case of Sparta and many other nations, always +involves its own retribution. The class of free peasant proprietors +gradually disappears. Long before this time Tib. Gracchus, in coming +home from Sardinia, had observed that there was scarcely a single +freeman to be seen in the fields. The slaves were infinitely more +numerous than their owners. Hence arose the constant dread of servile +insurrections; the constant hatred of a slave population to which any +conspirator revolutionist might successfully appeal; and the constant +insecurity of life, which must have struck terror into many hearts. + +[Footnote 20: Juv. _Sat_. i. 219--222.] + +Such is but a faint and broad outline of some of the features of +Seneca's age; and we shall be unjust if we do not admit that much at +least of the life he lived, and nearly all the sentiments he uttered, +gain much in grandeur and purity from the contrast they offer to the +common life of-- + + "That people victor once, now vile and base, + Deservedly made vassal, who, once just, + Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well, + But govern ill the nations under yoke, + Peeling their provinces, exhausted all + By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown + Of triumph, that insulting vanity; + Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured + Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed, + Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still, + And from the daily scene effeminate. + What wise and valient men would seek to free + These thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved; + Or could of inward slaves make outward free?" + MILTON, _Paradise Regained_, iv. 132-145. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS. + +The personal notices of Seneca's life up to the period of his manhood +are slight and fragmentary. From an incidental expression we conjecture +that he visited his aunt in Egypt when her husband was Prefect of that +country, and that he shared with her the dangers of shipwreck when her +husband had died on board ship during the homeward voyage. Possibly the +visit may have excited in his mind that deep interest and curiosity +about the phenomena of the Nile which appear so strongly in several +passages of his _Natural Questions_; and, indeed nothing is more likely +than that he suggested to Nero the earliest recorded expedition to +discover the source of the mysterious river. No other allusion to his +travels occur in his writings, but we may infer that from very early +days he had felt an interest for physical inquiry, since while still a +youth he had written a book on earthquakes; which has not come down +to us. + +Deterred by his father from the pursuit of philosophy, he entered on the +duties of a profession. He became an advocate, and distinguished himself +by his genius and eloquence in pleading causes. Entering on a political +career, he became a successful candidate for the quaestorship, which +was an important step towards the highest offices of the state. During +this period of his life he married a lady whose name has not been +preserved to us, and to whom we have only one allusion, which is a +curious one. As in our own history it has been sometimes the fashion for +ladies of rank to have dwarves and negroes among their attendants, so it +seems to have been the senseless and revolting custom of the Roman +ladies of this time to keep idiots among the number of their servants. +The first wife of Seneca had followed this fashion, and Seneca in his +fiftieth letter to his friend Lucilius[21] makes the following +interesting allusion to the fact. "You know," he says, "that my wife's +idiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For +personally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind. +If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for +one. I laugh at myself. This idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now, +incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious +of her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere, +because the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we +laugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is +avaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide; _we_ wander about +without a guide." + +[Footnote 21: It will be observed that the main biographical facts about +the life of Seneca are to be gleaned from his letters to Lucilius, who +was his constant friend from youth to old age, and to whom he has +dedicated his Natural Questions. Lucilius was a procurator of Sicily, a +man of cultivated taste and high principle. He was the author of a poem +on Aetna, which in the opinion of many competent judges is the poem +which has come down to us, and has been attributed to Varus, Virgil, and +others. It has been admirably edited by Mr. Munro. (See _Nat. Quaest._, +iv. _ad init. Ep_. lxxix.) He also wrote a poem on the fountain +Arethusa. _(Nat. Quaest_. iii, 26.)] + +This passage will furnish us with an excellent example of Seneca's +invariable method of improving every occasion and circumstance into an +opportunity for a philosophic harangue. + +By this wife, who died shortly before Seneca's banishment to Corsica, he +had two sons, one of whom expired in the arms and amid the kisses of +Helvia less than a month before Seneca's departure for Corsica. To the +other, whose name was Marcus, he makes the following pleasant allusion. +After urging his mother Helvia to find consolation in the devotion of +his brothers Gallio and Mela, he adds, "From these turn your eyes also +on your grandsons--to Marcus, that most charming little boy, in sight of +whom no melancholy can last long. No misfortune in the breast of any one +can have been so great or so recent as not to be soothed by his +caresses. Whose tears would not his mirth repress? whose mind would not +his prattling loose from the pressure of anxiety? whom will not that +joyous manner of his incline to jesting? whose attention, even though he +be fixed in thought, will not be attracted and absorbed by that +childlike garrulity of which no one can grow tired? God grant that he +may survive me: may all the cruelty of destiny be weared out on me!" + +Whether the prayer of Seneca was granted we do not know; but, as we do +not again hear of Marcus, it is probable that he died before his father, +and that the line of Seneca, like that of so many great men, became +extinct in the second generation. + +It was probably during this period that Seneca laid the foundations of +that enormous fortune which excited the hatred and ridicule of his +opponents. There is every reason to believe that this fortune was +honourably gained. As both his father and mother were wealthy, he had +doubtless inherited an ample competency; this was increased by the +lucrative profession of a successful advocate, and was finally swollen +by the princely donations of his pupil Nero. It is not improbable that +Seneca, like Cicero, and like all the wealthy men of their day, +increased his property by lending money upon interest. No disgrace +attached to such a course; and as there is no proof for the charges of +Dio Cassius on this head, we may pass them over with silent contempt. +Dio gravely informs us that Seneca excited an insurrection in Britain, +by suddenly calling in the enormous sum of 40,000,000 sesterces; but +this is in all probability the calumny of a professed enemy. We shall +refer again to Seneca's wealth; but we may here admit that it was +undoubtedly ungraceful and incongruous in a philosopher who was +perpetually dwelling on the praises of poverty, and that even in his own +age it attracted unfavourable notice, as we may see from the epithet +_Proedives_, "the over-wealthy," which is applied to him alike by a +satiric poet and by a grave historian. Seneca was perfectly well aware +that this objection could be urged against him, and it must be admitted +that the grounds on which he defends himself in his treatise _On a Happy +Life_ are not very conclusive or satisfactory. + +The boyhood of Seneca fell in the last years of the Emperor Augustus, +when, in spite of the general decorum and amiability of their ruler, +people began to see clearly that nothing was left of liberty except the +name. His youth and early manhood were spent during those +three-and-twenty years of the reign of Tiberius, that reign of terror, +during which the Roman world was reduced to a frightful silence and +torpor as of death;[22] and, although he was not thrown into personal +collision with that "brutal monster," he not unfrequently alludes to +him, and to the dangerous power and headlong ruin of his wicked minister +Sejanus. Up to this time he had not experienced in his own person those +crimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who are brought into +close contact with tyrants. This first happened to him in the reign of +Caius Caesar, of whom we are enabled, from the writings of Seneca alone, +to draw a full-length portrait. + +[Footnote 22: Milton, _Paradise Regained_, iv. 128. For a picture of +Tiberius as he appeared in his old age at Capreae, "hated of all and +hating," see Id. 90-97.] + +Caius Caesar was the son of Germanicus and the elder Agrippina. +Germanicus was the bravest and most successful general, and one of the +wisest and most virtuous men, of his day. His wife Agrippina, in her +fidelity, her chastity, her charity, her nobility of mind, was the very +model of a Roman matron of the highest and purest stamp. Strange that +the son of such parents should have been one of the vilest, cruelest, +and foulest of the human race. So, however, it was; and it is a +remarkable fact that scarcely one of the six children of this marriage +displayed the virtues of their father and mother, while two of them, +Caius Caesar and the younger Agrippina, lived to earn an exceptional +infamy by their baseness and their crimes. Possibly this unhappy result +may have been partly due to the sad circumstances of their early +education. Their father, Germanicus, who by his virtue and his successes +had excited the suspicious jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, was by his +distinct connivance, if not by his actual suggestion, atrociously +poisoned in Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless cruel +insults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the island of +Pandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and Drusus Germanicus, were +proclaimed public enemies: Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and +there put to death; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison +of the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known by the name +Caligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his wicked retirement at Capreae, +and there only saved his life by the most abject flattery and the most +adroit submission. + +Capreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming one +extremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea bright and +limpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated by its position, it is +yet within easy reach of Rome. At that time, before Vesuvius had +rekindled those wasteful fires which first shook down, and then deluged +under lava and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, +the scene which it commanded was even more pre-eminently beautiful than +now. Vineyards and olive-groves clothed the sides of that matchless bay, +down to the very line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with +their ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, with its +sides dotted with picturesque villas and happy villages, towered the +giant cone of the volcano which for centuries had appeared to be +extinct, and which was clothed up to the very crater with luxurious +vegetation. Such was the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for +ever by the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself to every +refinement of wickedness, and from hence, being by common consent the +most miserable of men, he wrote to the Senate that memorable letter in +which he confesses his daily and unutterable misery under the stings of +a guilty conscience, which neither solitude nor power enabled him +to escape. + +Never did a fairer scene undergo a worse degradation; and here, in one +or other of the twelve villas which Tiberius had built, and among the +azure grottoes which he caused to be constructed, the youthful Caius[23] +grew up to manhood. It would have been a terrible school even for a +noble nature; for a nature corrupt and bloodthirsty like that of Caius +it was complete and total ruin. But, though he was so obsequious to the +Emperor as to originate the jest that never had there been a worse +master and never a more cringing slave,--though he suppressed every sign +of indignation at the horrid deaths of his mother and his +brothers,--though he assiduously reflected the looks, and carefully +echoed the very words, of his patron,--yet not even by the deep +dissimulation which such a position required did he succeed in +concealing from the penetrating eye of Tiberius the true ferocity of his +character. Not being the acknowledged heir to the kingdom,--for Tiberius +Gemellus, the youthful grandson of Tiberius, was living, and Caius was +by birth only his grand-nephew,--he became a tool for the machinations +of Marco the praetorian praefect and his wife Ennia. One of his chief +friends was the cruel Herod Agrippa,[24] who put to death St. James and +imprisoned St. Peter, and whose tragical fate is recorded in the 12th +chap. of the Acts. On one occasion, when Caius had been abusing the +dictator Sulla, Tiberius scornfully remarked that he would have all +Sulla's vices and none of his virtues; and on another, after a quarrel +between Caius and his cousin, the Emperor embraced with tears his young +grandson, and said to the frowning Caius, with one of those strange +flashes of prevision of which we sometimes read in history. "Why are you +so eager? Some day you will kill this boy, and some one else will murder +you." There were some who believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished +the intention of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman +world might relent towards his own memory under the tyranny of a worse +monster than himself. Even the Romans, who looked up to the family of +Germanicus with extraordinary affection, seem early to have lost all +hopes about Caius. They looked for little improvement under the +government of a vicious boy, "ignorant of all things, or nurtured only +in the worst," who would be likely to reflect the influence of Macro, +and present the spectacle of a worse Tiberius under a worse Sejanus. + +[Footnote 23: We shall call him Caius, because it is as little correct +to write of him by the _sobriquet_ Caligula as it would be habitually to +write of our kings Edward or John as Longshanks or Lackland. The name +Caligula means "a little shoe," and was the pet name given to him by the +soldiers of his father, in whose camp he was born.] + +[Footnote 24: Josephus adds some curious and interesting particulars to +the story of this Herod and his death which are not mentioned in the +narrative of St. Luke (_Antiq_. xix. 7, 8. Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, +§ cxxvi.)] + +At last health and strength failed Tiberius, but not his habitual +dissimulation. He retained the same unbending soul, and by his fixed +countenance and measured language, sometimes by an artificial +affability, he tried to conceal his approaching end. After many restless +changes, he finally settled down in a villa at Misenum which had once +belonged to the luxurious Lucullus. There the real state of his health +was discovered. Charicles, a distinguished physician, who had been +paying him a friendly visit on kissing his hand to bid farewell, managed +to ascertain the state of his pulse. Suspecting that this was the case +Tiberius, concealing his displeasure, ordered a banquet to be spread, +as though in honour of his friend's departure, and stayed longer than +usual at table. A similar story is told of Louis XIV. who, noticing from +the whispers of his courtiers that they believed him to be dying, ate an +unusually large dinner on the very day of his death, and sarcastically +observed, "Il me semble que pour un homme qui va mourir je ne mange pas +mal." But, in spite of the precautions of Tiberius, Charicles informed +Macro that the Emperor could not last beyond two days. + +A scene of secret intrigue at once began. The court broke up into knots +and cliques. Hasty messengers were sent to the provinces and their +armies, until at last, on the 16th of March, it was believed that +Tiberius had breathed his last. Just as on the death of Louis XV. a +sudden noise was heard as of thunder, the sound of courtiers rushing +along the corridors to congratulate Louis XVI. in the famous words, "Le +roi est mort, vive le roi," so a crowd instantly thronged round Caius +with their congratulations, as he went out of the palace to assume his +imperial authority. Suddenly a message reached him that Tiberius had +recovered voice and sight. Seneca says, that feeling his last hour to be +near, he had taken off his ring, and, holding it in his shut left hand, +had long lain motionless; then calling his servants, since no one +answered his call, he rose from his couch, and, his strength failing +him, after a few tottering steps fell prostrate on the ground. + +The news produced the same consternation as that which was produced +among the conspirators at Adonijah's banquet, when they heard of the +measures taken by the dying David. There was a panic-stricken +dispersion, and every one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what +was going on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of +empire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind. With the utmost +intrepidity, he gave orders that the old man should be suffocated by +heaping over him a mass of clothes, and that every one should then leave +the chamber. Such was the miserable and unpitied end of the Emperor +Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Such was the death, and +so miserable had been the life, of the man to whom the Tempter had +already given "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," when he +tried to tempt with them the Son of God. That this man should have been +the chief Emperor of the earth at a time when its true King was living +as a peasant in his village home at Nazareth, is a fact suggestive of +many and of solemn thoughts. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE REIGN OF CAIUS. + +The poet Gray, in describing the deserted deathbed of our own great +Edward III., says:-- + + "Low on his funeral couch he lies! + No pitying heart, no eye afford + A tear to grace his obsequies! + + * * * * * + + "The swarm that in the noontide beam were born? + Gone to salute the rising Morn. + Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows, + While proudly riding o'er the azure realm, + In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; + Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm; + Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway, + That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey." + +The last lines of this passage would alone have been applicable to Caius +Caesar. There was nothing fair or gay even about the beginning of his +reign. From first to last it was a reign of fury and madness, and lust +and blood. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in this family, +which was developed by their being placed on the dizzy pinnacle of +imperial despotism, and which usually took the form of monstrous and +abnormal crime. If we would seek a parallel for Caius Caesar, we must +look for it in the history of Christian VII. of Denmark, and Paul of +Russia. In all three we find the same ghastly pallor, the same +sleeplessness which compelled them to rise, and pace their rooms at +night, the same incessant suspicion; the same inordinate thirst for +cruelty and torture. He took a very early opportunity to disembarrass +himself of his benefactors, Macro and Ennia, and of his rival, the young +Tiberius. The rest of his reign was a series of brutal extravagances. We +have lost the portion of those matchless Annals of Tacitus which +contained the reign of Caius, but more than enough to revolt and horrify +is preserved in the scattered notices of Seneca, and in the narratives +of Suetonius in Latin and Dio Cassius in Greek. + +His madness showed itself sometimes in gluttonous extravagance, as when +he ordered a supper which cost more than 8,000_l_; sometimes in a +_bizarre_ and disgraceful mode of dress, as when he appeared in public +in women's stockings, embroidered with gold and pearls; sometimes in a +personality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank and class in +Rome, which made him ask a senator to supper, and ply him with drunken +toasts, on the very evening on which he had condemned his son to death; +sometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed his furious +indignation against Jupiter for presuming to thunder while he was +supping, or looking at the pantomimes; but most of all in a ferocity +which makes Seneca apply to him the name of "Bellua," or "wild monster," +and say that he seems to have been produced "for the disgrace and +destruction of the human race." + +We will quote from the pages of Seneca but one single passage to justify +his remark "that he was most greedy for human blood, which he ordered +to stream in his very presence with such eagerness as though he were +going to drink it up with his lips." He says that in one day he scourged +and tortured men of consular and quaestorial parentage, knights and +senators, not by way of examination, but out of pure caprice and rage; +he seriously meditated the butchery of the entire senate; he expressed a +wish that the Roman people had but a single neck, that he might strike +it off at one blow; he silenced the screams or reproaches of his victims +sometimes by thrusting a sponge in their mouths, sometimes by having +their mouths gagged with their own torn robes, sometimes by ordering +their tongues to be cut out before they were thrown to the wild beasts. +On one occasion, rising from a banquet, he called for his slippers, +which were kept by the slaves while the guests reclined on the purple +couches, and so impatient was he for the sight of death, that, walking +up and down his covered portico by lamplight with ladies and senators, +he then and there ordered some of his wretched victims to be beheaded in +his sight. + +It is a singular proof of the unutterable dread and detestation inspired +by some of these Caesars, that their mere countenance is said to have +inspired anguish. Tacitus, in the life of his father-in-law Agricola, +mentions the shuddering recollection of the red face of Domitian, as it +looked on at the games. Seneca speaks in one place of wretches doomed to +undergo stones, sword, fire, and _Caius_; in another he says that he had +tortured the noblest Romans with everything which could possibly cause +the intensest agony,--with cords, plates, rack, fire, and, as though it +were the worst torture of all, with his look! What that look was, we +learn from Seneca himself, "His face was ghastly pale, with a look of +insanity; his fierce, dull eyes were half-hidden under a wrinkled brow; +his ill-shaped head was partly bald, partly covered with dyed-hair; his +neck covered with bristles, his legs thin, and his feet mis-shapen." Woe +to the nation that lies under the heel of a brutal despotism; treble woe +to the nation that can tolerate a despot so brutal as this! Yet this was +the nation in the midst of which Seneca lived, and this was the despot +under whom his early manhood was spent. + + "But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, + And by their vices brought to servitude, + Than to love bondage more than liberty, + Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?" + +It was one of the peculiarities of Caius Caesar that he hated the very +existence of any excellence. He used to bully and insult the gods +themselves, frowning even at the statues of Apollo and Jupiter of the +Capitol. He thought of abolishing Homer, and order the works of Livy and +Virgil to be removed from all libraries, because he could not bear that +they should be praised. He ordered Julius Graecinus to be put to death +for no other reason than this, "That he was a better man than it was +expedient for a tyrant that any one should be;" for, as Pliny tells us, +the Caesars deliberately preferred that their people should be vicious +than that they should be virtuous. It was hardly likely that such a man +should view with equanimity the rising splendour of Seneca's reputation. +Hitherto, the young man, who was thirty-five years old at the accession +of Caius, had not written any of his philosophic works, but in all +probability he had published his early, and no longer extant, treatises +on earthquakes, on superstitions, and the books _On India_, and _On the +Manners of Egypt_, which had been the fruit of his early travels. It is +probable, too, that he had recited in public some of those tragedies +which have come down to us under his name, and in the composition of +which he was certainly concerned. All these works, and especially the +applause won by the public reading of his poems, would have given him +that high literary reputation which we know him to have earned. It was +not, however, this reputation, but the brilliancy and eloquence of his +orations at the bar which excited the jealous hatred of the Emperor. +Caius piqued himself on the possession of eloquence; and, strange to +say, there are isolated expressions of his which seem to show that, in +lucid intervals, he was by no means devoid of intellectual acuteness. +For instance, there is real humour and insight in the nicknames of "a +golden sheep" which he gave to the rich and placid Silanus, and of +"Ulysses in petticoats," by which he designated his grandmother, the +august Livia. The two epigrammetic criticisms which he passed upon the +style of Seneca are not wholly devoid of truth; he called his works +_Commissiones meras_, or mere displays.[25] In this expression he hit +off, happily enough, the somewhat theatrical, the slightly pedantic and +pedagogic and professorial character of Seneca's diction, its rhetorical +ornament and antitheses, and its deficiency in stern masculine +simplicity and strength. In another remark he showed himself a still +more felicitous critic. He called Seneca's writings _Arenu sine Calce_, +"sand without lime," or, as we might say, "a rope of sand." This epigram +showed a real critical faculty. It exactly hits off Seneca's short and +disjointed sentences, consisting as they often do of detached +antitheses. It accords with the amusing comparison of Malebranche, that +Seneca's composition, with its perpetual and futile recurrences, calls +up to him the image of a dancer who ends where he begins. + +[Footnote 25: Suet. _Calig._ liii.] + +But Caius did not confine himself to clever and malignant criticism. On +one occasion, when Seneca was pleading in his presence, he was so +jealous and displeased at the brilliancy and power of the orator that he +marked him out for immediate execution. Had Seneca died at this period +he would probably have been little known, and he might have left few +traces of his existence beyond a few tragedies of uncertain +authenticity, and possibly a passing notice in the page of Dio or +Tacitus. But destiny reserved him for a more splendid and more +questionable career. One of Caius's favourites whispered to the Emperor +that it was useless to extinguish a waning lamp; that the health of the +orator was so feeble that a natural death by the progress of his +consumptive tendencies would, in a very short time, remove him out of +the tyrant's way. + +Throughout the remainder of the few years during which the reign of +Caius continued, Seneca, warned in time, withdrew himself into complete +obscurity, employing his enforced leisure in that unbroken industry +which stored his mind with such encyclopaedic wealth. "None of my days," +he says, in describing at a later period the way in which he spent his +time, "is passed in complete ease. I claim even a part of the night for +my studies. I do not _find leisure_ for sleep, but I _succumb_ to it, +and I keep my eyes at their work even when they are wearied and drooping +with watchfulness. I have retired, not only from men, but from affairs, +and especially from my own. I am doing the work for posterity; I am +writing out things which may prove of advantage to them. I am +intrusting to writing healthful admonitions--compositions, as it were, +of useful medicines." + +But the days of Caius drew rapidly to an end. His gross and unheard-of +insults to Valerius Asiaticus and Cassius Chaereas brought on him +condign vengeance. It is an additional proof, if proof were wanting, of +the degradation of Imperial Rome, that the deed of retribution was due, +not to the people whom he taxed; not to the soldiers, whole regiments of +whom he had threatened to decimate; not to the knights, of whom scores +had been put to death by his orders; not to the nobles, multitudes of +whom had been treated by him with conspicuous infamy; not even to the +Senate, which illustrious body he had on all occasions deliberately +treated with contumely and hatred,--but to the private revenge of an +insulted soldier. The weak thin voice of Cassius Chaereas, tribune of +the praetorian cohort, had marked him out for the coarse and calumnious +banter of the imperial buffoon; and he determined to avenge himself, and +at the same time rid the world of a monster. He engaged several +accomplices in the conspiracy, which was nearly frustrated by their want +of resolution. For four whole days they hesitated, while day after day, +Caius presided in person at the bloody games of the amphitheatre. On the +fifth day (Jan. 24, A.D. 41), feeling unwell after one of his gluttonous +suppers, he was indisposed to return to the shows, but at last rose to +do so at the solicitation of his attendants. A vaulted corridor led from +the palace to the circus, and in that corridor Caius met a body of noble +Asiatic boys, who were to dance a Pyrrhic dance and sing a laudatory ode +upon the stage. Caius wished them at once to practice a rehearsal in his +presence, but their leader excused himself on the grounds of +hoarseness. At this moment Chaereas asked him for the watchword of the +night. He gave the watchword, "Jupiter." "Receive him in his wrath!" +exclaimed Chaereas, striking him on the throat, while almost at the same +moment the blow of Sabinus cleft the tyrant's jaw, and brought him to +his knee. He crouched his limbs together to screen himself from further +blows, screaming aloud, "I live! I live!" The bearers of his litter +rushed to his assistance, and fought with their poles, but Caius fell +pierced with thirty wounds; and, leaving the body weltering in its +blood, the conspirators rushed out of the palace, and took measures to +concert with the Senate a restoration of the old Republic. On the very +night after the murder the consuls gave to Chaereas the long-forgotten +watchword of "Liberty." But this little gleam of hope proved delusive to +the last degree. It was believed that the unquiet ghost of the murdered +madman haunted the palace, and long before it had been laid to rest by +the forms of decent sepulchre, a new emperor of the great Julian family +was securely seated upon the throne. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA. + +While the senators were deliberating, the soldiers were acting. They +felt a true, though degraded, instinct that to restore the ancient forms +of democratic freedom would be alike impossible and useless, and with +them the only question lay between the rival claimants for the vacant +power. Strange to say that, among these claimants, no one seems ever to +have thought of mentioning the prince who became the actual successor. + +There was living in the palace at this time a brother of the great +Germanicus, and consequently an uncle of the late emperor, whose name +was Claudius Caesar. Weakened both in mind and body by the continuous +maladies of an orphaned infancy, kept under the cruel tyranny of a +barbarous slave, the unhappy youth had lived in despised obscurity among +the members of a family who were utterly ashamed of him. His mother +Antonia called him a monstrosity, which Nature had begun but never +finished; and it became a proverbial expression with her, as is said to +have been the case with the mother of the great Wellington, to say of a +dull person, "that he was a greater fool than her son Claudius." His +grandmother Livia rarely deigned to address him except in the briefest +and bitterest terms. His sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of +his ever becoming emperor. Augustus, his grandfather by adoption, took +pains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a +wool-gathering[26] and discreditable member of the family, denied him +all public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when +looking out for a successor, deliberately passed him over as a man of +deficient intellect. Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and +blows, and for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the unhappy +Claudius came late for dinner, he would find every place occupied, and +peer about disconsolately amid insulting smiles. If, as was his usual +custom, he dropped asleep, after a meal, he was pelted with olives and +date-stones, or rough stockings were drawn over his hands that he might +be seen rubbing his face with them when he was suddenly awaked. + +[Footnote 26: He calls him [Greek meteoros] which implies awkwardness +and constant absence of mind.] + +This was the unhappy being who was now summoned to support the falling +weight of empire. While rummaging the palace for plunder, a common +soldier had spied a pair of feet protruding from under the curtains +which shaded the sides of an upper corridor. Seizing these feet, and +inquiring who owned them, he dragged out an uncouth, panic-stricken +mortal, who immediately prostrated himself at his knees and begged hard +for mercy. It was Claudius, who scared out of his wits by the tragedy +which he had just beheld, had thus tried to conceal himself until the +storm was passed. "Why, this is Germanicus!" [27] exclaimed the soldier, +"let's make him emperor." Half joking and half in earnest, they hoisted +him on their shoulders--for terror had deprived him of the use of his +legs--and hurried him off to the camp of the Praetorians. Miserable and +anxious he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd of +passers-by, who believed that he was being hurried off to execution. But +the soldiers, who well knew their own interests, accepted him with +acclamations, the more so as, by a fatal precedent, he promised them a +largess of more than 80_l_. apiece. The supple Agrippa (the Herod of +Acts xii.), seeing how the wind lay, offered to plead his cause with the +Senate, and succeeded partly by arguments, partly by intimidation, and +partly by holding out the not unreasonable hopes of a great improvement +on the previous reign. + +[Footnote 27: The full name of Claudius was Tiberius Claudius Drusus +Caesar Germanicus.] + +For although Claudius had been accused of gambling and drunkenness, not +only were no _worse_ sins laid to his charge, but he had successfully +established some claim to being considered a learned man. Had fortune +blessed him till death with a private station, he might have been the +Lucien Bonaparte of his family--a studious prince, who preferred the +charms of literature to the turmoil of ambition. The anecdotes which +have been recorded of him show that he was something of an +archaeologist, and something of a philologian. The great historian Livy, +pitying the neglect with which the poor young man was treated, had +encouraged him in the study of history; and he had written memoirs of +his own time, memoirs of Augustus, and even a history of the civil wars +since the battle of Actium, which was so correct and so candid that his +family indignantly suppressed it as a fresh proof of his stupidity. + +Such was the man who, at the age of fifty, became master of the +civilized world. He offers some singular points of resemblance to our +own "most mighty and dread sovereign," King James I. Both were learned, +and both were eminently unwise;[28] both of them were authors, and both +of them were pedants; both of them delegated their highest powers to +worthless favourites, and both of them enriched these favourites with +such foolish liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them +had been terrified into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary +presence at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good +dispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of cruelty; and both +of them, though laborious in the discharge of duty, succeeded only in +rendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir Walter Raleigh in +prison, and Claudius drove Seneca into exile. The parallel, so far as I +am aware, has never been noticed, but is susceptible of being drawn out +into the minutest particulars. + +[Footnote 28: "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," says our own poet. +Heraclitus had said the same thing more than two thousand years before +him, [Greek: polumaoiae ou didasho].] + +One of his first acts was to recall his nieces, Julia and Agrippina, +from the exile into which their brother had driven them; and both these +princesses were destined to effect a powerful influence on the life of +our philosopher. + +What part Seneca had taken during the few troubled days after the murder +of Caius we do not know. Had he taken a leading part--had he been one of +those who, like Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being +merely the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic,--or who, like +Sabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Caesar,--we should +perhaps have heard of it; and we must therefore assume either that he +was still absent from Rome in the retirement into which he had been +driven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with +quietly watching the course of events. It will be observed that his +biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted +in most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on +isolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest +shade long and important periods of his history. Nor are his letters and +other writings full of those political and personal allusions which +convert them into an autobiography. They are, without exception, +occupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they only +refer to such personal reminiscences as may best be converted into the +text for some Stoical paradox or moral declamation. It is, however, +certain from the sequel that Seneca must have seized the opportunity of +Caius's death to emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a +conspicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court. + +It would have been well for his own happiness and fame if he had adopted +the wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doctrines he professed. +A court at most periods is, as the poet says, + + "A golden but a fatal circle, + Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils + In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence, + And beckon early Virtue from its centre;" + +but the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was indeed a +place wherein few of the wise could find a footing, and still fewer of +the good. And all that Seneca gained from his career of ambition was to +be suspected by the first of these Emperors, banished by the second, and +murdered by the third. + +The first few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and kindly disposition; +but it soon became fatally obvious that the real powers of the +government would be wielded, not by the timid and absent-minded +Emperor, but by any one who for the time being could acquire an +ascendency over his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the +friends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen from the ranks +of his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and Don Miguel, the barbers of these +monarchs were the real governors, so Claudius was but the minister +rather than the master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius +his literary adviser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third person, with +whose name Scripture has made us familiar, was a freedman of Claudius. +This was Felix, the brother of Pallas, and that Procurator who, though +he had been the husband or the paramour of three queens, trembled before +the simple eloquence of a feeble and imprisoned Jew.[29] These men +became proverbial for their insolence and wealth; and once, when +Claudius was complaining of his own poverty, some one wittily replied, +"that he would have abundance if two of his freedmen would but admit him +into partnership with them." + +[Footnote 29: Acts xix.] + +But these men gained additional power from the countenance and intrigues +of the young and beautiful wife of Claudius, Valeria Messalina. In his +marriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune. +He lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was +that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men; and it was +the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been +united by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the +Berenice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the +sacred historians were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of +them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. He was +betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined +for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended +Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By +his first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he +had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidentally choked in +boyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the +air. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the +unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the +child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, Aelia +Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he +divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal +infamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the +younger for her unscrupulous ambition. + +Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old, +yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of +the most unblushing wickedness. + +But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own +jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and +Agrippina, the two nieces of the Emperor. They were, no less than +herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to +make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the +supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their +wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal +fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when +the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy. It is unlikely that, even +in the first flush of her husband's strange and unexpected triumph, +Messalina should have contemplated with any satisfaction their return +from exile. In this respect it is probable that the Emperor succeeded in +resisting her expressed wishes; so that the mere appearance of the two +daughters of Germanicus in her presence was a standing witness of the +limitations to which her influence was subjected. + +At this period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the history of the +Romans degenerates into mere anecdotes of their rulers. Happily, +however, it is not our duty to enter on the _chronique scandaleuse_ of +plots and counterplots, as little tolerable to contemplate as the +factions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We +can only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a +court? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of +his philosophical professions; and that we can contemplate his presence +there with as little satisfaction as we look on the figure of the +worldly and frivolous bishop in Mr. Frith's picture of "The Last Sunday +of Charles II. at Whitehall." + +And such inconsistencies involve their own retribution, not only in loss +of influence and fair fame, but even in direct consequences. It was so +with Seneca. Circumstances--possibly a genuine detestation of +Messalina's exceptional infamy--seem to have thrown him among the +partisans of her rivals. Messalina was only waiting her opportunity to +strike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the younger and the less +powerful of the two sisters, was marked out as the first victim, and the +opportunity seemed a favourable one for involving Seneca in her ruin. +His enormous wealth, his high reputation, his splendid abilities, made +him a formidable opponent to the Empress, and a valuable ally to her +rivals. It was determined to get rid of both by a single scheme. Julia +was accused of an intrigue with Seneca, and was first driven into exile +and then put to death. Seneca was banished to the barren and +pestilential shores of the island of Corsica. + +Seneca, as one of the most enlightened men of his age, should have aimed +at a character which would have been above the possibility of suspicion: +but we must remember that charges such as those which were brought +against him were the easiest of all to make, and the most impossible to +refute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we are not forced +to believe his guilt; his character was indeed deplorably weak, and the +laxity of the age in such matters was fearfully demoralising; but there +are sufficient circumstances in his favour to justify us in returning a +verdict of "Not guilty." Unless we attach an unfair importance to the +bitter calumny of his open enemies, we may consider that the general +tenor of his life has sufficient weight to exculpate him from an +unsupported accusation. + +Of Julia, Suetonius expressly says that the crime of which she was +accused was uncertain, and that she was condemned unheard. Seneca, on +the other hand, was tried in the Senate and found guilty. He tells us +that it was not Claudius who flung him down, but rather that, when he +was falling headlong, the Emperor supported him with the moderation of +his divine hand; "he entreated the Senate on my behalf; he not only +_gave_ me life, but even _begged_ it for me. Let it be his to consider," +adds Seneca, with the most dulcet flattery, "in what light he may wish +my cause to be regarded; either his justice will find, or his mercy will +make, it a good cause. He will alike be worthy of my gratitude, whether +his ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to his knowledge or to +his will." + +This passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood. The avarice of +Messalina was so insatiable that the non-confiscation of Seneca's +immense wealth is a proof that, for some reason, her fear or hatred of +him was not implacable. Although it is a remarkable fact that she is +barely mentioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, yet +there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation +before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at +all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability; +that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him +guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation +of his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for +literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some +powerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I. +remitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on +Francis Bacon. + +Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate +furnish the slightest valid proofs against him. The Senate at this time +were so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word +of accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make +them fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot +with their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his administration of +justice, patient and laborious as it was, had already grown into a +public joke. On one occasion he wrote down and delivered the wise +decision, "that he agreed with the side which had set forth the truth." +On another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came before him grew so +impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, "You are an old fool." +We are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a +good deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one +occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial +smile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. "At you," +said the man, "you look such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck +with the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A +Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing +Claudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidence +against him, indignantly abused him for his cruel stupidity, and flung +his pen and tablets in his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In +fact, the Emperor's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless +anecdotes. Among other things, when some condemned criminals were to +fight as gladiators, and addressed him before the games in the sublime +formula--"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!" ("Hail, Caesar! doomed +to die, we salute thee!") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer, +"Avete vos!" ("Hail ye also!") which they took as a sign of pardon, and +were unwilling to fight until they were actually forced to do so by the +gestures of the Emperor. + +The decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very +little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence +was that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SENECA IN EXILE. + +So, in A.D. 41, in the prime of life and the full vigour of his +faculties, with a name stained by a charge of which he may have been +innocent, but of which he was condemned as guilty, Seneca bade farewell +to his noble-minded mother, to his loving aunt, to his brothers, the +beloved Gallio and the literary Mela, to his nephew, the ardent and +promising young Lucan, and, above all--which cost him the severest +pang--to Marcus, his sweet and prattling boy. It was a calamity which +might have shaken the fortitude of the very noblest soul, and it had by +no means come upon him single handed. Already he had lost his wife, he +had suffered from acute and chronic ill-health, he had been bereaved but +three weeks previously of another little son. He had been cut short by +the jealousy of one emperor from a career of splendid success; he was +now banished by the imbecile subservience of another from all that he +held most dear. + +We are hardly able to conceive the intensity of anguish with which an +ancient Roman generally regarded the thought of banishment. In the long +melancholy wail of Ovid's "Tristia;" in the bitter and heart-rending +complaints of Cicero's "Epistles," we may see something of that intense +absorption in the life of Rome which to most of her eminent citizens +made a permanent separation from the city and its interests a thought +almost as terrible as death itself. Even the stoical and heroic Thrasea +openly confessed that he should prefer death to exile. To a heart so +affectionate, to a disposition so social, to a mind so active and +ambitious as that of Seneca, it must have been doubly bitter to exchange +the happiness of his family circle, the splendour of an imperial court, +the luxuries of enormous wealth, the refined society of statesmen, and +the ennobling intercourse of philosophers for the savage wastes of a +rocky island and the society of boorish illiterate islanders, or at the +best, of a few other political exiles, all of whom would be as miserable +as himself, and some of whom would probably have deserved their fate. + +The Mediteranean rocks selected for political exiles--Gyaros, Seriphos, +Scyathos, Patmos, Pontia, Pandataria--were generally rocky, barren, +fever-stricken places, chosen by design as the most wretched conceivable +spots in which human life could be maintained at all. Yet these islands +were crowded with exiles, and in them were to be found not a few +princesses of Caesarian origin. We must not draw a parallel to their +position from that of an Eleanor, the wife of Duke Humphrey, immured in +Peel Castle in the Isle of Man, or of a Mary Stuart in the Isle of Loch +Levin--for it was something incomparably worse. No care was taken even +to provide for their actual wants. Their very lives were not secure. +Agrippa Posthumus and Nero, the brothers of the Emperor Caligula, had +been so reduced by starvation that both of the wretched youths had been +driven to support life by eating the materials with which their beds +were stuffed. The Emperor Caius had once asked an exile, whom he had +recalled from banishment, in what manner he had been accustomed to +employ his time on the island. "I used," said the flatterer, "to pray +that Tiberius might die, and that you might succeed." It immediately +struck Caius that the exiles whom he had banished might be similarly +employed, and accordingly he sent centurions round the islands to put +them all to death. Such were the miserable circumstances which might be +in store for a political outlaw.[30] If we imagine what must have been +the feelings of a d'Espréménil, when a _lettee de cachet_ consigned him +to a prison in the Isle d'Hières; or what a man like Burke might have +felt, if he had been compelled to retire for life to the Bermudas; we +may realize to some extent the heavy trial which now befel the life +of Seneca. + +[Footnote 30: Among the Jews the homicides who had fled to a city of +refuge were set free on the high priest's death, and, in order _to +prevent them from praying for his death_, the mother and other relatives +of the high priest used to supply them with clothes and other +necessaries. See the author's article on "Asylum" in Kitto's +_Encyclopedia_ (ed. Alexander.)] + +Corsica was the island chosen for his place of banishment, and a spot +more uninviting could hardly have been selected. It was an island +"shaggy and savage," intersected from north to south by a chain of wild, +inaccessible mountains, clothed to their summits with gloomy and +impenetrable forests of pine and fir. Its untamable inhabitants are +described by the geographer Strabo as being "wilder than the wild +beasts." It produced but little corn, and scarcely any fruit-trees. It +abounded, indeed, in swarms of wild bees, but its very honey was bitter +and unpalatable, from being infected with the acrid taste of the +box-flowers on which they fed. Neither gold nor silver were found +there; it produced nothing worth exporting, and barely sufficient for +the mere necessaries of its inhabitants; it rejoiced in no great +navigable rivers, and even the trees, in which it abounded, were neither +beautiful nor fruitful. Seneca describes it in more than one of his +epigrams, as a + + "Terrible isle, when earliest summer glows + Yet fiercer when his face the dog-star shows;" + +and again as a + + "Barbarous land, which rugged rocks surround, + Whose horrent cliffs with idle wastes are crowned, + No autumn fruit, no tilth the summer yields, + Nor olives cheer the winter-silvered fields: + Nor joyous spring her tender foliage lends, + Nor genial herb the luckless soil befriends; + Nor bread, nor sacred fire, nor freshening wave;-- + Nought here--save exile, and the exile's grave!" + +In such a place, and under such conditions, Seneca had ample need for +all his philosophy. And at first it did not fail him. Towards the close +of his first year of exile he wrote the "Consolation to his mother +Helvia," which is one of the noblest and most charming of all his works. + +He had often thought, he said, of writing to console her under this deep +and wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto he had abstained from doing +so, lest, while his own anguish and hers were fresh, he should only +renew the pain of the wound by his unskilful treatment. He waited, +therefore till time had laid its healing hand upon her sorrows, +especially because he found no precedent for one in his position +condoling with others when he himself seemed more in need of +consolation, and because something new and admirable would be required +of a man who, as it were, raised his head from the funeral pyre to +console his friends. Still he now feels impelled to write to her, +because to alleviate her regrets will be to lay aside his own. He does +not attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, because +so far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has tasted it from her +earliest years in all its varieties; and because his purpose was to +conquer her grief, not to extenuate its causes. Those many miseries +would indeed have been in vain, if they had not taught her how to bear +wretchedness. He will prove to her therefore that she has no cause to +grieve either on his account, or on her own. Not on his--because he is +happy among circumstances which others would think miserable and because +he assures her with his own lips that not only is he _not_ miserable, +but that he can never be made so. Every one can secure his own +happiness, if he learns to seek it, not in external circumstances, but +in himself. He cannot indeed claim for himself the title of wise, for, +if so, he would be the most fortunate of men, and near to God Himself; +but, which is the next best thing, he has devoted himself to the study +of wise men, and from them he has learnt to expect nothing and to be +prepared for all things. The blessings which Fortune had hitherto +bestowed on him,--wealth, honours, glory,--he had placed in such a +position that she might rob him of them all without disturbing him. +There was a great _space_ between them and himself, so that they could +be _taken_ but not _torn_ away. Undazzled by the glamour of prosperity, +he was unshaken by the blow of adversity. In circumstances which were +the envy of all men he had never seen any real or solid blessing, but +rather a painted emptiness, a gilded deception; and similarly he found +nothing really hard or terrible in ills which the common voice has so +described. + +What, for instance, was exile? it was but a change of place, an absence +from one's native land; and, if you looked at the swarming multitudes in +Rome itself, you would find that the majority of them were practically +in contented and willing exile, drawn thither by necessity, by ambition, +or by the search for the best opportunities of vice. No isle so wretched +and so bleak which did not attract some voluntary sojourners; even this +precipitous and naked rock of Corsica, the hungriest, roughest, most +savage, most unhealthy spot conceivable, had more foreigners in it than +native inhabitants. The natural restlessness and mobility of the human +mind, which arose from its aetherial origin, drove men to change from +place to place. The colonies of different nations, scattered all over +the civilized and uncivilized world even in spots the most chilly and +uninviting, show that the condition of place is no necessary ingredient +in human happiness. Even Corsica had often changed its owners; Greeks +from Marseilles had first lived there, then Ligurians and Spaniards, +then some Roman colonists, whom the aridity and thorniness of the rock +had not kept away. + +"Varro thought that nature, Brutus that the consciousness of virtue, +were sufficient consolations for any exile. How little have I lost in +comparison with those two fairest possessions which I shall everywhere +enjoy--nature and my own integrity! Whoever or whatever made the +world--whether it were a deity, or disembodied reason, or a divine +interfusing spirit, or destiny, or an immutable series of connected +causes--the result was that nothing, except our very meanest +possessions, should depend on the will of another. Man's best gifts lie +beyond the power of man either to give or to take away. This Universe, +the grandest and loveliest work of nature, and the Intellect which was +created to observe and to admire it, are our special and eternal +possessions, which shall last as long as we last ourselves. Cheerful, +therefore, and erect, let us hasten with undaunted footsteps +whithersoever our fortunes lead us. + +"There is no land where man cannot dwell,--no land where he cannot +uplift his eyes to heaven; wherever we are, the distance of the divine +from the human remains the same. So then, as long as my eyes are not +robbed of that spectacle with which they cannot be satiated, so long as +I may look upon the sun and moon, and fix my lingering gaze on the other +constellations, and consider their rising and setting and the spaces +between them and the causes of their less and greater speed,--while I +may contemplate the multitude of stars glittering throughout the heaven, +some stationary, some revolving, some suddenly blazing forth, others +dazzling the gaze with a flood of fire as though they fell, and others +leaving over a long space their trails of light; while I am in the midst +of such phenomena, and mingle myself, as far as a man may, with things +celestial,--while my soul is ever occupied in contemplations so sublime +as these, what matters it what ground I tread? + +"What though fortune has thrown me where the most magnificent abode is +but a cottage? the humblest cottage, if it be but the home of virtue, +may be more beautiful than all temples; no place is narrow which can +contain the crowd of glorious virtues; no exile severe into which you +may go with such a reliance. When Brutus left Marcellus at Mitylene, he +seemed to be himself going into exile because he left that illustrious +exile behind him. Caesar would not land at Mitylene, because he blushed +to see him. Marcellus therefore, though he was living in exile and +poverty, was living a most happy and a most noble life. + + "'One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs + Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; + And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, + Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.' + +"And as for poverty every one who is not corrupted by the madness of +avarice and luxury know that it is no evil. How little does man need, +and how easily can he secure that! As for me, I consider myself as +having lost not wealth, but the trouble of looking after it. Bodily +wants are few--warmth and food, nothing more. May the gods and goddesses +confound that gluttony which sweeps the sky, and sea and land for birds, +and animals, and fish; which eats to vomit and vomits to eat, and hunts +over the whole world for that which after all it cannot even digest! +They might satisfy their hunger with little, and they excite it with +much. What harm can poverty inflict on a man who despises such excesses? +Look at the god-like and heroic poverty of our ancestors, and compare +the simple glory of a Camillus with the lasting infamy of a luxurious +Apicius! Even exile will yield a sufficiency of necessaries, but not +even kingdoms are enough for superfluities. It is the soul that makes us +rich or poor: and the soul follows us into exile, and finds and enjoys +its own blessings even in the most barren solitudes. + +"But it does not even need philosophy to enable us to despise poverty. +Look at the poor: are they not often obviously happier than the rich? +And the times are so changed that what we would now consider the poverty +of an exile would then have been regarded as the patrimony of a prince. +Protected by such precedents as those of Homer, and Zeno, and Menenius +Agrippa, and Regulus, and Scipio, poverty becomes not only safe but +even estimable. + +"And if you make the objection that the ills which assail me are not +exile only, or poverty only, but disgrace as well, I reply that the soul +which is hard enough to resist one wound is invulnerable to all. If we +have utterly conquered the fear of death, nothing else can daunt us. +What is disgrace to one who stands above the opinion of the multitude? +what was even a death of disgrace to Socrates, who by entering a prison +made it cease to be disgraceful? Cato was twice defeated in his +candidature for the praetorship and consulship: well, this was the +disgrace of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised by +another until he has learned to despise himself. The man who has learned +to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred +fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man +bravely wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. Some +indeed say that death is preferable to contempt; to whom I reply that he +who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more +an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred +buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood. + +"On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no cause for endless +weeping: nor have you on your own. You cannot grieve for me on selfish +grounds, in consequence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were +ever eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your dealings +with your sons, and you were always a help and a benefactor to them +rather than they to you. Nor should you give way out of a regret and +longing for me in my absence. We have often previously been separated, +and, although it is natural that you should miss that delightful +conversation, that unrestricted confidence, that electrical sympathy of +heart and intellect that always existed between us, and that boyish glee +wherewith your visits always affected me, yet, as you rise above the +common herd of women in virtue, the simplicity, the purity of your life, +you must abstain from feminine tears as you have done from all feminine +follies. Consider how Cornelia, who had lost ten children by death, +instead of wailing for her dead sons, thanked fortune that had made her +sons _Gracchi_. Rutilia followed her son Cotta into exile so dearly did +she love him, yet no one saw her shed a tear after his burial. She had +shown her affection when it was needful, she restrained her sorrow when +it was superflous. Imitate the example of these great women as you have +imitated their virtues. I want you not to _beguile_ your sorrow by +amusements or occupations, but to _conquer_ it. For you may now return +to those philosophical studies in which you once showed yourself so apt +a proficient, and which formerly my father checked. They will gradually +sustain and comfort you in your hour of grief. + +"And meanwhile consider how many sources of consolation already exist +for you. My brothers are still with you; the dignity of Gallio, the +leisure of Mela, will protect you; the ever-sparkling mirth of my +darling little Marcus will cheer you up; the training of my little +favourite Novatilla will be a duty which will assuage your sorrow. For +your father's sake, too, though he is absent from you, you must moderate +your lamentations. Above all, your sister--that truly faithful, loving, +and high-souled lady, to whom I owe so deep a debt of affection for her +kindness to me from my cradle until now,--she will yield you the +fondest sympathy and the truest consolation. + +"But since I know that after all your thoughts will constantly revert to +me, and that none of your children will be more frequently before your +mind than I,--not because they are less dear to you than I, but because +it is natural to lay the hand most often upon the spot which pains,--I +will tell you how you are to think of me. Think of me as happy and +cheerful, as though I were in the midst of blessings; as indeed I am, +while my mind, free from every care, has leisure for its own pursuits, +and sometimes amuses itself with lighter studies, sometimes, eager for +truth, soars upwards to the contemplation of its own nature, and the +nature of the universe. It inquires first of all about the lands and +their situation; then into the condition of the surrounding sea, its +ebbings and flowings; then it carefully studies all this terror-fraught +interspace between heaven and earth, tumultuous with thunders and +lightnings, and the blasts of winds, and the showers of rain, and snow +and hail; then, having wandered through all the lower regions, it bursts +upwards to the highest things, and revels in the most lovely--spectacle +of that which is divine, and, mindful of its own eternity, passes into +all that hath been and all that shall be throughout all ages." + +Such in briefest outline, and without any of that grace of language with +which Seneca has invested it, is a sketch of the little treatise which +many have regarded as among the most delightful of Seneca's works. It +presents the picture of that grandest of all spectacles-- + + "A good man struggling with the storms of fate." + +So far there was something truly Stoical in the aspect of Seneca's +exile. But was this grand attitude consistently maintained? Did his +little raft of philosophy sink under him, or did it bear him safely over +the stormy waves of this great sea of adversity. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +SENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY. + +There are some misfortunes of which the very essence consists in their +continuance. They are tolerable so long as they are illuminated by a ray +of hope. Seclusion and hardship might even come at first with some charm +of novelty to a philosopher who, as was not unfrequent among the amateur +thinkers of his time, occasionally practised them in the very midst of +wealth and friends. But as the hopeless years rolled on, as the efforts +of friends proved unavailing, as the loving son, and husband, and father +felt himself cut off from the society of those whom he cherished in such +tender affection, as the dreary island seemed to him ever more barbarous +and more barren, while season after season added to its horrors without +revealing a single compensation, Seneca grew more and more disconsolate +and depressed. It seemed to be his miserable destiny to rust away, +useless, unbefriended, and forgotten. Formed to fascinate society, here +there were none for him to fascinate; gifted with an eloquence which +could keep listening senates hushed, here he found neither subject nor +audience; and his life began to resemble a river which, long before it +has reached the sea, is lost in dreary marshes and choking sands. + +Like the brilliant Ovid, when he was banished to the frozen wilds of +Tomi, Seneca vented his anguish in plaintive wailing and bitter verse. +In his handful of epigrams he finds nothing too severe for the place of +his exile. He cries-- + + "Spare thou thine exiles, lightly o'er thy dead, + Alive, yet buried, be thy dust bespread." + +And addressing some malignant enemy-- + + "Whoe'er thou art,--thy name shall I repeat?-- + Who o'er mine ashes dar'st to press thy feet, + And, uncontented with a fall so dread, + Draw'st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head, + Beware! for nature, pitying, guards the tomb, + And ghosts avenge th' invaders of their gloom, + Hear, Envy, hear the gods proclaim a truth, + Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth, + WRETCHES ARE SACRED THINGS,--thy hands refrain: + E'en sacrilegious hands from TOMBS abstain." + +The one fact that seems to have haunted him most was that his abode in +Corsica was a living death. + +But the most complete picture of his state of mind, and the most +melancholy memorial of his inconsistency as a philosopher, is to be +found in his "Consolation to Polybius." Polybius was one of those +freedmen of the Emperor whose bloated wealth and servile insolence were +one of the darkest and strangest phenomena of the time. Claudius, more +than any of his class, from the peculiar imbecility of his character, +was under the powerful influence of this class of men; and so dangerous +was their power that Messalina herself was forced to win her ascendency +over her husband's mind by making these men her supporters, and +cultivating their favour. Such were "the most excellent Felix," the +judge of St. Paul, and the slave who became a husband to three +queens,--Narcissus, in whose household (which moved the envy of the +Emperor) were some of those Christians to whom St. Paul sends greetings +from the Christians of Corinth,[31]--Pallas, who never deigned to speak +to his own slaves, but gave all his commands by signs, and who actually +condescended to receive the thanks of the Senate, because he, the +descendant of Etruscan kings, yet condescended to serve the Emperor and +the Commonwealth; a preposterous and outrageous compliment, which +appears to have been solely due to the fact of his name being identical +with that of Virgil's young hero, the son of the mythic Evander! + +[Footnote 31: Rom. xvi. 11.] + +Among this unworthy crew a certain Polybius was not the least +conspicuous. He was the director of the Emperor's studies,--a worthy +Alcuin to such a Charlemagne. All that we know about him is that he was +once the favourite of Messalina, and afterwards her victim, and that in +the day of his eminence the favour of the Emperor placed him so high +that he was often seen walking between the two consuls. Such was the man +to whom, on the occasion of his brother's death, Seneca addressed this +treatise of consolation. It has come down to us as a fragment, and it +would have been well for Seneca's fame if it had not come down to us at +all. Those who are enthusiastic for his reputation would gladly prove it +spurious, but we believe that no candid reader can study it without +perceiving its genuineness. It is very improbable that he ever intended +it to be published, and whoever suffered it to see the light was the +successful enemy of its illustrious author. + +Its sad and abject tone confirms the inference, drawn from an allusion +which it contains, that it was written towards the close of the third +year of Seneca's exile. He apologises for its style by saying that if it +betrayed any weakness of thought or inelegance of expression this was +only what might be expected from a man who had so long been surrounded +by the coarse and offensive _patois_ of barbarians. We need hardly +follow him into the ordinary topics of moral philosophy with which it +abounds, or expose the inconsistency of its tone with that of Seneca's +other writings. He consoles the freedman with the "common commonplaces" +that death is inevitable; that grief is useless; that we are all born to +sorrow; that the dead would not wish us to be miserable for their sakes. +He reminds him that, owing to his illustrious position, all eyes are +upon him. He bids him find consolation in the studies in which he has +always shown himself so pre-eminent, and lastly he refers him to those +shining examples of magnanimous fortitude, for the climax of which, no +doubt, the whole piece of interested flattery was composed. For this +passage, written in a _crescendo_ style, culminates, as might have been +expected, in the sublime spectacle of Claudius Caesar. So far from +resenting his exile, he crawls in the dust to kiss Caesar's beneficent +feet for saving him from death; so far from asserting his +innocence--which, perhaps, was impossible, since to do so might have +involved him in a fresh charge of treason--he talks with all the +abjectness of guilt. He belauds the clemency of a man, who, he tells us +elsewhere, used to kill men with as much _sang froid_ as a dog eats +offal; the prodigious powers of memory of a divine creature who used to +ask people to dice and to dinner whom he had executed the day before, +and who even inquired as to the cause of his wife's absence a few days +after having given the order for her execution; the extraordinary +eloquence of an indistinct stutterer, whose head shook and whose broad +lips seemed to be in contortions whenever he spoke.[32] If Polybius +feels sorrowful, let him turn his eyes to Caesar; the splendour of that +most great and radiant deity will so dazzle his eyes that all their +tears will be dried up in the admiring gaze. Oh that the bright +occidental star which has beamed on a world which, before its rising, +was plunged in darkness and deluge, would only shed one little beam +upon him! + +[Footnote 32: These slight discrepancies of description are taken from +counter passages of _Consol, ad Polyb._. and the _Ludus de Morte +Caesaris._] + +No doubt these grotesque and gorgeous flatteries, contrasting strangely +with the bitter language of intense hatred and scathing contempt which +Seneca poured out on the memory of Claudius after his death, were penned +with the sole purpose of being repeated in those divine and benignant +ears. No doubt the superb freedman, who had been allowed so rich a share +of the flatteries lavished on his master, would take the opportunity--if +not out of good nature, at least out of vanity,--to retail them in the +imperial ear. If the moment were but favourable, who knows but what at +some oblivious and crapulous moment the Emperor might be induced to sign +an order for our philosopher's recall? + +Let us not be hard on him. Exile and wretchedness are stern trials, and +it is difficult for him to brave a martyr's misery who has no conception +of a martyr's crown. To a man who, like Seneca, aimed at being not only +a philosopher, but also a man of the world--who in this very treatise +criticises the Stoics for their ignorance of life--there would not have +seemed to be even the shadow of disgrace in a private effusion of +insincere flattery intended to win the remission of a deplorable +banishment. Or, if we condemn Seneca, let us remember that Christians, +no less than philosophers, have attained a higher eminence only to +exemplify a more disastrous fall. The flatteries of Seneca to Claudius +are not more fulsome, and are infinitely less disgraceful, than those +which fawning bishops exuded on his counterpart, King James. And if the +Roman Stoic can gain nothing from a comparison with the yet more +egregious moral failure of the greatest of Christian thinkers---Francis +Bacon, Viscount St. Alban's--let us not forget that a Savonarola and a +Cranmer recanted under torment, and that the anguish of exile drew even +from the starry and imperial spirit of Dante Alighieri words and +sentiments for which in his noblest moments he might have blushed. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE. + +Of the last five years of Seneca's weary exile no trace has been +preserved to us. What were his alternations of hope and fear, of +devotion to philosophy and of hankering after the world which he had +lost, we cannot tell. Any hopes which he may have entertained respecting +the intervention of Polybius in his favour must have been utterly +quenched when he heard that the freedman, though formerly powerful with +Messalina, had forfeited his own life in consequence of her +machinations. But the closing period of his days in Corsica must have +brought him thrilling news, which would save him from falling into +absolute despair. + +For the career of Messalina was drawing rapidly to a close. The life of +this beautiful princess, short as it was, for she died at a very early +age, was enough to make her name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a +time she appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won for her +an unlimited sway over the facile mind of Claudius, and she had either +won over by her intrigues, or terrified by her pitiless severity, the +noblest of the Romans and the most powerful of the freedmen. But we see +in her fate, as we see on every page of history, that vice ever carries +with it the germ of its own ruin, and that a retribution, which is all +the more inevitable from being often slow, awaits every violation of the +moral law. + +There is something almost incredible in the penal infatuation which +brought about her fall. During the absence of her husband at Ostia, she +wedded in open day with C. Silius, the most beautiful and the most +promising of the young Roman nobles. She had apparently persuaded +Claudius that this was merely a mock-marriage, intended to avert some +ominous auguries which threatened to destroy "the husband of Messalina;" +but, whatever Claudius may have imagined, all the rest of the world knew +the marriage to be real, and regarded it not only as a vile enormity, +but also as a direct attempt to bring about a usurpation of the +imperial power. + +It was by this view of the case that the freedman Narcissus roused the +inert spirit and timid indignation of the injured Emperor. While the +wild revelry of the wedding ceremony was at its height, Vettius Valens, +a well-known physician of the day, had in the license of the festival +struggled up to the top of a lofty tree, and when they asked him what he +saw, he replied in words which, though meant for jest, were full of +dreadful significance, "I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia." He +had scarcely uttered the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then +numerous messengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, and was +coming to take vengeance. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the +assembled guests. Silius, as though nothing had happened, went to +transact his public duties in the Forum; Messalina instantly sending for +her children, Octavia and Britannicus, that she might meet her husband +with them by her side, implored the protection of Vibidia, the eldest of +the chaste virgins of Vesta, and, deserted by all but three companions, +fled on foot and unpitied, through the whole breadth of the city, until +she reached the Ostian gate, and mounted the rubbish-cart of a market +gardener which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed both the +looks and the attention of the Emperor by the proofs and the narrative +of her crimes, and, getting rid of the Vestal by promising her that the +cause of Messalina should be tried, he hurried Claudius forward, first +to the house of Silius, which abounded with the proofs of his guilt, and +then to the camp of the Praetorians, where swift vengeance was taken on +the whole band of those who had been involved in Messalina's crimes. She +meanwhile, in alternative paroxysms of fury and abject terror, had taken +refuge in the garden of Lucullus, which she had coveted and made her own +by injustice. Claudius, who had returned home, and had recovered some of +his facile equanimity in the pleasures of the table, showed signs of +relenting; but Narcissus knew that delay was death, and on his own +authority sent a tribune and centurions to despatch the Empress. They +found her prostrate on the ground at the feet of her mother Lepida, with +whom in her prosperity she had quarrelled, but who now came to pity and +console her misery, and to urge her to that voluntary death which alone +could save her from imminent and more cruel infamy. But the mind of +Messalina, like that of Nero afterwards, was so corrupted by wickedness +that not even such poor nobility was left in her as is implied in the +courage of despair. While she wasted the time in tears and lamentations, +a noise was heard of battering at the doors, and the tribune stood by +her in stern silence, the freedman with slavish vituperation. First she +took the dagger in her irresolute hand, and after she had twice stabbed +herself in vain, the tribune drove home the fatal blow, and the corpse +of Messalina, like that of Jezebel, lay weltering in its blood in the +plot of ground of which her crimes had robbed its lawful owner. +Claudius, still lingering at his dinner, was informed that she had +perished, and neither asked a single question at the time, nor +subsequently displayed the slightest sign of anger, of hatred, of pity, +or of any human emotion. + +The absolute silence of Seneca respecting the woman who had caused him +the bitterest anguish and humiliation of his life is, as we have +remarked already, a strange and significant phenomenon. It is clearly +not due to accident, for the vices which he is incessantly describing +and denouncing would have found in this miserable woman their most +flagrant illustration, nor could contemporary history have furnished a +more apposite example of the vindication by her fate of the stern +majesty of the moral law. But yet, though Seneca had every reason to +loathe her character and to detest her memory, though he could not have +rendered to his patrons a more welcome service than by blackening her +reputation, he never so much as mentions her name. And this honourable +silence gives us a favourable insight into his character. For it can +only be due to his pitying sense of the fact that even Messalina, bad as +she undoubtedly was, had been judged already by a higher Power, and had +met her dread punishment at the hand of God. It has been conjectured, +with every appearance of probability, that the blackest of the scandals +which were believed and circulated respecting her had their origin in +the published autobiography of her deadly enemy and victorious +successor. The many who had had a share in Messalina's fall would be +only too glad to poison every reminiscence of her life; and the deadly +implacable hatred of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar +gratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace over the +acts of a rival whose young children it was her dearest object to +supplant. That Seneca did not deign to chronicle even of an enemy what +Agrippina was not ashamed to write,--that he spared one whom it was +every one's interest and pleasure to malign,--that he regarded her +terrible fall as a sufficient claim to pity, as it was a sufficient +Nemesis upon her crimes,--is a trait in the character of the philosopher +which has hardly yet received the credit which it deserves. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO. + +Scarcely had the grave closed over Messalina when the court was plunged +into the most violent factions about the appointment of her successor. +There were three principal candidates for the honour of the aged +Emperor's hand. They were his former wife, Aelia Petina, who had only +been divorced in consequence of trivial disagreements, and who was +supported by Narcissus; Lollia Paulina, so celebrated in antiquity for +her beauty and splendour, and who for a short time had been the wife of +Caius; and Agrippina the younger, the daughter of the great Germanicus, +and the niece of Claudius himself. Claudius, indeed, who had been as +unlucky as Henry VIII. himself in the unhappiness which had attended his +five experiments of matrimony, had made the strongest possible +asseverations that he would never again submit himself to such a yoke. +But he was so completely a tool in the hands of his own courtiers that +no one attached the slightest importance to anything which he had said. + +The marriage of an uncle with his own niece was considered a violation +of natural laws, and was regarded with no less horror among the Romans +than it would be among ourselves. But Agrippina, by the use of means the +most unscrupulous, prevailed over all her rivals, and managed her +interests with such consummate skill that, before many months had +elapsed, she had become the spouse of Claudius and the Empress of Rome. + +With this princess the destinies of Seneca were most closely +intertwined, and it will enable us the better to understand his +position, and his writings, if we remember that all history discloses to +us no phenomenon more portentous and terrible than that presented to us +in the character of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. + +Of the virtues of her great parents she, like their other children, had +inherited not one; and she had exaggerated their family tendencies into +passions which urged her into every form of crime. Her career from the +very cradle had been a career of wickedness, nor had any one of the many +fierce vicissitudes of her life called forth in her a single noble or +amiable trait. Born at Oppidum Ubiorum (afterwards called in her honour +Colonia Agrippina, and still retaining its name in the form Cologne), +she lost her father at the age of three, and her mother (by banishment) +at the age of twelve. She was educated with bad sisters, with a wild and +wicked brother, and under a grandmother whom she detested. At the age of +fourteen she was married to Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the most +worthless and ill-reputed of the young Roman nobles of his day. The +gossiping biographies of the time still retain some anecdotes of his +cruelty and selfishness. They tell us how he once, without the slightest +remorse, ran over a poor boy who was playing on the Appian Road; how on +another occasion he knocked out the eye of a Roman knight who had given +him a hasty answer; and how, when his friend congratulated him on the +birth of his son (the young Claudius Domitius, afterwards the Emperor +Nero), he brutally remarked that from people like himself and Agrippina +could only be born some monster destined for the public ruin. + +Domitius was forty years old when he married Agrippina, and the young +Nero was not born till nine years afterwards. Whatever there was of +possible affection in the tigress-nature of Agrippina was now absorbed +in the person of her child. For that child, from its cradle to her own +death by his means, she toiled and sinned. The fury of her own ambition, +inextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierceness of her love for +this only son, henceforth directed every action of her life. Destiny had +made her the sister of one Emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife +of another; her own crimes made her the mother of a third. And at first +sight her career might have seemed unusually successful, for while still +in the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband, +and then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of +the Roman world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, whose +stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track +through page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to +her with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of +gratified love and pride to which she had waded through so many a deed +of sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and violent +shameful death, by the hand of that very son for whose sake she had so +often violated the laws of virtue and integrity, and spurned so often +the pure and tender obligations which even the heathen had been taught +by the voice of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore. + +Intending that her son should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, +her first step was to drive to death Silanus, a young nobleman to whom +Octavia had already been betrothed. Her next care was to get rid of all +rivals possible or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia +and her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the latter was the +wealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she trumped up an accusation of +sorcery and treason, upon which her wealth was confiscated, but her life +spared by the Emperor, who banished her from Italy. This half-vengeance +was not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the daughter of Herodias in +sacred history, she despatched a tribune with orders to bring her the +head of her enemy; and when it was brought to her, and she found a +difficulty in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a +once-celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have lifted one +of the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this was indeed the head +of Lollia. To such horrors may a woman sink, when she has abandoned the +love of God; and a fair face may hide a soul "leprous as sin itself." +Well may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and +husband-murdering Gertrude are mere children by the side of this awful +giant-shape of steely feminine cruelty. + +Such was the princess who, in the year A.D. 49, recalled Seneca from +exile.[33] She saw that her cruelties were inspiring horror even into a +city that had long been accustomed to blood, and Tacitus expressly tells +us that she hoped to counterbalance this feeling by a stroke of +popularity in recalling from the waste solitudes of Corsica the +favourite philosopher and most popular author of the Roman world. Nor +was she content with this public proof of her belief in his innocence +of the crime which had been laid to his charge, for she further procured +for him the Praetorship, and appointed him tutor and governor to her +youthful son. Even in taking this step she did not forget her ambitious +views; for she knew that Seneca cherished a secret indignation against +Claudius, and that Nero could have no more wise adviser in taking steps +to secure the fruition of his imperial hopes. It might perhaps have been +better for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, or set his +foot again in that Circean and bloodstained court. Let it, however, be +added in his exculpation, that another man of undoubted and scrupulous +honesty,--Afranius Burrus--a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of +Roman manliness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the +Praetorian cohorts, was willing to share his danger and his +responsibilities. Yet he must have lived from the first in the very +atmosphere of base and criminal intrigues. He must have formed an +important member of Agrippina's party, which was in daily and deadly +enmity against the party of Narcissus. He must have watched the +incessant artifices by which Agrippina secured the adoption of her son +Nero by an Emperor whose own son Britannicus was but three years his +junior. He must have seen Nero always honoured, promoted, paraded before +the eyes of the populace as the future hope of Rome, whilst Britannicus, +like the young Edward V. under the regency of his uncle, was neglected, +surrounded with spies, kept as much as possible out of his father's +sight, and so completely thrust into the background from all observation +that the populace began seriously to doubt whether he were alive or +dead. He must have seen Agrippina, who had now received the +unprecedented honour of the title "Augusta" in her lifetime, acting +with such haughty insolence that there could be little doubt as to her +ulterior designs upon the throne. He must have known that his splendid +intellect was practically at the service of a woman in whom avarice, +haughtiness, violence, treachery, and every form of unscrupulous +criminality had reached a point hitherto unmatched even in a corrupt and +pagan world. From this time forth the biography of Seneca must assume +the form of an apology rather than of a panegyric. + +[Footnote 33: Gallio was Proconsul of Achaia about A.D. 53, when St. +Paul was brought before his tribunal. Very possibly his elevation may +have been due to the restoration of Seneca's influence.] + +The Emperor could not but feel that in Agrippina he had chosen a wife +even more intolerable than Messalina herself. Messalina had not +interfered with the friends he loved, had not robbed him of the insignia +of empire, had not filled his palace with a hard and unfeminine tyranny, +and had of course watched with a mother's interest over the lives and +fortunes of his children. Narcissus would not be likely to leave him +long in ignorance that, in addition to her other plots and crimes, +Agrippina had been as little true to him as his former unhappy wife. The +information sank deep into his heart, and he was heard to mutter that it +had been his destiny all along first to bear, and then to avenge, the +enormities of his wives. Agrippina, whose spies filled the palace, could +not long remain uninformed of so significant a speech; and she probably +saw with an instinct quickened by the awful terrors of her own guilty +conscience that the Emperor showed distinct signs of his regret for +having married his niece, and adopted her child to the prejudice, if not +to the ruin, of his own young son. If she wanted to reach the goal which +she had held so long in view no time was to be lost. Let us hope that +Seneca and Burrus were at least ignorant of the means which she took to +effect her purpose. + +Fortune favoured her. The dreaded Narcissus, the most formidable +obstacle to her murderous plans, was seized with an attack of the gout. +Agrippina managed that his physician should recommend him the waters of +Sinuessa in Campania by way of cure. He was thus got out of the way, and +she proceeded at once to her work of blood. Entrusting the secret to +Halotus, the Emperor's _praegustator_--the slave whose office it was to +protect him from poison by tasting every dish before him--and to his +physician, Xenophon of Cos, she consulted Locusta, the Mrs. Turner of +the period of this classical King James, as to the poison best suited to +her purpose. Locusta was mistress of her art, in which long practice had +given her a consummate skill. The poison must not be too rapid, lest it +should cause suspicion; nor too slow, lest it should give the Emperor +time to consult for the interests of his son Britannicus; but it was to +be one which should disturb his intellect without causing immediate +death. Claudius was a glutton, and the poison was given him with all the +more ease because it was mixed with a dish of mushrooms, of which he was +extravagantly fond. Agrippina herself handed him the choicest mushroom +in the dish, and the poison at once reduced him to silence. As was too +frequently the case, Claudius was intoxicated at the time, and was +carried off to his bed as if nothing had happened. A violent colic +ensued, and it was feared that this, with a quantity of wine which he +had drunk, would render the poison innocuous. But Agrippina had gone too +far for retreat, and Xenophon, who knew that great crimes if frustrated +are perilous, if successful are rewarded, came to her assistance. Under +pretence of causing him to vomit, he tickled the throat of the Emperor +with a feather smeared with a swift and deadly poison. It did its work, +and before morning the Caesar was a corpse.[34] + +[Footnote 34: There is usually found among the writings of Seneca a most +remarkable burlesque called _Ludus de Morte Caesaris_. As to its +authorship opinions will always vary, but it is a work of such undoubted +genius, so interesting, and so unique in its character, that I have +thought it necessary to give in an Appendix a brief sketch of its +argument. We may at least _hope_ that this satire, which overflows with +the deadliest contempt of Claudius, is not from the same pen which wrote +for Nero his funeral oration. It has, however, been supposed (without +sufficient grounds) to be the lost [Greek: Apokolokuntoois] which Seneca +is said to have written on the apotheosis of Claudius. The very name is +a bitter satire. It imagines the Emperor transformed, not into a God, +but into a gourd--one of those "bloated gourds which sun their speckled +bellies before the doors of the Roman peasants." "The Senate decreed his +_divinity_; Seneca translated it into _pumpkinity_" (Merivale, _Rom. +Emp_. v. 601). The _Ludus_ begins by spattering mud on the memory of the +divine Claudius; it ends with a shower of poetic roses over the glory of +the diviner Nero!] + +As has been the case not unfrequently in history, from the times of +Tarquinius Priscus to those of Charles II., the death was concealed +until everything had been prepared for the production of a successor. +The palace was carefully watched; no one was even admitted into it +except Agrippina's most trusty partisans. The body was propped up with +pillows; actors were sent for "by his own desire" to afford it some +amusement; and priests and consuls were bidden to offer up their vows +for the life of the dead. Giving out that the Emperor was getting +better, Agrippina took care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters, +Octavia and Antonia, under her own immediate eye. As though overwhelmed +with sorrow she wept, and embraced them, and above all kept Britannicus +by her side, kissing him with the exclamation "that he was the very +image of his father," and taking care that he should on no account +leave her room. So the day wore on till it was the hour which the +Chaldaeans declared would be the only lucky hour in that unlucky +October day. + +Noon came; the palace doors were suddenly thrown open: and Nero with +Burrus at his side went out to the Praetorian cohort which was on guard. +By the order of their commandant, they received him with cheers. A few +only hesitated, looking round them and asking "Where was Britannicus?" +Since, however, he was not to be seen, and no one stirred in his favour, +they followed the multitude. Nero was carried in triumph to the camp, +made the soldiers a short speech, and promised to each man of them a +splendid donative. He was at once saluted Emperor. The Senate followed +the choice of the soldiers, and the provinces made no demur. Divine +honors were decreed to the murdered man, and preparations made for a +funeral which was to rival in its splendour the one which Livia had +ordered for Augustus. But the will--which beyond all doubt had provided +for the succession of Britannicus--was quietly done away with, and its +exact provisions were never known. + +And on the first evening of his imperial power, Nero, well aware to whom +he owed his throne, gave to the sentinel who came to ask him the pass +for the night the grateful and significant watchword of "Optima +Mater,"--"the best of mothers!" + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +NERO AND HIS TUTOR. + +The imperial youth, whose destinies are now inextricably mingled with +those of Seneca, was accompanied to the throne by the acclamations of +the people. Wearied by the astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath +of a Tiberius, the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of +a Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and +beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his shoulders, and whose +features displayed the finest type of Roman beauty. There was nothing in +his antecedents to give a sinister augury to his future development, and +all classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We can +understand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own +countrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the +youthful virtue and gentleness of Edward VI. Happy would it have been +for Nero if his reign, like that of Edward, could have been cut short +before the thick night of many crimes had settled down upon the promise +of its dawn. For the first five years of Nero's reign--the famous +_Quinquennium Neronis_--were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period +of almost ideal happiness. In reality, it was Seneca who was ruling in +Nero's, name. Even so excellent an Emperor as Trajan is said to have +admitted "that no other prince had nearly equalled the praise of that +period." It is indeed probable that those years appeared to shine with +an exaggerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded them; +yet we can see in them abundant circumstances which were quite +sufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope and joy. The young Nero was +at first modest and docile. His opening speeches, written with all the +beauty of thought and language which betrayed the _style_ of Seneca no +less than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises. All +those things which had been felt to be injurious or oppressive he +promised to eschew. He would not, he said, reserve to himself, as +Claudius had done, the irresponsible decision in all matters of +business; no office or dignity should be won from him by flattery or +purchased by bribes; he would not confuse his own personal interests +with those of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient +prerogatives of the Senate; he would confine his own immediate attention +to the provinces and the army. + +Nor were such promises falsified by his immediate conduct. The odious +informers who had flourished in previous reigns were frowned upon and +punished. Offices of public dignity were relieved from unjust and +oppressive burdens. Nero prudently declined the gold and silver statues +and other extravagant honours which were offered to him by the corrupt +and servile Senate, but he treated that body, which, fallen as it was, +continued still to be the main representative of constitutional +authority, with favour and respect. Nobles and officials begun to +breathe more freely, and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was +perceptibly relaxed. Severity was reserved for notorious criminals, and +was only inflicted in a regular and authorized manner, when no one +could doubt that it had been deserved. Above all, Seneca had +disseminated an anecdote about his young pupil which tended more than +any other circumstance to his wide spread popularity. England has +remembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluctance of her +youthful Edward to sign the death-warrant of Joan Boucher; Rome, +accustomed to a cruel indifference to human life, regarded with +something like transport the sense of pity which had made Nero, when +asked to affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, "_How I +wish that I did not know how to write_!" + +It is admitted that no small share of the happiness of this period was +due to the firmness of the honest Burrus, and the wise, high-minded +precepts of Seneca. They deserve the amplest gratitude and credit for +this happy interregnum, for they had no easy task to perform. Besides +the difficulties which arose from the base and frivolous character of +their pupil, besides the infinite delicacy which was requisite for the +restraint of a youth who was absolute master of such gigantic destinies, +they had the task of curbing the wild and imperious ambition of +Agrippina, and of defeating the incessant intrigues of her many powerful +dependents. Agrippina had no doubt persuaded herself that her crimes had +been mainly committed in the interest of her son; but her conduct showed +that she wished him to be a mere instrument in her hands. She wished to +govern him, and had probably calculated on doing so by the assistance of +Seneca, just as our own Queen Caroline completely managed George II. +with the aid of Sir Robert Walpole. She rode in a litter with him; +without his knowledge she ordered the poisoning of M. Silanus, a brother +of her former victim, she goaded Narcissus to death, against his will; +through her influence the Senate was sometimes assembled in the palace, +and she took no pains to conceal from the senators that she was herself +seated behind a curtain where she could hear every word of their +deliberations;--nay, on one occasion, when Nero was about to give +audience to an important Armenian legation, she had the audacity to +enter the audience-chamber, and advance to take her seat by the side of +the Emperor. Every one else was struck dumb with amazement, and even +terror, at a proceeding so unusual; but Seneca, with ready and admirable +tact, suggested to Nero that he should rise and meet his mother, thus +obviating a public scandal under the pretext of filial affection. + +But Seneca from the very first had been guilty of a fatal error in the +education of his pupil. He had governed him throughout on the ruinous +principle of _concession_. Nero was not devoid of talent; he had a +decided turn for Latin versification, and the few lines of his +composition which have come down to us, _bizarre_ and effected as they +are, yet display a certain sense of melody and power of language. But +his vivid imagination was accompained by a want of purpose; and Seneca, +instead of trying to train him in habits of serious attention and +sustained thought, suffered him to waste his best efforts in pursuits +and amusements which were considered partly frivolous and partly +disreputable, such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca +might have argued that there was, at any rate, no great harm in such +employments, and that they probably kept Nero out of worse mischief. But +we respect Nero the less for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging +just as we respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks; and, if +Seneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the first, Rome +might have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero's subsequent +buffooneries in the cities of Greece and the theatres of Rome. We may +lay it down as an invariable axiom in all high education, that it is +_never_ sensible to permit what is bad for the supposed sake of +preventing what is worse. Seneca very probably persuaded himself that +with a mind like Nero's--the innate worthlessness of which he must early +have recognised--success of any high description would be simply +impossible. But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble +means by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable. +Let us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly +in matters which he regarded as indifferent--or, at the worst, as +discreditable--rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably +arose from an error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in +moral character. + +Yet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the worse for this +laxity of training. We have already seen that, in his maiden-speech +before the Senate, every one recognized the hand of Seneca, and many +observed with a sigh that this was the first occasion on which an +Emperor had not been able, at least to all appearance, to address the +Senate in his own words and with his own thoughts. Tiberius, as an +orator, had been dignified and forcible; Claudius had been learned and +polished; even the disturbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in +a capacity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but Nero's +youth had been frittered away in paltry and indecorus accomplishments, +which had left him neither time nor inclination for weightier and +nobler pursuits. + +The fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously from the +subsequent infamy of his pupil; and it is obvious that the dislike of +Tacitus to his memory is due to his connexion with Nero. Now, even +though the tutor's system had not been so wise as, when judged by an +inflexible standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to +make him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and it must be +remembered, to Seneca's eternal honour, that the evidence of facts, the +testimony of contemporaries, and even the grudging admission of Tacitus +himself, establishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation +characterized the earlier years of Nero's reign were due to his +counsels; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the virtuous Burrus; +that he helped to check the sanguinary audacities of Agrippina; that the +writings which he addressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for +him, breathed the loftiest counsels; and that it was not until he was +wholly removed from power and influence that Nero, under the fierce +impulses of despotic power, developed those atrocious tendencies of +which the seeds had long been latent in his disposition. An ancient +writer records the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a +savagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate; and that to +his intimate friends he used to observe that, "when once the lion tasted +human blood, his innate cruelty would return." + +But while we give Seneca this credit, and allow that his _intentions_ +were thoroughly upright, we cannot but impugn his _judgment_ for having +thus deliberately adopted the morality of expedience; and we believe +that to this cause, more than to any other, was due the extent of his +failure and the misery of his life. We may, indeed, be permitted to +doubt whether Nero himself--a vain and loose youth, the son of bad +parents, and heir to boundless expectations--would, under any +circumstances, have grown up much better than he did; but it is clear +that Seneca might have been held in infinitely higher honour but for the +share which he had in his education. Had Seneca been as firm and wise as +Socrates, Nero in all probability would not have been much worse than +Alcibiades. If the tutor had set before his pupil no ideal but the very +highest, if he had inflexibly opposed to the extent of his ability every +tendency which was dishonourable and wrong, he might _possibly_ have +been rewarded by success, and have earned the indelible gratitude of +mankind; and if he had failed he would at least have failed nobly, and +have carried with him into a calm and honourable retirement the respect, +if not the affection, of his imperial pupil. Nay, even if he had failed +_completely_, and lost his life in the attempt, it would have been +infinitely better both for him and for mankind. Even Homer might have +taught him that "it is better to die than live in sin." At any rate he +might have known from study and observation that an education founded on +compromise must always and necessarily fail. It must fail because it +overlooks that great eternal law of retribution for and continuity in +evil, which is illustrated by every single history of individuals and of +nations. And the education which Seneca gave to Nero--noble as it was in +many respects, and eminent as was its partial and temporary success--was +yet an education of compromises. Alike in the studies of Nero's boyhood +and the graver temptations of his manhood, he acted on the +foolishly-fatal principle that + + "Had the wild oat not been sown, + The soil left barren scarce had grown, + The grain whereby a man may live." + +Any Christian might have predicted the result; one would have thought +that even a pagan philosopher might have been enlightened enough to +observe it. We often quote the lines-- + + "The child is father of the man," + +and + + "Just as the twig is bent the tree inclines." + +But the ancients were quite as familiar with the same truth under other +images. "The cask," wrote Horace, "will long retain the odour of that +which has once been poured into it when new." Quintilian, describing the +depraved influences which surrounded even the infancy of a Roman child, +said, "From these arise _first familiarity, then nature_." + +No one has laid down the principle more emphatically than Seneca +himself. Take, for instance, the following passage from his Letters, on +evil conversation. "The conversation," he says, "of these men is very +injurious; for, even if it does no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds +in the mind, and follows us even when we have gone from the speakers,--a +plague sure to spring up in future resurrection. Just as those who have +heard a symphony carry in their ears the tune and sweetness of the song +which entangles their thoughts, and does not suffer them to give their +whole energy to serious matters; so the conversation of flatterers and +of those who praise evil things, lingers longer in the mind than the +time of hearing it. Nor is it easy to shake out of the soul a sweet +sound; it pursues us, and lingers with us, and at perpetual intervals +recurs. Our ears therefore must be closed to evil words, and that to the +very first we hear. For when they have once begun and been admitted, +they acquire more and more audacity;" and so he adds a little +afterwards, "our days flow on, and irreparable life passes beyond our +reach." Yet he who wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to +his imperial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encouraged +him in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named Acte, into which Nero +fell. It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the +youthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to +whom he had been bound by every tie of honour and affection, and his +union with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical +usurpation. But princes rarely love the wives to whom they owe any part +of their elevation. Henry VII. treated Elizabeth of York with many +slights. The union of William III. with Mary was overshadowed by her +superior claim to the royal power; and Nero from the first regarded with +aversion, which ended in assassination, the poor young orphan girl who +recalled to the popular memory his slender pretensions to hereditary +empire, and whom he regarded as a possible rival, if her cowed and +plastic nature should ever become a tool in the hands of more powerful +intriguers. But we do not hear of any attempt on Seneca's part to urge +upon Nero the fulfillment of this high duty, and we find him sinking +into the degraded position of an accomplice with young profligates like +Otho, as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, which +would have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to a Stoic +disgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the very principle to +which we have been pointing,--the principle of moral compromise, the +principle of permitting and encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of +thereby preventing what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca +should have erred in this way, for compromise was the character of his +entire life. He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible +task of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the +Caesars. He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a +man of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he +failed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man +_must_ make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of +Mammon and the service of God. No man ever gained anything but contempt +and ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions. + +And by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or an Antisthenes +would have taken, Seneca became more or less involved in some of the +most dreadful events of Nero's reign. Every one of the terrible doubts +under which his reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted +the principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue. One or two +of these events we must briefly narrate. + +We have already pointed out that the Nemesis which for so many years had +been secretly dogging the footsteps of Agrippina made her tremble under +the weight of its first cruel blows when she seemed to have attained the +highest summit of her ambition. Very early indeed Nero began to be +galled and irritated by the insatiate assumption and swollen authority +of "the best of mothers." The furious reproaches which she heaped upon +him when she saw in Acte a possible rival to her power drove him to take +refuge in the facile and unphilosophic worldliness of Seneca's +concessions, and goaded him almost immediately afterwards into an +atrocious crime. He naturally looked on Britannicus, the youthful son of +Claudius, with even more suspicion and hatred than that with which he +regarded Octavia. Kings have rarely been able to abstain from acts of +severity against those who might become claimants to the throne. The +feelings of King John towards Prince Arthur, of Henry IV. towards the +Earl of March, of Mary towards Lady Jane Grey, of Elizabeth towards Mary +Stuart, of King James towards Lady Arabella Stuart, resembled, but +probably by no means equalled in intensity, those of Nero towards his +kinsman and adoptive brother. To show him any affection was a dangerous +crime, and it furnished a sufficient cause for immediate removal if any +attendant behaved towards him with fidelity. Such a line of treatment +foreshadowed the catastrophe which was hastened by the rage of +Agrippina. She would go, she said, and take with her to the camp the +noble boy who was now of full age to undertake those imperial duties +which a usurper was exercising in virtue of crimes which she was now +prepared to confess. Then let the mutilated Burrus and the glib-tongued +Seneca see whether they could be a match for the son of Claudius and the +daughter of Germanicus. Such language, uttered with violent gestures and +furious imprecations, might well excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And +that alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all +the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During +the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with +all the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot +as "governor of the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue +his orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates which +would not make them blush; but Britannicus in violation of every +principle of Roman decorum, was ordered to stand up in the middle and +sing a song. The boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and +wholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well have faltered; +but he at once rose, and with a steady voice began a strain--probably +the magnificent wail of Andromache over the fall of Troy, which has been +preserved to us from a lost play of Ennius--in which he indicated his +own disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights. His courage and his +misfortunes woke in the guests a feeling of pity which night and wine +made them less careful to disguise. From that moment the fate of +Britannicus was sealed. Locusta, the celebrated poisoner of ancient +Rome, was summoned to the councils of Nero to get rid of Britannicus, as +she had already been summoned to those of his mother when she wished to +disembarrass herself of Britannicus's father. The main difficulty was to +avoid discovery, since nothing was eaten or drunk at the imperial table +till it had been tasted by the _praegustator_. To avoid this difficulty +a very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he wished for +something cooler a swift and subtle poison was dropped into the cold +water with which it was tempered. The boy drank, and instantly sank from +his seat, gasping and speechless. The guests started up in +consternation, and fixed their eyes on Nero. He with the utmost coolness +assured them that it was merely a fit of epilepsy, to which his brother +was accustomed, and from which he would soon recover. The terror and +agitation of Agrippina showed to every one that she at least was +guiltless of this dark deed; but the unhappy Octavia, young as she was, +and doubly terrible on every ground as the blow must have been to her, +sat silent and motionless, having already learnt by her misfortunes the +awful necessity for suppressing under an impassive exterior her +affections and sorrows, her hopes and fears. In the dead of night, amid +storms and murky rain, which were thought to indicate the wrath of +heaven, the last of the Claudii was hastily and meanly hurried into a +dishonourable grave. + +We may believe that in this crime Seneca had no share whatever, but we +can hardly believe that he was ignorant of it after it had been +committed, or that he had no share in the intensely hypocritical edict +in which Nero bewailed the fact of his adoptive brother's death, excused +his hurried funeral, and threw himself on the additional indulgence and +protection of the Senate. Nero showed the consciousness of guilt by the +immense largesses which he distributed to the most powerful of his +friends, "Nor were there wanting men," says Tacitus, in a most +significant manner, "_who accused certain people, notorious for their +high professions, of having at that period divided among them villas and +houses as though they had been so much spoil_." There can hardly be a +doubt that the great historian intends by this remark to point at +Seneca, to whom he tries to be fair, but whom he could never quite +forgive for his share in the disgraces of Nero's reign. That avarice was +one of Seneca's temptations is too probable; that expediency was a +guiding principle of his conduct is but too evident; and for a man with +such a character to rebut an innuendo is never an easy task. Nay more, +it was _after_ this foul event, at the close of Nero's first year, that +Seneca addressed him in the extravagant and glowing language of his +treatise on Clemency. "The quality of mercy," and the duty of princes to +practise it, has never been more eloquently extolled; but it is +accompanied by a fulsome flattery which has in it something painfully +grotesque as addressed by a philosopher to one whom he knew to have been +guilty, that very year, of an inhuman fratricide. Imagine some Jewish +Pharisee,--a Nicodemus or a Gamaliel--pronouncing an eulogy on the +tenderness of a Herod, and you have some picture of the appearance which +Seneca's consistency must have worn in the eyes of his contemporaries. + +This event took place A.D. 55, in the first year of Nero's +_Quinquennium_, and the same year was nearly signalized by the death of +his mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy was invented against her, +and it is probable that but for the intervention of Burrus, who with +Seneca was appointed to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a +very sudden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred of her +son. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of her defence created a +reaction in her favour, and secured the punishment of her accusers. But +the ties of affection could not long unite two such wicked and imperious +natures as those of Agrippina and her son. All history shows that there +can be no real love between souls exceptionally wicked, and that this is +still more impossible when the alliance between them has been sealed by +a complicity in crime. Nero had now fallen into a deep infatuation for +Poppaea Sabina, the beautiful wife of Otho, and she refused him her hand +so long as he was still under the control of his mother. At this time +Agrippina, as the just consequence of her many crimes, was regarded by +all classes with a fanaticism of hatred which in Poppaea Sabina was +intensified by manifest self-interest. Nero, always weak, had long +regarded his mother with real terror and disgust, and he scarcely needed +the urgency of constant application to make him long to get rid of her. +But the daughter of Germanicus could not be openly destroyed, while her +own precautions helped to secure her against secret assassination. It +only remained to compass her death by treachery. Nero had long compelled +her to live in suburban retirement, and had made no attempt to conceal +the open rapture which existed between them. Anicetus, admiral of the +fleet at Misenum, and a former instructor of Nero, suggested the +expedient of a pretended public reconciliation, in virtue of which +Agrippina should be invited to Baiae, and on her return should be placed +on board a vessel so constructed as to come to pieces by the removal of +bolts. The disaster might then be attributed to a mere naval accident, +and Nero might make the most ostentatious display of his affection +and regret. + +The invitation was sent, and a vessel specially decorated was ordered to +await her movements. But, either from suspicion or from secret +information, she declined to avail herself of it, and was conveyed to +Baiae in a litter. The effusion of hypocritical affection with which she +was received, the unusual tenderness and honour with which she was +treated, the earnest gaze, the warm embrace, the varied conversation, +removed her suspicions, and she consented to return in the vessel of +honour. As though for the purpose of revealing the crime, the night was +starry and the sea calm. The ship had not sailed far, and Crepereius +Gallus, one of her friends, was standing near the helm, while a lady +named Acerronia was seated at her feet as she reclined, and both were +vieing with each other in the warmth of their congratulations upon the +recent interview, when a crash was heard, and the canopy above them +which had been weighted with a quantity of lead, was suddenly let go. +Crepereius was crushed to death upon the spot; Agrippina and Acerronia +were saved by the projecting sides of the couch on which they were +resting; in the hurry and alarm, as accomplices were mingled with a +greater number who were innocent of the plot, the machinery of the +treacherous vessel failed. Some of the rowers rushed to one side of the +ship, hoping in that manner to sink it, but here too their councils were +divided and confused. Acerronia, in the selfish hope of securing +assistance, exclaimed that she was Agrippina, and was immediately +despatched with oars and poles; Agrippina, silent and unrecognized, +received a wound upon the shoulder, but succeeded in keeping herself +afloat till she was picked up by fishermen and carried in safety to +her villa. + +The hideous attempt from which she had been thus miraculously rescued +did not escape her keen intuition, accustomed as it was to deeds of +guilt; but, seeing that her only chance of safety rested in +dissimulation and reticense, she sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her +son that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible +accident, but to beg him not to be alarmed, and not to come to see her +because she needed rest. + +The news filled Nero with the wildest terror, and the expectation of an +immediate revenge. In horrible agitation and uncertainty he instantly +required the presence of Burrus and Seneca. Tacitus doubts whether they +may not have been already aware of what he had attempted, and Dion, to +whose gross calumnies, however, we need pay no attention, declares that +Seneca had frequently urged Nero to the deed, either in the hope of +overshadowing his own guilt, or of involving Nero in a crime which +should hasten his most speedy destruction at the hands of gods and men. +In the absence of all evidence we may with perfect confidence acquit the +memory of these eminent men from having gone so far as this. + +It must have been a strange and awful scene. The young man, for Nero was +but twenty-two years old, poured into the ears their tumult of his +agitation and alarm. White with fear, weak with dissipation, and +tormented by the furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth +looked from one to another of his aged ministers. A long and painful +pause ensued. If they dissuaded him in vain from the crime which he +meditated their lives would have been in danger; and perhaps they +sincerely thought that things had gone so far that, unless Agrippina +were anticipated, Nero would be destroyed. Seneca was the first to break +that silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus whether the soldiery +could be entrusted to put her to death. His reply was that the +praetorians would do nothing against a daughter of Germanicus and that +Anicetus should accomplish what he had promised. Anicetus showed himself +prompt to crime, and Nero thanked him in a rapture of gratitude. While +the freedman Agerinus was delivering to Nero his mother's message, +Anicetus dropped a dagger at his feet, declared that he had caught him +in the very act of attempting the Emperor's assassination, and hurried +off with a band of soldiers to punish Agrippina as the author of +the crime. + +The multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excitement along the shore; +their torches were seen glimmering in evident commotion about the scene +of the calamity, where some were wading into the water in search of the +body, and others were shouting incoherent questions and replies. At the +rumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed off in a body to her villa to +express their congratulations, where they were dispersed by the soldiers +of Anicetus, who had already token possession of it. Scattering or +seizing the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage +from door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted chamber, +attended only by a single handmaid. "Dost thou too desert me?" +exclaimed the wretched woman to her servant, as she rose to slip away. +In silent determination the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus +was the first to strike her with a stick. "Strike my womb," she cried to +him faintly, as he drew his sword, "for it bore Nero." The blow of +Anicetus was the signal for her immediate destruction: she was +dispatched with many wounds, and was buried that night at Misenum on a +common couch and with a mean funeral. Such an end, many years +previously, this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had +anticipated and despised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her that +her son would become Emperor, and would murder her, she is said to have +exclaimed, "Occidat dum imperet," "Let him slay me if he but reign." + +It only remained to account for the crime, and offer for it such lying +defences as were most likely to gain credit. Flying to Naples from a +scene which had now become awful to him,--for places do not change as +men's faces change, and, besides this, his disturbed conscience made him +fancy that he heard from the hill of Misenum the blowing of a ghostly +trumpet and wailings about his mother's tomb in the hours of night,--he +sent from thence a letter to the Senate, saying that his mother had been +punished for an attempt upon his life, and adding a list of her crimes, +real and imaginary, the narrative of her _accidental_ shipwreck, and his +opinion that her death was a public blessing. The author of this +shameful document was Seneca, and in composing it he reached the nadir +of his moral degradation. Even the lax morality of a most degenerate age +condemned him for calmly sitting down to decorate with the graces of +rhetoric and antithesis an atrocity too deep for the powers of +indignation. A Seneca could stoop to write what a Thrasea Paetus could +scarcely stoop to hear; for in the meeting of the Senate at which the +letter was recited, Thrasea rose in indignation, and went straight home +rather than seem to sanction by his presence the adulation of a +matricide. + +And the composition of that guily, elaborate, shameful letter was the +last prominent act of Seneca's public life. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE BEGINNING OF THE END + +Nor was it unnatural that it should be. Moral precepts, philosophic +guidance were no longer possible to one whose compliances or whose +timidity had led him so far as first to sanction matricide, and then to +defend it. He might indeed be still powerful to recommend principles of +common sense and political expediency, but the loftier lessons of +Stoicism, nay, even the better utterances of a mere ordinary Pagan +morality, could henceforth only fall from his lips with something of a +hollow ring. He might interfere, as we know he did, to render as +innocuous as possible the pernicious vanity which made Nero so ready to +degrade his imperial rank by public appearances on the orchestra or in +the race-course, but he could hardly address again such noble teachings +as that of the treatise on Clemency to one whom, on grounds of political +expediency, he had not dissuaded from the treacherous murder of a +mother, who, whatever her enormities, yet for his sake had sold her +very soul. + +Although there may have been a strong suspicion that foul play had been +committed, the actual facts and details of the death of Agrippina would +rest between Nero and Seneca as a guilty secret, in the guilt of which +Seneca himself must have his share. Such a position of things was the +inevitable death-blow, not only to all friendship, but to all +confidence, and ultimately to all intercourse. We see in sacred history +that Joab's participation in David's guilty secret gave him the absolute +mastery over his own sovereign; we see repeatedly in profane history +that the mutual knowledge of some crime is the invariable cause of +deadly hatred between a subject and a king. Such feelings as King John +may be supposed to have had to Hubert de Burgh, or King Richard III. to +Sir James Tyrrel, or King James I. to the Earl of Somerset, such +probably, in still more virulent intensity, were the feelings of Nero +towards his whilome "guide, philosopher, and friend." + +For Nero very soon learnt that Seneca was no longer _necessary_ to him. +For a time he lingered in Campania, guiltily dubious as to the kind of +reception that awaited him in the capital. The assurances of the vile +crew which surrounded him soon made that fear wear off, and when he +plucked up the courage to return to his palace, he might himself have +been amazed at the effusion of infamous loyalty and venal acclamation +with which he was received. All Rome poured itself forth to meet him; +the Senate appeared in festal robes with their wives and girls and boys +in long array; seats and scaffoldings were built up along the road by +which he had to pass, as though the populace had gone forth to see a +triumph. With haughty mein, the victor of a nation of slaves, he +ascended the Capitol, gave thanks to the gods, and went home to betray +henceforth the full perversity of a nature which the reverence for his +mother, such as it was, had hitherto in part restrained. But the +instincts of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. They +hung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the old punishment +of parricides, who were sentenced to be flung into the sea, tied up in a +sack with a serpent, a monkey, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the +Forum with a tablet on which was written, "I refuse to rear thee, lest +thou shouldst slay thy mother." They scrawled upon the blank walls of +Rome an iambic line which reminded all who read it that Nero, Orestes, +and Alcmaeon were murderers of their mothers. Even Nero must have been +well aware that he presented a hideous spectacle in the eyes of all who +had the faintest shade of righteousness among the people whom he ruled. + +All this took place in A.D. 59, and we hear no more of Seneca till the +year 62, a year memorable for the death of Burrus, who had long been his +honest, friendly, and faithful colleague. In these dark times, when all +men seemed to be speaking in a whisper, almost every death of a +conspicuous and high-minded man, if not caused by open violence, falls +under the suspicion of secret poison. The death of Burrus may have been +due (from the description) to diphtheria, but the popular voice charged +Nero with having hastened his death by a pretended remedy, and declared +that, when the Emperor visited his sick bed, the dying man turned away +from his inquiries with the laconic answer, "I am well." + +His death was regretted, not only from the memory of his virtues, but +also from the fact that Nero appointed two men as his successors, of +whom the one, Fenius Rufus, was honorable but indolent; the other and +more powerful, Sofonius Tigellinus had won for himself among cruel and +shameful associates a pre-eminence of hatred and of shame. + +However faulty and inconsistent Seneca may have been, there was at any +rate no possibility that he should divide with a Tigellinus the +direction of his still youthful master. He was by no means deceived as +to the position in which he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in +whom any spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant +calumnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tigellinus and his +friends dwelt on his enormous wealth and his magnificent villas and +gardens, which could only have been acquired with ulterior objects, and +which threw into the shade the splendour of the Emperor himself. They +tried to kindle the inflammable jealousies of Nero's feeble mind by +representing Seneca as attempting to rival him in poetry, and as +claiming the entire credit of his eloquence, while he mocked his divine +singing, and disparaged his accomplishments as a harper and charioteer +because he himself was unable to acquire them. Nero, they urged was a +boy no longer; let him get rid of his schoolmaster, and find sufficient +instruction in the example of his ancestors. + +Foreseeing how such arguments must end; Seneca requested an interview +with Nero; begged to be suffered to retire altogether from public life; +pleaded age and increasing infirmities as an excuse for desiring a calm +retreat; and offered unconditionally to resign the wealth and honours +which had excited the cupidity of his enemies, but which were simply due +to Nero's unexampled liberality during the eight years of his +government, towards one whom he had regarded as a benefactor and a +friend. But Nero did not choose to let Seneca escape so lightly. He +argued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to +accept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for +generosity. A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under +deceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and +assurances of friendship. Seneca thanked him--the usual termination, as +Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler--but nevertheless +altered his entire manner of life, forbade his friends to throng to his +levees, avoided all companions, and rarely appeared in public--wishing +it to be believed that he was suffering from weak health, or was wholly +occupied in the pursuit of philosophy. He well knew the arts of courts, +for in his book on Anger he has told an anecdote of one who, being asked +how he had managed to attain so rare a gift as old age in a palace, +replied, "By submitting to injuries, and _returning thanks for them_." +But he must have known that his life hung upon a thread, for in the very +same year an attempt was made to involve him in a charge of treason as +one of the friends of C. Calpurnius Piso, an illustrious nobleman whose +wealth and ability made him an object of jealousy and suspicion, though +he was naturally unambitious and devoid of energy. The attempt failed at +the time, and Seneca was able triumphantly to refute the charge of any +treasonable design. But the fact of such a charge being made showed how +insecure was the position of any man of eminence under the deepening +tyranny of Nero, and it precipitated the conspiracy which two years +afterwards was actually formed. + +Not long after the death of Burrus, when Nero began to add sacrilege to +his other crimes, Seneca made one more attempt to retire from Rome; and, +when permission was a second time refused, he feigned a severe illness, +and confined himself to his chamber. It was asserted, and believed, that +about this time Nero made an attempt to poison him by the +instrumentality of his freedman Cleonicus, which was only defeated by +the confession of an accomplice or by the abstemious habits of the +philosopher who now took nothing but bread and fruit, and never quenched +his thirst except out of the running stream. + +It was during those two years of Seneca's seclusion and disgrace that an +event happened of imperishable interest. On the orgies of a shameful +court, on the supineness of a degenerate people, there burst--as upon +the court of Charles II.--a sudden lightning-flash of retribution. In +its character, in its extent, in the devastation and anguish of which it +was the cause, in the improvements by which it was followed, in the +lying origin to which it was attributed, even in the general +circumstances of the period and character of the reign in which it +happened, there is a close and singular analogy between the Great Fire +of London in 1666 and the Great Fire of Rome in 64. Beginning in the +crowded part of the city, under the Palatine and Caelian Hills, it +raged, first for six, and then again for three days, among the +inflammable material of booths and shops, and driven along by a furious +wind, amid feeble and ill-directed efforts to check its course, it burst +irresistibly over palaces, temples, and porticoes, and amid the narrow +tortuous streets of old Rome, involving in a common destruction the most +magnificent works of ancient art, the choicest manuscripts of ancient +literature, and the most venerable monuments of ancient superstition. In +a few touches of inimitable compression, such as the stern genius of the +Latin language permits, but which are too condensed for direct +translation, Tacitus has depicted the horror of the scene,--wailing of +panic-stricken women, the helplessness of the very aged and the very +young, the passionate eagerness for themselves and for others, the +dragging along of the feeble or the waiting for them, the lingering and +the hurry, the common and inextricable confusion. Many, while they +looked backward, were cut off by the flames in front or at the sides; if +they sought some neighboring refuge, they found it in the grasp of the +conflagration; if they hurried to some more distant spot, that too was +found to be involved in the same calamity. At last, uncertain what to +seek or what to avoid, they crowded the streets, they lay huddled +together in the fields. Some, having lost all their possessions, died +from the want of daily food; and others, who might have escaped died of +a broken heart from the anguish of being bereaved of those whom they had +been unable to rescue; while, to add to the universal horror, it was +believed that all attempts to repress the flames were checked by +authoritive prohibition; nay more, that hired incendiaries were seen +flinging firebrands in new directions, either because they had been +bidden to do so, or that they might exercise their rapine undisturbed. + +The historians and anecdotists of the time, whose accounts must be taken +for what they are worth, attribute to Nero the origin of the +conflagration; and it is certain that he did not return to Rome until +the fire had caught the galleries of his palace. In vain did he use +every exertion to assist the homeless and ruined population; in vain did +he order food to be sold to them at a price unprecedentedly low, and +throw open to them the monuments of Agrippa, his own gardens, and a +multitude of temporary sheds. A rumour had been spread that, during the +terrible unfolding of that great "flower of flame," he had mounted to +the roof of his distant villa, and delighted with the beauty of the +spectacle, exulting in the safe sensation of a new excitement, had +dressed himself in theatrical attire, and sung to his harp a poem on the +burning of Troy. Such a heartless mixture of buffoonery and affectation +had exasperated the people too deeply for forgiveness, and Nero thought +it necessary to draw off the general odium into a new channel, since +neither his largesses nor any other popular measures succeeded in +removing from himself the ignominy of this terrible suspicion. What +follows is so remarkable, and, to a Christian reader, so deeply +interesting, that I will give it in the very words of that great +historian whom I have been so closely following. + +"Therefore, to get rid of this report, Nero trumped up an accusation +against a sect, detested for their atrocities, whom the common people +called Christians, and inflicted on them the most recondite punishments. +Christ, the founder of this sect, had been capitally punished by the +Procurator Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; and this damnable +superstition, repressed for the present, was again breaking out, not +only through Judaea, where the evil originated, but even through the +City, whither from all regions all things that are atrocious or shameful +flow together and gain a following. Those, therefore, were first +arrested who confessed their religion, and then on their evidence a vast +multitude were condemned, not so much on the charge of incendiarism, as +for their hatred towards the human race. And mockery was added to their +death; for they were covered in the skins of wild beasts and were torn +to death by dogs, or crucified, or set apart for burning, and after the +close of the day were reserved for the purpose of nocturnal +illumination. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a +chariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer, +or driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a +feeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, +and deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being +exterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the savage +cruelty of one man." + +Such are the brief but deeply pathetic particulars which have come down +to us respecting the first great persecution of the Christians, and such +must have been the horrid events of which Seneca was a contemporary, and +probably an actual eye-witness, in the very last year of his life. +Profoundly as in all likelihood he must have despised the very name of +Christian, a heart so naturally mild and humane as his must have +shuddered at the monstrous cruelties devised against the unhappy +votaries of this new religion. But to the relations of Christianity with +the Pagan world we shall return in a subsequent chapter and we must now +hasten to the end of our biography. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE DEATH OF SENECA. + +The false charge which had been brought against Seneca, and in which the +name of Piso had been involved, tended to urge that nobleman and his +friends into a real and formidable conspiracy. Many men of influence and +distinction joined in it, and among others Annaeus Lucanus, the +celebrated poet-nephew of Seneca, and Fenius Rufus the colleague of +Tigellinus in the command of the imperial guards. The plot was long +discussed, and many were admitted into the secret, which was +nevertheless marvellously well kept. One of the most eager conspirators +was Subrius Flavus, an officer of the guards, who suggested the plan of +stabbing Nero as he sang upon the stage, or of attacking him as he went +about without guards at night in the galleries of his burning palace. +Flavus is even said to have cherished the design of subsequently +murdering Piso likewise, and of offering the imperial power to Seneca, +with the full cognisance of the philosopher himself.[35] However this +may have been--and the story has no probability--many schemes were +discussed and rejected, from the difficulty of finding a man +sufficiently bold and sufficiently in earnest to put his own life to +such imminent risk. While things were still under discussion, the plot +was nearly ruined by the information of Volusius Proculus, an admiral of +the fleet, to whom it had been mentioned by a freedwoman of the name of +Ephicharis. Although no sufficient evidence could be adduced against +her, the conspirators thought it advisable to hasten matters, and one of +them, a senator named Scaevinus, undertook the dangerous task of +assassination. Plautius Lateranus, the cousul-elect, was to pretend to +offer a petition, in which he was to embrace the Emperor's knees and +throw him to the ground, and then Scaevinus was to deal the fatal blow. +The theatrical conduct of Scaevinus--who took an antique dagger from the +Temple of Safety, made his will, ordered the dagger to be sharpened, sat +down to an unusually luxurious banquet, manumitted or made presents to +his slaves, showed great agitation, and finally ordered ligaments for +wounds to be prepared,--awoke the suspicions of one of his freedmen +named Milichus, who hastened to claim a reward for revealing his +suspicions. Confronted with Milichus, Scaevinus met and refuted his +accusations with the greatest firmness; but when Milichus mentioned +among other things that, the day before, Scaevinus had held a long and +secret conversation with another friend of Piso named Natalis, and when +Natalis, on being summoned, gave a very different account of the subject +of this conversation from that which Scaevinus had given, they were both +put in chains; and, unable to endure the threats and the sight of +tortures, revealed the entire conspiracy. Natalis was the first to +mentioned the name of Piso, and he added the hated name of Seneca, +either because he had been the confidential messenger between the two, +or because he knew that he could not do a greater favour to Nero than by +giving him the opportunity of injuring a man whom he had long sought +every possible opportunity to crush. Scaevinus, with equal weakness, +perhaps because he thought that Natalis had left nothing to reveal, +mentioned the names of the others, and among them of Lucan, whose +complicity in the plot would undoubtedly tend to give greater +probability to the supposed guilt of Seneca. Lucan, after long denying +all knowledge of the design, corrupted by the promise of impunity, was +guilty of the incredible baseness of making up for the slowness of his +confession by its completeness, and of naming among the conspirators his +chief friend Gallus and Pollio, and his own mother Atilla. The woman +Ephicharis, slave though she had once been, alone showed the slightest +constancy, and, by her brave unshaken reticence under the most +excruciating and varied tortures, put to shame the pusillanimous +treachery of senators and knights. On the second day, when, with limbs +too dislocated to admit of her standing, she was again brought to the +presence of her executioners, she succeeded, by a sudden movement, in +strangling herself with her own girdle. + +[Footnote 35: See Juv. _Sat_. viii. 212.] + +In the hurry and alarm of the moment the slightest show of resolution +would have achieved the object of the conspiracy. Fenius Rufus had not +yet been named among the conspirators, and as he sat by the side of the +Emperor, and presided over the torture of his associates, Subrius Flavus +made him a secret sign to inquire whether even then and there he should +stab Nero. Rufus not only made a sign of dissent, but actually held the +hand of Subrius as it was grasping the hilt of his sword. Perhaps it +would have been better for him if he had not done so, for it was not +likely that the numerous conspirators would long permit the same man to +be at once their accomplice and the fiercest of their judges. Shortly +afterwards, as he was urging and threatening, Scaevinus remarked, with a +quiet smile, "that nobody knew more about the matter than he did +himself, and that he had better show his gratitude to so excellent a +prince by telling all he knew." The confusion and alarm of Rufus +betrayed his consciousness of guilt; he was seized and bound on the +spot, and subsequently put to death. + +Meanwhile the friends of Piso were urging to take some bold and sudden +step, which, if it did not succeed in retrieving his fortunes, would at +least shed lustre on his death. But his somewhat slothful nature, +weakened still further by a luxurious life, was not to be aroused, and +he calmly awaited the end. It was customary among the Roman Emperors at +this period to avoid the disgrace and danger of public executions by +sending a messenger to a man's house, and ordering him to put himself to +death by whatever means he preferred. Some raw recruits--for Nero dared +not intrust any veterans with the duty--brought the mandate to Piso, who +proceeded to make a will full of disgraceful adulation towards Nero, +opened his veins, and died. Plautius Lateranus was not even allowed the +poor privilege of choosing his own death, but, without time even to +embrace his children, was hurried off to a place set apart for the +punishment of slaves, and there died, without a word, by the sword of a +tribune whom he knew to be one his own accomplices. + +Lucan, in the prime of his life and the full bloom of his genius, was +believed to have joined the plot from his indignation at the manner in +which Nero's jealousy had repressed his poetic fame, and forbidden him +the opportunity of public rectitations. He too opened his veins; and as +he felt the deathful chill creeping upwards from the extremities of his +limbs, he recited some verses from his own "Pharsalia," in which he had +described the similar death of the soldier Lycidas. They were his last +words. His mother Atilla, whom to his everlasting infamy, he had +betrayed, was passed over as a victim too insignificant for notice, and +was neither pardoned nor punished. + +But, of all the many deaths which were brought about by this unhappy and +ill-managed conspiracy, none caused more delight to Nero than that of +Seneca, whom he was now able to dispatch by the sword, since he had been +unable to do so by secret poison. What share Seneca really had in the +conspiracy is unknown. If he were really cognisant of it, he must have +acted with consummate tact, for no particle of convincing evidence was +adduced against him. All that even Natalis could relate was, that when +Piso had sent him to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to +more of his intercourse, Seneca had replied "that it was better for them +both to hold aloof from each other, but that his own safety depended on +that of Piso." A tribune was sent to ask Seneca as to the truth of this +story, and found,--which was in itself regarded as a suspicious +circumstance,--that on that very day he had returned from Campania to a +villa four miles from the city. The tribune arrived in the evening, and +surrounded the villa with soldiers. Seneca was at supper, with his wife +Paulina and two friends. He entirely denied the truth of the evidence, +and said that "the only reason which he had assigned to Piso for seeing +so little of him was his weak health and love of retirement. Nero, who +knew how little prone he was to flattery, might judge whether or no it +was likely that he, a man of consular rank, would prefer the safety of a +man of private station to his own." Such was the message which the +tribune took back to Nero, whom he found sitting with his dearest and +most detestable advisers, his wife Poppaea and his minister Tigellinus. +Nero asked "whether Seneca was preparing a voluntary death." On the +tribune replying that he showed no gloom or terror in his language or +countenance, Nero ordered that he should at once be bidden to die. The +message was taken, and Seneca, without any sign of alarm, quietly +demanded leave to revise his will. This was refused him, and he then +turned to his friends with the remark that, as he was unable to reward +their merits as they had deserved, he would bequeath to them the only, +and yet the most precious, possession left to him, namely, the example +of his life, and if they were mindful of it they would win the +reputation alike for integrity and for faithful friendship. At the same +time he checked their tears, sometimes by his conversation, and +sometimes with serious reproaches, asking them "where were their +precepts of philosophy, and where the fortitude under trials which +should have been learnt from the studies of many years? Did not every +one know the cruelty of Nero? and what was left for him to do but to +make an end of his master and tutor after the murder of his mother and +his brother?" He then embraced his wife Paulina, and, with a slight +faltering of his lofty sternness, begged and entreated her not to enter +on an endless sorrow, but to endure the loss of her husband by the aid +of those noble consolations which she must derive from the contemplation +of his virtuous life. But Paulina declared that she would die with him, +and Seneca, not opposing the deed which would win her such permanent +glory, and at the same time unwilling to leave her to future wrongs, +yielded to her wish. The veins of their arms were opened by the same +blow; but the blood of Seneca, impoverished by old age and temperate +living, flowed so slowly that it was necessary also to open the veins of +his legs. This mode of death, chosen by the Romans as comparatively +painless, is in fact under certain circumstances most agonizing. Worn +out by these cruel tortures, and unwilling to weaken his wife's +fortitude by so dreadful a spectacle, glad at the same time to spare +himself the sight of _her_ sufferings, he persuaded her to go to another +room. Even then his eloquence did not fail. It is told of Andrè Chénier, +the French poet, that on his way to execution he asked for writing +materials to record some of the strange thoughts which filled his mind. +The wish was denied him, but Seneca had ample liberty to record his last +utterances. Amanuenses were summoned, who took down those dying +admonitions, and in the time of Tacitus they still were extant. To us, +however, this interesting memorial of a Pagan deathbed is +irrevocably lost. + +Nero, meanwhile, to whom the news of these circumstances was taken, +having no dislike to Paulina, and unwilling to incur the odium of too +much bloodshed, ordered her death to be prohibited and her wounds to be +bound. She was already unconscious, but her slaves and freedmen +succeeded in saving her life. She lived a few years longer, cherishing +her husband's memory, and bearing in the attenuation of her frame, and +the ghastly pallor of her countenance, the lasting proofs of that deep +affection which had characterised their married life. + +Seneca was not yet dead, and, to shorten these protracted and useless +sufferings, he begged his friend and physician Statius Annaeus to give +him a draught of hemlock, the same poison by which the great philosopher +of Athens had been put to death. But his limbs were already cold, and +the draught proved fruitless. He then entered a bath of hot water, +sprinkling the slaves who stood nearest to him, with the words that he +was pouring a libation to Jupiter the Liberator.[36] Even the warm +water failed to make the blood flow more speedily, and he was finally +carried into one of those vapour baths which the Romans called +_sudatoria_, and stifled with its steam. His body was burned privately, +without any of the usual ceremonies. Such had been his own wish, +expressed, not after the fall of his fortunes, but at a time when his +thoughts had been directed to his latter end, in the zenith of his great +wealth and conspicuous power. + +[Footnote 36: Sicco Polentone, an Italian, who wrote a Life of Seneca +(d. 1461), makes Seneca a secret Christian, and represents this as an +invocation of Christ, and says that he baptized himself with the water +of the bath!] + +So died a Pagan philosopher, whose life must always excite our interest +and pity, although we cannot apply to him the titles of great or good. +He was a man of high genius, of great susceptibility, of an ardent and +generous temperament, of far-sighted and sincere humanity. Some of his +sentiments are so remarkable for their moral beauty and profundity that +they forcibly remind us of the expressions of St. Paul. But Seneca fell +infinitely short of his own high standard, and has contemptuously been +called "the father of all them that wear shovel hats." Inconsistency is +written on the entire history of his life, and it has earned him the +scathing contempt with which many writers have treated his memory. "The +business of a philosopher," says Lord Macaulay, in his most scornful +strain, "was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling +out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of +luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about +liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant; +to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had +just before written a defence of the murder of a mother by a son." +"Seneca," says Niebuhr, "was an accomplished man of the world, who +occupied himself very much with virtue, and may have considered himself +to be an ancient Stoic. He certainly believed that he was a most +ingenious and virtuous philosopher; but he acted on the principle that, +as far as he himself was concerned, he could dispense with the laws of +morality which he laid down for others, and that he might give way to +his natural propensities." + +In Seneca's life, then, we see as clearly as in those of many professing +Christians that it is impossible to be at once worldly and righteous. +Seneca's utter failure was due to the vain attempt to combine in his own +person two opposite characters--that of a Stoic and that of a courtier. +Had he been a true philosopher, or a mere courtier, he would have been +happier, and even more respected. To be both was absurd: hence, even in +his writings, he was driven into inconsistency. He is often compelled to +abandon the lofty utterances of Stoicism, and to charge philosophers +with ignorance of life. In his treatise on a Happy Life he is obliged to +introduce a sort of indirect autobiographical apology for his wealth and +position.[37] In spite of his lofty pretensions to simplicity, in spite +of that sort of amateur asceticism which, in common with other wealthy +Romans, he occasionally practised, in spite of his final offer to +abandon his entire patrimony to the Emperor, we fear that he cannot be +acquitted of an almost insatiable avarice. We need not indeed believe +the fierce calumnies which charged him with exhausting Italy by a +boundless usury, and even stirring up a war in Britain by the severity +of his exactions; but it is quite clear that he deserved the title of +_Proedives_, "the over-wealthy," by which he has been so pointedly +signalized. It is strange that the most splendid intellects should so +often have sunk under the slavery of this meanest vice. In the Bible we +read how the "rewards of divination" seduced from his allegiance to God +the splendid enchanter of Mesopotamia: + + "In outline dim and vast + Their fearful shadows cast + The giant form of Empires on their way + To ruin:--one by one + They tower and they are gone, + Yet in the prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay. + + "No sun or star so bright, + In all the world of light, + That they should draw to heaven his downward eye: + He hears the Almighty's word, + He sees the angel's sword, + Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie." + +[Footnote 37: See _Ad. Polyb_. 37: _Ep_. 75; _De Vit. Beat_. 17, 18, +22.] + +And in Seneca we see some of the most glowing pictures of the nobility +of poverty combined with the most questionable avidity in the pursuit of +wealth. Yet how completely did he sell himself for naught. It is the +lesson which we see in every conspicuously erring life, and it was +illustrated less than three years afterwards in the terrible fate of the +tyrant who had driven him to death. For a short period of his life, +indeed, Seneca was at the summit of power; yet, courtier as he was, he +incurred the hatred, the suspicion, and the punishment of all the three +Emperors during whose reigns his manhood was passed. "Of all +unsuccessful men," says Mr. Froude, "in every shape, whether divine or +human, or devilish, there is none equal to Bunyan's Mr. +Facing-both-ways--the fellow with one eye on heaven and one on +earth--who sincerely preaches one thing and sincerely does another, and +from the intensity of his unreality is unable either to see or feel the +contradiction. He is substantially trying to cheat both God and the +devil, and is in reality only cheating himself and his neighbours. This +of all characters upon the earth appears to us to be the one of which +there is no hope at all, a character becoming in these days alarmingly +abundant; and the aboundance of which makes us find even in a Reineke an +inexpressible relief." And, in point of fact, the inconsistency of +Seneca's life was a _conscious_ inconsistency. "To the student," he +says, "who professes his wish to rise to a loftier grade of virtue, I +would answer that this is my _wish_ also, but I dare not hope it. _I am +preoccupied with vices. All I require of myself is, not to be equal to +the best_, but only _to be better than the bad_." No doubt Seneca meant +this to be understood merely for modest depreciation; but it was far +truer than he would have liked seriously to confess. He must have often +and deeply felt that he was not living in accordance with the light +which was in him. + +It would indeed be cheap and easy, to attribute the general inferiority +and the many shortcomings of Seneca's life and character to the fact +that he was a Pagan, and to suppose that if he had known Christianity he +would necessarily have attained to a loftier ideal. But such a style of +reasoning and inference, commonly as it is adopted for rhetorical +purposes, might surely be refused by any intelligent child. A more +intellectual assent to the lessons of Christianity would have probably +been but of little avail to inspire in Seneca a nobler life. The fact +is, that neither the gift of genius nor the knowledge of Christianity +are adequate to the ennoblement of the human heart, nor does the grace +of God flow through the channels of surpassing intellect or of orthodox +belief. Men there have been in all ages, Pagan no less than Christian, +who with scanty mental enlightenment and spiritual knowledge have yet +lived holy and noble lives: men there have been in all ages, Christian +no less than Pagan, who with consummate gifts and profound erudition +have disgraced some of the noblest words which ever were uttered by some +of the meanest lives which were ever lived. In the twelfth century was +there any mind that shone more brightly, was there any eloquence which +flowed more mightily, than that of Peter Abelard? Yet Abelard sank +beneath the meanest of his scholastic cotemporaries in the degradation +of his career as much as he towered above the highest of them in the +grandeur of his genius. In the seventeenth century was there any +philosopher more profound, any moralist more elevated, than Francis +Bacon? Yet Bacon could flatter a tyrant, and betray a friend, and +receive a bribe, and be one of the latest of English judges to adopt the +brutal expedient of enforcing confession by the exercise of torture. If +Seneca defended the murder of Agrippina, Bacon blackened the character +of Essex. "What I would I do not; but the thing that I would not, that I +do," might be the motto for many a confession of the sins of genius; and +Seneca need not blush if we compare him with men who were his equals in +intellectual power, but whose "means of grace," whose privileges, whose +knowledge of the truth, were infinitely higher than his own. Let the +noble constancy of his death shed a light over his memory which may +dissipate something of those dark shades which rest on portions of his +history. We think of Abelard, humble, silent, patient, God-fearing, +tended by the kindly-hearted Peter in the peaceful gardens of Clugny; we +think of Bacon, neglected, broken, and despised, dying of the chill +caught in a philosophical experiment and leaving his memory to the +judgment of posterity; let us think of Seneca, quietly yielding to his +destiny without a murmur, cheering the constancy of the mourners round +him during the long agonies of his enforced suicide and dictating some +of the purest utterances of Pagan wisdom almost with his latest breath. +The language of his great contemporary, the Apostle St. Paul, will best +help us to understand his position. He was one of those who was _seeking +the Lord, if haply he might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be +not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have +our being_. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +SENECA AND ST. PAUL. + +In the spring of the year 61, not long after the time when the murder of +Agrippina, and Seneca's justifications of it, had been absorbing the +attention of the Roman world, there disembarked at Puteoli a troop of +prisoners, whom the Procurator of Judaea had sent to Rome under the +charge of a centurion. Walking among them, chained and weary, but +affectionately tended by two younger companions,[38] and treated with +profound respect by little deputations of friends who met him at Appii +Forum and the Three Taverns, was a man of mean presence and +weather-beaten aspect, who was handed over like the rest to the charge +of Burrus, the Praefect of the Praetorian Guards. Learning from the +letters of the Jewish Procurator that the prisoner had been guilty of no +serious offence,[39] but had used his privilege of Roman citizenship to +appeal to Caesar for protection against the infuriated malice of his +co-religionists--possibly also having heard from the centurion Julius +some remarkable facts about his behaviour and history--Burrus allowed +him, pending the hearing of his appeal, to live in his own hired +apartments.[40] This lodging was in all probability in that quarter of +the city opposite the island in the Tiber, which corresponds to the +modern Trastevere. It was the resort of the very lowest and meanest of +the populace--that promiscuous jumble of all nations which makes Tacitus +call Rome at this time "the sewer of the universe." It was here +especially that the Jews exercised some of the meanest trades in Rome, +selling matches, and old clothes, and broken glass, or begging and +fortune-telling on the Cestian or Fabrican bridges.[41] In one of these +narrow, dark, and dirty streets, thronged by the dregs of the Roman +populace, St. Mark and St. Peter had in all probability lived when they +founded the little Christian Church at Rome. It was undoubtedly in the +same despised locality that St. Paul,--the prisoner who had been +consigned to the care of Burrus,--hired a room, sent for the principle +Jews, and for two years taught to Jews and Christians, to any Pagans who +would listen to him, the doctrines which were destined to regenerate +the world. + +[Footnote 38: Luke and Aristarchus.] + +[Footnote 39: Acts xxiv. 23, xxvii. 3.] + +[Footnote 40: Acts xxviii. 30, [Greek: en idio misthomati].] + +[Footnote 41: MART. _Ep_. i. 42: JUV. xiv. 186. In these few paragraphs +I follow M. Aubertin, who (as well as many other authors) has collected +many of the principal passages in which Roman writers allude to the Jews +and Christians.] + +Any one entering that mean and dingy room would have seen a Jew with +bent body and furrowed countenance, and with every appearance of age, +weakness, and disease chained by the arm to a Roman soldier. But it is +impossible that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not also +have seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, the fire of inspiration, +the serene light of exalted hope and dauntless courage upon those +withered features. And though _he_ was chained, "the Word of God was not +chained." [42] Had they listened to the words which he occasionally +dictated, or overlooked the large handwriting which alone his weak +eyesight and bodily infirmities, as well as the inconvenience of his +chains, permitted, they would have heard or read the immortal utterances +which strengthened the faith of the nascent and struggling Churches in +Ephesus, Philippi, and Colossae, and which have since been treasured +among the most inestimable possessions of a Christian world. + +[Footnote 42: 2 Tim. ii. 9.] + +His efforts were not unsuccessful; his misfortunes were for the +furtherance of the Gospel; his chains were manifest "in all the palace, +and in all other places;" [43] and many waxing confident by his bonds +were much more bold to speak the word without fear. Let us not be misled +by assuming a wrong explanation of these words, or by adopting the +Middle Age traditions which made St. Paul convert some of the immediate +favourites of the Emperor, and electrify with his eloquence an admiring +Senate. The word here rendered "palace" [44] may indeed have that +meaning, for we know that among the early converts were "they of +Caesar's household;" [45] but these were in all probability--if not +certainly--Jews of the lowest rank, who were, as we know, to be found +among the _hundreds_ of unfortunates of every age and country who +composed a Roman _familia_. And it is at least equally probable that the +word "praetorium" simply means the barrack of that detachment of Roman +soldiers from which Paul's gaolers were taken in turn. In such labours +St. Paul in all probability spent two years (61-63), during which +occurred the divorce of Octavia, the marriage with Poppaea, the death of +Burrus, the disgrace of Seneca, and the many subsequent infamies +of Nero. + +[Footnote 43: Phil. i. 12.] + +[Footnote 44: [Greek: en olo to praitorio].] + +[Footnote 45: Phil. iv. 22.] + +It is out of such materials that some early Christian forger thought it +edifying to compose the work which is supposed to contain the +correspondence of Seneca and St. Paul. The undoubted spuriousness of +that work is now universally admitted, and indeed the forgery is too +clumsy to be even worth reading. But it is worth while inquiring whether +in the circumstances of the time there is even a bare possibility that +Seneca should ever have been among the readers or the auditors of Paul. + +And the answer is, There is absolutely no such probability. A vivid +imagination is naturally attracted by the points of contrast and +resemblance offered by two such characters, and we shall see that there +is a singular likeness between many of their sentiments and expressions. +But this was a period in which, as M. Villemain observes, "from one +extremity of the social world to the other truths met each other without +recognition." Stoicism, noble as were many of its precepts, lofty as was +the morality it professed, deeply as it was imbued in many respects with +a semi-Christian piety, looked upon Christianity with profound contempt. +The Christians disliked the Stoics, the Stoics despised and persecuted +the Christians. "The world knows nothing of its greatest men." Seneca +would have stood aghast at the very notion of his receiving the lessons, +still more of his adopting the religion, of a poor, accused, and +wandering Jew. The haughty, wealthy, eloquent, prosperous, powerful +philosopher would have smiled at the notion that any future ages would +suspect him of having borrowed any of his polished and epigrammatic +lessons of philosophic morals or religion from one whom, if he heard of +him, he would have regarded as a poor wretch, half fanatic and half +barbarian. + +We learn from St. Paul himself that the early converts of Christianity +were men in the very depths of poverty,[46] and that its preachers were +regarded as fools, and weak, and were despised, and naked, and +buffeted--persecuted and homeless labourers--a spectacle to the world, +and to angels, and to men, "made as the filth of the earth and the +off-scouring of all things." We know that their preaching was to the +Greeks "foolishness," and that, when they spoke of Jesus and the +resurrection, their hearers mocked[47] and jeered. And these indications +are more than confirmed by many contemporary passages of ancient +writers. We have already seen the violent expressions of hatred which +the ardent and high-toned soul of Tacitus thought applicable to the +Christians; and such language is echoed by Roman writers of every +character and class. The fact is that at this time and for centuries +afterwards the Romans regarded the Christians with such lordly +indifference that--like Festus, and Felix and Seneca's brother +Gallio--they never took the trouble to distinguish them from the Jews. +The distinction was not fully realized by the Pagan world till the cruel +and wholesale massacre of the Christians by the pseudo-Messiah +Barchochebas in the reign of Adrian opened their eyes to the fact of the +irreconcilable differences which existed between the two religions. And +pages might be filled with the ignorant and scornful allusions which the +heathen applied to the Jews. They confused them with the whole degraded +mass of Egyptian and Oriental impostors and brute-worshippers; they +disdained them as seditious, turbulent, obstinate, and avaricious; they +regarded them as mainly composed of the very meanest slaves out of the +gross and abject multitude; their proselytism they considered as the +clandestine initiation into some strange and revolting mystery, which +involved as its direct teachings contempt of the gods, and the negation +of all patriotism and all family affection; they firmly believed that +they worshipped the head of an ass; they thought it natural that none +but the vilest slaves and the silliest woman should adopt so +misanthropic and degraded a superstition; they characterized their +customs as "absurd, sordid, foul, and depraved," and their nation as +"prone to superstition, opposed to religion." [48] And as far as they +made _any_ distinction between Jews and Christians, it was for the +latter that they reserved their choicest and most concentrated epithets +of hatred and abuse. A "new," "pernicious," "detestable," "execrable," +superstition is the only language with which Suetonius and Tacitus +vouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,--though he must have heard the name of +Christian during the reign of Claudius (when both they and the Jews were +expelled from Rome, "because of their perpetual turbulence, at the +instigation of Chrestus," as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and during +the Neronian persecution--never once alludes to them, and only mentions +the Jews to apply a few contemptuous remarks to the idleness of their +sabbaths, and to call them "a most abandoned race." + +[Footnote 46: 2 Cor. viii. 2.] + +[Footnote 47: [Greek: _Echleuazon_], Acts xvii. 32. The word expresses +the most profound and unconcealed contempt.] + +[Footnote 48: Tac. _Hist_. i. 13: ib. v. 5: JUV. xiv. 85: Pers. v. 190, +&c.] + +The reader will now judge whether there is the slightest probability +that Seneca had any intercourse with St. Paul, or was likely to have +stooped from his superfluity of wealth, and pride of power, to take +lessons from obscure and despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by +the crowded households of Caesar or Narcissus. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. + +And yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be called, as he is +called in the title of this book, a Seeker after God; and the +resemblances to the sacred writings which may be found in the pages of +his works are numerous and striking. A few of these will probably +interest our readers, and will put them in a better position for +understanding how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had +rewarded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We will place a +few such passages side by side with the texts of Scripture which they +resemble or recall. + +1. _God's Indwelling Presence_. + +"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God +dwelleth in you?" asks St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 16). + +"_God is near you, is with you, is within you_," writes Seneca to his +friend Lucilius, in the 41st of those _Letters_ which abound in his most +valuable moral reflections; "_a sacred Spirit dwells within us, the +observer and guardian of all our evil and our good ... there is no good +man without God_." + +And again (_Ep._ 73): "_Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God +comes to men: nay, what is yet nearer; He comes into men. No good mind +is holy without God_." + +2. _The Eye of God_. + +"All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have +to do." (Heb. iv. 13.) + +"Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in +secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt. vi. 6.) + +Seneca (_On Providence_, 1): "_It is no advantage that conscience is +shut within us; we lie open to God_." + +_Letter_ 83: "_What advantage is it that anything is hidden from man? +Nothing is closed to God: He is present to our minds, and enters into +our central thoughts_." + +_Letter_ 83: "_We must live as if we were living in sight of all men; we +must think as though some one could and can gaze into our +inmost breast_." + +3. _God is a Spirit_. + +St. Paul, "We ought not to think that the God-head is like unto gold, or +silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." (Acts xvii. 29.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 31): "_Even from a corner it is possible to spring up +into heaven: rise, therefore, and form thyself into a fashion worthy of +God; thou canst not do this, however, with gold and silver: an image +like to God cannot be formed out of such materials as these_." + +4. _Imitating God_. + +"Be ye therefore followers ([Greek: _mimaetai_], imitators) of God, as +dear children." (Eph. v. 1.) + +"He that in these things [righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost] +serveth Christ is acceptable to God." (Rom. xiv. 18.) + +Seneca _(Letter_ 95): "_Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be +virtuous. To honour them it is enough to imitate them_." + +_Letter_ 124: "_Let man aim at the good which belongs to him. What is +this good? A mind reformed and pure, the imitator of God, raising itself +above things human, confining all its desires within itself_." + +5. _Hypocrites like whited Sepulchres_. + +"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto +whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within +full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matt, xxiii. 27.) + +Seneca: "_Those whom you regard as happy, if you saw them, not in their +externals, but in their hidden aspect, are wretched, sordid, base; like +their own walls adorned outwardly. It is no solid and genuine felicity; +it is a plaster, and that a thin one; and so, as long as they can stand +and be seen at their pleasure, they shine and impose on us: when +anything has fallen which disturbs and uncovers them, it is evident how +much deep and real foulness an extraneous splendour has concealed_." + +6. _Teaching compared to Seed_. + +"But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit; some an +hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold." (Matt xiii. 8.) + +Seneca (Letter 38): "_Words must be sown like seed; which, although it +be small, when it hath found a suitable ground, unfolds its strength, +and from very small size is expanded into the largest increase. Reason +does the same.... The things spoken are few; but if the mind have +received them well, they gain strength and grow_." + +7. _All Men are Sinners_. + +"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is +not in us." (1 John i. 8.) + +Seneca (_On Anger_, i. 14, ii. 27): "_If we wish to be just judges of +all things, let us first persuade ourselves of this:--that there is not +one of us without fault.... No man is found who can acquit himself; and +he who calls himself innocent does so with reference to a witness, and +not to his conscience_." + +8. _Avarice_. + +"The love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Tim. vi. 10.) + +Seneca (_On Tranquillity of Soul_, 8): "_Riches ... the greatest source +of human trouble_." + +"Be content with such things as ye have." (Heb. xiii. 5.) + +"Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." (1 Tim. vi. 8.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 114): "_We shall be wise if we desire but little; if +each man takes count of himself, and at the same time measures his own +body, he will know how little it can contain, and for how short +a time_." + +_Letter_ 110: "_We have polenta, we have water; let us challenge Jupiter +himself to a comparison of bliss!_" + +"Godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Tim. vi. 6.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 110): "_Why are you struck with wonder and +astonishment? It is all display! Those things are shown, not +possessed_.... _Turn thyself rather to the true riches, learn to be +content with little_." + +"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a +rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matt. xix. 24.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 20): "_He is a high-souled man who sees riches spread +around him, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It is much +not to be corrupted by fellowship with riches: great is he who in the +midst of wealth is poor, but safer he who has no wealth at all_." + +9. _The Duty of Kindness_. + +"Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love." (Rom. xii. +10.) + +Seneca (_On Anger_, i. 5): "_Man is born for mutual assistance_." + +"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Lev. xiv. 18.) + +_Letter_ 48: "_You must live for another, if you wish to live for +yourself_." + +_On Anger_, iii. 43: "_While we are among men let us cultivate kindness; +let us not be to any man a cause either of peril or of fear_." + +10. _Our common Membership_. + +"Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." (1 Cor. xii. +27.) + +"We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of +another." (Rom. xii. 5.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 95): "_Do we teach that he should stretch his hand to +the shipwrecked, show his path to the wanderer, divide his bread with +the hungry_?... _when I could briefly deliver to him the formula of +human duty: all this that you see, in which things divine and human are +included, is one: we are members of one great body_." + +11. _Secrecy in doing Good_. + +"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." (Matt. vi. 3.) + +Seneca (_On Benefits_, ii. 11): "_Let him who hath conferred a favour +hold his tongue_.... _In conferring a favour nothing should be more +avoided than pride_." + +12. _God's impartial Goodness_. + +"He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain +on the just and on the unjust." (Matt. v. 45.) + +Seneca (_On Benefits_, i. 1): "_How many are unworthy of the light! and +yet the day dawns_." + +Id. vii. 31: "_The gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize +them not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them.... +They distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations +and peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir +the seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the +constellations, they temper the winter and summer by the intervention of +a gentler air_." + +It would be a needless task to continue these parallels, because by +reading any treatise of Seneca a student might add to them by scores; +and they prove incontestably that, as far as moral illumination was +concerned, Seneca "was not far from the kingdom of heaven." They have +been collected by several writers; and all of these here adduced, +together with many others, may be found in the pages of Fleury, +Troplong, Aubertin, and others. Some authors, like M. Fleury, have +endeavoured to show that they can only be accounted for by the +supposition that Seneca had some acquaintance with the sacred writings. +M. Aubertin, on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this +could not have been the case. Many words and expressions detached from +their context have been forced into a resemblance with the words of +Scripture, when the context wholly militates against its spirit; many +belong to that great common stock of moral truths which had been +elaborated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers; and +there is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enunciated which may +not be found even more nobly and more distinctly expressed in the +writings of Plato and of Cicero. In a subsequent chapter we shall show +that, in spite of them all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of +Christianity are at least as remarkable as the closest of his +resemblances; but it will be more convenient to do this when we have +also examined the doctrines of those two other great representatives of +spiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus the slave and Marcus +Aurelius the emperor. + +Meanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings such as these give +us a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of the Lord has entered +into holy men, and made them sons of God and prophets. God "left not +Himself without witness" among them. The language of St. Thomas Aquinas, +that many a heathen has had an "implicit faith," is but another way of +expressing St. Paul's statement that "not having the law they were a law +unto themselves, and showed the work of the law written in their +hearts." [49] To them the Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the +things that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the +voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate, +knowledge. To them "the voice of nature was the voice of God." Their +revelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and +extended, but _not_ suspended, by the written law of God.[50] + +[Footnote 49: Rom. i. 2.] + +[Footnote 50: Hooker, _Eccl. Pol_. iii. 8.] + +The knowledge thus derived, i.e. the sum-total of religious impressions +resulting from the combination of reason and experience, has been called +"natural religion;" the term is in itself a convenient and +unobjectionable one, so long as it is remembered that natural religion +is itself a revelation. No _antithesis_ is so unfortunate and pernicious +as that of natural with revealed religion. It is "a contrast rather of +words than of ideas; it is an opposition of abstractions to which no +facts really correspond." God has revealed Himself, not in one but in +many ways, not only by inspiring the hearts of a few, but by vouchsafing +His guidance to all who seek it. "The spirit of man is the candle of the +Lord," and it is not religion but apostasy to deny the reality of any of +God's revelations of truth to man, merely because they have not +descended through a single channel. On the contrary, we ought to hail +with gratitude, instead of viewing with suspicion, the enunciation by +heathen writers of truths which we might at first sight have been +disposed to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. In +Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato,--in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus +Aurelius--we see the light of heaven struggling its impeded way through +clouds of darkness and ignorance; we thankfully recognize that the souls +of men in the Pagan world, surrounded as they were by perplexities and +dangers, were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface of silver, +some image of what was divine and true; we hail, with the great and +eloquent Bossuet, "THE CHRISTIANITY OF NATURE." "The divine image in +man," says St. Bernard, "may be burned, but it cannot be burnt out." + +And this is the pleasantest side on which to consider the life and the +writings of Seneca. It is true that his style partakes of the defects of +his age, that the brilliancy of his rhetoric does not always compensate +for the defectiveness of his reasoning; that he resembles, not a mirror +which clearly reflects the truth, but "a glass fantastically cut into a +thousand spangles;" that side by side with great moral truths we +sometimes find his worst errors, contradictions, and paradoxes; that his +eloquent utterances about God often degenerate into a vague Pantheism; +and that even on the doctrine of immortality his hold is too slight to +save him from waverings and contradictions;[51] yet as a moral teacher +he is full of real greatness, and was often far in advance of the +general opinion of his age. Few men have written more finely, or with +more evident sincerity, about truth and courage, about the essential +equality of man,[52] about the duty of kindness and consideration to +slaves,[53] about tenderness even in dealing with sinners,[54] about the +glory of unselfishness,[55] about the great idea of humanity[56] as +something which transcends all the natural and artificial prejudices of +country and of caste. Many of his writings are Pagan sermons and moral +essays of the best and highest type. The style, as Quintilian says, +"abounds in delightful faults," but the strain of sentiment is never +otherwise than high and true. + +[Footnote 51: Consol. ad Polyb. 27; Ad Helv. 17; Ad Marc. 24, _seqq_.] + +[Footnote 52: Ep. 32; De Benef. iii. 2.] + +[Footnote 53: De Irâ, iii. 29, 32.] + +[Footnote 54: Ibid. i. 14; De Vit. beat. 24.] + +[Footnote 55: Ep. 55, 9.] + +[Footnote 56: Ibid. 28; De Oti Sapientis, 31.] + +He is to be regarded rather as a wealthy, eminent, and successful Roman, +who devoted most of his leisure to moral philosophy, than as a real +philosopher by habit and profession. And in this point of view his very +inconsistencies have their charm, as illustrating his ardent, impulsive, +imaginative temperament. He was no apathetic, self-contained, impassible +Stoic, but a passionate, warm-hearted man, who could break into a flood +of unrestrained tears at the death of his friend Annaeus Serenus,[57] +and feel a trembling solicitude for the welfare of his wife and little +ones. His was no absolute renunciation, no impossible perfection;[58] +but few men have painted more persuasively, with deeper emotion, or more +entire conviction, the pleasures of virtue, the calm of a +well-regulated soul, the strong and severe joys of a lofty self-denial. +In his youth, he tells us, he was preparing himself for a righteous +life, in his old age for a noble death.[59] And let us not forget, that +when the hour of crisis came which tested the real calm and bravery of +his soul, he was not found wanting. "With no dread," he writes to +Lucilius, "I am preparing myself for that day on which, laying aside all +artifice or subterfuge, I shall be able to judge respecting myself +whether I merely _speak_ or really _feel_ as a brave man should; whether +all those words of haughty obstinacy which I have hurled against fortune +were mere pretence and pantomime.... Disputations and literary talks, +and words collected from the precepts of philosophers, and eloquent +discourse, do not prove the true strength of the soul. For the mere +_speech_ of even the most cowardly is bold; what you have really +achieved will then be manifest when your end is near. I accept the +terms, I do not shrink from the decision." [60] + +[Footnote 57: Ep. 63.] + +[Footnote 58: Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 61.] + +[Footnote 59: Ep. 61.] + +[Footnote 60: Ep. 26.] + +"_Accipio conditionem, non reformido judicrum_." They were courageous +and noble words, and they were justified in the hour of trial. When we +remember the sins of Seneca's life, let us recall also the constancy of +his death; while we admit the inconsistencies of his systematic +philosophy, let us be grateful for the genius, the enthusiasm, the glow +of intense conviction, with which he clothes his repeated utterance of +truths, which, when based upon a surer basis, were found adequate for +the moral regeneration of the world. Nothing is more easy than to sneer +at Seneca, or to write clever epigrams on one whose moral attainments +fell infinitely short of his own great ideal. But after all he was not +more inconsistent than thousands of those who condemn him. With all his +faults he yet lived a nobler and a better life, he had loftier aims, he +was braver, more self-denying--nay, even more consistent--than the +majority of professing Christians. It would be well for us all if those +who pour such scorn upon his memory attempted to achieve one tithe of +the good which he achieved for humanity and for Rome. His thoughts +deserve our imperishable gratitude: let him who is without sin among us +be eager to fling stones at his failures and his sins! + + + +EPICTETUS. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT. + +In the court of Nero, Seneca must have been thrown into more or less +communication with the powerful freedmen of that Emperor, and especially +with his secretary or librarian, Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was a +constant companion of the Emperor; he was the earliest to draw Nero's +attention to the conspiracy in which Seneca himself perished. There can +be no doubt that Seneca knew him, and had visited at his house. Among +the slaves who thronged that house, the natural kindliness of the +philosopher's heart may have drawn his attentions to one little lame +Phrygian boy, deformed and mean-looking, whose face--if it were any +index of the mind within--must even from boyhood have worn a serene and +patient look. The great courtier, the great tutor of the Emperor, the +great Stoic and favourite writer of his age, would indeed have been +astonished if he had been suddenly told that that wretched-looking +little slave-lad was destined to attain purer and clearer heights of +philosophy than he himself had ever done, and to become quite as +illustrious as himself, and far more respected as an exponent of Stoic +doctrines. For that lame boy was Epictetus--Epictetus for whom was +written the memorable epitaph: "I was Epictetus, a slave, and maimed in +body, and a beggar for poverty, _and dear to the immortals_." + +Although we have a clear sketch of his philosophical doctrines, we have +no materials whatever for any but the most meagre description of his +life. The picture of his mind--an effigy of that which he alone regarded +as his true self--may be seen in his works, and to this we can add +little except a few general facts and uncertain anecdotes. + +Epictetus was probably born in about the fiftieth year of the Christian +era; but we do not know the exact date of his birth, nor do we even know +his real name. "Epictetus" means "bought" or "acquired," and is simply a +servile designation. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a town +between the rivers Lycus and Meander, and considered by some to be the +capital of the province. The town possessed several natural +wonders--sacred springs, stalactite grottoes, and a deep cavern +remarkable for its mephitic exhalations. It is more interesting to us to +know that it was within a few miles of Colossae and Laodicea, and is +mentioned by St. Paul (Col. iv. 13) in connexion with those two cities. +It must, therefore, have possessed a Christian Church from the earliest +times, and, if Epictetus spent any part of his boyhood there, he might +have conversed with men and women of humble rank who had heard read in +their obscure place of meeting the Epistle of St. Paul to the +Colossians, and the other, now lost, which he addressed to the Church of +Laodicea.[61] + +[Footnote 61: Col. iv. 16.] + +It is probable, however, that Hierapolis and its associations produced +very little influence on the mind of Epictetus. His parents were people +in the very lowest and humblest class, and their moral character could +hardly have been high, or they would not have consented under any +circumstance to sell into slavery their sickly child. Certainly it could +hardly have been possible for Epictetus to enter into the world under +less enviable or less promising auspices. But the whole system of life +is full of divine and memorable compensations, and Epictetus experienced +them. God kindles the light of genius where He will, and He can inspire +the highest and most regal thoughts even into the meanest slave:-- + + "Such seeds are scattered night and day + By the soft wind from Heaven, + And in the poorest human clay + Have taken root and thriven." + +What were the accidents--or rather, what was "the unseen Providence, by +man nicknamed chance"--which assigned Epictetus to the house of +Epaphroditus we do not know. To a heart refined and noble there could +hardly have been a more trying position. The slaves of a Roman _familia_ +were crowded together in immense gangs; they were liable to the most +violent and capricious punishments; they might be subjected to the most +degraded and brutalising influences. Men sink too often to the level to +which they are supposed to belong. Treated with infamy for long years, +they are apt to deem themselves worthy of infamy--to lose that +self-respect which is the invariable concomitant of religious feeling, +and which, apart from religious feeling, is the sole preventive of +personal degradation. Well may St. Paul say, "Art thou called, being a +servant? care not for it: _but if thou mayest be made free, use it +rather_." [62] + +[Footnote 62: 1 Cor. vii. 21.] + +It is true that even in the heathen world there began at this time to +be disseminated among the best and wisest thinkers a sense that slaves +were made of the same clay as their masters, that they differed from +freeborn men only in the externals and accidents of their position, and +that kindness to them and consideration for their difficulties was a +common and elementary duty of humanity. "I am glad to learn," says +Seneca, in one of his interesting letters to Lucilius, "that you live on +terms of familiarity with your slaves; it becomes your prudence and your +erudition. Are they slaves? Nay, they are men. Slaves? Nay, companions. +Slaves? Nay, humble friends. Slaves? _Nay, fellow-slaves,_ if you but +consider that fortune has power over you both." He proceeds, in a +passage to which we have already alluded, to reprobate the haughty and +inconsiderate fashion of keeping them standing for hours, mute and +fasting, while their masters gorged themselves at the banquet. He +deplores the cruelty which thinks it necessary to punish with terrible +severity an accidental cough or sneeze. He quotes the proverb--a proverb +which reveals a whole history--"So many slaves, so many foes," and +proves that they are not foes, but that men _made_ them so; whereas, +when kindly treated, when considerately addressed, they would be silent, +even under torture, rather than speak to their master's disadvantage. +"Are they not sprung," he asks, "from the same origin, do they not +breathe the same air, do they not live and die just as we do?" The +blows, the broken limbs, the clanking chains, the stinted food of the +_ergastula_ or slave-prisons, excited all Seneca's compassion, and in +all probability presented a picture of misery which the world has rarely +seen surpassed, unless it were in that nefarious trade which England to +her shame once practised, and, to her eternal glory, resolutely +swept away. + +But Seneca's inculcation of tenderness towards slaves was in reality +one of the most original of his moral teachings; and, from all that we +know of Roman life, it is to be feared that the number of those who +acted in accordance with it was small. Certainly Epaphroditus, the +master of Epictetus, was not one of them. The historical facts which we +know of this man are slight. He was one of the four who accompanied the +tragic and despicable flight of Nero from Rome in the year 69, and when, +after many waverings of cowardice, Nero at last, under imminent peril of +being captured and executed, put the dagger to his breast, it was +Epaphroditus who helped the tyrant to drive it home into his heart, for +which he was subsequently banished, and finally executed by the +Emperor Domitian. + +Epictetus was accustomed to tell one or two anecdotes which, although +given without comment, show the narrowness and vulgarity of the man. +Among his slaves was a certain worthless cobbler named Felicio; as the +cobbler was quite useless, Epaphroditus sold him, and by some chance he +was bought by some one of Caesar's household, and made Caesar's cobbler. +Instantly Epaphroditus began to pay him the profoundest respect, and to +address him in the most endearing terms, so that if any one asked what +Epaphroditus was doing, the answer, as likely as not, would be, "He is +holding an important consultation with Felicio." + +On one occasion, some one came to him bewailing, and weeping, and +embracing his knees in a paroxysm of grief, because of all his fortune +little more than 50,000_l_. was left! "What did Epaphroditus do?" asks +Epictetus; "did he laugh at the man as we did? Not at all; on the +contrary, he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 'Poor +fellow! how could you possibly keep silence and endure such a +misfortune?'" + +How brutally he could behave, and how little respect he inspired, we may +see in the following anecdote. When Plautius Lateranus, the brave +nobleman whose execution during Piso's conspiracy we have already +related, had received on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's +sword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not abstain from +pressing him with questions. The only reply which he received from the +dying man was the contemptuous remark, "Should I wish to say anything, I +will say it (not to a slave like you, but) to _your master_." + +Under a man of this calibre it is hardly likely that a lame Phrygian boy +would experience much kindness. An anecdote, indeed, has been handed +down to us by several writers, which would show that he was treated with +atrocious cruelty. Epaphroditus, it is said, once gratified his cruelty +by twisting his slave's leg in some instrument of torture. "If you go +on, you will break it," said Epictetus. The wretch did go on, and did +break it. "I told you that you would break it," said Epictetus quietly, +not giving vent to his anguish by a single word or a single groan. +Stories of heroism no less triumphant have been authenticated both in +ancient and modern times; but we may hope for the sake of human nature +that this story is false, since another authority tells us that +Epictetus became lame in consequence of a natural disease. Be that +however as it may, some of the early writers against Christianity--such, +for instance, as the physician Celsus--were fond of adducing this +anecdote in proof of a magnanimity which not even Christianity could +surpass; to which use of the anecdote Origen opposed the awful silence +of our Saviour upon the cross, and Gregory of Nazianzen pointed out +that, though it was a noble thing to endure inevitable evils, it was yet +more noble to undergo them voluntarily with an equal fortitude. But even +if Epaphroditus were not guilty of breaking the leg of Epictetus, it is +clear that the life of the poor youth was surrounded by circumstances of +the most depressing and miserable character; circumstances which would +have forced an ordinary man to the low and animal level of existence +which appears to have contented the great majority of Roman slaves. Some +of the passages in which he speaks about the consideration due to this +unhappy class show a very tender feeling towards them. "It would be +best," he says, "if, both while making your preparations and while +feasting at your banquets, you distribute among the attendants some of +the provisions. But if such a plan, at any particular time, be difficult +to carry out, remember that you who are not fatigued are being waited +upon by those who are fatigued; you who are eating and drinking by those +who are not eating and drinking; you who are conversing by those who are +mute--you who are at your ease by people under painful constraint. And +thus you will neither yourself be kindled into unseemly passion, nor +will you in a fit of fury do harm to any one else." No doubt Epictetus +is here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of which he had +himself experienced the degradation. But he had early acquired a +loftiness of soul and an insight into truth which enabled him to +distinguish the substance from the shadow, to separate the realities of +life from its accidents, and so to turn his very misfortunes into fresh +means of attaining to moral nobility. In proof of this let us see some +of his own opinions as to his state of life. + +At the very beginning of his _Discourses_ he draws a distinction +between the things which the gods _have_ and the things which they _have +not_ put in our own power, and he held (being deficient here in that +light which Christianity might have furnished to him) that the blessings +denied to us are denied not because the gods _would_ not, but because +they _could_ not grant them to us. And then he supposes that Jupiter +addresses him:-- + +"O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both your little +body and your little property free and unentangled; but now, do not be +mistaken, it is not yours at all, but only clay finely kneaded. Since, +however, I could not do this, I gave you a portion of ourselves, namely, +this power of pursuing and avoiding, of desiring and of declining, and +generally the power of _dealing with appearances_: and if you cultivate +this power, and regard it as that which constitutes your real +possession, you will never be hindered or impeded, nor will you groan or +find fault with, or flatter any one. Do these advantages then appear to +you to be trifling? Heaven forbid! Be content therefore with these, and +thank the gods." + +And again in one of his _Fragments_ (viii. ix.):-- + +"Freedom and slavery are but names, respectively, of virtue and of vice: +and both of them depend upon the will. But neither of them have anything +to do with those things in which the will has no share. For no one is a +slave whose will is free." + +"Fortune is an evil bond of the body, vice of the soul; for he is a +slave whose body is free but whose soul is bound, and, on the contrary, +he is free whose body is bound but whose soul is free." + +Who does not catch in these passages the very tone of St, Paul when he +says, "He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's +freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is +Christ's servant?" + +Nor is his independence less clearly express when he speaks of his +deformity. Being but the deformity of a body which he despised, he spoke +of himself as "an ethereal existence staggering under the burden of a +corpse." In his admirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays +down that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense that "the +universe is not made for our individual satisfaction." "_Must my leg be +lame_?" he supposes some querulous objector to inquire. "Slave!" he +replies, "do you then because of one miserable little leg find fault +with the universe? Will you not concede that accident to the existence +of general laws? Will you not dismiss the thought of it? Will you not +cheerfully assent to it for the sake of him who gave it. And will you be +indignant and displeased at the ordinances of Zeus, which he ordained +and appointed with the Destinies, who were present and wove the web of +your being? Know you not what an atom you are compared with the +whole?--that is, as regards your body, since as regards your reason you +are no whit inferior to, or less than the gods. For the greatness of +reason is not estimated by size or height, but by the doctrines which it +embraces. Will you not then lay up your treasure in those matters +wherein you are equal to the gods?" And, thanks to such principles, a +poor and persecuted slave was able to raise his voice in sincere and +eloquent thanksgiving to that God to whom he owed his "creation, +preservation, and all the blessings of this life." + +Speaking of the multitude of our natural gifts, he says, "Are these the +only gifts of Providence towards us? Nay, what power of speech suffices +adequately to praise, or to set them forth? for, had we but true +intelligence, what duty would be more perpetually incumbent on us than +both in public and in private to hymn the Divine, and bless His name and +praise His benefits? Ought we not, when we dig, and when we plough, and +when we eat, to sing this hymn to God? 'Great is God, because He hath +given us these implements whereby we may till the soil; great is God, +because He hath given us hands, and the means of nourishment by food, +and insensible growth, and breathing sleep;' these things in each +particular we ought to hymn, and to chant the greatest and the divinest +hymn, because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings, +and continuously to use them. What then? Since the most of you are +blinded, ought there not to be some one to fulfil this province for you, +and on behalf of all to sing his hymn to God? And what else can _I_ do, +who am a lame old man, except sing praises to God? Now, had I been a +nightingale, I should have sung the songs of a nightingale, or had I +been a swan the songs of a swan; but, being a reasonable being, it is my +duty to hymn God. This is my task, and I accomplish it; nor, so far as +may be granted to me, will I ever abandon this post, and you also do I +exhort to this same song." + +There is an almost lyric beauty about these expressions of resignation +and faith in God, and it is the utterance of such warm feelings towards +Divine Providence that constitutes the chief originality of Epictetus. +It is interesting to think that the oppressed heathen philosopher found +the same consolation, and enjoyed the same contentment, as the +persecuted Christian Apostle. "Whether ye eat or drink," says St. Paul, +"or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." "Think of God," says +Epictetus, "oftener than you breathe. Let discourse of God be renewed +daily more surely than your food." + +Here, again, are his views about his poverty (_Fragment_ xix.):-- + +"Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy; and if you +wish to be rich, know that it neither is a blessing, nor is it +altogether in your own power; but if to be happy, know that it both _is_ +a blessing, and is in your own power; since the former is but a +temporary loan of fortune, but the gift of happiness depends upon +the will." + +"Just as when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, in a casket of +ivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate them on the splendour of +their material, but because their nature is pernicious you turn from and +loathe them, so likewise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the +pomp of circumstance do not be astounded at the glory of its +surroundings, but despise the meanness of its character." + +"Wealth is _not_ among the number of good things; extravagance _is_ +among the number of evils, sober-mindedness of good things. Now +sober-mindedness invites us to frugality and the acquisition of real +advantages; but wealth to extravagance, and it drags us away from +sober-mindedness. It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be +sober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich." + +The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own +words, "How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel +passage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for +them that _trust_ in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God." + +But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and +Epictetus continues:-- + +"Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in +Greece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in +poverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in +poverty, and so be happy?" + +"As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little +truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it +is better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires, +than in the midst of superfluities to be discontented." + +This, too, is a thought which many have expressed. "Gentle sleep," says +Horace, "despises not the humble cottages of rustics, nor the shaded +banks, nor valleys whose foliage waves with the western wind;" and every +reader will recall the magnificent words of our own great Shakespeare-- + + "Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, + Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, + And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, + Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, + Under the canopies of costly state, + And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?" + +To the subject of freedom, and to the power which man possesses to make +himself entirely independent of all surrounding circumstances, Epictetus +incessantly recurs. With the possibility of banishment to an +_ergastulum_ perpetually before his eyes, he defines a prison as being +any situation in which a man is placed against his will; to Socrates for +instance the prison was no prison, for he was there willingly, and no +man _need_ be in prison, against his will if he has learnt, as one of +his primary duties, a cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable. By the +expression of such sentiments Epictetus had anticipated by fifteen +hundred years the immortal truth so sweetly expressed by Lovelace: + + "_Stone walls do not a prison make, + Nor iron bars a cage_; + Minds innocent and quiet take + That for a hermitage." + +Situated as he was, we can hardly wonder that thoughts like these +occupied a large share of the mind of Epictetus, or that he had taught +himself to lay hold of them with the firmest possible grasp. When asked, +"Who among men is rich?" he replied, "He who suffices for himself;" an +expression which contains the germ of the truth so forcibly expressed in +the Book of Proverbs, "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his +own ways, and a good man _shall be satisfied from himself_". Similarly, +when asked, "Who is free?" he replies, "The man who masters his own +self," with much the same tone of expressions as that of Solomon, "He +that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his +spirit than he that taketh a city." Socrates was one of the great models +whom Epictetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the +anecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When Archelaus +sent a message to express the intention of making him rich, Socrates +bade the messenger inform him that at Athens four quarts of meal might +be bought for three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. "If +then my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any rate I am +sufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient for me. Do you not +see that Polus acted the part of Oedipus in his royal state with no less +beauty of voice than that of Oedipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar? +Shall then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act well +every character imposed upon him by Divine Providence; and shall he not +imitate Ulysses, who even in rags was no less conspicuous than in the +curled nap of his purple cloak?" + +Generally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life is always +simple, and always consistent; it is a view which gave him consolation +among life's troubles, and strength to display some of its noblest +virtues, and it may be summed up in the following passages of his famous +_Manual_:-- + +"Remember," he says, "that you are an actor of just such a part as is +assigned you by the Poet of the play; of a short part, if the part be +short; of a long part, if it be long. Should He wish you to act the part +of a beggar, take care to act it naturally and nobly; and the same if it +be the part of a lame man, or a ruler, or a private man; for _this_ is +in your power, to act well the part assigned to you; but to _choose_ +that part is the function of another." + +"Let not these considerations afflict you: 'I shall live despised, and +the merest nobody;' for if dishonour be an evil, you cannot be involved +in evil any more than you can be involved in baseness through any one +else's means. Is it then at all _your_ business to be a leading man, or +to be entertained at a banquet? By no means. How then can it be a +dishonor not to be so? And how will you be a mere nobody, since it is +your duty to be somebody only in those circumstances which are in your +own power, in which you may be a person of the greatest importance?" + +"Honour, precedence, confidence," he argues in another passage, "whether +they be good things or evil things, are at any rate things for which +their own definite price must be paid. Lettuces are sold for a penny, +and if you want your lettuce you must pay your penny; and similarly, if +you want to be asked out to a person's house, you must pay the price +which he demands for asking people, whether the coin he requires be +praise or attention; but if you do not give these, do not expect the +other. Have you then gained nothing in lieu of your supper? Indeed you +have; you have escaped praising a person whom you did not want to +praise, and you have escaped the necessity of tolerating the upstart +impertinence of his menials." + +Some parts of this last thought have been so beautifully expressed by +the American poet Lowell that I will conclude this chapter in his words: + + "Earth hath her price for what earth gives us; + The beggar is tax'd for a corner to die in; + The priest hath his fee who comes and shrieves us; + We bargain for the graves we lie in: + At the devil's mart are all things sold, + Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold, + For a cap and bells our lives we pay. + Bubbles we earn with our whole soul's tasking, + '_Tis only God that is given away, + 'Tis only heaven may be had for the asking_." + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS _(continued)_. + +Whether any of these great thoughts would have suggested themselves +_spontaneously_ to Epictetus--whether there was an inborn wisdom and +nobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to +elaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do +not, however, express _his_ sentiments only, but belong in fact to the +moral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doctrines of which he +had received instruction. + +It may sound strange to the reader that one situated as Epictetus was +should yet have had a regular tutor to train him in Stoic doctrines. +That such should have been the case appears at first sight inconsistent +with the cruelty with which he was treated, but it is a fact which is +capable of easy explanation. In times of universal luxury and +display--in times when a sort of surface-refinement is found among all +the wealthy--some sort of respect is always paid to intellectual +eminence, and intellectual amusements are cultivated as well as those of +a coarser character. Hence a rich Roman liked to have people of literary +culture among his slaves; he liked to have people at hand who would get +him any information which he might desire about books, who could act as +his amanuenses, who could even correct and supply information for his +original compositions. Such learned slaves formed part of every large +establishment, and among them were usually to be found some who bore, if +they did not particularly merit, the title of "philosophers." These +men--many of whom are described as having been mere impostors, +ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites--acted somewhat like +domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an +amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative +innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in +lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he +wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an +illiterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of +high art in his drawing-room, and books of reference in his +well-furnished library. + +Accordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly useless for all +physical purposes, and since his thoughtfulness and intelligence could +not fail to command attention, his master determined to make him useful +in the only way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be +trained in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy. + +Musonius was the son of a Roman knight. His learning and eloquence, no +less than his keen appreciation of Stoic truths, had so deeply kindled +the suspicions of Nero, that he banished him to the rocky little island +of Gyaros, on the charge of his having been concerned in Piso's +conspiracy. He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived in +great distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to remain in the +city when the Emperor Vespasian banished all the other philosophers of +any eminence. + +The works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a few notices of +him, which are scattered in the _Discourses_ of his greater pupil, show +us what kind of man he was. The following anecdotes will show that he +was a philosopher of the strictest school. + +Speaking of the value of logic as a means of training the reason, +Epictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a mere error in +reasoning is no very serious fault. He points out that it _is_ a fault, +and that is sufficient. "I too," he says, "once made this very remark to +Rufus when he rebuked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in +some syllogism. 'What!' said I, 'have I then set the Capitol on fire, +that you rebuke me thus?' 'Slave!' he answered, 'what has the Capitol to +do with it? Is there no _other_ fault then short of setting the Capitol +on fire? Yes! to use one's own mere fancies rashly, at random, anyhow; +not to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or a sophism; not, in +short, to see what makes for oneself or not, in questioning and +answering--is none of these things a fault?'" + +Sometimes he used to test the Stoical endurance of his pupil by pointing +out the indignities and tortures which his master might at any moment +inflict upon him; and when Epictetus answered that, after all, such +treatment was what man _had_ borne, and therefore _could_ bear, he would +reply approvingly that every man's destiny was in his own hands; that he +need lack nothing from any one else; that, since he could derive from +himself magnanimity and nobility of soul, he might despise the notion of +receiving lands or money or office. "But," he continued, "when any one +is cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters about such a +person to speak of him as a corpse, and to say, 'Favour us with the +corpse and blood of So-and-so,' For? in fact, such a man _is_ a mere +corpse, and nothing more; for if he were anything more, he would have +perceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by another's +means." I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is a student of Epictetus, but +he, among others, has forcibly expressed the same truth. "My friends, do +you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died? +How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and +carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his +table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered +to you, in plain words, as it _is_ offered to you in dire facts, that +you should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought +yourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the +death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet +practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; +many of us grasp at it in the fulness of horror." + +The way in which Musonius treated would-be pupils much resembled the +plan adopted by Socrates. "It is not easy," says Epictetus, "to train +effeminate youths, any more than it is easy to take up whey with a hook. +But those of fine nature, even if you discourage them, desire +instruction all the more. For which reason Rufus often discouraged +pupils, using this as a criterion of fine and of common natures; for he +used to say, that just as a stone, even if you fling it into the air, +will fall down to the earth by its own gravitating force, so also a +noble nature, in proportion as it is repulsed, in that proportion tends +more in its own natural direction." As Emerson says,-- + + "Yet on the nimble air benign + Speed nimbler messages, + That waft the breath of grace divine + To hearts in sloth and ease. + So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,' + The youth replies, 'I CAN.'" + +One more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply +Epictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him. In his +_Discourse on Ostentation_, Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit +of remarking to his pupils, "If you have leisure to praise me, I can +have done you no good." "He used indeed so to address us that each one +of us, sitting there, thought that some one had been privately telling +tales against _him_ in particular, so completely did Rufus seize hold of +his characteristics, so vividly did he portray our individual faults." + +Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it +was evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were +somewhat chilling and austere. It formed an epoch in the slave's life; +it remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings +so inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were +counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt. +He would probably have admitted that it was _better_ for him to have +been sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in +freedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis. So that +Epictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an +additional argument in favour of Divine Providence: an additional proof +that God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of +conviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least +dominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the +whole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most +honestly and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again and +again that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world +has to offer, _if we are willing to pay the price by which they are +obtained_. But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should +scorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even +cast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by +that which we deliberately refuse to give. Every good and just man may +gain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness. Let no one +regard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and +definite meaning. There are certain things which all men desire, and +which all men would _gladly_, if they could _lawfully_ and _innocently_ +obtain. These things are health, wealth, ease, comfort, influence, +honour, freedom from opposition and from pain; and yet, if you were to +place all these blessings on the one side, and on the other side to +place poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and +contempt,--yet, if on _this_ side also you were to place truth and +justice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds may gather about +our life, the light of God will be visible beyond them, all the noblest +men who ever lived would choose, as without hesitation they always have +chosen, the _latter_ destiny. It is not that they like failure, but they +prefer failure to falsity; it is not that they love persecution, but +they prefer persecution to meanness; it is not that they relish +opposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty acquiescence; +it is not that they do not shrink from agony, but they would not escape +agony by crime. The selfishness of Dives in his purple is to them less +enviable than the innocence of Lazarus in rags; they would be chained +with John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast; they +would fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than be steeped in +the foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is not happiness, but it is +something higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is +satisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give +it, nor take it away,--it is something indescribable--it is the gift +of God. + +"The fallacy" of being surprised at wickedness in prosperity, and +righteousness in misery, "can only lie," says Mr. Froude, in words which +would have delighted Epictetus, and which would express the inmost +spirit of his philosophy, "in the supposed _right_ to happiness.... +Happiness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be true to the +best we know, to seek that, and do that; and if by 'virtue is its own +reward' be meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring +nothing more, then it is a true and a noble saying.... Let us do right, +and then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very mighty +matter. If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be +bitter--bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.... The well-being of our +souls depends only on what we _are_; and nobleness of character is +nothing else but _steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil_.... +Only to those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish +enjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. Man +will have what he desires, and will find what is really best for him, +exactly as he honestly seeks for it. _Happiness may fly away, pleasure +pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove +unkind; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is +never rejected_." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (_continued._) + +Of the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there is +unfortunately little more to be told. The life of + + "That halting slave, who in Nicopolis + Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son + Cleared Rome of what most shamed him," + +is not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded it are very +circumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest +biographies; their real life is in their books. + +At some period of his life, but how or when we do not know, Epictetus +was manumitted by his master, and was henceforward regarded by the world +as free. Probably the change made little or no difference in his life. +If it saved him from a certain amount of brutality, if it gave him more +uninterrupted leisure, it probably did not in the slightest degree +modify the hardships of his existence, and may have caused him some +little anxiety as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. He, +of all men, would have attached the least importance to the external +conditions under which he lived; he always regarded them as falling +under the category of things which lay beyond the sphere of his own +influence, and therefore as things with which he had nothing to do. Even +in his most oppressed days, he considered himself, by the grace of +heaven, to be more free--free in a far truer and higher sense--than +thousands of those who owed allegiance to no master's will. Whether he +had saved any small sum of money, or whether his needs were supplied by +the many who loved and honoured him, we do not know. He was a man who +was content with the barest necessaries of life, and we may be sure that +he would have refused to be indebted to any one for more than these. + +It is probable that he never married. This may have been due to that +shade of indifference to the female character of which we detect traces +here and there in his writings. In one passage he complains that women +seemed to think of nothing but admiration and getting married; and, in +another, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman ladies were +fond of Plato's _Republic_ because he allowed some very liberal marriage +regulations. We can only infer from these passages that he had been very +unfortunate in the specimens of women with whom he had been thrown. The +Roman ladies of his time were certainly not models of character; he was +not likely to fall in with very exalted females among the slaves of +Epaphroditus or the ladies of his family, and he had probably never +known the love of a sister or a mother's care. He did not, however, go +the length of condemning marriage altogether; on the contrary, he blames +the philosophers who did so. But it is equally obvious that he approves +of celibacy as a "counsel of perfection," and indeed his views on the +subject have so close and remarkable a resemblance to those of St. Paul +that our readers will be interested in seeing them side by side. + +In 1 Cor. vii. St. Paul, after speaking of the nobleness of virginity, +proceeds, nevertheless, to sanction matrimony as in itself a hallowed +and honourable estate. It was not given to all, he says, to abide even +as he was, and therefore marriage should be adopted as a sacred and +indissoluble bond. Still, without being sure that he has any divine +sanction for what he is about to say, he considers celibacy good "for +the present distress," and warns those that marry that they "shall have +trouble in the flesh." For marriage involves a direct multiplication of +the cares of the flesh: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that +belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married +careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his +wife.... And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a +snare upon you, _but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend +upon the Lord without distraction_." + +It is clear, then, that St. Paul regarded virginity as a "counsel of +perfection," and Epictetus uses respecting it almost identically the +same language. Marriage was perfectly permissible in his view, but it +was much better for a Cynic (i.e. for all who carried out most fully +their philosophical obligations) to remain single: "Since the condition +of things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve of battle, +_ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distraction_" [the Greek +word being the very same as that used by St. Paul] "_for the service of +God_? ought he not to be able to move about among mankind free from the +entanglement of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he +neglect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise and good +man, and which if he observe he will lose the function of a messenger, +and sentinel, and herald of the gods?" Epictetus proceeds to point out +that if he is married he can no longer look after the spiritual +interests of all with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer +maintain the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the genuine +philosopher. He _must_, for instance, have a bath for his child, +provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and +money to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a +general increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified +distractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing +manifestation of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a +celebrated cynic, was married, but it was to a lady as self-denying as +himself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to share +hardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetus does not venture to say +in so many words that Crates in this matter made a mistake, he takes +pains to point out that the circumstances were far too exceptional to be +accepted as a precedent for the imitation of others. + +"But," inquires the interlocutor, "how then is the world to get on?" The +question seems quite to disturb the bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it +makes him use language of the strongest and most energetic contempt: and +it is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems to lose +the nobility and grace, the "sweetness and light," which are the general +characteristic of his utterances. In spite of his complete self-mastery +he was evidently a man of strong feelings, and with a natural tendency +to express them strongly. "Heaven bless us," he exclaims in reply, "are +_they_ greater benefactors of mankind who bring into the world two or +three evilly-squalling brats,[63] or those who, to the best of their +power, keep a beneficent eye on the lives, and habits, and tendencies of +all mankind? Were the Thebans who had large families more useful to +their country than the childless Epaminondas; or was Homer less useful +to mankind than Priam with his fifty good-for-nothing sons?... Why, sir, +the true cynic is a father to all men; all men are his sons and all +women his daughters; he has a bond of union, a lien of affection with +them all." (_Dissert_. iii. 22.) + +[Footnote 63: [Greek: kakorrugcha paidia]. Another reading is [Greek: +kokorugcha], which M. Martha renders, "_Marmots à vilain petit museau_!" +It is evident that Epictetus did not like children, which makes his +subsequently mentioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more +creditable to him.] + +The whole character of Epictetus is sufficient to prove that he would +only do what he considered _most_ desirable and most exalted; and +passages like these, the extreme asperity of which I have necessarily, +softened down, are, I think, decisive in favour of the tradition which +pronounces him to have been unmarried. + +We are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest and even meanest +description: it neither needed nor possessed a fastening of any kind, +for within it there was no furniture except a lamp and the poor straw +pallet on which he slept. About his lamp there was current in antiquity +a famous story, to which he himself alludes. As a piece of unwonted +luxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which burned in front of the +images of his household deities. It was the only possession which he +had, and a thief stole it. "He will be finely disappointed when he comes +again," quietly observed Epictetus. "for he will only find an +earthenware lamp next time." At his death the little earthenware lamp +was bought by some genuine hero-worshipper for 3,000 drachmas. "The +purchaser hoped," says the satirical Lucian, "that if he read philosophy +at night by that lamp, he would at once acquire in dreams the wisdom of +the admirable old man who once possessed it." + +But, in spite of his deep poverty, it must not be supposed that there +was anything eccentric or ostentatious in the life of Epictetus. On the +contrary, his writings abound in directions as to the proper bearing of +a philosopher in life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule +to endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the _gamins_ of +Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair game," and think it fine +fun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the +sneers of much more dignified people. "If," says Epictetus, "you want to +know how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who had the +highest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present, +happened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had +received an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I _cannot_ endure it; you +are killing me; why, you'll make me _like him_! pointing to me," +evidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And, +again he says in the _Manual_. "If you wish to be a philosopher, prepare +yourself to be thoroughly laughed at since many will certainly sneer and +jeer at you, and will say, 'He has come back to us as a philosopher all +of a sudden,' and 'Where in the world did he get this superciliousness?' +Now do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which appear +best to you in such a manner as though you were conscious of having been +appointed by God to this position." Again in the little discourse _On +the Desire of Admiration_, he warns the philosopher "_not to walk as if +he had swallowed a poker_" or to care for the applause of those +multitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error. For all display, and +pretence, and hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, and boasting, and mere +fruitless book-learning he seems to have felt a genuine and profound +contempt. Recommendations to simplicity of conduct, courtesy of manner, +and moderation of language were among his practical precepts. It is +refreshing, too, to know that with the strongest and manliest good +sense, he entirely repudiated that dog-like brutality of behaviour, and +repulsive eccentricity of self-neglect, which characterised not a few of +the Cynic leaders. He expressly argues that the Cynic should be a man of +ready tact, and attractive presence; and there is something of almost +indignant energy in his words when he urges upon a pupil the plain duty +of scrupulous cleanliness. In this respect our friends the Hermits would +not quite have satisfied him, although he might possibly have pardoned +them on the plea that they abode in desert solitudes, since he bids +those who neglect the due care of their bodies to live "either in the +wilderness or alone." + +Late in life Epictetus increased his establishment by taking in an old +woman as a servant. The cause of his doing so shows an almost Christian +tenderness of character. According to the hideous custom of infanticide +which prevailed in the pagan world, a man with whom Epictetus was +acquainted exposed his infant son to perish. Epictetus in pity took the +child home to save its life, and the services of a female were necessary +to supply its wants. Such kindness and self-denial were all the more +admirable because pity, like all other deep emotions, was regarded by +the Stoics in the light rather of a vice than of a virtue. In this +respect, however, both Seneca and Epictetus, and to a still greater +extent Marcus Aurelius, were gloriously false to the rigidity of the +school to which they professed to belong. We see with delight that one +of the _Discourses_ of Epictetus was _On the Tenderness and Forbearance +due to Sinners_; and he abounds in exhortations to forbearance in +judging others. In one of his _Fragments_ he tells the following +anecdote:--A person who had seen a poor ship-wrecked and almost dying +pirate took pity on him, carried him home, gave him clothes, and +furnished him with all the necessaries of life. Somebody reproached him +for doing good to the wicked--"I have honoured," he replied, "not the +man, but humanity in his person." + +But one fact more is known in the life of Epictetus, Domitian, the +younger son of Vespasian, succeeded his far nobler brother the Emperor +Titus; and in the course of his reign a decree was passed which banished +all the philosophers from Italy. Epictetus was not exempted from this +unjust and absurd decree. That he bore it with equanimity may be +inferred from the approval with which he tells an anecdote about +Agrippinus, who while his cause was being tried in the Senate went on +with all his usual avocations, and on being informed on his return from +bathing that he had been condemned, quietly asked, "To death or +banishment?" "To banishment," said the messenger. "Is my property +confiscated?" "No," "Very well, then let us go as far as Aricia" (about +sixteen miles from Rome), "and dine there." + +There was a certain class of philosophers whose external mark and whose +sole claim to distinction rested in the length of their beards; and when +the decree of Domitian was passed these gentleman contented themselves +with shaving. Epictetus alludes to this in his second _Discourse_, +"Come, Epictetus, shave off your beard," he imagines some one to say to +him. "If I am a philosopher I will not," he replies. "Then I will take +off your head." "By all means, if that will do you any good." + +He went to Nicopolis, a town of Epirus, which had been built by Augustus +in commemoration of his victory at Actium. Whether he ever revisited +Rome is uncertain, but it is probable that he did so, for we know that +he enjoyed the friendship of several eminent philosophers and statesmen, +and was esteemed and honoured by the Emperor Hadrian himself. He is said +to have lived to a good old age, surrounded by affectionate and eager +disciples, and to have died with the same noble simplicity which had +marked his life. The date of his death is as little known as that of his +birth. It only remains to give a sketch of those thoughts which, poor +though he was, and despised, and a slave, yet made him "dear to the +immortals." + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE "MANUAL" AND "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS. + +It is nearly certain that Epictetus never committed any of his doctrines +to writing. Like his great exemplar. Socrates, he contented himself with +oral instruction, and the bulk of what has come down to us in his name +consists in the _Discourses_ reproduced for us by his pupil Arrian. It +was the ambition of Arrian "to be to Epictetus what Xenophon had been to +Socrates," that is, to hand down to posterity a noble and faithful +picture of the manner in which his master had lived and taught. With +this view, he wrote four books on Epictetus,--a life, which is now +unhappily lost; a book of conversation or "table talk," which is also +lost; and two books which have come down to us, viz. the _Discourses_ +and the _Manual_. It is from these two invaluable books, and from a good +many isolated fragments, that we are enabled to judge what was the +practical morality of Stoicism, as expounded by the holy and +upright slave. + +The _Manual_ is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles, +which, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are +also explained in the _Discourses_. Both books were so popular that by +their means Arrian first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately +attained the highest eminence and rank. The _Manual_ was to antiquity +what the _Imitatio_ of Thomas à Kempis was to later times, and what +Woodhead's _Whole Duty of Man_ or Wilberforce's _Practical View of +Christianity_ have been to large sections of modern Englishmen. It was a +clear, succinct, and practical statement of common daily duties, and the +principles upon which they rest. Expressed in a manner entirely simple +and unornate, its popularity was wholly due to the moral elevation of +the thoughts which it expressed. Epictetus did not aim at style; his one +aim was to excite his hearers to virtue, and Arrian tells us that in +this endeavour he created a deep impression by his manner and voice. It +is interesting to know that the _Manual_ was widely accepted among +Christians no less than among Pagans, and that, so late as the fifth +century, paraphrases were written of it for Christian use. No systematic +treatise of morals so simply beautiful was ever composed, and to this +day the best Christian may study it, not with interest only, but with +real advantage. It is like the voice of the Sybil, which, uttering +things simple, and unperfumed, and unadorned, by God's grace reacheth +through innumerable years. We proceed to give a short sketch of +its contents. + +Epictetus began by laying down the broad comprehensive statement that +there are some things which are in our power, and depend upon ourselves; +other things which are beyond our power, and wholly independent of us. +The things which are in our power are our opinions, our aims, our +desires, our aversions--in a word, _our actions_. The things beyond our +power are bodily accidents, possessions, fame, rank, and whatever lies +_beyond_ the sphere of our actions. To the former of these classes of +things our whole attention must be confined. In that region we may be +noble, unperturbed, and free; in the other we shall be dependent, +frustrated, querulous, miserable. Both classes cannot be successfully +attended to; they are antagonistic, antipathetic; we cannot serve God +and Mammon. + +Now, if we take a right view of all these things which in no way depend +on ourselves we shall regard them as mere semblances--as shadows which +are to be distinguished from the true substance. We shall not look upon +them as fit subjects for aversion or desire. Sin and cruelty, and +falsehood we may hate, because we can avoid them if we will; but we must +look upon sickness, and poverty, and death as things which are _not_ fit +subjects for our avoidance, because they lie wholly beyond our control. + +This, then,--endurance of the inevitable, avoidance of the evil--is the +keynote of the Epictetean philosophy. It has been summed up in the three +words, [Greek: Anechou kai apechou], "_sustine et abstine_," "Bear and +forbear,"--bear whatever God assigns to you, abstain from that which +He forbids. + +The earlier part of the _Manual_ is devoted to practical advice which +may enable men to endure nobly. For instance, "If there be anything," +says Epictetus, "which you highly value or tenderly love, estimate at +the same time its true nature. Is it some possession? remember that it +may be destroyed. Is it wife or child? remember that they may die." +"Death," says an epitaph in Chester Cathedral-- + + "Death, the great monitor, comes oft to prove, + 'Tis dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love." + +"Desire nothing too much. If you are going to the public baths and are +annoyed or hindered by the rudeness, the pushing, the abuse, the +thievish propensities of others, do not lose your temper: remind +yourself that it is more important that you should keep your will in +harmony with nature than that you should bathe. And so with all +troubles; men suffer far less from the things themselves than from the +opinions they have of them." + +"If you cannot frame your circumstances in accordance with your wishes, +frame your will into harmony with your circumstances.[64] When you lose +the best gifts of life, consider them as not lost but only resigned to +Him who gave them. You have a remedy in your own heart against all +trials--continence as a bulwark against passion, patience against +opposition, fortitude against pain. Begin with trifles: if you are +robbed, remind yourself that your peace of mind is of more value and +importance than the thing which has been stolen from you. Follow the +guidance of nature; that is the great thing; regret nothing, desire +nothing, which can disturb that end. Behave as at a banquet--take with +gratitude and in moderation what is set before you, and seek for nothing +more; a higher and diviner step will be to be ready and able to forego +even that which is given you, or which you might easily obtain. +Sympathise with others, at least externally, when they are in sorrow and +misfortune; but remember in your own heart that to the brave and wise +and true there is really no such thing as misfortune; it is but an ugly +semblance; the croak of the raven can portend no harm to such a man, he +is elevated above its power." + +[Footnote 64: "When what thou willest befalls not, thou then must will +what befalleth."] + +"We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with +those parts; our simple duty is confined to playing them well. The slave +may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it +dwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant, with it all +others become needless, without it no others are possible. No one can +insult you if you will not regard his words or deeds as insults.[65] +Keep your eye steadily fixed on the great reality of death, and all +other things will shrink to their true proportions. As in a voyage, when +a ship has come to anchor, if you have gone out to find water, you may +amuse yourself with picking up a little shell or bulb, but you must keep +your attention steadily fixed upon the ship, in case the captain should +call, and then you must leave all such things lest you should be flung +on board, bound like sheep. So in life; if, instead of a little shell or +bulb, some wifeling or childling be granted you, well and good; but, if +the captain call, run to the ship and leave such possessions behind you, +not looking back. But if you be an old man, take care not to go a long +distance from the ship at all, lest you should be called and come too +late." The metaphor is a significant one, and perhaps the following +lines of Sir Walter Scott, prefixed anonymously to one of the chapters +of the Waverley Novels, may help to throw light upon it: + + "Death finds us 'midst our playthings; snatches us, + As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, + From all our toys and baubles--the rough call + Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth: + And well if they are such as may be answered + In yonder world, where all is judged of truly." + +[Footnote 65: Compare Cowper's _Conversation_:-- + "Am I to set my life upon a throw + Because a bear is rude and surly?--No.-- + A modest, sensible, and well-bred man + Will not insult me, and _no other can_."] + +"Preserve your just relations to other men; their misconduct does not +affect your duties. Has your father done wrong, or your brother been +unjust? Still he _is_ your father, he _is_ your brother; and you must +consider your relation to him, not whether he be worthy of it or no. + +"Your duty towards the gods is to form just and true opinions respecting +them. Believe that they do all things well, and then you need never +murmur or complain." + +"As rules of practice," says Epictetus, "prescribe to yourself an ideal, +and then act up to it. Be mostly silent; or, if you converse, do not let +it be about vulgar and insignificant topics, such as dogs, horses, +racing, or prize-fighting. Avoid foolish and immoderate laughter, vulgar +entertainments, impurity, display, spectacles, recitations, and all +egotistical remarks. Set before you the examples of the great and good. +Do not be dazzled by mere appearances. Do what is right quite +irrespective of what people will say or think. Remember that your body +is a very small matter and needs but very little; just as all that the +foot needs is a shoe, and not a dazzling ornament of gold, purple, or +jewelled embroidery. To spend all one's time on the body, or on bodily +exercises, shows a weak intellect. Do not be fond of criticising others, +and do not resent their criticisms of you. Everything," he says, and +this is one of his most characteristic precepts, "has two handles! one +by which it may be borne, the other by which it cannot. If your brother +be unjust, do not take up the matter by that handle--the handle of his +injustice--for that handle is the one by which it cannot be taken up; +but rather by the handle that he is your brother and brought up with +you; and then you will be taking it up as it can be borne." + +All these precepts have a general application, but Epictetus adds +others on the right bearing of a philosopher; that is, of one whose +professed ideal is higher than the multitude. He bids him above all +things not to be censorious, and not to be ostentatious. "Feed on your +own principles; do not throw them up to show how much you have eaten. Be +self-denying, but do not boast of it. Be independent and moderate, and +regard not the opinion or censure of others, but keep a watch upon +yourself as your own most dangerous enemy. Do not plume yourself on an +_intellectual_ knowledge of philosophy, which is in itself quite +valueless, but on a consistent nobleness of action. Never relax your +efforts, but aim at perfection. Let everything which seems best be to +you a law not to be transgressed; and whenever anything painful, or +pleasurable, or glorious, or inglorious, is set before you, remember +that now is the struggle, now is the hour of the Olympian contest, and +it may not be put off, and that by a single defeat or yielding your +advance in virtue may be either secured or lost. It was thus that +Socrates attained perfection, by giving his heart to reason, and to +reason only. And thou, even if as yet thou art not a Socrates, yet +shouldst live as though it were thy wish to be one." These are noble +words, but who that reads them will not be reminded of those sacred and +far more deeply-reaching words, "_Be ye perfect, even as your Father +which is in heaven is perfect" Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, +now is the day of salvation_. + +In this brief sketch we have included all the most important thoughts in +the _Manual_. It ends in these words. "On all occasions we may keep in +mind these three sentiments:--" + +'Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me +to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be +unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the same.' +(Cleanthes.) + +'Whosoever hath nobly yielded to necessity, I hold him wise, and he +knoweth the things of God.' (Euripides.) + +And this third one also, 'O Crito, be it so, if so be the will of +heaven. Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, but harm me they cannot.' +(Socrates.) + +To this last conception of life; quoted from the end of Plato's +_Apology_, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: "What resources have we," he +asks, "in circumstances of great peril? What other than the remembrance +of what is or what is not in our own power; what is possible to us and +what is not? I must die. Be it so; but need I die groaning? I must be +bound; but must I be bound bewailing? I must be driven into exile, well, +who prevent me then from going with laughter, and cheerfulness, and +calm of mind? + +"'Betray secrets.' + +"'Indeed I will not, for _that_ rests in my own hands.' + +"'Then I will put you in chains.' + +"'My good sir, what are you talking about? Put _me_ in chains? No, no! +you may put my leg in chains, but not even Zeus himself can master +my will.' + +"'I will throw you into prison.' + +"'My poor little body; yes, no doubt.' + +"'I will cut off your head.' + +"'Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one which could not +be cut off?' + +"Such are the things of which philosophers should think, and write them +daily, and exercise themselves therein." + +There are many other passages in which Epictetus shows that the +free-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that we should not "sell +it for a trifle;" or, as Scripture still more sternly expresses it, +should not "sell ourselves for nought." He relates, for instance, the +complete failure of the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus +not to go to the Senate. "While I am a Senator," said Helvidius, "I +_must_ go." "Well, then, at least be silent there." "Ask me no +questions, and I will be silent." "But I _must_ ask your opinion." "And +_I_ must say what is right." "But I will put you to death." "Did I ever +tell you I was immortal? Do _your_ part, and _I_ will do _mine_. It is +yours to kill me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to +go into banishment without grief." + +We see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of the heathen +had, by God's grace, attained to the sense that life was subject to a +divine guidance. Yet how dim was their vision of this truth, how +insecure their hold upon it, in comparison with that which the meanest +Christian may attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of +immortality. They never quite got rid of a haunting dread that perhaps, +after all, they might be nothing better than insignificant and unheeded +atoms, swept hither and thither in the mighty eddies of an unseen, +impersonal, mysterious agency, and destined hereafter "to be sealed amid +the iron hills," or + + "To be imprisoned in the viewless winds. + And blown with reckless violence about + The pendent world." + +Their belief in a personal deity was confused with their belief in +nature, which, in the language of a modern sceptic, "acts with fearful +uniformity: stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as death; too +vast to praise, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer, +no heart for sympathy, no arm to save." How different the soothing and +tender certainty of the Christian's hope, for whom Christ has brought +life and immortality to light! For "chance" is not only "the daughter of +forethought," as the old Greek lyric poet calls her, but the daughter +also of love. How different the prayer of David, even in the hours of +his worst agony and shame, "_Let Thy loving Spirit lead me forth into +the land of righteousness_." Guidance, and guidance by the hand of love, +was--as even in that dark season he recognised--the very law of his +life; and his soul, purged by affliction, had but a single wish--the +wish to be led, not into prosperity, not into a recovery of his lost +glory, not even into the restoration of his lost innocence; but +only,--through paths however hard--only into the land of righteousness. +And because he knew that God would lead him thitherward, he had no wish, +no care for anything beyond. We will end this chapter by translating a +few of the isolated fragments of Epictetus which have been preserved for +us by other writers. The wisdom and beauty of these fragments will +interest the reader, for Epictetus was one of the few "in the very dust +of whose thoughts was gold." + + * * * * * + +"A life entangled with accident is like a wintry torrent, for it is +turbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and tyrannous, and loud, +and brief." + +"A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; for it is +pure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and serviceable, and +rich, and innocent, and uninjurious." + + * * * * * + +"If you wish to be good? first believe that you are bad." + +Compare Matt. ix. 12, "They that be whole need not a physician, but +they that are sick;" John ix. 41, "Now ye say, We see, therefore your +sin remaineth;" and 1 John i. 8, "If we say that we have no sin, we +deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." + + * * * * * + +"It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks with the gifts of +bees, to embitter by vice his reason, which is the gift of God." + + * * * * * + +"Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and +insolence: nothing nobler than high-mindedness, and gentleness, and +philanthropy, and doing good." + + * * * * * + +"The vine bears three clusters: the first of pleasure; the second of +drunkenness; the third of insult." + +"He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; even if he be not +drunken, he has exceeded moderation." + +Our own George Herbert has laid down the same limit:-- + + "Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay, + _Stay at the third cup, or forego the place_, + Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface." + + * * * * * + +"Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a great blaze by +means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over +the sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city, +himself content with little, effects great blessings for his +fellow-citizens." + +The thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare: + + "How far yon little candle throws its beams, + So shines a good deed in a naughty world." + +But the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly adopts is one no less +beautiful. "What good," asked some one, "did Helvidius Priscus do in +resisting Vespasian, being but a single person?" "What good," answers +Epictetus, "does the purple do on the garment? Why, _it is splendid in +itself, and splendid also in the example which it affords_." + + * * * * * + +"As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations that he may rise, +but shines at once, and is greeted by all; so neither wait thou for +applause, and shouts, and eulogies, that thou mayst do well;--but be a +spontaneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved like the sun." + + * * * * * + +"Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all possessions, answered, +'Hope; for even those who have nothing else have hope.'" + +"Lead, lead me on, my hopes," says Mr. Macdonald; "I know that ye are +true and not vain. Vanish from my eyes day after day, but arise in new +forms. I will follow your holy deception; follow till ye have brought me +to the feet of my Father in heaven, where I shall find you all, with +folded wings, spangling the sapphire dusk whereon stands His throne +which is our home. + +"What ought not to be done do not even think of doing." + +Compare + + "_Guard well your thoughts for thoughts are heard in heaven_.'" + + * * * * * + +Epictetus, when asked how a man could grieve his enemy, replied, "By +preparing himself to act in the noblest way." + +Compare Rom. xii. 20, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, +give him drink: _for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on +his head_" + + * * * * * + +"If you always remember that in all you do in soul or body God stands by +as a witness, in all your prayers and your actions you will not err; and +you shall have God dwelling with you." + +Compare Rev. iii. 30, "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man +hear my voice, and open the door, _I will come in to him and will sup +with him, and he with me."_ + +In the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch upon human +actions, Epictetus touches again on the same topic, saying that God has +placed beside each one of us his own guardian spirit--a spirit that +sleeps not and cannot be beguiled--and has handed us each over to that +spirit to protect us. "And to what better or more careful guardian could +He have entrusted us? So that when you have closed your doors and made +darkness within, _remember never to say that you are alone_. For you are +not alone. God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit; and +what need have _they_ of light to see what you are doing." + +There is in this passage an almost startling coincidence of thought with +those eloquent words in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: "A man that breaketh +wedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? _I am compassed about +with darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth me_: what need I to +fear? the Most Highest will not remember my sins: _such a man only +feareth the eyes of man_, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are +ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, +and considering the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever they +were created: so also after they were perfected He looked upon all. This +man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he expecteth +not he shall be taken." (Ecclus. xxiii. 11-21.) + +"When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a tutor who kept a +continual watch that we might not suffer harm; but, when we grow to +manhood, God hands us over to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must, +therefore, by no means despise this guardianship, since in that case we +shall both be displeasing to God and enemies to our own conscience." + +Beautiful and remarkable as these fragments are we have no space for +more, and must conclude by comparing the last with the celebrated lines +of George Herbert:-- + + "Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round; + _Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters + Deliver us to laws. They send us bound + To rules of reason_. Holy messengers; + Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin; + Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes; + Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in! + Bibles laid open; millions of surprises; + Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness; + The sound of glory ringing in our ears; + Without one shame; _within our consciences_; + Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears! + Yet all these fences and their whole array, + One cunning bosom sin blows quite away." + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS. + +The _Discourses_ of Epictetus, as originally published by Arrian, +contained eight books, of which only four have come down to us. They are +in many respects the most valuable expression of his views. There is +something slightly repellent in the stern concision, the "imperious +brevity," of the _Manual_. In the _Manual_, says M. Martha,[66] "the +reason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassibility which is +little human; it imposes silence on all the passions, even the most +respectable; it glories in waging against them an internecine war, and +seems even to wish to repress the most legitimate impulses of generous +sensibility. In reading these rigorous maxims one might be tempted to +believe that this legislator of morality is a man without a heart, and, +if we were not touched by the original sincerity of the language, one +would only see in this lapidary style the conventional precepts of a +chimerical system or the aspirations of an impossible perfection." The +_Discourses_ are more illustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse, +more human. In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human +being, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. The style, +indeed, is simple, but its "athletic nudity" is well suited to this +militant morality; its picturesque and incisive character, its vigorous +metaphors, its vulgar expressions, its absence of all conventional +elegance, display a certain "plebeian originality" which gives them an +almost autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid +conviction "he wrestles with the passions, questions them, makes them +answer, and confounds them in a few words which are often sublime. This +Socrates without grace does not amuse us by making his adversary fall +into the long entanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes +and often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence of +Phocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which is lifted +and falls." + +[Footnote 66: Moralistes sous l'Empire, p. 200.] + +Epictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher; a preacher with less wealth of +genius, less eloquence of expression, less width of culture, but with +far more bravery, clearness, consistency, and grasp of his subject. His +doctrine and his life were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit +of brief expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, or +chequered with any lights and shades. The _Discourses_ differ from the +_Manual_ only in their manner, their frequent anecdotes, their pointed +illustrations, and their vivid interlocutory form. The remark of Pascal, +that Epictetus knew the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know +its weakness, applies to the _Manual_ but can hardly be maintained when +we judge him by some of the answers which he gave to those who came to +seek for his consolation or advice. + +The _Discourses_ are not systematic in their character, and, even if +they were, the loss of the last four books would prevent us from working +out their system with any completeness. Our sketch of the _Manual_ will +already have put the reader in possession of the main principles and +ideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the +schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a +moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He +neither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical +reality. All that remains for us to do is to choose from the +_Discourses_ some of his most characteristic views, and the modes by +which he brought them home to his hearers. + +It was one of the most essential peculiarities of Stoicism to aim at +absolute independence, or _self_-independence. Now, as the weaknesses +and servilities of men arise most frequently from their desire for +superfluities, the true man must absolutely get rid of any such desire. +He must increase his wealth by moderating his wishes; he must despise +_all_ the luxuries for which men long, and he must greatly diminish the +number of supposed necessaries. We have already seen some of the +arguments which point in this direction, and we may add another from the +third book of _Discourses_. + +A certain magnificent orator, who was going to Rome on a lawsuit, had +called on Epictetus. The philosopher threw cold water on his visit, +because he did not believe in his sincerity. "You will get no more from +me," he said, "than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for +you have only come because it happened to be convenient, and you will +only criticise my style, not really wishing to learn _principles_" +"Well, but," answered the orator, "if I attend to that sort of thing, I +shall be a mere pauper like you, with no plate, or equipage, or land." +"I don't _want_ such things," replied Epictetus; "and, besides, you are +poorer than I am, after all." "Why, how so?" "You have no constancy, no +unanimity with nature, no freedom from perturbations. Patron or no +patron, what care I? You _do_ care. I am richer than you. _I_ don't care +what Caesar thinks of me. _I_ flatter no one. This is what I have +instead of your silver and gold plate. You have _silver_ vessels, but +_earthenware_ reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom +is, and it furnishes me abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your +restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you, mine seem +great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied." The +comparison with which he ends the discussion is very remarkable. I once +had the privilege of hearing Sir William Hooker explain to the late +Queen Adelaide the contents of the Kew Museum. Among them was a +cocoa-nut with a hole in it, and Sir William explained to the Queen that +in certain parts of India, when the natives want to catch the monkeys +they make holes in cocoa-nuts, and fill them with sugar. The monkeys +thrust in their hands and fill them with sugar; the aperture is too +small to draw the paws out again when thus increased in size; the +monkeys have not the sense to loose their hold of the sugar, and so they +are caught. This little anecdote will enable the reader to relish the +illustration of Epictetus. "When little boys thrust their hands into +narrow-mouthed jars full of figs and almonds, when they have filled +their hands they cannot draw them out again, and so begin to howl. Let +go a few of the figs and almonds, and you'll get your hand out. And so +_you_, let go your desires. Don't desire many things, and you'll get +what you _do_ desire." "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he +shall not be disappointed!" + +Another of the constant precepts of Epictetus is that we should aim +high; we are not to be common threads in the woof of life, but like the +laticlave on the robe of a senator, the broad purple stripe which gave +lustre and beauty to the whole. But how are we to know that we are +qualified for this high function? How does the bull know, when the lion +approaches, that it is his place to expose himself for all the herd? If +we have high powers we shall soon be conscious of them, and if we have +them not we may gradually acquire them. Nothing great is produced at +once,--the vine must blossom, and bear fruit, and ripen, before we have +the purple clusters of the grape,--"first the blade, then the ear, after +that the full corn in the ear." + +But whence are we to derive this high sense of duty and possible +eminence? Why, if Caesar had adopted you, would you not show your proud +sense of ennoblement in haughty looks; how is it that you are not proud +of being sons of God? You have, indeed, a body, by virtue of which many +men sink into close kinship with pernicious wolves, and savage lions, +and crafty foxes, destroying the rational within them, and so becoming +greedy cattle or mischievous vermin; but above and beyond this, "If," +says Epictetus, "a man have once been worthily interpenetrated with the +belief that we all have been in some special manner born of God, and +that God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never have +any ignoble, any humble thoughts about himself." Our own great Milton +has hardly expressed this high truth more nobly when he says, that "He +that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of +God's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he +thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit +person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than +to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, +himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and filial +relation with God." + +"And how are we to know that we have made progress? We may know it if +our own wills are bent to live in conformity with nature; if we be +noble, free, faithful, humble; if desiring nothing, and shunning nothing +which lies beyond our power, we sit loose to all earthly interests; if +our lives are under the distinct governance of immutable and noble laws. + +"But shall we not meet with troubles in life? Yes, undoubtedly; and are +there none at Olympia? Are you not burnt with heat, and pressed for +room, and wetted with showers when it rains? Is there not more than +enough clamour, and shouting, and other troubles? Yet I suppose you +tolerate and endure all these when you balance them against the +magnificence of the spectacle? And, come now, have you not received +powers wherewith to bear whatever occurs? Have you not received +magnanimity, courage, fortitude? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I +care for anything that can possibly happen? what shall alarm or trouble +me, or seem painful? Shall I not use the faculty for the ends for which +it was granted me, or shall I grieve and groan at all the accidents of +life? On the contrary, these troubles and difficulties are strong +antagonists pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in +the Olympic game of life. + +"But if life and its burdens become absolutely intolerable, may we not +go back to God, from whom we came? may we not show thieves and robbers, +and tyrants who claim power over us by means of our bodies and +possessions, that they have _no power_? In a word, may we not commit +suicide?" We know how Shakespeare treats this question:-- + + "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, + Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, + The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, + The insolence of office, and the spurns + Which patient merit of the unworthy takes, + When he himself might his quietus make + With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, + To grunt and sweat under a weary life, + _But that the dread of something after death, + The undiscovered country from whose bourne + No traveller returns, puzzles the will: + And makes us rather bear those ills we have + Than fly to others that we know not of_?" + +But Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I do not remember a +single passage in which he refers to immortality or the life to come, +and it is therefore probable either that he did not believe in it at +all, or that he put it aside as one of those things which are out of our +own power. Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we +find throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one of the +commonplaces of Stoicism. "My friends," he says, "wait God's good time +till He gives you the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then +dismiss yourself to go to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves, +inhabiting the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after +all, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for those who are +thus disposed; for what tyrant, or thief, or judgment-halls, are objects +of dread to those who thus absolutely disesteem the body and its +belongings? Stay, then, and do not depart without due cause." + +It will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without extolling it, +for in another place (ii. 1) he says: "What is pain? A mere ugly mask; +turn it, and see that it is so. This little flesh of ours is acted on +roughly, and then again smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear +it, the door is open; if it is for your interest--endure. It is right +that under all circumstances the door should be open, since so men end +all trouble." + +This power of _endurance_ is completely the keynote of the Stoical view +of life, and the method of attaining to it, by practising contempt for +all external accidents, is constantly inculcated. I have already told +the anecdote about Agrippinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that +no extreme of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a +single expression of indignation or of sorrow. + +The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from God, and it +is our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding +conception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too, +our duties spring directly from our relation to God. It is that relation +which makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us +honour others. "Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has +God for his father no less than you? But they are wicked, +perhaps--thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more +pity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their +misfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are +wicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so _very_ wise?" + +Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often +pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for +instance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), +and the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones. +He points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act +is a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which make up +our daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are +adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever +may be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with +the diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them. + +Take the instance of anger. "Do you wish not to be passionate? do not +then cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto. +Be calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in +a rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day, +then every third, then every fourth day. But should you have passed even +thirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to God. For the +habit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to +vexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but +I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say +_that_, that it will soon be all right with you." + +But _how_ is one to do all this? that is the great question, and +Epictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he can. We have, +for instance, already quoted one passage in which (unlike the majority +of Pagan moralists) he shows that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical +importance of controlling even the _thought_ of wickedness. Another +anecdote about Agrippinus will further illustrate the same doctrine. It +was the wicked practice of Nero to make noble Romans appear on the stage +or in gladiatorial shows, in order that he might thus seem to have their +sanction for his own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who +was doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, consulted +Agrippinus on the subject. "_Go by all means_," replied Agrippinus. +"But why don't _you_ go, then?" asked Florus. "_Because"_, said +Agrippinus, "_I do not deliberate about it_." He implied by this answer +that to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act +always on _principles_, we must never pause to calculate _consequences_. +"But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head cut off." +"Well, then, go, but _I_ won't." "Why won't you go?" "Because I do not +care to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the +purple sewn upon it." + +And if we want a due _motive_ for such lofty choice Epictetus will +supply it. "Wish," he says, "to win the suffrages of your own inward +approval, wish to appear beautiful to God. Desire to be pure with your +own pure self, and with God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato +says, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of +the gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even +rise and depart to the society of the noble and the good, to live +according to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the +living or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery +over temptation and passion; consider how glorious was the conscious +victory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place +him to Hercules himself.' So that, by heaven, one might justly salute +him, 'Hail, marvellous conqueror, who hast conquered, not these +miserable boxers and athletes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.' +And should you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what +shoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of mere +babblements, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who +trains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Great is the +struggle, divine the deed; it is for kingdom, for freedom, for +tranquillity, for peace. Think on God; call upon Him as thine aid and +champion, as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. And +indeed what storm is greater than that which rises from powerful +semblances that dash reason out of its course? What indeed but semblance +is a storm itself? Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring +as many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt know how +great is the tranquillity and calm in that reason which is the ruling +faculty of the soul. But should you once be worsted, and say that you +will conquer _hereafter_, and then the same again and again, know that +thus your condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will +not even know that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to +provide excuses for your sin; and then you will confirm the truth of +that saying of Hesiod,-- + + "'The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.'" + +Even so! So early did a heathen moralist learn the solemn fact that +"only this once" ends in "there is no harm in it." Well does Mr. +Coventry Patmore sing:-- + + "How easy to keep free from sin; + How hard that freedom to recall; + For awful truth it is that men + _Forget_ the heaven from which they fall." + +In another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be too easily +discouraged in our attempts after good;--and, above all, never to +_despair_. "In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he +is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has +acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor +wretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be swept along as by +a torrent. You need but _will_" he says, "and it is done; but if you +relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both +from within.--And what will you gain by all this? You will gain modesty +for inpudence, purity for vileness, moderation for drunkenness. If you +think there are any better ends than these, then by all means go on in +sin, for you are beyond the power of any god to save." + +But Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us that to +_profess_ these principles and _talk_ about them is one thing--to act up +to them quite another. He draws a humorous picture of an inconsistent +and unreal philosopher, who--after eloquently proving that nothing is +good but what pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to +vice, and that all other things are indifferent--goes to sea. A storm +comes on, and the masts creak, and the philosopher screams; and an +impertinent person stands by and asks in surprise, "Is it then _vice_ to +suffer shipwreck? because, if not, it can be no evil;" a question which +makes our philosopher so angry that he is inclined to fling a log at his +interlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that the +philosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the +schools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and +conceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name +of Stoic was usurped. + +"Why," he asks in another passage, "why do you call yourself a Stoic? +Why do you deceive the multitude? Why do you act the Jew when you are a +Greek? Don't you see on what terms each person is called a Jew? or a +Syrian? or an Egyptian? And when we see some mere _trimmer_ we are in +the habit of saying, 'This is no Jew; he is only acting the part of +one,' but when a man takes up the entire condition of a proselyte, +thoroughly imbued with Jewish doctrines, then he both _is_ in reality +and is _called_ a Jew. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye, +_are Jews in name, but in reality are something else_.... We call +ourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the part of men, as +though a man should try to heave the stone of Ajax who cannot lift ten +pounds." The passage is interesting not only on its own account, but +because of its curious similarity both with the language and with the +sentiment of St. Paul--"He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is +that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is +one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and +not in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." + +The best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by a mere study of +books and knowledge of doctrines, but by a steady diligence of actions +and adherence to original principles, to which must be added consistency +and self control. "These principles," says Epictetus, "produce +friendship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations; they make +a man grateful to God, bold under all circumstances, as though dealing +with things alien and valueless. Now we are capable of writing these +things, and reading them, and praising them when they are read, but we +are far enough off following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of +the Lacedaemonians, that they are 'lions at home, foxes at Ephesus,' +will also apply to us; in the school we are lions, out of it foxes." + +These passages include, I think, all the most original, important, and +characteristic conceptions which are to be found in the _Discourses_. +They are most prominently illustrated in the long and important chapter +on the Cynic philosophy. A genuine Cynic--one who was so, not in +brutality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a Cynic +in life and in his inmost principles--was evidently in the eyes of +Epictetus one of the loftiest of human beings. He drew a sketch of his +ideal conception to one of his scholars who inquired of him upon +the subject. + +He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who +undertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him +the anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the +imperial office of an Agamemnon. "If you think," he tells the young +student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and +sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and +rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple, +you don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a +Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider +how great a thing you are undertaking. + +"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of +God. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life +must be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal +their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your +house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must +conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as +the spy and messenger of God among mankind. + +"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their +blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and +Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not +in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for +Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their +hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances. +It lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of +every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of +contentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile, +disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this +Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face +the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped? + +"Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be +beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an +unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men +would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair. + +"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a +friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The +friend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a +friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry; +marriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, +its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted +to the service of heaven. + +"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth +is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind. + +"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of +his indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a +power of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be +clear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To +abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place +all fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this: +before you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of +God you are capable of achieving it." + +I have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chapter, but fully +to enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader should study it entire, +and observe its generous impatience, its noble ardour, its vivid +interrogations, "in which," says M. Martha, "one feels as it were a +frenzy of virtue and of piety, and in which the plenitude of a great +heart tumultuously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts." + +Epictetus was not a Christian. He has only once alluded to the +Christians in his works, and there it is under the opprobrious title of +"Galileans," who practised a kind of insensibility in painful +circumstances and an indifference to worldly interests which Epictetus +unjustly sets down to "mere habit." Unhappily it was not granted to +these heathen philosophers in any true sense to know what Christianity +was. They ignorantly thought that it was an attempt to imitate the +results of philosophy, without having passed through the necessary +discipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it with +injustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, they +would have found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest +conceptions. Nor was it only an impossible _ideal_; it was an ideal +rendered attainable by the impressive sanction of the highest authority, +and one which supported men to bear the difficulties of life with +fortitude, with peacefulness, and even with an inward joy; it ennobled +their faculties without overstraining them; it enabled them to +disregard the burden of present trials, not by vainly attempting to deny +their bitterness or ignore their weight, but in the high certainty that +they are the brief and necessary prelude to "a far more exceeding and +eternal weight of glory." + + + +MARCUS AURELIUS. + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR. + +The life of the noblest of Pagan Emperors may well follow that of the +noblest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the purer and brighter from +the midst of a corrupt and deplorable society. Epictetus showed that a +Phrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation; Aurelius +proved that a Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility. +The one--a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in squalor, bred +in degradation, the despised chattel of a despicable freedman, +surrounded by every depressing, ignoble, and pitiable circumstance of +life--showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win noble +happiness and immortal memory; the other--a Roman, a patrician, strong, +of heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the +favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher, +the greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be +virtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, +even on an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the two, +the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly +and touchingly resigned, than the slave. In him, Stoicism loses all its +haughty self-assertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly +melancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart. "It seems," says +M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, +draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it +despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown +God.' In the sad _Meditations_ of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, +sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were +unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not +yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which +Christianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction, +and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, +without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fénélon. +We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate +ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to +which profane doctrines have attained--how they laid down their pride, +and how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity. To +make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the +Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these +simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur--that +charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and +humbleness of heart by an Emperor." + +Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of +eminent men "If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the +Christian verities," says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, +"search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object +than the Antonines.... One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this +Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of +emotion. He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better +of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind." +"It is more delightful," says the great historian Niebuhr, "to speak of +Marcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime +human virtue it is his. He was certainly the noblest character of his +time, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, +mildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards +himself. We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his +time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an +expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius." + +Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, A.D. 121. His more correct +designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several +different names at different periods of his life, and since at that age +nothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth +while to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His +father, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a +line of illustrious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King +of Rome. His mother, Domitia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and +kingly race. The character of both seems to have been worthy of their +high dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since Annius died +when Aurelius was a mere infant; but in his _Meditations_ he has left us +a grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his +grandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the +government of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his +father, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence, +and _abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts_; +and, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of +the rich. + +The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian. +The times were better than those which we have contemplated in the +reigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of +Galba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time +under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of +Titus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother Titus, +was scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero; +but that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden +neck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate +that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was +fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan, +Hadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus +Aurelius were among the very gentlest and noblest sovereigns whom the +world has ever seen. + +Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial +Emperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It +is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at +the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues +which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of +mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when +he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's +paternal name of _Verus_, he called him _Verissimus_, 'the most true.'" +It is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early +developed in one who thought that all men "should speak as they think, +with an accent of heroic verity." + +Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness, +Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a +man who had few recommendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death, +which took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the senators +round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future +Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he +won by his gratitude to the memory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been +older--he was then but seventeen--it is known that Hadrian would have +chosen _him_, and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, indeed, who +was then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition +that he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the +deceased Ceionius. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even +from his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw +himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world. + +We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch +of the influences and the education which had formed him for this +exalted station. + +He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been +three times consul. He makes it a matter of congratulation, and +thankfulness to the gods, that he had not been sent to any public +school, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that +frightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had +fallen. He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for +having supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction +that on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing +jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond +of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and +he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, +his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his +public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a +beautiful and manly mould. There are, however, three respects in which +his education seems especially worthy of notice;--I mean the +_diligence_, the _gratitude_, and the _hardiness_ in which he was +encouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of +generous conviction. + +1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was _diligent_. He alludes +more than once in his _Meditations_ to the inestimable value of time, +and to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits. +He flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into +every branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he +toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the +administration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman +jurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which he expresses gratitude +to his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being +satisfied with the superficial understanding of a book. In fact, so +strenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his +health suffered by the combination of the two. + +2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his teachers--even +the most insignificant--with sincere _gratitude_. He regarded each one +of them as a man from whom something could be learnt, and from whom he +actually _did_ learn that something. Hence the honourable respect--a +respect as honourable to himself as to them--which he paid to Fronto, to +Rusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom his noble and +conscientious gratitude raised to the highest dignities of the State. He +even thanks the gods that "he made haste to place those who brought him +up in the station of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting +them off with mere _hopes_ of his doing it some time after, because they +were then still young." He was far the superior of these men, not only +socially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his +exalted rank and character he delighted to associate with them on the +most friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with +affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household +gods, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims. + +3. His _hardiness_ and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I +wish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel +second-class, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their +buttonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a +poor man for a year, would learn how _infinitely more noble_ was the +abstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of +splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of +gluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early +in life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not +only a duty but a pleasure + + "To scorn delights, and live laborious days," + +and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work +with his own hands." In his eleventh year he became acquainted with +Diognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his +twelfth year he assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to +prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to +the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the skin" was a concession to +the entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself +would have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he +acted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. His friends +found him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity +and thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a +pure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or +with gloom. + +The guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around him all the most +distinguished literary teachers of the age. Never had a prince a greater +number of eminent instructors; never were any teachers made happy by a +more grateful, a more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and +glorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, during his +campaign among the Quadi, he wrote a sketch of what he owed to them. +This sketch forms the first book of his _Meditations_, and is +characterised throughout by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty. + +The _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his private diary, +they are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, an honest examination of +his own conscience; there is not the slightest trace of their having +been intended for any eye but his own. In them he was acting on the +principle of St. Augustine: "Go up into the tribunal of thy conscience, +and set thyself before thyself." He was ever bearing about-- + + "A silent court of justice in himself, + Himself the judge and jury, and himself + The prisoner at the bar." + +And writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war which he +detested, he averted his eyes from the manifold wearinesses which daily +vexed his soul, and calmly sat down to meditate on all the great +qualities which he had observed, and all the good lessons that he might +have learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and surrounded +his manly years. + +And what had he learnt?--learnt heartily to admire, and (_we_ may say) +learnt to practise also? A sketch of his first book will show us. What +he had gained from his immediate parents we have seen already, and we +will make a brief abstract of his other obligations. + +From "his governor"--to which of his teachers this name applies we are +not sure--he had learnt to avoid factions at the races, to work hard, +and to avoid listening to slander; from Diognetus, to despise frivolous +superstitions, and to practise self-denial; from Apollonius, undeviating +steadiness of purpose, endurance of misfortune, and the reception of +favours without being humbled by them; from Sextus of Chaeronea (a +grandson of the celebrated Plutarch), tolerance of the ignorant, gravity +without affectation, and benevolence of heart; from Alexander, delicacy +in correcting others; from Severus, "a disposition to do good, and to +give to others readily, and to cherish good hope, and, to believe that I +am beloved of my friends;" from Maximus, "sweetness and dignity, and to +do what was set before me without complaining;" from Alexander the +Platonic, "_not frequently to say to any one, nor to write in a letter, +that I have no leisure_; nor continually to excuse the neglect of +ordinary duties by alleging urgent occupations." + +To one or two others his obligations were still more characteristic and +important. From Rusticus, for instance, an excellent and able man, whose +advice for years he was accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise +sophistry and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified, +to be accurate, and--an inestimable benefit this, and one which tinged +the colour of his whole life--to become acquainted with the _Discourses_ +of Epictetus. And from his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he +had derived advantages still more considerable. In him he saw the +example of a sovereign and statesman firm, self-controlled, modest, +faithful, and even tempered; a man who despised flattery and hated +meanness; who honoured the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who +was indifferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest +business; one, in short, "who had a perfect and invincible soul," who, +like Socrates, "was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things +which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without +excess." [67] Piety, serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame, +calmness, simplicity, patience, are virtues which he attributes to him +in another full-length portrait (vi. 30) which he concludes with the +words, "Imitate all this, that thou mayest have as good a conscience +when thy last hour comes as he had." + +[Footnote 67: My quotations from Marcus Aurelius will be made (by +permission) from the forcible and admirably accurate translation of Mr. +Long. In thanking Mr. Long, I may be allowed to add that the English +reader will find in his version the best means of becoming acquainted +with the purest-and noblest book of antiquity.] + +He concludes these reminiscenses of thankfulness with a summary of what +he owed to the gods. And for what does he thanks the gods? for being +wealthy, and noble, and an emperor? Nay, for no vulgar or dubious +blessings such as these, but for the guidance which trained him in +philosophy, and for the grace which kept him from sin. And here it is +that his genuine modesty comes out. As the excellent divine used to say +when he saw a criminal led past for execution, "There, but for the grace +of God, goes John Bradford," so, after thanking the gods for the +goodness of all his family and relatives, Aurelius says, "Further, I owe +it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of +them, _though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered_, +might have led me to do something of this kind; but through their favour +there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the +trial. Further, that I was subjected to a ruler and father who took away +all pride from me, and taught me that it was possible to live in a +palace without guards, or embroidered dresses, or torches, and statues, +and such-like show, but to live very near to the fashion of a private +person, without being either mean in thought or remiss in action; that +after having fallen into amatory passions I was cured; that though it +was my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life +with me; that whenever I wished to help any man, I was never told that I +had not the means of doing it;--that I had abundance of good masters for +my children: for all these thing require the help of the gods +and fortune." + +The whole of the Emperor's _Meditations_ deserve the profound study of +this age. The self-denial which they display is a rebuke to our +ever-growing luxury; their generosity contrasts favourably with the +increasing bitterness of our cynicism; their contented acquiescence in +God's will rebukes our incessant restlessness; above all, their constant +elevation shames that multitude of little vices, and little meannesses, +which lie like a scurf over the conventionality of modern life. But this +earlier chapter has also a special value for the young. It offers a +picture which it would indeed be better for them and for us if they +could be induced to study. If even under + + "That fierce light that beats upon the throne," + +the life of Marcus Aurelius shows no moral stain, it is still more +remarkable that the free and beautiful boyhood of this Roman prince had +early learnt to recognise only the excellences of his teachers, their +patience and firmness, their benevolence and sweetness, their integrity +and virtue. Amid the frightful universality of moral corruption he +preserved a stainless conscience and a most pure soul; he thanked God in +language which breathes the most crystalline delicacy of sentiment and +language, that he had preserved uninjured the flower of his early life, +and that under the calm influences of his home in the country, and the +studies of philosophy, he had learnt to value chastity as the sacred +girdle of youth, to be retained and honoured to his latest years. +"Surely," says Mr. Carlyle, "a day is coming when it will be known again +what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush +of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable is the +duty laid on every creature in regard to these particulars. Well, if +such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come. +Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of +heart and of eye; noble pious valour to amend us and the age of bronze +and lacquers, how can they ever come? The scandalous bronze-lacquer age +of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies, and mendacities will have +to run its course till the pit swallow it." + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. + +On the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded to the +throne, and, in accordance with the late Emperor's conditions, adopted +Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the +age of fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor +broke off the engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter +Faustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven years +afterwards, A.D. 146. + +The long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy periods that have +no history. An almost unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes +were lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation +were rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. Throughout the +whole extent of his vast domain the people loved and valued their +Emperor, and the Emperor's one aim was to further, the happiness of his +people. He, too, like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the +bee was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil administrator, +of an unaggressive and united republic; he disliked war, did not value +the military title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph. + +With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his private +relations as he was admirable in the discharge of his public duties, +Marcus Aurelius spent the next twenty-three years of his life. So close +and intimate was their union, so completely did they regard each other +as father and son, that during all that period Aurelius never slept more +than twice away from the house of Antoninus. There was not a shade of +jealousy between them; each was the friend and adviser of the other, +and, so far from regarding his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor +gave him the designation "Caesar," and heaped upon him all the honours +of the Roman Commonwealth. It was in vain that the whisper of malignant +tongues attempted to shake this mutual confidence. Antoninus once saw +the mother of Aurelius in earnest prayer before the statue of Apollo. +"What do you think she is praying for so intently?" asked a wretched +mischief-maker of the name of Valerius Omulus: "it is that you may die, +and her son reign." This wicked suggestion might have driven a prince of +meaner character into violence and disgust, but Antoninus passed it over +with the silence of contempt. + +It was the main delight of Antoninus to enjoy the quiet of his country +villa. Unlike Hadrian, who traversed immense regions of his vast +dominion, Antoninus lived entirely either at Rome, or in his beautiful +villa at Lorium, a little seacoast village about twelve miles from the +capital. In this villa he had been born, and here he died, surrounded by +the reminiscences of his childhood. In this his real home it was his +special pleasure to lay aside the pomp and burden of his imperial rank. +"He did not," says Marcus, "take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was +not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he eat, nor about +the texture and colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his +slaves." Even the dress he wore was the work of the provincial artist +in his little native place. So far from checking the philosophic tastes +of his adopted son he fostered them, and sent for Apollonius of Chalcis +to be his teacher in the doctrines of Stoicism. In one of his notes to +Fronto, Marcus draws the picture of their simple country occupations and +amusements. Hunting, fishing, boxing, wrestling, occupied the leisure of +the two princes, and they shared the rustic festivities of the vintage. +"I have dined," he writes, "on a little bread.... We perspired a great +deal, shouted a great deal, and left some gleanings of the vintage +hanging on the trellis work.... When I got home I studied a little, but +not to much advantage I had a long talk with my mother, who was lying on +her couch." Who knows how much Aurelius and how much the world may have +gained from such conversation as this with a mother from whom he had +learnt to hate even the thought of evil? Nor will any one despise the +simplicity of heart which made him mingle with the peasants as an +amateur vintager, unless he is so tasteless and so morose as to think +with scorn of Scipio and Laelius as they gathered shells on the +seashore, or of Henry IV. as he played at horses with his little boys on +all-fours. The capability of unbending thus, the genuine cheerfulness +which enters at due times into simple amusements, has been found not +rarely in the highest and purest minds. + +For many years no incident of importance broke the even tenor of +Aurelius's life. He lived peaceful, happy, prosperous, and beloved, +watching without envy the increasing years of his adopted father. But in +the year 161, when Marcus was now forty years old, Antoninus Pius, who +had reached the age of seventy-five, caught a fever at Lorium. Feeling +that his end was near, he summoned his friends and the chief men of +Rome to his bedside, and there (without saying a word about his other +adopted son, who is generally known by the name of Lucius Verus) +solemnly recommended Marcus to them as his successor; and then, giving +to the captain of the guard the watchword of "Equanimity," as though his +earthly task was over he ordered to be transferred to the bedroom of +Marcus the little golden statue of Fortune, which was kept in the +private chamber of the Emperors as an omen of public prosperity. + +The very first public act of the new Emperor was one of splendid +generosity, namely, the admission of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus +into the fullest participation of imperial honours, the Tribunitian and +proconsular powers, and the titles Caesar and Augustus. The admission of +Lucius Verus to a share of the empire was due to the innate modesty of +Marcus. As he was a devoted student, and cared less for manly exercises, +in which Verus excelled, he thought that his adoptive brother would be a +better and more useful general than himself, and that he could best +serve the State by retaining the civil administration, and entrusting to +his brother the management of war. Verus, however, as soon as he got +away from the immediate influence and ennobling society of Marcus, broke +loose from all decency, and showed himself to be a weak and worthless +personage, as unfit for war as he was for all the nobler duties of +peace, and capable of nothing but enormous gluttony and disgraceful +self-indulence. Two things only can be said in his favour; the one, +that, though depraved, he was wholly free from cruelty; and the other, +that he had the good sense to submit himself entirely to his brother, +and to treat him with the gratitude and deference which were his due. + +Marcus had a large family by Faustina, and in the first year of his +reign his wife bore twins, of whom the one who survived became the +wicked and detested Emperor Commodus. As though the birth of such a +child were in itself an omen of ruin, a storm of calamity began at once +to burst over the long tranquil State. An inundation of the Tiber flung +down houses and streets over a great part of Rome, swept away multitudes +of cattle, spoiled the harvests, devastated the fields, and caused a +distress which ended in wide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified +by earthquakes, by the burning of cities, and by plagues or noxious +insects. To these miseries, which the Emperors did their best to +alleviate, was added the horrors of wars and rumours of wars. The +Partians, under their king Vologeses, defeated and all but destroyed a +Roman army, and devastated with impunity the Roman province of Syria. +The wild tribes of the Catti burst over Germany with fire and sword; and +the news from Britain was full of insurrection and tumult. Such were the +elements of trouble and discord which overshadowed the reign of Marcus +Aurelius from its very beginning down to its weary close. + +As the Partian war was the most important of the three, Verus was sent +to quell it, and but for the ability of his generals--the greatest of +whom was Avidius Cassius--would have ruined irretrievably the fortunes +of the Empire. These generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the +Roman name, and Verus returned in triumph, bringing back with him from +the East the seeds of a terrible pestilence which devastated the whole +Empire and by which, on the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus himself was +carried off at Aquileia. + +Worthless as he was, Marcus, who in his lifetime had so often pardoned +and concealed his faults, paid him the highest honours of sepulcre, and +interred his ashes in the mausoleum of Hadrian. There were not wanting +some who charged him with the guilt of fratricide, asserting that the +death of Verus had been hastened by his means! + +I have only one reason for alluding to atrocious and contemptible +calumnies like these, and that is because--since no doubt such whispers +reached his ears--they help to account for that deep unutterable +melancholy which breathes through the little golden book of the +Emperor's _Meditations_. We find, for instance, among them this isolated +fragment:-- + +"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical." + +We know not of whom he was thinking--perhaps of Nero, perhaps of +Caligula, but undoubtedly also of men whom he had seen and known, and +whose very existence darkened his soul. The same sad spirit breathes +also through the following passages:-- + +"Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name, +or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are +much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling, and _little +dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and +then straightway weeping. But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and +truth are fled_ + + "'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.'" + +(v. 33.) + +"It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having +had a taste of lying, and hypocrisy, and luxury, and pride. However to +_breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of those things_ is +the next best voyage, as the saying is." (ix. 2.) + +"_Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles._ Why +art thou thus disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles +thee?... Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and +better." (ix. 37.) The thought is like that which dominates through the +Penitential Psalms of David,--that we may take refuge from men, their +malignity and their meanness, and find rest for our souls in God. From +men David has _no_ hope; mockery, treachery, injustice, are all that he +expects from them,--the bitterness of his enemies, the far-off +indifference of his friends. Nor does this greatly trouble him, so long +as he does not wholly lose the light of _God's_ countenance. "I had no +place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O +Lord, and said, _Thou_ art my hope, and my portion in the land of the +living." "Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy +Spirit from me." + +But whatever may have been his impulse at times to give up in despair +all attempt to improve the "little breed" of men around him, Marcus had +schooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings. +Were men contemptible? It was all the more reason why he should himself +be noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust? In +that proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and +tenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his +ability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus +Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the +vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from +suffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws +fresh lessons of humanity and love. + +He says, for instance, "Begin the morning by saying to thyself, _I shall +meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, +unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance +of what is good and evil_. But I who have seen the nature of the good +that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of +him that does wrong that is akin to me,... and that it partakes of the +same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, +for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my +kinsman, nor hate him. _For we are made for co-operation,_ like feet, +like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To +act against one another then is contrary to nature; and _it_ is acting +against one another to be vexed and turn away." (ii. 1.) Another of his +rules, and an eminently wise one, was to fix his thoughts as much as +possible on the virtues of others, rather than on their vices. "When +thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the _virtues_ of those who +live with thee--the activity of one, the modesty of another, the +liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth." What a +rebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are daily tempted to +display! "An infinite being comes before us," says Robertson, "with a +whole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and we _proceed to +classify him, put a label upon him, as we would upon a jar, saying, This +is rice, that is jelly, and this pomatum_; and then we think we have +saved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How differently +our Lord treated the people who came to Him!... consequently, at His +touch each one gave out his peculiar spark of light." + +Here, again, is a singularly pithy, comprehensive, and beautiful piece +of advice:-- + +"Men exist for the sake of one another. _Teach them or bear with them_" +(viii. 59.) + +And again: "The best way of revenging thyself is not to become like the +wrong doer." + +And again, "If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps +he has not done wrong." (ix. 38.) + +Most remarkable, however, are the nine rules which he drew up for +himself, as subjects for reflection when any one had offended +him, viz.-- + +1. That men were made for each other: even the inferior for the sake of +the superior, and these for the sake of one another. + +2. The invincible influences that act upon men, and mould their opinions +and their acts. + +3. That sin is mainly error and ignorance,--an involuntary slavery. + +4. That we are ourselves feeble, and by no means immaculate; and that +often our very abstinence from faults is due more to cowardice and a +care for our reputation than to any freedom from the disposition to +commit them. + +5. That our judgments are apt to be very rash and premature. "And in +short a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct +judgment on another man's acts." + +6. When thou art much vexed or grieved, consider that man's life is only +a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead. + +7. That no wrongful act of another can bring shame on us, and that it +is not men's acts which disturb us, but our own opinions of them. + +8. That our own anger hurts us more than the acts themselves. + +9. That _benevolence is invincible, if it be not an affected smile,_ nor +acting a part. "For what will the most violent man do to thee if thou +continuest benevolent to him? gently and calmly correcting him, +admonishing him when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, '_Not so, my +child: we are constituted by nature for something else: I shall +certainly not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my child_' And +show him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and +that even bees do not do as he does, nor any gregarious animal. And this +you must do simply, unreproachfully, affectionately; without rancour, +and if possible when you and he are alone." (xi. 18.) + +"_Not so, my child_; thou art injuring thyself, my child." Can all +antiquity show anything tenderer than this, or anything more close to +the spirit of Christian teaching than these nine rules? They were worthy +of the men who, unlike the Stoics in general, considered gentleness to +be a virtue, and a proof at once of philosophy and of true manhood. They +are written with that effusion of sadness and benevolence to which it is +difficult to find a parallel. They show how completely Marcus had +triumphed over all petty malignity, and how earnestly he strove to +fulfil his own precept of always keeping the thoughts so sweet and +clear, that "if any one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That,'" In short, to give them their highest praise, they would have +delighted the great Christian Apostle who wrote,-- + +"Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the +weak, be patient towards all men. See that none render evil for evil +unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, +and to all men." (1 Thess. iv. 14. 15.) + +"Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." (2. Thess. +iv. 15.) + +"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a +quarrel against any." (Col. iii. 13.) + +Nay, are they not even in full accordance with the mind and spirit of +Him who said,-- + +"If thy brother trespass against thee, _go and tell him his fault +between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy +brother_." + +In the life of Marcus Aurelius, as in so many lives, we are able to +trace the great law of compensation. His exalted station, during the +later years of his life, threw him among many who were false and +Pharisaical and base; but his youth had been spent under happier +conditions, and this saved him from falling into the sadness of those +whom neither man nor woman please. In his earlier years it had been his +lot to see the fairer side of humanity, and the recollection of those +pure and happy days was like a healing tree thrown into the bitter and +turbid waters of his reign. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS _(continued)._ + +Marcus was now the undisputed lord of the Roman world. He was seated on +the dizziest and most splendid eminence which it was possible for human +grandeur to obtain. + +But this imperial elevation kindled no glow of pride or +self-satisfaction in his meek and chastened nature. He regarded himself +as being in fact the servant of all. It was his duty, like that of the +bull in the herd, or the ram among the flocks, to confront every peril +in his own person, to be foremost in all the hardships of war and the +most deeply immersed in all the toils of peace. The registry of the +citizens, the suppression of litigation, the elevation of public morals, +the restraining of consanguineous marriages, the care of minors, the +retrenchment of public expenses, the limitation of gladitorial games and +shows, the care of roads, the restoration of senatorial privileges, the +appointment of none but worthy magistrates--even the regulation of +street traffic--these and numberless other duties so completely absorbed +his attention that, in spite of indifferent health, they often kept him +at severe labour from early morning till long after midnight. His +position indeed often necessitated his presence at games and shows, but +on these occasions he occupied himself either in reading, or being read +to, or in writing notes. He was one of those who held that nothing +should be done hastily, and that few crimes were worse than the waste of +time. It is to such views and such habits that we owe the compositions +of his works. His _Meditations_ were written amid the painful +self-denial and distracting anxieties of his wars with the Quadi and the +Marcomanni, and he was the author of other works which unhappily have +perished. Perhaps of all the lost treasures of antiquity there are few +which we should feel a greater wish to recover than the lost +autobiography of this wisest of Emperors and holiest of Pagan men. + +As for the external trappings of his rank,--those gorgeous adjuncts and +pompous circumstances which excite the wonder and envy of mankind,--no +man could have shown himself more indifferent to them. He recognized +indeed the necessity of maintaining the dignity of his high position. +"Every moment," he says, "think steadily as a Roman and a man _to do +what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity_, and affection, +and freedom, and justice" (ii. 5); and again, "Let the Deity which is in +thee be the guardian of a living being, _manly and of ripe age, and +engaged in matters political, and a Roman, and a ruler_, who has taken +his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life" +(iii. 5). But he did _not_ think it necessary to accept the fulsome +honours and degrading adulations which were so dear to many of his +predecessors. He refused the pompous blasphemy of temples and altars, +saying that for every true ruler the world was a temple, and all good +men were priests. He declined as much as possible all golden statues and +triumphal designations. All inevitable luxuries and splendour, such as +his public duties rendered indispensable, he regarded as a mere hollow +show. Marcus Aurelius felt as deeply as our own Shakespeare seems to +have felt the unsubstantiality, the fleeting evanescence of all earthly +things: he would have delighted in the sentiment that, + + "_We are such stuff + As dreams are made on, and our little life + Is rounded by a sleep_." + +"When we have meat before us," he says, "and such eatables, we receive +the impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this is the +dead body of a bird, or of a pig; _and, again, that this Falerian is +only a little grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed +with the blood of a shellfish_: such then are these impressions, and +they reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what +kind of things they are. Just in the same way.... where there are things +which appear most worthy of our approbation, _we ought to lay them bare, +and look at their worthlessness_, and strip them of all the words by +which they are exalted." (vi. 13.) + +"What is worth being valued? To be received with clapping of hands? No. +Neither must we value the clapping of tongues, for the praise which +comes from the many is a clapping of tongues." (vi. 16.) + +"Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe; all the sea is a drop in the +universe; Athos a little clod of the universe; all the present time is a +point in eternity. All things are _little, changeable, perishable"_ +(vi. 36.) + +And to Marcus too, no less than to Shakespeare, it seemed that-- + + "All the world's a stage, + And all the men and women merely players;" + +for he writes these remarkable words:-- + +"_The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, +exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread in +fishponds, labourings of ants, and burden-carrying runnings about of +frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings_--this is what life +resembles. It is thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good +humour, and not a proud air; to understand however that _every man is +worth just so much as the things are worth about which he +busies himself_." + +In fact, the Court was to Marcus a burden; he tells us himself that +Philosophy was his mother, Empire only his stepmother; it was only his +repose in the one that rendered even tolerable to him the burdens of the +other. Emperor as he was, he thanked the gods for having enabled him to +enter into the souls of a Thrasea, an Helvidius, a Cato, a Brutus. Above +all, he seems to have had a horror of ever becoming like some of his +predecessors; he writes:-- + +"Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar;[68] take care thou art +not dyed with this dye. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, +free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, +kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Reverence the gods and +help men. Short is life. There _is only one fruit of this terrene life; +a pious disposition and social acts_." (iv. 19,) + +[Footnote 68: Marcus here invents what M. Martha justly calls "an +admirable barbarism" to express his disgust towards such men--[Greek: +ora mae apukaidaoosaes]--"take care not to be _Caesarised_."] + +It is the same conclusion as that which sorrow forced from another +weary and less admirable king: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole +matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole +duty of man." + +But it is time for us to continue the meagre record of the life of +Marcus, so far as the bare and gossiping compilations of Dion +Cassius,[69] and Capitolinus, and the scattered allusions of other +writers can enable us to do so. + +[Footnote 69: As epitomised by Xiphilinus.] + +It must have been with a heavy heart that he set out once more for +Germany to face the dangerous rising of the Quadi and Marcomanni. To +obtain soldiers sufficient to fill up the vacancies in his army which +had been decimated by the plague, he was forced to enrol slaves; and to +obtain money he had to sell the ornaments of the palace, and even some +of the Empress's jewels. Immediately before he started his heart was +wrung by the death of his little boy, the twin-brother of Commodus, +whose beautiful features are still preserved for us on coins. Early in +the war, as he was trying the depth of a ford, he was assailed by the +enemy with a sudden storm of missiles, and was only saved from imminent +death by being sheltered beneath the shields of his soldiers. One battle +was fought on the ice of the wintry Danube. But by far the most +celebrated event of the war took place in a great victory over the Quadi +which he won in A.D. 174, and which was attributed by the Christians to +what is known as the "Miracle of the Thundering Legion." + +Divested of all extraneous additions, the fact which occurred,--as +established by the evidence of medals, and by one of the bass-relievi on +the "Column of Antonine,"--appears to have been as follows. Marcus +Aurelius and his army had been entangled in a mountain defile, into +which they had too hastily pursued a sham retreat of the barbarian +archers. In this defile, unable either to fight or to fly, pent in by +the enemy, burned up with the scorching heat and tormented by thirst, +they lost all hope, burst into wailing and groans, and yielded to a +despair from which not even the strenuous efforts of Marcus could arouse +them. At the most critical moment of their danger and misery the clouds +began to gather, and heavy shows of rain descended, which the soldiers +caught in their shields and helmets to quench their own thirst and that +of their horses. While they were thus engaged the enemy attacked them; +but the rain was mingled with hail, and fell with blinding fury in the +faces of the barbarians. The storm was also accompanied with thunder and +lightning, which seems to have damaged the enemy, and filled them with +terror, while no casualty occured in the Roman ranks. The Romans +accordingly regarded this as a Divine interposition, and achieved a most +decisive victory, which proved to be the practical conclusion of a +hazardous and important war. + +The Christians regarded the event not as _providential but as +miraculous_, and attributed it to the prayers of their brethren in a +legion which, from this circumstance, received the name of the +"Thundering Legion." It is however now known that one of the legions, +distinguished by a flash of lightning which was represented on their +shields, had been known by this name since the time of Augustus; and the +Pagans themselves attributed the assistance which they had received +sometimes to a prayer of the pious Emperor and sometimes to the +incantations of an Egyptian sorcerer named Arnuphis. + +One of the Fathers, the passionate and eloquent Tertullian, attributes +to this deliverance an interposition of the Emperor in favour of the +Christians, and appeals to a letter of his to the Senate in which he +acknowledged how effectual had been the aid he had received from +Christian prayers, and forbade any one hereafter to molest the followers +of the new religion, lest they should use against him the weapon of +supplication which had been so powerful in his favour. This letter is +preserved at the end of the _Apology_ of Justin Martyr, and it adds +that, not only are no Christians to be injured or persecuted, but that +any one who informed against them is to be burned alive! We see at once +that this letter is one of those impudent and transparent forgeries in +which the literature of the first five centuries unhappily abounds. What +was the real relation of Marcus to the Christians we shall consider +hereafter. + +To the gentle heart of Marcus, all war, even when accompanied with +victories, was eminently distasteful; and in such painful and ungenial +occupations no small part of his life was passed. What he thought of war +and of its successes is graphically set forth in the following remark:-- + +"A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another when he has +caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a +net, and another when he has taken wild boars or bears, _and another +when he has taken Sarmatians._ Are not these robbers, when thou +examinest their principles?" He here condemns his own involuntary +actions; but it was his unhappy destiny not to have trodden out the +embers of this war before he was burdened with another far more painful +and formidable. + +This was the revolt of Avidius Cassius, a general of the old blunt Roman +type, whom, in spite of some ominous warnings, Marcus both loved and +trusted. The ingratitude displayed by such a man caused Marcus the +deepest anguish; but he was saved from all dangerous consequences by the +wide-spread affection which he had inspired by his virtuous reign. + +The very soldiers of the rebellious general fell away from him; and, +after he had been a nominal Emperor for only three months and six days, +he was assassinated by some of his own officers. His head was sent to +Marcus, who received it with sorrow, and did not hold out to the +murderers the slightest encouragement. The joy of success was swallowed +up in regret that his enemy had not lived to allow him the luxury of a +genuine forgiveness. He begged the Senate to pardon all the family of +Cassius, and to suffer this single life to be the only one forfeited in +consequence of civil war. The Fathers received these proofs of clemency +with the rapture which they deserved, and the Senate-house resounded +with acclamations and blessings. + +Never had a formidable conspiracy been more quietly and effectually +crushed. Marcus travelled through the provinces which had favoured the +cause of Avidius Cassius, and treated them all with the most complete +and indulgent forbearance. When he arrived in Syria, the correspondence +of Cassius was brought to him, and, with a glorious magnanimity of which +history affords but few examples, he consigned it all to the +flames unread. + +During this journey of pacification, he lost his wife Faustina, who died +suddenly in one of the valleys of Mount Taurus. History, or the +collection of anecdotes which at this period often passes as history, +has assigned to Faustina a character of the darkest infamy, and it has +even been made a charge against Aurelius that he overlooked or condoned +her offences. As far as Faustina is concerned, we have not much to say, +although there is strong reason to believe that many of the stories told +of her are scandalously exaggerated, if not absolutely false. Certain it +is, that most of the imputations upon her memory rest on the malignant +anecdotes recorded by Dion, who dearly loved every piece of scandal +which degraded human nature. The _specific_ charge brought against her +of having tempted Cassius from his allegiance is wholly unsupported, +even if it be not absolutely incompatible with what we find in her own +existent letters; and, finally, Marcus himself not only loved her +tenderly, as the kind mother of his eleven children, but in his +_Meditations_ actually thanks the gods for having granted him "such a +wife, so obedient so affectionate, and so simple." No doubt Faustina was +unworthy of her husband; but surely it is the glory and not the shame of +a noble nature to be averse from jealousy and suspicion, and to trust to +others more deeply than they deserve. + +So blameless was the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that neither the +malignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of posthumous scandal has +succeeded in discovering any flaw in the extreme integrity of his life +and principles. But meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The +hatred of all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the memory +of great men rages, though less openly, in the minds of many. They +delight to degrade human life into that dull and barren plain "in which +every molehill is a mountain, and every thistle a forest-tree." Great +men are as small in their eyes as they are said to be in the eyes of +their valets; and there are multitudes who, if they find + + "Some stain or blemish in a name of note, + Not grieving that their greatest are so small, + Innate themselves with some insane delight, + And judge all nature from her feet of clay, + Without the will to lift their eyes, and see + Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire, + And touching other worlds." + +This I suppose is the reason why, failing to drag down Marcus Aurelius +from his moral elevation, some have attempted to assail his reputation +because of the supposed vileness of Faustina and the actual depravity of +Commodus. Of Faustina I have spoken already. Respecting Commodus, I +think it sufficient to ask with Solomon: "Who knoweth whether his son +shall be a wise man or a fool?" Commodus was but nineteen when his +father died; for the first three years of his reign he ruled respectably +and acceptably. Marcus Aurelius had left no effort untried to have him +trained aright by the first teachers and the wisest men whom the age +produced; and Herodian distinctly tells us that he had lived virtuously +up to the time of his father's death. Setting aside natural affection +altogether, and even assuming (as I should conjecture from one or two +passages of his _Meditations_) that Marcus had misgivings about his son, +would it have been easy, would it have been even possible, to set aside +on general grounds a son who had attained to years of maturity? However +this may be, if there are any who think it worth while to censure Marcus +because, after all, Commodus turned out to be but "a warped slip of +wilderness," their censure is hardly sufficiently discriminating to +deserve the trouble of refutation. + +"But Marcus Aurelius cruelly persecuted the Christians." Let us briefly +consider this charge. That persecutions took place in his reign is an +undeniable fact, and is sufficiently evidenced by the Apologies of +Justin Martyr, of Melito Bishop of Sardis, of Athenagoras, and of +Apollinarius, as well as by the Letter of the Church of Smyrna +describing the martyrdom of Polycarp, and that of the Churches of Lyons +and Vienne to their brethren in Asia Minor. It is fair, however, to +mention that there is some documentary evidence on the other side; +Lactantius clearly asserts that under the reigns of those excellent +princes who succeeded Domitian the Church suffered no violence from her +enemies, and "spread her hands towards the East and the West:" +Tertullian, writing but twenty years after the death of Marcus, +distinctly says (and Eusebius quotes the assertion), that there were +letters of the Emperor, in which he not only attributed his delivery +among the Quadi to the prayers of Christian soldiers in the "Thundering +Legion," but ordered any who informed against the Christians to be most +severely punished; and at the end of the works of Justin Martyr is found +a letter of similar purport, which is asserted to have been addressed by +Marcus to the Senate of Rome. We may set aside these peremptory +testimonies, we may believe that Tertullian and Eusebius were mistaken, +and that the documents to which they referred were spurious; but this +should make us also less certain about the prominent participation of +the Emperor in these persecutions. My own belief is (and it is a belief +which could be supported by many critical arguments), that his share in +causing them was almost infinitesimal. If those who love his memory +reject the evidence of Fathers in his favour, they may be at least +permitted to withhold assent from some of the assertions in virtue of +which he is condemned. + +Marcus in his _Meditations_ alludes to the Christians once only, and +then it is to make a passing complaint of the indifference to death, +which appeared to him, as it appeared to Epictetus, to arise, not from +any noble principles, but from mere obstinacy and perversity. That he +shared the profound dislike with which Christians were regarded is very +probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent persecutor is utterly +unlike his whole character, essentially at variance with his habitual +clemency, alien to the spirit which made him interfere in every possible +instance to mitigate the severity of legal punishments, and may in short +be regarded as an assertion which is altogether false. Who will believe +that a man who during his reign built and dedicated but one single +temple, and that a Temple to Beneficence; that a man who so far from +showing any jealousy respecting foreign religions allowed honour to be +paid to them all; that a man whose writings breathe on every page the +inmost spirit of philanthropy and tenderness, went out of his way to +join in a persecution of the most innocent, the most courageous, and the +most inoffensive of his subjects? + +The true state of the case seems to have been this. The deep calamities +in which, during the whole reign of Marcus the Empire was involved, +caused wide-spread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the feelings +of the provincials against men whose atheism (for such they considered +it to be) had kindled the anger of the gods. This fury often broke out +into paroxisms of popular excitement, which none but the firmest-minded +governers were able to moderate or to repress. Marcus, when appealed to, +simply let the existing law take its usual course. That law was as old +as the time of Trajan. The young Pliny, Governor of Bithynia, had +written to ask Trajan how he was to deal with the Christians, whose +blamelessness of life he fully admitted, but whose doctrines, he said, +had emptied the temples of the gods, and exasperated their worshippers. +Trajan in reply had ordered that the Christians should not be _sought_ +for, but that, if they were brought before the governor, and proved to +be contumacious in refusing to adjure their religion, they were then to +be put to death. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius had continued the same +policy, and Marcus Aurilius saw no reason to alter it. But this law, +which in quiet times might become a mere dead letter, might at more +troubled periods be converted into a dangerous engine of persecution, as +it was in the case of the venerable Polycarp, and in the unfortunate +Churches of Lyons and Vienne. The Pagans believed that the reason why +their gods were smiling in secret,-- + + "Looking over wasted lands, + Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery + sands,-- + + "Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying + hands,--" + +was the unbelief and impiety of these hated Galileans, causes of offence +which could only be expiated by the death of the guilty. "Their +enemies," says Tertullian, "call aloud for the blood of the innocent, +alleging this vain pretext for their hatred, that they believe the +Christians to be the cause of every public misfortune. If the Tiber has +overflowed its banks, or the Nile has not overflowed, if heaven has +refused its rain, if famine or the plague has spread its ravages, the +cry is immediate, 'The Christians to the lions.'" In the first three +centuries the cry of "No Christianity" became at times as brutal, as +violent, and as unreasoning as the cry of "No Popery" has often been in +modern days. It was infinitely less disgraceful to Marcus to lend his +ear to the one than it has been to some eminent modern statesmen to be +carried away by the insensate fury of the other. + +To what extent is Marcus Aurelius to be condemned for the martyrdoms +which took place in his reign? Not, I think, heavily or +indiscriminately, or with vehement sweeping censure. Common justice +surely demands that we should not confuse the present with the past, or +pass judgment on the conduct of the Emperor as though he were living in +the nineteenth century, or as though he had been acting in full +cognisance of the Gospels and the stones of the Saints. Wise and good +men before him had, in their haughty ignorance, spoken of Christianity +with execration and contempt. The philosophers who surrounded his throne +treated it with jealousy and aversion. The body of the nation firmly +believed the current rumours which charged its votaries with horrible +midnight assemblies, rendered infamous by Thyestian banquets and the +atrocities of nameless superstitions. These foul calumnies--these +hideous charges of cannibalism and incest,--were supported by the +reiterated perjury of slaves under torture, which in that age, as well +as long afterwards, was preposterously regarded as a sure criterion +of truth. + +Christianity in that day was confounded with a multitude of debased and +foreign superstitions; and the Emperor in his judicial capacity, if he +ever encountered Christians at all, was far more likely to encounter +those who were unworthy of the name, than to become acquainted with the +meek, unworldly, retiring virtues of the calmest, the holiest, and the +best. When we have given their due weight to considerations such as +these we shall be ready to pardon Marcus Aurelius for having, in this +matter, acted ignorantly, and to admit that in persecuting Christianity +he may most honestly have thought that he was doing God service. The +very sincerity of his belief, the conscientiousness of his rule, the +intensity of his philanthrophy, the grandeur of his own philosophical +tenets, all conspired to make him a worse enemy of the Church than a +brutal Commodus or a disgusting Heliogabalus. And yet that there was not +in him the least _propensity_ to persecute; that these persecutions were +for the most part spontaneous and accidental; that they were in no +measure due to his direct instigation, or in special accordance with his +desire, is clear from the fact that the martyrdoms took place in Gaul +and Asia Minor, _not in Rome_. There must have been hundreds of +Christians in Rome, and under the very eye of the Emperor; nay, there +were even multitudes of Christians in his own army; yet we never hear of +his having molested any of them. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in addressing +the Emperor, expresses a doubt as to whether he was really aware of the +manner in which his Christian subjects were treated. Justin Martyr, in +his _Apology_, addresses him in terms of perfect confidence and deep +respect. In short he was in this matter "blameless, but unfortunate." It +is painful to think that the venerable Polycarp, and the thoughtful +Justin may have forfeited their lives for their principles, not only in +the reign of so good a man, but even by virtue of his authority; but we +must be very uncharitable or very unimaginative if we cannot readily +believe that, though they had received the crown of martyrdom from his +hands, the redeemed spirits of those great martyrs would have been the +first to welcome this holiest of the heathen into the presence of a +Saviour whose Church he persecuted, but to whose indwelling Spirit his +virtues were due? whom ignorantly and unconsciously he worshipped, and +whom had he ever heard of Him and known Him, he would have loved in his +heart and glorified by the consistency of his noble and stainless life. + +The persecution of the Churches in Lyons and Vienne happened in A.D. +177. Shortly after this period fresh wars recalled the Emperor to the +North. It is said that, in despair of ever seeing him again, the chief +men of Rome entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, and +that for three days he discoursed to them on philosophical questions. +When he arrived at the seat of war, victory again crowned his arms. But +Marcus was now getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials, +and travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties +and bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia, either +at Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of +his age and the twentieth of his reign. + +Death to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that "there is no man +so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who +are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and +wise man, will there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let us at +last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster. It is true +that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns +us.'... Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart +more contentedly by reflecting thus: 'I am going away _from a life in +which even my associates, on behalf of whom I have striven, and cared, +and prayed so much, themselves wish me to depart_, hoping perchance to +get some little advantage by it.' Why then should a man cling to a +longer stay here? _Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindly +disposed to them, but preserving thy own character, and continuing +friendly, and benevolent, and kind_" And dreading death far less than he +dreaded any departure from the laws of virtue, he exclaims, "Come +quickly, O Death, for fear that at last I should forget myself." This +utterance has been well compared to the language which Bossuet put into +the mouth of a Christian soul:--"O Death; thou dost not trouble my +designs, thou accomplishest them. Haste, then, O favourable Death!... +_Nunc Dimittis_." + +A nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul,--a soul less elated by +prosperity, or more constant in adversity--a soul more fitted by virtue, +and chastity, and self-denial to enter into the eternal peace, never +passed into the presence of its Heavenly Father. We are not surprised +that all, whose means permitted it, possessed themselves of his statues, +and that they were to be seen for years afterwards among the household +gods of heathen families, who felt themselves more hopeful and more +happy from the glorious sense of possibility which was inspired by the +memory of one who, in the midst of difficulties, and breathing an +atmosphere heavy with corruption, yet showed himself so wise, so great, +so good a man. + + O framed for nobler times and calmer hearts! + O studious thinker, eloquent for truth! + Philosopher, despising wealth and death, + But patient, childlike, full of life and love! + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE "MEDITATIONS" OF MARCUS AURELIUS. + +Emperor as he was, Marcus Aurelius found himself in a hollow and +troublous world; but he did not give himself up to idle regret or +querulous lamentations. If these sorrows and perturbations came from the +gods, he kissed the hand that smote him; "he delivered up his broken +sword to Fate the conqueror with a humble and a manly heart." In any +case he had _duties_ to do, and he set himself to perform them with a +quiet heroism--zealously, conscientiously, even cheerfully. + +The principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the hard and definite +lines of a philosophic system. But the great laws which guided his +actions and moulded his views of life were few and simple, and in his +book of _Meditations_, which is merely his private diary written to +relieve his mind amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to +them again and again. "Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery," he +says to himself, "will wipe out those holy principles of thine;" and +this is why he committed those principles to writing. Some of these I +have already adduced, and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as +before, of the beautiful and scholar-like translation of Mr. +George Long. + +All pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Emperor to be most +wisely regarded under a threefold aspect, namely, if considered in +reference to the gods, as being due to laws beyond their control; if +considered with reference to the nature of things, as being subservient +and necessary; and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being +dependent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with which we +endure them. + +The following passages will elucidate these points of view:-- + +"The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly it has made the +inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the +superior to one another." (v. 30.) + +"Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain +immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is +within.... _The Universe is Transformation; life is opinion_" (iv. 3.) + +"To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs +water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why +then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power +than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a +mad dog?" (vi. 52.) + +"How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is +troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity." +(v. 2.) + +The passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a _relative_ thing,--as +being good in the making,--the unripe and bitter bud of that which shall +be hereafter a beautiful flower,--although not expressed with perfect +clearness, yet indicate his belief that our view of evil things rises in +great measure from our inability to perceive the great whole of which +they are but subservient parts. + +"All things," he says, "come from that universal ruling power, either +directly or by way of consequence. _And accordingly the lion's gaping +jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, +as mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful_. Do not therefore +imagine that they are of another kind from that which thou dost +venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all." + +In another curious passage he says that all things which are natural and +congruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and +attractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and +corrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked. "And again, +figs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very +circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty +to the fruit. And _the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars_, and +many other things--though they are far from being beautiful, if a man +should examine them severally--still, because they are consequent upon +the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they +please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper +insight about the things found in the universe there is hardly _one of +those which follow by way of consequence_ which will not seem to him to +be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure." (iv. 2.) + +This congruity to nature--the following of nature, and obedience to all +her laws--is the key-formula to the doctrines of the Roman Stoics. + +"Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and +terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither +worse, then, nor better is a thing made by being praised.... _Is such a +thing as an emerald made worse than it was, if it is not praised? or +gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a flower, a shrub_?" +(iv. 20.) + +"Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. +Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. +Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature! from thee +are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. _The +poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear city of +God_?" (iv. 23.) + +"Willingly give thyself up to fate, allowing her to spin thy thread into +whatever thing she pleases." (iv. 34.) + +And here, in a very small matter--getting out of bed in a morning--is +one practical application of the formula:-- + +"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let these thoughts be +present--'I am rising to the work of a human being. _Why, then, am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and for +which I was brought into the world_? Or have I been made for this, to +lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?' 'But this is more +pleasant.' _Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not for +action or exertion_? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little +birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order +their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the +work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is +according to thy nature?" (v. 1.) ["Go to the ant, thou sluggard; +consider her ways, and be wise!"] + +The same principle, that Nature has assigned to us our proper +place--that a task has been given us to perform, and that our only care +should be to perform it aright, for the blessing of the great Whole of +which we are but insignificant parts--dominates through the admirable +precepts which the Emperor lays down for the regulation of our conduct +towards others. Some men, he says, do benefits to others only because +they expect a return; some men even, if they do not demand any return, +are not _forgetful_ that they have rendered a benefit; but others do not +even know what they have done, but _are like a vine which has produced +grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its proper +fruit_. So we ought to do good to others as simple and as naturally as a +horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after +season, without thinking of the grapes which it has borne. And in +another passage, "What more dost thou want when thou hast done a service +to another? Art thou not content to have done an act conformable to thy +nature, and must thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye +demanded a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking?" + +"Judge every word and deed which is according to nature to be fit for +thee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows...but if a thing is +good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee." (v. 3.) + +Sometimes, indeed, Marcus Aurelius wavers. The evils of life overpower +him. "Such as bathing appears to thee," he says, "_oil, sweat, dirt, +filthy water, all things disgusting--so is every part of life and +everything_" (viii. 24); and again:--"Of human life the time is a point, +and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the +composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a +whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment." +But more often he retains his perfect tranquillity, and says, "Either +thou livest here, and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou +art going away, and this was thine own will; or thou art dying, and hast +discharged thy duty. _But besides these things there is nothing. Be of +good cheer, then_." (x. 22.) "Take me, and cast me where thou wilt, for +then I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can +feel and act conformably to its proper constitution." (viii. 45.) + +There is something delightful in the fact that even in the Stoic +philosophy there was some comfort to keep men from despair. To a holy +and scrupulous conscience like that of Marcus, there would have been an +inestimable preciousness in the Christian doctrine of the "forgiveness +of the sins." Of that divine mercy--of that sin-uncreating power--the +ancient world knew nothing; but in Marcus we find some dim and faint +adumbration of the doctrine, expressed in a manner which might at least +breathe calm into the spirit of the philosopher, though it could never +reach the hearts of the suffering multitude. For "suppose," he says, +"that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast +made by nature a part, but now hast cut thyself off--_yet here is the +beautiful provision that it is in thy power again to unite thyself_. God +has allowed this to no other part--after it has been separated and cut +asunder, to come together again. _But consider the goodness with which +He has privileged man; for He has put it in his power, when he has been +separated, to return and to be reunited, and to resume his place_" And +elsewhere he says, "If you cannot maintain a true and magnanimous +character, go courageously into some corner where you _can_ maintain +them; or if even there you fail, depart at once from life, not with +passion, but with modest and simple freedom--which will be to have done +at least _one_ laudable act." Sad that even to Marcus Aurelius death +should have seemed the only refuge from the despair of ultimate failure +in the struggle to be wise and good! + +Marcus valued temperance and self-denial as being the best means of +keeping his heart strong and pure; but we are glad to learn he did _not_ +value the rigours of asceticism. Life brought with it enough, and more +than enough, of antagonism to brace his nerves; enough, and more than +enough, of the rough wind of adversity in his face to make it +unnecessary to add more by his own actions. "It is not fit," he says, +"that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given +pain even to another." (viii. 42.) + +It was a commonplace of ancient philosophy that the life of the wise man +should be a contemplation of, and a preparation for, death. It certainly +was so with Marcus Aurelius. The thoughts of the nothingness of man, and +of that great sea of oblivion which shall hereafter swallow up all that +he is and does, are ever present to his mind; they are thoughts to which +he recurs more constantly than any other, and from which he always draws +the same moral lesson. + +"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very +moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.... Death certainly, +and life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, all these things +happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither +better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil." (ii. 11.) + +Elsewhere he says that Hippocrates cured diseases and died; and the +Chaldaeans foretold the future and died; and Alexander, and Pompey, and +Caesar killed thousands, and then died; and lice destroyed Democritus, +and other lice killed Socrates; and Augustus, and his wife, and +daughter, and all his descendants, and all his ancestors, are dead; and +Vespasian and all his Court, and all who in his day feasted, and +married, and were sick and chaffered, and fought, and flattered, and +plotted, and grumbled, and wished other people to die, and pined to +become kings or consuls, are dead; and all the idle people who are doing +the same things now are doomed to die; and all human things are smoke, +and nothing at all; and it is not for us, but for the gods, to settle +whether we play the play out, or only a part of it. "_There are many +grains of frankincense on the same altar; one falls before, another +falls after; but it makes no difference._" And the moral of all these +thoughts is, "Death hangs over thee while thou livest: while it is in +thy power be good." (iv. 17.) "Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the +voyage, thou hast come to shore; get out. If, indeed, to another life +there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without +sensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures." (iii. 3.) + +Nor was Marcus at all comforted under present annoyances by the thought +of posthumous fame. "How ephemeral and worthless human things are," he +says, "and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy +or ashes." "Many who are now praising thee, will very soon blame thee, +and neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor +anything else." What has become of all great and famous men, and all +they desired, and all they loved? They are "smoke, and ash, and a tale, +or not even a tale." After all their rages and envyings, men are +stretched out quiet and dead at last. Soon thou wilt have forgotten all, +and soon all will have forgotten thee. But here, again, after such +thoughts, the same moral is always introduced again:--"Pass then through +the little space of time conformably to nature, and end the journey in +content, _just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature +who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew_" "One thing +only troubles me, lest I should do something which the constitution of +man does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow, or what it +does not allow now." + +To quote the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius is to me a fascinating task. But +I have already let him speak so largely for himself that by this time +the reader will have some conception of his leading motives. It only +remains to adduce a few more of the weighty and golden sentences in +which he lays down his rule of life. + +"To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, +and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour; and life is a +warfare, and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. What, +then, is that which is able to enrich a man? One thing, and only +one--philosophy. But this consists in keeping the guardian spirit within +a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, +_doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely, and with +hypocrisy_... _accepting all that happens and all that is +allotted_ ... _and finally waiting for death with a cheerful +mind_" (ii. 17.) + +"If thou findest in human life anything better than justice, truth, +temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than thine own soul's +satisfaction in the things which it enables thee to do according to +right reason, and In the condition that is assigned to thee without thy +own choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, turn to it +with all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou hast found to be the best. +But ... if thou findest everything else smaller and of less value than +this, give place to nothing else.... Simply and freely choose the +better, and hold to it." (iii. 6.) + +"Body, soul, intelligence: to the body belong sensations, to the soul +appetites, to the intelligence principles." To be impressed by the +senses is peculiar to animals; to be pulled by the strings of desire +belongs to effeminate men, and to men like Phalaris or Nero; to be +guided only by intelligence belongs to atheists and traitors, and "men +who do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors.... There +remains that which is peculiar to the good man, _to be pleased and +content with what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him; +and not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast_, nor +disturb it by a crowd of images; but to preserve it tranquil, following +it obediently as a god, neither saying anything contrary to truth, nor +doing anything contrary to justice. (iii. 16.) + +"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, +and mountains, and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. +But this is altogether a mark of the commonest sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt chose to retire into thyself. For _nowhere +either with more quiet or with more freedom does a man retire than into +his own soul_, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by +looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity,--which is +nothing else than the good ordering of the mind." (iv. 3.) + +"Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am I +_though_ this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain; +neither crushed by the present, nor fearing the future." (iv. 19.) + +It is just possible that in some of these passages some readers may +detect a trace of painful self-consciousness, and _imagine_ that they +detect a little grain of self-complacence. Something of +self-consciousness is perhaps inevitable in the diary and examination +of his own conscience by one who sat on such a lonely height; but +self-complacency there is none. Nay, there is sometimes even a cruel +sternness in the way in which the Emperor speaks of his own self. He +certainly dealt not with himself in the manner of a dissembler with God. +"When," he says (x. 8), "thou hast assumed the names of a man who is +good, modest, rational, magnanimous, cling to those names; and if thou +shouldst lose them, quickly return to them.... _For to continue to_ _be +such as thou hast hitherto been_, and to be torn in pieces, and defiled +in such a life, is the character of a very stupid man, and one over-fond +of his life, and _like those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, +who, though covered with wounds and gore, still entreat to be kept till +the following day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the +same claws and bites_. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these +few names: and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou were +removed to the Islands of the Blest." Alas! to Aurelius, in this life, +the Islands of the Blest were very far away. Heathen philosophy was +exalted and eloquent, but all its votaries were sad; to "the peace of +God, which passeth all understanding," it was not given them to attain. +We see Marcus "wise, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless," says +Mr. Arnold, "yet with all this agitated, stretching out his arms for +something beyond--_tendentemque manue ripae ulterioris amore_" + +I will quote in conclusion but three short precepts:-- + +"Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tranquillity which +others give. _A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by +others_." (iv. 5.) + +"_Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but +it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it_" (iv. 49.) + +This comparison has been used many a time since the days of Marcus +Aurelius. The reader will at once recall Goldsmith's famous lines:-- + + "As some tall cliff that rears its awful form, + Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, + Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, + Eternal sunshine settles on its head." + +"Short is the little that remains to thee of life. _Live as on a +mountain_. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here, +if he lives everywhere in the world as in a civil community. Let men +see, let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live. If they +cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live as +men do." (x. 15.) + +Such were some of the thoughts which Marcus Aurelius wrote in his diary +after days of battle with the Quadi, and the Marcomanni, and the +Sarmatae. Isolated from others no less by moral grandeur than by the +supremacy of his sovereign rank, he sought the society of his own noble +soul. I sometimes imagine that I see him seated on the borders of some +gloomy Pannonian forest or Hungarian marsh; through the darkness the +watchfires of the enemy gleam in the distance; but both among them, and +in the camp around him, every sound is hushed, except the tread of the +sentinel outside the imperial tent; and in that tent long after midnight +sits the patient Emperor by the light of his solitary lamp, and ever and +anon, amid his lonely musings, he pauses to write down the pure and holy +thoughts which shall better enable him, even in a Roman palace, even on +barbarian battlefields, daily to tolerate the meanness and the +malignity of the men around him; daily to amend his own shortcomings, +and, as the sun of earthly life begins to set, daily to draw nearer and +nearer to the Eternal Light. And when I thus think of him, I know not +whether the whole of heathen antiquity, out of its gallery of stately +and royal figures, can furnish a nobler, or purer, or more lovable +picture than that of this crowned philosopher and laurelled hero, who +was yet one of the humblest and one of the most enlightened of all +ancient "Seekers after God." + + + +CONCLUSION. + +A sceptical writer has observed, with something like a sneer, that the +noblest utterances of Gospel morality may be paralleled from the +writings of heathen philosophers. The sneer is pointless, and Christian +moralists have spontaneously drawn attention to the fact. In this +volume, so far from trying to conceal that it is so, I have taken +pleasure in placing side by side the words of Apostles and of +Philosophers. The divine origin of Christianity does not rest on its +morality alone. By the aid of the light which was within them, by +deciphering the law written on their own consciences, however much its +letters may have been obliterated or dimmed, Plato, and Cicero, and +Seneca, and Epictetus, and Aurelius were enabled to grasp and to +enunciate a multitude of great and memorable truths; yet they themselves +would have been the first to admit the wavering uncertainty of their +hopes and speculations, and the absolute necessity of a further +illumination. So strong did that necessity appear to some of the wisest +among them, that Socrates ventures in express words to prophesy the +future advent of some heaven-sent Guide.[70] Those who imagine that +_without_ a written revelation it would have been possible to learn all +that is necessary for man's well-being, are speaking in direct +contradiction of the greatest heathen teachers, in contradiction even of +those very teachers to whose writing they point as the proof of their +assertion. Augustine was expressing a very deep conviction when he said +that in Plato and in Cicero he met with many utterances which were +beautiful and wise, but among them all he never found, "Come unto me, +all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." +Glorious as was the wisdom of ancient thought, its knowledge respecting +the indwelling of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and the +forgiveness of sins, was but fragmentary and vague. Bishop Butler has +justly remarked that "The great doctrines of a future state, the dangers +of a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance are not only +_confirmed_ in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with +a degree of light to which that of nature is darkness." + +[Footnote 70: Xen. Mem. 1, iv. 14; Plato, Alcib. ii.] + +The morality of Paganism was, on its own confession, _insufficient_. It +was tentative, where Christianity is authoritative: it was dim and +partial, where Christianity is bright and complete; it was inadequate to +rouse the sluggish carelessness of mankind, where Christianity came in +with an imperial and awakening power; it gives only a _rule_, where +Christianity supplies a _principle_. And even where its teachings were +absolutely coincident with those of Scripture, it failed to ratify them +with a sufficient sanction; it failed to announce them with the same +powerful and contagious ardour; it failed to furnish an absolutely +faultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire them +with an irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a powerful +comfort under the difficulties which were sure to be encountered in the +aim after a consistent and holy life. + +The attempts of the Christian Fathers to show that the truths of ancient +philosophy were borrowed from Scripture are due in some cases to +ignorance and in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial +dealing. That Gideon (Jerubbaal) is identical with the priest +Hierombalos who supplied information to Sanchoniathon, the Berytian; +that Thales pieced together a philosophy from fragments of Jewish truth +learned in Phoenicia; that Pythagoras and Democritus availed themselves +of Hebraic traditions, collected during their travels; that Plato is a +mere "Atticising Moses;" that Aristotle picked up his ethical system +from a Jew whom he met in Asia; that Seneca corresponded with St. Paul: +are assertions every bit as unhistorical and false as that Homer was +thinking of Genesis when he described the shield of Achilles, or (as +Clemens of Alexandria gravely informs us) that Miltiades won the battle +of Marathon by copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say +that Pagan morality "kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, +whether furtively or unconsciously taken," and that it "dissembled the +obligation, and made a boast of the splendour as though it were +originally her own, or were sufficient in her hands for the moral +illumination of the world;" is to make an assertion wholly +untenable.[71] Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius, are among the truest and +loftiest of Pagan moralists, yet Seneca ignored the Christians, +Epictetus despised, and Aurelius persecuted them. All three, so far as +they knew anything about the Christians at all, had unhappily been +taught to look upon them as the most detestable sect of what they had +long regarded as the most degraded and the most detestable of religions. + +[Footnote 71: See for various statements in this passage, Josephus, _c. +Apion_. ii. Section 36; Cic. _De Fin_. v. 25; Clem. Alex. _Strom_, 1, +xxii. 150, xxv. v. 14; Euseb.; _Prof. Evang_. x. 4, ix. 5, &c.; Lactant. +_Inst. Div_. iv. 2, &c.] + +There is something very touching in this fact; but, if there be +something very touching, there is also something very encouraging. God +was their God as well as ours--their Creator, their Preserver, who left +not Himself without witness among them; who, as they blindly felt after +Him, suffered their groping hands to grasp the hem of His robe; who sent +them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with +joy and gladness. And His Spirit was with them, dwelling in them, though +unseen and unknown, purifying and sanctifying the temple of their +hearts, sending gleams of illuminating light through the gross darkness +which encompassed them, comforting their uncertainties, making +intercession for them with groaning which cannot be uttered. And more +than all, _our_ Saviour was _their_ Saviour, too; He, whom they regarded +as a crucified malefactor was their true invisible King; through His +righteousness their poor merits were accepted; their inward sicknesses +were healed; He whose worship they denounced as an "execrable +superstition" stood supplicating for them at the right hand of the +Majesty on high, helping them (though they knew Him not) to crush all +that was evil within them, and pleading for them when they persecuted +even the most beloved of His saints, "Father, forgive them; for they +know not what they do." + +Yes, they too were all His offspring. Even if they had not been, should +we grudge that some of the children's meat should be given unto dogs? +Shall we deny to these "unconscious prophecies of heathendom" their +oracular significance? Shall we be jealous of the ethical loftiness of +a Plato or an Aurelius? Shall we be loth to admit that some power of the +Spirit of Christ, even mid the dark wanderings of Seneca's life, kept +him still conscious of a nobler and a better way, or that some sweetness +of a divine hope inspired the depressions of Epictetus in his slavery? +Shall our eye be evil because God in His goodness granted the heathen +also to know such truths as enabled them "to overcome the allurements of +the visible and the terrors of the invisible world?" Yes, if we have of +the Christian Church so mean a conception that we look upon it as a mere +human society, "set up in the world to defend a certain religion against +a certain other religion." But if on the other hand we believe "that it +was _a society established by God as a witness for the true condition of +all human beings_, we shall rejoice to acknowledge its members to be +what they believed themselves to be,--confessors and martyrs for a truth +which they could not fully embrace or comprehend, but which, through +their lives and deaths, through the right and wrong acts, the true and +false words, of those who understand them least, was to manifest and +prove itself. Those who hold this conviction dare not conceal, or +misrepresent, or undervalue, any one of those weighty and memorable +sentences which are to be found in the _Meditation_ of Marcus Aurelius. +_If they did, they would be underrating a portion of that very truth +which the preachers of the Gospel were appointed to set forth_; they +would be adopting the error of the philosophical Emperor without his +excuse for it. Nor dare they pretend that the Christian teaching had +unconsciously imparted to him a portion of its own light while he seemed +to exclude it. They will believe that it was God's good pleasure that a +certain truth should be seized and apprehended by this age, and they +will see indications of what that truth was in the efforts of Plutarch +to understand the 'Daemon' which guided Socrates, in the courageous +language of Ignatius, in the bewildering dreams of the Gnostics, in the +eagerness of Justin Martyr to prove Christianity a philosophy ... in the +apprehension of Christian principles by Marcus Aurelius, and in his +hatred of the Christians. From every side they will derive evidence, +_that a doctrine and society which were meant for mankind cannot depend +upon, the partial views and apprehensions of men, must go on justifying, +reconciling, confuting, those views and apprehensions by the +demonstration of facts_" [72] + +[Footnote 72: Maurice, _Philos. of the First Six Centuries_, p. 37. We +venture specially to recommend this weighty and beautiful passage to the +reader's serious attention.] + +But perhaps some reader will say, What advantage, then, can we gain by +studying in Pagan writers truths which are expressed more nobly, more +clearly, and infinitely more effectually in our own sacred books? Before +answering the question, let me mention the traditional anecdote[73] of +the Caliph Omar. When he conquered Alexandria, he was shown its +magnificent library, in which were collected untold treasures of +literature, gathered together by the zeal, the labour, and the +liberality of a dynasty of kings. "What is the good of all those books?" +he said. "They are either in accordance with the Koran, or contrary to +it. If the former they are superfluous; if the latter they are +pernicious. In either case let them be burnt." Burnt they were, as +legend tells; but all the world has condemned the Caliph's reasoning as +a piece of stupid Philistinism and barbarous bigotry. Perhaps the +question as to the _use_ of reading Pagan ethics is equally +unphilosophical; at any rate, we can spare but very few words to its +consideration. The answer obviously is, that God has spoken to men, +[Greek: polymeros kai polytropos], "at sundry times and in divers +manners," [74] with a richly variegated wisdom.[75] Sometimes He has +taught truth by the voice of Hebrew prophets, sometimes by the voice of +Pagan philosophers. And _all_ His voices demand our listening ear. If it +was given to the Jew to speak with diviner insight and intenser power, +it is given to the Gentile also to speak at times with a large and lofty +utterance, and we may learn truth from men of alien lips and another +tongue. They, too, had the dream, the vision, the dark saying upon the +harp, the "daughter of a voice," the mystic flashes upon the graven +gems. And such truths come to us with a singular force and freshness; +with a strange beauty as the doctrines of a less brightly illuminated +manhood; with a new power of conviction from their originality of form, +which, because it is less familiar to us, is well calculated to arrest +our attention after it has been paralysed by familiar repetitions. We +cannot afford to lose these heathen testimonies to Christian truth; or +to hush the glorious utterances of Muse and Sibyl which have justly +outlived "the drums and tramplings of a hundred triumphs." We may make +them infinitely profitable to us. If St. Paul quotes Aratus, and +Menander, and Epimenides,[76] and perhaps more than one lyrical melody +besides, with earnest appreciation,--if the inspired Apostle could both +learn himself and teach others out of the utterances of a Cretan +philosopher and an Attic comedian, we may be sure that many of Seneca's +apophthegams would have filled him with pleasure, and that he would have +been able to read Epictetus and Aurelius with the same noble admiration +which made him see with thankful emotion that memorable altar TO THE +UNKNOWN GOD. + +[Footnote 73: Now known to be unhistorical.] + +[Footnote 74: Heb. i. 1.] + +[Footnote 75: [Greek: polypoikilos dophia].] + +[Footnote 76: See Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor.; Tit. i. 12.] + +Let us then make a brief and final sketch of the three great Stoics +whose lives we have been contemplating, with a view to summing up their +specialties, their deficiencies, and the peculiar relations to, or +divergences from, Christian truth, which their writings present to us. + +"Seneca saepe noster," "Seneca, often our own," is the expression of +Tertullian, and he uses it as an excuse for frequent references to his +works. Yet if, of the three, he be most like Christianity in particular +passages, he diverges most widely from it in his general spirit. + +He diverges from Christianity in many of his modes of regarding life, +and in many of his most important beliefs. What, for instance, is his +main conception of the Deity? Seneca is generally a Pantheist. No doubt +he speaks of God's love and goodness, but with him God is no personal +living Father, but the soul of the universe--the fiery, primaeval, +eternal principle which transfuses an inert, and no less eternal, +matter, and of which our souls are, as it were, but divine particles or +passing sparks. "God," he says, "is Nature, is Fate, is Fortune, is the +Universe, is the all-pervading Mind. He cannot change the substance of +the universe, He is himself under the power of Destiny, which is +uncontrollable and immutable. It is not God who rolls the thunder, it is +Fate. He does not rejoice in His works, but is identical with them." In +fact, Seneca would have heartily adopted the words of Pope: + + "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, + Whose body nature is, and God the soul." + +Though there may be a vague sense in which those words may be admitted +and explained by Christians, yet, in the mind of Seneca, they led to +conclusions directly opposed to those of Christianity. With him, for +instance, the wise man is the _equal_ of God; not His adorer, not His +servant, not His suppliant, but His associate, His relation. He differs +from God in time alone. Hence all prayer is needless he says, and the +forms of external worship are superfluous and puerile. It is foolish to +beg for that which you can impart to yourself. "What need is there of +_vows_? Make _yourself_ happy." Nay, in the intolerable arrogance which +marked the worst aberration of Stoicism, the wise man is under certain +aspects placed even higher than God--higher than God Himself--because +God is beyond the reach of misfortunes, but the wise man is superior to +their anguish; and because God is good of necessity, but the wise man +from choice. This wretched and inflated paradox occurs in Seneca's +treatise _On Providence_, and in the same treatise he glorifies suicide, +and expresses a doubt as to the immortality of the soul. + +Again, the two principles on which Seneca relied as the basis of all his +moral system are: first, the principle that we ought to follow Nature; +and, secondly, the supposed perfectibility of the ideal man. + +1. Now, of course, if we explain this precept of "following Nature" as +Juvenal has explained it, and say that the voice of Nature is always +coincident with the voice of philosophy--if we prove that our real +nature is none other than the dictate of our highest and most nobly +trained reason, and if we can establish the fact that every deed of +cruelty, of shame, of lust, or of selfishness, is essentially +_contrary_ to our nature--then we may say with Bishop Butler, that the +precept to "follow Nature" is "a manner of speaking not loose and +undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." But how +complete must be the system, how long the preliminary training, which +alone can enable us to find any practical value, any appreciable aid to +a virtuous life, in a dogma such as this! And, in the hands of Seneca, +it becomes a very empty formula. He entirely lacked the keen insight and +dialectic subtlety of such a writer as Bishop Butler; and, in his +explanation of this Stoical shibboleth, any real meaning which it may +possess is evaporated into a gorgeous mist of confused declamation and +splendid commonplace. + +2. Nor is he much more fortunate with his ideal man. This pompous +abstraction presents us with a conception at once ambitious and sterile. +The Stoic wise man is a sort of moral Phoenix, impossible and repulsive. +He is intrepid in dangers, free from all passion, happy in adversity, +calm in the storm; he alone knows how to live, because he alone knows +how to die; he is the master of the world, because he is master of +himself, and the equal of God; he looks down upon everything with +sublime imperturbability, despising the sadnesses of humanity and +smiling with irritating loftiness at all our hopes and all our fears. +But, in another sketch of this faultless and unpleasant monster, Seneca +presents us, not the proud athlete who challenges the universe and is +invulnerable to all the stings and arrows of passion or of fate, but a +hero in the serenity of absolute triumph, more tender, indeed, but still +without desires, without passions, without needs, who can fell no pity, +because pity is a weakness which disturbs his sapient calm! Well might +the eloquent Bossuet exclaim, as he read of these chimerical +perfections, "It is to take a tone too lofty for feeble and mortal men. +But, O maxims truly pompous! O affected insensibility! O false and +imaginary wisdom! which fancies itself strong because it is hard, and +generous because it is puffed up! How are these principles opposed to +the modest simplicity of the Saviour of souls, who, in our Gospel +contemplating His faithful ones in affliction, confesses that they will +be saddened by it! _Ye shall weep and lament_." Shall Christians be +jealous of such wisdom as Stoicism did really attain, when they compare +this dry and bloodless ideal with Him who wept over Jerusalem and +mourned by the grave of Lazarus, who had a mother and a friend, who +disdained none, who pitied all, who humbled Himself to death, even the +death of the cross, whose divine excellence we cannot indeed attain +because He is God, but whose example we can imitate because He was +very man?[77] + +[Footnote 77: See Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 50; Aubertin, _Sénèque et +St. Paul_ p. 250.] + +The one grand aim of the life and philosophy of Seneca was _Ease_. It is +the topic which constantly recurs in his books _On a Happy Life, On +Tranquility of Mind, On Anger_, and _On the Ease_ and _On the Firmness +of the Sage_. It is the pitiless apathy, the stern repression, of every +form of emotion, which was constantly glorified as the aim of +philosophy. It made Stilpo exclaim, when he had lost wife, property, and +children, that he had lost nothing, because he carried in his own person +everything which he possessed. It led Seneca into all that is most +unnatural, all that is most fantastic, and all that is least sincere in +his writings; it was the bitter source of disgrace and failure in his +life. It comes out worst of all in his book _On Anger_. Aristotle had +said that "Anger was a good servant but a bad master;" Plato had +recognized the immense value and importance of the irascible element in +the moral constitution. Even Christian writers, in spite of Bishop +Butler, have often lost sight of this truth, and have forgotten that to +a noble nature "the hate of hate" and the "scorn of scorn" are as +indispensable as "the love of love." But Seneca almost gets angry +himself at the very notion of the wise man being angry and indignant +even against moral evil. No, he must not get angry, because it would +disturb his sublime calm; and, if he allowed himself to be angry at +wrong-doing, he would have to be angry all day long. This practical +Epicureanism, this idle acquiescence in the supposed incurability of +evil, poisoned all Seneca's career. "He had tutored himself," says +Professor Maurice, "to endure personal injuries without indulging an +anger; he had tutored himself to look upon all moral evil without anger. +If the doctrine is sound and the discipline desirable, we must be +content to take the whole result of them. If we will not do that, we +must resolve to hate oppression and wrong, _even at the cost of +philosophical composure"_ But repose is not to be our aim:-- + + "We have no right to bliss, + No title from the gods to welfare and repose." + +It is one of the truths which seems to me most needed in the modern +religious world, that the type of a Christian's virtue must be very +miserable, and ordinary, and ineffectual, if he does not feel his whole +soul burn within him with an almost implacable moral indignation at the +sight of cruelty and injustice, of Pharisaic faithlessness and +social crimes. + +I have thus freely criticised the radical defects of Stoicism, so far +as Seneca is its legitimate exponent; but I cannot consent to leave him +with the language of depreciation, and therefore here I will once more +endorse what an anonymous writer has said of him: "An unconscious +Christianity covers all his sentiments. If the fair fame of the man is +sullied, the aspiration to a higher life cannot be denied to the +philosopher; if the tinkling cymbal of a stilted Stoicism sometimes +sounds through the nobler music, it still leaves the truer melody +vibrating on the ear." + +2. If Seneca sought for EASE, the grand aim of Epictetus was FREEDOM, of +Marcus Aurelius was SELF-GOVERNMENT. This difference of aim +characterises their entire philosophy, though all three of them are +filled with precepts which arise from the Stoical contempt of opinion, +of fortune, and of death. "Epictetus, the slave, with imperturbable +calm, voluntarily strikes off the desire for all those blessings of +which fortune had already deprived him. Seneca, who lived in the Court, +fenced himself beforehand against misfortune with the spirit of a man of +the world and the emphasis of a master of eloquence. Marcus Aurelius, at +the zenith of human power--having nothing to dread except his passions, +and finding nothing above him except immutable necessity,--surveys his +own soul and meditates especially on the eternal march of things. The +one is the resigned slave, who neither desires nor fears; the other, the +great lord, who has everything to lose; the third, finally, the emperor, +who is dependent only on himself and upon God." + +Of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius we shall have very little to say by way +of summary, for they show no inconsistencies and very few of the +imperfections which characterise Seneca's ideal of the Stoic philosophy. +The "moral peddling," the pedagogic display, the puerile ostentation, +the antithetic brilliancy, which we have had to point out in Seneca, are +wanting in them. The picture of the _inner_ life, indeed, of Seneca, his +efforts after self-discipline, his untiring asceticism, his enthusiasm +for all that he esteems holy and of good report-this picture, marred as +it is by rhetoric and vain self-conceit, yet "stands out in noble +contrast to the swinishness of the Campanian villas, and is, in its +complex entirety, very sad and affecting." And yet we must admit, in the +words of the same writer, that when we go from Seneca to Epictetus and +Marcus Aurelius, "it is going from the florid to the severe, from varied +feeling to the impersonal simplicity of the teacher, often from idle +rhetoric to devout earnestness." As far as it goes, the morality of +these two great Stoics is entirely noble and entirely beautiful. If +there be even in Epictetus some passing and occasional touch of Stoic +arrogance and Stoic apathy; if there be in Marcus Aurelius a depth and +intensity of sadness which shows how comparatively powerless for comfort +was a philosophy which glorified suicide, which knew but little of +immortality, and which lost in vague Pantheism the unspeakable blessing +of realizing a personal relation to a personal God and Father--there is +yet in both of them enough and more than enough to show that in all ages +and in all countries they who have sought for God have found Him, that +they have attained to high principles of thought and to high standards +of action--that they have been enabled, even in the thick darkness, +resolutely to place their feet at least on the lowest rounds of that +ladder of sunbeams which winds up through the darkness to the great +Father of Lights. + +And yet the very existence of such men is in itself a significant +comment upon the Scriptural decision that "the world by wisdom knew not +God." For how many like them, out of all the records of antiquity, is it +possible for us to count? Are there five men in the whole circle of +ancient history and ancient literature to whom we could, without a sense +of incongruity, accord the title of "holy?" When we have mentioned +Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, I hardly know of another. +_Just_ men there were in multitudes--men capable of high actions; men +eminently worthy to be loved; men, I doubt not, who, when the children +of the kingdom shall be rejected, shall be gathered from the east and +the west with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into the kingdom of heaven. +Yes, _just_ men in multitudes; but how many _righteous_, how many +_holy_? Some, doubtless, whom we do not know, whose names were never +written, even for a few years, on the records of mankind--men and women +in unknown villages and humble homes, "the faithful who were not +famous." We do not doubt that there were such--but were they +_relatively_ numerous? If those who rose above the level of the +multitude--if those whom some form of excellence, and often of virtue, +elevated into the reverence of their fellows--present to us a few +examples of stainless life, can we hope that a tolerable ideal of +sanctity was attained by any large proportion of the ordinary myriads? +Seeing that the dangerous lot of the majority was cast amid the +weltering sea of popular depravity, can we venture to hope that many of +them succeeded in reaching some green island of purity, integrity, and +calm? We can hardly think it; and yet, in the dispensation of the +Kingdom of Heaven we see such a condition daily realized. Not only do we +see many of the eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and +obscure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with a light +from heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not known such men in +person, and whose hopes and habits have not caught some touch of +radiance reflected from the nobility and virtue of lives like these. The +thought has been well expressed by the author of _Ecce Homo_, and we may +well ask with him, "If this be so, has Christ failed, or can +Christianity die?" + +No, it has not failed; it cannot die; for the saving knowledge which it +has imparted is the most inestimable blessing which God has granted to +our race. We have watched philosophy in its loftiest flight, but that +flight rose as far above the range of the Pagan populace as Ida or +Olympus rises above the plain: and even the topmost crests of Ida and +Olympus are immeasurably below the blue vault, the body of heaven in its +clearness, to which it has been granted to some Christians to attain. As +regards the multitude, philosophy had no influence over the heart and +character; "it was sectarian, not universal; the religion of the few, +not of the many. It exercised no creative power over political or social +life; it stood in no such relation to the past as the New Testament to +the Old. Its best thoughts were but views and aspects of the truth; +there was no centre around which they moved, no divine life by which +they were impelled; they seemed to vanish and flit in uncertain +succession of light." But Christianity, on the other hand, glowed with a +steady and unwavering brightness; it not only swayed the hearts of +individuals by stirring them to their utmost depths, but it moulded the +laws of nations, and regenerated the whole condition of society. It +gave to mankind a fresh sanction in the word of Christ, a perfect +example in His life, a powerful motive in His love, an all sufficient +comfort in the life of immortality made sure and certain to us by His +Resurrection and Ascension. But if without this sanction, and example, +and motive, and comfort, the pagans could learn to do His will,--if, +amid the gross darkness through which glitters the degraded civilization +of imperial Rome, an Epictetus and an Aurelius could live blameless +lives in a cell and on a throne, and a Seneca could practise simplicity +and self-denial in the midst of luxury and pride--how much loftier +should be both the zeal and the attainments of us to whom God has spoken +by His Son? What manner of men ought we to be? If Tyre and Sidon and +Sodom shall rise in the judgment to bear witness against Chorazin and +Bethsaida, may not the pure lives of these great Seekers after God add a +certain emphasis of condemnation to the vice, the pettiness, the +mammon-worship of many among us to whom His love, His nature, His +attributes have been revealed with a clearness and fullness of knowledge +for which kings and philosophers have sought indeed and sought +earnestly, but sought in vain? + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEKERS AFTER GOD*** + + +******* This file should be named 10846-8.txt or 10846-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/4/10846 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a> + +Title: Seekers after God + +Author: Frederic William Farrar + +Release Date: January 28, 2004 [eBook #10846] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEKERS AFTER GOD*** + + +</pre> +<center><b>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner,<br> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>SEEKERS AFTER GOD</h2> +<br> + +<h3>BY THE</h3> + +<h2>REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.,</h2> + +<h3>CANON OF WESTMINSTER.</h3> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<a href="#SENECA.">SENECA.</a> +<br><br> +<ul> +<li><a href="#INTRODUCTORY.">INTRODUCTORY.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I.">CHAPTER I.</a> THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II.">CHAPTER II.</a> THE EDUCATION OF SENECA.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III.">CHAPTER III.</a> THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV.">CHAPTER IV.</a> POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V.">CHAPTER V.</a> THE REIGN OF CAIUS.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI.">CHAPTER VI.</a> THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII.">CHAPTER VII.</a> SENECA IN EXILE.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII.">CHAPTER VIII.</a> SENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX.">CHAPTER IX.</a> SENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X.">CHAPTER X.</a> AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI.">CHAPTER XI.</a> NERO AND HIS TUTOR.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII.">CHAPTER XII.</a> THE BEGINNING OF THE END.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII.">CHAPTER XIII.</a> THE DEATH OF SENECA.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV.">CHAPTER XIV.</a> SENECA AND ST. PAUL.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV.">CHAPTER XV.</a> SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE.</li> +</ul> +<br><br> +<a href="#EPICTETUS.">EPICTETUS.</a> +<br><br> +<ul> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IE.">CHAPTER I.</a> THE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IIE.">CHAPTER II.</a> LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS <i>(continued)</i>.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIE.">CHAPTER III.</a> LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (<i>continued.</i>)</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IVE.">CHAPTER IV.</a> THE "MANUAL" AND "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VE.">CHAPTER V.</a> THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS.</li> +</ul> +<br><br> +<a href="#MARCUS_AURELIUS.">MARCUS AURELIUS.</a> +<br><br> +<ul> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IA.">CHAPTER I.</a> THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IIA.">CHAPTER II.</a> THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.</li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIA.">CHAPTER III.</a> THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS <i>(continued).</i></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IVA.">CHAPTER IV.</a> THE "MEDITATIONS" OF MARCUS AURELIUS.</li> +</ul> +<br><br> +<a href="#CONCLUSION.">CONCLUSION.</a> +<br><br> +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h1><a name="SENECA."></a>SENECA.</h1> + + +<center>"Ce nuage frangé de rayons qui toucbe presqu' à l'immortelle aurore<br> + des vérités chrétiennes."--PONTMAOTIN.</center> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTORY."></a>INTRODUCTORY.</h2> + +<p>On the banks of the Baetis--the modern Guadalquiver,--and under the +woods that crown the southern slopes of the Sierra Morena, lies the +beautiful and famous city of Cordova. It had been selected by Marcellus +as the site of a Roman colony; and so many Romans and Spaniards of high +rank chose it for their residence, that it obtained from Augustus the +honourable surname of the "Patrician Colony." Spain, during this period +of the Empire, exercised no small influence upon the literature and +politics of Rome. No less than three great Emperors--Trajan, Hadrian, +and Theodosius,--were natives of Spain. Columella, the writer on +agriculture, was born at Cadiz; Quintilian, the great writer on the +education of an orator, was born at Calahorra; the poet Martial was a +native of Bilbilis; but Cordova could boast the yet higher honour of +having given birth to the Senecas, an honour which won for it the +epithet of "The Eloquent." A ruin is shown to modern travellers which +is popularly called the House of Seneca, and the fact is at least a +proof that the city still retains some memory of its illustrious sons.</p> + +<p>Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher, was by rank a +Roman knight. What causes had led him or his family to settle in Spain +we do not know, and the names Annaeus and Seneca are alike obscure. It +has been vaguely conjectured that both names may involve an allusion to +the longevity of some of the founders of the family, for Annaeus seems +to be connected with <i>annus</i>, a year, and Seneca with <i>senex</i>, an old +man. The common English composite plant ragwort is called <i>senecio</i> from +the white and feathery pappus or appendage of its seeds; and similarly, +Isidore says that the first Seneca was so named because "he was born +with white hair."</p> + +<p>Although the father of Seneca was of knightly rank, his family had never +risen to any eminence; it belonged to the class of <i>nouveaux riches</i>, +and we do not know whether it was of Roman or of Spanish descent. But +his mother Helvia--an uncommon name, which, by a curious coincidence, +belonged also to the mother of Cicero--was a Spanish lady; and it was +from her that Seneca, as well as his famous nephew, the poet Lucan, +doubtless derived many of the traits which mark their intellect and +their character. There was in the Spaniard a richness and splendour of +imagination, an intensity and warmth, a touch of "phantasy and flame," +which we find in these two men of genius, and which was wholly wanting +to the Roman temperament.</p> + +<p>Of Cordova itself, except in a single epigram, Seneca makes no mention; +but this epigram suffices to show that he must have been familiar with +its stirring and memorable traditions. The elder Seneca must have been +living at Cordova during all the troublous years of civil war, when his +native city caused equal offence to Pompey and to Caesar. Doubtless, +too, he would have had stories to tell of the noble Sertorius, and of +the tame fawn which gained for him the credit of divine assistance; and +contemporary reminiscences of that day of desperate disaster when +Caesar, indignant that Cordova should have embraced the cause of the +sons of Pompey, avenged himself by a massacre of 22,000 of the citizens. +From his mother Helvia, Seneca must often have heard about the fierce +and gallant struggle in which her country had resisted the iron yoke of +Rome. Many a time as a boy must he have been told how long and how +heroically Saguntum had withstood the assaults and baffled the triumph +of Hannibal; how bravely Viriathus had fought, and how shamefully he +fell; and how at length the unequal contest, which reduced Spain to the +condition of a province, was closed, when the heroic defenders of +Numantia, rather than yield to Scipio, reduced their city to a heap of +blood-stained ruins.</p> + +<p>But, whatever may have been the extent to which Seneca was influenced by +the Spanish blood which flowed in his veins, and the Spanish legends on +which his youth was fed, it was not in Spain that his lot was cast. When +he was yet an infant in arms his father, with all his family, emigrated +from Cordova to Rome. What may have been the special reason for this +important step we do not know; possibly, like the father of Horace, the +elder Seneca may have sought a better education for his sons than could +be provided by even so celebrated a provincial town as Cordova; +possibly--for he belonged to a somewhat pushing family--he may have +desired to gain fresh wealth and honour in the imperial city.</p> + +<p>Thither we must follow him; and, as it is our object not only to depict +a character but also to sketch the characteristics of a very memorable +age in the world's history, we must try to get a glimpse of the family +in the midst of which our young philosopher grew up, of the kind of +education which he received, and of the influences which were likely to +tell upon him during his childish and youthful years. Only by such means +shall we be able to judge of him aright. And it is worth while to try +and gain a right conception of the man, not only because he was very +eminent as a poet, an author, and a politician, not only because he +fills a very prominent place in the pages of the great historian, who +has drawn so immortal a picture of Rome under the Emperors; not only +because in him we can best study the inevitable signs which mark, even +in the works of men of genius, a degraded people and a decaying +literature; but because he was, as the title of this volume designates +him, a "SEEKER AFTER GOD." Whatever may have been the dark and +questionable actions of his life--and in this narrative we shall +endeavor to furnish a plain and unvarnished picture of the manner in +which he lived,--it is certain that, as a philosopher and as a moralist, +he furnishes us with the grandest and most eloquent series of truths to +which, unilluminated by Christianity, the thoughts of man have ever +attained. The purest and most exalted philosophic sect of antiquity was +"the sect of the Stoics;" and Stoicism never found a literary exponent +more ardent, more eloquent, or more enlightened than Lucius Annaeus +Seneca. So nearly, in fact, does he seem to have arrived at the truths +of Christianity, that to many it seemed a matter for marvel that he +could have known them without having heard them from inspired lips. He +is constantly cited with approbation by some of the most eminent +Christian fathers. Tertullian, Lactantius, even St. Augustine himself, +quote his words with marked admiration, and St. Jerome appeals to him as +"<i>our</i> Seneca." The Council of Trent go further still, and quote him as +though he were an acknowledged father of the Church. For many centuries +there were some who accepted as genuine the spurious letters supposed to +have been interchanged between Seneca and St. Paul, in which Seneca is +made to express a wish to hold among the Pagans the same beneficial +position which St. Paul held in the Christian world. The possibility of +such an intercourse, the nature and extent of such supposed obligations, +will come under our consideration hereafter. All that I here desire to +say is, that in considering the life of Seneca we are not only dealing +with a life which was rich in memorable incidents, and which was cast +into an age upon which Christianity dawned as a new light in the +darkness, but also the life of one who climbed the loftiest peaks of the +moral philosophy of Paganism, and who in many respects may be regarded +as the Coryphaeus of what has been sometimes called a Natural Religion.</p> + +<p>It is not my purpose to turn aside from the narrative in order to +indulge in moral reflections, because such reflections will come with +tenfold force if they are naturally suggested to the reader's mind by +the circumstances of the biography. But from first to last it will be +abundantly obvious to every thoughtful mind that alike the morality and +the philosophy of Paganism, as contrasted with the splendour of revealed +truth and the holiness of Christian life, are but as moonlight is to +sunlight. The Stoical philosophy may be compared to a torch which flings +a faint gleam here and there in the dusky recesses of a mighty cavern; +Christianity to the sun pouring into the inmost depths of the same +cavern its sevenfold illumination. The torch had a value and brightness +of its own, but compared with the dawning of that new glory it appears +to be dim and ineffectual, even though its brightness was a real +brightness, and had been drawn from the same etherial source.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I."></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA.</h3> + +<p>The exact date of Seneca's birth is uncertain, but it took place in all +probability about seven years before the commencement of the Christian +era. It will give to his life a touch of deep and solemn interest if we +remember that, during all those guilty and stormy scenes amid which his +earlier destiny was cast, there lived and taught in Palestine the Son of +God, the Saviour of the world.</p> + +<p>The problems which for many years tormented his mind were beginning to +find their solution, amid far other scenes, by men whose creed and +condition he despised. While Seneca was being guarded by his attendant +slave through the crowded and dangerous streets of Rome on his way to +school, St. Peter and St. John were fisher-lads by the shores of +Gennesareth; while Seneca was ardently assimilating the doctrine of the +stoic Attalus, St. Paul, with no less fervancy of soul, sat learning at +the feet of Gamaliel; and long before Seneca had made his way, through +paths dizzy and dubious, to the zenith of his fame, unknown to him that +Saviour had been crucified through whose only merits he and we can ever +attain to our final rest.</p> + +<p>Seneca was about two years old when he was carried to Rome in his +nurse's arms. Like many other men who have succeeded in attaining +eminence, he suffered much from ill-health in his early years. He tells +us of one serious illness from which he slowly recovered under the +affectionate and tender nursing of his mother's sister. All his life +long he was subject to attacks of asthma, which, after suffering every +form of disease, he says that he considers to be the worst. At one time +his personal sufferings weighed so heavily on his spirits that nothing +save a regard for his father's wishes prevented him from suicide: and +later in life he was only withheld from seeking the deliverance of death +by the tender affection of his wife Paulina. He might have used with +little alteration the words of Pope, that his various studies but served +to help him</p> + +<blockquote> +"Through <i>this long disease, my life</i>."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The recovery from this tedious illness is the only allusion which Seneca +has made to the circumstances of his childhood. The ancient writers, +even the ancient poets, but rarely refer, even in the most cursory +manner, to their early years. The cause of this reticence offers a +curious problem for our inquiry, but the fact is indisputable. Whereas +there is scarcely a single modern poet who has not lingered with +undisguised feelings of happiness over the gentle memories of his +childhood, not one of the ancient poets has systematically touched upon +the theme at all. From Lydgate down to Tennyson, it would be easy to +quote from our English poets a continuous line of lyric songs on the +subject of boyish years. How to the young child the fir-trees seemed to +touch the sky, how his heart leaped up at the sight of the rainbow, how +he sat at his mother's feet and pricked into paper the tissued flowers +of her dress, how he chased the bright butterfly, or in his tenderness +feared to brush even the dust from off its wings, how he learnt sweet +lessons and said innocent prayers at his father's knee; trifles like +these, yet trifles which may have been rendered noble and beautiful by a +loving imagination, have been narrated over and over again in the songs +of our poets. The lovely lines of Henry Vaughan might be taken as a type +of thousands more:--</p> + +<blockquote><center> +"Happy those early days, when I<br> + Shined in my Angel infancy.<br> + Before I understood this place<br> + Appointed for my second race,<br> + Or taught my soul to fancy aught<br> + But a white celestial thought;<br> +</center></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<blockquote><center> + "Before I taught my tongue to wound<br> + My conscience with a sinful sound<br> + Or had the black art to dispense<br> + A several sin to every sense;<br> + But felt through all this fleshy dress,<br> + Bright shoots of everlastingness."<br> +</center></blockquote> + +<p>The memory of every student of English poetry will furnish countless +parallels to thoughts like these. How is it that no similar poem could +be quoted from the whole range of ancient literature? How is it that to +the Greek and Roman poets that morning of life, which should have been +so filled with "natural blessedness," seems to have been a blank? How is +it that writers so voluminous, so domestic, so affectionate as Cicero, +Virgil, and Horace do not make so much as a single allusion to the +existence of their own mothers?</p> + +<p>To answer this question fully would be to write an entire essay on the +difference between ancient and modern life, and would carry me far away +from my immediate subject.<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1">[1]</a> But I may say generally, that the +explanation rests in the fact that in all probability childhood among +the ancients was a disregarded, and in most cases a far less happy, +period than it is with us. The birth of a child in the house of a Greek +or a Roman was not necessarily a subject for rejoicing. If the father, +when the child was first shown to him, stooped down and took it in his +arms, it was received as a member of the family; if he left it unnoticed +then it was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or barren +place to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first passer by. And +even if a child escaped this fate, yet for the first seven or eight +years of life he was kept in the gynaeceum, or women's apartments, and +rarely or never saw his father's face. No halo of romance or poetry was +shed over those early years. Until the child was full grown the absolute +power of life or death rested in his father's hands; he had no freedom, +and met with little notice. For individual life the ancients had a very +slight regard; there was nothing autobiographic or introspective in +their temperament. With them public life, the life of the State, was +everything; domestic life, the life of the individual, occupied but a +small share of their consideration. All the innocent pleasures of +infancy, the joys of the hearth, the charm of the domestic circle, the +flow and sparkle of childish gaity, were by them but little appreciated. +The years before manhood were years of prospect, and in most cases they +offered but little to make them worth the retrospect. It is a mark of +the more modern character which stamps the writings of Seneca, as +compared with earlier authors, that he addresses his mother in terms of +the deepest affection, and cannot speak of his darling little son except +in a voice that seems to break with tears.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a> See, however, the same question treated from a somewhat +different point of view by M. Nisard, in his charming <i>Études sur les +Poëtes de la Décadence</i>, ii. 17, <i>sqq</i>. +</blockquote> + +<p>Let us add another curious consideration. The growth of the personal +character, the reminiscences of a life advancing into perfect +consciousness, are largely moulded by the gradual recognition of moral +laws, by the sense of mystery evolved in the inevitable struggle between +duty and pleasure,--between the desire to do right and the temptation to +do wrong. But among the ancients the conception of morality was so +wholly different from ours, their notions of moral obligation were, in +the immense majority of cases, so much less stringent and so much less +important, they had so faint a disapproval for sins which we condemn, +and so weak an indignation against vices which we abhor, that in their +early years we can hardly suppose them to have often fathomed those +"abysmal deeps of personality," the recognition of which is a necessary +element of marked individual growth.</p> + +<p>We have, therefore, no materials for forming any vivid picture of +Seneca's childhood; but, from what we gather about the circumstances and +the character of his family, we should suppose that he was exceptionally +fortunate. The Senecas were wealthy; they held a good position in +society; they were a family of cultivated taste, of literary pursuits, +of high character, and of amiable dispositions. Their wealth raised them +above the necessity of those mean cares and degrading shifts to eke out +a scanty livelihood which mark the career of other literary men who were +their contemporaries. Their rank and culture secured them the intimacy +of all who were best worth knowing in Roman circles; and the general +dignity and morality which marked their lives would free them from all +likelihood of being thrown into close intercourse with the numerous +class of luxurious epicureans, whose unblushing and unbounded vice gave +an infamous notority to the capital of the world.</p> + +<p>Of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of our philosopher, we know few +personal particulars, except that he was a professional rhetorician, who +drew up for the use of his sons and pupils a number of oratorical +exercises, which have come down to us under the names of <i>Suasoriae</i> and +<i>Controversiae</i>. They are a series of declamatory arguments on both +sides, respecting a number of historical or purely imaginary subjects; +and it would be impossible to conceive any reading more utterly +unprofitable. But the elder Seneca was steeped to the lips in an +artificial rhetoric; and these highly elaborated arguments, invented in +order to sharpen the faculties for purposes of declamation and debate, +were probably due partly to his note-book and partly to his memory. His +memory was so prodigious that after hearing two thousand words he could +repeat them again in the same order. Few of those who have possessed +such extraordinary powers of memory have been men of first-rate talent, +and the elder Seneca was no exception. But if his memory did not improve +his original genius, it must at any rate have made him a very agreeable +member of society, and have furnished him with an abundant store of +personal and political anecdotes. In short, Marcus Seneca was a +well-to-do, intelligent man of the world, with plenty of common sense, +with a turn for public speaking, with a profound dislike and contempt +for anything which he considered philosophical or fantastic, and with a +keen eye to the main advantage.</p> + +<p>His wife Helvia, if we may trust the panegyric of her son, was on the +other hand a far less common-place character. But for her husband's +dislike to learning and philosophy she would have become a proficient in +both, and in a short period of study she had made a considerable +advance. Yet her intellect was less remarkable than the nobility and +sweetness of her mind; other mothers loved their sons because their own +ambition was gratified by their honours, and their feminine wants +supplied by their riches; but Helvia loved her sons for their own sakes, +treated them with liberal generosity, but refused to reap any personal +benefit from their wealth, managed their patrimonies with disinterested +zeal, and spent her own money to bear the expenses of their political +career. She rose superior to the foibles and vices of her time. +Immodesty, the plague-spot of her age, had never infected her pure life. +Gems and pearls had little charms for her. She was never ashamed of her +children, as though their presence betrayed her own advancing age. "You +never stained your face," says her son, when writing to console her in +his exile, "with walnut-juice or rouge; you never delighted in dresses +indelicately low; your single ornament was a loveliness which no age +could destroy; your special glory was a conspicuous chastity." We may +well say with Mr. Tennyson--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Happy he<br> + With such a mother! faith in womankind<br> + Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high<br> + Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall,<br> + He shall not blind his soul with clay."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Nor was his mother Helvia the only high-minded lady in whose society +the boyhood of Seneca was spent. Her sister, whose name is unknown, that +aunt who had so tenderly protected the delicate boy, and nursed him +through the sickness of his infancy, seems to have inspired him with an +affection of unusual warmth. He tells us how, when her husband was +Prefect of Egypt, so far was she from acting as was usual with the wives +of provincial governors, that she was as much respected and beloved as +they were for the most part execrated and shunned. So serious was the +evil caused by these ladies, so intolerable was their cruel rapacity, +that it had been seriously debated in the Senate whether they should +ever be allowed to accompany their husbands. Not so with Helvia's +sister. She was never seen in public; she allowed no provincial to visit +her house; she begged no favour for herself, and suffered none to be +begged from her. The province not only praised her, but, what was still +more to her credit, barely knew anything about her, and longed in vain +for another lady who should imitate her virtue and self-control. Egypt +was the headquarters for biting and loquacious calumny, yet even Egypt +never breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. And when during +their homeward voyage her husband died, in spite of danger and tempest +and the deeply-rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail +with a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of shipwreck could +drive her to separate herself from her husband's body until she had +provided for its safe and honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of a +good and heroic woman; and that she reciprocated the regard which makes +her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact +that, when he made his <i>début</i> as a candidate for the honours of the +State, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time +her matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced +for his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the +crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets of Rome.</p> + +<p>Two brothers, very different from each other in their habits and +character, completed the family circle, Marcus Annaeus Novatus and +Lucius Annaeus Mela, of whom the former was older the latter younger, +than their more famous brother.</p> + +<p>Marcus Annaeus Novatus is known to history under the name of Junius +Gallio, which he took when adopted by the orator of that name, who was a +friend of his father. He is none other than the Gallio of the Acts, the +Proconsul of Achaia, whose name has passed current among Christians as a +proverb of complacent indifference.<a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2">[2]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a> Acts xxv. 19. +</blockquote> + +<p>The scene, however, in which Scripture gives us a glimpse of him has +been much misunderstood, and to talk of him as "careless Gallio," or to +apply the expression that "he cared for none of these things," to +indifference in religious matters, is entirely to misapply the spirit of +the narrative. What really happened was this. The Jews, indignant at the +success of Paul's preaching, dragged him before the tribunal of Gallio, +and accused him of introducing illegal modes of worship. When the +Apostle was about to defend himself, Gallio contemptuously cut him short +by saying to the Jews, "If in truth there were in question any act of +injustice or wicked misconduct, I should naturally have tolerated your +complaint. But if this is some verbal inquiry about mere technical +matters of your law, look after it yourselves. I do not choose to be a +judge of such matters." With these words he drove them from his +judgment-seat with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the Jews and +their religious affairs as was subsequently expressed by Festus to the +sceptical Agrippa, and as had been expressed previously by Pontius +Pilate<a name="FNanchor3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3">[3]</a> to the tumultous Pharisees. Exulting at this discomfiture of +the hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in +a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat +him in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal. This was the +event at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What +could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks +beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not? So long as they did not make a riot, +or give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat +Sosthenes or any number of Jews black and blue if it pleased them, for +all he was likely to care.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a> Matt. xxvii. 24, "See ye to it." Cf. Acts xiv. 15, "Look ye +to it." Toleration existed in the Roman Empire, and the magistrates +often interfered to protect the Jews from massacre; but they absolutely +and persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to +understand their doctrines or enter into their disputes. The tradition +that Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is +utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written +nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Conybeare and +Howson, <i>St. Paul</i>, vol. i. Ch. xii.; Aubertin, <i>Sénèque et St. Paul</i>.) +</blockquote> + +<p>What a vivid glimpse do we here obtain, from the graphic picture of an +eye-witness, of the daily life in an ancient provincial forum; how +completely do we seem to catch sight for a moment of that habitual +expression of contempt which curled the thin lips of a Roman aristocrat +in the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews! If Seneca +had come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in his Egyptian travels, the +only impression left on his mind was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal, +and Suetonius, who never mention the Jews without execration. In a +passage, quoted by St. Augustine (<i>De Civit. Dei</i>, iv. 11) from his lost +book on Superstitions, Seneca speaks of the multitude of their +proselytes, and calls them "<i>gens sceleratissima</i>," a "<i>most criminal +race</i>." It has been often conjectured--it has even been seriously +believed--that Seneca had personal intercourse with St. Paul and learnt +from him some lessons of Christianity. The scene on which we have just +been gazing will show us the utter unlikelihood of such a supposition. +Probably the nearest opportunity which ever occurred to bring the +Christian Apostle into intellectual contact with the Roman philosopher +was this occasion, when St. Paul was dragged as a prisoner into the +presence of Seneca's elder brother. The utter contempt and indifference +with which he was treated, the manner in which he was summarily cut +short before he could even open his lips in his own defence, will give +us a just estimate of the manner in which Seneca would have been likely +to regard St. Paul. It is highly improbable that Gallio ever retained +the slightest impression or memory of so every-day a circumstance as +this, by which alone he is known to the world. It is possible that he +had not even heard the mere name of Paul, and that, if he ever thought +of him at all, it was only as a miserable, ragged, fanatical Jew, of dim +eyes and diminutive stature, who had once wished to inflict upon him a +harangue, and who had once come for a few moments "betwixt the wind and +his nobility." He would indeed have been unutterably amazed if anyone +had whispered to him that well nigh the sole circumstance which would +entitle him to be remembered by posterity, and the sole event of his +life by which he would be at all generally known, was that momentary and +accidental relation to his despised prisoner.</p> + +<p>But Novatus--or, to give him his adopted name, Gallio--presented to his +brother Seneca, and to the rest of the world, a very different aspect +from that under which we are wont to think of him. By them he was +regarded as an illustrious declaimer, in an age when declamation was the +most valued of all accomplishments. It was true that there was a sort of +"tinkle," a certain falsetto tone in his style, which offended men of +robust and severe taste; but this meretricious resonance of style was a +matter of envy and admiration when affectation was the rage, and when +the times were too enervated and too corrupt for the manly conciseness +and concentrated force of an eloquence dictated by liberty and by +passion. He seems to have acquired both among his friends and among +strangers the epithet of "dulcis," "the charming or fascinating Gallio:" +"This is more," says the poet Statius, "than to have given Seneca to the +world, and to have begotten the sweet Gallio." Seneca's portrait of him +is singularly faultless. He says that no one was so gentle to any one as +Gallio was to every one; that his charm of manner won over even the +people whom mere chance threw in his way, and that such was the force of +his natural goodness that no one suspected his behaviour, as though it +were due to art or simulation. Speaking of flattery, in his fourth book +of Natural Questions, he says to his friend Lucilius, "I used to say to +you that my brother Gallio <i>(whom every one loves a little, even people +who cannot love him more)</i> was wholly <i>ignorant</i> of other vices, but +even <i>detested</i> this. You might try him in any direction. You began to +praise his intellect--an intellect of the highest and worthiest kind,... +and he walked away! You began to praise his moderation, he instantly cut +short your first words. You began to express admiration for his +blandness and natural suavity of manner,... yet even here he resisted +your compliments; and if you were led to exclaim that you had found a +man who could not be overcome by those insidious attacks which every one +else admits, and hoped that he would at least tolerate <i>this</i> compliment +because of its truth, even on this ground he would resist your flattery; +not as though you had been awkward, or as though he suspected that you +were jesting with him, or had some secret end in view, but simply +because he had a horror of every form of adulation." We can easily +imagine that Gallio was Seneca's favorite brother, and we are not +surprised to find that the philosopher dedicates to him his three books +on Anger, and his charming little treatise "On a Happy Life."</p> + +<p>Of the third brother, L. Annaeus Mela, we have fewer notices; but, from +what we know, we should conjecture that his character no less than his +reputation was inferior to that of his brothers; yet he seems to have +been the favorite of his father, who distinctly asserts that his +intellect was capable of every excellence, and superior to that of his +brothers.<a name="FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4">[4]</a> This, however, may have been because Mela, "longing only to +long for nothing," was content with his father's rank, and devoted +himself wholly to the study of eloquence. Instead of entering into +public life, he deliberately withdrew himself from all civil duties, and +devoted himself to tranquility and ease. Apparently he preferred to be a +farmer-general (<i>publicanus</i>) and not a consul. His chief fame rests in +the fact that he was father of Lucan, the poet of the decadence or +declining literature of Rome. The only anecdote about him which has come +down to us is one that sets his avarice in a very unfavourable light. +When his famous son, the unhappy poet, had forfeited his life, as well +as covered himself with infamy by denouncing his own mother Attila in +the conspiracy of Piso, Mela, instead of being overwhelmed with shame +and agony, immediately began to collect with indecent avidity his son's +debts, as though to show Nero that he felt no great sorrow for his +bereavement. But this was not enough for Nero's malice; he told Mela +that he must follow his son, and Mela was forced to obey the order, +and to die.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a> M. Ann. Senec. <i>Controv</i>. ii. <i>Praef</i>. +</blockquote> + +<p>Doubtless Helvia, if she survived her sons and grandsons, must have +bitterly rued the day when, with her husband and her young children, she +left the quiet retreat of a life in Cordova. Each of the three boys grew +up to a man of genius, and each of them grew up to stain his memory with +deeds that had been better left undone, and to die violent deaths by +their own hands or by a tyrant's will. Mela died as we have seen; his +son Lucan and his brother Seneca were driven to death by the cruel +orders of Nero. Gallio, after stooping to panic-stricken supplications +for his preservation, died ultimately by suicide. It was a shameful and +miserable end for them all, but it was due partly to their own errors, +partly to the hard necessity of the degraded times in which they lived.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II."></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>THE EDUCATION OF SENECA.</h3> + +<p>For a reason which I have already indicated--I mean the habitual +reticence of the ancient writers respecting the period of their +boyhood--it is not easy to form a very vivid conception of the kind of +education given to a Roman boy of good family up to the age of fifteen, +when he laid aside the golden amulet and embroidered toga to assume a +more independent mode of life.</p> + +<p>A few facts, however, we can gather from the scattered allusions of the +poets Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Persius. From these we learn that +the school-masters were for the most part underpaid and despised,<a name="FNanchor5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5">[5]</a> +while at the same time an erudition alike minute and useless was rigidly +demanded of them. We learn also that they were exceedingly severe in the +infliction of corporeal punishment; Orbilius, the schoolmaster of +Horace, appears to have been a perfect Dr. Busby, and the poet Martial +records with indignation the barbarities of chastisement which he daily +witnessed.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor5">[5]</a> For the miseries of the literary class, and especially of +schoolmasters, see Juv, <i>Sat</i>. vii. +</blockquote> + +<p>The things taught were chiefly arithmetic, grammar--both Greek and +Latin--reading, and repetition of the chief Latin poets. There was also +a good deal of recitation and of theme-writing on all kinds of trite +historical subjects. The arithmetic seems to have been mainly of a very +simple and severely practical kind, especially the computation of +interest and compound interest; and the philology generally, both +grammar and criticism, was singularly narrow, uninteresting, and +useless. Of what conceivable advantage can it have been to any human +being to know the name of the mother of Hecuba, of the nurse of +Anchises, of the stepmother of Anchemolus, the number of years Acestes +lived, and how many casks of wine the Sicilians gave to the Phrygians? +Yet these were the dispicable <i>minutiae</i> which every schoolmaster was +then expected to have at his fingers' ends, and every boy-scholar to +learn at the point of the ferule--trash which was only fit to be +unlearned the moment it was known.</p> + +<p>For this kind of verbal criticism and fantastic archaeology Seneca, who +had probably gone through it all, expresses a profound and very rational +contempt. In a rather amusing passage<a name="FNanchor6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6">[6]</a> he contrasts the kind of use +which would be made of a Virgil lesson by a philosopher and a +grammarian. Coming to the lines,</p> + +<blockquote> +"Each happiest day for mortals speeds the first,<br> + Then crowds disease behind and age accurst,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>the philosopher will point out why and in what sense the early days of +life are the best days, and how rapidly the evil days succeed them, and +consequently how infinitely important it is to use well the golden dawn +of our being. But the verbal critic will content himself with the +remark that Virgil always uses <i>fugio</i> of the flight of time, and +always joins "old age" with "disease," and consequently that these are +tags to be remembered, and plagiarized hereafter in the pupils' +"<i>original</i> composition." Similarly, if the book in hand be Cicero's +treatise "On the Commonwealth," instead of entering into great political +questions, our grammarian will note that one of the Roman kings had no +father (to speak of), and another no mother; that dictators used +formerly to be called "masters of the people;" that Romulus perished +during an eclipse; that the old form of <i>reipsa</i> was <i>reapse</i>, and of +<i>se ipse</i> was <i>sepse</i>; that the starting point in the circus which is +now called <i>creta</i>, or "chalk," used to be called <i>caix</i>, or <i>carcer</i>; +that in the time of Ennuis <i>opera</i> meant not only "work," but also +"assistance," and so on, and so on. Is this true education? or rather, +should our great aim ever be to translate noble precepts into daily +action? "Teach me," he says, "to despise pleasure and glory; +<i>afterwards</i> you shall teach me to disentangle difficulties, to +distinguish ambiguities, to see through obscurities; <i>now</i> teach me what +is necessary." Considering the condition of much which in modern times +passes under the name of "education," we may possibly find that the +hints of Seneca are not yet wholly obsolete.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor6">[6]</a> Ep. cviii. +</blockquote> + +<p>What kind of schoolmaster taught the little Seneca when under the care +of the slave who was called <i>pedagogus</i>, or a "boy-leader" (whence our +word <i>pedagogue</i>), he daily went with his brothers to school through the +streets of Rome, we do not know. He may have been a severe Orbilius, or +he may have been one of those noble-minded tutors whose ideal +portraiture is drawn in such beautiful colours by the learned and +amiable Quintilian. Seneca has not alluded to any one who taught him +during his early days. The only schoolfellow whom he mentions by name +in his voluminous writings is a certain Claranus, a deformed boy, whom, +after leaving school, Seneca never met again until they were both old +men, but of whom he speaks with great admiration. In spite of his +hump-back, Claranus appeared even beautiful in the eyes of those who +knew him well, because his virtue and good sense left a stronger +impression than his deformity, and "his body was adorned by the beauty +of his soul."</p> + +<p>It was not until mere school-lessons were finished that a boy began +seriously to enter upon the studies of eloquence and philosophy, which +therefore furnish some analogy to what we should call "a university +education." Gallio and Mela, Seneca's elder and younger brothers, +devoted themselves heart and soul to the theory and practice of +eloquence; Seneca made the rarer and the wiser choice in giving his +entire enthusiasm to the study of philosophy.</p> + +<p>I say the wiser choice, because eloquence is not a thing for which one +can give a receipt as one might give a receipt for making +<i>eau-de-Cologne</i>. Eloquence is the noble, the harmonious, the passionate +expression of truths profoundly realized, or of emotions intensely felt. +It is a flame which cannot be kindled by artificial means. <i>Rhetoric</i> +may be taught if any one thinks it worth learning; but <i>eloquence</i> is a +gift as innate as the genius from which it springs. "<i>Cujus vita fulgur, +ejus verba tonitrua</i>"--"if a man's life be lightning, his words will be +thunders." But the kind of oratory to be obtained by a constant practice +of declamation such as that which occupied the schools of the Rhetors +will be a very artificial lightning and a very imitated thunder--not the +artillery of heaven, but the Chinese fire and rolled bladders of the +stage. Nothing could be more false, more hollow, more pernicious than +the perpetual attempt to drill numerous classes of youths into a +reproduction of the mere manner of the ancient orators. An age of +unlimited declamation, an age of incessant talk, is a hotbed in which +real depth and nobility of feeling runs miserably to seed. Style is +never worse than it is in ages which employ themselves in teaching +little else. Such teaching produces an emptiness of thought concealed +under a plethora of words. This age of countless oratorical masters was +emphatically the period of decadence and decay. There is a hollow ring +about it, a falsetto tone in its voice; a fatiguing literary grimace in +the manner of its authors. Even its writers of genius were injured and +corrupted by the prevailing mode. They can say nothing simply; they are +always in contortions. Their very indignation and bitterness of heart, +genuine as it is, assumes a theatrical form of expression.<a name="FNanchor7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7">[7]</a> They +abound in unrealities: their whole manner is defaced with would-be +cleaverness, with antitheses, epigrams, paradoxes, forced expressions, +figures and tricks of speech, straining after originality and profundity +when they are merely repeating very commonplace remarks. What else could +one expect in an age of salaried declaimers, educated in a false +atmosphere of superficial talk, for ever haranguing and perorating about +great passions which they had never felt, and great deeds which they +would have been the last to imitate? After perpetually immolating the +Tarquins and the Pisistratids in inflated grandiloquence, they would go +to lick the dust off a tyrant's shoes. How could eloquence survive when +the magnanimity and freedom which inspired it were dead, and when the +men and books which professed to teach it were filled with despicable +directions about the exact position in which the orator was to use his +hands, and as to whether it was a good thing or not for him to slap his +forehead and disarrange his hair?</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor7">[7]</a> +<blockquote> +"Juvénal, élevé dans les cris de l'école<br> + Poussa jusqu'à l'excès sa mordante hyperbole."--<br> + BOILEAU.<br> +</blockquote> +</blockquote> + +<p>The philosophic teaching which even from boyhood exercised a powerful +fascination on the eager soul of Seneca was at least something better +than this; and more than one of his philosophic teachers succeeded in +winning his warm affection, and in moulding the principles and habits of +his life. Two of them he mentions with special regard, namely Sotion the +Pythagorean, and Attalus the Stoic. He also heard the lectures of the +fluent and musical Fabianus Papirius, but seems to have owed less to him +than to his other teachers.</p> + +<p>Sotion had embraced the views of Pythagoras respecting the +transmigration of souls, a doctrine which made the eating of animal food +little better than cannibalism or parricide. But, even if any of his +followers rejected this view, Sotion would still maintain that the +eating of animals, if not an impiety, was at least a cruelty and a +waste. "What hardship does my advice inflict on you?" he used to ask. "I +do but deprive you of the food of vultures and lions." The ardent +boy--for at this time he could not have been more than seventeen years +old--was so convinced by these considerations that he became a +vegetarian. At first the abstinence from meat was painful, but after a +year he tells us (and many vegetarians will confirm his experience) it +was not only easy but delightful; and he used to believe, though he +would not assert it as a fact, that it made his intellect more keen and +active. He only ceased to be a vegetarian in obedience to the +remonstrance of his unphilosophical father, who would have easily +tolerated what he regarded as a mere vagary had it not involved the +danger of giving rise to a calumny. For about this time Tiberius +banished from Rome all the followers of strange and foreign religions; +and, as fasting was one of the rites practiced in some of them, Seneca's +father thought that perhaps his son might incur, by abstaining from +meat, the horrible suspicion of being a Christian or a Jew!</p> + +<p>Another Pythagorean philosopher whom he admired and whom he quotes was +Sextius, from whom he learnt the admirable practice of daily +self-examination:--"When the day was over, and he betook himself to his +nightly rest, he used to ask himself, What evil have you cured to day? +What vice have you resisted? In what particular have you improved?" "I +too adopt this custom," says Seneca, in his book on Anger, "and I daily +plead my cause before myself, when the light has been taken away, and my +wife, who is now aware of my habit, has become silent; I carefully +consider in my heart the entire day, and take a deliberate estimate of +my deeds and words."</p> + +<p>It was however the Stoic Attalus who seems to have had the main share in +the instruction of Seneca; and <i>his</i> teaching did not involve any +practical results which the elder Seneca considered objectionable. He +tells us how he used to haunt the school of the eloquent philosopher, +being the first to enter and the last to leave it. "When I heard him +declaiming," he says, "against vice, and error, and the ills of life, I +often felt compassion for the human race, and believed my teacher to be +exalted above the ordinary stature of mankind. In Stoic fashion he used +to call himself a king; but to me his sovereignty seemed more than +royal, seeing that it was in his power to pass his judgments on kings +themselves. When he began to set forth the praises of poverty, and to +show how heavy and superfluous was the burden of all that exceeded the +ordinary wants of life, I often longed to leave school a poor man. When +he began to reprehend our pleasures, to praise a chaste body, a moderate +table, and a mind pure not from all unlawful but even from all +superfluous pleasures, it was my delight to set strict limits to all +voracity and gluttony. And these precepts, my Lucilius, have left some +permanent results; for I embraced them with impetuous eagerness, and +afterwards, when I entered upon a political career, I retained a few of +my good beginnings. In consequence of them, I have all my life long +renounced eating oysters and mushrooms, which do not satisfy hunger but +only sharpen appetite; for this reason I habitually abstain from +perfumes, because the sweetest perfume for the body is none at all: for +this reason I do without wines and baths. Other habits which I once +abandoned have come back to me, but in such a way that I merely +substitute moderation for abstinence, which perhaps is a still more +difficult task; since there are some things which it is easier for the +mind to cut away altogether than to enjoy in moderation. Attalus used to +recommend a hard couch in which the body could not sink; and, even in my +old age, I use one of such a kind that it leaves no impress of the +sleeper. I have told you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager +impulses our little scholars would have to all that is good, if any one +were to exhort them and urge them on. But the harm springs partly from +the fault of preceptors, who teach us how to <i>argue</i>, not how to <i>live</i>; +and partly from the fault of pupils, who bring to their teacher a +purpose of training their intellect and not their souls. Thus it is +that philosophy has been degraded into mere philology."</p> + +<p>In another lively passage, Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of +the various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers. After +observing that philosophy exercises some influence even over those who +do not go deeply in it, just as people sitting in a shop of perfumes +carry away with them some of the odour, he adds, "Do we not, however, +know some who have been among the audience of a philosopher for many +years, and have been even entirely uncoloured by his teaching? Of course +I do, even most persistent and continuous hearers; whom I do not call +pupils, but mere passing auditors of philosophers. Some come to hear, +not to learn, just as we are brought into a theatre for pleasure's sake, +to delight our ears with language, or with the voice, or with plays. You +will observe a large portion of the audience to whom the philosopher's +school is a mere haunt of their leisure. Their object is not to lay +aside any vices there, or to accept any law in accordance with which +they may conform their life, but that they may enjoy a mere tickling of +their ears. Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, to +catch up not <i>things</i> but <i>words</i>. Some with eager countenances and +spirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, and these are charmed by +the beauty of the thoughts, not by the sound of empty words; but the +impression is not lasting. Few only have attained the power of carrying +home with them the frame of mind into which they had been elevated."</p> + +<p>It was to this small latter class that Seneca belonged. He became a +Stoic from very early years. The Stoic philosophers, undoubtedly the +noblest and purest of ancient sects, received their name from the fact +that their founder Zeno had lectured in the Painted Porch or Stoa +Paecile of Athens. The influence of these austere and eloquent masters, +teaching high lessons of morality and continence, and inspiring their +young audience with the glow of their own enthusiasm for virtue, must +have been invaluable in that effete and drunken age. Their doctrines +were pushed to yet more extravagant lengths by the Cynics, who were so +called from a Greek word meaning "dog," from what appeared to the +ancients to be the dog-like brutality of their manners. Juvenal +scornfully remarks, that the Stoics only differed from the Cynics "by a +tunic," which the Stoics wore and the Cynics discarded. Seneca never +indeed adopted the practices of Cynicism, but he often speaks admiringly +of the arch-Cynic Diogenes, and repeatedly refers to the Cynic +Demetrius, as a man deserving of the very highest esteem. "I take with +me everywhere," writes he to Lucilius, "that best of men, Demetrius; +and, leaving those who wear purple robes, I talk with him who is half +naked. Why should I not admire him? I have seen that he has no want. Any +one may despise all things, but no one <i>can</i> possess all things. The +shortest road to riches lies through contempt of riches. But our +Demetrius lives not as though he <i>despised</i> all things, but as though he +simply suffered others to possess them."</p> + +<p>These habits and sentiments throw considerable light on Seneca's +character. They show that even from his earliest days he was capable of +adopting self-denial as a principle, and that to his latest days he +retained many private habits of a simple and honourable character, even +when the exigencies of public life had compelled him to modify others. +Although he abandoned an unusual abstinence out of respect for his +father, we have positive evidence that he resumed in his old age the +spare practices which in his enthusiastic youth he had caught from the +lessons of high-minded teachers. These facts are surely sufficient to +refute at any rate those gross charges against the private character of +Seneca, venomously retailed by a jealous Greekling like Dio Cassius, +which do not rest on a tittle of evidence, and seem to be due to a mere +spirit of envy and calumny. I shall not again allude to these scandals +because I utterly disbelieve them. A man who in his "History" could, as +Dio Cassius has done, put into the mouth of a Roman senator such insane +falsehoods as he has pretended that Fufius Calenus uttered in full +senate against Cicero, was evidently actuated by a spirit which +disentitles his statements to my credence. Seneca was an inconsistent +philosopher both in theory and in practice; he fell beyond all question +into serious errors, which deeply compromise his character; but, so far +from being a dissipated or luxurious man, there is every reason to +believe that in the very midst of wealth and splendour, and all the +temptations which they involve, he retained alike the simplicity of his +habits and the rectitude of his mind. Whatever may have been the almost +fabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar and ivory, they were +rarely spread with any more sumptuous entertainment than water, +vegetables, and fruit. Whatever may have been the amusements common +among his wealthy and noble contemporaries, we know that he found his +highest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of his garden, and took some +of his exercise by running races there with a little slave.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III."></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY.</h3> + +<p>We have gleaned from Seneca's own writings what facts we could +respecting his early education. But in the life of every man there are +influences of a far more real and penetrating character than those which +come through the medium of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age; +the general tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social intercourse, +the political tendencies which were moulding the destiny of the +nation,--these must have told, more insensibly indeed but more +powerfully, on the mind of Seneca than even the lectures of Sotion and +of Attalus. And, if we have had reason to fear that there was much which +was hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the general +aspect of the society by which our young philosopher was surrounded from +the cradle was yet more injurious and deplorable.</p> + +<p>The darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never did a grosser +darkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence brood over the surface of +Pagan society than at the period when the Sun of Righteousness arose +with healing in His wings. There have been many ages when the dense +gloom of a heartless immorality seemed to settle down with unusual +weight; there have been many places where, under the gaslight of an +artificial system, vice has seemed to acquire an unusual audacity; but +never probably was there any age or any place where the worst forms of +wickedness were practiced with a more unblushing effrontery than in the +city of Rome under the government of the Caesars. A deeply-seated +corruption seemed to have fastened upon the very vitals of the national +existence. It is surely a lesson of deep moral significance that just as +they became most polished in their luxury they became most vile in their +manner of life. Horace had already bewailed that "the age of our +fathers, worse than that of our grandsires, has produced us who are yet +baser, and who are doomed to give birth to a still more degraded +offspring." But fifty years later it seemed to Juvenal that in his times +the very final goal of iniquity had been attained, and he exclaims, in a +burst of despair, that "posterity will add <i>nothing</i> to our immorality; +our descendents can but do and desire the same crimes as ourselves." He +who would see but for a moment and afar off to what the Gentile world +had sunk, at the very period when Christianity began to spread, may form +some faint and shuddering conception from the picture of it drawn in the +Epistle to the Romans.</p> + +<p>We ought to realize this fact if we would judge of Seneca aright. Let us +then glance at the condition of the society in the midst of which he +lived. Happily we can but glance at it. The worst cannot be told. Crimes +may be spoken of; but things monstrous and inhuman should for ever be +concealed. We can but stand at the cavern's mouth, and cast a single ray +of light into its dark depths. Were we to enter, our lamp would be +quenched by the foul things which would cluster round it.</p> + +<p>In the age of Augustus began that "long slow agony," that melancholy +process of a society gradually going to pieces under the dissolving +influence of its own vices which lasted almost without interruption till +nothing was left for Rome except the fire and sword of barbaric +invasions. She saw not only her glories but also her virtues "star by +star expire." The old heroism, the old beliefs, the old manliness and +simplicity, were dead and gone; they had been succeeded by prostration +and superstition by luxury and lust.</p> + +<blockquote> +"There is the moral of all human tales,<br> +'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,<br> +First freedom, and then glory; when that fails,<br> +Wealth, vice, corruption,--barbarism at last:<br> +And history, with all her volumes vast,<br> +Hath but one page; 'tis better written here<br> +Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed<br> +All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,<br> +Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The mere elements of society at Rome during this period were very +unpromising. It was a mixture of extremes. There was no middle class. At +the head of it was an emperor, often deified in his lifetime, and +separated from even the noblest of the senators by a distance of +immeasurable superiority. He, was, in the startling language of Gibbon, +at once "a priest, an atheist, and a god." <a name="FNanchor8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8">[8]</a> Surrounding his person and +forming his court were usually those of the nobility who were the most +absolutely degraded by their vices, their flatteries, or their abject +subservience. But even these men were not commonly the repositories of +political power. The people of the greatest influence were the freedmen +of the emperors--men who had been slaves, Egyptians and Bithynians who +had come to Rome with bored ears and with chalk on their naked feet to +show that they were for sale, or who had bawled "sea-urchins all alive" +in the Velabrum or the Saburra--who had acquired enormous wealth by +means often the most unscrupulous and the most degraded, and whose +insolence and baseness had kept pace with their rise to power. Such a +man was the Felix before whom St. Paul was tried, and such was his +brother Pallas,<a name="FNanchor9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9">[9]</a> whose golden statue might have been seen among the +household gods of the senator, afterwards the emperor, Vitellius. +Another of them might often have been observed parading the streets +between two consuls. Imagine an Edward II. endowed with absolute and +unquestioned powers of tyranny,--imagine some pestilent Piers Gaveston, +or Hugh de le Spenser exercising over nobles and people a hideous +despotism of the back stairs,--and you have some faint picture of the +government of Rome under some of the twelve Caesars. What the barber +Olivier le Diable was under Louis XI., what Mesdames du Barri and +Pompadour were under Louis XV., what the infamous Earl of Somerset was +under James I., what George Villiers became under Charles I., will +furnish us with a faint analogy of the far more exaggerated and +detestable position held by the freedman Glabrio under Domitian, by the +actor Tigellinus under Nero, by Pallus and Narcissus under Claudius, by +the obscure knight Sejanus under the iron tyranny of the +gloomy Tiberius.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor8">[8]</a> +<blockquote> +"To the sound<br> +Of fifes and drums they danced, or in the shade<br> +Sung Caesar great and terrible in war,<br> +Immortal Caesar! 'Lo, a god! a god!<br> +He cleaves the yielding skies!' Caesar meanwhile<br> +Gathers the ocean pebbles, or the gnat<br> +Enraged pursues; or at his lonely meal<br> +Starves a wide province; tastes, dislikes, and flings<br> +To dogs and sycophants. 'A god! a god!'<br> +The flowery shades and shrines obscene return."<br> +DYER, <i>Ruins of Rome</i>.<br> +</blockquote> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor9">[9]</a> The pride of this man was such that he never deigned to +speak a word in the presence of his own slaves, but only made known his +wishes by signs!--TACITUS. +</blockquote> + +<p>I. It was an age of the most enormous wealth existing side by side with +the most abject poverty. Around the splendid palaces wandered hundreds +of mendicants, who made of their mendicity a horrible trade, and even +went so far as to steal or mutilate infants in order to move compassion +by their hideous maladies. This class was increased by the exposure of +children, and by that overgrown accumulation of landed property which +drove the poor from their native fields. It was increased also by the +ambitious attempt of people whose means were moderate to imitate the +enormous display of the numerous millionaires. The great Roman conquests +in the East, the plunder of the ancient kingdoms of Antiochus, of +Attalus, of Mithridates, had caused a turbid stream of wealth to flow +into the sober current of Roman life. One reads with silent astonishment +of the sums expended by wealthy Romans on their magnificence or their +pleasures. And as commerce was considered derogatory to rank and +position, and was therefore pursued by men who had no character to lose, +these overgrown fortunes were often acquired by wretches of the meanest +stamp--by slaves brought from over the sea, who had to conceal the holes +bored in their ears;<a name="FNanchor10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10">[10]</a> or even by malefactors who had to obliterate, +by artificial means, the three letters<a name="FNanchor11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11">[11]</a> which had been branded by the +executioner on their foreheads. But many of the richest men in Rome, who +had not sprung from this convict origin, were fully as well deserving of +the same disgraceful stigma. Their houses were built, their coffers were +replenished, from the drained resources of exhausted provincials. Every +young man of active ambition or noble birth, whose resources had been +impoverished by debauchery and extravagance, had but to borrow fresh +sums in order to give magnificent gladiatorial shows, and then, if he +could once obtain an aedileship, and mount to the higher offices of the +State, he would in time become the procurator or proconsul of a +province, which he might pillage almost at his will. Enter the house of +a Felix or a Verres. Those splendid pillars of mottled green marble were +dug by the forced labour of Phrygians from the quarry of Synnada; that +embossed silver, those murrhine vases, those jeweled cups, those +masterpieces of antique sculpture, have all been torn from the homes or +the temples of Sicily or Greece. Countries were pilaged and nations +crushed that an Apicius might dissolve pearls<a name="FNanchor12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12">[12]</a> in the wine he drank, +or that Lollia Paulina might gleam in a second-best dress of emeralds +and pearls which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or more than +32,000<i>l</i>.<a name="FNanchor13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13">[13]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor10">[10]</a> This was a common ancient practice; the very words +"thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots +"thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. +<i>Cic</i>. 26; and Juv. <i>Sat</i>. i. 104.) +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor11">[11]</a> <i>Fur</i>, "thief." (See Martial, ii. 29.) +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor12">[12]</a> "Dissolved pearls, Apicius' diet 'gainst the +epilepsy."--BEN JONSON. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor13">[13]</a> Pliny actually saw her thus arrayed. (Nat. Hist. ix. 35, +36.) +</blockquote> + +<p>Each of these "gorgeous criminals" lived in the midst of an humble +crowd of flatterers, parasites, clients, dependents, and slaves. Among +the throng that at early morning jostled each other in the marble +<i>atrium</i> were to be found a motley and hetrogeneous set of men. Slaves +of every age and nation--Germans, Egyptians, Gauls, Goths, Syrians, +Britons, Moors, pampered and consequential freedmen, impudent +confidential servants, greedy buffoons, who lived by making bad jokes at +other people's tables; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a +trade; philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length of +their beards; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, ready to +flatter and lie with consummate skill, and spreading their vile +character like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a +number of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a +thousand forms of contumely<a name="FNanchor14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14">[14]</a> and insult, and living in discontented +idleness on the <i>sportula</i> or daily largesse which was administered by +the grudging liberality of their haughty patrons. The stout old Roman +burgher had well-nigh disappeared; the sturdy independence, the manly +self-reliance of an industrial population were all but unknown. The +insolent loungers who bawled in the Forum were often mere stepsons of +Italy, who had been dragged thither in chains,--the dregs of all +nations, which had flowed into Rome as into a common sewer,<a name="FNanchor15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15">[15]</a> bringing +with them no heritage except the specialty of their national vices. +Their two wants were bread and the shows of the circus; so long as the +<i>sportula</i> of their patron, the occasional donative of an emperor, and +the ambition of political candidates supplied these wants, they lived in +contented abasement, anxious neither for liberty nor for power.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor14">[14]</a> Few of the many sad pictures in the <i>Satires</i> of Juvenal +are more pitiable than that of the wretched "Quirites" struggling at +their patrons' doors for the pittance which formed their daily dole. +(Sat i. 101.) +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor15">[15]</a> See Juv. <i>Sat</i>. iii. 62. Scipio, on being interrupted by +the mob in the Forum, exclaimed,--"Silence, ye stepsons of Italy! What! +shall I fear these fellows now they are free, whom I myself have brought +in chains to Rome?" (See Cic. <i>De Orat</i>. ii. 61.) +</blockquote> + +<p>II. It was an age at once of atheism and superstition. Strange to say, +the two things usually go together. Just as Philippe Egalité, Duke of +Orleans, disbelieved in God, and yet tried to conjecture his fate from +the inspection of coffee-grounds at the bottom of a cup,--just as Louis +XI. shrank from no perjury and no crime, and yet retained a profound +reverence for a little leaden image which he carried in his cap,--so the +Romans under the Empire sneered at all the whole crowd of gods and +goddesses whom their fathers had worshipped, but gave an implicit +credence to sorcerers, astrologers, spirit-rappers, exorcists, and every +species of imposter and quack. The ceremonies of religion were performed +with ritualistic splendour, but all belief in religion was dead and +gone. "That there are such things as ghosts and subterranean realms not +even boys believe," says Juvenal, "except those who are still too young +to pay a farthing for a bath." <a name="FNanchor16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16">[16]</a> Nothing can exceed the cool +impertinence with which the poet Martial prefers the favour of Domitian +to that of the great Jupiter of the Capitol. Seneca, in his lost book +"Against Superstitions,"<a name="FNanchor17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17">[17]</a> openly sneered at the old mythological +legends of gods married and gods unmarried, and at the gods Panic and +Paleness, and at Cloacina, the goddess of sewers, and at other deities +whose cruelty and license would have been infamous even in mankind. And +yet the priests, and Salii, and Flamens, and Augurs continued to fulfil +their solemn functions, and the highest title of the Emperor himself was +that of <i>Pontifex Maximus</i>, or Chief Priest, which he claimed as the +recognized head of the national religion. "The common worship was +regarded," says Gibbon, "by the people as equally true, by the +philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally +useful." And this famous remark is little more than a translation from +Seneca, who, after exposing the futility of the popular beliefs, adds: +"And yet the wise man will observe them all, not as pleasing to the +gods, but as commanded by the laws. We shall so adore <i>all that ignoble +crowd of gods</i> which long superstition has heaped together in a long +period of years, as to remember that their worship has more to do with +custom than with reality." "Because he was an illustrious senator of the +Roman people," observes St. Augustine, who has preserved for us this +fragment, "he worshipped what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he +adored that with which he found fault." Could anything be more hollow or +heartless than this? Is there anything which is more certain to sap the +very foundations of morality than the public maintenance of a creed +which has long ceased to command the assent, and even the respect of its +recognized defenders? Seneca, indeed, and a few enlightened +philosophers, might have taken refuge from the superstitions which they +abandoned in a truer and purer form of faith. "Accordingly," says +Lactantius, one of the Christian Fathers, "he has said many things like +ourselves concerning God." <a name="FNanchor18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18">[18]</a> He utters what Tertullian finely calls +"the testimony of A MIND NATURALLY CHRISTIAN." But, meanwhile, what +became of the common multitude? They too, like their superiors, learnt +to disbelieve or to question the power of the ancient deities; but, as +the mind absolutely requires <i>some</i> religion on which to rest, they gave +their real devotion to all kinds of strange and foreign deities,--to +Isis and Osiris, and the dog Anubus, to Chaldaean magicians, to Jewish +exercisers, to Greek quacks, and to the wretched vagabond priests of +Cybele, who infested all the streets with their Oriental dances and +tinkling tambourines. The visitor to the ruins of Pompeii may still see +in her temple the statue of Isis, through whose open lips the gaping +worshippers heard the murmured answers they came to seek. No doubt they +believed as firmly that the image spoke, as our forefathers believed +that their miraculous Madonnas nodded and winked. But time has exposed +the cheat. By the ruined shrine the worshipper may now see the secret +steps by which the priest got to the back of the statue, and the pipe +entering the back of its head through which he whispered the answers of +the oracle.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor16">[16]</a> JUV. <i>Sat</i>. ii. 149. Cf. Sen. <i>Ep</i>. xxiv. "Nemo tam puer +est at Cerberum timeat, et tenebras," &c. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor17">[17]</a> Fragm. xxxiv. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor18">[18]</a> Lactantius, <i>Divin. Inst</i>. i. 4. +</blockquote> + +<p>III. It was an age of boundless luxury,--an age in which women +recklessly vied with one another in the race of splendour and +extravagance, and in which men plunged headlong, without a single +scruple of conscience, and with every possible resource at their +command, into the pursuit of pleasure. There was no form of luxury, +there was no refinement of vice invented by any foreign nation, which +had not been eagerly adopted by the Roman patricians. "The softness of +Sybaris, the manners of Rhodes and Antioch, and of perfumed, drunken, +flower-crowned Miletus," were all to be found at Rome. There was no +more of the ancient Roman severity and dignity and self-respect. The +descendants of Aemilius and Gracchus--even generals and consuls and +praetors--mixed familiarly with the lowest <i>canaille</i> of Rome in their +vilest and most squalid purlieus of shameless vice. They fought as +amateur gladiators in the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on +the race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors on the +stage. They devoted themselves with such frantic eagerness to the +excitement of gambling, that we read of their staking hundreds of pounds +on a single throw of the dice, when they could not even restore the +pawned tunics to their shivering slaves. Under the cold marble statues, +or amid the waxen likenesses of their famous stately ancestors, they +turned night into day with long and foolish orgies, and exhausted land +and sea with the demands of their gluttony. "Woe to that city," says an +ancient proverb, "in which a fish costs more than an ox;" and this +exactly describes the state of Rome. A banquet would sometimes cost the +price of an estate; shell-fish were brought from remote and unknown +shores, birds from Parthia and the banks of the Phasis; single dishes +were made of the brains of the peacocks and the tongues of nightingales +and flamingoes. Apicius, after squandering nearly a million of money in +the pleasures of the table, committed suicide, Seneca tells us, because +he found that he had only 80,000<i>l</i>. left. Cowley speaks of--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Vitellius' table, which did hold<br> + As many creatures as the ark of old."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"They eat," said Seneca, "and then they vomit; they vomit, and then +they eat." But even in this matter we cannot tell anything like the +worst facts about--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts<br> + On citron tables and Atlantic stone,<br> + Their wines of Setia, Gales, and Falerne,<br> + Chios, and Crete, and how they quaff in gold,<br> + Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems<br> + And studs of pearl." <a name="FNanchor19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19">[19]</a><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Still less can we pretend to describe the unblushing and unutterable +degradation of this period as it is revealed to us by the poets and the +satirists. "All things," says Seneca, "are full of iniquity and vice; +more crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint. We struggle +in a huge contest of criminality: daily the passion for sin is greater, +the shame in committing it is less.... Wickedness is no longer committed +in secret: it flaunts before our eyes, and</p> + +<blockquote> +"The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems,<br> + ... whatever is known<br> + Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs,<br> + Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food,<br> + And flavoured Chian wines, with incense fumed,<br> + To slake patrician thirst: for these their rights<br> + In the vile atreets they prostitute for sale,<br> + Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws,<br> + Their native glorious freedom.<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>has been sent forth so openly into public sight, and has prevailed so +completely in the breast of all, that innocence is not <i>rare</i>, but +<i>non-existent</i>."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor19">[19]</a> Compare the lines in Dyer's little-remembered <i>Ruins of +Rome</i>. +</blockquote> + +<p>IV. And it was an age of deep sadness. That it should have been so is an +instructive and solemn lesson. In proportion to the luxury of the age +were its misery and its exhaustion. The mad pursuit of pleasure was the +death and degradation of all true happiness. Suicide--suicide out of +pure <i>ennui</i> and discontent at a life overflowing with every possible +means of indulgence--was extraordinarily prevalent. The Stoic +philosophy, especially as we see it represented in the tragedies +attributed to Seneca, rang with the glorification of it. Men ran to +death because their mode of life had left them no other refuge. They +died because it seemed so tedious and so superfluous to be seeing and +doing and saying the same things over and over again; and because they +had exhausted the very possibility of the only pleasures of which they +had left themselves capable. The satirical epigram of Destouches,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Ci-gît Jean Rosbif, écuyer,<br> + Qui se pendit pour se désennuyer,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>was literally and strictly true of many Romans during this epoch. +Marcellinus, a young and wealthy noble, starved himself, and then had +himself suffocated in a warm bath, merely because he was attacked with a +perfectly curable illness. The philosophy which alone professed itself +able to heal men's sorrows applauded the supposed courage of a voluntary +death, and it was of too abstract, too fantastic, and too purely +theoretical a character to furnish them with any real or lasting +consolations. No sentiment caused more surprise to the Roman world than +the famous one preserved in the fragment of Maecenas,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Debilem facito manu,<br> + Debilem pede, coxâ,<br> + Tuber adstrue gibberum,<br> + Lubricos quate dentes;<br> + Vita dum superest bene est;<br> + Hanc mihi vel acutâ<br> + Si sedeam cruce sustine;"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>which may be paraphrased,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Numb my hands with palsy,<br> + Rack my feet with gout,<br> + Hunch my back and shoulder,<br> + Let my teeth fall out;<br> + Still, if <i>Life</i> be granted,<br> + I prefer the loss;<br> + Save my life, and give me<br> + Anguish on the cross."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Seneca, in his 101st Letter, calls this "a most disgraceful and most +contemptible wish;" but it may be paralleled out of Euripides, and still +more closely out of Homer. "Talk not," says the shade of Achilles to +Ulysses in the Odyssey,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"'Talk not of reigning in this dolorous gloom,<br> + Nor think vain lies,' he cried, 'can ease my doom.<br> + <i>Better by far laboriously to bear<br> + A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air,<br> + Slave to the meanest hind that begs his bread,<br> + Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead</i>.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>But this falsehood of extremes was one of the sad outcomes of the +popular Paganism. Either, like the natural savage, they dreaded death +with an intensity of terror; or, when their crimes and sorrows had made +life unsupportable, they slank to it as a refuge, with a cowardice which +vaunted itself as courage.</p> + +<p>V. And it was an age of cruelty. The shows of gladiators, the sanguinary +combats of wild beasts, the not unfrequent spectacle of savage tortures +and capital punishments, the occasional sight of innocent martyrs +burning to death in their shirts of pitchy fire, must have hardened and +imbruted the public sensibility. The immense prevalence of slavery +tended still more inevitably to the general corruption. "Lust," as +usual, was "hard by hate." One hears with perfect amazement of the +number of slaves in the wealthy houses. A thousand slaves was no +extravagant number, and the vast majority of them were idle, uneducated +and corrupt. Treated as little better than animals, they lost much of +the dignity of men. Their masters possessed over them the power of life +and death, and it is shocking to read of the cruelty with which they +were often treated. An accidental murmur, a cough, a sneeze, was +punished with rods. Mute, motionless, fasting, the slaves had to stand +by while their masters supped; A brutal and stupid barbarity often +turned a house into the shambles of an executioner, sounding with +scourges, chains, and yells.<a name="FNanchor20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20">[20]</a> One evening the Emperor Augustus was +supping at the house of Vedius Pollio, when one of the slaves, who was +carrying a crystal goblet, slipped down, and broke it. Transported with +rage Vedius at once ordered the slave to be seized, and plunged into the +fish-pond as food to the lampreys. The boy escaped from the hands of his +fellow-slaves, and fled to Caesar's feet to implore, not that his life +should be spared--a pardon which he neither expected nor hoped--but that +he might die by a mode of death less horrible than being devoured by +fishes. Common as it was to torment slaves, and to put them to death, +Augustus, to his honor be it spoken, was horrified by the cruelty of +Vedius, and commanded both that the slave should be set free, that every +crystal vase in the house of Vedius should be broken in his presence and +that the fish pond should be filled up. Even women inflicted upon their +female slaves punishments of the most cruel atrocity for faults of the +most venial character. A brooch wrongly placed, a tress of hair +ill-arranged, and the enraged matron orders her slave to be lashed and +crucified. If her milder husband interferes, she not only justifies the +cruelty, but asks in amazement: "What! is a slave so much of a human +being?" No wonder that there was a proverb, "As many slaves, so many +foes." No wonder that many masters lived in perpetual fear, and that +"the tyrant's devilish plea, necessity," might be urged in favor of that +odious law which enacted that, if a master was murdered by an unknown +hand, the whole body of his slaves should suffer death,--a law which +more than once was carried into effect under the reigns of the Emperors. +Slavery, as we see in the case of Sparta and many other nations, always +involves its own retribution. The class of free peasant proprietors +gradually disappears. Long before this time Tib. Gracchus, in coming +home from Sardinia, had observed that there was scarcely a single +freeman to be seen in the fields. The slaves were infinitely more +numerous than their owners. Hence arose the constant dread of servile +insurrections; the constant hatred of a slave population to which any +conspirator revolutionist might successfully appeal; and the constant +insecurity of life, which must have struck terror into many hearts.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor20">[20]</a> Juv. <i>Sat</i>. i. 219--222. +</blockquote> + +<p>Such is but a faint and broad outline of some of the features of +Seneca's age; and we shall be unjust if we do not admit that much at +least of the life he lived, and nearly all the sentiments he uttered, +gain much in grandeur and purity from the contrast they offer to the +common life of--</p> + +<blockquote> +"That people victor once, now vile and base,<br> + Deservedly made vassal, who, once just,<br> + Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well,<br> + But govern ill the nations under yoke,<br> + Peeling their provinces, exhausted all<br> + By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown<br> + Of triumph, that insulting vanity;<br> + Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured<br> + Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed,<br> + Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still,<br> + And from the daily scene effeminate.<br> + What wise and valient men would seek to free<br> + These thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved;<br> + Or could of inward slaves make outward free?"<br> + MILTON, <i>Paradise Regained</i>, iv. 132-145.<br> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS.</h3> + +<p>The personal notices of Seneca's life up to the period of his manhood +are slight and fragmentary. From an incidental expression we conjecture +that he visited his aunt in Egypt when her husband was Prefect of that +country, and that he shared with her the dangers of shipwreck when her +husband had died on board ship during the homeward voyage. Possibly the +visit may have excited in his mind that deep interest and curiosity +about the phenomena of the Nile which appear so strongly in several +passages of his <i>Natural Questions</i>; and, indeed nothing is more likely +than that he suggested to Nero the earliest recorded expedition to +discover the source of the mysterious river. No other allusion to his +travels occur in his writings, but we may infer that from very early +days he had felt an interest for physical inquiry, since while still a +youth he had written a book on earthquakes; which has not come down +to us.</p> + +<p>Deterred by his father from the pursuit of philosophy, he entered on the +duties of a profession. He became an advocate, and distinguished himself +by his genius and eloquence in pleading causes. Entering on a political +career, he became a successful candidate for the quaestorship, which +was an important step towards the highest offices of the state. During +this period of his life he married a lady whose name has not been +preserved to us, and to whom we have only one allusion, which is a +curious one. As in our own history it has been sometimes the fashion for +ladies of rank to have dwarves and negroes among their attendants, so it +seems to have been the senseless and revolting custom of the Roman +ladies of this time to keep idiots among the number of their servants. +The first wife of Seneca had followed this fashion, and Seneca in his +fiftieth letter to his friend Lucilius<a name="FNanchor21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21">[21]</a> makes the following +interesting allusion to the fact. "You know," he says, "that my wife's +idiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For +personally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind. +If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for +one. I laugh at myself. This idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now, +incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious +of her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere, +because the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we +laugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is +avaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide; <i>we</i> wander about +without a guide."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor21">[21]</a> It will be observed that the main biographical facts about +the life of Seneca are to be gleaned from his letters to Lucilius, who +was his constant friend from youth to old age, and to whom he has +dedicated his Natural Questions. Lucilius was a procurator of Sicily, a +man of cultivated taste and high principle. He was the author of a poem +on Aetna, which in the opinion of many competent judges is the poem +which has come down to us, and has been attributed to Varus, Virgil, and +others. It has been admirably edited by Mr. Munro. (See <i>Nat. Quaest.</i>, +iv. <i>ad init. Ep</i>. lxxix.) He also wrote a poem on the fountain +Arethusa. <i>(Nat. Quaest</i>. iii, 26.) +</blockquote> + +<p>This passage will furnish us with an excellent example of Seneca's +invariable method of improving every occasion and circumstance into an +opportunity for a philosophic harangue.</p> + +<p>By this wife, who died shortly before Seneca's banishment to Corsica, he +had two sons, one of whom expired in the arms and amid the kisses of +Helvia less than a month before Seneca's departure for Corsica. To the +other, whose name was Marcus, he makes the following pleasant allusion. +After urging his mother Helvia to find consolation in the devotion of +his brothers Gallio and Mela, he adds, "From these turn your eyes also +on your grandsons--to Marcus, that most charming little boy, in sight of +whom no melancholy can last long. No misfortune in the breast of any one +can have been so great or so recent as not to be soothed by his +caresses. Whose tears would not his mirth repress? whose mind would not +his prattling loose from the pressure of anxiety? whom will not that +joyous manner of his incline to jesting? whose attention, even though he +be fixed in thought, will not be attracted and absorbed by that +childlike garrulity of which no one can grow tired? God grant that he +may survive me: may all the cruelty of destiny be weared out on me!"</p> + +<p>Whether the prayer of Seneca was granted we do not know; but, as we do +not again hear of Marcus, it is probable that he died before his father, +and that the line of Seneca, like that of so many great men, became +extinct in the second generation.</p> + +<p>It was probably during this period that Seneca laid the foundations of +that enormous fortune which excited the hatred and ridicule of his +opponents. There is every reason to believe that this fortune was +honourably gained. As both his father and mother were wealthy, he had +doubtless inherited an ample competency; this was increased by the +lucrative profession of a successful advocate, and was finally swollen +by the princely donations of his pupil Nero. It is not improbable that +Seneca, like Cicero, and like all the wealthy men of their day, +increased his property by lending money upon interest. No disgrace +attached to such a course; and as there is no proof for the charges of +Dio Cassius on this head, we may pass them over with silent contempt. +Dio gravely informs us that Seneca excited an insurrection in Britain, +by suddenly calling in the enormous sum of 40,000,000 sesterces; but +this is in all probability the calumny of a professed enemy. We shall +refer again to Seneca's wealth; but we may here admit that it was +undoubtedly ungraceful and incongruous in a philosopher who was +perpetually dwelling on the praises of poverty, and that even in his own +age it attracted unfavourable notice, as we may see from the epithet +<i>Proedives</i>, "the over-wealthy," which is applied to him alike by a +satiric poet and by a grave historian. Seneca was perfectly well aware +that this objection could be urged against him, and it must be admitted +that the grounds on which he defends himself in his treatise <i>On a Happy +Life</i> are not very conclusive or satisfactory.</p> + +<p>The boyhood of Seneca fell in the last years of the Emperor Augustus, +when, in spite of the general decorum and amiability of their ruler, +people began to see clearly that nothing was left of liberty except the +name. His youth and early manhood were spent during those +three-and-twenty years of the reign of Tiberius, that reign of terror, +during which the Roman world was reduced to a frightful silence and +torpor as of death;<a name="FNanchor22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22">[22]</a> and, although he was not thrown into personal +collision with that "brutal monster," he not unfrequently alludes to +him, and to the dangerous power and headlong ruin of his wicked minister +Sejanus. Up to this time he had not experienced in his own person those +crimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who are brought into +close contact with tyrants. This first happened to him in the reign of +Caius Caesar, of whom we are enabled, from the writings of Seneca alone, +to draw a full-length portrait.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor22">[22]</a> Milton, <i>Paradise Regained</i>, iv. 128. For a picture of +Tiberius as he appeared in his old age at Capreae, "hated of all and +hating," see Id. 90-97. +</blockquote> + +<p>Caius Caesar was the son of Germanicus and the elder Agrippina. +Germanicus was the bravest and most successful general, and one of the +wisest and most virtuous men, of his day. His wife Agrippina, in her +fidelity, her chastity, her charity, her nobility of mind, was the very +model of a Roman matron of the highest and purest stamp. Strange that +the son of such parents should have been one of the vilest, cruelest, +and foulest of the human race. So, however, it was; and it is a +remarkable fact that scarcely one of the six children of this marriage +displayed the virtues of their father and mother, while two of them, +Caius Caesar and the younger Agrippina, lived to earn an exceptional +infamy by their baseness and their crimes. Possibly this unhappy result +may have been partly due to the sad circumstances of their early +education. Their father, Germanicus, who by his virtue and his successes +had excited the suspicious jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, was by his +distinct connivance, if not by his actual suggestion, atrociously +poisoned in Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless cruel +insults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the island of +Pandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and Drusus Germanicus, were +proclaimed public enemies: Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and +there put to death; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison +of the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known by the name +Caligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his wicked retirement at Capreae, +and there only saved his life by the most abject flattery and the most +adroit submission.</p> + +<p>Capreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming one +extremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea bright and +limpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated by its position, it is +yet within easy reach of Rome. At that time, before Vesuvius had +rekindled those wasteful fires which first shook down, and then deluged +under lava and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, +the scene which it commanded was even more pre-eminently beautiful than +now. Vineyards and olive-groves clothed the sides of that matchless bay, +down to the very line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with +their ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, with its +sides dotted with picturesque villas and happy villages, towered the +giant cone of the volcano which for centuries had appeared to be +extinct, and which was clothed up to the very crater with luxurious +vegetation. Such was the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for +ever by the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself to every +refinement of wickedness, and from hence, being by common consent the +most miserable of men, he wrote to the Senate that memorable letter in +which he confesses his daily and unutterable misery under the stings of +a guilty conscience, which neither solitude nor power enabled him +to escape.</p> + +<p>Never did a fairer scene undergo a worse degradation; and here, in one +or other of the twelve villas which Tiberius had built, and among the +azure grottoes which he caused to be constructed, the youthful Caius<a name="FNanchor23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23">[23]</a> +grew up to manhood. It would have been a terrible school even for a +noble nature; for a nature corrupt and bloodthirsty like that of Caius +it was complete and total ruin. But, though he was so obsequious to the +Emperor as to originate the jest that never had there been a worse +master and never a more cringing slave,--though he suppressed every sign +of indignation at the horrid deaths of his mother and his +brothers,--though he assiduously reflected the looks, and carefully +echoed the very words, of his patron,--yet not even by the deep +dissimulation which such a position required did he succeed in +concealing from the penetrating eye of Tiberius the true ferocity of his +character. Not being the acknowledged heir to the kingdom,--for Tiberius +Gemellus, the youthful grandson of Tiberius, was living, and Caius was +by birth only his grand-nephew,--he became a tool for the machinations +of Marco the praetorian praefect and his wife Ennia. One of his chief +friends was the cruel Herod Agrippa,<a name="FNanchor24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24">[24]</a> who put to death St. James and +imprisoned St. Peter, and whose tragical fate is recorded in the 12th +chap. of the Acts. On one occasion, when Caius had been abusing the +dictator Sulla, Tiberius scornfully remarked that he would have all +Sulla's vices and none of his virtues; and on another, after a quarrel +between Caius and his cousin, the Emperor embraced with tears his young +grandson, and said to the frowning Caius, with one of those strange +flashes of prevision of which we sometimes read in history. "Why are you +so eager? Some day you will kill this boy, and some one else will murder +you." There were some who believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished +the intention of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman +world might relent towards his own memory under the tyranny of a worse +monster than himself. Even the Romans, who looked up to the family of +Germanicus with extraordinary affection, seem early to have lost all +hopes about Caius. They looked for little improvement under the +government of a vicious boy, "ignorant of all things, or nurtured only +in the worst," who would be likely to reflect the influence of Macro, +and present the spectacle of a worse Tiberius under a worse Sejanus.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor23">[23]</a> We shall call him Caius, because it is as little correct +to write of him by the <i>sobriquet</i> Caligula as it would be habitually to +write of our kings Edward or John as Longshanks or Lackland. The name +Caligula means "a little shoe," and was the pet name given to him by the +soldiers of his father, in whose camp he was born. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor24">[24]</a> Josephus adds some curious and interesting particulars to +the story of this Herod and his death which are not mentioned in the +narrative of St. Luke (<i>Antiq</i>. xix. 7, 8. Jahn, <i>Hebr. Commonwealth</i>, +§ cxxvi.) +</blockquote> + +<p>At last health and strength failed Tiberius, but not his habitual +dissimulation. He retained the same unbending soul, and by his fixed +countenance and measured language, sometimes by an artificial +affability, he tried to conceal his approaching end. After many restless +changes, he finally settled down in a villa at Misenum which had once +belonged to the luxurious Lucullus. There the real state of his health +was discovered. Charicles, a distinguished physician, who had been +paying him a friendly visit on kissing his hand to bid farewell, managed +to ascertain the state of his pulse. Suspecting that this was the case +Tiberius, concealing his displeasure, ordered a banquet to be spread, +as though in honour of his friend's departure, and stayed longer than +usual at table. A similar story is told of Louis XIV. who, noticing from +the whispers of his courtiers that they believed him to be dying, ate an +unusually large dinner on the very day of his death, and sarcastically +observed, "Il me semble que pour un homme qui va mourir je ne mange pas +mal." But, in spite of the precautions of Tiberius, Charicles informed +Macro that the Emperor could not last beyond two days.</p> + +<p>A scene of secret intrigue at once began. The court broke up into knots +and cliques. Hasty messengers were sent to the provinces and their +armies, until at last, on the 16th of March, it was believed that +Tiberius had breathed his last. Just as on the death of Louis XV. a +sudden noise was heard as of thunder, the sound of courtiers rushing +along the corridors to congratulate Louis XVI. in the famous words, "Le +roi est mort, vive le roi," so a crowd instantly thronged round Caius +with their congratulations, as he went out of the palace to assume his +imperial authority. Suddenly a message reached him that Tiberius had +recovered voice and sight. Seneca says, that feeling his last hour to be +near, he had taken off his ring, and, holding it in his shut left hand, +had long lain motionless; then calling his servants, since no one +answered his call, he rose from his couch, and, his strength failing +him, after a few tottering steps fell prostrate on the ground.</p> + +<p>The news produced the same consternation as that which was produced +among the conspirators at Adonijah's banquet, when they heard of the +measures taken by the dying David. There was a panic-stricken +dispersion, and every one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what +was going on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of +empire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind. With the utmost +intrepidity, he gave orders that the old man should be suffocated by +heaping over him a mass of clothes, and that every one should then leave +the chamber. Such was the miserable and unpitied end of the Emperor +Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Such was the death, and +so miserable had been the life, of the man to whom the Tempter had +already given "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," when he +tried to tempt with them the Son of God. That this man should have been +the chief Emperor of the earth at a time when its true King was living +as a peasant in his village home at Nazareth, is a fact suggestive of +many and of solemn thoughts.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V."></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>THE REIGN OF CAIUS.</h3> + +<p>The poet Gray, in describing the deserted deathbed of our own great +Edward III., says:--</p> + +<blockquote><center> +"Low on his funeral couch he lies!<br> + No pitying heart, no eye afford<br> + A tear to grace his obsequies!<br> +</center></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<blockquote><center> + "The swarm that in the noontide beam were born?<br> + Gone to salute the rising Morn.<br> + Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows,<br> + While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,<br> + In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;<br> + Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm;<br> + Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway,<br> + That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey."<br> +</center></blockquote> + +<p>The last lines of this passage would alone have been applicable to Caius +Caesar. There was nothing fair or gay even about the beginning of his +reign. From first to last it was a reign of fury and madness, and lust +and blood. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in this family, +which was developed by their being placed on the dizzy pinnacle of +imperial despotism, and which usually took the form of monstrous and +abnormal crime. If we would seek a parallel for Caius Caesar, we must +look for it in the history of Christian VII. of Denmark, and Paul of +Russia. In all three we find the same ghastly pallor, the same +sleeplessness which compelled them to rise, and pace their rooms at +night, the same incessant suspicion; the same inordinate thirst for +cruelty and torture. He took a very early opportunity to disembarrass +himself of his benefactors, Macro and Ennia, and of his rival, the young +Tiberius. The rest of his reign was a series of brutal extravagances. We +have lost the portion of those matchless Annals of Tacitus which +contained the reign of Caius, but more than enough to revolt and horrify +is preserved in the scattered notices of Seneca, and in the narratives +of Suetonius in Latin and Dio Cassius in Greek.</p> + +<p>His madness showed itself sometimes in gluttonous extravagance, as when +he ordered a supper which cost more than 8,000<i>l</i>; sometimes in a +<i>bizarre</i> and disgraceful mode of dress, as when he appeared in public +in women's stockings, embroidered with gold and pearls; sometimes in a +personality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank and class in +Rome, which made him ask a senator to supper, and ply him with drunken +toasts, on the very evening on which he had condemned his son to death; +sometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed his furious +indignation against Jupiter for presuming to thunder while he was +supping, or looking at the pantomimes; but most of all in a ferocity +which makes Seneca apply to him the name of "Bellua," or "wild monster," +and say that he seems to have been produced "for the disgrace and +destruction of the human race."</p> + +<p>We will quote from the pages of Seneca but one single passage to justify +his remark "that he was most greedy for human blood, which he ordered +to stream in his very presence with such eagerness as though he were +going to drink it up with his lips." He says that in one day he scourged +and tortured men of consular and quaestorial parentage, knights and +senators, not by way of examination, but out of pure caprice and rage; +he seriously meditated the butchery of the entire senate; he expressed a +wish that the Roman people had but a single neck, that he might strike +it off at one blow; he silenced the screams or reproaches of his victims +sometimes by thrusting a sponge in their mouths, sometimes by having +their mouths gagged with their own torn robes, sometimes by ordering +their tongues to be cut out before they were thrown to the wild beasts. +On one occasion, rising from a banquet, he called for his slippers, +which were kept by the slaves while the guests reclined on the purple +couches, and so impatient was he for the sight of death, that, walking +up and down his covered portico by lamplight with ladies and senators, +he then and there ordered some of his wretched victims to be beheaded in +his sight.</p> + +<p>It is a singular proof of the unutterable dread and detestation inspired +by some of these Caesars, that their mere countenance is said to have +inspired anguish. Tacitus, in the life of his father-in-law Agricola, +mentions the shuddering recollection of the red face of Domitian, as it +looked on at the games. Seneca speaks in one place of wretches doomed to +undergo stones, sword, fire, and <i>Caius</i>; in another he says that he had +tortured the noblest Romans with everything which could possibly cause +the intensest agony,--with cords, plates, rack, fire, and, as though it +were the worst torture of all, with his look! What that look was, we +learn from Seneca himself, "His face was ghastly pale, with a look of +insanity; his fierce, dull eyes were half-hidden under a wrinkled brow; +his ill-shaped head was partly bald, partly covered with dyed-hair; his +neck covered with bristles, his legs thin, and his feet mis-shapen." Woe +to the nation that lies under the heel of a brutal despotism; treble woe +to the nation that can tolerate a despot so brutal as this! Yet this was +the nation in the midst of which Seneca lived, and this was the despot +under whom his early manhood was spent.</p> + +<blockquote> +"But what more oft in nations grown corrupt,<br> + And by their vices brought to servitude,<br> + Than to love bondage more than liberty,<br> + Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was one of the peculiarities of Caius Caesar that he hated the very +existence of any excellence. He used to bully and insult the gods +themselves, frowning even at the statues of Apollo and Jupiter of the +Capitol. He thought of abolishing Homer, and order the works of Livy and +Virgil to be removed from all libraries, because he could not bear that +they should be praised. He ordered Julius Graecinus to be put to death +for no other reason than this, "That he was a better man than it was +expedient for a tyrant that any one should be;" for, as Pliny tells us, +the Caesars deliberately preferred that their people should be vicious +than that they should be virtuous. It was hardly likely that such a man +should view with equanimity the rising splendour of Seneca's reputation. +Hitherto, the young man, who was thirty-five years old at the accession +of Caius, had not written any of his philosophic works, but in all +probability he had published his early, and no longer extant, treatises +on earthquakes, on superstitions, and the books <i>On India</i>, and <i>On the +Manners of Egypt</i>, which had been the fruit of his early travels. It is +probable, too, that he had recited in public some of those tragedies +which have come down to us under his name, and in the composition of +which he was certainly concerned. All these works, and especially the +applause won by the public reading of his poems, would have given him +that high literary reputation which we know him to have earned. It was +not, however, this reputation, but the brilliancy and eloquence of his +orations at the bar which excited the jealous hatred of the Emperor. +Caius piqued himself on the possession of eloquence; and, strange to +say, there are isolated expressions of his which seem to show that, in +lucid intervals, he was by no means devoid of intellectual acuteness. +For instance, there is real humour and insight in the nicknames of "a +golden sheep" which he gave to the rich and placid Silanus, and of +"Ulysses in petticoats," by which he designated his grandmother, the +august Livia. The two epigrammetic criticisms which he passed upon the +style of Seneca are not wholly devoid of truth; he called his works +<i>Commissiones meras</i>, or mere displays.<a name="FNanchor25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25">[25]</a> In this expression he hit +off, happily enough, the somewhat theatrical, the slightly pedantic and +pedagogic and professorial character of Seneca's diction, its rhetorical +ornament and antitheses, and its deficiency in stern masculine +simplicity and strength. In another remark he showed himself a still +more felicitous critic. He called Seneca's writings <i>Arenu sine Calce</i>, +"sand without lime," or, as we might say, "a rope of sand." This epigram +showed a real critical faculty. It exactly hits off Seneca's short and +disjointed sentences, consisting as they often do of detached +antitheses. It accords with the amusing comparison of Malebranche, that +Seneca's composition, with its perpetual and futile recurrences, calls +up to him the image of a dancer who ends where he begins.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor25">[25]</a> Suet. <i>Calig.</i> liii. +</blockquote> + +<p>But Caius did not confine himself to clever and malignant criticism. On +one occasion, when Seneca was pleading in his presence, he was so +jealous and displeased at the brilliancy and power of the orator that he +marked him out for immediate execution. Had Seneca died at this period +he would probably have been little known, and he might have left few +traces of his existence beyond a few tragedies of uncertain +authenticity, and possibly a passing notice in the page of Dio or +Tacitus. But destiny reserved him for a more splendid and more +questionable career. One of Caius's favourites whispered to the Emperor +that it was useless to extinguish a waning lamp; that the health of the +orator was so feeble that a natural death by the progress of his +consumptive tendencies would, in a very short time, remove him out of +the tyrant's way.</p> + +<p>Throughout the remainder of the few years during which the reign of +Caius continued, Seneca, warned in time, withdrew himself into complete +obscurity, employing his enforced leisure in that unbroken industry +which stored his mind with such encyclopaedic wealth. "None of my days," +he says, in describing at a later period the way in which he spent his +time, "is passed in complete ease. I claim even a part of the night for +my studies. I do not <i>find leisure</i> for sleep, but I <i>succumb</i> to it, +and I keep my eyes at their work even when they are wearied and drooping +with watchfulness. I have retired, not only from men, but from affairs, +and especially from my own. I am doing the work for posterity; I am +writing out things which may prove of advantage to them. I am +intrusting to writing healthful admonitions--compositions, as it were, +of useful medicines."</p> + +<p>But the days of Caius drew rapidly to an end. His gross and unheard-of +insults to Valerius Asiaticus and Cassius Chaereas brought on him +condign vengeance. It is an additional proof, if proof were wanting, of +the degradation of Imperial Rome, that the deed of retribution was due, +not to the people whom he taxed; not to the soldiers, whole regiments of +whom he had threatened to decimate; not to the knights, of whom scores +had been put to death by his orders; not to the nobles, multitudes of +whom had been treated by him with conspicuous infamy; not even to the +Senate, which illustrious body he had on all occasions deliberately +treated with contumely and hatred,--but to the private revenge of an +insulted soldier. The weak thin voice of Cassius Chaereas, tribune of +the praetorian cohort, had marked him out for the coarse and calumnious +banter of the imperial buffoon; and he determined to avenge himself, and +at the same time rid the world of a monster. He engaged several +accomplices in the conspiracy, which was nearly frustrated by their want +of resolution. For four whole days they hesitated, while day after day, +Caius presided in person at the bloody games of the amphitheatre. On the +fifth day (Jan. 24, A.D. 41), feeling unwell after one of his gluttonous +suppers, he was indisposed to return to the shows, but at last rose to +do so at the solicitation of his attendants. A vaulted corridor led from +the palace to the circus, and in that corridor Caius met a body of noble +Asiatic boys, who were to dance a Pyrrhic dance and sing a laudatory ode +upon the stage. Caius wished them at once to practice a rehearsal in his +presence, but their leader excused himself on the grounds of +hoarseness. At this moment Chaereas asked him for the watchword of the +night. He gave the watchword, "Jupiter." "Receive him in his wrath!" +exclaimed Chaereas, striking him on the throat, while almost at the same +moment the blow of Sabinus cleft the tyrant's jaw, and brought him to +his knee. He crouched his limbs together to screen himself from further +blows, screaming aloud, "I live! I live!" The bearers of his litter +rushed to his assistance, and fought with their poles, but Caius fell +pierced with thirty wounds; and, leaving the body weltering in its +blood, the conspirators rushed out of the palace, and took measures to +concert with the Senate a restoration of the old Republic. On the very +night after the murder the consuls gave to Chaereas the long-forgotten +watchword of "Liberty." But this little gleam of hope proved delusive to +the last degree. It was believed that the unquiet ghost of the murdered +madman haunted the palace, and long before it had been laid to rest by +the forms of decent sepulchre, a new emperor of the great Julian family +was securely seated upon the throne.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI."></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA.</h3> + +<p>While the senators were deliberating, the soldiers were acting. They +felt a true, though degraded, instinct that to restore the ancient forms +of democratic freedom would be alike impossible and useless, and with +them the only question lay between the rival claimants for the vacant +power. Strange to say that, among these claimants, no one seems ever to +have thought of mentioning the prince who became the actual successor.</p> + +<p>There was living in the palace at this time a brother of the great +Germanicus, and consequently an uncle of the late emperor, whose name +was Claudius Caesar. Weakened both in mind and body by the continuous +maladies of an orphaned infancy, kept under the cruel tyranny of a +barbarous slave, the unhappy youth had lived in despised obscurity among +the members of a family who were utterly ashamed of him. His mother +Antonia called him a monstrosity, which Nature had begun but never +finished; and it became a proverbial expression with her, as is said to +have been the case with the mother of the great Wellington, to say of a +dull person, "that he was a greater fool than her son Claudius." His +grandmother Livia rarely deigned to address him except in the briefest +and bitterest terms. His sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of +his ever becoming emperor. Augustus, his grandfather by adoption, took +pains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a +wool-gathering<a name="FNanchor26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26">[26]</a> and discreditable member of the family, denied him +all public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when +looking out for a successor, deliberately passed him over as a man of +deficient intellect. Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and +blows, and for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the unhappy +Claudius came late for dinner, he would find every place occupied, and +peer about disconsolately amid insulting smiles. If, as was his usual +custom, he dropped asleep, after a meal, he was pelted with olives and +date-stones, or rough stockings were drawn over his hands that he might +be seen rubbing his face with them when he was suddenly awaked.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor26">[26]</a> He calls him [Greek meteoros] which implies awkwardness +and constant absence of mind. +</blockquote> + +<p>This was the unhappy being who was now summoned to support the falling +weight of empire. While rummaging the palace for plunder, a common +soldier had spied a pair of feet protruding from under the curtains +which shaded the sides of an upper corridor. Seizing these feet, and +inquiring who owned them, he dragged out an uncouth, panic-stricken +mortal, who immediately prostrated himself at his knees and begged hard +for mercy. It was Claudius, who scared out of his wits by the tragedy +which he had just beheld, had thus tried to conceal himself until the +storm was passed. "Why, this is Germanicus!" <a name="FNanchor27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27">[27]</a> exclaimed the soldier, +"let's make him emperor." Half joking and half in earnest, they hoisted +him on their shoulders--for terror had deprived him of the use of his +legs--and hurried him off to the camp of the Praetorians. Miserable and +anxious he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd of +passers-by, who believed that he was being hurried off to execution. But +the soldiers, who well knew their own interests, accepted him with +acclamations, the more so as, by a fatal precedent, he promised them a +largess of more than 80<i>l</i>. apiece. The supple Agrippa (the Herod of +Acts xii.), seeing how the wind lay, offered to plead his cause with the +Senate, and succeeded partly by arguments, partly by intimidation, and +partly by holding out the not unreasonable hopes of a great improvement +on the previous reign.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor27">[27]</a> The full name of Claudius was Tiberius Claudius Drusus +Caesar Germanicus. +</blockquote> + +<p>For although Claudius had been accused of gambling and drunkenness, not +only were no <i>worse</i> sins laid to his charge, but he had successfully +established some claim to being considered a learned man. Had fortune +blessed him till death with a private station, he might have been the +Lucien Bonaparte of his family--a studious prince, who preferred the +charms of literature to the turmoil of ambition. The anecdotes which +have been recorded of him show that he was something of an +archaeologist, and something of a philologian. The great historian Livy, +pitying the neglect with which the poor young man was treated, had +encouraged him in the study of history; and he had written memoirs of +his own time, memoirs of Augustus, and even a history of the civil wars +since the battle of Actium, which was so correct and so candid that his +family indignantly suppressed it as a fresh proof of his stupidity.</p> + +<p>Such was the man who, at the age of fifty, became master of the +civilized world. He offers some singular points of resemblance to our +own "most mighty and dread sovereign," King James I. Both were learned, +and both were eminently unwise;<a name="FNanchor28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28">[28]</a> both of them were authors, and both +of them were pedants; both of them delegated their highest powers to +worthless favourites, and both of them enriched these favourites with +such foolish liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them +had been terrified into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary +presence at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good +dispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of cruelty; and both +of them, though laborious in the discharge of duty, succeeded only in +rendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir Walter Raleigh in +prison, and Claudius drove Seneca into exile. The parallel, so far as I +am aware, has never been noticed, but is susceptible of being drawn out +into the minutest particulars.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor28">[28]</a> "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," says our own poet. +Heraclitus had said the same thing more than two thousand years before +him, [Greek: polumaoiae ou didasho]. +</blockquote> + +<p>One of his first acts was to recall his nieces, Julia and Agrippina, +from the exile into which their brother had driven them; and both these +princesses were destined to effect a powerful influence on the life of +our philosopher.</p> + +<p>What part Seneca had taken during the few troubled days after the murder +of Caius we do not know. Had he taken a leading part--had he been one of +those who, like Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being +merely the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic,--or who, like +Sabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Caesar,--we should +perhaps have heard of it; and we must therefore assume either that he +was still absent from Rome in the retirement into which he had been +driven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with +quietly watching the course of events. It will be observed that his +biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted +in most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on +isolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest +shade long and important periods of his history. Nor are his letters and +other writings full of those political and personal allusions which +convert them into an autobiography. They are, without exception, +occupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they only +refer to such personal reminiscences as may best be converted into the +text for some Stoical paradox or moral declamation. It is, however, +certain from the sequel that Seneca must have seized the opportunity of +Caius's death to emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a +conspicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court.</p> + +<p>It would have been well for his own happiness and fame if he had adopted +the wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doctrines he professed. +A court at most periods is, as the poet says,</p> + +<blockquote> +"A golden but a fatal circle,<br> + Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils<br> + In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence,<br> + And beckon early Virtue from its centre;"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>but the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was indeed a +place wherein few of the wise could find a footing, and still fewer of +the good. And all that Seneca gained from his career of ambition was to +be suspected by the first of these Emperors, banished by the second, and +murdered by the third.</p> + +<p>The first few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and kindly disposition; +but it soon became fatally obvious that the real powers of the +government would be wielded, not by the timid and absent-minded +Emperor, but by any one who for the time being could acquire an +ascendency over his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the +friends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen from the ranks +of his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and Don Miguel, the barbers of these +monarchs were the real governors, so Claudius was but the minister +rather than the master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius +his literary adviser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third person, with +whose name Scripture has made us familiar, was a freedman of Claudius. +This was Felix, the brother of Pallas, and that Procurator who, though +he had been the husband or the paramour of three queens, trembled before +the simple eloquence of a feeble and imprisoned Jew.<a name="FNanchor29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29">[29]</a> These men +became proverbial for their insolence and wealth; and once, when +Claudius was complaining of his own poverty, some one wittily replied, +"that he would have abundance if two of his freedmen would but admit him +into partnership with them."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor29">[29]</a> Acts xix. +</blockquote> + +<p>But these men gained additional power from the countenance and intrigues +of the young and beautiful wife of Claudius, Valeria Messalina. In his +marriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune. +He lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was +that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men; and it was +the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been +united by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the +Berenice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the +sacred historians were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of +them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. He was +betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined +for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended +Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By +his first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he +had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidentally choked in +boyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the +air. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the +unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the +child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, Aelia +Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he +divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal +infamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the +younger for her unscrupulous ambition.</p> + +<p>Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old, +yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of +the most unblushing wickedness.</p> + +<p>But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own +jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and +Agrippina, the two nieces of the Emperor. They were, no less than +herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to +make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the +supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their +wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal +fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when +the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy. It is unlikely that, even +in the first flush of her husband's strange and unexpected triumph, +Messalina should have contemplated with any satisfaction their return +from exile. In this respect it is probable that the Emperor succeeded in +resisting her expressed wishes; so that the mere appearance of the two +daughters of Germanicus in her presence was a standing witness of the +limitations to which her influence was subjected.</p> + +<p>At this period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the history of the +Romans degenerates into mere anecdotes of their rulers. Happily, +however, it is not our duty to enter on the <i>chronique scandaleuse</i> of +plots and counterplots, as little tolerable to contemplate as the +factions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We +can only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a +court? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of +his philosophical professions; and that we can contemplate his presence +there with as little satisfaction as we look on the figure of the +worldly and frivolous bishop in Mr. Frith's picture of "The Last Sunday +of Charles II. at Whitehall."</p> + +<p>And such inconsistencies involve their own retribution, not only in loss +of influence and fair fame, but even in direct consequences. It was so +with Seneca. Circumstances--possibly a genuine detestation of +Messalina's exceptional infamy--seem to have thrown him among the +partisans of her rivals. Messalina was only waiting her opportunity to +strike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the younger and the less +powerful of the two sisters, was marked out as the first victim, and the +opportunity seemed a favourable one for involving Seneca in her ruin. +His enormous wealth, his high reputation, his splendid abilities, made +him a formidable opponent to the Empress, and a valuable ally to her +rivals. It was determined to get rid of both by a single scheme. Julia +was accused of an intrigue with Seneca, and was first driven into exile +and then put to death. Seneca was banished to the barren and +pestilential shores of the island of Corsica.</p> + +<p>Seneca, as one of the most enlightened men of his age, should have aimed +at a character which would have been above the possibility of suspicion: +but we must remember that charges such as those which were brought +against him were the easiest of all to make, and the most impossible to +refute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we are not forced +to believe his guilt; his character was indeed deplorably weak, and the +laxity of the age in such matters was fearfully demoralising; but there +are sufficient circumstances in his favour to justify us in returning a +verdict of "Not guilty." Unless we attach an unfair importance to the +bitter calumny of his open enemies, we may consider that the general +tenor of his life has sufficient weight to exculpate him from an +unsupported accusation.</p> + +<p>Of Julia, Suetonius expressly says that the crime of which she was +accused was uncertain, and that she was condemned unheard. Seneca, on +the other hand, was tried in the Senate and found guilty. He tells us +that it was not Claudius who flung him down, but rather that, when he +was falling headlong, the Emperor supported him with the moderation of +his divine hand; "he entreated the Senate on my behalf; he not only +<i>gave</i> me life, but even <i>begged</i> it for me. Let it be his to consider," +adds Seneca, with the most dulcet flattery, "in what light he may wish +my cause to be regarded; either his justice will find, or his mercy will +make, it a good cause. He will alike be worthy of my gratitude, whether +his ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to his knowledge or to +his will."</p> + +<p>This passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood. The avarice of +Messalina was so insatiable that the non-confiscation of Seneca's +immense wealth is a proof that, for some reason, her fear or hatred of +him was not implacable. Although it is a remarkable fact that she is +barely mentioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, yet +there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation +before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at +all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability; +that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him +guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation +of his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for +literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some +powerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I. +remitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on +Francis Bacon.</p> + +<p>Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate +furnish the slightest valid proofs against him. The Senate at this time +were so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word +of accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make +them fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot +with their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his administration of +justice, patient and laborious as it was, had already grown into a +public joke. On one occasion he wrote down and delivered the wise +decision, "that he agreed with the side which had set forth the truth." +On another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came before him grew so +impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, "You are an old fool." +We are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a +good deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one +occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial +smile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. "At you," +said the man, "you look such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck +with the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A +Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing +Claudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidence +against him, indignantly abused him for his cruel stupidity, and flung +his pen and tablets in his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In +fact, the Emperor's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless +anecdotes. Among other things, when some condemned criminals were to +fight as gladiators, and addressed him before the games in the sublime +formula--"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!" ("Hail, Caesar! doomed +to die, we salute thee!") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer, +"Avete vos!" ("Hail ye also!") which they took as a sign of pardon, and +were unwilling to fight until they were actually forced to do so by the +gestures of the Emperor.</p> + +<p>The decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very +little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence +was that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII."></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA IN EXILE.</h3> + +<p>So, in A.D. 41, in the prime of life and the full vigour of his +faculties, with a name stained by a charge of which he may have been +innocent, but of which he was condemned as guilty, Seneca bade farewell +to his noble-minded mother, to his loving aunt, to his brothers, the +beloved Gallio and the literary Mela, to his nephew, the ardent and +promising young Lucan, and, above all--which cost him the severest +pang--to Marcus, his sweet and prattling boy. It was a calamity which +might have shaken the fortitude of the very noblest soul, and it had by +no means come upon him single handed. Already he had lost his wife, he +had suffered from acute and chronic ill-health, he had been bereaved but +three weeks previously of another little son. He had been cut short by +the jealousy of one emperor from a career of splendid success; he was +now banished by the imbecile subservience of another from all that he +held most dear.</p> + +<p>We are hardly able to conceive the intensity of anguish with which an +ancient Roman generally regarded the thought of banishment. In the long +melancholy wail of Ovid's "Tristia;" in the bitter and heart-rending +complaints of Cicero's "Epistles," we may see something of that intense +absorption in the life of Rome which to most of her eminent citizens +made a permanent separation from the city and its interests a thought +almost as terrible as death itself. Even the stoical and heroic Thrasea +openly confessed that he should prefer death to exile. To a heart so +affectionate, to a disposition so social, to a mind so active and +ambitious as that of Seneca, it must have been doubly bitter to exchange +the happiness of his family circle, the splendour of an imperial court, +the luxuries of enormous wealth, the refined society of statesmen, and +the ennobling intercourse of philosophers for the savage wastes of a +rocky island and the society of boorish illiterate islanders, or at the +best, of a few other political exiles, all of whom would be as miserable +as himself, and some of whom would probably have deserved their fate.</p> + +<p>The Mediteranean rocks selected for political exiles--Gyaros, Seriphos, +Scyathos, Patmos, Pontia, Pandataria--were generally rocky, barren, +fever-stricken places, chosen by design as the most wretched conceivable +spots in which human life could be maintained at all. Yet these islands +were crowded with exiles, and in them were to be found not a few +princesses of Caesarian origin. We must not draw a parallel to their +position from that of an Eleanor, the wife of Duke Humphrey, immured in +Peel Castle in the Isle of Man, or of a Mary Stuart in the Isle of Loch +Levin--for it was something incomparably worse. No care was taken even +to provide for their actual wants. Their very lives were not secure. +Agrippa Posthumus and Nero, the brothers of the Emperor Caligula, had +been so reduced by starvation that both of the wretched youths had been +driven to support life by eating the materials with which their beds +were stuffed. The Emperor Caius had once asked an exile, whom he had +recalled from banishment, in what manner he had been accustomed to +employ his time on the island. "I used," said the flatterer, "to pray +that Tiberius might die, and that you might succeed." It immediately +struck Caius that the exiles whom he had banished might be similarly +employed, and accordingly he sent centurions round the islands to put +them all to death. Such were the miserable circumstances which might be +in store for a political outlaw.<a name="FNanchor30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30">[30]</a> If we imagine what must have been +the feelings of a d'Espréménil, when a <i>lettee de cachet</i> consigned him +to a prison in the Isle d'Hières; or what a man like Burke might have +felt, if he had been compelled to retire for life to the Bermudas; we +may realize to some extent the heavy trial which now befel the life +of Seneca.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor30">[30]</a> Among the Jews the homicides who had fled to a city of +refuge were set free on the high priest's death, and, in order <i>to +prevent them from praying for his death</i>, the mother and other relatives +of the high priest used to supply them with clothes and other +necessaries. See the author's article on "Asylum" in Kitto's +<i>Encyclopedia</i> (ed. Alexander.) +</blockquote> + +<p>Corsica was the island chosen for his place of banishment, and a spot +more uninviting could hardly have been selected. It was an island +"shaggy and savage," intersected from north to south by a chain of wild, +inaccessible mountains, clothed to their summits with gloomy and +impenetrable forests of pine and fir. Its untamable inhabitants are +described by the geographer Strabo as being "wilder than the wild +beasts." It produced but little corn, and scarcely any fruit-trees. It +abounded, indeed, in swarms of wild bees, but its very honey was bitter +and unpalatable, from being infected with the acrid taste of the +box-flowers on which they fed. Neither gold nor silver were found +there; it produced nothing worth exporting, and barely sufficient for +the mere necessaries of its inhabitants; it rejoiced in no great +navigable rivers, and even the trees, in which it abounded, were neither +beautiful nor fruitful. Seneca describes it in more than one of his +epigrams, as a</p> + +<blockquote> +"Terrible isle, when earliest summer glows<br> + Yet fiercer when his face the dog-star shows;"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>and again as a</p> + +<blockquote> +"Barbarous land, which rugged rocks surround,<br> + Whose horrent cliffs with idle wastes are crowned,<br> + No autumn fruit, no tilth the summer yields,<br> + Nor olives cheer the winter-silvered fields:<br> + Nor joyous spring her tender foliage lends,<br> + Nor genial herb the luckless soil befriends;<br> + Nor bread, nor sacred fire, nor freshening wave;--<br> + Nought here--save exile, and the exile's grave!"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>In such a place, and under such conditions, Seneca had ample need for +all his philosophy. And at first it did not fail him. Towards the close +of his first year of exile he wrote the "Consolation to his mother +Helvia," which is one of the noblest and most charming of all his works.</p> + +<p>He had often thought, he said, of writing to console her under this deep +and wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto he had abstained from doing +so, lest, while his own anguish and hers were fresh, he should only +renew the pain of the wound by his unskilful treatment. He waited, +therefore till time had laid its healing hand upon her sorrows, +especially because he found no precedent for one in his position +condoling with others when he himself seemed more in need of +consolation, and because something new and admirable would be required +of a man who, as it were, raised his head from the funeral pyre to +console his friends. Still he now feels impelled to write to her, +because to alleviate her regrets will be to lay aside his own. He does +not attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, because +so far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has tasted it from her +earliest years in all its varieties; and because his purpose was to +conquer her grief, not to extenuate its causes. Those many miseries +would indeed have been in vain, if they had not taught her how to bear +wretchedness. He will prove to her therefore that she has no cause to +grieve either on his account, or on her own. Not on his--because he is +happy among circumstances which others would think miserable and because +he assures her with his own lips that not only is he <i>not</i> miserable, +but that he can never be made so. Every one can secure his own +happiness, if he learns to seek it, not in external circumstances, but +in himself. He cannot indeed claim for himself the title of wise, for, +if so, he would be the most fortunate of men, and near to God Himself; +but, which is the next best thing, he has devoted himself to the study +of wise men, and from them he has learnt to expect nothing and to be +prepared for all things. The blessings which Fortune had hitherto +bestowed on him,--wealth, honours, glory,--he had placed in such a +position that she might rob him of them all without disturbing him. +There was a great <i>space</i> between them and himself, so that they could +be <i>taken</i> but not <i>torn</i> away. Undazzled by the glamour of prosperity, +he was unshaken by the blow of adversity. In circumstances which were +the envy of all men he had never seen any real or solid blessing, but +rather a painted emptiness, a gilded deception; and similarly he found +nothing really hard or terrible in ills which the common voice has so +described.</p> + +<p>What, for instance, was exile? it was but a change of place, an absence +from one's native land; and, if you looked at the swarming multitudes in +Rome itself, you would find that the majority of them were practically +in contented and willing exile, drawn thither by necessity, by ambition, +or by the search for the best opportunities of vice. No isle so wretched +and so bleak which did not attract some voluntary sojourners; even this +precipitous and naked rock of Corsica, the hungriest, roughest, most +savage, most unhealthy spot conceivable, had more foreigners in it than +native inhabitants. The natural restlessness and mobility of the human +mind, which arose from its aetherial origin, drove men to change from +place to place. The colonies of different nations, scattered all over +the civilized and uncivilized world even in spots the most chilly and +uninviting, show that the condition of place is no necessary ingredient +in human happiness. Even Corsica had often changed its owners; Greeks +from Marseilles had first lived there, then Ligurians and Spaniards, +then some Roman colonists, whom the aridity and thorniness of the rock +had not kept away.</p> + +<p>"Varro thought that nature, Brutus that the consciousness of virtue, +were sufficient consolations for any exile. How little have I lost in +comparison with those two fairest possessions which I shall everywhere +enjoy--nature and my own integrity! Whoever or whatever made the +world--whether it were a deity, or disembodied reason, or a divine +interfusing spirit, or destiny, or an immutable series of connected +causes--the result was that nothing, except our very meanest +possessions, should depend on the will of another. Man's best gifts lie +beyond the power of man either to give or to take away. This Universe, +the grandest and loveliest work of nature, and the Intellect which was +created to observe and to admire it, are our special and eternal +possessions, which shall last as long as we last ourselves. Cheerful, +therefore, and erect, let us hasten with undaunted footsteps +whithersoever our fortunes lead us.</p> + +<p>"There is no land where man cannot dwell,--no land where he cannot +uplift his eyes to heaven; wherever we are, the distance of the divine +from the human remains the same. So then, as long as my eyes are not +robbed of that spectacle with which they cannot be satiated, so long as +I may look upon the sun and moon, and fix my lingering gaze on the other +constellations, and consider their rising and setting and the spaces +between them and the causes of their less and greater speed,--while I +may contemplate the multitude of stars glittering throughout the heaven, +some stationary, some revolving, some suddenly blazing forth, others +dazzling the gaze with a flood of fire as though they fell, and others +leaving over a long space their trails of light; while I am in the midst +of such phenomena, and mingle myself, as far as a man may, with things +celestial,--while my soul is ever occupied in contemplations so sublime +as these, what matters it what ground I tread?</p> + +<p>"What though fortune has thrown me where the most magnificent abode is +but a cottage? the humblest cottage, if it be but the home of virtue, +may be more beautiful than all temples; no place is narrow which can +contain the crowd of glorious virtues; no exile severe into which you +may go with such a reliance. When Brutus left Marcellus at Mitylene, he +seemed to be himself going into exile because he left that illustrious +exile behind him. Caesar would not land at Mitylene, because he blushed +to see him. Marcellus therefore, though he was living in exile and +poverty, was living a most happy and a most noble life.</p> + +<blockquote> +"'One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs<br> + Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas;<br> + And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,<br> + Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.'<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"And as for poverty every one who is not corrupted by the madness of +avarice and luxury know that it is no evil. How little does man need, +and how easily can he secure that! As for me, I consider myself as +having lost not wealth, but the trouble of looking after it. Bodily +wants are few--warmth and food, nothing more. May the gods and goddesses +confound that gluttony which sweeps the sky, and sea and land for birds, +and animals, and fish; which eats to vomit and vomits to eat, and hunts +over the whole world for that which after all it cannot even digest! +They might satisfy their hunger with little, and they excite it with +much. What harm can poverty inflict on a man who despises such excesses? +Look at the god-like and heroic poverty of our ancestors, and compare +the simple glory of a Camillus with the lasting infamy of a luxurious +Apicius! Even exile will yield a sufficiency of necessaries, but not +even kingdoms are enough for superfluities. It is the soul that makes us +rich or poor: and the soul follows us into exile, and finds and enjoys +its own blessings even in the most barren solitudes.</p> + +<p>"But it does not even need philosophy to enable us to despise poverty. +Look at the poor: are they not often obviously happier than the rich? +And the times are so changed that what we would now consider the poverty +of an exile would then have been regarded as the patrimony of a prince. +Protected by such precedents as those of Homer, and Zeno, and Menenius +Agrippa, and Regulus, and Scipio, poverty becomes not only safe but +even estimable.</p> + +<p>"And if you make the objection that the ills which assail me are not +exile only, or poverty only, but disgrace as well, I reply that the soul +which is hard enough to resist one wound is invulnerable to all. If we +have utterly conquered the fear of death, nothing else can daunt us. +What is disgrace to one who stands above the opinion of the multitude? +what was even a death of disgrace to Socrates, who by entering a prison +made it cease to be disgraceful? Cato was twice defeated in his +candidature for the praetorship and consulship: well, this was the +disgrace of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised by +another until he has learned to despise himself. The man who has learned +to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred +fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man +bravely wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. Some +indeed say that death is preferable to contempt; to whom I reply that he +who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more +an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred +buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood.</p> + +<p>"On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no cause for endless +weeping: nor have you on your own. You cannot grieve for me on selfish +grounds, in consequence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were +ever eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your dealings +with your sons, and you were always a help and a benefactor to them +rather than they to you. Nor should you give way out of a regret and +longing for me in my absence. We have often previously been separated, +and, although it is natural that you should miss that delightful +conversation, that unrestricted confidence, that electrical sympathy of +heart and intellect that always existed between us, and that boyish glee +wherewith your visits always affected me, yet, as you rise above the +common herd of women in virtue, the simplicity, the purity of your life, +you must abstain from feminine tears as you have done from all feminine +follies. Consider how Cornelia, who had lost ten children by death, +instead of wailing for her dead sons, thanked fortune that had made her +sons <i>Gracchi</i>. Rutilia followed her son Cotta into exile so dearly did +she love him, yet no one saw her shed a tear after his burial. She had +shown her affection when it was needful, she restrained her sorrow when +it was superflous. Imitate the example of these great women as you have +imitated their virtues. I want you not to <i>beguile</i> your sorrow by +amusements or occupations, but to <i>conquer</i> it. For you may now return +to those philosophical studies in which you once showed yourself so apt +a proficient, and which formerly my father checked. They will gradually +sustain and comfort you in your hour of grief.</p> + +<p>"And meanwhile consider how many sources of consolation already exist +for you. My brothers are still with you; the dignity of Gallio, the +leisure of Mela, will protect you; the ever-sparkling mirth of my +darling little Marcus will cheer you up; the training of my little +favourite Novatilla will be a duty which will assuage your sorrow. For +your father's sake, too, though he is absent from you, you must moderate +your lamentations. Above all, your sister--that truly faithful, loving, +and high-souled lady, to whom I owe so deep a debt of affection for her +kindness to me from my cradle until now,--she will yield you the +fondest sympathy and the truest consolation.</p> + +<p>"But since I know that after all your thoughts will constantly revert to +me, and that none of your children will be more frequently before your +mind than I,--not because they are less dear to you than I, but because +it is natural to lay the hand most often upon the spot which pains,--I +will tell you how you are to think of me. Think of me as happy and +cheerful, as though I were in the midst of blessings; as indeed I am, +while my mind, free from every care, has leisure for its own pursuits, +and sometimes amuses itself with lighter studies, sometimes, eager for +truth, soars upwards to the contemplation of its own nature, and the +nature of the universe. It inquires first of all about the lands and +their situation; then into the condition of the surrounding sea, its +ebbings and flowings; then it carefully studies all this terror-fraught +interspace between heaven and earth, tumultuous with thunders and +lightnings, and the blasts of winds, and the showers of rain, and snow +and hail; then, having wandered through all the lower regions, it bursts +upwards to the highest things, and revels in the most lovely--spectacle +of that which is divine, and, mindful of its own eternity, passes into +all that hath been and all that shall be throughout all ages."</p> + +<p>Such in briefest outline, and without any of that grace of language with +which Seneca has invested it, is a sketch of the little treatise which +many have regarded as among the most delightful of Seneca's works. It +presents the picture of that grandest of all spectacles--</p> + +<blockquote> +"A good man struggling with the storms of fate."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>So far there was something truly Stoical in the aspect of Seneca's +exile. But was this grand attitude consistently maintained? Did his +little raft of philosophy sink under him, or did it bear him safely over +the stormy waves of this great sea of adversity.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII."></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY.</h3> + +<p>There are some misfortunes of which the very essence consists in their +continuance. They are tolerable so long as they are illuminated by a ray +of hope. Seclusion and hardship might even come at first with some charm +of novelty to a philosopher who, as was not unfrequent among the amateur +thinkers of his time, occasionally practised them in the very midst of +wealth and friends. But as the hopeless years rolled on, as the efforts +of friends proved unavailing, as the loving son, and husband, and father +felt himself cut off from the society of those whom he cherished in such +tender affection, as the dreary island seemed to him ever more barbarous +and more barren, while season after season added to its horrors without +revealing a single compensation, Seneca grew more and more disconsolate +and depressed. It seemed to be his miserable destiny to rust away, +useless, unbefriended, and forgotten. Formed to fascinate society, here +there were none for him to fascinate; gifted with an eloquence which +could keep listening senates hushed, here he found neither subject nor +audience; and his life began to resemble a river which, long before it +has reached the sea, is lost in dreary marshes and choking sands.</p> + +<p>Like the brilliant Ovid, when he was banished to the frozen wilds of +Tomi, Seneca vented his anguish in plaintive wailing and bitter verse. +In his handful of epigrams he finds nothing too severe for the place of +his exile. He cries--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Spare thou thine exiles, lightly o'er thy dead,<br> + Alive, yet buried, be thy dust bespread."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>And addressing some malignant enemy--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Whoe'er thou art,--thy name shall I repeat?--<br> + Who o'er mine ashes dar'st to press thy feet,<br> + And, uncontented with a fall so dread,<br> + Draw'st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head,<br> + Beware! for nature, pitying, guards the tomb,<br> + And ghosts avenge th' invaders of their gloom,<br> + Hear, Envy, hear the gods proclaim a truth,<br> + Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth,<br> + WRETCHES ARE SACRED THINGS,--thy hands refrain:<br> + E'en sacrilegious hands from TOMBS abstain."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The one fact that seems to have haunted him most was that his abode in +Corsica was a living death.</p> + +<p>But the most complete picture of his state of mind, and the most +melancholy memorial of his inconsistency as a philosopher, is to be +found in his "Consolation to Polybius." Polybius was one of those +freedmen of the Emperor whose bloated wealth and servile insolence were +one of the darkest and strangest phenomena of the time. Claudius, more +than any of his class, from the peculiar imbecility of his character, +was under the powerful influence of this class of men; and so dangerous +was their power that Messalina herself was forced to win her ascendency +over her husband's mind by making these men her supporters, and +cultivating their favour. Such were "the most excellent Felix," the +judge of St. Paul, and the slave who became a husband to three +queens,--Narcissus, in whose household (which moved the envy of the +Emperor) were some of those Christians to whom St. Paul sends greetings +from the Christians of Corinth,<a name="FNanchor31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31">[31]</a>--Pallas, who never deigned to speak +to his own slaves, but gave all his commands by signs, and who actually +condescended to receive the thanks of the Senate, because he, the +descendant of Etruscan kings, yet condescended to serve the Emperor and +the Commonwealth; a preposterous and outrageous compliment, which +appears to have been solely due to the fact of his name being identical +with that of Virgil's young hero, the son of the mythic Evander!</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor31">[31]</a> Rom. xvi. 11. +</blockquote> + +<p>Among this unworthy crew a certain Polybius was not the least +conspicuous. He was the director of the Emperor's studies,--a worthy +Alcuin to such a Charlemagne. All that we know about him is that he was +once the favourite of Messalina, and afterwards her victim, and that in +the day of his eminence the favour of the Emperor placed him so high +that he was often seen walking between the two consuls. Such was the man +to whom, on the occasion of his brother's death, Seneca addressed this +treatise of consolation. It has come down to us as a fragment, and it +would have been well for Seneca's fame if it had not come down to us at +all. Those who are enthusiastic for his reputation would gladly prove it +spurious, but we believe that no candid reader can study it without +perceiving its genuineness. It is very improbable that he ever intended +it to be published, and whoever suffered it to see the light was the +successful enemy of its illustrious author.</p> + +<p>Its sad and abject tone confirms the inference, drawn from an allusion +which it contains, that it was written towards the close of the third +year of Seneca's exile. He apologises for its style by saying that if it +betrayed any weakness of thought or inelegance of expression this was +only what might be expected from a man who had so long been surrounded +by the coarse and offensive <i>patois</i> of barbarians. We need hardly +follow him into the ordinary topics of moral philosophy with which it +abounds, or expose the inconsistency of its tone with that of Seneca's +other writings. He consoles the freedman with the "common common-places" +that death is inevitable; that grief is useless; that we are all born to +sorrow; that the dead would not wish us to be miserable for their sakes. +He reminds him that, owing to his illustrious position, all eyes are +upon him. He bids him find consolation in the studies in which he has +always shown himself so pre-eminent, and lastly he refers him to those +shining examples of magnanimous fortitude, for the climax of which, no +doubt, the whole piece of interested flattery was composed. For this +passage, written in a <i>crescendo</i> style, culminates, as might have been +expected, in the sublime spectacle of Claudius Caesar. So far from +resenting his exile, he crawls in the dust to kiss Caesar's beneficent +feet for saving him from death; so far from asserting his +innocence--which, perhaps, was impossible, since to do so might have +involved him in a fresh charge of treason--he talks with all the +abjectness of guilt. He belauds the clemency of a man, who, he tells us +elsewhere, used to kill men with as much <i>sang froid</i> as a dog eats +offal; the prodigious powers of memory of a divine creature who used to +ask people to dice and to dinner whom he had executed the day before, +and who even inquired as to the cause of his wife's absence a few days +after having given the order for her execution; the extraordinary +eloquence of an indistinct stutterer, whose head shook and whose broad +lips seemed to be in contortions whenever he spoke.<a name="FNanchor32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32">[32]</a> If Polybius +feels sorrowful, let him turn his eyes to Caesar; the splendour of that +most great and radiant deity will so dazzle his eyes that all their +tears will be dried up in the admiring gaze. Oh that the bright +occidental star which has beamed on a world which, before its rising, +was plunged in darkness and deluge, would only shed one little beam +upon him!</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor32">[32]</a> These slight discrepancies of description are taken from +counter passages of <i>Consol, ad Polyb.</i>. and the <i>Ludus de Morte +Caesaris.</i> +</blockquote> + +<p>No doubt these grotesque and gorgeous flatteries, contrasting strangely +with the bitter language of intense hatred and scathing contempt which +Seneca poured out on the memory of Claudius after his death, were penned +with the sole purpose of being repeated in those divine and benignant +ears. No doubt the superb freedman, who had been allowed so rich a share +of the flatteries lavished on his master, would take the opportunity--if +not out of good nature, at least out of vanity,--to retail them in the +imperial ear. If the moment were but favourable, who knows but what at +some oblivious and crapulous moment the Emperor might be induced to sign +an order for our philosopher's recall?</p> + +<p>Let us not be hard on him. Exile and wretchedness are stern trials, and +it is difficult for him to brave a martyr's misery who has no conception +of a martyr's crown. To a man who, like Seneca, aimed at being not only +a philosopher, but also a man of the world--who in this very treatise +criticises the Stoics for their ignorance of life--there would not have +seemed to be even the shadow of disgrace in a private effusion of +insincere flattery intended to win the remission of a deplorable +banishment. Or, if we condemn Seneca, let us remember that Christians, +no less than philosophers, have attained a higher eminence only to +exemplify a more disastrous fall. The flatteries of Seneca to Claudius +are not more fulsome, and are infinitely less disgraceful, than those +which fawning bishops exuded on his counterpart, King James. And if the +Roman Stoic can gain nothing from a comparison with the yet more +egregious moral failure of the greatest of Christian thinkers---Francis +Bacon, Viscount St. Alban's--let us not forget that a Savonarola and a +Cranmer recanted under torment, and that the anguish of exile drew even +from the starry and imperial spirit of Dante Alighieri words and +sentiments for which in his noblest moments he might have blushed.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX."></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE.</h3> + +<p>Of the last five years of Seneca's weary exile no trace has been +preserved to us. What were his alternations of hope and fear, of +devotion to philosophy and of hankering after the world which he had +lost, we cannot tell. Any hopes which he may have entertained respecting +the intervention of Polybius in his favour must have been utterly +quenched when he heard that the freedman, though formerly powerful with +Messalina, had forfeited his own life in consequence of her +machinations. But the closing period of his days in Corsica must have +brought him thrilling news, which would save him from falling into +absolute despair.</p> + +<p>For the career of Messalina was drawing rapidly to a close. The life of +this beautiful princess, short as it was, for she died at a very early +age, was enough to make her name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a +time she appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won for her +an unlimited sway over the facile mind of Claudius, and she had either +won over by her intrigues, or terrified by her pitiless severity, the +noblest of the Romans and the most powerful of the freedmen. But we see +in her fate, as we see on every page of history, that vice ever carries +with it the germ of its own ruin, and that a retribution, which is all +the more inevitable from being often slow, awaits every violation of the +moral law.</p> + +<p>There is something almost incredible in the penal infatuation which +brought about her fall. During the absence of her husband at Ostia, she +wedded in open day with C. Silius, the most beautiful and the most +promising of the young Roman nobles. She had apparently persuaded +Claudius that this was merely a mock-marriage, intended to avert some +ominous auguries which threatened to destroy "the husband of Messalina;" +but, whatever Claudius may have imagined, all the rest of the world knew +the marriage to be real, and regarded it not only as a vile enormity, +but also as a direct attempt to bring about a usurpation of the +imperial power.</p> + +<p>It was by this view of the case that the freedman Narcissus roused the +inert spirit and timid indignation of the injured Emperor. While the +wild revelry of the wedding ceremony was at its height, Vettius Valens, +a well-known physician of the day, had in the license of the festival +struggled up to the top of a lofty tree, and when they asked him what he +saw, he replied in words which, though meant for jest, were full of +dreadful significance, "I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia." He +had scarcely uttered the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then +numerous messengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, and was +coming to take vengeance. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the +assembled guests. Silius, as though nothing had happened, went to +transact his public duties in the Forum; Messalina instantly sending for +her children, Octavia and Britannicus, that she might meet her husband +with them by her side, implored the protection of Vibidia, the eldest of +the chaste virgins of Vesta, and, deserted by all but three companions, +fled on foot and unpitied, through the whole breadth of the city, until +she reached the Ostian gate, and mounted the rubbish-cart of a market +gardener which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed both the +looks and the attention of the Emperor by the proofs and the narrative +of her crimes, and, getting rid of the Vestal by promising her that the +cause of Messalina should be tried, he hurried Claudius forward, first +to the house of Silius, which abounded with the proofs of his guilt, and +then to the camp of the Praetorians, where swift vengeance was taken on +the whole band of those who had been involved in Messalina's crimes. She +meanwhile, in alternative paroxysms of fury and abject terror, had taken +refuge in the garden of Lucullus, which she had coveted and made her own +by injustice. Claudius, who had returned home, and had recovered some of +his facile equanimity in the pleasures of the table, showed signs of +relenting; but Narcissus knew that delay was death, and on his own +authority sent a tribune and centurions to despatch the Empress. They +found her prostrate on the ground at the feet of her mother Lepida, with +whom in her prosperity she had quarrelled, but who now came to pity and +console her misery, and to urge her to that voluntary death which alone +could save her from imminent and more cruel infamy. But the mind of +Messalina, like that of Nero afterwards, was so corrupted by wickedness +that not even such poor nobility was left in her as is implied in the +courage of despair. While she wasted the time in tears and lamentations, +a noise was heard of battering at the doors, and the tribune stood by +her in stern silence, the freedman with slavish vituperation. First she +took the dagger in her irresolute hand, and after she had twice stabbed +herself in vain, the tribune drove home the fatal blow, and the corpse +of Messalina, like that of Jezebel, lay weltering in its blood in the +plot of ground of which her crimes had robbed its lawful owner. +Claudius, still lingering at his dinner, was informed that she had +perished, and neither asked a single question at the time, nor +subsequently displayed the slightest sign of anger, of hatred, of pity, +or of any human emotion.</p> + +<p>The absolute silence of Seneca respecting the woman who had caused him +the bitterest anguish and humiliation of his life is, as we have +remarked already, a strange and significant phenomenon. It is clearly +not due to accident, for the vices which he is incessantly describing +and denouncing would have found in this miserable woman their most +flagrant illustration, nor could contemporary history have furnished a +more apposite example of the vindication by her fate of the stern +majesty of the moral law. But yet, though Seneca had every reason to +loathe her character and to detest her memory, though he could not have +rendered to his patrons a more welcome service than by blackening her +reputation, he never so much as mentions her name. And this honourable +silence gives us a favourable insight into his character. For it can +only be due to his pitying sense of the fact that even Messalina, bad as +she undoubtedly was, had been judged already by a higher Power, and had +met her dread punishment at the hand of God. It has been conjectured, +with every appearance of probability, that the blackest of the scandals +which were believed and circulated respecting her had their origin in +the published autobiography of her deadly enemy and victorious +successor. The many who had had a share in Messalina's fall would be +only too glad to poison every reminiscence of her life; and the deadly +implacable hatred of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar +gratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace over the +acts of a rival whose young children it was her dearest object to +supplant. That Seneca did not deign to chronicle even of an enemy what +Agrippina was not ashamed to write,--that he spared one whom it was +every one's interest and pleasure to malign,--that he regarded her +terrible fall as a sufficient claim to pity, as it was a sufficient +Nemesis upon her crimes,--is a trait in the character of the philosopher +which has hardly yet received the credit which it deserves.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X."></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO.</h3> + +<p>Scarcely had the grave closed over Messalina when the court was plunged +into the most violent factions about the appointment of her successor. +There were three principal candidates for the honour of the aged +Emperor's hand. They were his former wife, Aelia Petina, who had only +been divorced in consequence of trivial disagreements, and who was +supported by Narcissus; Lollia Paulina, so celebrated in antiquity for +her beauty and splendour, and who for a short time had been the wife of +Caius; and Agrippina the younger, the daughter of the great Germanicus, +and the niece of Claudius himself. Claudius, indeed, who had been as +unlucky as Henry VIII. himself in the unhappiness which had attended his +five experiments of matrimony, had made the strongest possible +asseverations that he would never again submit himself to such a yoke. +But he was so completely a tool in the hands of his own courtiers that +no one attached the slightest importance to anything which he had said.</p> + +<p>The marriage of an uncle with his own niece was considered a violation +of natural laws, and was regarded with no less horror among the Romans +than it would be among ourselves. But Agrippina, by the use of means the +most unscrupulous, prevailed over all her rivals, and managed her +interests with such consummate skill that, before many months had +elapsed, she had become the spouse of Claudius and the Empress of Rome.</p> + +<p>With this princess the destinies of Seneca were most closely +intertwined, and it will enable us the better to understand his +position, and his writings, if we remember that all history discloses to +us no phenomenon more portentous and terrible than that presented to us +in the character of Agrippina, the mother of Nero.</p> + +<p>Of the virtues of her great parents she, like their other children, had +inherited not one; and she had exaggerated their family tendencies into +passions which urged her into every form of crime. Her career from the +very cradle had been a career of wickedness, nor had any one of the many +fierce vicissitudes of her life called forth in her a single noble or +amiable trait. Born at Oppidum Ubiorum (afterwards called in her honour +Colonia Agrippina, and still retaining its name in the form Cologne), +she lost her father at the age of three, and her mother (by banishment) +at the age of twelve. She was educated with bad sisters, with a wild and +wicked brother, and under a grandmother whom she detested. At the age of +fourteen she was married to Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the most +worthless and ill-reputed of the young Roman nobles of his day. The +gossiping biographies of the time still retain some anecdotes of his +cruelty and selfishness. They tell us how he once, without the slightest +remorse, ran over a poor boy who was playing on the Appian Road; how on +another occasion he knocked out the eye of a Roman knight who had given +him a hasty answer; and how, when his friend congratulated him on the +birth of his son (the young Claudius Domitius, afterwards the Emperor +Nero), he brutally remarked that from people like himself and Agrippina +could only be born some monster destined for the public ruin.</p> + +<p>Domitius was forty years old when he married Agrippina, and the young +Nero was not born till nine years afterwards. Whatever there was of +possible affection in the tigress-nature of Agrippina was now absorbed +in the person of her child. For that child, from its cradle to her own +death by his means, she toiled and sinned. The fury of her own ambition, +inextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierceness of her love for +this only son, henceforth directed every action of her life. Destiny had +made her the sister of one Emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife +of another; her own crimes made her the mother of a third. And at first +sight her career might have seemed unusually successful, for while still +in the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband, +and then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of +the Roman world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, whose +stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track +through page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to +her with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of +gratified love and pride to which she had waded through so many a deed +of sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and violent +shameful death, by the hand of that very son for whose sake she had so +often violated the laws of virtue and integrity, and spurned so often +the pure and tender obligations which even the heathen had been taught +by the voice of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore.</p> + +<p>Intending that her son should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, +her first step was to drive to death Silanus, a young nobleman to whom +Octavia had already been betrothed. Her next care was to get rid of all +rivals possible or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia +and her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the latter was the +wealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she trumped up an accusation of +sorcery and treason, upon which her wealth was confiscated, but her life +spared by the Emperor, who banished her from Italy. This half-vengeance +was not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the daughter of Herodias in +sacred history, she despatched a tribune with orders to bring her the +head of her enemy; and when it was brought to her, and she found a +difficulty in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a +once-celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have lifted one +of the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this was indeed the head +of Lollia. To such horrors may a woman sink, when she has abandoned the +love of God; and a fair face may hide a soul "leprous as sin itself." +Well may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and +husband-murdering Gertrude are mere children by the side of this awful +giant-shape of steely feminine cruelty.</p> + +<p>Such was the princess who, in the year A.D. 49, recalled Seneca from +exile.<a name="FNanchor33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33">[33]</a> She saw that her cruelties were inspiring horror even into a +city that had long been accustomed to blood, and Tacitus expressly tells +us that she hoped to counterbalance this feeling by a stroke of +popularity in recalling from the waste solitudes of Corsica the +favourite philosopher and most popular author of the Roman world. Nor +was she content with this public proof of her belief in his innocence +of the crime which had been laid to his charge, for she further procured +for him the Praetorship, and appointed him tutor and governor to her +youthful son. Even in taking this step she did not forget her ambitious +views; for she knew that Seneca cherished a secret indignation against +Claudius, and that Nero could have no more wise adviser in taking steps +to secure the fruition of his imperial hopes. It might perhaps have been +better for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, or set his +foot again in that Circean and bloodstained court. Let it, however, be +added in his exculpation, that another man of undoubted and scrupulous +honesty,--Afranius Burrus--a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of +Roman manliness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the +Praetorian cohorts, was willing to share his danger and his +responsibilities. Yet he must have lived from the first in the very +atmosphere of base and criminal intrigues. He must have formed an +important member of Agrippina's party, which was in daily and deadly +enmity against the party of Narcissus. He must have watched the +incessant artifices by which Agrippina secured the adoption of her son +Nero by an Emperor whose own son Britannicus was but three years his +junior. He must have seen Nero always honoured, promoted, paraded before +the eyes of the populace as the future hope of Rome, whilst Britannicus, +like the young Edward V. under the regency of his uncle, was neglected, +surrounded with spies, kept as much as possible out of his father's +sight, and so completely thrust into the background from all observation +that the populace began seriously to doubt whether he were alive or +dead. He must have seen Agrippina, who had now received the +unprecedented honour of the title "Augusta" in her lifetime, acting +with such haughty insolence that there could be little doubt as to her +ulterior designs upon the throne. He must have known that his splendid +intellect was practically at the service of a woman in whom avarice, +haughtiness, violence, treachery, and every form of unscrupulous +criminality had reached a point hitherto unmatched even in a corrupt and +pagan world. From this time forth the biography of Seneca must assume +the form of an apology rather than of a panegyric.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor33">[33]</a> Gallio was Proconsul of Achaia about A.D. 53, when St. +Paul was brought before his tribunal. Very possibly his elevation may +have been due to the restoration of Seneca's influence. +</blockquote> + +<p>The Emperor could not but feel that in Agrippina he had chosen a wife +even more intolerable than Messalina herself. Messalina had not +interfered with the friends he loved, had not robbed him of the insignia +of empire, had not filled his palace with a hard and unfeminine tyranny, +and had of course watched with a mother's interest over the lives and +fortunes of his children. Narcissus would not be likely to leave him +long in ignorance that, in addition to her other plots and crimes, +Agrippina had been as little true to him as his former unhappy wife. The +information sank deep into his heart, and he was heard to mutter that it +had been his destiny all along first to bear, and then to avenge, the +enormities of his wives. Agrippina, whose spies filled the palace, could +not long remain uninformed of so significant a speech; and she probably +saw with an instinct quickened by the awful terrors of her own guilty +conscience that the Emperor showed distinct signs of his regret for +having married his niece, and adopted her child to the prejudice, if not +to the ruin, of his own young son. If she wanted to reach the goal which +she had held so long in view no time was to be lost. Let us hope that +Seneca and Burrus were at least ignorant of the means which she took to +effect her purpose.</p> + +<p>Fortune favoured her. The dreaded Narcissus, the most formidable +obstacle to her murderous plans, was seized with an attack of the gout. +Agrippina managed that his physician should recommend him the waters of +Sinuessa in Campania by way of cure. He was thus got out of the way, and +she proceeded at once to her work of blood. Entrusting the secret to +Halotus, the Emperor's <i>praegustator</i>--the slave whose office it was to +protect him from poison by tasting every dish before him--and to his +physician, Xenophon of Cos, she consulted Locusta, the Mrs. Turner of +the period of this classical King James, as to the poison best suited to +her purpose. Locusta was mistress of her art, in which long practice had +given her a consummate skill. The poison must not be too rapid, lest it +should cause suspicion; nor too slow, lest it should give the Emperor +time to consult for the interests of his son Britannicus; but it was to +be one which should disturb his intellect without causing immediate +death. Claudius was a glutton, and the poison was given him with all the +more ease because it was mixed with a dish of mushrooms, of which he was +extravagantly fond. Agrippina herself handed him the choicest mushroom +in the dish, and the poison at once reduced him to silence. As was too +frequently the case, Claudius was intoxicated at the time, and was +carried off to his bed as if nothing had happened. A violent colic +ensued, and it was feared that this, with a quantity of wine which he +had drunk, would render the poison innocuous. But Agrippina had gone too +far for retreat, and Xenophon, who knew that great crimes if frustrated +are perilous, if successful are rewarded, came to her assistance. Under +pretence of causing him to vomit, he tickled the throat of the Emperor +with a feather smeared with a swift and deadly poison. It did its work, +and before morning the Caesar was a corpse.<a name="FNanchor34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34">[34]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor34">[34]</a> There is usually found among the writings of Seneca a most +remarkable burlesque called <i>Ludus de Morte Caesaris</i>. As to its +authorship opinions will always vary, but it is a work of such undoubted +genius, so interesting, and so unique in its character, that I have +thought it necessary to give in an Appendix a brief sketch of its +argument. We may at least <i>hope</i> that this satire, which overflows with +the deadliest contempt of Claudius, is not from the same pen which wrote +for Nero his funeral oration. It has, however, been supposed (without +sufficient grounds) to be the lost [Greek: Apokolokuntoois] which Seneca +is said to have written on the apotheosis of Claudius. The very name is +a bitter satire. It imagines the Emperor transformed, not into a God, +but into a gourd--one of those "bloated gourds which sun their speckled +bellies before the doors of the Roman peasants." "The Senate decreed his +<i>divinity</i>; Seneca translated it into <i>pumpkinity</i>" (Merivale, <i>Rom. +Emp</i>. v. 601). The <i>Ludus</i> begins by spattering mud on the memory of the +divine Claudius; it ends with a shower of poetic roses over the glory of +the diviner Nero! +</blockquote> + +<p>As has been the case not unfrequently in history, from the times of +Tarquinius Priscus to those of Charles II., the death was concealed +until everything had been prepared for the production of a successor. +The palace was carefully watched; no one was even admitted into it +except Agrippina's most trusty partisans. The body was propped up with +pillows; actors were sent for "by his own desire" to afford it some +amusement; and priests and consuls were bidden to offer up their vows +for the life of the dead. Giving out that the Emperor was getting +better, Agrippina took care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters, +Octavia and Antonia, under her own immediate eye. As though overwhelmed +with sorrow she wept, and embraced them, and above all kept Britannicus +by her side, kissing him with the exclamation "that he was the very +image of his father," and taking care that he should on no account +leave her room. So the day wore on till it was the hour which the +Chaldaeans declared would be the only lucky hour in that unlucky +October day.</p> + +<p>Noon came; the palace doors were suddenly thrown open: and Nero with +Burrus at his side went out to the Praetorian cohort which was on guard. +By the order of their commandant, they received him with cheers. A few +only hesitated, looking round them and asking "Where was Britannicus?" +Since, however, he was not to be seen, and no one stirred in his favour, +they followed the multitude. Nero was carried in triumph to the camp, +made the soldiers a short speech, and promised to each man of them a +splendid donative. He was at once saluted Emperor. The Senate followed +the choice of the soldiers, and the provinces made no demur. Divine +honors were decreed to the murdered man, and preparations made for a +funeral which was to rival in its splendour the one which Livia had +ordered for Augustus. But the will--which beyond all doubt had provided +for the succession of Britannicus--was quietly done away with, and its +exact provisions were never known.</p> + +<p>And on the first evening of his imperial power, Nero, well aware to whom +he owed his throne, gave to the sentinel who came to ask him the pass +for the night the grateful and significant watchword of "Optima +Mater,"--"the best of mothers!"</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI."></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>NERO AND HIS TUTOR.</h3> + +<p>The imperial youth, whose destinies are now inextricably mingled with +those of Seneca, was accompanied to the throne by the acclamations of +the people. Wearied by the astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath +of a Tiberius, the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of +a Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and +beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his shoulders, and whose +features displayed the finest type of Roman beauty. There was nothing in +his antecedents to give a sinister augury to his future development, and +all classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We can +understand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own +countrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the +youthful virtue and gentleness of Edward VI. Happy would it have been +for Nero if his reign, like that of Edward, could have been cut short +before the thick night of many crimes had settled down upon the promise +of its dawn. For the first five years of Nero's reign--the famous +<i>Quinquennium Neronis</i>--were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period +of almost ideal happiness. In reality, it was Seneca who was ruling in +Nero's, name. Even so excellent an Emperor as Trajan is said to have +admitted "that no other prince had nearly equalled the praise of that +period." It is indeed probable that those years appeared to shine with +an exaggerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded them; +yet we can see in them abundant circumstances which were quite +sufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope and joy. The young Nero was +at first modest and docile. His opening speeches, written with all the +beauty of thought and language which betrayed the <i>style</i> of Seneca no +less than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises. All +those things which had been felt to be injurious or oppressive he +promised to eschew. He would not, he said, reserve to himself, as +Claudius had done, the irresponsible decision in all matters of +business; no office or dignity should be won from him by flattery or +purchased by bribes; he would not confuse his own personal interests +with those of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient +prerogatives of the Senate; he would confine his own immediate attention +to the provinces and the army.</p> + +<p>Nor were such promises falsified by his immediate conduct. The odious +informers who had flourished in previous reigns were frowned upon and +punished. Offices of public dignity were relieved from unjust and +oppressive burdens. Nero prudently declined the gold and silver statues +and other extravagant honours which were offered to him by the corrupt +and servile Senate, but he treated that body, which, fallen as it was, +continued still to be the main representative of constitutional +authority, with favour and respect. Nobles and officials begun to +breathe more freely, and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was +perceptibly relaxed. Severity was reserved for notorious criminals, and +was only inflicted in a regular and authorized manner, when no one +could doubt that it had been deserved. Above all, Seneca had +disseminated an anecdote about his young pupil which tended more than +any other circumstance to his wide spread popularity. England has +remembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluctance of her +youthful Edward to sign the death-warrant of Joan Boucher; Rome, +accustomed to a cruel indifference to human life, regarded with +something like transport the sense of pity which had made Nero, when +asked to affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, "<i>How I +wish that I did not know how to write</i>!"</p> + +<p>It is admitted that no small share of the happiness of this period was +due to the firmness of the honest Burrus, and the wise, high-minded +precepts of Seneca. They deserve the amplest gratitude and credit for +this happy interregnum, for they had no easy task to perform. Besides +the difficulties which arose from the base and frivolous character of +their pupil, besides the infinite delicacy which was requisite for the +restraint of a youth who was absolute master of such gigantic destinies, +they had the task of curbing the wild and imperious ambition of +Agrippina, and of defeating the incessant intrigues of her many powerful +dependents. Agrippina had no doubt persuaded herself that her crimes had +been mainly committed in the interest of her son; but her conduct showed +that she wished him to be a mere instrument in her hands. She wished to +govern him, and had probably calculated on doing so by the assistance of +Seneca, just as our own Queen Caroline completely managed George II. +with the aid of Sir Robert Walpole. She rode in a litter with him; +without his knowledge she ordered the poisoning of M. Silanus, a brother +of her former victim, she goaded Narcissus to death, against his will; +through her influence the Senate was sometimes assembled in the palace, +and she took no pains to conceal from the senators that she was herself +seated behind a curtain where she could hear every word of their +deliberations;--nay, on one occasion, when Nero was about to give +audience to an important Armenian legation, she had the audacity to +enter the audience-chamber, and advance to take her seat by the side of +the Emperor. Every one else was struck dumb with amazement, and even +terror, at a proceeding so unusual; but Seneca, with ready and admirable +tact, suggested to Nero that he should rise and meet his mother, thus +obviating a public scandal under the pretext of filial affection.</p> + +<p>But Seneca from the very first had been guilty of a fatal error in the +education of his pupil. He had governed him throughout on the ruinous +principle of <i>concession</i>. Nero was not devoid of talent; he had a +decided turn for Latin versification, and the few lines of his +composition which have come down to us, <i>bizarre</i> and effected as they +are, yet display a certain sense of melody and power of language. But +his vivid imagination was accompained by a want of purpose; and Seneca, +instead of trying to train him in habits of serious attention and +sustained thought, suffered him to waste his best efforts in pursuits +and amusements which were considered partly frivolous and partly +disreputable, such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca +might have argued that there was, at any rate, no great harm in such +employments, and that they probably kept Nero out of worse mischief. But +we respect Nero the less for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging +just as we respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks; and, if +Seneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the first, Rome +might have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero's subsequent +buffooneries in the cities of Greece and the theatres of Rome. We may +lay it down as an invariable axiom in all high education, that it is +<i>never</i> sensible to permit what is bad for the supposed sake of +preventing what is worse. Seneca very probably persuaded himself that +with a mind like Nero's--the innate worthlessness of which he must early +have recognised--success of any high description would be simply +impossible. But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble +means by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable. +Let us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly +in matters which he regarded as indifferent--or, at the worst, as +discreditable--rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably +arose from an error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in +moral character.</p> + +<p>Yet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the worse for this +laxity of training. We have already seen that, in his maiden-speech +before the Senate, every one recognized the hand of Seneca, and many +observed with a sigh that this was the first occasion on which an +Emperor had not been able, at least to all appearance, to address the +Senate in his own words and with his own thoughts. Tiberius, as an +orator, had been dignified and forcible; Claudius had been learned and +polished; even the disturbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in +a capacity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but Nero's +youth had been frittered away in paltry and indecorus accomplishments, +which had left him neither time nor inclination for weightier and +nobler pursuits.</p> + +<p>The fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously from the +subsequent infamy of his pupil; and it is obvious that the dislike of +Tacitus to his memory is due to his connexion with Nero. Now, even +though the tutor's system had not been so wise as, when judged by an +inflexible standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to +make him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and it must be +remembered, to Seneca's eternal honour, that the evidence of facts, the +testimony of contemporaries, and even the grudging admission of Tacitus +himself, establishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation +characterized the earlier years of Nero's reign were due to his +counsels; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the virtuous Burrus; +that he helped to check the sanguinary audacities of Agrippina; that the +writings which he addressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for +him, breathed the loftiest counsels; and that it was not until he was +wholly removed from power and influence that Nero, under the fierce +impulses of despotic power, developed those atrocious tendencies of +which the seeds had long been latent in his disposition. An ancient +writer records the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a +savagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate; and that to +his intimate friends he used to observe that, "when once the lion tasted +human blood, his innate cruelty would return."</p> + +<p>But while we give Seneca this credit, and allow that his <i>intentions</i> +were thoroughly upright, we cannot but impugn his <i>judgment</i> for having +thus deliberately adopted the morality of expedience; and we believe +that to this cause, more than to any other, was due the extent of his +failure and the misery of his life. We may, indeed, be permitted to +doubt whether Nero himself--a vain and loose youth, the son of bad +parents, and heir to boundless expectations--would, under any +circumstances, have grown up much better than he did; but it is clear +that Seneca might have been held in infinitely higher honour but for the +share which he had in his education. Had Seneca been as firm and wise as +Socrates, Nero in all probability would not have been much worse than +Alcibiades. If the tutor had set before his pupil no ideal but the very +highest, if he had inflexibly opposed to the extent of his ability every +tendency which was dishonourable and wrong, he might <i>possibly</i> have +been rewarded by success, and have earned the indelible gratitude of +mankind; and if he had failed he would at least have failed nobly, and +have carried with him into a calm and honourable retirement the respect, +if not the affection, of his imperial pupil. Nay, even if he had failed +<i>completely</i>, and lost his life in the attempt, it would have been +infinitely better both for him and for mankind. Even Homer might have +taught him that "it is better to die than live in sin." At any rate he +might have known from study and observation that an education founded on +compromise must always and necessarily fail. It must fail because it +overlooks that great eternal law of retribution for and continuity in +evil, which is illustrated by every single history of individuals and of +nations. And the education which Seneca gave to Nero--noble as it was in +many respects, and eminent as was its partial and temporary success--was +yet an education of compromises. Alike in the studies of Nero's boyhood +and the graver temptations of his manhood, he acted on the +foolishly-fatal principle that</p> + +<blockquote> +"Had the wild oat not been sown,<br> + The soil left barren scarce had grown,<br> + The grain whereby a man may live."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Any Christian might have predicted the result; one would have thought +that even a pagan philosopher might have been enlightened enough to +observe it. We often quote the lines--</p> + +<blockquote> +"The child is father of the man,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>and</p> + +<blockquote> +"Just as the twig is bent the tree inclines."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>But the ancients were quite as familiar with the same truth under other +images. "The cask," wrote Horace, "will long retain the odour of that +which has once been poured into it when new." Quintilian, describing the +depraved influences which surrounded even the infancy of a Roman child, +said, "From these arise <i>first familiarity, then nature</i>."</p> + +<p>No one has laid down the principle more emphatically than Seneca +himself. Take, for instance, the following passage from his Letters, on +evil conversation. "The conversation," he says, "of these men is very +injurious; for, even if it does no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds +in the mind, and follows us even when we have gone from the speakers,--a +plague sure to spring up in future resurrection. Just as those who have +heard a symphony carry in their ears the tune and sweetness of the song +which entangles their thoughts, and does not suffer them to give their +whole energy to serious matters; so the conversation of flatterers and +of those who praise evil things, lingers longer in the mind than the +time of hearing it. Nor is it easy to shake out of the soul a sweet +sound; it pursues us, and lingers with us, and at perpetual intervals +recurs. Our ears therefore must be closed to evil words, and that to the +very first we hear. For when they have once begun and been admitted, +they acquire more and more audacity;" and so he adds a little +afterwards, "our days flow on, and irreparable life passes beyond our +reach." Yet he who wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to +his imperial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encouraged +him in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named Acte, into which Nero +fell. It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the +youthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to +whom he had been bound by every tie of honour and affection, and his +union with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical +usurpation. But princes rarely love the wives to whom they owe any part +of their elevation. Henry VII. treated Elizabeth of York with many +slights. The union of William III. with Mary was overshadowed by her +superior claim to the royal power; and Nero from the first regarded with +aversion, which ended in assassination, the poor young orphan girl who +recalled to the popular memory his slender pretensions to hereditary +empire, and whom he regarded as a possible rival, if her cowed and +plastic nature should ever become a tool in the hands of more powerful +intriguers. But we do not hear of any attempt on Seneca's part to urge +upon Nero the fulfillment of this high duty, and we find him sinking +into the degraded position of an accomplice with young profligates like +Otho, as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, which +would have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to a Stoic +disgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the very principle to +which we have been pointing,--the principle of moral compromise, the +principle of permitting and encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of +thereby preventing what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca +should have erred in this way, for compromise was the character of his +entire life. He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible +task of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the +Caesars. He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a +man of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he +failed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man +<i>must</i> make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of +Mammon and the service of God. No man ever gained anything but contempt +and ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions.</p> + +<p>And by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or an Antisthenes +would have taken, Seneca became more or less involved in some of the +most dreadful events of Nero's reign. Every one of the terrible doubts +under which his reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted +the principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue. One or two +of these events we must briefly narrate.</p> + +<p>We have already pointed out that the Nemesis which for so many years had +been secretly dogging the footsteps of Agrippina made her tremble under +the weight of its first cruel blows when she seemed to have attained the +highest summit of her ambition. Very early indeed Nero began to be +galled and irritated by the insatiate assumption and swollen authority +of "the best of mothers." The furious reproaches which she heaped upon +him when she saw in Acte a possible rival to her power drove him to take +refuge in the facile and unphilosophic worldliness of Seneca's +concessions, and goaded him almost immediately afterwards into an +atrocious crime. He naturally looked on Britannicus, the youthful son of +Claudius, with even more suspicion and hatred than that with which he +regarded Octavia. Kings have rarely been able to abstain from acts of +severity against those who might become claimants to the throne. The +feelings of King John towards Prince Arthur, of Henry IV. towards the +Earl of March, of Mary towards Lady Jane Grey, of Elizabeth towards Mary +Stuart, of King James towards Lady Arabella Stuart, resembled, but +probably by no means equalled in intensity, those of Nero towards his +kinsman and adoptive brother. To show him any affection was a dangerous +crime, and it furnished a sufficient cause for immediate removal if any +attendant behaved towards him with fidelity. Such a line of treatment +foreshadowed the catastrophe which was hastened by the rage of +Agrippina. She would go, she said, and take with her to the camp the +noble boy who was now of full age to undertake those imperial duties +which a usurper was exercising in virtue of crimes which she was now +prepared to confess. Then let the mutilated Burrus and the glib-tongued +Seneca see whether they could be a match for the son of Claudius and the +daughter of Germanicus. Such language, uttered with violent gestures and +furious imprecations, might well excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And +that alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all +the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During +the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with +all the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot +as "governor of the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue +his orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates which +would not make them blush; but Britannicus in violation of every +principle of Roman decorum, was ordered to stand up in the middle and +sing a song. The boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and +wholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well have faltered; +but he at once rose, and with a steady voice began a strain--probably +the magnificent wail of Andromache over the fall of Troy, which has been +preserved to us from a lost play of Ennius--in which he indicated his +own disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights. His courage and his +misfortunes woke in the guests a feeling of pity which night and wine +made them less careful to disguise. From that moment the fate of +Britannicus was sealed. Locusta, the celebrated poisoner of ancient +Rome, was summoned to the councils of Nero to get rid of Britannicus, as +she had already been summoned to those of his mother when she wished to +disembarrass herself of Britannicus's father. The main difficulty was to +avoid discovery, since nothing was eaten or drunk at the imperial table +till it had been tasted by the <i>praegustator</i>. To avoid this difficulty +a very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he wished for +something cooler a swift and subtle poison was dropped into the cold +water with which it was tempered. The boy drank, and instantly sank from +his seat, gasping and speechless. The guests started up in +consternation, and fixed their eyes on Nero. He with the utmost coolness +assured them that it was merely a fit of epilepsy, to which his brother +was accustomed, and from which he would soon recover. The terror and +agitation of Agrippina showed to every one that she at least was +guiltless of this dark deed; but the unhappy Octavia, young as she was, +and doubly terrible on every ground as the blow must have been to her, +sat silent and motionless, having already learnt by her misfortunes the +awful necessity for suppressing under an impassive exterior her +affections and sorrows, her hopes and fears. In the dead of night, amid +storms and murky rain, which were thought to indicate the wrath of +heaven, the last of the Claudii was hastily and meanly hurried into a +dishonourable grave.</p> + +<p>We may believe that in this crime Seneca had no share whatever, but we +can hardly believe that he was ignorant of it after it had been +committed, or that he had no share in the intensely hypocritical edict +in which Nero bewailed the fact of his adoptive brother's death, excused +his hurried funeral, and threw himself on the additional indulgence and +protection of the Senate. Nero showed the consciousness of guilt by the +immense largesses which he distributed to the most powerful of his +friends, "Nor were there wanting men," says Tacitus, in a most +significant manner, "<i>who accused certain people, notorious for their +high professions, of having at that period divided among them villas and +houses as though they had been so much spoil</i>." There can hardly be a +doubt that the great historian intends by this remark to point at +Seneca, to whom he tries to be fair, but whom he could never quite +forgive for his share in the disgraces of Nero's reign. That avarice was +one of Seneca's temptations is too probable; that expediency was a +guiding principle of his conduct is but too evident; and for a man with +such a character to rebut an innuendo is never an easy task. Nay more, +it was <i>after</i> this foul event, at the close of Nero's first year, that +Seneca addressed him in the extravagant and glowing language of his +treatise on Clemency. "The quality of mercy," and the duty of princes to +practise it, has never been more eloquently extolled; but it is +accompanied by a fulsome flattery which has in it something painfully +grotesque as addressed by a philosopher to one whom he knew to have been +guilty, that very year, of an inhuman fratricide. Imagine some Jewish +Pharisee,--a Nicodemus or a Gamaliel--pronouncing an eulogy on the +tenderness of a Herod, and you have some picture of the appearance which +Seneca's consistency must have worn in the eyes of his contemporaries.</p> + +<p>This event took place A.D. 55, in the first year of Nero's +<i>Quinquennium</i>, and the same year was nearly signalized by the death of +his mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy was invented against her, +and it is probable that but for the intervention of Burrus, who with +Seneca was appointed to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a +very sudden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred of her +son. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of her defence created a +reaction in her favour, and secured the punishment of her accusers. But +the ties of affection could not long unite two such wicked and imperious +natures as those of Agrippina and her son. All history shows that there +can be no real love between souls exceptionally wicked, and that this is +still more impossible when the alliance between them has been sealed by +a complicity in crime. Nero had now fallen into a deep infatuation for +Poppaea Sabina, the beautiful wife of Otho, and she refused him her hand +so long as he was still under the control of his mother. At this time +Agrippina, as the just consequence of her many crimes, was regarded by +all classes with a fanaticism of hatred which in Poppaea Sabina was +intensified by manifest self-interest. Nero, always weak, had long +regarded his mother with real terror and disgust, and he scarcely needed +the urgency of constant application to make him long to get rid of her. +But the daughter of Germanicus could not be openly destroyed, while her +own precautions helped to secure her against secret assassination. It +only remained to compass her death by treachery. Nero had long compelled +her to live in suburban retirement, and had made no attempt to conceal +the open rapture which existed between them. Anicetus, admiral of the +fleet at Misenum, and a former instructor of Nero, suggested the +expedient of a pretended public reconciliation, in virtue of which +Agrippina should be invited to Baiae, and on her return should be placed +on board a vessel so constructed as to come to pieces by the removal of +bolts. The disaster might then be attributed to a mere naval accident, +and Nero might make the most ostentatious display of his affection +and regret.</p> + +<p>The invitation was sent, and a vessel specially decorated was ordered to +await her movements. But, either from suspicion or from secret +information, she declined to avail herself of it, and was conveyed to +Baiae in a litter. The effusion of hypocritical affection with which she +was received, the unusual tenderness and honour with which she was +treated, the earnest gaze, the warm embrace, the varied conversation, +removed her suspicions, and she consented to return in the vessel of +honour. As though for the purpose of revealing the crime, the night was +starry and the sea calm. The ship had not sailed far, and Crepereius +Gallus, one of her friends, was standing near the helm, while a lady +named Acerronia was seated at her feet as she reclined, and both were +vieing with each other in the warmth of their congratulations upon the +recent interview, when a crash was heard, and the canopy above them +which had been weighted with a quantity of lead, was suddenly let go. +Crepereius was crushed to death upon the spot; Agrippina and Acerronia +were saved by the projecting sides of the couch on which they were +resting; in the hurry and alarm, as accomplices were mingled with a +greater number who were innocent of the plot, the machinery of the +treacherous vessel failed. Some of the rowers rushed to one side of the +ship, hoping in that manner to sink it, but here too their councils were +divided and confused. Acerronia, in the selfish hope of securing +assistance, exclaimed that she was Agrippina, and was immediately +despatched with oars and poles; Agrippina, silent and unrecognized, +received a wound upon the shoulder, but succeeded in keeping herself +afloat till she was picked up by fishermen and carried in safety to +her villa.</p> + +<p>The hideous attempt from which she had been thus miraculously rescued +did not escape her keen intuition, accustomed as it was to deeds of +guilt; but, seeing that her only chance of safety rested in +dissimulation and reticense, she sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her +son that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible +accident, but to beg him not to be alarmed, and not to come to see her +because she needed rest.</p> + +<p>The news filled Nero with the wildest terror, and the expectation of an +immediate revenge. In horrible agitation and uncertainty he instantly +required the presence of Burrus and Seneca. Tacitus doubts whether they +may not have been already aware of what he had attempted, and Dion, to +whose gross calumnies, however, we need pay no attention, declares that +Seneca had frequently urged Nero to the deed, either in the hope of +overshadowing his own guilt, or of involving Nero in a crime which +should hasten his most speedy destruction at the hands of gods and men. +In the absence of all evidence we may with perfect confidence acquit the +memory of these eminent men from having gone so far as this.</p> + +<p>It must have been a strange and awful scene. The young man, for Nero was +but twenty-two years old, poured into the ears their tumult of his +agitation and alarm. White with fear, weak with dissipation, and +tormented by the furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth +looked from one to another of his aged ministers. A long and painful +pause ensued. If they dissuaded him in vain from the crime which he +meditated their lives would have been in danger; and perhaps they +sincerely thought that things had gone so far that, unless Agrippina +were anticipated, Nero would be destroyed. Seneca was the first to break +that silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus whether the soldiery +could be entrusted to put her to death. His reply was that the +praetorians would do nothing against a daughter of Germanicus and that +Anicetus should accomplish what he had promised. Anicetus showed himself +prompt to crime, and Nero thanked him in a rapture of gratitude. While +the freedman Agerinus was delivering to Nero his mother's message, +Anicetus dropped a dagger at his feet, declared that he had caught him +in the very act of attempting the Emperor's assassination, and hurried +off with a band of soldiers to punish Agrippina as the author of +the crime.</p> + +<p>The multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excitement along the shore; +their torches were seen glimmering in evident commotion about the scene +of the calamity, where some were wading into the water in search of the +body, and others were shouting incoherent questions and replies. At the +rumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed off in a body to her villa to +express their congratulations, where they were dispersed by the soldiers +of Anicetus, who had already token possession of it. Scattering or +seizing the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage +from door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted chamber, +attended only by a single handmaid. "Dost thou too desert me?" +exclaimed the wretched woman to her servant, as she rose to slip away. +In silent determination the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus +was the first to strike her with a stick. "Strike my womb," she cried to +him faintly, as he drew his sword, "for it bore Nero." The blow of +Anicetus was the signal for her immediate destruction: she was +dispatched with many wounds, and was buried that night at Misenum on a +common couch and with a mean funeral. Such an end, many years +previously, this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had +anticipated and despised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her that +her son would become Emperor, and would murder her, she is said to have +exclaimed, "Occidat dum imperet," "Let him slay me if he but reign."</p> + +<p>It only remained to account for the crime, and offer for it such lying +defences as were most likely to gain credit. Flying to Naples from a +scene which had now become awful to him,--for places do not change as +men's faces change, and, besides this, his disturbed conscience made him +fancy that he heard from the hill of Misenum the blowing of a ghostly +trumpet and wailings about his mother's tomb in the hours of night,--he +sent from thence a letter to the Senate, saying that his mother had been +punished for an attempt upon his life, and adding a list of her crimes, +real and imaginary, the narrative of her <i>accidental</i> shipwreck, and his +opinion that her death was a public blessing. The author of this +shameful document was Seneca, and in composing it he reached the nadir +of his moral degradation. Even the lax morality of a most degenerate age +condemned him for calmly sitting down to decorate with the graces of +rhetoric and antithesis an atrocity too deep for the powers of +indignation. A Seneca could stoop to write what a Thrasea Paetus could +scarcely stoop to hear; for in the meeting of the Senate at which the +letter was recited, Thrasea rose in indignation, and went straight home +rather than seem to sanction by his presence the adulation of a +matricide.</p> + +<p>And the composition of that guily, elaborate, shameful letter was the +last prominent act of Seneca's public life.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII."></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>THE BEGINNING OF THE END.</h3> + +<p>Nor was it unnatural that it should be. Moral precepts, philosophic +guidance were no longer possible to one whose compliances or whose +timidity had led him so far as first to sanction matricide, and then to +defend it. He might indeed be still powerful to recommend principles of +common sense and political expediency, but the loftier lessons of +Stoicism, nay, even the better utterances of a mere ordinary Pagan +morality, could henceforth only fall from his lips with something of a +hollow ring. He might interfere, as we know he did, to render as +innocuous as possible the pernicious vanity which made Nero so ready to +degrade his imperial rank by public appearances on the orchestra or in +the race-course, but he could hardly address again such noble teachings +as that of the treatise on Clemency to one whom, on grounds of political +expediency, he had not dissuaded from the treacherous murder of a +mother, who, whatever her enormities, yet for his sake had sold her +very soul.</p> + +<p>Although there may have been a strong suspicion that foul play had been +committed, the actual facts and details of the death of Agrippina would +rest between Nero and Seneca as a guilty secret, in the guilt of which +Seneca himself must have his share. Such a position of things was the +inevitable death-blow, not only to all friendship, but to all +confidence, and ultimately to all intercourse. We see in sacred history +that Joab's participation in David's guilty secret gave him the absolute +mastery over his own sovereign; we see repeatedly in profane history +that the mutual knowledge of some crime is the invariable cause of +deadly hatred between a subject and a king. Such feelings as King John +may be supposed to have had to Hubert de Burgh, or King Richard III. to +Sir James Tyrrel, or King James I. to the Earl of Somerset, such +probably, in still more virulent intensity, were the feelings of Nero +towards his whilome "guide, philosopher, and friend."</p> + +<p>For Nero very soon learnt that Seneca was no longer <i>necessary</i> to him. +For a time he lingered in Campania, guiltily dubious as to the kind of +reception that awaited him in the capital. The assurances of the vile +crew which surrounded him soon made that fear wear off, and when he +plucked up the courage to return to his palace, he might himself have +been amazed at the effusion of infamous loyalty and venal acclamation +with which he was received. All Rome poured itself forth to meet him; +the Senate appeared in festal robes with their wives and girls and boys +in long array; seats and scaffoldings were built up along the road by +which he had to pass, as though the populace had gone forth to see a +triumph. With haughty mein, the victor of a nation of slaves, he +ascended the Capitol, gave thanks to the gods, and went home to betray +henceforth the full perversity of a nature which the reverence for his +mother, such as it was, had hitherto in part restrained. But the +instincts of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. They +hung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the old punishment +of parricides, who were sentenced to be flung into the sea, tied up in a +sack with a serpent, a monkey, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the +Forum with a tablet on which was written, "I refuse to rear thee, lest +thou shouldst slay thy mother." They scrawled upon the blank walls of +Rome an iambic line which reminded all who read it that Nero, Orestes, +and Alcmaeon were murderers of their mothers. Even Nero must have been +well aware that he presented a hideous spectacle in the eyes of all who +had the faintest shade of righteousness among the people whom he ruled.</p> + +<p>All this took place in A.D. 59, and we hear no more of Seneca till the +year 62, a year memorable for the death of Burrus, who had long been his +honest, friendly, and faithful colleague. In these dark times, when all +men seemed to be speaking in a whisper, almost every death of a +conspicuous and high-minded man, if not caused by open violence, falls +under the suspicion of secret poison. The death of Burrus may have been +due (from the description) to diphtheria, but the popular voice charged +Nero with having hastened his death by a pretended remedy, and declared +that, when the Emperor visited his sick bed, the dying man turned away +from his inquiries with the laconic answer, "I am well."</p> + +<p>His death was regretted, not only from the memory of his virtues, but +also from the fact that Nero appointed two men as his successors, of +whom the one, Fenius Rufus, was honorable but indolent; the other and +more powerful, Sofonius Tigellinus had won for himself among cruel and +shameful associates a pre-eminence of hatred and of shame.</p> + +<p>However faulty and inconsistent Seneca may have been, there was at any +rate no possibility that he should divide with a Tigellinus the +direction of his still youthful master. He was by no means deceived as +to the position in which he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in +whom any spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant +calumnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tigellinus and his +friends dwelt on his enormous wealth and his magnificent villas and +gardens, which could only have been acquired with ulterior objects, and +which threw into the shade the splendour of the Emperor himself. They +tried to kindle the inflammable jealousies of Nero's feeble mind by +representing Seneca as attempting to rival him in poetry, and as +claiming the entire credit of his eloquence, while he mocked his divine +singing, and disparaged his accomplishments as a harper and charioteer +because he himself was unable to acquire them. Nero, they urged was a +boy no longer; let him get rid of his schoolmaster, and find sufficient +instruction in the example of his ancestors.</p> + +<p>Foreseeing how such arguments must end; Seneca requested an interview +with Nero; begged to be suffered to retire altogether from public life; +pleaded age and increasing infirmities as an excuse for desiring a calm +retreat; and offered unconditionally to resign the wealth and honours +which had excited the cupidity of his enemies, but which were simply due +to Nero's unexampled liberality during the eight years of his +government, towards one whom he had regarded as a benefactor and a +friend. But Nero did not choose to let Seneca escape so lightly. He +argued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to +accept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for +generosity. A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under +deceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and +assurances of friendship. Seneca thanked him--the usual termination, as +Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler--but nevertheless +altered his entire manner of life, forbade his friends to throng to his +levees, avoided all companions, and rarely appeared in public--wishing +it to be believed that he was suffering from weak health, or was wholly +occupied in the pursuit of philosophy. He well knew the arts of courts, +for in his book on Anger he has told an anecdote of one who, being asked +how he had managed to attain so rare a gift as old age in a palace, +replied, "By submitting to injuries, and <i>returning thanks for them</i>." +But he must have known that his life hung upon a thread, for in the very +same year an attempt was made to involve him in a charge of treason as +one of the friends of C. Calpurnius Piso, an illustrious nobleman whose +wealth and ability made him an object of jealousy and suspicion, though +he was naturally unambitious and devoid of energy. The attempt failed at +the time, and Seneca was able triumphantly to refute the charge of any +treasonable design. But the fact of such a charge being made showed how +insecure was the position of any man of eminence under the deepening +tyranny of Nero, and it precipitated the conspiracy which two years +afterwards was actually formed.</p> + +<p>Not long after the death of Burrus, when Nero began to add sacrilege to +his other crimes, Seneca made one more attempt to retire from Rome; and, +when permission was a second time refused, he feigned a severe illness, +and confined himself to his chamber. It was asserted, and believed, that +about this time Nero made an attempt to poison him by the +instrumentality of his freedman Cleonicus, which was only defeated by +the confession of an accomplice or by the abstemious habits of the +philosopher who now took nothing but bread and fruit, and never quenched +his thirst except out of the running stream.</p> + +<p>It was during those two years of Seneca's seclusion and disgrace that an +event happened of imperishable interest. On the orgies of a shameful +court, on the supineness of a degenerate people, there burst--as upon +the court of Charles II.--a sudden lightning-flash of retribution. In +its character, in its extent, in the devastation and anguish of which it +was the cause, in the improvements by which it was followed, in the +lying origin to which it was attributed, even in the general +circumstances of the period and character of the reign in which it +happened, there is a close and singular analogy between the Great Fire +of London in 1666 and the Great Fire of Rome in 64. Beginning in the +crowded part of the city, under the Palatine and Caelian Hills, it +raged, first for six, and then again for three days, among the +inflammable material of booths and shops, and driven along by a furious +wind, amid feeble and ill-directed efforts to check its course, it burst +irresistibly over palaces, temples, and porticoes, and amid the narrow +tortuous streets of old Rome, involving in a common destruction the most +magnificent works of ancient art, the choicest manuscripts of ancient +literature, and the most venerable monuments of ancient superstition. In +a few touches of inimitable compression, such as the stern genius of the +Latin language permits, but which are too condensed for direct +translation, Tacitus has depicted the horror of the scene,--wailing of +panic-stricken women, the helplessness of the very aged and the very +young, the passionate eagerness for themselves and for others, the +dragging along of the feeble or the waiting for them, the lingering and +the hurry, the common and inextricable confusion. Many, while they +looked backward, were cut off by the flames in front or at the sides; if +they sought some neighboring refuge, they found it in the grasp of the +conflagration; if they hurried to some more distant spot, that too was +found to be involved in the same calamity. At last, uncertain what to +seek or what to avoid, they crowded the streets, they lay huddled +together in the fields. Some, having lost all their possessions, died +from the want of daily food; and others, who might have escaped died of +a broken heart from the anguish of being bereaved of those whom they had +been unable to rescue; while, to add to the universal horror, it was +believed that all attempts to repress the flames were checked by +authoritive prohibition; nay more, that hired incendiaries were seen +flinging firebrands in new directions, either because they had been +bidden to do so, or that they might exercise their rapine undisturbed.</p> + +<p>The historians and anecdotists of the time, whose accounts must be taken +for what they are worth, attribute to Nero the origin of the +conflagration; and it is certain that he did not return to Rome until +the fire had caught the galleries of his palace. In vain did he use +every exertion to assist the homeless and ruined population; in vain did +he order food to be sold to them at a price unprecedentedly low, and +throw open to them the monuments of Agrippa, his own gardens, and a +multitude of temporary sheds. A rumour had been spread that, during the +terrible unfolding of that great "flower of flame," he had mounted to +the roof of his distant villa, and delighted with the beauty of the +spectacle, exulting in the safe sensation of a new excitement, had +dressed himself in theatrical attire, and sung to his harp a poem on the +burning of Troy. Such a heartless mixture of buffoonery and affectation +had exasperated the people too deeply for forgiveness, and Nero thought +it necessary to draw off the general odium into a new channel, since +neither his largesses nor any other popular measures succeeded in +removing from himself the ignominy of this terrible suspicion. What +follows is so remarkable, and, to a Christian reader, so deeply +interesting, that I will give it in the very words of that great +historian whom I have been so closely following.</p> + +<p>"Therefore, to get rid of this report, Nero trumped up an accusation +against a sect, detested for their atrocities, whom the common people +called Christians, and inflicted on them the most recondite punishments. +Christ, the founder of this sect, had been capitally punished by the +Procurator Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; and this damnable +superstition, repressed for the present, was again breaking out, not +only through Judaea, where the evil originated, but even through the +City, whither from all regions all things that are atrocious or shameful +flow together and gain a following. Those, therefore, were first +arrested who confessed their religion, and then on their evidence a vast +multitude were condemned, not so much on the charge of incendiarism, as +for their hatred towards the human race. And mockery was added to their +death; for they were covered in the skins of wild beasts and were torn +to death by dogs, or crucified, or set apart for burning, and after the +close of the day were reserved for the purpose of nocturnal +illumination. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a +chariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer, +or driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a +feeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, +and deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being +exterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the savage +cruelty of one man."</p> + +<p>Such are the brief but deeply pathetic particulars which have come down +to us respecting the first great persecution of the Christians, and such +must have been the horrid events of which Seneca was a contemporary, and +probably an actual eye-witness, in the very last year of his life. +Profoundly as in all likelihood he must have despised the very name of +Christian, a heart so naturally mild and humane as his must have +shuddered at the monstrous cruelties devised against the unhappy +votaries of this new religion. But to the relations of Christianity with +the Pagan world we shall return in a subsequent chapter and we must now +hasten to the end of our biography.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII."></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>THE DEATH OF SENECA.</h3> + +<p>The false charge which had been brought against Seneca, and in which the +name of Piso had been involved, tended to urge that nobleman and his +friends into a real and formidable conspiracy. Many men of influence and +distinction joined in it, and among others Annaeus Lucanus, the +celebrated poet-nephew of Seneca, and Fenius Rufus the colleague of +Tigellinus in the command of the imperial guards. The plot was long +discussed, and many were admitted into the secret, which was +nevertheless marvellously well kept. One of the most eager conspirators +was Subrius Flavus, an officer of the guards, who suggested the plan of +stabbing Nero as he sang upon the stage, or of attacking him as he went +about without guards at night in the galleries of his burning palace. +Flavus is even said to have cherished the design of subsequently +murdering Piso likewise, and of offering the imperial power to Seneca, +with the full cognisance of the philosopher himself.<a name="FNanchor35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35">[35]</a> However this +may have been--and the story has no probability--many schemes were +discussed and rejected, from the difficulty of finding a man +sufficiently bold and sufficiently in earnest to put his own life to +such imminent risk. While things were still under discussion, the plot +was nearly ruined by the information of Volusius Proculus, an admiral of +the fleet, to whom it had been mentioned by a freedwoman of the name of +Ephicharis. Although no sufficient evidence could be adduced against +her, the conspirators thought it advisable to hasten matters, and one of +them, a senator named Scaevinus, undertook the dangerous task of +assassination. Plautius Lateranus, the cousul-elect, was to pretend to +offer a petition, in which he was to embrace the Emperor's knees and +throw him to the ground, and then Scaevinus was to deal the fatal blow. +The theatrical conduct of Scaevinus--who took an antique dagger from the +Temple of Safety, made his will, ordered the dagger to be sharpened, sat +down to an unusually luxurious banquet, manumitted or made presents to +his slaves, showed great agitation, and finally ordered ligaments for +wounds to be prepared,--awoke the suspicions of one of his freedmen +named Milichus, who hastened to claim a reward for revealing his +suspicions. Confronted with Milichus, Scaevinus met and refuted his +accusations with the greatest firmness; but when Milichus mentioned +among other things that, the day before, Scaevinus had held a long and +secret conversation with another friend of Piso named Natalis, and when +Natalis, on being summoned, gave a very different account of the subject +of this conversation from that which Scaevinus had given, they were both +put in chains; and, unable to endure the threats and the sight of +tortures, revealed the entire conspiracy. Natalis was the first to +mentioned the name of Piso, and he added the hated name of Seneca, +either because he had been the confidential messenger between the two, +or because he knew that he could not do a greater favour to Nero than by +giving him the opportunity of injuring a man whom he had long sought +every possible opportunity to crush. Scaevinus, with equal weakness, +perhaps because he thought that Natalis had left nothing to reveal, +mentioned the names of the others, and among them of Lucan, whose +complicity in the plot would undoubtedly tend to give greater +probability to the supposed guilt of Seneca. Lucan, after long denying +all knowledge of the design, corrupted by the promise of impunity, was +guilty of the incredible baseness of making up for the slowness of his +confession by its completeness, and of naming among the conspirators his +chief friend Gallus and Pollio, and his own mother Atilla. The woman +Ephicharis, slave though she had once been, alone showed the slightest +constancy, and, by her brave unshaken reticence under the most +excruciating and varied tortures, put to shame the pusillanimous +treachery of senators and knights. On the second day, when, with limbs +too dislocated to admit of her standing, she was again brought to the +presence of her executioners, she succeeded, by a sudden movement, in +strangling herself with her own girdle.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor35">[35]</a> See Juv. <i>Sat</i>. viii. 212. +</blockquote> + +<p>In the hurry and alarm of the moment the slightest show of resolution +would have achieved the object of the conspiracy. Fenius Rufus had not +yet been named among the conspirators, and as he sat by the side of the +Emperor, and presided over the torture of his associates, Subrius Flavus +made him a secret sign to inquire whether even then and there he should +stab Nero. Rufus not only made a sign of dissent, but actually held the +hand of Subrius as it was grasping the hilt of his sword. Perhaps it +would have been better for him if he had not done so, for it was not +likely that the numerous conspirators would long permit the same man to +be at once their accomplice and the fiercest of their judges. Shortly +afterwards, as he was urging and threatening, Scaevinus remarked, with a +quiet smile, "that nobody knew more about the matter than he did +himself, and that he had better show his gratitude to so excellent a +prince by telling all he knew." The confusion and alarm of Rufus +betrayed his consciousness of guilt; he was seized and bound on the +spot, and subsequently put to death.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the friends of Piso were urging to take some bold and sudden +step, which, if it did not succeed in retrieving his fortunes, would at +least shed lustre on his death. But his somewhat slothful nature, +weakened still further by a luxurious life, was not to be aroused, and +he calmly awaited the end. It was customary among the Roman Emperors at +this period to avoid the disgrace and danger of public executions by +sending a messenger to a man's house, and ordering him to put himself to +death by whatever means he preferred. Some raw recruits--for Nero dared +not intrust any veterans with the duty--brought the mandate to Piso, who +proceeded to make a will full of disgraceful adulation towards Nero, +opened his veins, and died. Plautius Lateranus was not even allowed the +poor privilege of choosing his own death, but, without time even to +embrace his children, was hurried off to a place set apart for the +punishment of slaves, and there died, without a word, by the sword of a +tribune whom he knew to be one his own accomplices.</p> + +<p>Lucan, in the prime of his life and the full bloom of his genius, was +believed to have joined the plot from his indignation at the manner in +which Nero's jealousy had repressed his poetic fame, and forbidden him +the opportunity of public rectitations. He too opened his veins; and as +he felt the deathful chill creeping upwards from the extremities of his +limbs, he recited some verses from his own "Pharsalia," in which he had +described the similar death of the soldier Lycidas. They were his last +words. His mother Atilla, whom to his everlasting infamy, he had +betrayed, was passed over as a victim too insignificant for notice, and +was neither pardoned nor punished.</p> + +<p>But, of all the many deaths which were brought about by this unhappy and +ill-managed conspiracy, none caused more delight to Nero than that of +Seneca, whom he was now able to dispatch by the sword, since he had been +unable to do so by secret poison. What share Seneca really had in the +conspiracy is unknown. If he were really cognisant of it, he must have +acted with consummate tact, for no particle of convincing evidence was +adduced against him. All that even Natalis could relate was, that when +Piso had sent him to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to +more of his intercourse, Seneca had replied "that it was better for them +both to hold aloof from each other, but that his own safety depended on +that of Piso." A tribune was sent to ask Seneca as to the truth of this +story, and found,--which was in itself regarded as a suspicious +circumstance,--that on that very day he had returned from Campania to a +villa four miles from the city. The tribune arrived in the evening, and +surrounded the villa with soldiers. Seneca was at supper, with his wife +Paulina and two friends. He entirely denied the truth of the evidence, +and said that "the only reason which he had assigned to Piso for seeing +so little of him was his weak health and love of retirement. Nero, who +knew how little prone he was to flattery, might judge whether or no it +was likely that he, a man of consular rank, would prefer the safety of a +man of private station to his own." Such was the message which the +tribune took back to Nero, whom he found sitting with his dearest and +most detestable advisers, his wife Poppaea and his minister Tigellinus. +Nero asked "whether Seneca was preparing a voluntary death." On the +tribune replying that he showed no gloom or terror in his language or +countenance, Nero ordered that he should at once be bidden to die. The +message was taken, and Seneca, without any sign of alarm, quietly +demanded leave to revise his will. This was refused him, and he then +turned to his friends with the remark that, as he was unable to reward +their merits as they had deserved, he would bequeath to them the only, +and yet the most precious, possession left to him, namely, the example +of his life, and if they were mindful of it they would win the +reputation alike for integrity and for faithful friendship. At the same +time he checked their tears, sometimes by his conversation, and +sometimes with serious reproaches, asking them "where were their +precepts of philosophy, and where the fortitude under trials which +should have been learnt from the studies of many years? Did not every +one know the cruelty of Nero? and what was left for him to do but to +make an end of his master and tutor after the murder of his mother and +his brother?" He then embraced his wife Paulina, and, with a slight +faltering of his lofty sternness, begged and entreated her not to enter +on an endless sorrow, but to endure the loss of her husband by the aid +of those noble consolations which she must derive from the contemplation +of his virtuous life. But Paulina declared that she would die with him, +and Seneca, not opposing the deed which would win her such permanent +glory, and at the same time unwilling to leave her to future wrongs, +yielded to her wish. The veins of their arms were opened by the same +blow; but the blood of Seneca, impoverished by old age and temperate +living, flowed so slowly that it was necessary also to open the veins of +his legs. This mode of death, chosen by the Romans as comparatively +painless, is in fact under certain circumstances most agonizing. Worn +out by these cruel tortures, and unwilling to weaken his wife's +fortitude by so dreadful a spectacle, glad at the same time to spare +himself the sight of <i>her</i> sufferings, he persuaded her to go to another +room. Even then his eloquence did not fail. It is told of Andrè Chénier, +the French poet, that on his way to execution he asked for writing +materials to record some of the strange thoughts which filled his mind. +The wish was denied him, but Seneca had ample liberty to record his last +utterances. Amanuenses were summoned, who took down those dying +admonitions, and in the time of Tacitus they still were extant. To us, +however, this interesting memorial of a Pagan deathbed is +irrevocably lost.</p> + +<p>Nero, meanwhile, to whom the news of these circumstances was taken, +having no dislike to Paulina, and unwilling to incur the odium of too +much bloodshed, ordered her death to be prohibited and her wounds to be +bound. She was already unconscious, but her slaves and freedmen +succeeded in saving her life. She lived a few years longer, cherishing +her husband's memory, and bearing in the attenuation of her frame, and +the ghastly pallor of her countenance, the lasting proofs of that deep +affection which had characterised their married life.</p> + +<p>Seneca was not yet dead, and, to shorten these protracted and useless +sufferings, he begged his friend and physician Statius Annaeus to give +him a draught of hemlock, the same poison by which the great philosopher +of Athens had been put to death. But his limbs were already cold, and +the draught proved fruitless. He then entered a bath of hot water, +sprinkling the slaves who stood nearest to him, with the words that he +was pouring a libation to Jupiter the Liberator.<a name="FNanchor36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36">[36]</a> Even the warm +water failed to make the blood flow more speedily, and he was finally +carried into one of those vapour baths which the Romans called +<i>sudatoria</i>, and stifled with its steam. His body was burned privately, +without any of the usual ceremonies. Such had been his own wish, +expressed, not after the fall of his fortunes, but at a time when his +thoughts had been directed to his latter end, in the zenith of his great +wealth and conspicuous power.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor36">[36]</a> Sicco Polentone, an Italian, who wrote a Life of Seneca +(d. 1461), makes Seneca a secret Christian, and represents this as an +invocation of Christ, and says that he baptized himself with the water +of the bath! +</blockquote> + +<p>So died a Pagan philosopher, whose life must always excite our interest +and pity, although we cannot apply to him the titles of great or good. +He was a man of high genius, of great susceptibility, of an ardent and +generous temperament, of far-sighted and sincere humanity. Some of his +sentiments are so remarkable for their moral beauty and profundity that +they forcibly remind us of the expressions of St. Paul. But Seneca fell +infinitely short of his own high standard, and has contemptuously been +called "the father of all them that wear shovel hats." Inconsistency is +written on the entire history of his life, and it has earned him the +scathing contempt with which many writers have treated his memory. "The +business of a philosopher," says Lord Macaulay, in his most scornful +strain, "was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling +out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of +luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about +liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant; +to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had +just before written a defence of the murder of a mother by a son." +"Seneca," says Niebuhr, "was an accomplished man of the world, who +occupied himself very much with virtue, and may have considered himself +to be an ancient Stoic. He certainly believed that he was a most +ingenious and virtuous philosopher; but he acted on the principle that, +as far as he himself was concerned, he could dispense with the laws of +morality which he laid down for others, and that he might give way to +his natural propensities."</p> + +<p>In Seneca's life, then, we see as clearly as in those of many professing +Christians that it is impossible to be at once worldly and righteous. +Seneca's utter failure was due to the vain attempt to combine in his own +person two opposite characters--that of a Stoic and that of a courtier. +Had he been a true philosopher, or a mere courtier, he would have been +happier, and even more respected. To be both was absurd: hence, even in +his writings, he was driven into inconsistency. He is often compelled to +abandon the lofty utterances of Stoicism, and to charge philosophers +with ignorance of life. In his treatise on a Happy Life he is obliged to +introduce a sort of indirect autobiographical apology for his wealth and +position.<a name="FNanchor37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37">[37]</a> In spite of his lofty pretensions to simplicity, in spite +of that sort of amateur asceticism which, in common with other wealthy +Romans, he occasionally practised, in spite of his final offer to +abandon his entire patrimony to the Emperor, we fear that he cannot be +acquitted of an almost insatiable avarice. We need not indeed believe +the fierce calumnies which charged him with exhausting Italy by a +boundless usury, and even stirring up a war in Britain by the severity +of his exactions; but it is quite clear that he deserved the title of +<i>Proedives</i>, "the over-wealthy," by which he has been so pointedly +signalized. It is strange that the most splendid intellects should so +often have sunk under the slavery of this meanest vice. In the Bible we +read how the "rewards of divination" seduced from his allegiance to God +the splendid enchanter of Mesopotamia:</p> + +<blockquote> + "In outline dim and vast<br> + Their fearful shadows cast<br> + The giant form of Empires on their way<br> + To ruin:--one by one<br> + They tower and they are gone,<br> + Yet in the prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.<br> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + "No sun or star so bright,<br> + In all the world of light,<br> + That they should draw to heaven his downward eye:<br> + He hears the Almighty's word,<br> + He sees the angel's sword,<br> + Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie."<br> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor37">[37]</a> See <i>Ad. Polyb</i>. 37: <i>Ep</i>. 75; <i>De Vit. Beat</i>. 17, 18, +22. +</blockquote> + +<p>And in Seneca we see some of the most glowing pictures of the nobility +of poverty combined with the most questionable avidity in the pursuit of +wealth. Yet how completely did he sell himself for naught. It is the +lesson which we see in every conspicuously erring life, and it was +illustrated less than three years afterwards in the terrible fate of the +tyrant who had driven him to death. For a short period of his life, +indeed, Seneca was at the summit of power; yet, courtier as he was, he +incurred the hatred, the suspicion, and the punishment of all the three +Emperors during whose reigns his manhood was passed. "Of all +unsuccessful men," says Mr. Froude, "in every shape, whether divine or +human, or devilish, there is none equal to Bunyan's Mr. +Facing-both-ways--the fellow with one eye on heaven and one on +earth--who sincerely preaches one thing and sincerely does another, and +from the intensity of his unreality is unable either to see or feel the +contradiction. He is substantially trying to cheat both God and the +devil, and is in reality only cheating himself and his neighbours. This +of all characters upon the earth appears to us to be the one of which +there is no hope at all, a character becoming in these days alarmingly +abundant; and the aboundance of which makes us find even in a Reineke an +inexpressible relief." And, in point of fact, the inconsistency of +Seneca's life was a <i>conscious</i> inconsistency. "To the student," he +says, "who professes his wish to rise to a loftier grade of virtue, I +would answer that this is my <i>wish</i> also, but I dare not hope it. <i>I am +preoccupied with vices. All I require of myself is, not to be equal to +the best</i>, but only <i>to be better than the bad</i>." No doubt Seneca meant +this to be understood merely for modest depreciation; but it was far +truer than he would have liked seriously to confess. He must have often +and deeply felt that he was not living in accordance with the light +which was in him.</p> + +<p>It would indeed be cheap and easy, to attribute the general inferiority +and the many shortcomings of Seneca's life and character to the fact +that he was a Pagan, and to suppose that if he had known Christianity he +would necessarily have attained to a loftier ideal. But such a style of +reasoning and inference, commonly as it is adopted for rhetorical +purposes, might surely be refused by any intelligent child. A more +intellectual assent to the lessons of Christianity would have probably +been but of little avail to inspire in Seneca a nobler life. The fact +is, that neither the gift of genius nor the knowledge of Christianity +are adequate to the ennoblement of the human heart, nor does the grace +of God flow through the channels of surpassing intellect or of orthodox +belief. Men there have been in all ages, Pagan no less than Christian, +who with scanty mental enlightenment and spiritual knowledge have yet +lived holy and noble lives: men there have been in all ages, Christian +no less than Pagan, who with consummate gifts and profound erudition +have disgraced some of the noblest words which ever were uttered by some +of the meanest lives which were ever lived. In the twelfth century was +there any mind that shone more brightly, was there any eloquence which +flowed more mightily, than that of Peter Abelard? Yet Abelard sank +beneath the meanest of his scholastic cotemporaries in the degradation +of his career as much as he towered above the highest of them in the +grandeur of his genius. In the seventeenth century was there any +philosopher more profound, any moralist more elevated, than Francis +Bacon? Yet Bacon could flatter a tyrant, and betray a friend, and +receive a bribe, and be one of the latest of English judges to adopt the +brutal expedient of enforcing confession by the exercise of torture. If +Seneca defended the murder of Agrippina, Bacon blackened the character +of Essex. "What I would I do not; but the thing that I would not, that I +do," might be the motto for many a confession of the sins of genius; and +Seneca need not blush if we compare him with men who were his equals in +intellectual power, but whose "means of grace," whose privileges, whose +knowledge of the truth, were infinitely higher than his own. Let the +noble constancy of his death shed a light over his memory which may +dissipate something of those dark shades which rest on portions of his +history. We think of Abelard, humble, silent, patient, God-fearing, +tended by the kindly-hearted Peter in the peaceful gardens of Clugny; we +think of Bacon, neglected, broken, and despised, dying of the chill +caught in a philosophical experiment and leaving his memory to the +judgment of posterity; let us think of Seneca, quietly yielding to his +destiny without a murmur, cheering the constancy of the mourners round +him during the long agonies of his enforced suicide and dictating some +of the purest utterances of Pagan wisdom almost with his latest breath. +The language of his great contemporary, the Apostle St. Paul, will best +help us to understand his position. He was one of those who was <i>seeking +the Lord, if haply he might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be +not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have +our being</i>.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV."></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA AND ST. PAUL.</h3> + +<p>In the spring of the year 61, not long after the time when the murder of +Agrippina, and Seneca's justifications of it, had been absorbing the +attention of the Roman world, there disembarked at Puteoli a troop of +prisoners, whom the Procurator of Judaea had sent to Rome under the +charge of a centurion. Walking among them, chained and weary, but +affectionately tended by two younger companions,<a name="FNanchor38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38">[38]</a> and treated with +profound respect by little deputations of friends who met him at Appii +Forum and the Three Taverns, was a man of mean presence and +weather-beaten aspect, who was handed over like the rest to the charge +of Burrus, the Praefect of the Praetorian Guards. Learning from the +letters of the Jewish Procurator that the prisoner had been guilty of no +serious offence,<a name="FNanchor39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39">[39]</a> but had used his privilege of Roman citizenship to +appeal to Caesar for protection against the infuriated malice of his +co-religionists--possibly also having heard from the centurion Julius +some remarkable facts about his behaviour and history--Burrus allowed +him, pending the hearing of his appeal, to live in his own hired +apartments.<a name="FNanchor40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40">[40]</a> This lodging was in all probability in that quarter of +the city opposite the island in the Tiber, which corresponds to the +modern Trastevere. It was the resort of the very lowest and meanest of +the populace--that promiscuous jumble of all nations which makes Tacitus +call Rome at this time "the sewer of the universe." It was here +especially that the Jews exercised some of the meanest trades in Rome, +selling matches, and old clothes, and broken glass, or begging and +fortune-telling on the Cestian or Fabrican bridges.<a name="FNanchor41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41">[41]</a> In one of these +narrow, dark, and dirty streets, thronged by the dregs of the Roman +populace, St. Mark and St. Peter had in all probability lived when they +founded the little Christian Church at Rome. It was undoubtedly in the +same despised locality that St. Paul,--the prisoner who had been +consigned to the care of Burrus,--hired a room, sent for the principle +Jews, and for two years taught to Jews and Christians, to any Pagans who +would listen to him, the doctrines which were destined to regenerate +the world.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor38">[38]</a> Luke and Aristarchus. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor39">[39]</a> Acts xxiv. 23, xxvii. 3. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor40">[40]</a> Acts xxviii. 30, [Greek: en idio misthomati]. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor41">[41]</a> MART. <i>Ep</i>. i. 42: JUV. xiv. 186. In these few paragraphs +I follow M. Aubertin, who (as well as many other authors) has collected +many of the principal passages in which Roman writers allude to the Jews +and Christians. +</blockquote> + +<p>Any one entering that mean and dingy room would have seen a Jew with +bent body and furrowed countenance, and with every appearance of age, +weakness, and disease chained by the arm to a Roman soldier. But it is +impossible that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not also +have seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, the fire of inspiration, +the serene light of exalted hope and dauntless courage upon those +withered features. And though <i>he</i> was chained, "the Word of God was not +chained." <a name="FNanchor42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42">[42]</a> Had they listened to the words which he occasionally +dictated, or overlooked the large handwriting which alone his weak +eyesight and bodily infirmities, as well as the inconvenience of his +chains, permitted, they would have heard or read the immortal utterances +which strengthened the faith of the nascent and struggling Churches in +Ephesus, Philippi, and Colossae, and which have since been treasured +among the most inestimable possessions of a Christian world.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor42">[42]</a> 2 Tim. ii. 9. +</blockquote> + +<p>His efforts were not unsuccessful; his misfortunes were for the +furtherance of the Gospel; his chains were manifest "in all the palace, +and in all other places;" <a name="FNanchor43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43">[43]</a> and many waxing confident by his bonds +were much more bold to speak the word without fear. Let us not be misled +by assuming a wrong explanation of these words, or by adopting the +Middle Age traditions which made St. Paul convert some of the immediate +favourites of the Emperor, and electrify with his eloquence an admiring +Senate. The word here rendered "palace" <a name="FNanchor44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44">[44]</a> may indeed have that +meaning, for we know that among the early converts were "they of +Caesar's household;" <a name="FNanchor45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45">[45]</a> but these were in all probability--if not +certainly--Jews of the lowest rank, who were, as we know, to be found +among the <i>hundreds</i> of unfortunates of every age and country who +composed a Roman <i>familia</i>. And it is at least equally probable that the +word "praetorium" simply means the barrack of that detachment of Roman +soldiers from which Paul's gaolers were taken in turn. In such labours +St. Paul in all probability spent two years (61-63), during which +occurred the divorce of Octavia, the marriage with Poppaea, the death of +Burrus, the disgrace of Seneca, and the many subsequent infamies +of Nero.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor43">[43]</a> Phil. i. 12. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor44">[44]</a> [Greek: en olo to praitorio]. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor45">[45]</a> Phil. iv. 22. +</blockquote> + +<p>It is out of such materials that some early Christian forger thought it +edifying to compose the work which is supposed to contain the +correspondence of Seneca and St. Paul. The undoubted spuriousness of +that work is now universally admitted, and indeed the forgery is too +clumsy to be even worth reading. But it is worth while inquiring whether +in the circumstances of the time there is even a bare possibility that +Seneca should ever have been among the readers or the auditors of Paul.</p> + +<p>And the answer is, There is absolutely no such probability. A vivid +imagination is naturally attracted by the points of contrast and +resemblance offered by two such characters, and we shall see that there +is a singular likeness between many of their sentiments and expressions. +But this was a period in which, as M. Villemain observes, "from one +extremity of the social world to the other truths met each other without +recognition." Stoicism, noble as were many of its precepts, lofty as was +the morality it professed, deeply as it was imbued in many respects with +a semi-Christian piety, looked upon Christianity with profound contempt. +The Christians disliked the Stoics, the Stoics despised and persecuted +the Christians. "The world knows nothing of its greatest men." Seneca +would have stood aghast at the very notion of his receiving the lessons, +still more of his adopting the religion, of a poor, accused, and +wandering Jew. The haughty, wealthy, eloquent, prosperous, powerful +philosopher would have smiled at the notion that any future ages would +suspect him of having borrowed any of his polished and epigrammatic +lessons of philosophic morals or religion from one whom, if he heard of +him, he would have regarded as a poor wretch, half fanatic and half +barbarian.</p> + +<p>We learn from St. Paul himself that the early converts of Christianity +were men in the very depths of poverty,<a name="FNanchor46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46">[46]</a> and that its preachers were +regarded as fools, and weak, and were despised, and naked, and +buffeted--persecuted and homeless labourers--a spectacle to the world, +and to angels, and to men, "made as the filth of the earth and the +off-scouring of all things." We know that their preaching was to the +Greeks "foolishness," and that, when they spoke of Jesus and the +resurrection, their hearers mocked<a name="FNanchor47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47">[47]</a> and jeered. And these indications +are more than confirmed by many contemporary passages of ancient +writers. We have already seen the violent expressions of hatred which +the ardent and high-toned soul of Tacitus thought applicable to the +Christians; and such language is echoed by Roman writers of every +character and class. The fact is that at this time and for centuries +afterwards the Romans regarded the Christians with such lordly +indifference that--like Festus, and Felix and Seneca's brother +Gallio--they never took the trouble to distinguish them from the Jews. +The distinction was not fully realized by the Pagan world till the cruel +and wholesale massacre of the Christians by the pseudo-Messiah +Barchochebas in the reign of Adrian opened their eyes to the fact of the +irreconcilable differences which existed between the two religions. And +pages might be filled with the ignorant and scornful allusions which the +heathen applied to the Jews. They confused them with the whole degraded +mass of Egyptian and Oriental impostors and brute-worshippers; they +disdained them as seditious, turbulent, obstinate, and avaricious; they +regarded them as mainly composed of the very meanest slaves out of the +gross and abject multitude; their proselytism they considered as the +clandestine initiation into some strange and revolting mystery, which +involved as its direct teachings contempt of the gods, and the negation +of all patriotism and all family affection; they firmly believed that +they worshipped the head of an ass; they thought it natural that none +but the vilest slaves and the silliest woman should adopt so +misanthropic and degraded a superstition; they characterized their +customs as "absurd, sordid, foul, and depraved," and their nation as +"prone to superstition, opposed to religion." <a name="FNanchor48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48">[48]</a> And as far as they +made <i>any</i> distinction between Jews and Christians, it was for the +latter that they reserved their choicest and most concentrated epithets +of hatred and abuse. A "new," "pernicious," "detestable," "execrable," +superstition is the only language with which Suetonius and Tacitus +vouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,--though he must have heard the name of +Christian during the reign of Claudius (when both they and the Jews were +expelled from Rome, "because of their perpetual turbulence, at the +instigation of Chrestus," as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and during +the Neronian persecution--never once alludes to them, and only mentions +the Jews to apply a few contemptuous remarks to the idleness of their +sabbaths, and to call them "a most abandoned race."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor46">[46]</a> 2 Cor. viii. 2. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor47">[47]</a> [Greek: <i>Echleuazon</i>], Acts xvii. 32. The word expresses +the most profound and unconcealed contempt. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor48">[48]</a> Tac. <i>Hist</i>. i. 13: ib. v. 5: JUV. xiv. 85: Pers. v. 190, +&c. +</blockquote> + +<p>The reader will now judge whether there is the slightest probability +that Seneca had any intercourse with St. Paul, or was likely to have +stooped from his superfluity of wealth, and pride of power, to take +lessons from obscure and despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by +the crowded households of Caesar or Narcissus.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV."></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3>SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE.</h3> + +<p>And yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be called, as he is +called in the title of this book, a Seeker after God; and the +resemblances to the sacred writings which may be found in the pages of +his works are numerous and striking. A few of these will probably +interest our readers, and will put them in a better position for +understanding how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had +rewarded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We will place a +few such passages side by side with the texts of Scripture which they +resemble or recall.</p> + +<p>1. <i>God's Indwelling Presence</i>.</p> + +<p>"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God +dwelleth in you?" asks St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 16).</p> + +<p>"<i>God is near you, is with you, is within you</i>," writes Seneca to his +friend Lucilius, in the 41st of those <i>Letters</i> which abound in his most +valuable moral reflections; "<i>a sacred Spirit dwells within us, the +observer and guardian of all our evil and our good ... there is no good +man without God</i>."</p> + +<p>And again (<i>Ep.</i> 73): "<i>Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God +comes to men: nay, what is yet nearer; He comes into men. No good mind +is holy without God</i>."</p> + +<p>2. <i>The Eye of God</i>.</p> + +<p>"All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have +to do." (Heb. iv. 13.)</p> + +<p>"Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in +secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt. vi. 6.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Providence</i>, 1): "<i>It is no advantage that conscience is +shut within us; we lie open to God</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 83: "<i>What advantage is it that anything is hidden from man? +Nothing is closed to God: He is present to our minds, and enters into +our central thoughts</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 83: "<i>We must live as if we were living in sight of all men; we +must think as though some one could and can gaze into our +inmost breast</i>."</p> + +<p>3. <i>God is a Spirit</i>.</p> + +<p>St. Paul, "We ought not to think that the God-head is like unto gold, or +silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." (Acts xvii. 29.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 31): "<i>Even from a corner it is possible to spring up +into heaven: rise, therefore, and form thyself into a fashion worthy of +God; thou canst not do this, however, with gold and silver: an image +like to God cannot be formed out of such materials as these</i>."</p> + +<p>4. <i>Imitating God</i>.</p> + +<p>"Be ye therefore followers ([Greek: <i>mimaetai</i>], imitators) of God, as +dear children." (Eph. v. 1.)</p> + +<p>"He that in these things [righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost] +serveth Christ is acceptable to God." (Rom. xiv. 18.)</p> + +<p>Seneca <i>(Letter</i> 95): "<i>Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be +virtuous. To honour them it is enough to imitate them</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 124: "<i>Let man aim at the good which belongs to him. What is +this good? A mind reformed and pure, the imitator of God, raising itself +above things human, confining all its desires within itself</i>."</p> + +<p>5. <i>Hypocrites like whited Sepulchres</i>.</p> + +<p>"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto +whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within +full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matt, xxiii. 27.)</p> + +<p>Seneca: "<i>Those whom you regard as happy, if you saw them, not in their +externals, but in their hidden aspect, are wretched, sordid, base; like +their own walls adorned outwardly. It is no solid and genuine felicity; +it is a plaster, and that a thin one; and so, as long as they can stand +and be seen at their pleasure, they shine and impose on us: when +anything has fallen which disturbs and uncovers them, it is evident how +much deep and real foulness an extraneous splendour has concealed</i>."</p> + +<p>6. <i>Teaching compared to Seed</i>.</p> + +<p>"But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit; some an +hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold." (Matt xiii. 8.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (Letter 38): "<i>Words must be sown like seed; which, although it +be small, when it hath found a suitable ground, unfolds its strength, +and from very small size is expanded into the largest increase. Reason +does the same.... The things spoken are few; but if the mind have +received them well, they gain strength and grow</i>."</p> + +<p>7. <i>All Men are Sinners</i>.</p> + +<p>"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is +not in us." (1 John i. 8.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Anger</i>, i. 14, ii. 27): "<i>If we wish to be just judges of +all things, let us first persuade ourselves of this:--that there is not +one of us without fault.... No man is found who can acquit himself; and +he who calls himself innocent does so with reference to a witness, and +not to his conscience</i>."</p> + +<p>8. <i>Avarice</i>.</p> + +<p>"The love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Tim. vi. 10.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Tranquillity of Soul</i>, 8): "<i>Riches ... the greatest source +of human trouble</i>."</p> + +<p>"Be content with such things as ye have." (Heb. xiii. 5.)</p> + +<p>"Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." (1 Tim. vi. 8.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 114): "<i>We shall be wise if we desire but little; if +each man takes count of himself, and at the same time measures his own +body, he will know how little it can contain, and for how short +a time</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 110: "<i>We have polenta, we have water; let us challenge Jupiter +himself to a comparison of bliss!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Tim. vi. 6.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 110): "<i>Why are you struck with wonder and +astonishment? It is all display! Those things are shown, not +possessed</i>.... <i>Turn thyself rather to the true riches, learn to be +content with little</i>."</p> + +<p>"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a +rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matt. xix. 24.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 20): "<i>He is a high-souled man who sees riches spread +around him, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It is much +not to be corrupted by fellowship with riches: great is he who in the +midst of wealth is poor, but safer he who has no wealth at all</i>."</p> + +<p>9. <i>The Duty of Kindness</i>.</p> + +<p>"Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love." (Rom. xii. +10.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Anger</i>, i. 5): "<i>Man is born for mutual assistance</i>."</p> + +<p>"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Lev. xiv. 18.)</p> + +<p><i>Letter</i> 48: "<i>You must live for another, if you wish to live for +yourself</i>."</p> + +<p><i>On Anger</i>, iii. 43: "<i>While we are among men let us cultivate kindness; +let us not be to any man a cause either of peril or of fear</i>."</p> + +<p>10. <i>Our common Membership</i>.</p> + +<p>"Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." (1 Cor. xii. +27.)</p> + +<p>"We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of +another." (Rom. xii. 5.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>Letter</i> 95): "<i>Do we teach that he should stretch his hand to +the shipwrecked, show his path to the wanderer, divide his bread with +the hungry</i>?... <i>when I could briefly deliver to him the formula of +human duty: all this that you see, in which things divine and human are +included, is one: we are members of one great body</i>."</p> + +<p>11. <i>Secrecy in doing Good</i>.</p> + +<p>"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." (Matt. vi. 3.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Benefits</i>, ii. 11): "<i>Let him who hath conferred a favour +hold his tongue</i>.... <i>In conferring a favour nothing should be more +avoided than pride</i>."</p> + +<p>12. <i>God's impartial Goodness</i>.</p> + +<p>"He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain +on the just and on the unjust." (Matt. v. 45.)</p> + +<p>Seneca (<i>On Benefits</i>, i. 1): "<i>How many are unworthy of the light! and +yet the day dawns</i>."</p> + +<p>Id. vii. 31: "<i>The gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize +them not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them.... +They distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations +and peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir +the seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the +constellations, they temper the winter and summer by the intervention of +a gentler air</i>."</p> + +<p>It would be a needless task to continue these parallels, because by +reading any treatise of Seneca a student might add to them by scores; +and they prove incontestably that, as far as moral illumination was +concerned, Seneca "was not far from the kingdom of heaven." They have +been collected by several writers; and all of these here adduced, +together with many others, may be found in the pages of Fleury, +Troplong, Aubertin, and others. Some authors, like M. Fleury, have +endeavoured to show that they can only be accounted for by the +supposition that Seneca had some acquaintance with the sacred writings. +M. Aubertin, on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this +could not have been the case. Many words and expressions detached from +their context have been forced into a resemblance with the words of +Scripture, when the context wholly militates against its spirit; many +belong to that great common stock of moral truths which had been +elaborated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers; and +there is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enunciated which may +not be found even more nobly and more distinctly expressed in the +writings of Plato and of Cicero. In a subsequent chapter we shall show +that, in spite of them all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of +Christianity are at least as remarkable as the closest of his +resemblances; but it will be more convenient to do this when we have +also examined the doctrines of those two other great representatives of +spiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus the slave and Marcus +Aurelius the emperor.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings such as these give +us a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of the Lord has entered +into holy men, and made them sons of God and prophets. God "left not +Himself without witness" among them. The language of St. Thomas Aquinas, +that many a heathen has had an "implicit faith," is but another way of +expressing St. Paul's statement that "not having the law they were a law +unto themselves, and showed the work of the law written in their +hearts." <a name="FNanchor49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49">[49]</a> To them the Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the +things that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the +voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate, +knowledge. To them "the voice of nature was the voice of God." Their +revelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and +extended, but <i>not</i> suspended, by the written law of God.<a name="FNanchor50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50">[50]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor49">[49]</a> Rom. i. 2. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor50">[50]</a> Hooker, <i>Eccl. Pol</i>. iii. 8. +</blockquote> + +<p>The knowledge thus derived, i.e. the sum-total of religious impressions +resulting from the combination of reason and experience, has been called +"natural religion;" the term is in itself a convenient and +unobjectionable one, so long as it is remembered that natural religion +is itself a revelation. No <i>antithesis</i> is so unfortunate and pernicious +as that of natural with revealed religion. It is "a contrast rather of +words than of ideas; it is an opposition of abstractions to which no +facts really correspond." God has revealed Himself, not in one but in +many ways, not only by inspiring the hearts of a few, but by vouchsafing +His guidance to all who seek it. "The spirit of man is the candle of the +Lord," and it is not religion but apostasy to deny the reality of any of +God's revelations of truth to man, merely because they have not +descended through a single channel. On the contrary, we ought to hail +with gratitude, instead of viewing with suspicion, the enunciation by +heathen writers of truths which we might at first sight have been +disposed to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. In +Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato,--in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus +Aurelius--we see the light of heaven struggling its impeded way through +clouds of darkness and ignorance; we thankfully recognize that the souls +of men in the Pagan world, surrounded as they were by perplexities and +dangers, were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface of silver, +some image of what was divine and true; we hail, with the great and +eloquent Bossuet, "THE CHRISTIANITY OF NATURE." "The divine image in +man," says St. Bernard, "may be burned, but it cannot be burnt out."</p> + +<p>And this is the pleasantest side on which to consider the life and the +writings of Seneca. It is true that his style partakes of the defects of +his age, that the brilliancy of his rhetoric does not always compensate +for the defectiveness of his reasoning; that he resembles, not a mirror +which clearly reflects the truth, but "a glass fantastically cut into a +thousand spangles;" that side by side with great moral truths we +sometimes find his worst errors, contradictions, and paradoxes; that his +eloquent utterances about God often degenerate into a vague Pantheism; +and that even on the doctrine of immortality his hold is too slight to +save him from waverings and contradictions;<a name="FNanchor51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51">[51]</a> yet as a moral teacher +he is full of real greatness, and was often far in advance of the +general opinion of his age. Few men have written more finely, or with +more evident sincerity, about truth and courage, about the essential +equality of man,<a name="FNanchor52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52">[52]</a> about the duty of kindness and consideration to +slaves,<a name="FNanchor53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53">[53]</a> about tenderness even in dealing with sinners,<a name="FNanchor54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54">[54]</a> about the +glory of unselfishness,<a name="FNanchor55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55">[55]</a> about the great idea of humanity<a name="FNanchor56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56">[56]</a> as +something which transcends all the natural and artificial prejudices of +country and of caste. Many of his writings are Pagan sermons and moral +essays of the best and highest type. The style, as Quintilian says, +"abounds in delightful faults," but the strain of sentiment is never +otherwise than high and true.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor51">[51]</a> Consol. ad Polyb. 27; Ad Helv. 17; Ad Marc. 24, <i>seqq</i>. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor52">[52]</a> Ep. 32; De Benef. iii. 2. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor53">[53]</a> De Irâ, iii. 29, 32. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor54">[54]</a> Ibid. i. 14; De Vit. beat. 24. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor55">[55]</a> Ep. 55, 9. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor56">[56]</a> Ibid. 28; De Oti Sapientis, 31. +</blockquote> + +<p>He is to be regarded rather as a wealthy, eminent, and successful Roman, +who devoted most of his leisure to moral philosophy, than as a real +philosopher by habit and profession. And in this point of view his very +inconsistencies have their charm, as illustrating his ardent, impulsive, +imaginative temperament. He was no apathetic, self-contained, impassible +Stoic, but a passionate, warm-hearted man, who could break into a flood +of unrestrained tears at the death of his friend Annaeus Serenus,<a name="FNanchor57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57">[57]</a> +and feel a trembling solicitude for the welfare of his wife and little +ones. His was no absolute renunciation, no impossible perfection;<a name="FNanchor58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58">[58]</a> +but few men have painted more persuasively, with deeper emotion, or more +entire conviction, the pleasures of virtue, the calm of a +well-regulated soul, the strong and severe joys of a lofty self-denial. +In his youth, he tells us, he was preparing himself for a righteous +life, in his old age for a noble death.<a name="FNanchor59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59">[59]</a> And let us not forget, that +when the hour of crisis came which tested the real calm and bravery of +his soul, he was not found wanting. "With no dread," he writes to +Lucilius, "I am preparing myself for that day on which, laying aside all +artifice or subterfuge, I shall be able to judge respecting myself +whether I merely <i>speak</i> or really <i>feel</i> as a brave man should; whether +all those words of haughty obstinacy which I have hurled against fortune +were mere pretence and pantomime.... Disputations and literary talks, +and words collected from the precepts of philosophers, and eloquent +discourse, do not prove the true strength of the soul. For the mere +<i>speech</i> of even the most cowardly is bold; what you have really +achieved will then be manifest when your end is near. I accept the +terms, I do not shrink from the decision." <a name="FNanchor60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60">[60]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor57">[57]</a> Ep. 63. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor58">[58]</a> Martha, <i>Les Moralistes</i>, p. 61. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor59">[59]</a> Ep. 61. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor60">[60]</a> Ep. 26. +</blockquote> + +<p>"<i>Accipio conditionem, non reformido judicrum</i>." They were courageous +and noble words, and they were justified in the hour of trial. When we +remember the sins of Seneca's life, let us recall also the constancy of +his death; while we admit the inconsistencies of his systematic +philosophy, let us be grateful for the genius, the enthusiasm, the glow +of intense conviction, with which he clothes his repeated utterance of +truths, which, when based upon a surer basis, were found adequate for +the moral regeneration of the world. Nothing is more easy than to sneer +at Seneca, or to write clever epigrams on one whose moral attainments +fell infinitely short of his own great ideal. But after all he was not +more inconsistent than thousands of those who condemn him. With all his +faults he yet lived a nobler and a better life, he had loftier aims, he +was braver, more self-denying--nay, even more consistent--than the +majority of professing Christians. It would be well for us all if those +who pour such scorn upon his memory attempted to achieve one tithe of +the good which he achieved for humanity and for Rome. His thoughts +deserve our imperishable gratitude: let him who is without sin among us +be eager to fling stones at his failures and his sins!</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h1><a name="EPICTETUS."></a>EPICTETUS.</h1> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IE."></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>THE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT.</h3> + +<p>In the court of Nero, Seneca must have been thrown into more or less +communication with the powerful freedmen of that Emperor, and especially +with his secretary or librarian, Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was a +constant companion of the Emperor; he was the earliest to draw Nero's +attention to the conspiracy in which Seneca himself perished. There can +be no doubt that Seneca knew him, and had visited at his house. Among +the slaves who thronged that house, the natural kindliness of the +philosopher's heart may have drawn his attentions to one little lame +Phrygian boy, deformed and mean-looking, whose face--if it were any +index of the mind within--must even from boyhood have worn a serene and +patient look. The great courtier, the great tutor of the Emperor, the +great Stoic and favourite writer of his age, would indeed have been +astonished if he had been suddenly told that that wretched-looking +little slave-lad was destined to attain purer and clearer heights of +philosophy than he himself had ever done, and to become quite as +illustrious as himself, and far more respected as an exponent of Stoic +doctrines. For that lame boy was Epictetus--Epictetus for whom was +written the memorable epitaph: "I was Epictetus, a slave, and maimed in +body, and a beggar for poverty, <i>and dear to the immortals</i>."</p> + +<p>Although we have a clear sketch of his philosophical doctrines, we have +no materials whatever for any but the most meagre description of his +life. The picture of his mind--an effigy of that which he alone regarded +as his true self--may be seen in his works, and to this we can add +little except a few general facts and uncertain anecdotes.</p> + +<p>Epictetus was probably born in about the fiftieth year of the Christian +era; but we do not know the exact date of his birth, nor do we even know +his real name. "Epictetus" means "bought" or "acquired," and is simply a +servile designation. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a town +between the rivers Lycus and Meander, and considered by some to be the +capital of the province. The town possessed several natural +wonders--sacred springs, stalactite grottoes, and a deep cavern +remarkable for its mephitic exhalations. It is more interesting to us to +know that it was within a few miles of Colossae and Laodicea, and is +mentioned by St. Paul (Col. iv. 13) in connexion with those two cities. +It must, therefore, have possessed a Christian Church from the earliest +times, and, if Epictetus spent any part of his boyhood there, he might +have conversed with men and women of humble rank who had heard read in +their obscure place of meeting the Epistle of St. Paul to the +Colossians, and the other, now lost, which he addressed to the Church of +Laodicea.<a name="FNanchor61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61">[61]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor61">[61]</a> Col. iv. 16. +</blockquote> + +<p>It is probable, however, that Hierapolis and its associations produced +very little influence on the mind of Epictetus. His parents were people +in the very lowest and humblest class, and their moral character could +hardly have been high, or they would not have consented under any +circumstance to sell into slavery their sickly child. Certainly it could +hardly have been possible for Epictetus to enter into the world under +less enviable or less promising auspices. But the whole system of life +is full of divine and memorable compensations, and Epictetus experienced +them. God kindles the light of genius where He will, and He can inspire +the highest and most regal thoughts even into the meanest slave:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Such seeds are scattered night and day<br> + By the soft wind from Heaven,<br> + And in the poorest human clay<br> + Have taken root and thriven."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>What were the accidents--or rather, what was "the unseen Providence, by +man nicknamed chance"--which assigned Epictetus to the house of +Epaphroditus we do not know. To a heart refined and noble there could +hardly have been a more trying position. The slaves of a Roman <i>familia</i> +were crowded together in immense gangs; they were liable to the most +violent and capricious punishments; they might be subjected to the most +degraded and brutalising influences. Men sink too often to the level to +which they are supposed to belong. Treated with infamy for long years, +they are apt to deem themselves worthy of infamy--to lose that +self-respect which is the invariable concomitant of religious feeling, +and which, apart from religious feeling, is the sole preventive of +personal degradation. Well may St. Paul say, "Art thou called, being a +servant? care not for it: <i>but if thou mayest be made free, use it +rather</i>." <a name="FNanchor62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62">[62]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor62">[62]</a> 1 Cor. vii. 21. +</blockquote> + +<p>It is true that even in the heathen world there began at this time to +be disseminated among the best and wisest thinkers a sense that slaves +were made of the same clay as their masters, that they differed from +freeborn men only in the externals and accidents of their position, and +that kindness to them and consideration for their difficulties was a +common and elementary duty of humanity. "I am glad to learn," says +Seneca, in one of his interesting letters to Lucilius, "that you live on +terms of familiarity with your slaves; it becomes your prudence and your +erudition. Are they slaves? Nay, they are men. Slaves? Nay, companions. +Slaves? Nay, humble friends. Slaves? <i>Nay, fellow-slaves,</i> if you but +consider that fortune has power over you both." He proceeds, in a +passage to which we have already alluded, to reprobate the haughty and +inconsiderate fashion of keeping them standing for hours, mute and +fasting, while their masters gorged themselves at the banquet. He +deplores the cruelty which thinks it necessary to punish with terrible +severity an accidental cough or sneeze. He quotes the proverb--a proverb +which reveals a whole history--"So many slaves, so many foes," and +proves that they are not foes, but that men <i>made</i> them so; whereas, +when kindly treated, when considerately addressed, they would be silent, +even under torture, rather than speak to their master's disadvantage. +"Are they not sprung," he asks, "from the same origin, do they not +breathe the same air, do they not live and die just as we do?" The +blows, the broken limbs, the clanking chains, the stinted food of the +<i>ergastula</i> or slave-prisons, excited all Seneca's compassion, and in +all probability presented a picture of misery which the world has rarely +seen surpassed, unless it were in that nefarious trade which England to +her shame once practised, and, to her eternal glory, resolutely +swept away.</p> + +<p>But Seneca's inculcation of tenderness towards slaves was in reality +one of the most original of his moral teachings; and, from all that we +know of Roman life, it is to be feared that the number of those who +acted in accordance with it was small. Certainly Epaphroditus, the +master of Epictetus, was not one of them. The historical facts which we +know of this man are slight. He was one of the four who accompanied the +tragic and despicable flight of Nero from Rome in the year 69, and when, +after many waverings of cowardice, Nero at last, under imminent peril of +being captured and executed, put the dagger to his breast, it was +Epaphroditus who helped the tyrant to drive it home into his heart, for +which he was subsequently banished, and finally executed by the +Emperor Domitian.</p> + +<p>Epictetus was accustomed to tell one or two anecdotes which, although +given without comment, show the narrowness and vulgarity of the man. +Among his slaves was a certain worthless cobbler named Felicio; as the +cobbler was quite useless, Epaphroditus sold him, and by some chance he +was bought by some one of Caesar's household, and made Caesar's cobbler. +Instantly Epaphroditus began to pay him the profoundest respect, and to +address him in the most endearing terms, so that if any one asked what +Epaphroditus was doing, the answer, as likely as not, would be, "He is +holding an important consultation with Felicio."</p> + +<p>On one occasion, some one came to him bewailing, and weeping, and +embracing his knees in a paroxysm of grief, because of all his fortune +little more than 50,000<i>l</i>. was left! "What did Epaphroditus do?" asks +Epictetus; "did he laugh at the man as we did? Not at all; on the +contrary, he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 'Poor +fellow! how could you possibly keep silence and endure such a +misfortune?'"</p> + +<p>How brutally he could behave, and how little respect he inspired, we may +see in the following anecdote. When Plautius Lateranus, the brave +nobleman whose execution during Piso's conspiracy we have already +related, had received on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's +sword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not abstain from +pressing him with questions. The only reply which he received from the +dying man was the contemptuous remark, "Should I wish to say anything, I +will say it (not to a slave like you, but) to <i>your master</i>."</p> + +<p>Under a man of this calibre it is hardly likely that a lame Phrygian boy +would experience much kindness. An anecdote, indeed, has been handed +down to us by several writers, which would show that he was treated with +atrocious cruelty. Epaphroditus, it is said, once gratified his cruelty +by twisting his slave's leg in some instrument of torture. "If you go +on, you will break it," said Epictetus. The wretch did go on, and did +break it. "I told you that you would break it," said Epictetus quietly, +not giving vent to his anguish by a single word or a single groan. +Stories of heroism no less triumphant have been authenticated both in +ancient and modern times; but we may hope for the sake of human nature +that this story is false, since another authority tells us that +Epictetus became lame in consequence of a natural disease. Be that +however as it may, some of the early writers against Christianity--such, +for instance, as the physician Celsus--were fond of adducing this +anecdote in proof of a magnanimity which not even Christianity could +surpass; to which use of the anecdote Origen opposed the awful silence +of our Saviour upon the cross, and Gregory of Nazianzen pointed out +that, though it was a noble thing to endure inevitable evils, it was yet +more noble to undergo them voluntarily with an equal fortitude. But even +if Epaphroditus were not guilty of breaking the leg of Epictetus, it is +clear that the life of the poor youth was surrounded by circumstances of +the most depressing and miserable character; circumstances which would +have forced an ordinary man to the low and animal level of existence +which appears to have contented the great majority of Roman slaves. Some +of the passages in which he speaks about the consideration due to this +unhappy class show a very tender feeling towards them. "It would be +best," he says, "if, both while making your preparations and while +feasting at your banquets, you distribute among the attendants some of +the provisions. But if such a plan, at any particular time, be difficult +to carry out, remember that you who are not fatigued are being waited +upon by those who are fatigued; you who are eating and drinking by those +who are not eating and drinking; you who are conversing by those who are +mute--you who are at your ease by people under painful constraint. And +thus you will neither yourself be kindled into unseemly passion, nor +will you in a fit of fury do harm to any one else." No doubt Epictetus +is here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of which he had +himself experienced the degradation. But he had early acquired a +loftiness of soul and an insight into truth which enabled him to +distinguish the substance from the shadow, to separate the realities of +life from its accidents, and so to turn his very misfortunes into fresh +means of attaining to moral nobility. In proof of this let us see some +of his own opinions as to his state of life.</p> + +<p>At the very beginning of his <i>Discourses</i> he draws a distinction +between the things which the gods <i>have</i> and the things which they <i>have +not</i> put in our own power, and he held (being deficient here in that +light which Christianity might have furnished to him) that the blessings +denied to us are denied not because the gods <i>would</i> not, but because +they <i>could</i> not grant them to us. And then he supposes that Jupiter +addresses him:--</p> + +<p>"O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both your little +body and your little property free and unentangled; but now, do not be +mistaken, it is not yours at all, but only clay finely kneaded. Since, +however, I could not do this, I gave you a portion of ourselves, namely, +this power of pursuing and avoiding, of desiring and of declining, and +generally the power of <i>dealing with appearances</i>: and if you cultivate +this power, and regard it as that which constitutes your real +possession, you will never be hindered or impeded, nor will you groan or +find fault with, or flatter any one. Do these advantages then appear to +you to be trifling? Heaven forbid! Be content therefore with these, and +thank the gods."</p> + +<p>And again in one of his <i>Fragments</i> (viii. ix.):--</p> + +<p>"Freedom and slavery are but names, respectively, of virtue and of vice: +and both of them depend upon the will. But neither of them have anything +to do with those things in which the will has no share. For no one is a +slave whose will is free."</p> + +<p>"Fortune is an evil bond of the body, vice of the soul; for he is a +slave whose body is free but whose soul is bound, and, on the contrary, +he is free whose body is bound but whose soul is free."</p> + +<p>Who does not catch in these passages the very tone of St, Paul when he +says, "He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's +freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is +Christ's servant?"</p> + +<p>Nor is his independence less clearly express when he speaks of his +deformity. Being but the deformity of a body which he despised, he spoke +of himself as "an ethereal existence staggering under the burden of a +corpse." In his admirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays +down that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense that "the +universe is not made for our individual satisfaction." "<i>Must my leg be +lame</i>?" he supposes some querulous objector to inquire. "Slave!" he +replies, "do you then because of one miserable little leg find fault +with the universe? Will you not concede that accident to the existence +of general laws? Will you not dismiss the thought of it? Will you not +cheerfully assent to it for the sake of him who gave it. And will you be +indignant and displeased at the ordinances of Zeus, which he ordained +and appointed with the Destinies, who were present and wove the web of +your being? Know you not what an atom you are compared with the +whole?--that is, as regards your body, since as regards your reason you +are no whit inferior to, or less than the gods. For the greatness of +reason is not estimated by size or height, but by the doctrines which it +embraces. Will you not then lay up your treasure in those matters +wherein you are equal to the gods?" And, thanks to such principles, a +poor and persecuted slave was able to raise his voice in sincere and +eloquent thanksgiving to that God to whom he owed his "creation, +preservation, and all the blessings of this life."</p> + +<p>Speaking of the multitude of our natural gifts, he says, "Are these the +only gifts of Providence towards us? Nay, what power of speech suffices +adequately to praise, or to set them forth? for, had we but true +intelligence, what duty would be more perpetually incumbent on us than +both in public and in private to hymn the Divine, and bless His name and +praise His benefits? Ought we not, when we dig, and when we plough, and +when we eat, to sing this hymn to God? 'Great is God, because He hath +given us these implements whereby we may till the soil; great is God, +because He hath given us hands, and the means of nourishment by food, +and insensible growth, and breathing sleep;' these things in each +particular we ought to hymn, and to chant the greatest and the divinest +hymn, because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings, +and continuously to use them. What then? Since the most of you are +blinded, ought there not to be some one to fulfil this province for you, +and on behalf of all to sing his hymn to God? And what else can <i>I</i> do, +who am a lame old man, except sing praises to God? Now, had I been a +nightingale, I should have sung the songs of a nightingale, or had I +been a swan the songs of a swan; but, being a reasonable being, it is my +duty to hymn God. This is my task, and I accomplish it; nor, so far as +may be granted to me, will I ever abandon this post, and you also do I +exhort to this same song."</p> + +<p>There is an almost lyric beauty about these expressions of resignation +and faith in God, and it is the utterance of such warm feelings towards +Divine Providence that constitutes the chief originality of Epictetus. +It is interesting to think that the oppressed heathen philosopher found +the same consolation, and enjoyed the same contentment, as the +persecuted Christian Apostle. "Whether ye eat or drink," says St. Paul, +"or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." "Think of God," says +Epictetus, "oftener than you breathe. Let discourse of God be renewed +daily more surely than your food."</p> + +<p>Here, again, are his views about his poverty (<i>Fragment</i> xix.):--</p> + +<p>"Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy; and if you +wish to be rich, know that it neither is a blessing, nor is it +altogether in your own power; but if to be happy, know that it both <i>is</i> +a blessing, and is in your own power; since the former is but a +temporary loan of fortune, but the gift of happiness depends upon +the will."</p> + +<p>"Just as when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, in a casket of +ivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate them on the splendour of +their material, but because their nature is pernicious you turn from and +loathe them, so likewise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the +pomp of circumstance do not be astounded at the glory of its +surroundings, but despise the meanness of its character."</p> + +<p>"Wealth is <i>not</i> among the number of good things; extravagance <i>is</i> +among the number of evils, sober-mindedness of good things. Now +sober-mindedness invites us to frugality and the acquisition of real +advantages; but wealth to extravagance, and it drags us away from +sober-mindedness. It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be +sober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich."</p> + +<p>The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own +words, "How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel +passage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for +them that <i>trust</i> in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God."</p> + +<p>But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and +Epictetus continues:--</p> + +<p>"Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in +Greece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in +poverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in +poverty, and so be happy?"</p> + +<p>"As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little +truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it +is better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires, +than in the midst of superfluities to be discontented."</p> + +<p>This, too, is a thought which many have expressed. "Gentle sleep," says +Horace, "despises not the humble cottages of rustics, nor the shaded +banks, nor valleys whose foliage waves with the western wind;" and every +reader will recall the magnificent words of our own great Shakespeare--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,<br> + Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,<br> + And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,<br> + Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,<br> + Under the canopies of costly state,<br> + And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>To the subject of freedom, and to the power which man possesses to make +himself entirely independent of all surrounding circumstances, Epictetus +incessantly recurs. With the possibility of banishment to an +<i>ergastulum</i> perpetually before his eyes, he defines a prison as being +any situation in which a man is placed against his will; to Socrates for +instance the prison was no prison, for he was there willingly, and no +man <i>need</i> be in prison, against his will if he has learnt, as one of +his primary duties, a cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable. By the +expression of such sentiments Epictetus had anticipated by fifteen +hundred years the immortal truth so sweetly expressed by Lovelace:</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Stone walls do not a prison make,<br> + Nor iron bars a cage</i>;<br> + Minds innocent and quiet take<br> + That for a hermitage."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Situated as he was, we can hardly wonder that thoughts like these +occupied a large share of the mind of Epictetus, or that he had taught +himself to lay hold of them with the firmest possible grasp. When asked, +"Who among men is rich?" he replied, "He who suffices for himself;" an +expression which contains the germ of the truth so forcibly expressed in +the Book of Proverbs, "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his +own ways, and a good man <i>shall be satisfied from himself</i>". Similarly, +when asked, "Who is free?" he replies, "The man who masters his own +self," with much the same tone of expressions as that of Solomon, "He +that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his +spirit than he that taketh a city." Socrates was one of the great models +whom Epictetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the +anecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When Archelaus +sent a message to express the intention of making him rich, Socrates +bade the messenger inform him that at Athens four quarts of meal might +be bought for three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. "If +then my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any rate I am +sufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient for me. Do you not +see that Polus acted the part of Oedipus in his royal state with no less +beauty of voice than that of Oedipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar? +Shall then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act well +every character imposed upon him by Divine Providence; and shall he not +imitate Ulysses, who even in rags was no less conspicuous than in the +curled nap of his purple cloak?"</p> + +<p>Generally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life is always +simple, and always consistent; it is a view which gave him consolation +among life's troubles, and strength to display some of its noblest +virtues, and it may be summed up in the following passages of his famous +<i>Manual</i>:--</p> + +<p>"Remember," he says, "that you are an actor of just such a part as is +assigned you by the Poet of the play; of a short part, if the part be +short; of a long part, if it be long. Should He wish you to act the part +of a beggar, take care to act it naturally and nobly; and the same if it +be the part of a lame man, or a ruler, or a private man; for <i>this</i> is +in your power, to act well the part assigned to you; but to <i>choose</i> +that part is the function of another."</p> + +<p>"Let not these considerations afflict you: 'I shall live despised, and +the merest nobody;' for if dishonour be an evil, you cannot be involved +in evil any more than you can be involved in baseness through any one +else's means. Is it then at all <i>your</i> business to be a leading man, or +to be entertained at a banquet? By no means. How then can it be a +dishonor not to be so? And how will you be a mere nobody, since it is +your duty to be somebody only in those circumstances which are in your +own power, in which you may be a person of the greatest importance?"</p> + +<p>"Honour, precedence, confidence," he argues in another passage, "whether +they be good things or evil things, are at any rate things for which +their own definite price must be paid. Lettuces are sold for a penny, +and if you want your lettuce you must pay your penny; and similarly, if +you want to be asked out to a person's house, you must pay the price +which he demands for asking people, whether the coin he requires be +praise or attention; but if you do not give these, do not expect the +other. Have you then gained nothing in lieu of your supper? Indeed you +have; you have escaped praising a person whom you did not want to +praise, and you have escaped the necessity of tolerating the upstart +impertinence of his menials."</p> + +<p>Some parts of this last thought have been so beautifully expressed by +the American poet Lowell that I will conclude this chapter in his words:</p> + +<blockquote> +"Earth hath her price for what earth gives us;<br> + The beggar is tax'd for a corner to die in;<br> + The priest hath his fee who comes and shrieves us;<br> + We bargain for the graves we lie in:<br> + At the devil's mart are all things sold,<br> + Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold,<br> + For a cap and bells our lives we pay.<br> + Bubbles we earn with our whole soul's tasking,<br> + '<i>Tis only God that is given away,<br> + 'Tis only heaven may be had for the asking</i>."<br> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIE."></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS <i>(continued)</i>.</h3> + +<p>Whether any of these great thoughts would have suggested themselves +<i>spontaneously</i> to Epictetus--whether there was an inborn wisdom and +nobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to +elaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do +not, however, express <i>his</i> sentiments only, but belong in fact to the +moral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doctrines of which he +had received instruction.</p> + +<p>It may sound strange to the reader that one situated as Epictetus was +should yet have had a regular tutor to train him in Stoic doctrines. +That such should have been the case appears at first sight inconsistent +with the cruelty with which he was treated, but it is a fact which is +capable of easy explanation. In times of universal luxury and +display--in times when a sort of surface-refinement is found among all +the wealthy--some sort of respect is always paid to intellectual +eminence, and intellectual amusements are cultivated as well as those of +a coarser character. Hence a rich Roman liked to have people of literary +culture among his slaves; he liked to have people at hand who would get +him any information which he might desire about books, who could act as +his amanuenses, who could even correct and supply information for his +original compositions. Such learned slaves formed part of every large +establishment, and among them were usually to be found some who bore, if +they did not particularly merit, the title of "philosophers." These +men--many of whom are described as having been mere impostors, +ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites--acted somewhat like +domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an +amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative +innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in +lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he +wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an +illiterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of +high art in his drawing-room, and books of reference in his +well-furnished library.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly useless for all +physical purposes, and since his thoughtfulness and intelligence could +not fail to command attention, his master determined to make him useful +in the only way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be +trained in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy.</p> + +<p>Musonius was the son of a Roman knight. His learning and eloquence, no +less than his keen appreciation of Stoic truths, had so deeply kindled +the suspicions of Nero, that he banished him to the rocky little island +of Gyaros, on the charge of his having been concerned in Piso's +conspiracy. He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived in +great distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to remain in the +city when the Emperor Vespasian banished all the other philosophers of +any eminence.</p> + +<p>The works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a few notices of +him, which are scattered in the <i>Discourses</i> of his greater pupil, show +us what kind of man he was. The following anecdotes will show that he +was a philosopher of the strictest school.</p> + +<p>Speaking of the value of logic as a means of training the reason, +Epictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a mere error in +reasoning is no very serious fault. He points out that it <i>is</i> a fault, +and that is sufficient. "I too," he says, "once made this very remark to +Rufus when he rebuked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in +some syllogism. 'What!' said I, 'have I then set the Capitol on fire, +that you rebuke me thus?' 'Slave!' he answered, 'what has the Capitol to +do with it? Is there no <i>other</i> fault then short of setting the Capitol +on fire? Yes! to use one's own mere fancies rashly, at random, anyhow; +not to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or a sophism; not, in +short, to see what makes for oneself or not, in questioning and +answering--is none of these things a fault?'"</p> + +<p>Sometimes he used to test the Stoical endurance of his pupil by pointing +out the indignities and tortures which his master might at any moment +inflict upon him; and when Epictetus answered that, after all, such +treatment was what man <i>had</i> borne, and therefore <i>could</i> bear, he would +reply approvingly that every man's destiny was in his own hands; that he +need lack nothing from any one else; that, since he could derive from +himself magnanimity and nobility of soul, he might despise the notion of +receiving lands or money or office. "But," he continued, "when any one +is cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters about such a +person to speak of him as a corpse, and to say, 'Favour us with the +corpse and blood of So-and-so,' For? in fact, such a man <i>is</i> a mere +corpse, and nothing more; for if he were anything more, he would have +perceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by another's +means." I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is a student of Epictetus, but +he, among others, has forcibly expressed the same truth. "My friends, do +you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died? +How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and +carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his +table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered +to you, in plain words, as it <i>is</i> offered to you in dire facts, that +you should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought +yourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the +death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet +practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; +many of us grasp at it in the fulness of horror."</p> + +<p>The way in which Musonius treated would-be pupils much resembled the +plan adopted by Socrates. "It is not easy," says Epictetus, "to train +effeminate youths, any more than it is easy to take up whey with a hook. +But those of fine nature, even if you discourage them, desire +instruction all the more. For which reason Rufus often discouraged +pupils, using this as a criterion of fine and of common natures; for he +used to say, that just as a stone, even if you fling it into the air, +will fall down to the earth by its own gravitating force, so also a +noble nature, in proportion as it is repulsed, in that proportion tends +more in its own natural direction." As Emerson says,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Yet on the nimble air benign<br> + Speed nimbler messages,<br> + That waft the breath of grace divine<br> + To hearts in sloth and ease.<br> + So nigh is grandeur to our dust,<br> + So near is God to man,<br> + When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,'<br> + The youth replies, 'I CAN.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>One more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply +Epictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him. In his +<i>Discourse on Ostentation</i>, Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit +of remarking to his pupils, "If you have leisure to praise me, I can +have done you no good." "He used indeed so to address us that each one +of us, sitting there, thought that some one had been privately telling +tales against <i>him</i> in particular, so completely did Rufus seize hold of +his characteristics, so vividly did he portray our individual faults."</p> + +<p>Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it +was evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were +somewhat chilling and austere. It formed an epoch in the slave's life; +it remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings +so inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were +counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt. +He would probably have admitted that it was <i>better</i> for him to have +been sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in +freedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis. So that +Epictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an +additional argument in favour of Divine Providence: an additional proof +that God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of +conviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least +dominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the +whole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most +honestly and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again and +again that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world +has to offer, <i>if we are willing to pay the price by which they are +obtained</i>. But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should +scorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even +cast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by +that which we deliberately refuse to give. Every good and just man may +gain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness. Let no one +regard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and +definite meaning. There are certain things which all men desire, and +which all men would <i>gladly</i>, if they could <i>lawfully</i> and <i>innocently</i> +obtain. These things are health, wealth, ease, comfort, influence, +honour, freedom from opposition and from pain; and yet, if you were to +place all these blessings on the one side, and on the other side to +place poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and +contempt,--yet, if on <i>this</i> side also you were to place truth and +justice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds may gather about +our life, the light of God will be visible beyond them, all the noblest +men who ever lived would choose, as without hesitation they always have +chosen, the <i>latter</i> destiny. It is not that they like failure, but they +prefer failure to falsity; it is not that they love persecution, but +they prefer persecution to meanness; it is not that they relish +opposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty acquiescence; +it is not that they do not shrink from agony, but they would not escape +agony by crime. The selfishness of Dives in his purple is to them less +enviable than the innocence of Lazarus in rags; they would be chained +with John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast; they +would fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than be steeped in +the foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is not happiness, but it is +something higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is +satisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give +it, nor take it away,--it is something indescribable--it is the gift +of God.</p> + +<p>"The fallacy" of being surprised at wickedness in prosperity, and +righteousness in misery, "can only lie," says Mr. Froude, in words which +would have delighted Epictetus, and which would express the inmost +spirit of his philosophy, "in the supposed <i>right</i> to happiness.... +Happiness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be true to the +best we know, to seek that, and do that; and if by 'virtue is its own +reward' be meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring +nothing more, then it is a true and a noble saying.... Let us do right, +and then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very mighty +matter. If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be +bitter--bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.... The well-being of our +souls depends only on what we <i>are</i>; and nobleness of character is +nothing else but <i>steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil</i>.... +Only to those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish +enjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. Man +will have what he desires, and will find what is really best for him, +exactly as he honestly seeks for it. <i>Happiness may fly away, pleasure +pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove +unkind; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is +never rejected</i>."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIE."></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (<i>continued.</i>)</h3> + +<p>Of the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there is +unfortunately little more to be told. The life of</p> + +<blockquote> +"That halting slave, who in Nicopolis<br> + Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son<br> + Cleared Rome of what most shamed him,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>is not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded it are very +circumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest +biographies; their real life is in their books.</p> + +<p>At some period of his life, but how or when we do not know, Epictetus +was manumitted by his master, and was henceforward regarded by the world +as free. Probably the change made little or no difference in his life. +If it saved him from a certain amount of brutality, if it gave him more +uninterrupted leisure, it probably did not in the slightest degree +modify the hardships of his existence, and may have caused him some +little anxiety as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. He, +of all men, would have attached the least importance to the external +conditions under which he lived; he always regarded them as falling +under the category of things which lay beyond the sphere of his own +influence, and therefore as things with which he had nothing to do. Even +in his most oppressed days, he considered himself, by the grace of +heaven, to be more free--free in a far truer and higher sense--than +thousands of those who owed allegiance to no master's will. Whether he +had saved any small sum of money, or whether his needs were supplied by +the many who loved and honoured him, we do not know. He was a man who +was content with the barest necessaries of life, and we may be sure that +he would have refused to be indebted to any one for more than these.</p> + +<p>It is probable that he never married. This may have been due to that +shade of indifference to the female character of which we detect traces +here and there in his writings. In one passage he complains that women +seemed to think of nothing but admiration and getting married; and, in +another, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman ladies were +fond of Plato's <i>Republic</i> because he allowed some very liberal marriage +regulations. We can only infer from these passages that he had been very +unfortunate in the specimens of women with whom he had been thrown. The +Roman ladies of his time were certainly not models of character; he was +not likely to fall in with very exalted females among the slaves of +Epaphroditus or the ladies of his family, and he had probably never +known the love of a sister or a mother's care. He did not, however, go +the length of condemning marriage altogether; on the contrary, he blames +the philosophers who did so. But it is equally obvious that he approves +of celibacy as a "counsel of perfection," and indeed his views on the +subject have so close and remarkable a resemblance to those of St. Paul +that our readers will be interested in seeing them side by side.</p> + +<p>In 1 Cor. vii. St. Paul, after speaking of the nobleness of virginity, +proceeds, nevertheless, to sanction matrimony as in itself a hallowed +and honourable estate. It was not given to all, he says, to abide even +as he was, and therefore marriage should be adopted as a sacred and +indissoluble bond. Still, without being sure that he has any divine +sanction for what he is about to say, he considers celibacy good "for +the present distress," and warns those that marry that they "shall have +trouble in the flesh." For marriage involves a direct multiplication of +the cares of the flesh: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that +belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married +careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his +wife.... And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a +snare upon you, <i>but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend +upon the Lord without distraction</i>."</p> + +<p>It is clear, then, that St. Paul regarded virginity as a "counsel of +perfection," and Epictetus uses respecting it almost identically the +same language. Marriage was perfectly permissible in his view, but it +was much better for a Cynic (i.e. for all who carried out most fully +their philosophical obligations) to remain single: "Since the condition +of things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve of battle, +<i>ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distraction</i>" [the Greek +word being the very same as that used by St. Paul] "<i>for the service of +God</i>? ought he not to be able to move about among mankind free from the +entanglement of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he +neglect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise and good +man, and which if he observe he will lose the function of a messenger, +and sentinel, and herald of the gods?" Epictetus proceeds to point out +that if he is married he can no longer look after the spiritual +interests of all with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer +maintain the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the genuine +philosopher. He <i>must</i>, for instance, have a bath for his child, +provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and +money to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a +general increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified +distractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing +manifestation of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a +celebrated cynic, was married, but it was to a lady as self-denying as +himself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to share +hardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetus does not venture to say +in so many words that Crates in this matter made a mistake, he takes +pains to point out that the circumstances were far too exceptional to be +accepted as a precedent for the imitation of others.</p> + +<p>"But," inquires the interlocutor, "how then is the world to get on?" The +question seems quite to disturb the bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it +makes him use language of the strongest and most energetic contempt: and +it is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems to lose +the nobility and grace, the "sweetness and light," which are the general +characteristic of his utterances. In spite of his complete self-mastery +he was evidently a man of strong feelings, and with a natural tendency +to express them strongly. "Heaven bless us," he exclaims in reply, "are +<i>they</i> greater benefactors of mankind who bring into the world two or +three evilly-squalling brats,<a name="FNanchor63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63">[63]</a> or those who, to the best of their +power, keep a beneficent eye on the lives, and habits, and tendencies of +all mankind? Were the Thebans who had large families more useful to +their country than the childless Epaminondas; or was Homer less useful +to mankind than Priam with his fifty good-for-nothing sons?... Why, sir, +the true cynic is a father to all men; all men are his sons and all +women his daughters; he has a bond of union, a lien of affection with +them all." (<i>Dissert</i>. iii. 22.)</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor63">[63]</a> [Greek: kakorrugcha paidia]. Another reading is [Greek: +kokorugcha], which M. Martha renders, "<i>Marmots à vilain petit museau</i>!" +It is evident that Epictetus did not like children, which makes his +subsequently mentioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more +creditable to him. +</blockquote> + +<p>The whole character of Epictetus is sufficient to prove that he would +only do what he considered <i>most</i> desirable and most exalted; and +passages like these, the extreme asperity of which I have necessarily, +softened down, are, I think, decisive in favour of the tradition which +pronounces him to have been unmarried.</p> + +<p>We are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest and even meanest +description: it neither needed nor possessed a fastening of any kind, +for within it there was no furniture except a lamp and the poor straw +pallet on which he slept. About his lamp there was current in antiquity +a famous story, to which he himself alludes. As a piece of unwonted +luxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which burned in front of the +images of his household deities. It was the only possession which he +had, and a thief stole it. "He will be finely disappointed when he comes +again," quietly observed Epictetus. "for he will only find an +earthenware lamp next time." At his death the little earthenware lamp +was bought by some genuine hero-worshipper for 3,000 drachmas. "The +purchaser hoped," says the satirical Lucian, "that if he read philosophy +at night by that lamp, he would at once acquire in dreams the wisdom of +the admirable old man who once possessed it."</p> + +<p>But, in spite of his deep poverty, it must not be supposed that there +was anything eccentric or ostentatious in the life of Epictetus. On the +contrary, his writings abound in directions as to the proper bearing of +a philosopher in life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule +to endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the <i>gamins</i> of +Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair game," and think it fine +fun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the +sneers of much more dignified people. "If," says Epictetus, "you want to +know how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who had the +highest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present, +happened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had +received an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I <i>cannot</i> endure it; you +are killing me; why, you'll make me <i>like him</i>! pointing to me," +evidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And, +again he says in the <i>Manual</i>. "If you wish to be a philosopher, prepare +yourself to be thoroughly laughed at since many will certainly sneer and +jeer at you, and will say, 'He has come back to us as a philosopher all +of a sudden,' and 'Where in the world did he get this superciliousness?' +Now do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which appear +best to you in such a manner as though you were conscious of having been +appointed by God to this position." Again in the little discourse <i>On +the Desire of Admiration</i>, he warns the philosopher "<i>not to walk as if +he had swallowed a poker</i>" or to care for the applause of those +multitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error. For all display, and +pretence, and hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, and boasting, and mere +fruitless book-learning he seems to have felt a genuine and profound +contempt. Recommendations to simplicity of conduct, courtesy of manner, +and moderation of language were among his practical precepts. It is +refreshing, too, to know that with the strongest and manliest good +sense, he entirely repudiated that dog-like brutality of behaviour, and +repulsive eccentricity of self-neglect, which characterised not a few of +the Cynic leaders. He expressly argues that the Cynic should be a man of +ready tact, and attractive presence; and there is something of almost +indignant energy in his words when he urges upon a pupil the plain duty +of scrupulous cleanliness. In this respect our friends the Hermits would +not quite have satisfied him, although he might possibly have pardoned +them on the plea that they abode in desert solitudes, since he bids +those who neglect the due care of their bodies to live "either in the +wilderness or alone."</p> + +<p>Late in life Epictetus increased his establishment by taking in an old +woman as a servant. The cause of his doing so shows an almost Christian +tenderness of character. According to the hideous custom of infanticide +which prevailed in the pagan world, a man with whom Epictetus was +acquainted exposed his infant son to perish. Epictetus in pity took the +child home to save its life, and the services of a female were necessary +to supply its wants. Such kindness and self-denial were all the more +admirable because pity, like all other deep emotions, was regarded by +the Stoics in the light rather of a vice than of a virtue. In this +respect, however, both Seneca and Epictetus, and to a still greater +extent Marcus Aurelius, were gloriously false to the rigidity of the +school to which they professed to belong. We see with delight that one +of the <i>Discourses</i> of Epictetus was <i>On the Tenderness and Forbearance +due to Sinners</i>; and he abounds in exhortations to forbearance in +judging others. In one of his <i>Fragments</i> he tells the following +anecdote:--A person who had seen a poor ship-wrecked and almost dying +pirate took pity on him, carried him home, gave him clothes, and +furnished him with all the necessaries of life. Somebody reproached him +for doing good to the wicked--"I have honoured," he replied, "not the +man, but humanity in his person."</p> + +<p>But one fact more is known in the life of Epictetus, Domitian, the +younger son of Vespasian, succeeded his far nobler brother the Emperor +Titus; and in the course of his reign a decree was passed which banished +all the philosophers from Italy. Epictetus was not exempted from this +unjust and absurd decree. That he bore it with equanimity may be +inferred from the approval with which he tells an anecdote about +Agrippinus, who while his cause was being tried in the Senate went on +with all his usual avocations, and on being informed on his return from +bathing that he had been condemned, quietly asked, "To death or +banishment?" "To banishment," said the messenger. "Is my property +confiscated?" "No," "Very well, then let us go as far as Aricia" (about +sixteen miles from Rome), "and dine there."</p> + +<p>There was a certain class of philosophers whose external mark and whose +sole claim to distinction rested in the length of their beards; and when +the decree of Domitian was passed these gentleman contented themselves +with shaving. Epictetus alludes to this in his second <i>Discourse</i>, +"Come, Epictetus, shave off your beard," he imagines some one to say to +him. "If I am a philosopher I will not," he replies. "Then I will take +off your head." "By all means, if that will do you any good."</p> + +<p>He went to Nicopolis, a town of Epirus, which had been built by Augustus +in commemoration of his victory at Actium. Whether he ever revisited +Rome is uncertain, but it is probable that he did so, for we know that +he enjoyed the friendship of several eminent philosophers and statesmen, +and was esteemed and honoured by the Emperor Hadrian himself. He is said +to have lived to a good old age, surrounded by affectionate and eager +disciples, and to have died with the same noble simplicity which had +marked his life. The date of his death is as little known as that of his +birth. It only remains to give a sketch of those thoughts which, poor +though he was, and despised, and a slave, yet made him "dear to the +immortals."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVE."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>THE "MANUAL" AND "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS.</h3> + +<p>It is nearly certain that Epictetus never committed any of his doctrines +to writing. Like his great exemplar. Socrates, he contented himself with +oral instruction, and the bulk of what has come down to us in his name +consists in the <i>Discourses</i> reproduced for us by his pupil Arrian. It +was the ambition of Arrian "to be to Epictetus what Xenophon had been to +Socrates," that is, to hand down to posterity a noble and faithful +picture of the manner in which his master had lived and taught. With +this view, he wrote four books on Epictetus,--a life, which is now +unhappily lost; a book of conversation or "table talk," which is also +lost; and two books which have come down to us, viz. the <i>Discourses</i> +and the <i>Manual</i>. It is from these two invaluable books, and from a good +many isolated fragments, that we are enabled to judge what was the +practical morality of Stoicism, as expounded by the holy and +upright slave.</p> + +<p>The <i>Manual</i> is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles, +which, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are +also explained in the <i>Discourses</i>. Both books were so popular that by +their means Arrian first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately +attained the highest eminence and rank. The <i>Manual</i> was to antiquity +what the <i>Imitatio</i> of Thomas à Kempis was to later times, and what +Woodhead's <i>Whole Duty of Man</i> or Wilberforce's <i>Practical View of +Christianity</i> have been to large sections of modern Englishmen. It was a +clear, succinct, and practical statement of common daily duties, and the +principles upon which they rest. Expressed in a manner entirely simple +and unornate, its popularity was wholly due to the moral elevation of +the thoughts which it expressed. Epictetus did not aim at style; his one +aim was to excite his hearers to virtue, and Arrian tells us that in +this endeavour he created a deep impression by his manner and voice. It +is interesting to know that the <i>Manual</i> was widely accepted among +Christians no less than among Pagans, and that, so late as the fifth +century, paraphrases were written of it for Christian use. No systematic +treatise of morals so simply beautiful was ever composed, and to this +day the best Christian may study it, not with interest only, but with +real advantage. It is like the voice of the Sybil, which, uttering +things simple, and unperfumed, and unadorned, by God's grace reacheth +through innumerable years. We proceed to give a short sketch of +its contents.</p> + +<p>Epictetus began by laying down the broad comprehensive statement that +there are some things which are in our power, and depend upon ourselves; +other things which are beyond our power, and wholly independent of us. +The things which are in our power are our opinions, our aims, our +desires, our aversions--in a word, <i>our actions</i>. The things beyond our +power are bodily accidents, possessions, fame, rank, and whatever lies +<i>beyond</i> the sphere of our actions. To the former of these classes of +things our whole attention must be confined. In that region we may be +noble, unperturbed, and free; in the other we shall be dependent, +frustrated, querulous, miserable. Both classes cannot be successfully +attended to; they are antagonistic, antipathetic; we cannot serve God +and Mammon.</p> + +<p>Now, if we take a right view of all these things which in no way depend +on ourselves we shall regard them as mere semblances--as shadows which +are to be distinguished from the true substance. We shall not look upon +them as fit subjects for aversion or desire. Sin and cruelty, and +falsehood we may hate, because we can avoid them if we will; but we must +look upon sickness, and poverty, and death as things which are <i>not</i> fit +subjects for our avoidance, because they lie wholly beyond our control.</p> + +<p>This, then,--endurance of the inevitable, avoidance of the evil--is the +keynote of the Epictetean philosophy. It has been summed up in the three +words, [Greek: Anechou kai apechou], "<i>sustine et abstine</i>," "Bear and +forbear,"--bear whatever God assigns to you, abstain from that which +He forbids.</p> + +<p>The earlier part of the <i>Manual</i> is devoted to practical advice which +may enable men to endure nobly. For instance, "If there be anything," +says Epictetus, "which you highly value or tenderly love, estimate at +the same time its true nature. Is it some possession? remember that it +may be destroyed. Is it wife or child? remember that they may die." +"Death," says an epitaph in Chester Cathedral--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Death, the great monitor, comes oft to prove,<br> + 'Tis dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Desire nothing too much. If you are going to the public baths and are +annoyed or hindered by the rudeness, the pushing, the abuse, the +thievish propensities of others, do not lose your temper: remind +yourself that it is more important that you should keep your will in +harmony with nature than that you should bathe. And so with all +troubles; men suffer far less from the things themselves than from the +opinions they have of them."</p> + +<p>"If you cannot frame your circumstances in accordance with your wishes, +frame your will into harmony with your circumstances.<a name="FNanchor64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64">[64]</a> When you lose +the best gifts of life, consider them as not lost but only resigned to +Him who gave them. You have a remedy in your own heart against all +trials--continence as a bulwark against passion, patience against +opposition, fortitude against pain. Begin with trifles: if you are +robbed, remind yourself that your peace of mind is of more value and +importance than the thing which has been stolen from you. Follow the +guidance of nature; that is the great thing; regret nothing, desire +nothing, which can disturb that end. Behave as at a banquet--take with +gratitude and in moderation what is set before you, and seek for nothing +more; a higher and diviner step will be to be ready and able to forego +even that which is given you, or which you might easily obtain. +Sympathise with others, at least externally, when they are in sorrow and +misfortune; but remember in your own heart that to the brave and wise +and true there is really no such thing as misfortune; it is but an ugly +semblance; the croak of the raven can portend no harm to such a man, he +is elevated above its power."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor64">[64]</a> "When what thou willest befalls not, thou then must will +what befalleth." +</blockquote> + +<p>"We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with +those parts; our simple duty is confined to playing them well. The slave +may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it +dwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant, with it all +others become needless, without it no others are possible. No one can +insult you if you will not regard his words or deeds as insults.<a name="FNanchor65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65">[65]</a> +Keep your eye steadily fixed on the great reality of death, and all +other things will shrink to their true proportions. As in a voyage, when +a ship has come to anchor, if you have gone out to find water, you may +amuse yourself with picking up a little shell or bulb, but you must keep +your attention steadily fixed upon the ship, in case the captain should +call, and then you must leave all such things lest you should be flung +on board, bound like sheep. So in life; if, instead of a little shell or +bulb, some wifeling or childling be granted you, well and good; but, if +the captain call, run to the ship and leave such possessions behind you, +not looking back. But if you be an old man, take care not to go a long +distance from the ship at all, lest you should be called and come too +late." The metaphor is a significant one, and perhaps the following +lines of Sir Walter Scott, prefixed anonymously to one of the chapters +of the Waverley Novels, may help to throw light upon it:</p> + +<blockquote> +"Death finds us 'midst our playthings; snatches us,<br> + As a cross nurse might do a wayward child,<br> + From all our toys and baubles--the rough call<br> + Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth:<br> + And well if they are such as may be answered<br> + In yonder world, where all is judged of truly."<br> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor65">[65]</a> Compare Cowper's <i>Conversation</i>:-- +<blockquote> +"Am I to set my life upon a throw<br> + Because a bear is rude and surly?--No.--<br> + A modest, sensible, and well-bred man<br> + Will not insult me, and <i>no other can</i>."<br> +</blockquote> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Preserve your just relations to other men; their misconduct does not +affect your duties. Has your father done wrong, or your brother been +unjust? Still he <i>is</i> your father, he <i>is</i> your brother; and you must +consider your relation to him, not whether he be worthy of it or no.</p> + +<p>"Your duty towards the gods is to form just and true opinions respecting +them. Believe that they do all things well, and then you need never +murmur or complain."</p> + +<p>"As rules of practice," says Epictetus, "prescribe to yourself an ideal, +and then act up to it. Be mostly silent; or, if you converse, do not let +it be about vulgar and insignificant topics, such as dogs, horses, +racing, or prize-fighting. Avoid foolish and immoderate laughter, vulgar +entertainments, impurity, display, spectacles, recitations, and all +egotistical remarks. Set before you the examples of the great and good. +Do not be dazzled by mere appearances. Do what is right quite +irrespective of what people will say or think. Remember that your body +is a very small matter and needs but very little; just as all that the +foot needs is a shoe, and not a dazzling ornament of gold, purple, or +jewelled embroidery. To spend all one's time on the body, or on bodily +exercises, shows a weak intellect. Do not be fond of criticising others, +and do not resent their criticisms of you. Everything," he says, and +this is one of his most characteristic precepts, "has two handles! one +by which it may be borne, the other by which it cannot. If your brother +be unjust, do not take up the matter by that handle--the handle of his +injustice--for that handle is the one by which it cannot be taken up; +but rather by the handle that he is your brother and brought up with +you; and then you will be taking it up as it can be borne."</p> + +<p>All these precepts have a general application, but Epictetus adds +others on the right bearing of a philosopher; that is, of one whose +professed ideal is higher than the multitude. He bids him above all +things not to be censorious, and not to be ostentatious. "Feed on your +own principles; do not throw them up to show how much you have eaten. Be +self-denying, but do not boast of it. Be independent and moderate, and +regard not the opinion or censure of others, but keep a watch upon +yourself as your own most dangerous enemy. Do not plume yourself on an +<i>intellectual</i> knowledge of philosophy, which is in itself quite +valueless, but on a consistent nobleness of action. Never relax your +efforts, but aim at perfection. Let everything which seems best be to +you a law not to be transgressed; and whenever anything painful, or +pleasurable, or glorious, or inglorious, is set before you, remember +that now is the struggle, now is the hour of the Olympian contest, and +it may not be put off, and that by a single defeat or yielding your +advance in virtue may be either secured or lost. It was thus that +Socrates attained perfection, by giving his heart to reason, and to +reason only. And thou, even if as yet thou art not a Socrates, yet +shouldst live as though it were thy wish to be one." These are noble +words, but who that reads them will not be reminded of those sacred and +far more deeply-reaching words, "<i>Be ye perfect, even as your Father +which is in heaven is perfect" Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, +now is the day of salvation</i>.</p> + +<p>In this brief sketch we have included all the most important thoughts in +the <i>Manual</i>. It ends in these words. "On all occasions we may keep in +mind these three sentiments:--"</p> + +<p>'Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me +to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be +unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the same.' +(Cleanthes.)</p> + +<p>'Whosoever hath nobly yielded to necessity, I hold him wise, and he +knoweth the things of God.' (Euripides.)</p> + +<p>And this third one also, 'O Crito, be it so, if so be the will of +heaven. Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, but harm me they cannot.' +(Socrates.)</p> + +<p>To this last conception of life; quoted from the end of Plato's +<i>Apology</i>, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: "What resources have we," he +asks, "in circumstances of great peril? What other than the remembrance +of what is or what is not in our own power; what is possible to us and +what is not? I must die. Be it so; but need I die groaning? I must be +bound; but must I be bound bewailing? I must be driven into exile, well, +who prevent me then from going with laughter, and cheerfulness, and +calm of mind?</p> + +<p>"'Betray secrets.'</p> + +<p>"'Indeed I will not, for <i>that</i> rests in my own hands.'</p> + +<p>"'Then I will put you in chains.'</p> + +<p>"'My good sir, what are you talking about? Put <i>me</i> in chains? No, no! +you may put my leg in chains, but not even Zeus himself can master +my will.'</p> + +<p>"'I will throw you into prison.'</p> + +<p>"'My poor little body; yes, no doubt.'</p> + +<p>"'I will cut off your head.'</p> + +<p>"'Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one which could not +be cut off?'</p> + +<p>"Such are the things of which philosophers should think, and write them +daily, and exercise themselves therein."</p> + +<p>There are many other passages in which Epictetus shows that the +free-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that we should not "sell +it for a trifle;" or, as Scripture still more sternly expresses it, +should not "sell ourselves for nought." He relates, for instance, the +complete failure of the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus +not to go to the Senate. "While I am a Senator," said Helvidius, "I +<i>must</i> go." "Well, then, at least be silent there." "Ask me no +questions, and I will be silent." "But I <i>must</i> ask your opinion." "And +<i>I</i> must say what is right." "But I will put you to death." "Did I ever +tell you I was immortal? Do <i>your</i> part, and <i>I</i> will do <i>mine</i>. It is +yours to kill me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to +go into banishment without grief."</p> + +<p>We see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of the heathen +had, by God's grace, attained to the sense that life was subject to a +divine guidance. Yet how dim was their vision of this truth, how +insecure their hold upon it, in comparison with that which the meanest +Christian may attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of +immortality. They never quite got rid of a haunting dread that perhaps, +after all, they might be nothing better than insignificant and unheeded +atoms, swept hither and thither in the mighty eddies of an unseen, +impersonal, mysterious agency, and destined hereafter "to be sealed amid +the iron hills," or</p> + +<blockquote> +"To be imprisoned in the viewless winds.<br> + And blown with reckless violence about<br> + The pendent world."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Their belief in a personal deity was confused with their belief in +nature, which, in the language of a modern sceptic, "acts with fearful +uniformity: stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as death; too +vast to praise, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer, +no heart for sympathy, no arm to save." How different the soothing and +tender certainty of the Christian's hope, for whom Christ has brought +life and immortality to light! For "chance" is not only "the daughter of +forethought," as the old Greek lyric poet calls her, but the daughter +also of love. How different the prayer of David, even in the hours of +his worst agony and shame, "<i>Let Thy loving Spirit lead me forth into +the land of righteousness</i>." Guidance, and guidance by the hand of love, +was--as even in that dark season he recognised--the very law of his +life; and his soul, purged by affliction, had but a single wish--the +wish to be led, not into prosperity, not into a recovery of his lost +glory, not even into the restoration of his lost innocence; but +only,--through paths however hard--only into the land of righteousness. +And because he knew that God would lead him thitherward, he had no wish, +no care for anything beyond. We will end this chapter by translating a +few of the isolated fragments of Epictetus which have been preserved for +us by other writers. The wisdom and beauty of these fragments will +interest the reader, for Epictetus was one of the few "in the very dust +of whose thoughts was gold."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"A life entangled with accident is like a wintry torrent, for it is +turbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and tyrannous, and loud, +and brief."</p> + +<p>"A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; for it is +pure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and serviceable, and +rich, and innocent, and uninjurious."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"If you wish to be good? first believe that you are bad."</p> + +<p>Compare Matt. ix. 12, "They that be whole need not a physician, but +they that are sick;" John ix. 41, "Now ye say, We see, therefore your +sin remaineth;" and 1 John i. 8, "If we say that we have no sin, we +deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks with the gifts of +bees, to embitter by vice his reason, which is the gift of God."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and +insolence: nothing nobler than high-mindedness, and gentleness, and +philanthropy, and doing good."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"The vine bears three clusters: the first of pleasure; the second of +drunkenness; the third of insult."</p> + +<p>"He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; even if he be not +drunken, he has exceeded moderation."</p> + +<p>Our own George Herbert has laid down the same limit:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay,<br> + <i>Stay at the third cup, or forego the place</i>,<br> + Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface."<br> +</blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a great blaze by +means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over +the sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city, +himself content with little, effects great blessings for his +fellow-citizens."</p> + +<p>The thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare:</p> + +<blockquote> +"How far yon little candle throws its beams,<br> + So shines a good deed in a naughty world."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>But the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly adopts is one no less +beautiful. "What good," asked some one, "did Helvidius Priscus do in +resisting Vespasian, being but a single person?" "What good," answers +Epictetus, "does the purple do on the garment? Why, <i>it is splendid in +itself, and splendid also in the example which it affords</i>."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations that he may rise, +but shines at once, and is greeted by all; so neither wait thou for +applause, and shouts, and eulogies, that thou mayst do well;--but be a +spontaneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved like the sun."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all possessions, answered, +'Hope; for even those who have nothing else have hope.'"</p> + +<p>"Lead, lead me on, my hopes," says Mr. Macdonald; "I know that ye are +true and not vain. Vanish from my eyes day after day, but arise in new +forms. I will follow your holy deception; follow till ye have brought me +to the feet of my Father in heaven, where I shall find you all, with +folded wings, spangling the sapphire dusk whereon stands His throne +which is our home.</p> + +<p>"What ought not to be done do not even think of doing."</p> + +<p>Compare</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Guard well your thoughts for thoughts are heard in heaven</i>.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>Epictetus, when asked how a man could grieve his enemy, replied, "By +preparing himself to act in the noblest way."</p> + +<p>Compare Rom. xii. 20, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, +give him drink: <i>for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on +his head</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"If you always remember that in all you do in soul or body God stands by +as a witness, in all your prayers and your actions you will not err; and +you shall have God dwelling with you."</p> + +<p>Compare Rev. iii. 30, "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man +hear my voice, and open the door, <i>I will come in to him and will sup +with him, and he with me."</i></p> + +<p>In the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch upon human +actions, Epictetus touches again on the same topic, saying that God has +placed beside each one of us his own guardian spirit--a spirit that +sleeps not and cannot be beguiled--and has handed us each over to that +spirit to protect us. "And to what better or more careful guardian could +He have entrusted us? So that when you have closed your doors and made +darkness within, <i>remember never to say that you are alone</i>. For you are +not alone. God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit; and +what need have <i>they</i> of light to see what you are doing."</p> + +<p>There is in this passage an almost startling coincidence of thought with +those eloquent words in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: "A man that breaketh +wedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? <i>I am compassed about +with darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth me</i>: what need I to +fear? the Most Highest will not remember my sins: <i>such a man only +feareth the eyes of man</i>, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are +ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, +and considering the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever they +were created: so also after they were perfected He looked upon all. This +man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he expecteth +not he shall be taken." (Ecclus. xxiii. 11-21.)</p> + +<p>"When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a tutor who kept a +continual watch that we might not suffer harm; but, when we grow to +manhood, God hands us over to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must, +therefore, by no means despise this guardianship, since in that case we +shall both be displeasing to God and enemies to our own conscience."</p> + +<p>Beautiful and remarkable as these fragments are we have no space for +more, and must conclude by comparing the last with the celebrated lines +of George Herbert:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round;<br> + <i>Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters<br> + Deliver us to laws. They send us bound<br> + To rules of reason</i>. Holy messengers;<br> + Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin;<br> + Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes;<br> + Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in!<br> + Bibles laid open; millions of surprises;<br> + Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness;<br> + The sound of glory ringing in our ears;<br> + Without one shame; <i>within our consciences</i>;<br> + Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears!<br> + Yet all these fences and their whole array,<br> + One cunning bosom sin blows quite away."<br> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VE."></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS.</h3> + +<p>The <i>Discourses</i> of Epictetus, as originally published by Arrian, +contained eight books, of which only four have come down to us. They are +in many respects the most valuable expression of his views. There is +something slightly repellent in the stern concision, the "imperious +brevity," of the <i>Manual</i>. In the <i>Manual</i>, says M. Martha,<a name="FNanchor66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66">[66]</a> "the +reason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassibility which is +little human; it imposes silence on all the passions, even the most +respectable; it glories in waging against them an internecine war, and +seems even to wish to repress the most legitimate impulses of generous +sensibility. In reading these rigorous maxims one might be tempted to +believe that this legislator of morality is a man without a heart, and, +if we were not touched by the original sincerity of the language, one +would only see in this lapidary style the conventional precepts of a +chimerical system or the aspirations of an impossible perfection." The +<i>Discourses</i> are more illustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse, +more human. In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human +being, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. The style, +indeed, is simple, but its "athletic nudity" is well suited to this +militant morality; its picturesque and incisive character, its vigorous +metaphors, its vulgar expressions, its absence of all conventional +elegance, display a certain "plebeian originality" which gives them an +almost autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid +conviction "he wrestles with the passions, questions them, makes them +answer, and confounds them in a few words which are often sublime. This +Socrates without grace does not amuse us by making his adversary fall +into the long entanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes +and often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence of +Phocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which is lifted +and falls."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor66">[66]</a> Moralistes sous l'Empire, p. 200. +</blockquote> + +<p>Epictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher; a preacher with less wealth of +genius, less eloquence of expression, less width of culture, but with +far more bravery, clearness, consistency, and grasp of his subject. His +doctrine and his life were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit +of brief expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, or +chequered with any lights and shades. The <i>Discourses</i> differ from the +<i>Manual</i> only in their manner, their frequent anecdotes, their pointed +illustrations, and their vivid interlocutory form. The remark of Pascal, +that Epictetus knew the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know +its weakness, applies to the <i>Manual</i> but can hardly be maintained when +we judge him by some of the answers which he gave to those who came to +seek for his consolation or advice.</p> + +<p>The <i>Discourses</i> are not systematic in their character, and, even if +they were, the loss of the last four books would prevent us from working +out their system with any completeness. Our sketch of the <i>Manual</i> will +already have put the reader in possession of the main principles and +ideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the +schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a +moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He +neither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical +reality. All that remains for us to do is to choose from the +<i>Discourses</i> some of his most characteristic views, and the modes by +which he brought them home to his hearers.</p> + +<p>It was one of the most essential peculiarities of Stoicism to aim at +absolute independence, or <i>self</i>-independence. Now, as the weaknesses +and servilities of men arise most frequently from their desire for +superfluities, the true man must absolutely get rid of any such desire. +He must increase his wealth by moderating his wishes; he must despise +<i>all</i> the luxuries for which men long, and he must greatly diminish the +number of supposed necessaries. We have already seen some of the +arguments which point in this direction, and we may add another from the +third book of <i>Discourses</i>.</p> + +<p>A certain magnificent orator, who was going to Rome on a lawsuit, had +called on Epictetus. The philosopher threw cold water on his visit, +because he did not believe in his sincerity. "You will get no more from +me," he said, "than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for +you have only come because it happened to be convenient, and you will +only criticise my style, not really wishing to learn <i>principles</i>" +"Well, but," answered the orator, "if I attend to that sort of thing, I +shall be a mere pauper like you, with no plate, or equipage, or land." +"I don't <i>want</i> such things," replied Epictetus; "and, besides, you are +poorer than I am, after all." "Why, how so?" "You have no constancy, no +unanimity with nature, no freedom from perturbations. Patron or no +patron, what care I? You <i>do</i> care. I am richer than you. <i>I</i> don't care +what Caesar thinks of me. <i>I</i> flatter no one. This is what I have +instead of your silver and gold plate. You have <i>silver</i> vessels, but +<i>earthenware</i> reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom +is, and it furnishes me abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your +restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you, mine seem +great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied." The +comparison with which he ends the discussion is very remarkable. I once +had the privilege of hearing Sir William Hooker explain to the late +Queen Adelaide the contents of the Kew Museum. Among them was a +cocoa-nut with a hole in it, and Sir William explained to the Queen that +in certain parts of India, when the natives want to catch the monkeys +they make holes in cocoa-nuts, and fill them with sugar. The monkeys +thrust in their hands and fill them with sugar; the aperture is too +small to draw the paws out again when thus increased in size; the +monkeys have not the sense to loose their hold of the sugar, and so they +are caught. This little anecdote will enable the reader to relish the +illustration of Epictetus. "When little boys thrust their hands into +narrow-mouthed jars full of figs and almonds, when they have filled +their hands they cannot draw them out again, and so begin to howl. Let +go a few of the figs and almonds, and you'll get your hand out. And so +<i>you</i>, let go your desires. Don't desire many things, and you'll get +what you <i>do</i> desire." "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he +shall not be disappointed!"</p> + +<p>Another of the constant precepts of Epictetus is that we should aim +high; we are not to be common threads in the woof of life, but like the +laticlave on the robe of a senator, the broad purple stripe which gave +lustre and beauty to the whole. But how are we to know that we are +qualified for this high function? How does the bull know, when the lion +approaches, that it is his place to expose himself for all the herd? If +we have high powers we shall soon be conscious of them, and if we have +them not we may gradually acquire them. Nothing great is produced at +once,--the vine must blossom, and bear fruit, and ripen, before we have +the purple clusters of the grape,--"first the blade, then the ear, after +that the full corn in the ear."</p> + +<p>But whence are we to derive this high sense of duty and possible +eminence? Why, if Caesar had adopted you, would you not show your proud +sense of ennoblement in haughty looks; how is it that you are not proud +of being sons of God? You have, indeed, a body, by virtue of which many +men sink into close kinship with pernicious wolves, and savage lions, +and crafty foxes, destroying the rational within them, and so becoming +greedy cattle or mischievous vermin; but above and beyond this, "If," +says Epictetus, "a man have once been worthily interpenetrated with the +belief that we all have been in some special manner born of God, and +that God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never have +any ignoble, any humble thoughts about himself." Our own great Milton +has hardly expressed this high truth more nobly when he says, that "He +that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of +God's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he +thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit +person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than +to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, +himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and filial +relation with God."</p> + +<p>"And how are we to know that we have made progress? We may know it if +our own wills are bent to live in conformity with nature; if we be +noble, free, faithful, humble; if desiring nothing, and shunning nothing +which lies beyond our power, we sit loose to all earthly interests; if +our lives are under the distinct governance of immutable and noble laws.</p> + +<p>"But shall we not meet with troubles in life? Yes, undoubtedly; and are +there none at Olympia? Are you not burnt with heat, and pressed for +room, and wetted with showers when it rains? Is there not more than +enough clamour, and shouting, and other troubles? Yet I suppose you +tolerate and endure all these when you balance them against the +magnificence of the spectacle? And, come now, have you not received +powers wherewith to bear whatever occurs? Have you not received +magnanimity, courage, fortitude? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I +care for anything that can possibly happen? what shall alarm or trouble +me, or seem painful? Shall I not use the faculty for the ends for which +it was granted me, or shall I grieve and groan at all the accidents of +life? On the contrary, these troubles and difficulties are strong +antagonists pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in +the Olympic game of life.</p> + +<p>"But if life and its burdens become absolutely intolerable, may we not +go back to God, from whom we came? may we not show thieves and robbers, +and tyrants who claim power over us by means of our bodies and +possessions, that they have <i>no power</i>? In a word, may we not commit +suicide?" We know how Shakespeare treats this question:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,<br> + Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,<br> + The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,<br> + The insolence of office, and the spurns<br> + Which patient merit of the unworthy takes,<br> + When he himself might his quietus make<br> + With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,<br> + To grunt and sweat under a weary life,<br> + <i>But that the dread of something after death,<br> + The undiscovered country from whose bourne<br> + No traveller returns, puzzles the will:<br> + And makes us rather bear those ills we have<br> + Than fly to others that we know not of</i>?"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>But Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I do not remember a +single passage in which he refers to immortality or the life to come, +and it is therefore probable either that he did not believe in it at +all, or that he put it aside as one of those things which are out of our +own power. Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we +find throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one of the +commonplaces of Stoicism. "My friends," he says, "wait God's good time +till He gives you the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then +dismiss yourself to go to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves, +inhabiting the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after +all, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for those who are +thus disposed; for what tyrant, or thief, or judgment-halls, are objects +of dread to those who thus absolutely disesteem the body and its +belongings? Stay, then, and do not depart without due cause."</p> + +<p>It will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without extolling it, +for in another place (ii. 1) he says: "What is pain? A mere ugly mask; +turn it, and see that it is so. This little flesh of ours is acted on +roughly, and then again smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear +it, the door is open; if it is for your interest--endure. It is right +that under all circumstances the door should be open, since so men end +all trouble."</p> + +<p>This power of <i>endurance</i> is completely the keynote of the Stoical view +of life, and the method of attaining to it, by practising contempt for +all external accidents, is constantly inculcated. I have already told +the anecdote about Agrippinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that +no extreme of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a +single expression of indignation or of sorrow.</p> + +<p>The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from God, and it +is our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding +conception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too, +our duties spring directly from our relation to God. It is that relation +which makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us +honour others. "Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has +God for his father no less than you? But they are wicked, +perhaps--thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more +pity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their +misfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are +wicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so <i>very</i> wise?"</p> + +<p>Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often +pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for +instance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), +and the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones. +He points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act +is a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which make up +our daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are +adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever +may be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with +the diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them.</p> + +<p>Take the instance of anger. "Do you wish not to be passionate? do not +then cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto. +Be calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in +a rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day, +then every third, then every fourth day. But should you have passed even +thirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to God. For the +habit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to +vexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but +I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say +<i>that</i>, that it will soon be all right with you."</p> + +<p>But <i>how</i> is one to do all this? that is the great question, and +Epictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he can. We have, +for instance, already quoted one passage in which (unlike the majority +of Pagan moralists) he shows that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical +importance of controlling even the <i>thought</i> of wickedness. Another +anecdote about Agrippinus will further illustrate the same doctrine. It +was the wicked practice of Nero to make noble Romans appear on the stage +or in gladiatorial shows, in order that he might thus seem to have their +sanction for his own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who +was doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, consulted +Agrippinus on the subject. "<i>Go by all means</i>," replied Agrippinus. +"But why don't <i>you</i> go, then?" asked Florus. "<i>Because"</i>, said +Agrippinus, "<i>I do not deliberate about it</i>." He implied by this answer +that to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act +always on <i>principles</i>, we must never pause to calculate <i>consequences</i>. +"But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head cut off." +"Well, then, go, but <i>I</i> won't." "Why won't you go?" "Because I do not +care to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the +purple sewn upon it."</p> + +<p>And if we want a due <i>motive</i> for such lofty choice Epictetus will +supply it. "Wish," he says, "to win the suffrages of your own inward +approval, wish to appear beautiful to God. Desire to be pure with your +own pure self, and with God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato +says, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of +the gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even +rise and depart to the society of the noble and the good, to live +according to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the +living or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery +over temptation and passion; consider how glorious was the conscious +victory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place +him to Hercules himself.' So that, by heaven, one might justly salute +him, 'Hail, marvellous conqueror, who hast conquered, not these +miserable boxers and athletes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.' +And should you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what +shoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of mere +babblements, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who +trains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Great is the +struggle, divine the deed; it is for kingdom, for freedom, for +tranquillity, for peace. Think on God; call upon Him as thine aid and +champion, as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. And +indeed what storm is greater than that which rises from powerful +semblances that dash reason out of its course? What indeed but semblance +is a storm itself? Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring +as many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt know how +great is the tranquillity and calm in that reason which is the ruling +faculty of the soul. But should you once be worsted, and say that you +will conquer <i>hereafter</i>, and then the same again and again, know that +thus your condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will +not even know that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to +provide excuses for your sin; and then you will confirm the truth of +that saying of Hesiod,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"'The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Even so! So early did a heathen moralist learn the solemn fact that +"only this once" ends in "there is no harm in it." Well does Mr. +Coventry Patmore sing:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"How easy to keep free from sin;<br> + How hard that freedom to recall;<br> + For awful truth it is that men<br> + <i>Forget</i> the heaven from which they fall."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>In another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be too easily +discouraged in our attempts after good;--and, above all, never to +<i>despair</i>. "In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he +is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has +acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor +wretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be swept along as by +a torrent. You need but <i>will</i>" he says, "and it is done; but if you +relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both +from within.--And what will you gain by all this? You will gain modesty +for inpudence, purity for vileness, moderation for drunkenness. If you +think there are any better ends than these, then by all means go on in +sin, for you are beyond the power of any god to save."</p> + +<p>But Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us that to +<i>profess</i> these principles and <i>talk</i> about them is one thing--to act up +to them quite another. He draws a humorous picture of an inconsistent +and unreal philosopher, who--after eloquently proving that nothing is +good but what pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to +vice, and that all other things are indifferent--goes to sea. A storm +comes on, and the masts creak, and the philosopher screams; and an +impertinent person stands by and asks in surprise, "Is it then <i>vice</i> to +suffer shipwreck? because, if not, it can be no evil;" a question which +makes our philosopher so angry that he is inclined to fling a log at his +interlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that the +philosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the +schools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and +conceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name +of Stoic was usurped.</p> + +<p>"Why," he asks in another passage, "why do you call yourself a Stoic? +Why do you deceive the multitude? Why do you act the Jew when you are a +Greek? Don't you see on what terms each person is called a Jew? or a +Syrian? or an Egyptian? And when we see some mere <i>trimmer</i> we are in +the habit of saying, 'This is no Jew; he is only acting the part of +one,' but when a man takes up the entire condition of a proselyte, +thoroughly imbued with Jewish doctrines, then he both <i>is</i> in reality +and is <i>called</i> a Jew. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye, +<i>are Jews in name, but in reality are something else</i>.... We call +ourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the part of men, as +though a man should try to heave the stone of Ajax who cannot lift ten +pounds." The passage is interesting not only on its own account, but +because of its curious similarity both with the language and with the +sentiment of St. Paul--"He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is +that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is +one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and +not in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."</p> + +<p>The best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by a mere study of +books and knowledge of doctrines, but by a steady diligence of actions +and adherence to original principles, to which must be added consistency +and self control. "These principles," says Epictetus, "produce +friendship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations; they make +a man grateful to God, bold under all circumstances, as though dealing +with things alien and valueless. Now we are capable of writing these +things, and reading them, and praising them when they are read, but we +are far enough off following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of +the Lacedaemonians, that they are 'lions at home, foxes at Ephesus,' +will also apply to us; in the school we are lions, out of it foxes."</p> + +<p>These passages include, I think, all the most original, important, and +characteristic conceptions which are to be found in the <i>Discourses</i>. +They are most prominently illustrated in the long and important chapter +on the Cynic philosophy. A genuine Cynic--one who was so, not in +brutality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a Cynic +in life and in his inmost principles--was evidently in the eyes of +Epictetus one of the loftiest of human beings. He drew a sketch of his +ideal conception to one of his scholars who inquired of him upon +the subject.</p> + +<p>He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who +undertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him +the anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the +imperial office of an Agamemnon. "If you think," he tells the young +student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and +sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and +rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple, +you don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a +Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider +how great a thing you are undertaking.</p> + +<p>"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of +God. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life +must be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal +their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your +house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must +conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as +the spy and messenger of God among mankind.</p> + +<p>"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their +blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and +Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not +in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for +Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their +hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances. +It lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of +every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of +contentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile, +disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this +Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face +the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped?</p> + +<p>"Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be +beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an +unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men +would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair.</p> + +<p>"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a +friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The +friend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a +friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry; +marriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, +its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted +to the service of heaven.</p> + +<p>"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth +is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind.</p> + +<p>"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of +his indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a +power of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be +clear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To +abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place +all fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this: +before you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of +God you are capable of achieving it."</p> + +<p>I have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chapter, but fully +to enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader should study it entire, +and observe its generous impatience, its noble ardour, its vivid +interrogations, "in which," says M. Martha, "one feels as it were a +frenzy of virtue and of piety, and in which the plenitude of a great +heart tumultuously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts."</p> + +<p>Epictetus was not a Christian. He has only once alluded to the +Christians in his works, and there it is under the opprobrious title of +"Galileans," who practised a kind of insensibility in painful +circumstances and an indifference to worldly interests which Epictetus +unjustly sets down to "mere habit." Unhappily it was not granted to +these heathen philosophers in any true sense to know what Christianity +was. They ignorantly thought that it was an attempt to imitate the +results of philosophy, without having passed through the necessary +discipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it with +injustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, they +would have found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest +conceptions. Nor was it only an impossible <i>ideal</i>; it was an ideal +rendered attainable by the impressive sanction of the highest authority, +and one which supported men to bear the difficulties of life with +fortitude, with peacefulness, and even with an inward joy; it ennobled +their faculties without overstraining them; it enabled them to +disregard the burden of present trials, not by vainly attempting to deny +their bitterness or ignore their weight, but in the high certainty that +they are the brief and necessary prelude to "a far more exceeding and +eternal weight of glory."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h1><a name="MARCUS_AURELIUS."></a>MARCUS AURELIUS.</h1> + + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IA."></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR.</h3> + +<p>The life of the noblest of Pagan Emperors may well follow that of the +noblest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the purer and brighter from +the midst of a corrupt and deplorable society. Epictetus showed that a +Phrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation; Aurelius +proved that a Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility. +The one--a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in squalor, bred +in degradation, the despised chattel of a despicable freedman, +surrounded by every depressing, ignoble, and pitiable circumstance of +life--showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win noble +happiness and immortal memory; the other--a Roman, a patrician, strong, +of heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the +favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher, +the greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be +virtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, +even on an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the two, +the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly +and touchingly resigned, than the slave. In him, Stoicism loses all its +haughty self-assertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly +melancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart. "It seems," says +M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, +draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it +despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown +God.' In the sad <i>Meditations</i> of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, +sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were +unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not +yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which +Christianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction, +and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, +without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fénélon. +We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate +ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to +which profane doctrines have attained--how they laid down their pride, +and how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity. To +make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the +Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these +simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur--that +charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and +humbleness of heart by an Emperor."</p> + +<p>Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of +eminent men "If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the +Christian verities," says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, +"search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object +than the Antonines.... One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this +Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of +emotion. He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better +of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind." +"It is more delightful," says the great historian Niebuhr, "to speak of +Marcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime +human virtue it is his. He was certainly the noblest character of his +time, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, +mildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards +himself. We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his +time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an +expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius."</p> + +<p>Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, A.D. 121. His more correct +designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several +different names at different periods of his life, and since at that age +nothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth +while to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His +father, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a +line of illustrious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King +of Rome. His mother, Domitia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and +kingly race. The character of both seems to have been worthy of their +high dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since Annius died +when Aurelius was a mere infant; but in his <i>Meditations</i> he has left us +a grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his +grandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the +government of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his +father, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence, +and <i>abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts</i>; +and, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of +the rich.</p> + +<p>The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian. +The times were better than those which we have contemplated in the +reigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of +Galba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time +under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of +Titus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother Titus, +was scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero; +but that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden +neck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate +that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was +fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan, +Hadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus +Aurelius were among the very gentlest and noblest sovereigns whom the +world has ever seen.</p> + +<p>Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial +Emperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It +is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at +the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues +which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of +mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when +he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's +paternal name of <i>Verus</i>, he called him <i>Verissimus</i>, 'the most true.'" +It is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early +developed in one who thought that all men "should speak as they think, +with an accent of heroic verity."</p> + +<p>Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness, +Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a +man who had few recommendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death, +which took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the senators +round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future +Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he +won by his gratitude to the memory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been +older--he was then but seventeen--it is known that Hadrian would have +chosen <i>him</i>, and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, indeed, who +was then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition +that he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the +deceased Ceionius. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even +from his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw +himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world.</p> + +<p>We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch +of the influences and the education which had formed him for this +exalted station.</p> + +<p>He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been +three times consul. He makes it a matter of congratulation, and +thankfulness to the gods, that he had not been sent to any public +school, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that +frightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had +fallen. He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for +having supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction +that on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing +jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond +of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and +he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, +his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his +public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a +beautiful and manly mould. There are, however, three respects in which +his education seems especially worthy of notice;--I mean the +<i>diligence</i>, the <i>gratitude</i>, and the <i>hardiness</i> in which he was +encouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of +generous conviction.</p> + +<p>1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was <i>diligent</i>. He alludes +more than once in his <i>Meditations</i> to the inestimable value of time, +and to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits. +He flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into +every branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he +toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the +administration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman +jurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which he expresses gratitude +to his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being +satisfied with the superficial understanding of a book. In fact, so +strenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his +health suffered by the combination of the two.</p> + +<p>2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his teachers--even +the most insignificant--with sincere <i>gratitude</i>. He regarded each one +of them as a man from whom something could be learnt, and from whom he +actually <i>did</i> learn that something. Hence the honourable respect--a +respect as honourable to himself as to them--which he paid to Fronto, to +Rusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom his noble and +conscientious gratitude raised to the highest dignities of the State. He +even thanks the gods that "he made haste to place those who brought him +up in the station of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting +them off with mere <i>hopes</i> of his doing it some time after, because they +were then still young." He was far the superior of these men, not only +socially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his +exalted rank and character he delighted to associate with them on the +most friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with +affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household +gods, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims.</p> + +<p>3. His <i>hardiness</i> and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I +wish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel +second-class, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their +buttonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a +poor man for a year, would learn how <i>infinitely more noble</i> was the +abstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of +splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of +gluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early +in life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not +only a duty but a pleasure</p> + +<blockquote> +"To scorn delights, and live laborious days,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work +with his own hands." In his eleventh year he became acquainted with +Diognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his +twelfth year he assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to +prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to +the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the skin" was a concession to +the entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself +would have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he +acted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. His friends +found him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity +and thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a +pure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or +with gloom.</p> + +<p>The guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around him all the most +distinguished literary teachers of the age. Never had a prince a greater +number of eminent instructors; never were any teachers made happy by a +more grateful, a more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and +glorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, during his +campaign among the Quadi, he wrote a sketch of what he owed to them. +This sketch forms the first book of his <i>Meditations</i>, and is +characterised throughout by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty.</p> + +<p>The <i>Meditations</i> of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his private diary, +they are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, an honest examination of +his own conscience; there is not the slightest trace of their having +been intended for any eye but his own. In them he was acting on the +principle of St. Augustine: "Go up into the tribunal of thy conscience, +and set thyself before thyself." He was ever bearing about--</p> + +<blockquote> +"A silent court of justice in himself,<br> + Himself the judge and jury, and himself<br> + The prisoner at the bar."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>And writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war which he +detested, he averted his eyes from the manifold wearinesses which daily +vexed his soul, and calmly sat down to meditate on all the great +qualities which he had observed, and all the good lessons that he might +have learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and surrounded +his manly years.</p> + +<p>And what had he learnt?--learnt heartily to admire, and (<i>we</i> may say) +learnt to practise also? A sketch of his first book will show us. What +he had gained from his immediate parents we have seen already, and we +will make a brief abstract of his other obligations.</p> + +<p>From "his governor"--to which of his teachers this name applies we are +not sure--he had learnt to avoid factions at the races, to work hard, +and to avoid listening to slander; from Diognetus, to despise frivolous +superstitions, and to practise self-denial; from Apollonius, undeviating +steadiness of purpose, endurance of misfortune, and the reception of +favours without being humbled by them; from Sextus of Chaeronea (a +grandson of the celebrated Plutarch), tolerance of the ignorant, gravity +without affectation, and benevolence of heart; from Alexander, delicacy +in correcting others; from Severus, "a disposition to do good, and to +give to others readily, and to cherish good hope, and, to believe that I +am beloved of my friends;" from Maximus, "sweetness and dignity, and to +do what was set before me without complaining;" from Alexander the +Platonic, "<i>not frequently to say to any one, nor to write in a letter, +that I have no leisure</i>; nor continually to excuse the neglect of +ordinary duties by alleging urgent occupations."</p> + +<p>To one or two others his obligations were still more characteristic and +important. From Rusticus, for instance, an excellent and able man, whose +advice for years he was accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise +sophistry and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified, +to be accurate, and--an inestimable benefit this, and one which tinged +the colour of his whole life--to become acquainted with the <i>Discourses</i> +of Epictetus. And from his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he +had derived advantages still more considerable. In him he saw the +example of a sovereign and statesman firm, self-controlled, modest, +faithful, and even tempered; a man who despised flattery and hated +meanness; who honoured the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who +was indifferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest +business; one, in short, "who had a perfect and invincible soul," who, +like Socrates, "was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things +which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without +excess." <a name="FNanchor67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67">[67]</a> Piety, serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame, +calmness, simplicity, patience, are virtues which he attributes to him +in another full-length portrait (vi. 30) which he concludes with the +words, "Imitate all this, that thou mayest have as good a conscience +when thy last hour comes as he had."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor67">[67]</a> My quotations from Marcus Aurelius will be made (by +permission) from the forcible and admirably accurate translation of Mr. +Long. In thanking Mr. Long, I may be allowed to add that the English +reader will find in his version the best means of becoming acquainted +with the purest-and noblest book of antiquity. +</blockquote> + +<p>He concludes these reminiscenses of thankfulness with a summary of what +he owed to the gods. And for what does he thanks the gods? for being +wealthy, and noble, and an emperor? Nay, for no vulgar or dubious +blessings such as these, but for the guidance which trained him in +philosophy, and for the grace which kept him from sin. And here it is +that his genuine modesty comes out. As the excellent divine used to say +when he saw a criminal led past for execution, "There, but for the grace +of God, goes John Bradford," so, after thanking the gods for the +goodness of all his family and relatives, Aurelius says, "Further, I owe +it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of +them, <i>though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered</i>, +might have led me to do something of this kind; but through their favour +there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the +trial. Further, that I was subjected to a ruler and father who took away +all pride from me, and taught me that it was possible to live in a +palace without guards, or embroidered dresses, or torches, and statues, +and such-like show, but to live very near to the fashion of a private +person, without being either mean in thought or remiss in action; that +after having fallen into amatory passions I was cured; that though it +was my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life +with me; that whenever I wished to help any man, I was never told that I +had not the means of doing it;--that I had abundance of good masters for +my children: for all these thing require the help of the gods +and fortune."</p> + +<p>The whole of the Emperor's <i>Meditations</i> deserve the profound study of +this age. The self-denial which they display is a rebuke to our +ever-growing luxury; their generosity contrasts favourably with the +increasing bitterness of our cynicism; their contented acquiescence in +God's will rebukes our incessant restlessness; above all, their constant +elevation shames that multitude of little vices, and little meannesses, +which lie like a scurf over the conventionality of modern life. But this +earlier chapter has also a special value for the young. It offers a +picture which it would indeed be better for them and for us if they +could be induced to study. If even under</p> + +<blockquote> +"That fierce light that beats upon the throne,"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>the life of Marcus Aurelius shows no moral stain, it is still more +remarkable that the free and beautiful boyhood of this Roman prince had +early learnt to recognise only the excellences of his teachers, their +patience and firmness, their benevolence and sweetness, their integrity +and virtue. Amid the frightful universality of moral corruption he +preserved a stainless conscience and a most pure soul; he thanked God in +language which breathes the most crystalline delicacy of sentiment and +language, that he had preserved uninjured the flower of his early life, +and that under the calm influences of his home in the country, and the +studies of philosophy, he had learnt to value chastity as the sacred +girdle of youth, to be retained and honoured to his latest years. +"Surely," says Mr. Carlyle, "a day is coming when it will be known again +what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush +of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable is the +duty laid on every creature in regard to these particulars. Well, if +such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come. +Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of +heart and of eye; noble pious valour to amend us and the age of bronze +and lacquers, how can they ever come? The scandalous bronze-lacquer age +of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies, and mendacities will have +to run its course till the pit swallow it."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIA."></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.</h3> + +<p>On the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded to the +throne, and, in accordance with the late Emperor's conditions, adopted +Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the +age of fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor +broke off the engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter +Faustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven years +afterwards, A.D. 146.</p> + +<p>The long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy periods that have +no history. An almost unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes +were lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation +were rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. Throughout the +whole extent of his vast domain the people loved and valued their +Emperor, and the Emperor's one aim was to further, the happiness of his +people. He, too, like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the +bee was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil administrator, +of an unaggressive and united republic; he disliked war, did not value +the military title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph.</p> + +<p>With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his private +relations as he was admirable in the discharge of his public duties, +Marcus Aurelius spent the next twenty-three years of his life. So close +and intimate was their union, so completely did they regard each other +as father and son, that during all that period Aurelius never slept more +than twice away from the house of Antoninus. There was not a shade of +jealousy between them; each was the friend and adviser of the other, +and, so far from regarding his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor +gave him the designation "Caesar," and heaped upon him all the honours +of the Roman Commonwealth. It was in vain that the whisper of malignant +tongues attempted to shake this mutual confidence. Antoninus once saw +the mother of Aurelius in earnest prayer before the statue of Apollo. +"What do you think she is praying for so intently?" asked a wretched +mischief-maker of the name of Valerius Omulus: "it is that you may die, +and her son reign." This wicked suggestion might have driven a prince of +meaner character into violence and disgust, but Antoninus passed it over +with the silence of contempt.</p> + +<p>It was the main delight of Antoninus to enjoy the quiet of his country +villa. Unlike Hadrian, who traversed immense regions of his vast +dominion, Antoninus lived entirely either at Rome, or in his beautiful +villa at Lorium, a little seacoast village about twelve miles from the +capital. In this villa he had been born, and here he died, surrounded by +the reminiscences of his childhood. In this his real home it was his +special pleasure to lay aside the pomp and burden of his imperial rank. +"He did not," says Marcus, "take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was +not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he eat, nor about +the texture and colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his +slaves." Even the dress he wore was the work of the provincial artist +in his little native place. So far from checking the philosophic tastes +of his adopted son he fostered them, and sent for Apollonius of Chalcis +to be his teacher in the doctrines of Stoicism. In one of his notes to +Fronto, Marcus draws the picture of their simple country occupations and +amusements. Hunting, fishing, boxing, wrestling, occupied the leisure of +the two princes, and they shared the rustic festivities of the vintage. +"I have dined," he writes, "on a little bread.... We perspired a great +deal, shouted a great deal, and left some gleanings of the vintage +hanging on the trellis work.... When I got home I studied a little, but +not to much advantage I had a long talk with my mother, who was lying on +her couch." Who knows how much Aurelius and how much the world may have +gained from such conversation as this with a mother from whom he had +learnt to hate even the thought of evil? Nor will any one despise the +simplicity of heart which made him mingle with the peasants as an +amateur vintager, unless he is so tasteless and so morose as to think +with scorn of Scipio and Laelius as they gathered shells on the +seashore, or of Henry IV. as he played at horses with his little boys on +all-fours. The capability of unbending thus, the genuine cheerfulness +which enters at due times into simple amusements, has been found not +rarely in the highest and purest minds.</p> + +<p>For many years no incident of importance broke the even tenor of +Aurelius's life. He lived peaceful, happy, prosperous, and beloved, +watching without envy the increasing years of his adopted father. But in +the year 161, when Marcus was now forty years old, Antoninus Pius, who +had reached the age of seventy-five, caught a fever at Lorium. Feeling +that his end was near, he summoned his friends and the chief men of +Rome to his bedside, and there (without saying a word about his other +adopted son, who is generally known by the name of Lucius Verus) +solemnly recommended Marcus to them as his successor; and then, giving +to the captain of the guard the watchword of "Equanimity," as though his +earthly task was over he ordered to be transferred to the bedroom of +Marcus the little golden statue of Fortune, which was kept in the +private chamber of the Emperors as an omen of public prosperity.</p> + +<p>The very first public act of the new Emperor was one of splendid +generosity, namely, the admission of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus +into the fullest participation of imperial honours, the Tribunitian and +proconsular powers, and the titles Caesar and Augustus. The admission of +Lucius Verus to a share of the empire was due to the innate modesty of +Marcus. As he was a devoted student, and cared less for manly exercises, +in which Verus excelled, he thought that his adoptive brother would be a +better and more useful general than himself, and that he could best +serve the State by retaining the civil administration, and entrusting to +his brother the management of war. Verus, however, as soon as he got +away from the immediate influence and ennobling society of Marcus, broke +loose from all decency, and showed himself to be a weak and worthless +personage, as unfit for war as he was for all the nobler duties of +peace, and capable of nothing but enormous gluttony and disgraceful +self-indulence. Two things only can be said in his favour; the one, +that, though depraved, he was wholly free from cruelty; and the other, +that he had the good sense to submit himself entirely to his brother, +and to treat him with the gratitude and deference which were his due.</p> + +<p>Marcus had a large family by Faustina, and in the first year of his +reign his wife bore twins, of whom the one who survived became the +wicked and detested Emperor Commodus. As though the birth of such a +child were in itself an omen of ruin, a storm of calamity began at once +to burst over the long tranquil State. An inundation of the Tiber flung +down houses and streets over a great part of Rome, swept away multitudes +of cattle, spoiled the harvests, devastated the fields, and caused a +distress which ended in wide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified +by earthquakes, by the burning of cities, and by plagues or noxious +insects. To these miseries, which the Emperors did their best to +alleviate, was added the horrors of wars and rumours of wars. The +Partians, under their king Vologeses, defeated and all but destroyed a +Roman army, and devastated with impunity the Roman province of Syria. +The wild tribes of the Catti burst over Germany with fire and sword; and +the news from Britain was full of insurrection and tumult. Such were the +elements of trouble and discord which overshadowed the reign of Marcus +Aurelius from its very beginning down to its weary close.</p> + +<p>As the Partian war was the most important of the three, Verus was sent +to quell it, and but for the ability of his generals--the greatest of +whom was Avidius Cassius--would have ruined irretrievably the fortunes +of the Empire. These generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the +Roman name, and Verus returned in triumph, bringing back with him from +the East the seeds of a terrible pestilence which devastated the whole +Empire and by which, on the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus himself was +carried off at Aquileia.</p> + +<p>Worthless as he was, Marcus, who in his lifetime had so often pardoned +and concealed his faults, paid him the highest honours of sepulcre, and +interred his ashes in the mausoleum of Hadrian. There were not wanting +some who charged him with the guilt of fratricide, asserting that the +death of Verus had been hastened by his means!</p> + +<p>I have only one reason for alluding to atrocious and contemptible +calumnies like these, and that is because--since no doubt such whispers +reached his ears--they help to account for that deep unutterable +melancholy which breathes through the little golden book of the +Emperor's <i>Meditations</i>. We find, for instance, among them this isolated +fragment:--</p> + +<p>"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical."</p> + +<p>We know not of whom he was thinking--perhaps of Nero, perhaps of +Caligula, but undoubtedly also of men whom he had seen and known, and +whose very existence darkened his soul. The same sad spirit breathes +also through the following passages:--</p> + +<p>"Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name, +or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are +much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling, and <i>little +dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and +then straightway weeping. But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and +truth are fled</i></p> + +<blockquote> +"'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.'"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>(v. 33.)</p> + +<p>"It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having +had a taste of lying, and hypocrisy, and luxury, and pride. However to +<i>breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of those things</i> is +the next best voyage, as the saying is." (ix. 2.)</p> + +<p>"<i>Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles.</i> Why +art thou thus disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles +thee?... Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and +better." (ix. 37.) The thought is like that which dominates through the +Penitential Psalms of David,--that we may take refuge from men, their +malignity and their meanness, and find rest for our souls in God. From +men David has <i>no</i> hope; mockery, treachery, injustice, are all that he +expects from them,--the bitterness of his enemies, the far-off +indifference of his friends. Nor does this greatly trouble him, so long +as he does not wholly lose the light of <i>God's</i> countenance. "I had no +place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O +Lord, and said, <i>Thou</i> art my hope, and my portion in the land of the +living." "Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy +Spirit from me."</p> + +<p>But whatever may have been his impulse at times to give up in despair +all attempt to improve the "little breed" of men around him, Marcus had +schooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings. +Were men contemptible? It was all the more reason why he should himself +be noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust? In +that proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and +tenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his +ability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus +Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the +vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from +suffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws +fresh lessons of humanity and love.</p> + +<p>He says, for instance, "Begin the morning by saying to thyself, <i>I shall +meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, +unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance +of what is good and evil</i>. But I who have seen the nature of the good +that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of +him that does wrong that is akin to me,... and that it partakes of the +same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, +for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my +kinsman, nor hate him. <i>For we are made for co-operation,</i> like feet, +like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To +act against one another then is contrary to nature; and <i>it</i> is acting +against one another to be vexed and turn away." (ii. 1.) Another of his +rules, and an eminently wise one, was to fix his thoughts as much as +possible on the virtues of others, rather than on their vices. "When +thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the <i>virtues</i> of those who +live with thee--the activity of one, the modesty of another, the +liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth." What a +rebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are daily tempted to +display! "An infinite being comes before us," says Robertson, "with a +whole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and we <i>proceed to +classify him, put a label upon him, as we would upon a jar, saying, This +is rice, that is jelly, and this pomatum</i>; and then we think we have +saved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How differently +our Lord treated the people who came to Him!... consequently, at His +touch each one gave out his peculiar spark of light."</p> + +<p>Here, again, is a singularly pithy, comprehensive, and beautiful piece +of advice:--</p> + +<p>"Men exist for the sake of one another. <i>Teach them or bear with them</i>" +(viii. 59.)</p> + +<p>And again: "The best way of revenging thyself is not to become like the +wrong doer."</p> + +<p>And again, "If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps +he has not done wrong." (ix. 38.)</p> + +<p>Most remarkable, however, are the nine rules which he drew up for +himself, as subjects for reflection when any one had offended +him, viz.--</p> + +<p>1. That men were made for each other: even the inferior for the sake of +the superior, and these for the sake of one another.</p> + +<p>2. The invincible influences that act upon men, and mould their opinions +and their acts.</p> + +<p>3. That sin is mainly error and ignorance,--an involuntary slavery.</p> + +<p>4. That we are ourselves feeble, and by no means immaculate; and that +often our very abstinence from faults is due more to cowardice and a +care for our reputation than to any freedom from the disposition to +commit them.</p> + +<p>5. That our judgments are apt to be very rash and premature. "And in +short a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct +judgment on another man's acts."</p> + +<p>6. When thou art much vexed or grieved, consider that man's life is only +a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.</p> + +<p>7. That no wrongful act of another can bring shame on us, and that it +is not men's acts which disturb us, but our own opinions of them.</p> + +<p>8. That our own anger hurts us more than the acts themselves.</p> + +<p>9. That <i>benevolence is invincible, if it be not an affected smile,</i> nor +acting a part. "For what will the most violent man do to thee if thou +continuest benevolent to him? gently and calmly correcting him, +admonishing him when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, '<i>Not so, my +child: we are constituted by nature for something else: I shall +certainly not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my child</i>' And +show him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and +that even bees do not do as he does, nor any gregarious animal. And this +you must do simply, unreproachfully, affectionately; without rancour, +and if possible when you and he are alone." (xi. 18.)</p> + +<p>"<i>Not so, my child</i>; thou art injuring thyself, my child." Can all +antiquity show anything tenderer than this, or anything more close to +the spirit of Christian teaching than these nine rules? They were worthy +of the men who, unlike the Stoics in general, considered gentleness to +be a virtue, and a proof at once of philosophy and of true manhood. They +are written with that effusion of sadness and benevolence to which it is +difficult to find a parallel. They show how completely Marcus had +triumphed over all petty malignity, and how earnestly he strove to +fulfil his own precept of always keeping the thoughts so sweet and +clear, that "if any one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That,'" In short, to give them their highest praise, they would have +delighted the great Christian Apostle who wrote,--</p> + +<p>"Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the +weak, be patient towards all men. See that none render evil for evil +unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, +and to all men." (1 Thess. iv. 14. 15.)</p> + +<p>"Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." (2. Thess. +iv. 15.)</p> + +<p>"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a +quarrel against any." (Col. iii. 13.)</p> + +<p>Nay, are they not even in full accordance with the mind and spirit of +Him who said,--</p> + +<p>"If thy brother trespass against thee, <i>go and tell him his fault +between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy +brother</i>."</p> + +<p>In the life of Marcus Aurelius, as in so many lives, we are able to +trace the great law of compensation. His exalted station, during the +later years of his life, threw him among many who were false and +Pharisaical and base; but his youth had been spent under happier +conditions, and this saved him from falling into the sadness of those +whom neither man nor woman please. In his earlier years it had been his +lot to see the fairer side of humanity, and the recollection of those +pure and happy days was like a healing tree thrown into the bitter and +turbid waters of his reign.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIA."></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS <i>(continued).</i></h3> + +<p>Marcus was now the undisputed lord of the Roman world. He was seated on +the dizziest and most splendid eminence which it was possible for human +grandeur to obtain.</p> + +<p>But this imperial elevation kindled no glow of pride or +self-satisfaction in his meek and chastened nature. He regarded himself +as being in fact the servant of all. It was his duty, like that of the +bull in the herd, or the ram among the flocks, to confront every peril +in his own person, to be foremost in all the hardships of war and the +most deeply immersed in all the toils of peace. The registry of the +citizens, the suppression of litigation, the elevation of public morals, +the restraining of consanguineous marriages, the care of minors, the +retrenchment of public expenses, the limitation of gladitorial games and +shows, the care of roads, the restoration of senatorial privileges, the +appointment of none but worthy magistrates--even the regulation of +street traffic--these and numberless other duties so completely absorbed +his attention that, in spite of indifferent health, they often kept him +at severe labour from early morning till long after midnight. His +position indeed often necessitated his presence at games and shows, but +on these occasions he occupied himself either in reading, or being read +to, or in writing notes. He was one of those who held that nothing +should be done hastily, and that few crimes were worse than the waste of +time. It is to such views and such habits that we owe the compositions +of his works. His <i>Meditations</i> were written amid the painful +self-denial and distracting anxieties of his wars with the Quadi and the +Marcomanni, and he was the author of other works which unhappily have +perished. Perhaps of all the lost treasures of antiquity there are few +which we should feel a greater wish to recover than the lost +autobiography of this wisest of Emperors and holiest of Pagan men.</p> + +<p>As for the external trappings of his rank,--those gorgeous adjuncts and +pompous circumstances which excite the wonder and envy of mankind,--no +man could have shown himself more indifferent to them. He recognized +indeed the necessity of maintaining the dignity of his high position. +"Every moment," he says, "think steadily as a Roman and a man <i>to do +what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity</i>, and affection, +and freedom, and justice" (ii. 5); and again, "Let the Deity which is in +thee be the guardian of a living being, <i>manly and of ripe age, and +engaged in matters political, and a Roman, and a ruler</i>, who has taken +his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life" +(iii. 5). But he did <i>not</i> think it necessary to accept the fulsome +honours and degrading adulations which were so dear to many of his +predecessors. He refused the pompous blasphemy of temples and altars, +saying that for every true ruler the world was a temple, and all good +men were priests. He declined as much as possible all golden statues and +triumphal designations. All inevitable luxuries and splendour, such as +his public duties rendered indispensable, he regarded as a mere hollow +show. Marcus Aurelius felt as deeply as our own Shakespeare seems to +have felt the unsubstantiality, the fleeting evanescence of all earthly +things: he would have delighted in the sentiment that,</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>We are such stuff<br> + As dreams are made on, and our little life<br> + Is rounded by a sleep</i>."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"When we have meat before us," he says, "and such eatables, we receive +the impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this is the +dead body of a bird, or of a pig; <i>and, again, that this Falerian is +only a little grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed +with the blood of a shellfish</i>: such then are these impressions, and +they reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what +kind of things they are. Just in the same way.... where there are things +which appear most worthy of our approbation, <i>we ought to lay them bare, +and look at their worthlessness</i>, and strip them of all the words by +which they are exalted." (vi. 13.)</p> + +<p>"What is worth being valued? To be received with clapping of hands? No. +Neither must we value the clapping of tongues, for the praise which +comes from the many is a clapping of tongues." (vi. 16.)</p> + +<p>"Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe; all the sea is a drop in the +universe; Athos a little clod of the universe; all the present time is a +point in eternity. All things are <i>little, changeable, perishable"</i> +(vi. 36.)</p> + +<p>And to Marcus too, no less than to Shakespeare, it seemed that--</p> + +<blockquote> +"All the world's a stage,<br> + And all the men and women merely players;"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>for he writes these remarkable words:--</p> + +<p>"<i>The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, +exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread in +fishponds, labourings of ants, and burden-carrying runnings about of +frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings</i>--this is what life +resembles. It is thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good +humour, and not a proud air; to understand however that <i>every man is +worth just so much as the things are worth about which he +busies himself</i>."</p> + +<p>In fact, the Court was to Marcus a burden; he tells us himself that +Philosophy was his mother, Empire only his stepmother; it was only his +repose in the one that rendered even tolerable to him the burdens of the +other. Emperor as he was, he thanked the gods for having enabled him to +enter into the souls of a Thrasea, an Helvidius, a Cato, a Brutus. Above +all, he seems to have had a horror of ever becoming like some of his +predecessors; he writes:--</p> + +<p>"Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar;<a name="FNanchor68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68">[68]</a> take care thou art +not dyed with this dye. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, +free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, +kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Reverence the gods and +help men. Short is life. There <i>is only one fruit of this terrene life; +a pious disposition and social acts</i>." (iv. 19,)</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor68">[68]</a> Marcus here invents what M. Martha justly calls "an +admirable barbarism" to express his disgust towards such men--[Greek: +ora mae apukaidaoosaes]--"take care not to be <i>Caesarised</i>." +</blockquote> + +<p>It is the same conclusion as that which sorrow forced from another +weary and less admirable king: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole +matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole +duty of man."</p> + +<p>But it is time for us to continue the meagre record of the life of +Marcus, so far as the bare and gossiping compilations of Dion +Cassius,<a name="FNanchor69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69">[69]</a> and Capitolinus, and the scattered allusions of other +writers can enable us to do so.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor69">[69]</a> As epitomised by Xiphilinus. +</blockquote> + +<p>It must have been with a heavy heart that he set out once more for +Germany to face the dangerous rising of the Quadi and Marcomanni. To +obtain soldiers sufficient to fill up the vacancies in his army which +had been decimated by the plague, he was forced to enrol slaves; and to +obtain money he had to sell the ornaments of the palace, and even some +of the Empress's jewels. Immediately before he started his heart was +wrung by the death of his little boy, the twin-brother of Commodus, +whose beautiful features are still preserved for us on coins. Early in +the war, as he was trying the depth of a ford, he was assailed by the +enemy with a sudden storm of missiles, and was only saved from imminent +death by being sheltered beneath the shields of his soldiers. One battle +was fought on the ice of the wintry Danube. But by far the most +celebrated event of the war took place in a great victory over the Quadi +which he won in A.D. 174, and which was attributed by the Christians to +what is known as the "Miracle of the Thundering Legion."</p> + +<p>Divested of all extraneous additions, the fact which occurred,--as +established by the evidence of medals, and by one of the bass-relievi on +the "Column of Antonine,"--appears to have been as follows. Marcus +Aurelius and his army had been entangled in a mountain defile, into +which they had too hastily pursued a sham retreat of the barbarian +archers. In this defile, unable either to fight or to fly, pent in by +the enemy, burned up with the scorching heat and tormented by thirst, +they lost all hope, burst into wailing and groans, and yielded to a +despair from which not even the strenuous efforts of Marcus could arouse +them. At the most critical moment of their danger and misery the clouds +began to gather, and heavy shows of rain descended, which the soldiers +caught in their shields and helmets to quench their own thirst and that +of their horses. While they were thus engaged the enemy attacked them; +but the rain was mingled with hail, and fell with blinding fury in the +faces of the barbarians. The storm was also accompanied with thunder and +lightning, which seems to have damaged the enemy, and filled them with +terror, while no casualty occured in the Roman ranks. The Romans +accordingly regarded this as a Divine interposition, and achieved a most +decisive victory, which proved to be the practical conclusion of a +hazardous and important war.</p> + +<p>The Christians regarded the event not as <i>providential but as +miraculous</i>, and attributed it to the prayers of their brethren in a +legion which, from this circumstance, received the name of the +"Thundering Legion." It is however now known that one of the legions, +distinguished by a flash of lightning which was represented on their +shields, had been known by this name since the time of Augustus; and the +Pagans themselves attributed the assistance which they had received +sometimes to a prayer of the pious Emperor and sometimes to the +incantations of an Egyptian sorcerer named Arnuphis.</p> + +<p>One of the Fathers, the passionate and eloquent Tertullian, attributes +to this deliverance an interposition of the Emperor in favour of the +Christians, and appeals to a letter of his to the Senate in which he +acknowledged how effectual had been the aid he had received from +Christian prayers, and forbade any one hereafter to molest the followers +of the new religion, lest they should use against him the weapon of +supplication which had been so powerful in his favour. This letter is +preserved at the end of the <i>Apology</i> of Justin Martyr, and it adds +that, not only are no Christians to be injured or persecuted, but that +any one who informed against them is to be burned alive! We see at once +that this letter is one of those impudent and transparent forgeries in +which the literature of the first five centuries unhappily abounds. What +was the real relation of Marcus to the Christians we shall consider +hereafter.</p> + +<p>To the gentle heart of Marcus, all war, even when accompanied with +victories, was eminently distasteful; and in such painful and ungenial +occupations no small part of his life was passed. What he thought of war +and of its successes is graphically set forth in the following remark:--</p> + +<p>"A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another when he has +caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a +net, and another when he has taken wild boars or bears, <i>and another +when he has taken Sarmatians.</i> Are not these robbers, when thou +examinest their principles?" He here condemns his own involuntary +actions; but it was his unhappy destiny not to have trodden out the +embers of this war before he was burdened with another far more painful +and formidable.</p> + +<p>This was the revolt of Avidius Cassius, a general of the old blunt Roman +type, whom, in spite of some ominous warnings, Marcus both loved and +trusted. The ingratitude displayed by such a man caused Marcus the +deepest anguish; but he was saved from all dangerous consequences by the +wide-spread affection which he had inspired by his virtuous reign.</p> + +<p>The very soldiers of the rebellious general fell away from him; and, +after he had been a nominal Emperor for only three months and six days, +he was assassinated by some of his own officers. His head was sent to +Marcus, who received it with sorrow, and did not hold out to the +murderers the slightest encouragement. The joy of success was swallowed +up in regret that his enemy had not lived to allow him the luxury of a +genuine forgiveness. He begged the Senate to pardon all the family of +Cassius, and to suffer this single life to be the only one forfeited in +consequence of civil war. The Fathers received these proofs of clemency +with the rapture which they deserved, and the Senate-house resounded +with acclamations and blessings.</p> + +<p>Never had a formidable conspiracy been more quietly and effectually +crushed. Marcus travelled through the provinces which had favoured the +cause of Avidius Cassius, and treated them all with the most complete +and indulgent forbearance. When he arrived in Syria, the correspondence +of Cassius was brought to him, and, with a glorious magnanimity of which +history affords but few examples, he consigned it all to the +flames unread.</p> + +<p>During this journey of pacification, he lost his wife Faustina, who died +suddenly in one of the valleys of Mount Taurus. History, or the +collection of anecdotes which at this period often passes as history, +has assigned to Faustina a character of the darkest infamy, and it has +even been made a charge against Aurelius that he overlooked or condoned +her offences. As far as Faustina is concerned, we have not much to say, +although there is strong reason to believe that many of the stories told +of her are scandalously exaggerated, if not absolutely false. Certain it +is, that most of the imputations upon her memory rest on the malignant +anecdotes recorded by Dion, who dearly loved every piece of scandal +which degraded human nature. The <i>specific</i> charge brought against her +of having tempted Cassius from his allegiance is wholly unsupported, +even if it be not absolutely incompatible with what we find in her own +existent letters; and, finally, Marcus himself not only loved her +tenderly, as the kind mother of his eleven children, but in his +<i>Meditations</i> actually thanks the gods for having granted him "such a +wife, so obedient so affectionate, and so simple." No doubt Faustina was +unworthy of her husband; but surely it is the glory and not the shame of +a noble nature to be averse from jealousy and suspicion, and to trust to +others more deeply than they deserve.</p> + +<p>So blameless was the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that neither the +malignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of posthumous scandal has +succeeded in discovering any flaw in the extreme integrity of his life +and principles. But meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The +hatred of all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the memory +of great men rages, though less openly, in the minds of many. They +delight to degrade human life into that dull and barren plain "in which +every molehill is a mountain, and every thistle a forest-tree." Great +men are as small in their eyes as they are said to be in the eyes of +their valets; and there are multitudes who, if they find</p> + +<blockquote> +"Some stain or blemish in a name of note,<br> + Not grieving that their greatest are so small,<br> + Innate themselves with some insane delight,<br> + And judge all nature from her feet of clay,<br> + Without the will to lift their eyes, and see<br> + Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire,<br> + And touching other worlds."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>This I suppose is the reason why, failing to drag down Marcus Aurelius +from his moral elevation, some have attempted to assail his reputation +because of the supposed vileness of Faustina and the actual depravity of +Commodus. Of Faustina I have spoken already. Respecting Commodus, I +think it sufficient to ask with Solomon: "Who knoweth whether his son +shall be a wise man or a fool?" Commodus was but nineteen when his +father died; for the first three years of his reign he ruled respectably +and acceptably. Marcus Aurelius had left no effort untried to have him +trained aright by the first teachers and the wisest men whom the age +produced; and Herodian distinctly tells us that he had lived virtuously +up to the time of his father's death. Setting aside natural affection +altogether, and even assuming (as I should conjecture from one or two +passages of his <i>Meditations</i>) that Marcus had misgivings about his son, +would it have been easy, would it have been even possible, to set aside +on general grounds a son who had attained to years of maturity? However +this may be, if there are any who think it worth while to censure Marcus +because, after all, Commodus turned out to be but "a warped slip of +wilderness," their censure is hardly sufficiently discriminating to +deserve the trouble of refutation.</p> + +<p>"But Marcus Aurelius cruelly persecuted the Christians." Let us briefly +consider this charge. That persecutions took place in his reign is an +undeniable fact, and is sufficiently evidenced by the Apologies of +Justin Martyr, of Melito Bishop of Sardis, of Athenagoras, and of +Apollinarius, as well as by the Letter of the Church of Smyrna +describing the martyrdom of Polycarp, and that of the Churches of Lyons +and Vienne to their brethren in Asia Minor. It is fair, however, to +mention that there is some documentary evidence on the other side; +Lactantius clearly asserts that under the reigns of those excellent +princes who succeeded Domitian the Church suffered no violence from her +enemies, and "spread her hands towards the East and the West:" +Tertullian, writing but twenty years after the death of Marcus, +distinctly says (and Eusebius quotes the assertion), that there were +letters of the Emperor, in which he not only attributed his delivery +among the Quadi to the prayers of Christian soldiers in the "Thundering +Legion," but ordered any who informed against the Christians to be most +severely punished; and at the end of the works of Justin Martyr is found +a letter of similar purport, which is asserted to have been addressed by +Marcus to the Senate of Rome. We may set aside these peremptory +testimonies, we may believe that Tertullian and Eusebius were mistaken, +and that the documents to which they referred were spurious; but this +should make us also less certain about the prominent participation of +the Emperor in these persecutions. My own belief is (and it is a belief +which could be supported by many critical arguments), that his share in +causing them was almost infinitesimal. If those who love his memory +reject the evidence of Fathers in his favour, they may be at least +permitted to withhold assent from some of the assertions in virtue of +which he is condemned.</p> + +<p>Marcus in his <i>Meditations</i> alludes to the Christians once only, and +then it is to make a passing complaint of the indifference to death, +which appeared to him, as it appeared to Epictetus, to arise, not from +any noble principles, but from mere obstinacy and perversity. That he +shared the profound dislike with which Christians were regarded is very +probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent persecutor is utterly +unlike his whole character, essentially at variance with his habitual +clemency, alien to the spirit which made him interfere in every possible +instance to mitigate the severity of legal punishments, and may in short +be regarded as an assertion which is altogether false. Who will believe +that a man who during his reign built and dedicated but one single +temple, and that a Temple to Beneficence; that a man who so far from +showing any jealousy respecting foreign religions allowed honour to be +paid to them all; that a man whose writings breathe on every page the +inmost spirit of philanthropy and tenderness, went out of his way to +join in a persecution of the most innocent, the most courageous, and the +most inoffensive of his subjects?</p> + +<p>The true state of the case seems to have been this. The deep calamities +in which, during the whole reign of Marcus the Empire was involved, +caused widespread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the feelings +of the provincials against men whose atheism (for such they considered +it to be) had kindled the anger of the gods. This fury often broke out +into paroxisms of popular excitement, which none but the firmest-minded +governers were able to moderate or to repress. Marcus, when appealed to, +simply let the existing law take its usual course. That law was as old +as the time of Trajan. The young Pliny, Governor of Bithynia, had +written to ask Trajan how he was to deal with the Christians, whose +blamelessness of life he fully admitted, but whose doctrines, he said, +had emptied the temples of the gods, and exasperated their worshippers. +Trajan in reply had ordered that the Christians should not be <i>sought</i> +for, but that, if they were brought before the governor, and proved to +be contumacious in refusing to adjure their religion, they were then to +be put to death. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius had continued the same +policy, and Marcus Aurilius saw no reason to alter it. But this law, +which in quiet times might become a mere dead letter, might at more +troubled periods be converted into a dangerous engine of persecution, as +it was in the case of the venerable Polycarp, and in the unfortunate +Churches of Lyons and Vienne. The Pagans believed that the reason why +their gods were smiling in secret,--</p> + +<blockquote> +"Looking over wasted lands,<br> + Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery<br> + sands,--<br> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + "Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying<br> + hands,--"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>was the unbelief and impiety of these hated Galileans, causes of offence +which could only be expiated by the death of the guilty. "Their +enemies," says Tertullian, "call aloud for the blood of the innocent, +alleging this vain pretext for their hatred, that they believe the +Christians to be the cause of every public misfortune. If the Tiber has +overflowed its banks, or the Nile has not overflowed, if heaven has +refused its rain, if famine or the plague has spread its ravages, the +cry is immediate, 'The Christians to the lions.'" In the first three +centuries the cry of "No Christianity" became at times as brutal, as +violent, and as unreasoning as the cry of "No Popery" has often been in +modern days. It was infinitely less disgraceful to Marcus to lend his +ear to the one than it has been to some eminent modern statesmen to be +carried away by the insensate fury of the other.</p> + +<p>To what extent is Marcus Aurelius to be condemned for the martyrdoms +which took place in his reign? Not, I think, heavily or +indiscriminately, or with vehement sweeping censure. Common justice +surely demands that we should not confuse the present with the past, or +pass judgment on the conduct of the Emperor as though he were living in +the nineteenth century, or as though he had been acting in full +cognisance of the Gospels and the stones of the Saints. Wise and good +men before him had, in their haughty ignorance, spoken of Christianity +with execration and contempt. The philosophers who surrounded his throne +treated it with jealousy and aversion. The body of the nation firmly +believed the current rumours which charged its votaries with horrible +midnight assemblies, rendered infamous by Thyestian banquets and the +atrocities of nameless superstitions. These foul calumnies--these +hideous charges of cannibalism and incest,--were supported by the +reiterated perjury of slaves under torture, which in that age, as well +as long afterwards, was preposterously regarded as a sure criterion +of truth.</p> + +<p>Christianity in that day was confounded with a multitude of debased and +foreign superstitions; and the Emperor in his judicial capacity, if he +ever encountered Christians at all, was far more likely to encounter +those who were unworthy of the name, than to become acquainted with the +meek, unworldly, retiring virtues of the calmest, the holiest, and the +best. When we have given their due weight to considerations such as +these we shall be ready to pardon Marcus Aurelius for having, in this +matter, acted ignorantly, and to admit that in persecuting Christianity +he may most honestly have thought that he was doing God service. The +very sincerity of his belief, the conscientiousness of his rule, the +intensity of his philanthrophy, the grandeur of his own philosophical +tenets, all conspired to make him a worse enemy of the Church than a +brutal Commodus or a disgusting Heliogabalus. And yet that there was not +in him the least <i>propensity</i> to persecute; that these persecutions were +for the most part spontaneous and accidental; that they were in no +measure due to his direct instigation, or in special accordance with his +desire, is clear from the fact that the martyrdoms took place in Gaul +and Asia Minor, <i>not in Rome</i>. There must have been hundreds of +Christians in Rome, and under the very eye of the Emperor; nay, there +were even multitudes of Christians in his own army; yet we never hear of +his having molested any of them. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in addressing +the Emperor, expresses a doubt as to whether he was really aware of the +manner in which his Christian subjects were treated. Justin Martyr, in +his <i>Apology</i>, addresses him in terms of perfect confidence and deep +respect. In short he was in this matter "blameless, but unfortunate." It +is painful to think that the venerable Polycarp, and the thoughtful +Justin may have forfeited their lives for their principles, not only in +the reign of so good a man, but even by virtue of his authority; but we +must be very uncharitable or very unimaginative if we cannot readily +believe that, though they had received the crown of martyrdom from his +hands, the redeemed spirits of those great martyrs would have been the +first to welcome this holiest of the heathen into the presence of a +Saviour whose Church he persecuted, but to whose indwelling Spirit his +virtues were due? whom ignorantly and unconsciously he worshipped, and +whom had he ever heard of Him and known Him, he would have loved in his +heart and glorified by the consistency of his noble and stainless life.</p> + +<p>The persecution of the Churches in Lyons and Vienne happened in A.D. +177. Shortly after this period fresh wars recalled the Emperor to the +North. It is said that, in despair of ever seeing him again, the chief +men of Rome entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, and +that for three days he discoursed to them on philosophical questions. +When he arrived at the seat of war, victory again crowned his arms. But +Marcus was now getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials, +and travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties +and bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia, either +at Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of +his age and the twentieth of his reign.</p> + +<p>Death to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that "there is no man +so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who +are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and +wise man, will there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let us at +last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster. It is true +that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns +us.'... Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart +more contentedly by reflecting thus: 'I am going away <i>from a life in +which even my associates, on behalf of whom I have striven, and cared, +and prayed so much, themselves wish me to depart</i>, hoping perchance to +get some little advantage by it.' Why then should a man cling to a +longer stay here? <i>Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindly +disposed to them, but preserving thy own character, and continuing +friendly, and benevolent, and kind</i>" And dreading death far less than he +dreaded any departure from the laws of virtue, he exclaims, "Come +quickly, O Death, for fear that at last I should forget myself." This +utterance has been well compared to the language which Bossuet put into +the mouth of a Christian soul:--"O Death; thou dost not trouble my +designs, thou accomplishest them. Haste, then, O favourable Death!... +<i>Nunc Dimittis</i>."</p> + +<p>A nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul,--a soul less elated by +prosperity, or more constant in adversity--a soul more fitted by virtue, +and chastity, and self-denial to enter into the eternal peace, never +passed into the presence of its Heavenly Father. We are not surprised +that all, whose means permitted it, possessed themselves of his statues, +and that they were to be seen for years afterwards among the household +gods of heathen families, who felt themselves more hopeful and more +happy from the glorious sense of possibility which was inspired by the +memory of one who, in the midst of difficulties, and breathing an +atmosphere heavy with corruption, yet showed himself so wise, so great, +so good a man.</p> + +<blockquote> +O framed for nobler times and calmer hearts!<br> +O studious thinker, eloquent for truth!<br> +Philosopher, despising wealth and death,<br> +But patient, childlike, full of life and love!<br> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVA."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>THE "MEDITATIONS" OF MARCUS AURELIUS.</h3> + +<p>Emperor as he was, Marcus Aurelius found himself in a hollow and +troublous world; but he did not give himself up to idle regret or +querulous lamentations. If these sorrows and perturbations came from the +gods, he kissed the hand that smote him; "he delivered up his broken +sword to Fate the conqueror with a humble and a manly heart." In any +case he had <i>duties</i> to do, and he set himself to perform them with a +quiet heroism--zealously, conscientiously, even cheerfully.</p> + +<p>The principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the hard and definite +lines of a philosophic system. But the great laws which guided his +actions and moulded his views of life were few and simple, and in his +book of <i>Meditations</i>, which is merely his private diary written to +relieve his mind amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to +them again and again. "Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery," he +says to himself, "will wipe out those holy principles of thine;" and +this is why he committed those principles to writing. Some of these I +have already adduced, and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as +before, of the beautiful and scholar-like translation of Mr. +George Long.</p> + +<p>All pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Emperor to be most +wisely regarded under a threefold aspect, namely, if considered in +reference to the gods, as being due to laws beyond their control; if +considered with reference to the nature of things, as being subservient +and necessary; and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being +dependent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with which we +endure them.</p> + +<p>The following passages will elucidate these points of view:--</p> + +<p>"The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly it has made the +inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the +superior to one another." (v. 30.)</p> + +<p>"Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain +immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is +within.... <i>The Universe is Transformation; life is opinion</i>" (iv. 3.)</p> + +<p>"To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs +water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why +then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power +than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a +mad dog?" (vi. 52.)</p> + +<p>"How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is +troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity." +(v. 2.)</p> + +<p>The passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a <i>relative</i> thing,--as +being good in the making,--the unripe and bitter bud of that which shall +be hereafter a beautiful flower,--although not expressed with perfect +clearness, yet indicate his belief that our view of evil things rises in +great measure from our inability to perceive the great whole of which +they are but subservient parts.</p> + +<p>"All things," he says, "come from that universal ruling power, either +directly or by way of consequence. <i>And accordingly the lion's gaping +jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, +as mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful</i>. Do not therefore +imagine that they are of another kind from that which thou dost +venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all."</p> + +<p>In another curious passage he says that all things which are natural and +congruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and +attractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and +corrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked. "And again, +figs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very +circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty +to the fruit. And <i>the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars</i>, and +many other things--though they are far from being beautiful, if a man +should examine them severally--still, because they are consequent upon +the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they +please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper +insight about the things found in the universe there is hardly <i>one of +those which follow by way of consequence</i> which will not seem to him to +be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure." (iv. 2.)</p> + +<p>This congruity to nature--the following of nature, and obedience to all +her laws--is the key-formula to the doctrines of the Roman Stoics.</p> + +<p>"Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and +terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither +worse, then, nor better is a thing made by being praised.... <i>Is such a +thing as an emerald made worse than it was, if it is not praised? or +gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a flower, a shrub</i>?" +(iv. 20.)</p> + +<p>"Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. +Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. +Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature! from thee +are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. <i>The +poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear city of +God</i>?" (iv. 23.)</p> + +<p>"Willingly give thyself up to fate, allowing her to spin thy thread into +whatever thing she pleases." (iv. 34.)</p> + +<p>And here, in a very small matter--getting out of bed in a morning--is +one practical application of the formula:--</p> + +<p>"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let these thoughts be +present--'I am rising to the work of a human being. <i>Why, then, am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and for +which I was brought into the world</i>? Or have I been made for this, to +lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?' 'But this is more +pleasant.' <i>Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not for +action or exertion</i>? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little +birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order +their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the +work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is +according to thy nature?" (v. 1.) ["Go to the ant, thou sluggard; +consider her ways, and be wise!"]</p> + +<p>The same principle, that Nature has assigned to us our proper +place--that a task has been given us to perform, and that our only care +should be to perform it aright, for the blessing of the great Whole of +which we are but insignificant parts--dominates through the admirable +precepts which the Emperor lays down for the regulation of our conduct +towards others. Some men, he says, do benefits to others only because +they expect a return; some men even, if they do not demand any return, +are not <i>forgetful</i> that they have rendered a benefit; but others do not +even know what they have done, but <i>are like a vine which has produced +grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its proper +fruit</i>. So we ought to do good to others as simple and as naturally as a +horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after +season, without thinking of the grapes which it has borne. And in +another passage, "What more dost thou want when thou hast done a service +to another? Art thou not content to have done an act conformable to thy +nature, and must thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye +demanded a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking?"</p> + +<p>"Judge every word and deed which is according to nature to be fit for +thee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows...but if a thing is +good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee." (v. 3.)</p> + +<p>Sometimes, indeed, Marcus Aurelius wavers. The evils of life overpower +him. "Such as bathing appears to thee," he says, "<i>oil, sweat, dirt, +filthy water, all things disgusting--so is every part of life and +everything</i>" (viii. 24); and again:--"Of human life the time is a point, +and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the +composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a +whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment." +But more often he retains his perfect tranquillity, and says, "Either +thou livest here, and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou +art going away, and this was thine own will; or thou art dying, and hast +discharged thy duty. <i>But besides these things there is nothing. Be of +good cheer, then</i>." (x. 22.) "Take me, and cast me where thou wilt, for +then I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can +feel and act conformably to its proper constitution." (viii. 45.)</p> + +<p>There is something delightful in the fact that even in the Stoic +philosophy there was some comfort to keep men from despair. To a holy +and scrupulous conscience like that of Marcus, there would have been an +inestimable preciousness in the Christian doctrine of the "forgiveness +of the sins." Of that divine mercy--of that sin-uncreating power--the +ancient world knew nothing; but in Marcus we find some dim and faint +adumbration of the doctrine, expressed in a manner which might at least +breathe calm into the spirit of the philosopher, though it could never +reach the hearts of the suffering multitude. For "suppose," he says, +"that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast +made by nature a part, but now hast cut thyself off--<i>yet here is the +beautiful provision that it is in thy power again to unite thyself</i>. God +has allowed this to no other part--after it has been separated and cut +asunder, to come together again. <i>But consider the goodness with which +He has privileged man; for He has put it in his power, when he has been +separated, to return and to be reunited, and to resume his place</i>" And +elsewhere he says, "If you cannot maintain a true and magnanimous +character, go courageously into some corner where you <i>can</i> maintain +them; or if even there you fail, depart at once from life, not with +passion, but with modest and simple freedom--which will be to have done +at least <i>one</i> laudable act." Sad that even to Marcus Aurelius death +should have seemed the only refuge from the despair of ultimate failure +in the struggle to be wise and good!</p> + +<p>Marcus valued temperance and self-denial as being the best means of +keeping his heart strong and pure; but we are glad to learn he did <i>not</i> +value the rigours of asceticism. Life brought with it enough, and more +than enough, of antagonism to brace his nerves; enough, and more than +enough, of the rough wind of adversity in his face to make it +unnecessary to add more by his own actions. "It is not fit," he says, +"that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given +pain even to another." (viii. 42.)</p> + +<p>It was a commonplace of ancient philosophy that the life of the wise man +should be a contemplation of, and a preparation for, death. It certainly +was so with Marcus Aurelius. The thoughts of the nothingness of man, and +of that great sea of oblivion which shall hereafter swallow up all that +he is and does, are ever present to his mind; they are thoughts to which +he recurs more constantly than any other, and from which he always draws +the same moral lesson.</p> + +<p>"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very +moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.... Death certainly, +and life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, all these things +happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither +better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil." (ii. 11.)</p> + +<p>Elsewhere he says that Hippocrates cured diseases and died; and the +Chaldaeans foretold the future and died; and Alexander, and Pompey, and +Caesar killed thousands, and then died; and lice destroyed Democritus, +and other lice killed Socrates; and Augustus, and his wife, and +daughter, and all his descendants, and all his ancestors, are dead; and +Vespasian and all his Court, and all who in his day feasted, and +married, and were sick and chaffered, and fought, and flattered, and +plotted, and grumbled, and wished other people to die, and pined to +become kings or consuls, are dead; and all the idle people who are doing +the same things now are doomed to die; and all human things are smoke, +and nothing at all; and it is not for us, but for the gods, to settle +whether we play the play out, or only a part of it. "<i>There are many +grains of frankincense on the same altar; one falls before, another +falls after; but it makes no difference.</i>" And the moral of all these +thoughts is, "Death hangs over thee while thou livest: while it is in +thy power be good." (iv. 17.) "Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the +voyage, thou hast come to shore; get out. If, indeed, to another life +there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without +sensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures." (iii. 3.)</p> + +<p>Nor was Marcus at all comforted under present annoyances by the thought +of posthumous fame. "How ephemeral and worthless human things are," he +says, "and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy +or ashes." "Many who are now praising thee, will very soon blame thee, +and neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor +anything else." What has become of all great and famous men, and all +they desired, and all they loved? They are "smoke, and ash, and a tale, +or not even a tale." After all their rages and envyings, men are +stretched out quiet and dead at last. Soon thou wilt have forgotten all, +and soon all will have forgotten thee. But here, again, after such +thoughts, the same moral is always introduced again:--"Pass then through +the little space of time conformably to nature, and end the journey in +content, <i>just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature +who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew</i>" "One thing +only troubles me, lest I should do something which the constitution of +man does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow, or what it +does not allow now."</p> + +<p>To quote the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius is to me a fascinating task. But +I have already let him speak so largely for himself that by this time +the reader will have some conception of his leading motives. It only +remains to adduce a few more of the weighty and golden sentences in +which he lays down his rule of life.</p> + +<p>"To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, +and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour; and life is a +warfare, and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. What, +then, is that which is able to enrich a man? One thing, and only +one--philosophy. But this consists in keeping the guardian spirit within +a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, +<i>doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely, and with +hypocrisy</i>... <i>accepting all that happens and all that is +allotted</i> ... <i>and finally waiting for death with a cheerful +mind</i>" (ii. 17.)</p> + +<p>"If thou findest in human life anything better than justice, truth, +temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than thine own soul's +satisfaction in the things which it enables thee to do according to +right reason, and In the condition that is assigned to thee without thy +own choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, turn to it +with all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou hast found to be the best. +But ... if thou findest everything else smaller and of less value than +this, give place to nothing else.... Simply and freely choose the +better, and hold to it." (iii. 6.)</p> + +<p>"Body, soul, intelligence: to the body belong sensations, to the soul +appetites, to the intelligence principles." To be impressed by the +senses is peculiar to animals; to be pulled by the strings of desire +belongs to effeminate men, and to men like Phalaris or Nero; to be +guided only by intelligence belongs to atheists and traitors, and "men +who do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors.... There +remains that which is peculiar to the good man, <i>to be pleased and +content with what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him; +and not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast</i>, nor +disturb it by a crowd of images; but to preserve it tranquil, following +it obediently as a god, neither saying anything contrary to truth, nor +doing anything contrary to justice. (iii. 16.)</p> + +<p>"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, +and mountains, and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. +But this is altogether a mark of the commonest sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt chose to retire into thyself. For <i>nowhere +either with more quiet or with more freedom does a man retire than into +his own soul</i>, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by +looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity,--which is +nothing else than the good ordering of the mind." (iv. 3.)</p> + +<p>"Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am I +<i>though</i> this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain; +neither crushed by the present, nor fearing the future." (iv. 19.)</p> + +<p>It is just possible that in some of these passages some readers may +detect a trace of painful self-consciousness, and <i>imagine</i> that they +detect a little grain of self-complacence. Something of +self-consciousness is perhaps inevitable in the diary and examination +of his own conscience by one who sat on such a lonely height; but +self-complacency there is none. Nay, there is sometimes even a cruel +sternness in the way in which the Emperor speaks of his own self. He +certainly dealt not with himself in the manner of a dissembler with God. +"When," he says (x. 8), "thou hast assumed the names of a man who is +good, modest, rational, magnanimous, cling to those names; and if thou +shouldst lose them, quickly return to them.... <i>For to continue to</i> <i>be +such as thou hast hitherto been</i>, and to be torn in pieces, and defiled +in such a life, is the character of a very stupid man, and one over-fond +of his life, and <i>like those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, +who, though covered with wounds and gore, still entreat to be kept till +the following day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the +same claws and bites</i>. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these +few names: and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou were +removed to the Islands of the Blest." Alas! to Aurelius, in this life, +the Islands of the Blest were very far away. Heathen philosophy was +exalted and eloquent, but all its votaries were sad; to "the peace of +God, which passeth all understanding," it was not given them to attain. +We see Marcus "wise, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless," says +Mr. Arnold, "yet with all this agitated, stretching out his arms for +something beyond--<i>tendentemque manue ripae ulterioris amore</i>"</p> + +<p>I will quote in conclusion but three short precepts:--</p> + +<p>"Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tranquillity which +others give. <i>A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by +others</i>." (iv. 5.)</p> + +<p>"<i>Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but +it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it</i>" (iv. 49.)</p> + +<p>This comparison has been used many a time since the days of Marcus +Aurelius. The reader will at once recall Goldsmith's famous lines:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"As some tall cliff that rears its awful form,<br> + Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,<br> + Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,<br> + Eternal sunshine settles on its head."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Short is the little that remains to thee of life. <i>Live as on a +mountain</i>. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here, +if he lives everywhere in the world as in a civil community. Let men +see, let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live. If they +cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live as +men do." (x. 15.)</p> + +<p>Such were some of the thoughts which Marcus Aurelius wrote in his diary +after days of battle with the Quadi, and the Marcomanni, and the +Sarmatae. Isolated from others no less by moral grandeur than by the +supremacy of his sovereign rank, he sought the society of his own noble +soul. I sometimes imagine that I see him seated on the borders of some +gloomy Pannonian forest or Hungarian marsh; through the darkness the +watchfires of the enemy gleam in the distance; but both among them, and +in the camp around him, every sound is hushed, except the tread of the +sentinel outside the imperial tent; and in that tent long after midnight +sits the patient Emperor by the light of his solitary lamp, and ever and +anon, amid his lonely musings, he pauses to write down the pure and holy +thoughts which shall better enable him, even in a Roman palace, even on +barbarian battlefields, daily to tolerate the meanness and the +malignity of the men around him; daily to amend his own shortcomings, +and, as the sun of earthly life begins to set, daily to draw nearer and +nearer to the Eternal Light. And when I thus think of him, I know not +whether the whole of heathen antiquity, out of its gallery of stately +and royal figures, can furnish a nobler, or purer, or more lovable +picture than that of this crowned philosopher and laurelled hero, who +was yet one of the humblest and one of the most enlightened of all +ancient "Seekers after God."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CONCLUSION."></a>CONCLUSION.</h2> + +<p>A sceptical writer has observed, with something like a sneer, that the +noblest utterances of Gospel morality may be paralleled from the +writings of heathen philosophers. The sneer is pointless, and Christian +moralists have spontaneously drawn attention to the fact. In this +volume, so far from trying to conceal that it is so, I have taken +pleasure in placing side by side the words of Apostles and of +Philosophers. The divine origin of Christianity does not rest on its +morality alone. By the aid of the light which was within them, by +deciphering the law written on their own consciences, however much its +letters may have been obliterated or dimmed, Plato, and Cicero, and +Seneca, and Epictetus, and Aurelius were enabled to grasp and to +enunciate a multitude of great and memorable truths; yet they themselves +would have been the first to admit the wavering uncertainty of their +hopes and speculations, and the absolute necessity of a further +illumination. So strong did that necessity appear to some of the wisest +among them, that Socrates ventures in express words to prophesy the +future advent of some heaven-sent Guide.<a name="FNanchor70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70">[70]</a> Those who imagine that +<i>without</i> a written revelation it would have been possible to learn all +that is necessary for man's well-being, are speaking in direct +contradiction of the greatest heathen teachers, in contradiction even of +those very teachers to whose writing they point as the proof of their +assertion. Augustine was expressing a very deep conviction when he said +that in Plato and in Cicero he met with many utterances which were +beautiful and wise, but among them all he never found, "Come unto me, +all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." +Glorious as was the wisdom of ancient thought, its knowledge respecting +the indwelling of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and the +forgiveness of sins, was but fragmentary and vague. Bishop Butler has +justly remarked that "The great doctrines of a future state, the dangers +of a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance are not only +<i>confirmed</i> in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with +a degree of light to which that of nature is darkness."</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor70">[70]</a> Xen. Mem. 1, iv. 14; Plato, Alcib. ii. +</blockquote> + +<p>The morality of Paganism was, on its own confession, <i>insufficient</i>. It +was tentative, where Christianity is authoritative: it was dim and +partial, where Christianity is bright and complete; it was inadequate to +rouse the sluggish carelessness of mankind, where Christianity came in +with an imperial and awakening power; it gives only a <i>rule</i>, where +Christianity supplies a <i>principle</i>. And even where its teachings were +absolutely coincident with those of Scripture, it failed to ratify them +with a sufficient sanction; it failed to announce them with the same +powerful and contagious ardour; it failed to furnish an absolutely +faultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire them +with an irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a powerful +comfort under the difficulties which were sure to be encountered in the +aim after a consistent and holy life.</p> + +<p>The attempts of the Christian Fathers to show that the truths of ancient +philosophy were borrowed from Scripture are due in some cases to +ignorance and in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial +dealing. That Gideon (Jerubbaal) is identical with the priest +Hierombalos who supplied information to Sanchoniathon, the Berytian; +that Thales pieced together a philosophy from fragments of Jewish truth +learned in Phoenicia; that Pythagoras and Democritus availed themselves +of Hebraic traditions, collected during their travels; that Plato is a +mere "Atticising Moses;" that Aristotle picked up his ethical system +from a Jew whom he met in Asia; that Seneca corresponded with St. Paul: +are assertions every bit as unhistorical and false as that Homer was +thinking of Genesis when he described the shield of Achilles, or (as +Clemens of Alexandria gravely informs us) that Miltiades won the battle +of Marathon by copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say +that Pagan morality "kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, +whether furtively or unconsciously taken," and that it "dissembled the +obligation, and made a boast of the splendour as though it were +originally her own, or were sufficient in her hands for the moral +illumination of the world;" is to make an assertion wholly +untenable.<a name="FNanchor71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71">[71]</a> Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius, are among the truest and +loftiest of Pagan moralists, yet Seneca ignored the Christians, +Epictetus despised, and Aurelius persecuted them. All three, so far as +they knew anything about the Christians at all, had unhappily been +taught to look upon them as the most detestable sect of what they had +long regarded as the most degraded and the most detestable of religions.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor71">[71]</a> See for various statements in this passage, Josephus, <i>c. +Apion</i>. ii. Section 36; Cic. <i>De Fin</i>. v. 25; Clem. Alex. <i>Strom</i>, 1, +xxii. 150, xxv. v. 14; Euseb.; <i>Prof. Evang</i>. x. 4, ix. 5, &c.; Lactant. +<i>Inst. Div</i>. iv. 2, &c. +</blockquote> + +<p>There is something very touching in this fact; but, if there be +something very touching, there is also something very encouraging. God +was their God as well as ours--their Creator, their Preserver, who left +not Himself without witness among them; who, as they blindly felt after +Him, suffered their groping hands to grasp the hem of His robe; who sent +them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with +joy and gladness. And His Spirit was with them, dwelling in them, though +unseen and unknown, purifying and sanctifying the temple of their +hearts, sending gleams of illuminating light through the gross darkness +which encompassed them, comforting their uncertainties, making +intercession for them with groaning which cannot be uttered. And more +than all, <i>our</i> Saviour was <i>their</i> Saviour, too; He, whom they regarded +as a crucified malefactor was their true invisible King; through His +righteousness their poor merits were accepted; their inward sicknesses +were healed; He whose worship they denounced as an "execrable +superstition" stood supplicating for them at the right hand of the +Majesty on high, helping them (though they knew Him not) to crush all +that was evil within them, and pleading for them when they persecuted +even the most beloved of His saints, "Father, forgive them; for they +know not what they do."</p> + +<p>Yes, they too were all His offspring. Even if they had not been, should +we grudge that some of the children's meat should be given unto dogs? +Shall we deny to these "unconscious prophecies of heathendom" their +oracular significance? Shall we be jealous of the ethical loftiness of +a Plato or an Aurelius? Shall we be loth to admit that some power of the +Spirit of Christ, even mid the dark wanderings of Seneca's life, kept +him still conscious of a nobler and a better way, or that some sweetness +of a divine hope inspired the depressions of Epictetus in his slavery? +Shall our eye be evil because God in His goodness granted the heathen +also to know such truths as enabled them "to overcome the allurements of +the visible and the terrors of the invisible world?" Yes, if we have of +the Christian Church so mean a conception that we look upon it as a mere +human society, "set up in the world to defend a certain religion against +a certain other religion." But if on the other hand we believe "that it +was <i>a society established by God as a witness for the true condition of +all human beings</i>, we shall rejoice to acknowledge its members to be +what they believed themselves to be,--confessors and martyrs for a truth +which they could not fully embrace or comprehend, but which, through +their lives and deaths, through the right and wrong acts, the true and +false words, of those who understand them least, was to manifest and +prove itself. Those who hold this conviction dare not conceal, or +misrepresent, or undervalue, any one of those weighty and memorable +sentences which are to be found in the <i>Meditation</i> of Marcus Aurelius. +<i>If they did, they would be underrating a portion of that very truth +which the preachers of the Gospel were appointed to set forth</i>; they +would be adopting the error of the philosophical Emperor without his +excuse for it. Nor dare they pretend that the Christian teaching had +unconsciously imparted to him a portion of its own light while he seemed +to exclude it. They will believe that it was God's good pleasure that a +certain truth should be seized and apprehended by this age, and they +will see indications of what that truth was in the efforts of Plutarch +to understand the 'Daemon' which guided Socrates, in the courageous +language of Ignatius, in the bewildering dreams of the Gnostics, in the +eagerness of Justin Martyr to prove Christianity a philosophy ... in the +apprehension of Christian principles by Marcus Aurelius, and in his +hatred of the Christians. From every side they will derive evidence, +<i>that a doctrine and society which were meant for mankind cannot depend +upon, the partial views and apprehensions of men, must go on justifying, +reconciling, confuting, those views and apprehensions by the +demonstration of facts</i>" <a name="FNanchor72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72">[72]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor72">[72]</a> Maurice, <i>Philos. of the First Six Centuries</i>, p. 37. We +venture specially to recommend this weighty and beautiful passage to the +reader's serious attention. +</blockquote> + +<p>But perhaps some reader will say, What advantage, then, can we gain by +studying in Pagan writers truths which are expressed more nobly, more +clearly, and infinitely more effectually in our own sacred books? Before +answering the question, let me mention the traditional anecdote<a name="FNanchor73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73">[73]</a> of +the Caliph Omar. When he conquered Alexandria, he was shown its +magnificent library, in which were collected untold treasures of +literature, gathered together by the zeal, the labour, and the +liberality of a dynasty of kings. "What is the good of all those books?" +he said. "They are either in accordance with the Koran, or contrary to +it. If the former they are superfluous; if the latter they are +pernicious. In either case let them be burnt." Burnt they were, as +legend tells; but all the world has condemned the Caliph's reasoning as +a piece of stupid Philistinism and barbarous bigotry. Perhaps the +question as to the <i>use</i> of reading Pagan ethics is equally +unphilosophical; at any rate, we can spare but very few words to its +consideration. The answer obviously is, that God has spoken to men, +[Greek: polymeros kai polytropos], "at sundry times and in divers +manners," <a name="FNanchor74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74">[74]</a> with a richly variegated wisdom.<a name="FNanchor75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75">[75]</a> Sometimes He has +taught truth by the voice of Hebrew prophets, sometimes by the voice of +Pagan philosophers. And <i>all</i> His voices demand our listening ear. If it +was given to the Jew to speak with diviner insight and intenser power, +it is given to the Gentile also to speak at times with a large and lofty +utterance, and we may learn truth from men of alien lips and another +tongue. They, too, had the dream, the vision, the dark saying upon the +harp, the "daughter of a voice," the mystic flashes upon the graven +gems. And such truths come to us with a singular force and freshness; +with a strange beauty as the doctrines of a less brightly illuminated +manhood; with a new power of conviction from their originality of form, +which, because it is less familiar to us, is well calculated to arrest +our attention after it has been paralysed by familiar repetitions. We +cannot afford to lose these heathen testimonies to Christian truth; or +to hush the glorious utterances of Muse and Sibyl which have justly +outlived "the drums and tramplings of a hundred triumphs." We may make +them infinitely profitable to us. If St. Paul quotes Aratus, and +Menander, and Epimenides,<a name="FNanchor76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76">[76]</a> and perhaps more than one lyrical melody +besides, with earnest appreciation,--if the inspired Apostle could both +learn himself and teach others out of the utterances of a Cretan +philosopher and an Attic comedian, we may be sure that many of Seneca's +apophthegams would have filled him with pleasure, and that he would have +been able to read Epictetus and Aurelius with the same noble admiration +which made him see with thankful emotion that memorable altar TO THE +UNKNOWN GOD.</p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor73">[73]</a> Now known to be unhistorical. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor74">[74]</a> Heb. i. 1. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor75">[75]</a> [Greek: polypoikilos dophia]. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor76">[76]</a> See Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor.; Tit. i. 12. +</blockquote> + +<p>Let us then make a brief and final sketch of the three great Stoics +whose lives we have been contemplating, with a view to summing up their +specialties, their deficiencies, and the peculiar relations to, or +divergences from, Christian truth, which their writings present to us.</p> + +<p>"Seneca saepe noster," "Seneca, often our own," is the expression of +Tertullian, and he uses it as an excuse for frequent references to his +works. Yet if, of the three, he be most like Christianity in particular +passages, he diverges most widely from it in his general spirit.</p> + +<p>He diverges from Christianity in many of his modes of regarding life, +and in many of his most important beliefs. What, for instance, is his +main conception of the Deity? Seneca is generally a Pantheist. No doubt +he speaks of God's love and goodness, but with him God is no personal +living Father, but the soul of the universe--the fiery, primaeval, +eternal principle which transfuses an inert, and no less eternal, +matter, and of which our souls are, as it were, but divine particles or +passing sparks. "God," he says, "is Nature, is Fate, is Fortune, is the +Universe, is the all-pervading Mind. He cannot change the substance of +the universe, He is himself under the power of Destiny, which is +uncontrollable and immutable. It is not God who rolls the thunder, it is +Fate. He does not rejoice in His works, but is identical with them." In +fact, Seneca would have heartily adopted the words of Pope:</p> + +<blockquote> +"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,<br> + Whose body nature is, and God the soul."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Though there may be a vague sense in which those words may be admitted +and explained by Christians, yet, in the mind of Seneca, they led to +conclusions directly opposed to those of Christianity. With him, for +instance, the wise man is the <i>equal</i> of God; not His adorer, not His +servant, not His suppliant, but His associate, His relation. He differs +from God in time alone. Hence all prayer is needless he says, and the +forms of external worship are superfluous and puerile. It is foolish to +beg for that which you can impart to yourself. "What need is there of +<i>vows</i>? Make <i>yourself</i> happy." Nay, in the intolerable arrogance which +marked the worst aberration of Stoicism, the wise man is under certain +aspects placed even higher than God--higher than God Himself--because +God is beyond the reach of misfortunes, but the wise man is superior to +their anguish; and because God is good of necessity, but the wise man +from choice. This wretched and inflated paradox occurs in Seneca's +treatise <i>On Providence</i>, and in the same treatise he glorifies suicide, +and expresses a doubt as to the immortality of the soul.</p> + +<p>Again, the two principles on which Seneca relied as the basis of all his +moral system are: first, the principle that we ought to follow Nature; +and, secondly, the supposed perfectibility of the ideal man.</p> + +<p>1. Now, of course, if we explain this precept of "following Nature" as +Juvenal has explained it, and say that the voice of Nature is always +coincident with the voice of philosophy--if we prove that our real +nature is none other than the dictate of our highest and most nobly +trained reason, and if we can establish the fact that every deed of +cruelty, of shame, of lust, or of selfishness, is essentially +<i>contrary</i> to our nature--then we may say with Bishop Butler, that the +precept to "follow Nature" is "a manner of speaking not loose and +undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." But how +complete must be the system, how long the preliminary training, which +alone can enable us to find any practical value, any appreciable aid to +a virtuous life, in a dogma such as this! And, in the hands of Seneca, +it becomes a very empty formula. He entirely lacked the keen insight and +dialectic subtlety of such a writer as Bishop Butler; and, in his +explanation of this Stoical shibboleth, any real meaning which it may +possess is evaporated into a gorgeous mist of confused declamation and +splendid commonplace.</p> + +<p>2. Nor is he much more fortunate with his ideal man. This pompous +abstraction presents us with a conception at once ambitious and sterile. +The Stoic wise man is a sort of moral Phoenix, impossible and repulsive. +He is intrepid in dangers, free from all passion, happy in adversity, +calm in the storm; he alone knows how to live, because he alone knows +how to die; he is the master of the world, because he is master of +himself, and the equal of God; he looks down upon everything with +sublime imperturbability, despising the sadnesses of humanity and +smiling with irritating loftiness at all our hopes and all our fears. +But, in another sketch of this faultless and unpleasant monster, Seneca +presents us, not the proud athlete who challenges the universe and is +invulnerable to all the stings and arrows of passion or of fate, but a +hero in the serenity of absolute triumph, more tender, indeed, but still +without desires, without passions, without needs, who can fell no pity, +because pity is a weakness which disturbs his sapient calm! Well might +the eloquent Bossuet exclaim, as he read of these chimerical +perfections, "It is to take a tone too lofty for feeble and mortal men. +But, O maxims truly pompous! O affected insensibility! O false and +imaginary wisdom! which fancies itself strong because it is hard, and +generous because it is puffed up! How are these principles opposed to +the modest simplicity of the Saviour of souls, who, in our Gospel +contemplating His faithful ones in affliction, confesses that they will +be saddened by it! <i>Ye shall weep and lament</i>." Shall Christians be +jealous of such wisdom as Stoicism did really attain, when they compare +this dry and bloodless ideal with Him who wept over Jerusalem and +mourned by the grave of Lazarus, who had a mother and a friend, who +disdained none, who pitied all, who humbled Himself to death, even the +death of the cross, whose divine excellence we cannot indeed attain +because He is God, but whose example we can imitate because He was +very man?<a name="FNanchor77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77">[77]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<a name="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor77">[77]</a> See Martha, <i>Les Moralistes</i>, p. 50; Aubertin, <i>Sénèque et +St. Paul</i> p. 250. +</blockquote> + +<p>The one grand aim of the life and philosophy of Seneca was <i>Ease</i>. It is +the topic which constantly recurs in his books <i>On a Happy Life, On +Tranquility of Mind, On Anger</i>, and <i>On the Ease</i> and <i>On the Firmness +of the Sage</i>. It is the pitiless apathy, the stern repression, of every +form of emotion, which was constantly glorified as the aim of +philosophy. It made Stilpo exclaim, when he had lost wife, property, and +children, that he had lost nothing, because he carried in his own person +everything which he possessed. It led Seneca into all that is most +unnatural, all that is most fantastic, and all that is least sincere in +his writings; it was the bitter source of disgrace and failure in his +life. It comes out worst of all in his book <i>On Anger</i>. Aristotle had +said that "Anger was a good servant but a bad master;" Plato had +recognized the immense value and importance of the irascible element in +the moral constitution. Even Christian writers, in spite of Bishop +Butler, have often lost sight of this truth, and have forgotten that to +a noble nature "the hate of hate" and the "scorn of scorn" are as +indispensable as "the love of love." But Seneca almost gets angry +himself at the very notion of the wise man being angry and indignant +even against moral evil. No, he must not get angry, because it would +disturb his sublime calm; and, if he allowed himself to be angry at +wrong-doing, he would have to be angry all day long. This practical +Epicureanism, this idle acquiescence in the supposed incurability of +evil, poisoned all Seneca's career. "He had tutored himself," says +Professor Maurice, "to endure personal injuries without indulging an +anger; he had tutored himself to look upon all moral evil without anger. +If the doctrine is sound and the discipline desirable, we must be +content to take the whole result of them. If we will not do that, we +must resolve to hate oppression and wrong, <i>even at the cost of +philosophical composure"</i> But repose is not to be our aim:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"We have no right to bliss,<br> + No title from the gods to welfare and repose."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>It is one of the truths which seems to me most needed in the modern +religious world, that the type of a Christian's virtue must be very +miserable, and ordinary, and ineffectual, if he does not feel his whole +soul burn within him with an almost implacable moral indignation at the +sight of cruelty and injustice, of Pharisaic faithlessness and +social crimes.</p> + +<p>I have thus freely criticised the radical defects of Stoicism, so far +as Seneca is its legitimate exponent; but I cannot consent to leave him +with the language of depreciation, and therefore here I will once more +endorse what an anonymous writer has said of him: "An unconscious +Christianity covers all his sentiments. If the fair fame of the man is +sullied, the aspiration to a higher life cannot be denied to the +philosopher; if the tinkling cymbal of a stilted Stoicism sometimes +sounds through the nobler music, it still leaves the truer melody +vibrating on the ear."</p> + +<p>2. If Seneca sought for EASE, the grand aim of Epictetus was FREEDOM, of +Marcus Aurelius was SELF-GOVERNMENT. This difference of aim +characterises their entire philosophy, though all three of them are +filled with precepts which arise from the Stoical contempt of opinion, +of fortune, and of death. "Epictetus, the slave, with imperturbable +calm, voluntarily strikes off the desire for all those blessings of +which fortune had already deprived him. Seneca, who lived in the Court, +fenced himself beforehand against misfortune with the spirit of a man of +the world and the emphasis of a master of eloquence. Marcus Aurelius, at +the zenith of human power--having nothing to dread except his passions, +and finding nothing above him except immutable necessity,--surveys his +own soul and meditates especially on the eternal march of things. The +one is the resigned slave, who neither desires nor fears; the other, the +great lord, who has everything to lose; the third, finally, the emperor, +who is dependent only on himself and upon God."</p> + +<p>Of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius we shall have very little to say by way +of summary, for they show no inconsistencies and very few of the +imperfections which characterise Seneca's ideal of the Stoic philosophy. +The "moral peddling," the pedagogic display, the puerile ostentation, +the antithetic brilliancy, which we have had to point out in Seneca, are +wanting in them. The picture of the <i>inner</i> life, indeed, of Seneca, his +efforts after self-discipline, his untiring asceticism, his enthusiasm +for all that he esteems holy and of good report-this picture, marred as +it is by rhetoric and vain self-conceit, yet "stands out in noble +contrast to the swinishness of the Campanian villas, and is, in its +complex entirety, very sad and affecting." And yet we must admit, in the +words of the same writer, that when we go from Seneca to Epictetus and +Marcus Aurelius, "it is going from the florid to the severe, from varied +feeling to the impersonal simplicity of the teacher, often from idle +rhetoric to devout earnestness." As far as it goes, the morality of +these two great Stoics is entirely noble and entirely beautiful. If +there be even in Epictetus some passing and occasional touch of Stoic +arrogance and Stoic apathy; if there be in Marcus Aurelius a depth and +intensity of sadness which shows how comparatively powerless for comfort +was a philosophy which glorified suicide, which knew but little of +immortality, and which lost in vague Pantheism the unspeakable blessing +of realizing a personal relation to a personal God and Father--there is +yet in both of them enough and more than enough to show that in all ages +and in all countries they who have sought for God have found Him, that +they have attained to high principles of thought and to high standards +of action--that they have been enabled, even in the thick darkness, +resolutely to place their feet at least on the lowest rounds of that +ladder of sunbeams which winds up through the darkness to the great +Father of Lights.</p> + +<p>And yet the very existence of such men is in itself a significant +comment upon the Scriptural decision that "the world by wisdom knew not +God." For how many like them, out of all the records of antiquity, is it +possible for us to count? Are there five men in the whole circle of +ancient history and ancient literature to whom we could, without a sense +of incongruity, accord the title of "holy?" When we have mentioned +Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, I hardly know of another. +<i>Just</i> men there were in multitudes--men capable of high actions; men +eminently worthy to be loved; men, I doubt not, who, when the children +of the kingdom shall be rejected, shall be gathered from the east and +the west with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into the kingdom of heaven. +Yes, <i>just</i> men in multitudes; but how many <i>righteous</i>, how many +<i>holy</i>? Some, doubtless, whom we do not know, whose names were never +written, even for a few years, on the records of mankind--men and women +in unknown villages and humble homes, "the faithful who were not +famous." We do not doubt that there were such--but were they +<i>relatively</i> numerous? If those who rose above the level of the +multitude--if those whom some form of excellence, and often of virtue, +elevated into the reverence of their fellows--present to us a few +examples of stainless life, can we hope that a tolerable ideal of +sanctity was attained by any large proportion of the ordinary myriads? +Seeing that the dangerous lot of the majority was cast amid the +weltering sea of popular depravity, can we venture to hope that many of +them succeeded in reaching some green island of purity, integrity, and +calm? We can hardly think it; and yet, in the dispensation of the +Kingdom of Heaven we see such a condition daily realized. Not only do we +see many of the eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and +obscure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with a light +from heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not known such men in +person, and whose hopes and habits have not caught some touch of +radiance reflected from the nobility and virtue of lives like these. The +thought has been well expressed by the author of <i>Ecce Homo</i>, and we may +well ask with him, "If this be so, has Christ failed, or can +Christianity die?"</p> + +<p>No, it has not failed; it cannot die; for the saving knowledge which it +has imparted is the most inestimable blessing which God has granted to +our race. We have watched philosophy in its loftiest flight, but that +flight rose as far above the range of the Pagan populace as Ida or +Olympus rises above the plain: and even the topmost crests of Ida and +Olympus are immeasurably below the blue vault, the body of heaven in its +clearness, to which it has been granted to some Christians to attain. As +regards the multitude, philosophy had no influence over the heart and +character; "it was sectarian, not universal; the religion of the few, +not of the many. It exercised no creative power over political or social +life; it stood in no such relation to the past as the New Testament to +the Old. Its best thoughts were but views and aspects of the truth; +there was no centre around which they moved, no divine life by which +they were impelled; they seemed to vanish and flit in uncertain +succession of light." But Christianity, on the other hand, glowed with a +steady and unwavering brightness; it not only swayed the hearts of +individuals by stirring them to their utmost depths, but it moulded the +laws of nations, and regenerated the whole condition of society. It +gave to mankind a fresh sanction in the word of Christ, a perfect +example in His life, a powerful motive in His love, an all sufficient +comfort in the life of immortality made sure and certain to us by His +Resurrection and Ascension. But if without this sanction, and example, +and motive, and comfort, the pagans could learn to do His will,--if, +amid the gross darkness through which glitters the degraded civilization +of imperial Rome, an Epictetus and an Aurelius could live blameless +lives in a cell and on a throne, and a Seneca could practise simplicity +and self-denial in the midst of luxury and pride--how much loftier +should be both the zeal and the attainments of us to whom God has spoken +by His Son? What manner of men ought we to be? If Tyre and Sidon and +Sodom shall rise in the judgment to bear witness against Chorazin and +Bethsaida, may not the pure lives of these great Seekers after God add a +certain emphasis of condemnation to the vice, the pettiness, the +mammon-worship of many among us to whom His love, His nature, His +attributes have been revealed with a clearness and fullness of knowledge +for which kings and philosophers have sought indeed and sought +earnestly, but sought in vain?</p> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<pre> + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEKERS AFTER GOD*** + +******* This file should be named 10846-h.txt or 10846-h.zip ******* + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/4/10846">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/4/10846</a> + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Seekers after God + +Author: Frederic William Farrar + +Release Date: January 28, 2004 [eBook #10846] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEKERS AFTER GOD*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +SEEKERS AFTER GOD + +BY THE REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., + +CANON OF WESTMINSTER. + + + + + + + +SENECA. + + + "Ce nuage frange de rayons qui toucbe presqu' a l'immortelle aurore + des verites chretiennes."--PONTMAOTIN. + +INTRODUCTORY. + +On the banks of the Baetis--the modern Guadalquiver,--and under the +woods that crown the southern slopes of the Sierra Morena, lies the +beautiful and famous city of Cordova. It had been selected by Marcellus +as the site of a Roman colony; and so many Romans and Spaniards of high +rank chose it for their residence, that it obtained from Augustus the +honourable surname of the "Patrician Colony." Spain, during this period +of the Empire, exercised no small influence upon the literature and +politics of Rome. No less than three great Emperors--Trajan, Hadrian, +and Theodosius,--were natives of Spain. Columella, the writer on +agriculture, was born at Cadiz; Quintilian, the great writer on the +education of an orator, was born at Calahorra; the poet Martial was a +native of Bilbilis; but Cordova could boast the yet higher honour of +having given birth to the Senecas, an honour which won for it the +epithet of "The Eloquent." A ruin is shown to modern travellers which +is popularly called the House of Seneca, and the fact is at least a +proof that the city still retains some memory of its illustrious sons. + +Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher, was by rank a +Roman knight. What causes had led him or his family to settle in Spain +we do not know, and the names Annaeus and Seneca are alike obscure. It +has been vaguely conjectured that both names may involve an allusion to +the longevity of some of the founders of the family, for Annaeus seems +to be connected with _annus_, a year, and Seneca with _senex_, an old +man. The common English composite plant ragwort is called _senecio_ from +the white and feathery pappus or appendage of its seeds; and similarly, +Isidore says that the first Seneca was so named because "he was born +with white hair." + +Although the father of Seneca was of knightly rank, his family had never +risen to any eminence; it belonged to the class of _nouveaux riches_, +and we do not know whether it was of Roman or of Spanish descent. But +his mother Helvia--an uncommon name, which, by a curious coincidence, +belonged also to the mother of Cicero--was a Spanish lady; and it was +from her that Seneca, as well as his famous nephew, the poet Lucan, +doubtless derived many of the traits which mark their intellect and +their character. There was in the Spaniard a richness and splendour of +imagination, an intensity and warmth, a touch of "phantasy and flame," +which we find in these two men of genius, and which was wholly wanting +to the Roman temperament. + +Of Cordova itself, except in a single epigram, Seneca makes no mention; +but this epigram suffices to show that he must have been familiar with +its stirring and memorable traditions. The elder Seneca must have been +living at Cordova during all the troublous years of civil war, when his +native city caused equal offence to Pompey and to Caesar. Doubtless, +too, he would have had stories to tell of the noble Sertorius, and of +the tame fawn which gained for him the credit of divine assistance; and +contemporary reminiscences of that day of desperate disaster when +Caesar, indignant that Cordova should have embraced the cause of the +sons of Pompey, avenged himself by a massacre of 22,000 of the citizens. +From his mother Helvia, Seneca must often have heard about the fierce +and gallant struggle in which her country had resisted the iron yoke of +Rome. Many a time as a boy must he have been told how long and how +heroically Saguntum had withstood the assaults and baffled the triumph +of Hannibal; how bravely Viriathus had fought, and how shamefully he +fell; and how at length the unequal contest, which reduced Spain to the +condition of a province, was closed, when the heroic defenders of +Numantia, rather than yield to Scipio, reduced their city to a heap of +bloodstained ruins. + +But, whatever may have been the extent to which Seneca was influenced by +the Spanish blood which flowed in his veins, and the Spanish legends on +which his youth was fed, it was not in Spain that his lot was cast. When +he was yet an infant in arms his father, with all his family, emigrated +from Cordova to Rome. What may have been the special reason for this +important step we do not know; possibly, like the father of Horace, the +elder Seneca may have sought a better education for his sons than could +be provided by even so celebrated a provincial town as Cordova; +possibly--for he belonged to a somewhat pushing family--he may have +desired to gain fresh wealth and honour in the imperial city. + +Thither we must follow him; and, as it is our object not only to depict +a character but also to sketch the characteristics of a very memorable +age in the world's history, we must try to get a glimpse of the family +in the midst of which our young philosopher grew up, of the kind of +education which he received, and of the influences which were likely to +tell upon him during his childish and youthful years. Only by such means +shall we be able to judge of him aright. And it is worth while to try +and gain a right conception of the man, not only because he was very +eminent as a poet, an author, and a politician, not only because he +fills a very prominent place in the pages of the great historian, who +has drawn so immortal a picture of Rome under the Emperors; not only +because in him we can best study the inevitable signs which mark, even +in the works of men of genius, a degraded people and a decaying +literature; but because he was, as the title of this volume designates +him, a "SEEKER AFTER GOD." Whatever may have been the dark and +questionable actions of his life--and in this narrative we shall +endeavor to furnish a plain and unvarnished picture of the manner in +which he lived,--it is certain that, as a philosopher and as a moralist, +he furnishes us with the grandest and most eloquent series of truths to +which, unilluminated by Christianity, the thoughts of man have ever +attained. The purest and most exalted philosophic sect of antiquity was +"the sect of the Stoics;" and Stoicism never found a literary exponent +more ardent, more eloquent, or more enlightened than Lucius Annaeus +Seneca. So nearly, in fact, does he seem to have arrived at the truths +of Christianity, that to many it seemed a matter for marvel that he +could have known them without having heard them from inspired lips. He +is constantly cited with approbation by some of the most eminent +Christian fathers. Tertullian, Lactantius, even St. Augustine himself, +quote his words with marked admiration, and St. Jerome appeals to him as +"_our_ Seneca." The Council of Trent go further still, and quote him as +though he were an acknowledged father of the Church. For many centuries +there were some who accepted as genuine the spurious letters supposed to +have been interchanged between Seneca and St. Paul, in which Seneca is +made to express a wish to hold among the Pagans the same beneficial +position which St. Paul held in the Christian world. The possibility of +such an intercourse, the nature and extent of such supposed obligations, +will come under our consideration hereafter. All that I here desire to +say is, that in considering the life of Seneca we are not only dealing +with a life which was rich in memorable incidents, and which was cast +into an age upon which Christianity dawned as a new light in the +darkness, but also the life of one who climbed the loftiest peaks of the +moral philosophy of Paganism, and who in many respects may be regarded +as the Coryphaeus of what has been sometimes called a Natural Religion. + +It is not my purpose to turn aside from the narrative in order to +indulge in moral reflections, because such reflections will come with +tenfold force if they are naturally suggested to the reader's mind by +the circumstances of the biography. But from first to last it will be +abundantly obvious to every thoughtful mind that alike the morality and +the philosophy of Paganism, as contrasted with the splendour of revealed +truth and the holiness of Christian life, are but as moonlight is to +sunlight. The Stoical philosophy may be compared to a torch which flings +a faint gleam here and there in the dusky recesses of a mighty cavern; +Christianity to the sun pouring into the inmost depths of the same +cavern its sevenfold illumination. The torch had a value and brightness +of its own, but compared with the dawning of that new glory it appears +to be dim and ineffectual, even though its brightness was a real +brightness, and had been drawn from the same etherial source. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA. + +The exact date of Seneca's birth is uncertain, but it took place in all +probability about seven years before the commencement of the Christian +era. It will give to his life a touch of deep and solemn interest if we +remember that, during all those guilty and stormy scenes amid which his +earlier destiny was cast, there lived and taught in Palestine the Son of +God, the Saviour of the world. + +The problems which for many years tormented his mind were beginning to +find their solution, amid far other scenes, by men whose creed and +condition he despised. While Seneca was being guarded by his attendant +slave through the crowded and dangerous streets of Rome on his way to +school, St. Peter and St. John were fisher-lads by the shores of +Gennesareth; while Seneca was ardently assimilating the doctrine of the +stoic Attalus, St. Paul, with no less fervancy of soul, sat learning at +the feet of Gamaliel; and long before Seneca had made his way, through +paths dizzy and dubious, to the zenith of his fame, unknown to him that +Saviour had been crucified through whose only merits he and we can ever +attain to our final rest. + +Seneca was about two years old when he was carried to Rome in his +nurse's arms. Like many other men who have succeeded in attaining +eminence, he suffered much from ill-health in his early years. He tells +us of one serious illness from which he slowly recovered under the +affectionate and tender nursing of his mother's sister. All his life +long he was subject to attacks of asthma, which, after suffering every +form of disease, he says that he considers to be the worst. At one time +his personal sufferings weighed so heavily on his spirits that nothing +save a regard for his father's wishes prevented him from suicide: and +later in life he was only withheld from seeking the deliverance of death +by the tender affection of his wife Paulina. He might have used with +little alteration the words of Pope, that his various studies but served +to help him + + "Through _this long disease, my life_." + +The recovery from this tedious illness is the only allusion which Seneca +has made to the circumstances of his childhood. The ancient writers, +even the ancient poets, but rarely refer, even in the most cursory +manner, to their early years. The cause of this reticence offers a +curious problem for our inquiry, but the fact is indisputable. Whereas +there is scarcely a single modern poet who has not lingered with +undisguised feelings of happiness over the gentle memories of his +childhood, not one of the ancient poets has systematically touched upon +the theme at all. From Lydgate down to Tennyson, it would be easy to +quote from our English poets a continuous line of lyric songs on the +subject of boyish years. How to the young child the fir-trees seemed to +touch the sky, how his heart leaped up at the sight of the rainbow, how +he sat at his mother's feet and pricked into paper the tissued flowers +of her dress, how he chased the bright butterfly, or in his tenderness +feared to brush even the dust from off its wings, how he learnt sweet +lessons and said innocent prayers at his father's knee; trifles like +these, yet trifles which may have been rendered noble and beautiful by a +loving imagination, have been narrated over and over again in the songs +of our poets. The lovely lines of Henry Vaughan might be taken as a type +of thousands more:-- + + "Happy those early days, when I + Shined in my Angel infancy. + Before I understood this place + Appointed for my second race, + Or taught my soul to fancy aught + But a white celestial thought; + + * * * * * + + "Before I taught my tongue to wound + My conscience with a sinful sound + Or had the black art to dispense + A several sin to every sense; + But felt through all this fleshy dress, + Bright shoots of everlastingness." + +The memory of every student of English poetry will furnish countless +parallels to thoughts like these. How is it that no similar poem could +be quoted from the whole range of ancient literature? How is it that to +the Greek and Roman poets that morning of life, which should have been +so filled with "natural blessedness," seems to have been a blank? How is +it that writers so voluminous, so domestic, so affectionate as Cicero, +Virgil, and Horace do not make so much as a single allusion to the +existence of their own mothers? + +To answer this question fully would be to write an entire essay on the +difference between ancient and modern life, and would carry me far away +from my immediate subject.[1] But I may say generally, that the +explanation rests in the fact that in all probability childhood among +the ancients was a disregarded, and in most cases a far less happy, +period than it is with us. The birth of a child in the house of a Greek +or a Roman was not necessarily a subject for rejoicing. If the father, +when the child was first shown to him, stooped down and took it in his +arms, it was received as a member of the family; if he left it unnoticed +then it was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or barren +place to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first passer by. And +even if a child escaped this fate, yet for the first seven or eight +years of life he was kept in the gynaeceum, or women's apartments, and +rarely or never saw his father's face. No halo of romance or poetry was +shed over those early years. Until the child was full grown the absolute +power of life or death rested in his father's hands; he had no freedom, +and met with little notice. For individual life the ancients had a very +slight regard; there was nothing autobiographic or introspective in +their temperament. With them public life, the life of the State, was +everything; domestic life, the life of the individual, occupied but a +small share of their consideration. All the innocent pleasures of +infancy, the joys of the hearth, the charm of the domestic circle, the +flow and sparkle of childish gaity, were by them but little appreciated. +The years before manhood were years of prospect, and in most cases they +offered but little to make them worth the retrospect. It is a mark of +the more modern character which stamps the writings of Seneca, as +compared with earlier authors, that he addresses his mother in terms of +the deepest affection, and cannot speak of his darling little son except +in a voice that seems to break with tears. + +[Footnote 1: See, however, the same question treated from a somewhat +different point of view by M. Nisard, in his charming _Etudes sur les +Poetes de la Decadence_, ii. 17, _sqq_.] + +Let us add another curious consideration. The growth of the personal +character, the reminiscences of a life advancing into perfect +consciousness, are largely moulded by the gradual recognition of moral +laws, by the sense of mystery evolved in the inevitable struggle between +duty and pleasure,--between the desire to do right and the temptation to +do wrong. But among the ancients the conception of morality was so +wholly different from ours, their notions of moral obligation were, in +the immense majority of cases, so much less stringent and so much less +important, they had so faint a disapproval for sins which we condemn, +and so weak an indignation against vices which we abhor, that in their +early years we can hardly suppose them to have often fathomed those +"abysmal deeps of personality," the recognition of which is a necessary +element of marked individual growth. + +We have, therefore, no materials for forming any vivid picture of +Seneca's childhood; but, from what we gather about the circumstances and +the character of his family, we should suppose that he was exceptionally +fortunate. The Senecas were wealthy; they held a good position in +society; they were a family of cultivated taste, of literary pursuits, +of high character, and of amiable dispositions. Their wealth raised them +above the necessity of those mean cares and degrading shifts to eke out +a scanty livelihood which mark the career of other literary men who were +their contemporaries. Their rank and culture secured them the intimacy +of all who were best worth knowing in Roman circles; and the general +dignity and morality which marked their lives would free them from all +likelihood of being thrown into close intercourse with the numerous +class of luxurious epicureans, whose unblushing and unbounded vice gave +an infamous notority to the capital of the world. + +Of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of our philosopher, we know few +personal particulars, except that he was a professional rhetorician, who +drew up for the use of his sons and pupils a number of oratorical +exercises, which have come down to us under the names of _Suasoriae_ and +_Controversiae_. They are a series of declamatory arguments on both +sides, respecting a number of historical or purely imaginary subjects; +and it would be impossible to conceive any reading more utterly +unprofitable. But the elder Seneca was steeped to the lips in an +artificial rhetoric; and these highly elaborated arguments, invented in +order to sharpen the faculties for purposes of declamation and debate, +were probably due partly to his note-book and partly to his memory. His +memory was so prodigious that after hearing two thousand words he could +repeat them again in the same order. Few of those who have possessed +such extraordinary powers of memory have been men of first-rate talent, +and the elder Seneca was no exception. But if his memory did not improve +his original genius, it must at any rate have made him a very agreeable +member of society, and have furnished him with an abundant store of +personal and political anecdotes. In short, Marcus Seneca was a +well-to-do, intelligent man of the world, with plenty of common sense, +with a turn for public speaking, with a profound dislike and contempt +for anything which he considered philosophical or fantastic, and with a +keen eye to the main advantage. + +His wife Helvia, if we may trust the panegyric of her son, was on the +other hand a far less commonplace character. But for her husband's +dislike to learning and philosophy she would have become a proficient in +both, and in a short period of study she had made a considerable +advance. Yet her intellect was less remarkable than the nobility and +sweetness of her mind; other mothers loved their sons because their own +ambition was gratified by their honours, and their feminine wants +supplied by their riches; but Helvia loved her sons for their own sakes, +treated them with liberal generosity, but refused to reap any personal +benefit from their wealth, managed their patrimonies with disinterested +zeal, and spent her own money to bear the expenses of their political +career. She rose superior to the foibles and vices of her time. +Immodesty, the plague-spot of her age, had never infected her pure life. +Gems and pearls had little charms for her. She was never ashamed of her +children, as though their presence betrayed her own advancing age. "You +never stained your face," says her son, when writing to console her in +his exile, "with walnut-juice or rouge; you never delighted in dresses +indelicately low; your single ornament was a loveliness which no age +could destroy; your special glory was a conspicuous chastity." We may +well say with Mr. Tennyson-- + + "Happy he + With such a mother! faith in womankind + Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high + Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall, + He shall not blind his soul with clay." + +Nor was his mother Helvia the only high-minded lady in whose society +the boyhood of Seneca was spent. Her sister, whose name is unknown, that +aunt who had so tenderly protected the delicate boy, and nursed him +through the sickness of his infancy, seems to have inspired him with an +affection of unusual warmth. He tells us how, when her husband was +Prefect of Egypt, so far was she from acting as was usual with the wives +of provincial governors, that she was as much respected and beloved as +they were for the most part execrated and shunned. So serious was the +evil caused by these ladies, so intolerable was their cruel rapacity, +that it had been seriously debated in the Senate whether they should +ever be allowed to accompany their husbands. Not so with Helvia's +sister. She was never seen in public; she allowed no provincial to visit +her house; she begged no favour for herself, and suffered none to be +begged from her. The province not only praised her, but, what was still +more to her credit, barely knew anything about her, and longed in vain +for another lady who should imitate her virtue and self-control. Egypt +was the headquarters for biting and loquacious calumny, yet even Egypt +never breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. And when during +their homeward voyage her husband died, in spite of danger and tempest +and the deeply-rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail +with a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of shipwreck could +drive her to separate herself from her husband's body until she had +provided for its safe and honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of a +good and heroic woman; and that she reciprocated the regard which makes +her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact +that, when he made his _debut_ as a candidate for the honours of the +State, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time +her matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced +for his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the +crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets of Rome. + +Two brothers, very different from each other in their habits and +character, completed the family circle, Marcus Annaeus Novatus and +Lucius Annaeus Mela, of whom the former was older the latter younger, +than their more famous brother. + +Marcus Annaeus Novatus is known to history under the name of Junius +Gallio, which he took when adopted by the orator of that name, who was a +friend of his father. He is none other than the Gallio of the Acts, the +Proconsul of Achaia, whose name has passed current among Christians as a +proverb of complacent indifference.[2] + +[Footnote 2: Acts xxv. 19.] + +The scene, however, in which Scripture gives us a glimpse of him has +been much misunderstood, and to talk of him as "careless Gallio," or to +apply the expression that "he cared for none of these things," to +indifference in religious matters, is entirely to misapply the spirit of +the narrative. What really happened was this. The Jews, indignant at the +success of Paul's preaching, dragged him before the tribunal of Gallio, +and accused him of introducing illegal modes of worship. When the +Apostle was about to defend himself, Gallio contemptuously cut him short +by saying to the Jews, "If in truth there were in question any act of +injustice or wicked misconduct, I should naturally have tolerated your +complaint. But if this is some verbal inquiry about mere technical +matters of your law, look after it yourselves. I do not choose to be a +judge of such matters." With these words he drove them from his +judgment-seat with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the Jews and +their religious affairs as was subsequently expressed by Festus to the +sceptical Agrippa, and as had been expressed previously by Pontius +Pilate[3] to the tumultous Pharisees. Exulting at this discomfiture of +the hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in +a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat +him in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal. This was the +event at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What +could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks +beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not? So long as they did not make a riot, +or give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat +Sosthenes or any number of Jews black and blue if it pleased them, for +all he was likely to care. + +[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 24, "See ye to it." Cf. Acts xiv. 15, "Look ye +to it." Toleration existed in the Roman Empire, and the magistrates +often interfered to protect the Jews from massacre; but they absolutely +and persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to +understand their doctrines or enter into their disputes. The tradition +that Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is +utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written +nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Conybeare and +Howson, _St. Paul_, vol. i. Ch. xii.; Aubertin, _Seneque et St. Paul_.)] + +What a vivid glimpse do we here obtain, from the graphic picture of an +eye-witness, of the daily life in an ancient provincial forum; how +completely do we seem to catch sight for a moment of that habitual +expression of contempt which curled the thin lips of a Roman aristocrat +in the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews! If Seneca +had come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in his Egyptian travels, the +only impression left on his mind was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal, +and Suetonius, who never mention the Jews without execration. In a +passage, quoted by St. Augustine (_De Civit. Dei_, iv. 11) from his lost +book on Superstitions, Seneca speaks of the multitude of their +proselytes, and calls them "_gens sceleratissima_," a "_most criminal +race_." It has been often conjectured--it has even been seriously +believed--that Seneca had personal intercourse with St. Paul and learnt +from him some lessons of Christianity. The scene on which we have just +been gazing will show us the utter unlikelihood of such a supposition. +Probably the nearest opportunity which ever occurred to bring the +Christian Apostle into intellectual contact with the Roman philosopher +was this occasion, when St. Paul was dragged as a prisoner into the +presence of Seneca's elder brother. The utter contempt and indifference +with which he was treated, the manner in which he was summarily cut +short before he could even open his lips in his own defence, will give +us a just estimate of the manner in which Seneca would have been likely +to regard St. Paul. It is highly improbable that Gallio ever retained +the slightest impression or memory of so every-day a circumstance as +this, by which alone he is known to the world. It is possible that he +had not even heard the mere name of Paul, and that, if he ever thought +of him at all, it was only as a miserable, ragged, fanatical Jew, of dim +eyes and diminutive stature, who had once wished to inflict upon him a +harangue, and who had once come for a few moments "betwixt the wind and +his nobility." He would indeed have been unutterably amazed if anyone +had whispered to him that well nigh the sole circumstance which would +entitle him to be remembered by posterity, and the sole event of his +life by which he would be at all generally known, was that momentary and +accidental relation to his despised prisoner. + +But Novatus--or, to give him his adopted name, Gallio--presented to his +brother Seneca, and to the rest of the world, a very different aspect +from that under which we are wont to think of him. By them he was +regarded as an illustrious declaimer, in an age when declamation was the +most valued of all accomplishments. It was true that there was a sort of +"tinkle," a certain falsetto tone in his style, which offended men of +robust and severe taste; but this meretricious resonance of style was a +matter of envy and admiration when affectation was the rage, and when +the times were too enervated and too corrupt for the manly conciseness +and concentrated force of an eloquence dictated by liberty and by +passion. He seems to have acquired both among his friends and among +strangers the epithet of "dulcis," "the charming or fascinating Gallio:" +"This is more," says the poet Statius, "than to have given Seneca to the +world, and to have begotten the sweet Gallio." Seneca's portrait of him +is singularly faultless. He says that no one was so gentle to any one as +Gallio was to every one; that his charm of manner won over even the +people whom mere chance threw in his way, and that such was the force of +his natural goodness that no one suspected his behaviour, as though it +were due to art or simulation. Speaking of flattery, in his fourth book +of Natural Questions, he says to his friend Lucilius, "I used to say to +you that my brother Gallio _(whom every one loves a little, even people +who cannot love him more)_ was wholly _ignorant_ of other vices, but +even _detested_ this. You might try him in any direction. You began to +praise his intellect--an intellect of the highest and worthiest kind,... +and he walked away! You began to praise his moderation, he instantly cut +short your first words. You began to express admiration for his +blandness and natural suavity of manner,... yet even here he resisted +your compliments; and if you were led to exclaim that you had found a +man who could not be overcome by those insidious attacks which every one +else admits, and hoped that he would at least tolerate _this_ compliment +because of its truth, even on this ground he would resist your flattery; +not as though you had been awkward, or as though he suspected that you +were jesting with him, or had some secret end in view, but simply +because he had a horror of every form of adulation." We can easily +imagine that Gallio was Seneca's favorite brother, and we are not +surprised to find that the philosopher dedicates to him his three books +on Anger, and his charming little treatise "On a Happy Life." + +Of the third brother, L. Annaeus Mela, we have fewer notices; but, from +what we know, we should conjecture that his character no less than his +reputation was inferior to that of his brothers; yet he seems to have +been the favorite of his father, who distinctly asserts that his +intellect was capable of every excellence, and superior to that of his +brothers.[4] This, however, may have been because Mela, "longing only to +long for nothing," was content with his father's rank, and devoted +himself wholly to the study of eloquence. Instead of entering into +public life, he deliberately withdrew himself from all civil duties, and +devoted himself to tranquility and ease. Apparently he preferred to be a +farmer-general (_publicanus_) and not a consul. His chief fame rests in +the fact that he was father of Lucan, the poet of the decadence or +declining literature of Rome. The only anecdote about him which has come +down to us is one that sets his avarice in a very unfavourable light. +When his famous son, the unhappy poet, had forfeited his life, as well +as covered himself with infamy by denouncing his own mother Attila in +the conspiracy of Piso, Mela, instead of being overwhelmed with shame +and agony, immediately began to collect with indecent avidity his son's +debts, as though to show Nero that he felt no great sorrow for his +bereavement. But this was not enough for Nero's malice; he told Mela +that he must follow his son, and Mela was forced to obey the order, +and to die. + +[Footnote 4: M. Ann. Senec. _Controv_. ii. _Praef_.] + +Doubtless Helvia, if she survived her sons and grandsons, must have +bitterly rued the day when, with her husband and her young children, she +left the quiet retreat of a life in Cordova. Each of the three boys grew +up to a man of genius, and each of them grew up to stain his memory with +deeds that had been better left undone, and to die violent deaths by +their own hands or by a tyrant's will. Mela died as we have seen; his +son Lucan and his brother Seneca were driven to death by the cruel +orders of Nero. Gallio, after stooping to panic-stricken supplications +for his preservation, died ultimately by suicide. It was a shameful and +miserable end for them all, but it was due partly to their own errors, +partly to the hard necessity of the degraded times in which they lived. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE EDUCATION OF SENECA. + +For a reason which I have already indicated--I mean the habitual +reticence of the ancient writers respecting the period of their +boyhood--it is not easy to form a very vivid conception of the kind of +education given to a Roman boy of good family up to the age of fifteen, +when he laid aside the golden amulet and embroidered toga to assume a +more independent mode of life. + +A few facts, however, we can gather from the scattered allusions of the +poets Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Persius. From these we learn that +the schoolmasters were for the most part underpaid and despised,[5] +while at the same time an erudition alike minute and useless was rigidly +demanded of them. We learn also that they were exceedingly severe in the +infliction of corporeal punishment; Orbilius, the schoolmaster of +Horace, appears to have been a perfect Dr. Busby, and the poet Martial +records with indignation the barbarities of chastisement which he daily +witnessed. + +[Footnote 5: For the miseries of the literary class, and especially of +schoolmasters, see Juv, _Sat_. vii.] + +The things taught were chiefly arithmetic, grammar--both Greek and +Latin--reading, and repetition of the chief Latin poets. There was also +a good deal of recitation and of theme-writing on all kinds of trite +historical subjects. The arithmetic seems to have been mainly of a very +simple and severely practical kind, especially the computation of +interest and compound interest; and the philology generally, both +grammar and criticism, was singularly narrow, uninteresting, and +useless. Of what conceivable advantage can it have been to any human +being to know the name of the mother of Hecuba, of the nurse of +Anchises, of the stepmother of Anchemolus, the number of years Acestes +lived, and how many casks of wine the Sicilians gave to the Phrygians? +Yet these were the dispicable _minutiae_ which every schoolmaster was +then expected to have at his fingers' ends, and every boy-scholar to +learn at the point of the ferule--trash which was only fit to be +unlearned the moment it was known. + +For this kind of verbal criticism and fantastic archaeology Seneca, who +had probably gone through it all, expresses a profound and very rational +contempt. In a rather amusing passage[6] he contrasts the kind of use +which would be made of a Virgil lesson by a philosopher and a +grammarian. Coming to the lines, + + "Each happiest day for mortals speeds the first, + Then crowds disease behind and age accurst," + +the philosopher will point out why and in what sense the early days of +life are the best days, and how rapidly the evil days succeed them, and +consequently how infinitely important it is to use well the golden dawn +of our being. But the verbal critic will content himself with the +remark that Virgil always uses _fugio_ of the flight of time, and +always joins "old age" with "disease," and consequently that these are +tags to be remembered, and plagiarized hereafter in the pupils' +"_original_ composition." Similarly, if the book in hand be Cicero's +treatise "On the Commonwealth," instead of entering into great political +questions, our grammarian will note that one of the Roman kings had no +father (to speak of), and another no mother; that dictators used +formerly to be called "masters of the people;" that Romulus perished +during an eclipse; that the old form of _reipsa_ was _reapse_, and of +_se ipse_ was _sepse_; that the starting point in the circus which is +now called _creta_, or "chalk," used to be called _caix_, or _carcer_; +that in the time of Ennuis _opera_ meant not only "work," but also +"assistance," and so on, and so on. Is this true education? or rather, +should our great aim ever be to translate noble precepts into daily +action? "Teach me," he says, "to despise pleasure and glory; +_afterwards_ you shall teach me to disentangle difficulties, to +distinguish ambiguities, to see through obscurities; _now_ teach me what +is necessary." Considering the condition of much which in modern times +passes under the name of "education," we may possibly find that the +hints of Seneca are not yet wholly obsolete. + +[Footnote 6: Ep. cviii.] + +What kind of schoolmaster taught the little Seneca when under the care +of the slave who was called _pedagogus_, or a "boy-leader" (whence our +word _pedagogue_), he daily went with his brothers to school through the +streets of Rome, we do not know. He may have been a severe Orbilius, or +he may have been one of those noble-minded tutors whose ideal +portraiture is drawn in such beautiful colours by the learned and +amiable Quintilian. Seneca has not alluded to any one who taught him +during his early days. The only schoolfellow whom he mentions by name +in his voluminous writings is a certain Claranus, a deformed boy, whom, +after leaving school, Seneca never met again until they were both old +men, but of whom he speaks with great admiration. In spite of his +hump-back, Claranus appeared even beautiful in the eyes of those who +knew him well, because his virtue and good sense left a stronger +impression than his deformity, and "his body was adorned by the beauty +of his soul." + +It was not until mere school-lessons were finished that a boy began +seriously to enter upon the studies of eloquence and philosophy, which +therefore furnish some analogy to what we should call "a university +education." Gallio and Mela, Seneca's elder and younger brothers, +devoted themselves heart and soul to the theory and practice of +eloquence; Seneca made the rarer and the wiser choice in giving his +entire enthusiasm to the study of philosophy. + +I say the wiser choice, because eloquence is not a thing for which one +can give a receipt as one might give a receipt for making +_eau-de-Cologne_. Eloquence is the noble, the harmonious, the passionate +expression of truths profoundly realized, or of emotions intensely felt. +It is a flame which cannot be kindled by artificial means. _Rhetoric_ +may be taught if any one thinks it worth learning; but _eloquence_ is a +gift as innate as the genius from which it springs. "_Cujus vita fulgur, +ejus verba tonitrua_"--"if a man's life be lightning, his words will be +thunders." But the kind of oratory to be obtained by a constant practice +of declamation such as that which occupied the schools of the Rhetors +will be a very artificial lightning and a very imitated thunder--not the +artillery of heaven, but the Chinese fire and rolled bladders of the +stage. Nothing could be more false, more hollow, more pernicious than +the perpetual attempt to drill numerous classes of youths into a +reproduction of the mere manner of the ancient orators. An age of +unlimited declamation, an age of incessant talk, is a hotbed in which +real depth and nobility of feeling runs miserably to seed. Style is +never worse than it is in ages which employ themselves in teaching +little else. Such teaching produces an emptiness of thought concealed +under a plethora of words. This age of countless oratorical masters was +emphatically the period of decadence and decay. There is a hollow ring +about it, a falsetto tone in its voice; a fatiguing literary grimace in +the manner of its authors. Even its writers of genius were injured and +corrupted by the prevailing mode. They can say nothing simply; they are +always in contortions. Their very indignation and bitterness of heart, +genuine as it is, assumes a theatrical form of expression.[7] They +abound in unrealities: their whole manner is defaced with would-be +cleaverness, with antitheses, epigrams, paradoxes, forced expressions, +figures and tricks of speech, straining after originality and profundity +when they are merely repeating very commonplace remarks. What else could +one expect in an age of salaried declaimers, educated in a false +atmosphere of superficial talk, for ever haranguing and perorating about +great passions which they had never felt, and great deeds which they +would have been the last to imitate? After perpetually immolating the +Tarquins and the Pisistratids in inflated grandiloquence, they would go +to lick the dust off a tyrant's shoes. How could eloquence survive when +the magnanimity and freedom which inspired it were dead, and when the +men and books which professed to teach it were filled with despicable +directions about the exact position in which the orator was to use his +hands, and as to whether it was a good thing or not for him to slap his +forehead and disarrange his hair? + +[Footnote 7: + "Juvenal, eleve dans les cris de l'ecole + Poussa jusqu'a l'exces sa mordante hyperbole."-- + BOILEAU.] + +The philosophic teaching which even from boyhood exercised a powerful +fascination on the eager soul of Seneca was at least something better +than this; and more than one of his philosophic teachers succeeded in +winning his warm affection, and in moulding the principles and habits of +his life. Two of them he mentions with special regard, namely Sotion the +Pythagorean, and Attalus the Stoic. He also heard the lectures of the +fluent and musical Fabianus Papirius, but seems to have owed less to him +than to his other teachers. + +Sotion had embraced the views of Pythagoras respecting the +transmigration of souls, a doctrine which made the eating of animal food +little better than cannibalism or parricide. But, even if any of his +followers rejected this view, Sotion would still maintain that the +eating of animals, if not an impiety, was at least a cruelty and a +waste. "What hardship does my advice inflict on you?" he used to ask. "I +do but deprive you of the food of vultures and lions." The ardent +boy--for at this time he could not have been more than seventeen years +old--was so convinced by these considerations that he became a +vegetarian. At first the abstinence from meat was painful, but after a +year he tells us (and many vegetarians will confirm his experience) it +was not only easy but delightful; and he used to believe, though he +would not assert it as a fact, that it made his intellect more keen and +active. He only ceased to be a vegetarian in obedience to the +remonstrance of his unphilosophical father, who would have easily +tolerated what he regarded as a mere vagary had it not involved the +danger of giving rise to a calumny. For about this time Tiberius +banished from Rome all the followers of strange and foreign religions; +and, as fasting was one of the rites practiced in some of them, Seneca's +father thought that perhaps his son might incur, by abstaining from +meat, the horrible suspicion of being a Christian or a Jew! + +Another Pythagorean philosopher whom he admired and whom he quotes was +Sextius, from whom he learnt the admirable practice of daily +self-examination:--"When the day was over, and he betook himself to his +nightly rest, he used to ask himself, What evil have you cured to day? +What vice have you resisted? In what particular have you improved?" "I +too adopt this custom," says Seneca, in his book on Anger, "and I daily +plead my cause before myself, when the light has been taken away, and my +wife, who is now aware of my habit, has become silent; I carefully +consider in my heart the entire day, and take a deliberate estimate of +my deeds and words." + +It was however the Stoic Attalus who seems to have had the main share in +the instruction of Seneca; and _his_ teaching did not involve any +practical results which the elder Seneca considered objectionable. He +tells us how he used to haunt the school of the eloquent philosopher, +being the first to enter and the last to leave it. "When I heard him +declaiming," he says, "against vice, and error, and the ills of life, I +often felt compassion for the human race, and believed my teacher to be +exalted above the ordinary stature of mankind. In Stoic fashion he used +to call himself a king; but to me his sovereignty seemed more than +royal, seeing that it was in his power to pass his judgments on kings +themselves. When he began to set forth the praises of poverty, and to +show how heavy and superfluous was the burden of all that exceeded the +ordinary wants of life, I often longed to leave school a poor man. When +he began to reprehend our pleasures, to praise a chaste body, a moderate +table, and a mind pure not from all unlawful but even from all +superfluous pleasures, it was my delight to set strict limits to all +voracity and gluttony. And these precepts, my Lucilius, have left some +permanent results; for I embraced them with impetuous eagerness, and +afterwards, when I entered upon a political career, I retained a few of +my good beginnings. In consequence of them, I have all my life long +renounced eating oysters and mushrooms, which do not satisfy hunger but +only sharpen appetite; for this reason I habitually abstain from +perfumes, because the sweetest perfume for the body is none at all: for +this reason I do without wines and baths. Other habits which I once +abandoned have come back to me, but in such a way that I merely +substitute moderation for abstinence, which perhaps is a still more +difficult task; since there are some things which it is easier for the +mind to cut away altogether than to enjoy in moderation. Attalus used to +recommend a hard couch in which the body could not sink; and, even in my +old age, I use one of such a kind that it leaves no impress of the +sleeper. I have told you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager +impulses our little scholars would have to all that is good, if any one +were to exhort them and urge them on. But the harm springs partly from +the fault of preceptors, who teach us how to _argue_, not how to _live_; +and partly from the fault of pupils, who bring to their teacher a +purpose of training their intellect and not their souls. Thus it is +that philosophy has been degraded into mere philology." + +In another lively passage, Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of +the various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers. After +observing that philosophy exercises some influence even over those who +do not go deeply in it, just as people sitting in a shop of perfumes +carry away with them some of the odour, he adds, "Do we not, however, +know some who have been among the audience of a philosopher for many +years, and have been even entirely uncoloured by his teaching? Of course +I do, even most persistent and continuous hearers; whom I do not call +pupils, but mere passing auditors of philosophers. Some come to hear, +not to learn, just as we are brought into a theatre for pleasure's sake, +to delight our ears with language, or with the voice, or with plays. You +will observe a large portion of the audience to whom the philosopher's +school is a mere haunt of their leisure. Their object is not to lay +aside any vices there, or to accept any law in accordance with which +they may conform their life, but that they may enjoy a mere tickling of +their ears. Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, to +catch up not _things_ but _words_. Some with eager countenances and +spirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, and these are charmed by +the beauty of the thoughts, not by the sound of empty words; but the +impression is not lasting. Few only have attained the power of carrying +home with them the frame of mind into which they had been elevated." + +It was to this small latter class that Seneca belonged. He became a +Stoic from very early years. The Stoic philosophers, undoubtedly the +noblest and purest of ancient sects, received their name from the fact +that their founder Zeno had lectured in the Painted Porch or Stoa +Paecile of Athens. The influence of these austere and eloquent masters, +teaching high lessons of morality and continence, and inspiring their +young audience with the glow of their own enthusiasm for virtue, must +have been invaluable in that effete and drunken age. Their doctrines +were pushed to yet more extravagant lengths by the Cynics, who were so +called from a Greek word meaning "dog," from what appeared to the +ancients to be the dog-like brutality of their manners. Juvenal +scornfully remarks, that the Stoics only differed from the Cynics "by a +tunic," which the Stoics wore and the Cynics discarded. Seneca never +indeed adopted the practices of Cynicism, but he often speaks admiringly +of the arch-Cynic Diogenes, and repeatedly refers to the Cynic +Demetrius, as a man deserving of the very highest esteem. "I take with +me everywhere," writes he to Lucilius, "that best of men, Demetrius; +and, leaving those who wear purple robes, I talk with him who is half +naked. Why should I not admire him? I have seen that he has no want. Any +one may despise all things, but no one _can_ possess all things. The +shortest road to riches lies through contempt of riches. But our +Demetrius lives not as though he _despised_ all things, but as though he +simply suffered others to possess them." + +These habits and sentiments throw considerable light on Seneca's +character. They show that even from his earliest days he was capable of +adopting self-denial as a principle, and that to his latest days he +retained many private habits of a simple and honourable character, even +when the exigencies of public life had compelled him to modify others. +Although he abandoned an unusual abstinence out of respect for his +father, we have positive evidence that he resumed in his old age the +spare practices which in his enthusiastic youth he had caught from the +lessons of high-minded teachers. These facts are surely sufficient to +refute at any rate those gross charges against the private character of +Seneca, venomously retailed by a jealous Greekling like Dio Cassius, +which do not rest on a tittle of evidence, and seem to be due to a mere +spirit of envy and calumny. I shall not again allude to these scandals +because I utterly disbelieve them. A man who in his "History" could, as +Dio Cassius has done, put into the mouth of a Roman senator such insane +falsehoods as he has pretended that Fufius Calenus uttered in full +senate against Cicero, was evidently actuated by a spirit which +disentitles his statements to my credence. Seneca was an inconsistent +philosopher both in theory and in practice; he fell beyond all question +into serious errors, which deeply compromise his character; but, so far +from being a dissipated or luxurious man, there is every reason to +believe that in the very midst of wealth and splendour, and all the +temptations which they involve, he retained alike the simplicity of his +habits and the rectitude of his mind. Whatever may have been the almost +fabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar and ivory, they were +rarely spread with any more sumptuous entertainment than water, +vegetables, and fruit. Whatever may have been the amusements common +among his wealthy and noble contemporaries, we know that he found his +highest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of his garden, and took some +of his exercise by running races there with a little slave. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY. + +We have gleaned from Seneca's own writings what facts we could +respecting his early education. But in the life of every man there are +influences of a far more real and penetrating character than those which +come through the medium of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age; +the general tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social intercourse, +the political tendencies which were moulding the destiny of the +nation,--these must have told, more insensibly indeed but more +powerfully, on the mind of Seneca than even the lectures of Sotion and +of Attalus. And, if we have had reason to fear that there was much which +was hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the general +aspect of the society by which our young philosopher was surrounded from +the cradle was yet more injurious and deplorable. + +The darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never did a grosser +darkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence brood over the surface of +Pagan society than at the period when the Sun of Righteousness arose +with healing in His wings. There have been many ages when the dense +gloom of a heartless immorality seemed to settle down with unusual +weight; there have been many places where, under the gaslight of an +artificial system, vice has seemed to acquire an unusual audacity; but +never probably was there any age or any place where the worst forms of +wickedness were practiced with a more unblushing effrontery than in the +city of Rome under the government of the Caesars. A deeply-seated +corruption seemed to have fastened upon the very vitals of the national +existence. It is surely a lesson of deep moral significance that just as +they became most polished in their luxury they became most vile in their +manner of life. Horace had already bewailed that "the age of our +fathers, worse than that of our grandsires, has produced us who are yet +baser, and who are doomed to give birth to a still more degraded +offspring." But fifty years later it seemed to Juvenal that in his times +the very final goal of iniquity had been attained, and he exclaims, in a +burst of despair, that "posterity will add _nothing_ to our immorality; +our descendents can but do and desire the same crimes as ourselves." He +who would see but for a moment and afar off to what the Gentile world +had sunk, at the very period when Christianity began to spread, may form +some faint and shuddering conception from the picture of it drawn in the +Epistle to the Romans. + +We ought to realize this fact if we would judge of Seneca aright. Let us +then glance at the condition of the society in the midst of which he +lived. Happily we can but glance at it. The worst cannot be told. Crimes +may be spoken of; but things monstrous and inhuman should for ever be +concealed. We can but stand at the cavern's mouth, and cast a single ray +of light into its dark depths. Were we to enter, our lamp would be +quenched by the foul things which would cluster round it. + +In the age of Augustus began that "long slow agony," that melancholy +process of a society gradually going to pieces under the dissolving +influence of its own vices which lasted almost without interruption till +nothing was left for Rome except the fire and sword of barbaric +invasions. She saw not only her glories but also her virtues "star by +star expire." The old heroism, the old beliefs, the old manliness and +simplicity, were dead and gone; they had been succeeded by prostration +and superstition by luxury and lust. + + "There is the moral of all human tales, + 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, + First freedom, and then glory; when that fails, + Wealth, vice, corruption,--barbarism at last: + And history, with all her volumes vast, + Hath but one page; 'tis better written here + Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed + All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, + Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask." + +The mere elements of society at Rome during this period were very +unpromising. It was a mixture of extremes. There was no middle class. At +the head of it was an emperor, often deified in his lifetime, and +separated from even the noblest of the senators by a distance of +immeasurable superiority. He, was, in the startling language of Gibbon, +at once "a priest, an atheist, and a god." [8] Surrounding his person and +forming his court were usually those of the nobility who were the most +absolutely degraded by their vices, their flatteries, or their abject +subservience. But even these men were not commonly the repositories of +political power. The people of the greatest influence were the freedmen +of the emperors--men who had been slaves, Egyptians and Bithynians who +had come to Rome with bored ears and with chalk on their naked feet to +show that they were for sale, or who had bawled "sea-urchins all alive" +in the Velabrum or the Saburra--who had acquired enormous wealth by +means often the most unscrupulous and the most degraded, and whose +insolence and baseness had kept pace with their rise to power. Such a +man was the Felix before whom St. Paul was tried, and such was his +brother Pallas,[9] whose golden statue might have been seen among the +household gods of the senator, afterwards the emperor, Vitellius. +Another of them might often have been observed parading the streets +between two consuls. Imagine an Edward II. endowed with absolute and +unquestioned powers of tyranny,--imagine some pestilent Piers Gaveston, +or Hugh de le Spenser exercising over nobles and people a hideous +despotism of the back stairs,--and you have some faint picture of the +government of Rome under some of the twelve Caesars. What the barber +Olivier le Diable was under Louis XI., what Mesdames du Barri and +Pompadour were under Louis XV., what the infamous Earl of Somerset was +under James I., what George Villiers became under Charles I., will +furnish us with a faint analogy of the far more exaggerated and +detestable position held by the freedman Glabrio under Domitian, by the +actor Tigellinus under Nero, by Pallus and Narcissus under Claudius, by +the obscure knight Sejanus under the iron tyranny of the +gloomy Tiberius. + +[Footnote 8: + "To the sound + Of fifes and drums they danced, or in the shade + Sung Caesar great and terrible in war, + Immortal Caesar! 'Lo, a god! a god! + He cleaves the yielding skies!' Caesar meanwhile + Gathers the ocean pebbles, or the gnat + Enraged pursues; or at his lonely meal + Starves a wide province; tastes, dislikes, and flings + To dogs and sycophants. 'A god! a god!' + The flowery shades and shrines obscene return." + DYER, _Ruins of Rome_.] + +[Footnote 9: The pride of this man was such that he never deigned to +speak a word in the presence of his own slaves, but only made known his +wishes by signs!--TACITUS.] + +I. It was an age of the most enormous wealth existing side by side with +the most abject poverty. Around the splendid palaces wandered hundreds +of mendicants, who made of their mendicity a horrible trade, and even +went so far as to steal or mutilate infants in order to move compassion +by their hideous maladies. This class was increased by the exposure of +children, and by that overgrown accumulation of landed property which +drove the poor from their native fields. It was increased also by the +ambitious attempt of people whose means were moderate to imitate the +enormous display of the numerous millionaires. The great Roman conquests +in the East, the plunder of the ancient kingdoms of Antiochus, of +Attalus, of Mithridates, had caused a turbid stream of wealth to flow +into the sober current of Roman life. One reads with silent astonishment +of the sums expended by wealthy Romans on their magnificence or their +pleasures. And as commerce was considered derogatory to rank and +position, and was therefore pursued by men who had no character to lose, +these overgrown fortunes were often acquired by wretches of the meanest +stamp--by slaves brought from over the sea, who had to conceal the holes +bored in their ears;[10] or even by malefactors who had to obliterate, +by artificial means, the three letters[11] which had been branded by the +executioner on their foreheads. But many of the richest men in Rome, who +had not sprung from this convict origin, were fully as well deserving of +the same disgraceful stigma. Their houses were built, their coffers were +replenished, from the drained resources of exhausted provincials. Every +young man of active ambition or noble birth, whose resources had been +impoverished by debauchery and extravagance, had but to borrow fresh +sums in order to give magnificent gladiatorial shows, and then, if he +could once obtain an aedileship, and mount to the higher offices of the +State, he would in time become the procurator or proconsul of a +province, which he might pillage almost at his will. Enter the house of +a Felix or a Verres. Those splendid pillars of mottled green marble were +dug by the forced labour of Phrygians from the quarry of Synnada; that +embossed silver, those murrhine vases, those jeweled cups, those +masterpieces of antique sculpture, have all been torn from the homes or +the temples of Sicily or Greece. Countries were pilaged and nations +crushed that an Apicius might dissolve pearls[12] in the wine he drank, +or that Lollia Paulina might gleam in a second-best dress of emeralds +and pearls which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or more than +32,000_l_.[13] + +[Footnote 10: This was a common ancient practice; the very words +"thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots +"thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. +_Cic_. 26; and Juv. _Sat_. i. 104.)] + +[Footnote 11: _Fur_, "thief." (See Martial, ii. 29.)] + +[Footnote 12: "Dissolved pearls, Apicius' diet 'gainst the +epilepsy."--BEN JONSON.] + +[Footnote 13: Pliny actually saw her thus arrayed. (Nat. Hist. ix. 35, +36.)] + +Each of these "gorgeous criminals" lived in the midst of an humble +crowd of flatterers, parasites, clients, dependents, and slaves. Among +the throng that at early morning jostled each other in the marble +_atrium_ were to be found a motley and hetrogeneous set of men. Slaves +of every age and nation--Germans, Egyptians, Gauls, Goths, Syrians, +Britons, Moors, pampered and consequential freedmen, impudent +confidential servants, greedy buffoons, who lived by making bad jokes at +other people's tables; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a +trade; philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length of +their beards; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, ready to +flatter and lie with consummate skill, and spreading their vile +character like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a +number of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a +thousand forms of contumely[14] and insult, and living in discontented +idleness on the _sportula_ or daily largesse which was administered by +the grudging liberality of their haughty patrons. The stout old Roman +burgher had well-nigh disappeared; the sturdy independence, the manly +self-reliance of an industrial population were all but unknown. The +insolent loungers who bawled in the Forum were often mere stepsons of +Italy, who had been dragged thither in chains,--the dregs of all +nations, which had flowed into Rome as into a common sewer,[15] bringing +with them no heritage except the specialty of their national vices. +Their two wants were bread and the shows of the circus; so long as the +_sportula_ of their patron, the occasional donative of an emperor, and +the ambition of political candidates supplied these wants, they lived in +contented abasement, anxious neither for liberty nor for power. + +[Footnote 14: Few of the many sad pictures in the _Satires_ of Juvenal +are more pitiable than that of the wretched "Quirites" struggling at +their patrons' doors for the pittance which formed their daily dole. +(Sat i. 101.)] + +[Footnote 15: See Juv. _Sat_. iii. 62. Scipio, on being interrupted by +the mob in the Forum, exclaimed,--"Silence, ye stepsons of Italy! What! +shall I fear these fellows now they are free, whom I myself have brought +in chains to Rome?" (See Cic. _De Orat_. ii. 61.)] + +II. It was an age at once of atheism and superstition. Strange to say, +the two things usually go together. Just as Philippe Egalite, Duke of +Orleans, disbelieved in God, and yet tried to conjecture his fate from +the inspection of coffee-grounds at the bottom of a cup,--just as Louis +XI. shrank from no perjury and no crime, and yet retained a profound +reverence for a little leaden image which he carried in his cap,--so the +Romans under the Empire sneered at all the whole crowd of gods and +goddesses whom their fathers had worshipped, but gave an implicit +credence to sorcerers, astrologers, spirit-rappers, exorcists, and every +species of imposter and quack. The ceremonies of religion were performed +with ritualistic splendour, but all belief in religion was dead and +gone. "That there are such things as ghosts and subterranean realms not +even boys believe," says Juvenal, "except those who are still too young +to pay a farthing for a bath." [16] Nothing can exceed the cool +impertinence with which the poet Martial prefers the favour of Domitian +to that of the great Jupiter of the Capitol. Seneca, in his lost book +"Against Superstitions,"[17] openly sneered at the old mythological +legends of gods married and gods unmarried, and at the gods Panic and +Paleness, and at Cloacina, the goddess of sewers, and at other deities +whose cruelty and license would have been infamous even in mankind. And +yet the priests, and Salii, and Flamens, and Augurs continued to fulfil +their solemn functions, and the highest title of the Emperor himself was +that of _Pontifex Maximus_, or Chief Priest, which he claimed as the +recognized head of the national religion. "The common worship was +regarded," says Gibbon, "by the people as equally true, by the +philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally +useful." And this famous remark is little more than a translation from +Seneca, who, after exposing the futility of the popular beliefs, adds: +"And yet the wise man will observe them all, not as pleasing to the +gods, but as commanded by the laws. We shall so adore _all that ignoble +crowd of gods_ which long superstition has heaped together in a long +period of years, as to remember that their worship has more to do with +custom than with reality." "Because he was an illustrious senator of the +Roman people," observes St. Augustine, who has preserved for us this +fragment, "he worshipped what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he +adored that with which he found fault." Could anything be more hollow or +heartless than this? Is there anything which is more certain to sap the +very foundations of morality than the public maintenance of a creed +which has long ceased to command the assent, and even the respect of its +recognized defenders? Seneca, indeed, and a few enlightened +philosophers, might have taken refuge from the superstitions which they +abandoned in a truer and purer form of faith. "Accordingly," says +Lactantius, one of the Christian Fathers, "he has said many things like +ourselves concerning God." [18] He utters what Tertullian finely calls +"the testimony of A MIND NATURALLY CHRISTIAN." But, meanwhile, what +became of the common multitude? They too, like their superiors, learnt +to disbelieve or to question the power of the ancient deities; but, as +the mind absolutely requires _some_ religion on which to rest, they gave +their real devotion to all kinds of strange and foreign deities,--to +Isis and Osiris, and the dog Anubus, to Chaldaean magicians, to Jewish +exercisers, to Greek quacks, and to the wretched vagabond priests of +Cybele, who infested all the streets with their Oriental dances and +tinkling tambourines. The visitor to the ruins of Pompeii may still see +in her temple the statue of Isis, through whose open lips the gaping +worshippers heard the murmured answers they came to seek. No doubt they +believed as firmly that the image spoke, as our forefathers believed +that their miraculous Madonnas nodded and winked. But time has exposed +the cheat. By the ruined shrine the worshipper may now see the secret +steps by which the priest got to the back of the statue, and the pipe +entering the back of its head through which he whispered the answers of +the oracle. + +[Footnote 16: JUV. _Sat_. ii. 149. Cf. Sen. _Ep_. xxiv. "Nemo tam puer +est at Cerberum timeat, et tenebras," &c.] + +[Footnote 17: Fragm. xxxiv.] + +[Footnote 18: Lactantius, _Divin. Inst_. i. 4.] + +III. It was an age of boundless luxury,--an age in which women +recklessly vied with one another in the race of splendour and +extravagance, and in which men plunged headlong, without a single +scruple of conscience, and with every possible resource at their +command, into the pursuit of pleasure. There was no form of luxury, +there was no refinement of vice invented by any foreign nation, which +had not been eagerly adopted by the Roman patricians. "The softness of +Sybaris, the manners of Rhodes and Antioch, and of perfumed, drunken, +flower-crowned Miletus," were all to be found at Rome. There was no +more of the ancient Roman severity and dignity and self-respect. The +descendants of Aemilius and Gracchus--even generals and consuls and +praetors--mixed familiarly with the lowest _canaille_ of Rome in their +vilest and most squalid purlieus of shameless vice. They fought as +amateur gladiators in the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on +the race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors on the +stage. They devoted themselves with such frantic eagerness to the +excitement of gambling, that we read of their staking hundreds of pounds +on a single throw of the dice, when they could not even restore the +pawned tunics to their shivering slaves. Under the cold marble statues, +or amid the waxen likenesses of their famous stately ancestors, they +turned night into day with long and foolish orgies, and exhausted land +and sea with the demands of their gluttony. "Woe to that city," says an +ancient proverb, "in which a fish costs more than an ox;" and this +exactly describes the state of Rome. A banquet would sometimes cost the +price of an estate; shell-fish were brought from remote and unknown +shores, birds from Parthia and the banks of the Phasis; single dishes +were made of the brains of the peacocks and the tongues of nightingales +and flamingoes. Apicius, after squandering nearly a million of money in +the pleasures of the table, committed suicide, Seneca tells us, because +he found that he had only 80,000_l_. left. Cowley speaks of-- + + "Vitellius' table, which did hold + As many creatures as the ark of old." + +"They eat," said Seneca, "and then they vomit; they vomit, and then +they eat." But even in this matter we cannot tell anything like the +worst facts about-- + + "Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts + On citron tables and Atlantic stone, + Their wines of Setia, Gales, and Falerne, + Chios, and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, + Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems + And studs of pearl." [19] + +Still less can we pretend to describe the unblushing and unutterable +degradation of this period as it is revealed to us by the poets and the +satirists. "All things," says Seneca, "are full of iniquity and vice; +more crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint. We struggle +in a huge contest of criminality: daily the passion for sin is greater, +the shame in committing it is less.... Wickedness is no longer committed +in secret: it flaunts before our eyes, and + + "The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems, + ... whatever is known + Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs, + Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food, + And flavoured Chian wines, with incense fumed, + To slake patrician thirst: for these their rights + In the vile atreets they prostitute for sale, + Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws, + Their native glorious freedom. + +has been sent forth so openly into public sight, and has prevailed so +completely in the breast of all, that innocence is not _rare_, but +_non-existent_." + +[Footnote 19: Compare the lines in Dyer's little-remembered _Ruins of +Rome_.] + +IV. And it was an age of deep sadness. That it should have been so is an +instructive and solemn lesson. In proportion to the luxury of the age +were its misery and its exhaustion. The mad pursuit of pleasure was the +death and degradation of all true happiness. Suicide--suicide out of +pure _ennui_ and discontent at a life overflowing with every possible +means of indulgence--was extraordinarily prevalent. The Stoic +philosophy, especially as we see it represented in the tragedies +attributed to Seneca, rang with the glorification of it. Men ran to +death because their mode of life had left them no other refuge. They +died because it seemed so tedious and so superfluous to be seeing and +doing and saying the same things over and over again; and because they +had exhausted the very possibility of the only pleasures of which they +had left themselves capable. The satirical epigram of Destouches,-- + + "Ci-git Jean Rosbif, ecuyer, + Qui se pendit pour se desennuyer," + +was literally and strictly true of many Romans during this epoch. +Marcellinus, a young and wealthy noble, starved himself, and then had +himself suffocated in a warm bath, merely because he was attacked with a +perfectly curable illness. The philosophy which alone professed itself +able to heal men's sorrows applauded the supposed courage of a voluntary +death, and it was of too abstract, too fantastic, and too purely +theoretical a character to furnish them with any real or lasting +consolations. No sentiment caused more surprise to the Roman world than +the famous one preserved in the fragment of Maecenas,-- + + "Debilem facito manu, + Debilem pede, coxa, + Tuber adstrue gibberum, + Lubricos quate dentes; + Vita dum superest bene est; + Hanc mihi vel acuta + Si sedeam cruce sustine;" + +which may be paraphrased,-- + + "Numb my hands with palsy, + Rack my feet with gout, + Hunch my back and shoulder, + Let my teeth fall out; + Still, if _Life_ be granted, + I prefer the loss; + Save my life, and give me + Anguish on the cross." + +Seneca, in his 101st Letter, calls this "a most disgraceful and most +contemptible wish;" but it may be paralleled out of Euripides, and still +more closely out of Homer. "Talk not," says the shade of Achilles to +Ulysses in the Odyssey,-- + + "'Talk not of reigning in this dolorous gloom, + Nor think vain lies,' he cried, 'can ease my doom. + _Better by far laboriously to bear + A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air, + Slave to the meanest hind that begs his bread, + Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead_.'" + +But this falsehood of extremes was one of the sad outcomes of the +popular Paganism. Either, like the natural savage, they dreaded death +with an intensity of terror; or, when their crimes and sorrows had made +life unsupportable, they slank to it as a refuge, with a cowardice which +vaunted itself as courage. + +V. And it was an age of cruelty. The shows of gladiators, the sanguinary +combats of wild beasts, the not unfrequent spectacle of savage tortures +and capital punishments, the occasional sight of innocent martyrs +burning to death in their shirts of pitchy fire, must have hardened and +imbruted the public sensibility. The immense prevalence of slavery +tended still more inevitably to the general corruption. "Lust," as +usual, was "hard by hate." One hears with perfect amazement of the +number of slaves in the wealthy houses. A thousand slaves was no +extravagant number, and the vast majority of them were idle, uneducated +and corrupt. Treated as little better than animals, they lost much of +the dignity of men. Their masters possessed over them the power of life +and death, and it is shocking to read of the cruelty with which they +were often treated. An accidental murmur, a cough, a sneeze, was +punished with rods. Mute, motionless, fasting, the slaves had to stand +by while their masters supped; A brutal and stupid barbarity often +turned a house into the shambles of an executioner, sounding with +scourges, chains, and yells.[20] One evening the Emperor Augustus was +supping at the house of Vedius Pollio, when one of the slaves, who was +carrying a crystal goblet, slipped down, and broke it. Transported with +rage Vedius at once ordered the slave to be seized, and plunged into the +fish-pond as food to the lampreys. The boy escaped from the hands of his +fellow-slaves, and fled to Caesar's feet to implore, not that his life +should be spared--a pardon which he neither expected nor hoped--but that +he might die by a mode of death less horrible than being devoured by +fishes. Common as it was to torment slaves, and to put them to death, +Augustus, to his honor be it spoken, was horrified by the cruelty of +Vedius, and commanded both that the slave should be set free, that every +crystal vase in the house of Vedius should be broken in his presence and +that the fish pond should be filled up. Even women inflicted upon their +female slaves punishments of the most cruel atrocity for faults of the +most venial character. A brooch wrongly placed, a tress of hair +ill-arranged, and the enraged matron orders her slave to be lashed and +crucified. If her milder husband interferes, she not only justifies the +cruelty, but asks in amazement: "What! is a slave so much of a human +being?" No wonder that there was a proverb, "As many slaves, so many +foes." No wonder that many masters lived in perpetual fear, and that +"the tyrant's devilish plea, necessity," might be urged in favor of that +odious law which enacted that, if a master was murdered by an unknown +hand, the whole body of his slaves should suffer death,--a law which +more than once was carried into effect under the reigns of the Emperors. +Slavery, as we see in the case of Sparta and many other nations, always +involves its own retribution. The class of free peasant proprietors +gradually disappears. Long before this time Tib. Gracchus, in coming +home from Sardinia, had observed that there was scarcely a single +freeman to be seen in the fields. The slaves were infinitely more +numerous than their owners. Hence arose the constant dread of servile +insurrections; the constant hatred of a slave population to which any +conspirator revolutionist might successfully appeal; and the constant +insecurity of life, which must have struck terror into many hearts. + +[Footnote 20: Juv. _Sat_. i. 219--222.] + +Such is but a faint and broad outline of some of the features of +Seneca's age; and we shall be unjust if we do not admit that much at +least of the life he lived, and nearly all the sentiments he uttered, +gain much in grandeur and purity from the contrast they offer to the +common life of-- + + "That people victor once, now vile and base, + Deservedly made vassal, who, once just, + Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well, + But govern ill the nations under yoke, + Peeling their provinces, exhausted all + By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown + Of triumph, that insulting vanity; + Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured + Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed, + Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still, + And from the daily scene effeminate. + What wise and valient men would seek to free + These thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved; + Or could of inward slaves make outward free?" + MILTON, _Paradise Regained_, iv. 132-145. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS. + +The personal notices of Seneca's life up to the period of his manhood +are slight and fragmentary. From an incidental expression we conjecture +that he visited his aunt in Egypt when her husband was Prefect of that +country, and that he shared with her the dangers of shipwreck when her +husband had died on board ship during the homeward voyage. Possibly the +visit may have excited in his mind that deep interest and curiosity +about the phenomena of the Nile which appear so strongly in several +passages of his _Natural Questions_; and, indeed nothing is more likely +than that he suggested to Nero the earliest recorded expedition to +discover the source of the mysterious river. No other allusion to his +travels occur in his writings, but we may infer that from very early +days he had felt an interest for physical inquiry, since while still a +youth he had written a book on earthquakes; which has not come down +to us. + +Deterred by his father from the pursuit of philosophy, he entered on the +duties of a profession. He became an advocate, and distinguished himself +by his genius and eloquence in pleading causes. Entering on a political +career, he became a successful candidate for the quaestorship, which +was an important step towards the highest offices of the state. During +this period of his life he married a lady whose name has not been +preserved to us, and to whom we have only one allusion, which is a +curious one. As in our own history it has been sometimes the fashion for +ladies of rank to have dwarves and negroes among their attendants, so it +seems to have been the senseless and revolting custom of the Roman +ladies of this time to keep idiots among the number of their servants. +The first wife of Seneca had followed this fashion, and Seneca in his +fiftieth letter to his friend Lucilius[21] makes the following +interesting allusion to the fact. "You know," he says, "that my wife's +idiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For +personally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind. +If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for +one. I laugh at myself. This idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now, +incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious +of her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere, +because the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we +laugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is +avaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide; _we_ wander about +without a guide." + +[Footnote 21: It will be observed that the main biographical facts about +the life of Seneca are to be gleaned from his letters to Lucilius, who +was his constant friend from youth to old age, and to whom he has +dedicated his Natural Questions. Lucilius was a procurator of Sicily, a +man of cultivated taste and high principle. He was the author of a poem +on Aetna, which in the opinion of many competent judges is the poem +which has come down to us, and has been attributed to Varus, Virgil, and +others. It has been admirably edited by Mr. Munro. (See _Nat. Quaest._, +iv. _ad init. Ep_. lxxix.) He also wrote a poem on the fountain +Arethusa. _(Nat. Quaest_. iii, 26.)] + +This passage will furnish us with an excellent example of Seneca's +invariable method of improving every occasion and circumstance into an +opportunity for a philosophic harangue. + +By this wife, who died shortly before Seneca's banishment to Corsica, he +had two sons, one of whom expired in the arms and amid the kisses of +Helvia less than a month before Seneca's departure for Corsica. To the +other, whose name was Marcus, he makes the following pleasant allusion. +After urging his mother Helvia to find consolation in the devotion of +his brothers Gallio and Mela, he adds, "From these turn your eyes also +on your grandsons--to Marcus, that most charming little boy, in sight of +whom no melancholy can last long. No misfortune in the breast of any one +can have been so great or so recent as not to be soothed by his +caresses. Whose tears would not his mirth repress? whose mind would not +his prattling loose from the pressure of anxiety? whom will not that +joyous manner of his incline to jesting? whose attention, even though he +be fixed in thought, will not be attracted and absorbed by that +childlike garrulity of which no one can grow tired? God grant that he +may survive me: may all the cruelty of destiny be weared out on me!" + +Whether the prayer of Seneca was granted we do not know; but, as we do +not again hear of Marcus, it is probable that he died before his father, +and that the line of Seneca, like that of so many great men, became +extinct in the second generation. + +It was probably during this period that Seneca laid the foundations of +that enormous fortune which excited the hatred and ridicule of his +opponents. There is every reason to believe that this fortune was +honourably gained. As both his father and mother were wealthy, he had +doubtless inherited an ample competency; this was increased by the +lucrative profession of a successful advocate, and was finally swollen +by the princely donations of his pupil Nero. It is not improbable that +Seneca, like Cicero, and like all the wealthy men of their day, +increased his property by lending money upon interest. No disgrace +attached to such a course; and as there is no proof for the charges of +Dio Cassius on this head, we may pass them over with silent contempt. +Dio gravely informs us that Seneca excited an insurrection in Britain, +by suddenly calling in the enormous sum of 40,000,000 sesterces; but +this is in all probability the calumny of a professed enemy. We shall +refer again to Seneca's wealth; but we may here admit that it was +undoubtedly ungraceful and incongruous in a philosopher who was +perpetually dwelling on the praises of poverty, and that even in his own +age it attracted unfavourable notice, as we may see from the epithet +_Proedives_, "the over-wealthy," which is applied to him alike by a +satiric poet and by a grave historian. Seneca was perfectly well aware +that this objection could be urged against him, and it must be admitted +that the grounds on which he defends himself in his treatise _On a Happy +Life_ are not very conclusive or satisfactory. + +The boyhood of Seneca fell in the last years of the Emperor Augustus, +when, in spite of the general decorum and amiability of their ruler, +people began to see clearly that nothing was left of liberty except the +name. His youth and early manhood were spent during those +three-and-twenty years of the reign of Tiberius, that reign of terror, +during which the Roman world was reduced to a frightful silence and +torpor as of death;[22] and, although he was not thrown into personal +collision with that "brutal monster," he not unfrequently alludes to +him, and to the dangerous power and headlong ruin of his wicked minister +Sejanus. Up to this time he had not experienced in his own person those +crimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who are brought into +close contact with tyrants. This first happened to him in the reign of +Caius Caesar, of whom we are enabled, from the writings of Seneca alone, +to draw a full-length portrait. + +[Footnote 22: Milton, _Paradise Regained_, iv. 128. For a picture of +Tiberius as he appeared in his old age at Capreae, "hated of all and +hating," see Id. 90-97.] + +Caius Caesar was the son of Germanicus and the elder Agrippina. +Germanicus was the bravest and most successful general, and one of the +wisest and most virtuous men, of his day. His wife Agrippina, in her +fidelity, her chastity, her charity, her nobility of mind, was the very +model of a Roman matron of the highest and purest stamp. Strange that +the son of such parents should have been one of the vilest, cruelest, +and foulest of the human race. So, however, it was; and it is a +remarkable fact that scarcely one of the six children of this marriage +displayed the virtues of their father and mother, while two of them, +Caius Caesar and the younger Agrippina, lived to earn an exceptional +infamy by their baseness and their crimes. Possibly this unhappy result +may have been partly due to the sad circumstances of their early +education. Their father, Germanicus, who by his virtue and his successes +had excited the suspicious jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, was by his +distinct connivance, if not by his actual suggestion, atrociously +poisoned in Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless cruel +insults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the island of +Pandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and Drusus Germanicus, were +proclaimed public enemies: Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and +there put to death; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison +of the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known by the name +Caligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his wicked retirement at Capreae, +and there only saved his life by the most abject flattery and the most +adroit submission. + +Capreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming one +extremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea bright and +limpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated by its position, it is +yet within easy reach of Rome. At that time, before Vesuvius had +rekindled those wasteful fires which first shook down, and then deluged +under lava and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, +the scene which it commanded was even more pre-eminently beautiful than +now. Vineyards and olive-groves clothed the sides of that matchless bay, +down to the very line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with +their ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, with its +sides dotted with picturesque villas and happy villages, towered the +giant cone of the volcano which for centuries had appeared to be +extinct, and which was clothed up to the very crater with luxurious +vegetation. Such was the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for +ever by the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself to every +refinement of wickedness, and from hence, being by common consent the +most miserable of men, he wrote to the Senate that memorable letter in +which he confesses his daily and unutterable misery under the stings of +a guilty conscience, which neither solitude nor power enabled him +to escape. + +Never did a fairer scene undergo a worse degradation; and here, in one +or other of the twelve villas which Tiberius had built, and among the +azure grottoes which he caused to be constructed, the youthful Caius[23] +grew up to manhood. It would have been a terrible school even for a +noble nature; for a nature corrupt and bloodthirsty like that of Caius +it was complete and total ruin. But, though he was so obsequious to the +Emperor as to originate the jest that never had there been a worse +master and never a more cringing slave,--though he suppressed every sign +of indignation at the horrid deaths of his mother and his +brothers,--though he assiduously reflected the looks, and carefully +echoed the very words, of his patron,--yet not even by the deep +dissimulation which such a position required did he succeed in +concealing from the penetrating eye of Tiberius the true ferocity of his +character. Not being the acknowledged heir to the kingdom,--for Tiberius +Gemellus, the youthful grandson of Tiberius, was living, and Caius was +by birth only his grand-nephew,--he became a tool for the machinations +of Marco the praetorian praefect and his wife Ennia. One of his chief +friends was the cruel Herod Agrippa,[24] who put to death St. James and +imprisoned St. Peter, and whose tragical fate is recorded in the 12th +chap. of the Acts. On one occasion, when Caius had been abusing the +dictator Sulla, Tiberius scornfully remarked that he would have all +Sulla's vices and none of his virtues; and on another, after a quarrel +between Caius and his cousin, the Emperor embraced with tears his young +grandson, and said to the frowning Caius, with one of those strange +flashes of prevision of which we sometimes read in history. "Why are you +so eager? Some day you will kill this boy, and some one else will murder +you." There were some who believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished +the intention of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman +world might relent towards his own memory under the tyranny of a worse +monster than himself. Even the Romans, who looked up to the family of +Germanicus with extraordinary affection, seem early to have lost all +hopes about Caius. They looked for little improvement under the +government of a vicious boy, "ignorant of all things, or nurtured only +in the worst," who would be likely to reflect the influence of Macro, +and present the spectacle of a worse Tiberius under a worse Sejanus. + +[Footnote 23: We shall call him Caius, because it is as little correct +to write of him by the _sobriquet_ Caligula as it would be habitually to +write of our kings Edward or John as Longshanks or Lackland. The name +Caligula means "a little shoe," and was the pet name given to him by the +soldiers of his father, in whose camp he was born.] + +[Footnote 24: Josephus adds some curious and interesting particulars to +the story of this Herod and his death which are not mentioned in the +narrative of St. Luke (_Antiq_. xix. 7, 8. Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, +sec. cxxvi.)] + +At last health and strength failed Tiberius, but not his habitual +dissimulation. He retained the same unbending soul, and by his fixed +countenance and measured language, sometimes by an artificial +affability, he tried to conceal his approaching end. After many restless +changes, he finally settled down in a villa at Misenum which had once +belonged to the luxurious Lucullus. There the real state of his health +was discovered. Charicles, a distinguished physician, who had been +paying him a friendly visit on kissing his hand to bid farewell, managed +to ascertain the state of his pulse. Suspecting that this was the case +Tiberius, concealing his displeasure, ordered a banquet to be spread, +as though in honour of his friend's departure, and stayed longer than +usual at table. A similar story is told of Louis XIV. who, noticing from +the whispers of his courtiers that they believed him to be dying, ate an +unusually large dinner on the very day of his death, and sarcastically +observed, "Il me semble que pour un homme qui va mourir je ne mange pas +mal." But, in spite of the precautions of Tiberius, Charicles informed +Macro that the Emperor could not last beyond two days. + +A scene of secret intrigue at once began. The court broke up into knots +and cliques. Hasty messengers were sent to the provinces and their +armies, until at last, on the 16th of March, it was believed that +Tiberius had breathed his last. Just as on the death of Louis XV. a +sudden noise was heard as of thunder, the sound of courtiers rushing +along the corridors to congratulate Louis XVI. in the famous words, "Le +roi est mort, vive le roi," so a crowd instantly thronged round Caius +with their congratulations, as he went out of the palace to assume his +imperial authority. Suddenly a message reached him that Tiberius had +recovered voice and sight. Seneca says, that feeling his last hour to be +near, he had taken off his ring, and, holding it in his shut left hand, +had long lain motionless; then calling his servants, since no one +answered his call, he rose from his couch, and, his strength failing +him, after a few tottering steps fell prostrate on the ground. + +The news produced the same consternation as that which was produced +among the conspirators at Adonijah's banquet, when they heard of the +measures taken by the dying David. There was a panic-stricken +dispersion, and every one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what +was going on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of +empire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind. With the utmost +intrepidity, he gave orders that the old man should be suffocated by +heaping over him a mass of clothes, and that every one should then leave +the chamber. Such was the miserable and unpitied end of the Emperor +Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Such was the death, and +so miserable had been the life, of the man to whom the Tempter had +already given "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," when he +tried to tempt with them the Son of God. That this man should have been +the chief Emperor of the earth at a time when its true King was living +as a peasant in his village home at Nazareth, is a fact suggestive of +many and of solemn thoughts. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE REIGN OF CAIUS. + +The poet Gray, in describing the deserted deathbed of our own great +Edward III., says:-- + + "Low on his funeral couch he lies! + No pitying heart, no eye afford + A tear to grace his obsequies! + + * * * * * + + "The swarm that in the noontide beam were born? + Gone to salute the rising Morn. + Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows, + While proudly riding o'er the azure realm, + In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; + Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm; + Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway, + That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey." + +The last lines of this passage would alone have been applicable to Caius +Caesar. There was nothing fair or gay even about the beginning of his +reign. From first to last it was a reign of fury and madness, and lust +and blood. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in this family, +which was developed by their being placed on the dizzy pinnacle of +imperial despotism, and which usually took the form of monstrous and +abnormal crime. If we would seek a parallel for Caius Caesar, we must +look for it in the history of Christian VII. of Denmark, and Paul of +Russia. In all three we find the same ghastly pallor, the same +sleeplessness which compelled them to rise, and pace their rooms at +night, the same incessant suspicion; the same inordinate thirst for +cruelty and torture. He took a very early opportunity to disembarrass +himself of his benefactors, Macro and Ennia, and of his rival, the young +Tiberius. The rest of his reign was a series of brutal extravagances. We +have lost the portion of those matchless Annals of Tacitus which +contained the reign of Caius, but more than enough to revolt and horrify +is preserved in the scattered notices of Seneca, and in the narratives +of Suetonius in Latin and Dio Cassius in Greek. + +His madness showed itself sometimes in gluttonous extravagance, as when +he ordered a supper which cost more than 8,000_l_; sometimes in a +_bizarre_ and disgraceful mode of dress, as when he appeared in public +in women's stockings, embroidered with gold and pearls; sometimes in a +personality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank and class in +Rome, which made him ask a senator to supper, and ply him with drunken +toasts, on the very evening on which he had condemned his son to death; +sometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed his furious +indignation against Jupiter for presuming to thunder while he was +supping, or looking at the pantomimes; but most of all in a ferocity +which makes Seneca apply to him the name of "Bellua," or "wild monster," +and say that he seems to have been produced "for the disgrace and +destruction of the human race." + +We will quote from the pages of Seneca but one single passage to justify +his remark "that he was most greedy for human blood, which he ordered +to stream in his very presence with such eagerness as though he were +going to drink it up with his lips." He says that in one day he scourged +and tortured men of consular and quaestorial parentage, knights and +senators, not by way of examination, but out of pure caprice and rage; +he seriously meditated the butchery of the entire senate; he expressed a +wish that the Roman people had but a single neck, that he might strike +it off at one blow; he silenced the screams or reproaches of his victims +sometimes by thrusting a sponge in their mouths, sometimes by having +their mouths gagged with their own torn robes, sometimes by ordering +their tongues to be cut out before they were thrown to the wild beasts. +On one occasion, rising from a banquet, he called for his slippers, +which were kept by the slaves while the guests reclined on the purple +couches, and so impatient was he for the sight of death, that, walking +up and down his covered portico by lamplight with ladies and senators, +he then and there ordered some of his wretched victims to be beheaded in +his sight. + +It is a singular proof of the unutterable dread and detestation inspired +by some of these Caesars, that their mere countenance is said to have +inspired anguish. Tacitus, in the life of his father-in-law Agricola, +mentions the shuddering recollection of the red face of Domitian, as it +looked on at the games. Seneca speaks in one place of wretches doomed to +undergo stones, sword, fire, and _Caius_; in another he says that he had +tortured the noblest Romans with everything which could possibly cause +the intensest agony,--with cords, plates, rack, fire, and, as though it +were the worst torture of all, with his look! What that look was, we +learn from Seneca himself, "His face was ghastly pale, with a look of +insanity; his fierce, dull eyes were half-hidden under a wrinkled brow; +his ill-shaped head was partly bald, partly covered with dyed-hair; his +neck covered with bristles, his legs thin, and his feet mis-shapen." Woe +to the nation that lies under the heel of a brutal despotism; treble woe +to the nation that can tolerate a despot so brutal as this! Yet this was +the nation in the midst of which Seneca lived, and this was the despot +under whom his early manhood was spent. + + "But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, + And by their vices brought to servitude, + Than to love bondage more than liberty, + Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?" + +It was one of the peculiarities of Caius Caesar that he hated the very +existence of any excellence. He used to bully and insult the gods +themselves, frowning even at the statues of Apollo and Jupiter of the +Capitol. He thought of abolishing Homer, and order the works of Livy and +Virgil to be removed from all libraries, because he could not bear that +they should be praised. He ordered Julius Graecinus to be put to death +for no other reason than this, "That he was a better man than it was +expedient for a tyrant that any one should be;" for, as Pliny tells us, +the Caesars deliberately preferred that their people should be vicious +than that they should be virtuous. It was hardly likely that such a man +should view with equanimity the rising splendour of Seneca's reputation. +Hitherto, the young man, who was thirty-five years old at the accession +of Caius, had not written any of his philosophic works, but in all +probability he had published his early, and no longer extant, treatises +on earthquakes, on superstitions, and the books _On India_, and _On the +Manners of Egypt_, which had been the fruit of his early travels. It is +probable, too, that he had recited in public some of those tragedies +which have come down to us under his name, and in the composition of +which he was certainly concerned. All these works, and especially the +applause won by the public reading of his poems, would have given him +that high literary reputation which we know him to have earned. It was +not, however, this reputation, but the brilliancy and eloquence of his +orations at the bar which excited the jealous hatred of the Emperor. +Caius piqued himself on the possession of eloquence; and, strange to +say, there are isolated expressions of his which seem to show that, in +lucid intervals, he was by no means devoid of intellectual acuteness. +For instance, there is real humour and insight in the nicknames of "a +golden sheep" which he gave to the rich and placid Silanus, and of +"Ulysses in petticoats," by which he designated his grandmother, the +august Livia. The two epigrammetic criticisms which he passed upon the +style of Seneca are not wholly devoid of truth; he called his works +_Commissiones meras_, or mere displays.[25] In this expression he hit +off, happily enough, the somewhat theatrical, the slightly pedantic and +pedagogic and professorial character of Seneca's diction, its rhetorical +ornament and antitheses, and its deficiency in stern masculine +simplicity and strength. In another remark he showed himself a still +more felicitous critic. He called Seneca's writings _Arenu sine Calce_, +"sand without lime," or, as we might say, "a rope of sand." This epigram +showed a real critical faculty. It exactly hits off Seneca's short and +disjointed sentences, consisting as they often do of detached +antitheses. It accords with the amusing comparison of Malebranche, that +Seneca's composition, with its perpetual and futile recurrences, calls +up to him the image of a dancer who ends where he begins. + +[Footnote 25: Suet. _Calig._ liii.] + +But Caius did not confine himself to clever and malignant criticism. On +one occasion, when Seneca was pleading in his presence, he was so +jealous and displeased at the brilliancy and power of the orator that he +marked him out for immediate execution. Had Seneca died at this period +he would probably have been little known, and he might have left few +traces of his existence beyond a few tragedies of uncertain +authenticity, and possibly a passing notice in the page of Dio or +Tacitus. But destiny reserved him for a more splendid and more +questionable career. One of Caius's favourites whispered to the Emperor +that it was useless to extinguish a waning lamp; that the health of the +orator was so feeble that a natural death by the progress of his +consumptive tendencies would, in a very short time, remove him out of +the tyrant's way. + +Throughout the remainder of the few years during which the reign of +Caius continued, Seneca, warned in time, withdrew himself into complete +obscurity, employing his enforced leisure in that unbroken industry +which stored his mind with such encyclopaedic wealth. "None of my days," +he says, in describing at a later period the way in which he spent his +time, "is passed in complete ease. I claim even a part of the night for +my studies. I do not _find leisure_ for sleep, but I _succumb_ to it, +and I keep my eyes at their work even when they are wearied and drooping +with watchfulness. I have retired, not only from men, but from affairs, +and especially from my own. I am doing the work for posterity; I am +writing out things which may prove of advantage to them. I am +intrusting to writing healthful admonitions--compositions, as it were, +of useful medicines." + +But the days of Caius drew rapidly to an end. His gross and unheard-of +insults to Valerius Asiaticus and Cassius Chaereas brought on him +condign vengeance. It is an additional proof, if proof were wanting, of +the degradation of Imperial Rome, that the deed of retribution was due, +not to the people whom he taxed; not to the soldiers, whole regiments of +whom he had threatened to decimate; not to the knights, of whom scores +had been put to death by his orders; not to the nobles, multitudes of +whom had been treated by him with conspicuous infamy; not even to the +Senate, which illustrious body he had on all occasions deliberately +treated with contumely and hatred,--but to the private revenge of an +insulted soldier. The weak thin voice of Cassius Chaereas, tribune of +the praetorian cohort, had marked him out for the coarse and calumnious +banter of the imperial buffoon; and he determined to avenge himself, and +at the same time rid the world of a monster. He engaged several +accomplices in the conspiracy, which was nearly frustrated by their want +of resolution. For four whole days they hesitated, while day after day, +Caius presided in person at the bloody games of the amphitheatre. On the +fifth day (Jan. 24, A.D. 41), feeling unwell after one of his gluttonous +suppers, he was indisposed to return to the shows, but at last rose to +do so at the solicitation of his attendants. A vaulted corridor led from +the palace to the circus, and in that corridor Caius met a body of noble +Asiatic boys, who were to dance a Pyrrhic dance and sing a laudatory ode +upon the stage. Caius wished them at once to practice a rehearsal in his +presence, but their leader excused himself on the grounds of +hoarseness. At this moment Chaereas asked him for the watchword of the +night. He gave the watchword, "Jupiter." "Receive him in his wrath!" +exclaimed Chaereas, striking him on the throat, while almost at the same +moment the blow of Sabinus cleft the tyrant's jaw, and brought him to +his knee. He crouched his limbs together to screen himself from further +blows, screaming aloud, "I live! I live!" The bearers of his litter +rushed to his assistance, and fought with their poles, but Caius fell +pierced with thirty wounds; and, leaving the body weltering in its +blood, the conspirators rushed out of the palace, and took measures to +concert with the Senate a restoration of the old Republic. On the very +night after the murder the consuls gave to Chaereas the long-forgotten +watchword of "Liberty." But this little gleam of hope proved delusive to +the last degree. It was believed that the unquiet ghost of the murdered +madman haunted the palace, and long before it had been laid to rest by +the forms of decent sepulchre, a new emperor of the great Julian family +was securely seated upon the throne. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA. + +While the senators were deliberating, the soldiers were acting. They +felt a true, though degraded, instinct that to restore the ancient forms +of democratic freedom would be alike impossible and useless, and with +them the only question lay between the rival claimants for the vacant +power. Strange to say that, among these claimants, no one seems ever to +have thought of mentioning the prince who became the actual successor. + +There was living in the palace at this time a brother of the great +Germanicus, and consequently an uncle of the late emperor, whose name +was Claudius Caesar. Weakened both in mind and body by the continuous +maladies of an orphaned infancy, kept under the cruel tyranny of a +barbarous slave, the unhappy youth had lived in despised obscurity among +the members of a family who were utterly ashamed of him. His mother +Antonia called him a monstrosity, which Nature had begun but never +finished; and it became a proverbial expression with her, as is said to +have been the case with the mother of the great Wellington, to say of a +dull person, "that he was a greater fool than her son Claudius." His +grandmother Livia rarely deigned to address him except in the briefest +and bitterest terms. His sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of +his ever becoming emperor. Augustus, his grandfather by adoption, took +pains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a +wool-gathering[26] and discreditable member of the family, denied him +all public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when +looking out for a successor, deliberately passed him over as a man of +deficient intellect. Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and +blows, and for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the unhappy +Claudius came late for dinner, he would find every place occupied, and +peer about disconsolately amid insulting smiles. If, as was his usual +custom, he dropped asleep, after a meal, he was pelted with olives and +date-stones, or rough stockings were drawn over his hands that he might +be seen rubbing his face with them when he was suddenly awaked. + +[Footnote 26: He calls him [Greek meteoros] which implies awkwardness +and constant absence of mind.] + +This was the unhappy being who was now summoned to support the falling +weight of empire. While rummaging the palace for plunder, a common +soldier had spied a pair of feet protruding from under the curtains +which shaded the sides of an upper corridor. Seizing these feet, and +inquiring who owned them, he dragged out an uncouth, panic-stricken +mortal, who immediately prostrated himself at his knees and begged hard +for mercy. It was Claudius, who scared out of his wits by the tragedy +which he had just beheld, had thus tried to conceal himself until the +storm was passed. "Why, this is Germanicus!" [27] exclaimed the soldier, +"let's make him emperor." Half joking and half in earnest, they hoisted +him on their shoulders--for terror had deprived him of the use of his +legs--and hurried him off to the camp of the Praetorians. Miserable and +anxious he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd of +passers-by, who believed that he was being hurried off to execution. But +the soldiers, who well knew their own interests, accepted him with +acclamations, the more so as, by a fatal precedent, he promised them a +largess of more than 80_l_. apiece. The supple Agrippa (the Herod of +Acts xii.), seeing how the wind lay, offered to plead his cause with the +Senate, and succeeded partly by arguments, partly by intimidation, and +partly by holding out the not unreasonable hopes of a great improvement +on the previous reign. + +[Footnote 27: The full name of Claudius was Tiberius Claudius Drusus +Caesar Germanicus.] + +For although Claudius had been accused of gambling and drunkenness, not +only were no _worse_ sins laid to his charge, but he had successfully +established some claim to being considered a learned man. Had fortune +blessed him till death with a private station, he might have been the +Lucien Bonaparte of his family--a studious prince, who preferred the +charms of literature to the turmoil of ambition. The anecdotes which +have been recorded of him show that he was something of an +archaeologist, and something of a philologian. The great historian Livy, +pitying the neglect with which the poor young man was treated, had +encouraged him in the study of history; and he had written memoirs of +his own time, memoirs of Augustus, and even a history of the civil wars +since the battle of Actium, which was so correct and so candid that his +family indignantly suppressed it as a fresh proof of his stupidity. + +Such was the man who, at the age of fifty, became master of the +civilized world. He offers some singular points of resemblance to our +own "most mighty and dread sovereign," King James I. Both were learned, +and both were eminently unwise;[28] both of them were authors, and both +of them were pedants; both of them delegated their highest powers to +worthless favourites, and both of them enriched these favourites with +such foolish liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them +had been terrified into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary +presence at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good +dispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of cruelty; and both +of them, though laborious in the discharge of duty, succeeded only in +rendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir Walter Raleigh in +prison, and Claudius drove Seneca into exile. The parallel, so far as I +am aware, has never been noticed, but is susceptible of being drawn out +into the minutest particulars. + +[Footnote 28: "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," says our own poet. +Heraclitus had said the same thing more than two thousand years before +him, [Greek: polumaoiae ou didasho].] + +One of his first acts was to recall his nieces, Julia and Agrippina, +from the exile into which their brother had driven them; and both these +princesses were destined to effect a powerful influence on the life of +our philosopher. + +What part Seneca had taken during the few troubled days after the murder +of Caius we do not know. Had he taken a leading part--had he been one of +those who, like Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being +merely the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic,--or who, like +Sabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Caesar,--we should +perhaps have heard of it; and we must therefore assume either that he +was still absent from Rome in the retirement into which he had been +driven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with +quietly watching the course of events. It will be observed that his +biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted +in most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on +isolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest +shade long and important periods of his history. Nor are his letters and +other writings full of those political and personal allusions which +convert them into an autobiography. They are, without exception, +occupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they only +refer to such personal reminiscences as may best be converted into the +text for some Stoical paradox or moral declamation. It is, however, +certain from the sequel that Seneca must have seized the opportunity of +Caius's death to emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a +conspicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court. + +It would have been well for his own happiness and fame if he had adopted +the wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doctrines he professed. +A court at most periods is, as the poet says, + + "A golden but a fatal circle, + Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils + In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence, + And beckon early Virtue from its centre;" + +but the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was indeed a +place wherein few of the wise could find a footing, and still fewer of +the good. And all that Seneca gained from his career of ambition was to +be suspected by the first of these Emperors, banished by the second, and +murdered by the third. + +The first few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and kindly disposition; +but it soon became fatally obvious that the real powers of the +government would be wielded, not by the timid and absent-minded +Emperor, but by any one who for the time being could acquire an +ascendency over his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the +friends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen from the ranks +of his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and Don Miguel, the barbers of these +monarchs were the real governors, so Claudius was but the minister +rather than the master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius +his literary adviser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third person, with +whose name Scripture has made us familiar, was a freedman of Claudius. +This was Felix, the brother of Pallas, and that Procurator who, though +he had been the husband or the paramour of three queens, trembled before +the simple eloquence of a feeble and imprisoned Jew.[29] These men +became proverbial for their insolence and wealth; and once, when +Claudius was complaining of his own poverty, some one wittily replied, +"that he would have abundance if two of his freedmen would but admit him +into partnership with them." + +[Footnote 29: Acts xix.] + +But these men gained additional power from the countenance and intrigues +of the young and beautiful wife of Claudius, Valeria Messalina. In his +marriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune. +He lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was +that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men; and it was +the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been +united by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the +Berenice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the +sacred historians were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of +them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. He was +betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined +for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended +Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By +his first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he +had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidentally choked in +boyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the +air. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the +unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the +child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, Aelia +Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he +divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal +infamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the +younger for her unscrupulous ambition. + +Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old, +yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of +the most unblushing wickedness. + +But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own +jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and +Agrippina, the two nieces of the Emperor. They were, no less than +herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to +make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the +supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their +wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal +fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when +the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy. It is unlikely that, even +in the first flush of her husband's strange and unexpected triumph, +Messalina should have contemplated with any satisfaction their return +from exile. In this respect it is probable that the Emperor succeeded in +resisting her expressed wishes; so that the mere appearance of the two +daughters of Germanicus in her presence was a standing witness of the +limitations to which her influence was subjected. + +At this period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the history of the +Romans degenerates into mere anecdotes of their rulers. Happily, +however, it is not our duty to enter on the _chronique scandaleuse_ of +plots and counterplots, as little tolerable to contemplate as the +factions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We +can only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a +court? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of +his philosophical professions; and that we can contemplate his presence +there with as little satisfaction as we look on the figure of the +worldly and frivolous bishop in Mr. Frith's picture of "The Last Sunday +of Charles II. at Whitehall." + +And such inconsistencies involve their own retribution, not only in loss +of influence and fair fame, but even in direct consequences. It was so +with Seneca. Circumstances--possibly a genuine detestation of +Messalina's exceptional infamy--seem to have thrown him among the +partisans of her rivals. Messalina was only waiting her opportunity to +strike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the younger and the less +powerful of the two sisters, was marked out as the first victim, and the +opportunity seemed a favourable one for involving Seneca in her ruin. +His enormous wealth, his high reputation, his splendid abilities, made +him a formidable opponent to the Empress, and a valuable ally to her +rivals. It was determined to get rid of both by a single scheme. Julia +was accused of an intrigue with Seneca, and was first driven into exile +and then put to death. Seneca was banished to the barren and +pestilential shores of the island of Corsica. + +Seneca, as one of the most enlightened men of his age, should have aimed +at a character which would have been above the possibility of suspicion: +but we must remember that charges such as those which were brought +against him were the easiest of all to make, and the most impossible to +refute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we are not forced +to believe his guilt; his character was indeed deplorably weak, and the +laxity of the age in such matters was fearfully demoralising; but there +are sufficient circumstances in his favour to justify us in returning a +verdict of "Not guilty." Unless we attach an unfair importance to the +bitter calumny of his open enemies, we may consider that the general +tenor of his life has sufficient weight to exculpate him from an +unsupported accusation. + +Of Julia, Suetonius expressly says that the crime of which she was +accused was uncertain, and that she was condemned unheard. Seneca, on +the other hand, was tried in the Senate and found guilty. He tells us +that it was not Claudius who flung him down, but rather that, when he +was falling headlong, the Emperor supported him with the moderation of +his divine hand; "he entreated the Senate on my behalf; he not only +_gave_ me life, but even _begged_ it for me. Let it be his to consider," +adds Seneca, with the most dulcet flattery, "in what light he may wish +my cause to be regarded; either his justice will find, or his mercy will +make, it a good cause. He will alike be worthy of my gratitude, whether +his ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to his knowledge or to +his will." + +This passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood. The avarice of +Messalina was so insatiable that the non-confiscation of Seneca's +immense wealth is a proof that, for some reason, her fear or hatred of +him was not implacable. Although it is a remarkable fact that she is +barely mentioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, yet +there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation +before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at +all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability; +that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him +guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation +of his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for +literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some +powerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I. +remitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on +Francis Bacon. + +Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate +furnish the slightest valid proofs against him. The Senate at this time +were so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word +of accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make +them fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot +with their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his administration of +justice, patient and laborious as it was, had already grown into a +public joke. On one occasion he wrote down and delivered the wise +decision, "that he agreed with the side which had set forth the truth." +On another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came before him grew so +impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, "You are an old fool." +We are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a +good deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one +occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial +smile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. "At you," +said the man, "you look such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck +with the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A +Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing +Claudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidence +against him, indignantly abused him for his cruel stupidity, and flung +his pen and tablets in his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In +fact, the Emperor's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless +anecdotes. Among other things, when some condemned criminals were to +fight as gladiators, and addressed him before the games in the sublime +formula--"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!" ("Hail, Caesar! doomed +to die, we salute thee!") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer, +"Avete vos!" ("Hail ye also!") which they took as a sign of pardon, and +were unwilling to fight until they were actually forced to do so by the +gestures of the Emperor. + +The decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very +little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence +was that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SENECA IN EXILE. + +So, in A.D. 41, in the prime of life and the full vigour of his +faculties, with a name stained by a charge of which he may have been +innocent, but of which he was condemned as guilty, Seneca bade farewell +to his noble-minded mother, to his loving aunt, to his brothers, the +beloved Gallio and the literary Mela, to his nephew, the ardent and +promising young Lucan, and, above all--which cost him the severest +pang--to Marcus, his sweet and prattling boy. It was a calamity which +might have shaken the fortitude of the very noblest soul, and it had by +no means come upon him single handed. Already he had lost his wife, he +had suffered from acute and chronic ill-health, he had been bereaved but +three weeks previously of another little son. He had been cut short by +the jealousy of one emperor from a career of splendid success; he was +now banished by the imbecile subservience of another from all that he +held most dear. + +We are hardly able to conceive the intensity of anguish with which an +ancient Roman generally regarded the thought of banishment. In the long +melancholy wail of Ovid's "Tristia;" in the bitter and heart-rending +complaints of Cicero's "Epistles," we may see something of that intense +absorption in the life of Rome which to most of her eminent citizens +made a permanent separation from the city and its interests a thought +almost as terrible as death itself. Even the stoical and heroic Thrasea +openly confessed that he should prefer death to exile. To a heart so +affectionate, to a disposition so social, to a mind so active and +ambitious as that of Seneca, it must have been doubly bitter to exchange +the happiness of his family circle, the splendour of an imperial court, +the luxuries of enormous wealth, the refined society of statesmen, and +the ennobling intercourse of philosophers for the savage wastes of a +rocky island and the society of boorish illiterate islanders, or at the +best, of a few other political exiles, all of whom would be as miserable +as himself, and some of whom would probably have deserved their fate. + +The Mediteranean rocks selected for political exiles--Gyaros, Seriphos, +Scyathos, Patmos, Pontia, Pandataria--were generally rocky, barren, +fever-stricken places, chosen by design as the most wretched conceivable +spots in which human life could be maintained at all. Yet these islands +were crowded with exiles, and in them were to be found not a few +princesses of Caesarian origin. We must not draw a parallel to their +position from that of an Eleanor, the wife of Duke Humphrey, immured in +Peel Castle in the Isle of Man, or of a Mary Stuart in the Isle of Loch +Levin--for it was something incomparably worse. No care was taken even +to provide for their actual wants. Their very lives were not secure. +Agrippa Posthumus and Nero, the brothers of the Emperor Caligula, had +been so reduced by starvation that both of the wretched youths had been +driven to support life by eating the materials with which their beds +were stuffed. The Emperor Caius had once asked an exile, whom he had +recalled from banishment, in what manner he had been accustomed to +employ his time on the island. "I used," said the flatterer, "to pray +that Tiberius might die, and that you might succeed." It immediately +struck Caius that the exiles whom he had banished might be similarly +employed, and accordingly he sent centurions round the islands to put +them all to death. Such were the miserable circumstances which might be +in store for a political outlaw.[30] If we imagine what must have been +the feelings of a d'Espremenil, when a _lettee de cachet_ consigned him +to a prison in the Isle d'Hieres; or what a man like Burke might have +felt, if he had been compelled to retire for life to the Bermudas; we +may realize to some extent the heavy trial which now befel the life +of Seneca. + +[Footnote 30: Among the Jews the homicides who had fled to a city of +refuge were set free on the high priest's death, and, in order _to +prevent them from praying for his death_, the mother and other relatives +of the high priest used to supply them with clothes and other +necessaries. See the author's article on "Asylum" in Kitto's +_Encyclopedia_ (ed. Alexander.)] + +Corsica was the island chosen for his place of banishment, and a spot +more uninviting could hardly have been selected. It was an island +"shaggy and savage," intersected from north to south by a chain of wild, +inaccessible mountains, clothed to their summits with gloomy and +impenetrable forests of pine and fir. Its untamable inhabitants are +described by the geographer Strabo as being "wilder than the wild +beasts." It produced but little corn, and scarcely any fruit-trees. It +abounded, indeed, in swarms of wild bees, but its very honey was bitter +and unpalatable, from being infected with the acrid taste of the +box-flowers on which they fed. Neither gold nor silver were found +there; it produced nothing worth exporting, and barely sufficient for +the mere necessaries of its inhabitants; it rejoiced in no great +navigable rivers, and even the trees, in which it abounded, were neither +beautiful nor fruitful. Seneca describes it in more than one of his +epigrams, as a + + "Terrible isle, when earliest summer glows + Yet fiercer when his face the dog-star shows;" + +and again as a + + "Barbarous land, which rugged rocks surround, + Whose horrent cliffs with idle wastes are crowned, + No autumn fruit, no tilth the summer yields, + Nor olives cheer the winter-silvered fields: + Nor joyous spring her tender foliage lends, + Nor genial herb the luckless soil befriends; + Nor bread, nor sacred fire, nor freshening wave;-- + Nought here--save exile, and the exile's grave!" + +In such a place, and under such conditions, Seneca had ample need for +all his philosophy. And at first it did not fail him. Towards the close +of his first year of exile he wrote the "Consolation to his mother +Helvia," which is one of the noblest and most charming of all his works. + +He had often thought, he said, of writing to console her under this deep +and wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto he had abstained from doing +so, lest, while his own anguish and hers were fresh, he should only +renew the pain of the wound by his unskilful treatment. He waited, +therefore till time had laid its healing hand upon her sorrows, +especially because he found no precedent for one in his position +condoling with others when he himself seemed more in need of +consolation, and because something new and admirable would be required +of a man who, as it were, raised his head from the funeral pyre to +console his friends. Still he now feels impelled to write to her, +because to alleviate her regrets will be to lay aside his own. He does +not attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, because +so far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has tasted it from her +earliest years in all its varieties; and because his purpose was to +conquer her grief, not to extenuate its causes. Those many miseries +would indeed have been in vain, if they had not taught her how to bear +wretchedness. He will prove to her therefore that she has no cause to +grieve either on his account, or on her own. Not on his--because he is +happy among circumstances which others would think miserable and because +he assures her with his own lips that not only is he _not_ miserable, +but that he can never be made so. Every one can secure his own +happiness, if he learns to seek it, not in external circumstances, but +in himself. He cannot indeed claim for himself the title of wise, for, +if so, he would be the most fortunate of men, and near to God Himself; +but, which is the next best thing, he has devoted himself to the study +of wise men, and from them he has learnt to expect nothing and to be +prepared for all things. The blessings which Fortune had hitherto +bestowed on him,--wealth, honours, glory,--he had placed in such a +position that she might rob him of them all without disturbing him. +There was a great _space_ between them and himself, so that they could +be _taken_ but not _torn_ away. Undazzled by the glamour of prosperity, +he was unshaken by the blow of adversity. In circumstances which were +the envy of all men he had never seen any real or solid blessing, but +rather a painted emptiness, a gilded deception; and similarly he found +nothing really hard or terrible in ills which the common voice has so +described. + +What, for instance, was exile? it was but a change of place, an absence +from one's native land; and, if you looked at the swarming multitudes in +Rome itself, you would find that the majority of them were practically +in contented and willing exile, drawn thither by necessity, by ambition, +or by the search for the best opportunities of vice. No isle so wretched +and so bleak which did not attract some voluntary sojourners; even this +precipitous and naked rock of Corsica, the hungriest, roughest, most +savage, most unhealthy spot conceivable, had more foreigners in it than +native inhabitants. The natural restlessness and mobility of the human +mind, which arose from its aetherial origin, drove men to change from +place to place. The colonies of different nations, scattered all over +the civilized and uncivilized world even in spots the most chilly and +uninviting, show that the condition of place is no necessary ingredient +in human happiness. Even Corsica had often changed its owners; Greeks +from Marseilles had first lived there, then Ligurians and Spaniards, +then some Roman colonists, whom the aridity and thorniness of the rock +had not kept away. + +"Varro thought that nature, Brutus that the consciousness of virtue, +were sufficient consolations for any exile. How little have I lost in +comparison with those two fairest possessions which I shall everywhere +enjoy--nature and my own integrity! Whoever or whatever made the +world--whether it were a deity, or disembodied reason, or a divine +interfusing spirit, or destiny, or an immutable series of connected +causes--the result was that nothing, except our very meanest +possessions, should depend on the will of another. Man's best gifts lie +beyond the power of man either to give or to take away. This Universe, +the grandest and loveliest work of nature, and the Intellect which was +created to observe and to admire it, are our special and eternal +possessions, which shall last as long as we last ourselves. Cheerful, +therefore, and erect, let us hasten with undaunted footsteps +whithersoever our fortunes lead us. + +"There is no land where man cannot dwell,--no land where he cannot +uplift his eyes to heaven; wherever we are, the distance of the divine +from the human remains the same. So then, as long as my eyes are not +robbed of that spectacle with which they cannot be satiated, so long as +I may look upon the sun and moon, and fix my lingering gaze on the other +constellations, and consider their rising and setting and the spaces +between them and the causes of their less and greater speed,--while I +may contemplate the multitude of stars glittering throughout the heaven, +some stationary, some revolving, some suddenly blazing forth, others +dazzling the gaze with a flood of fire as though they fell, and others +leaving over a long space their trails of light; while I am in the midst +of such phenomena, and mingle myself, as far as a man may, with things +celestial,--while my soul is ever occupied in contemplations so sublime +as these, what matters it what ground I tread? + +"What though fortune has thrown me where the most magnificent abode is +but a cottage? the humblest cottage, if it be but the home of virtue, +may be more beautiful than all temples; no place is narrow which can +contain the crowd of glorious virtues; no exile severe into which you +may go with such a reliance. When Brutus left Marcellus at Mitylene, he +seemed to be himself going into exile because he left that illustrious +exile behind him. Caesar would not land at Mitylene, because he blushed +to see him. Marcellus therefore, though he was living in exile and +poverty, was living a most happy and a most noble life. + + "'One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs + Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; + And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, + Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.' + +"And as for poverty every one who is not corrupted by the madness of +avarice and luxury know that it is no evil. How little does man need, +and how easily can he secure that! As for me, I consider myself as +having lost not wealth, but the trouble of looking after it. Bodily +wants are few--warmth and food, nothing more. May the gods and goddesses +confound that gluttony which sweeps the sky, and sea and land for birds, +and animals, and fish; which eats to vomit and vomits to eat, and hunts +over the whole world for that which after all it cannot even digest! +They might satisfy their hunger with little, and they excite it with +much. What harm can poverty inflict on a man who despises such excesses? +Look at the god-like and heroic poverty of our ancestors, and compare +the simple glory of a Camillus with the lasting infamy of a luxurious +Apicius! Even exile will yield a sufficiency of necessaries, but not +even kingdoms are enough for superfluities. It is the soul that makes us +rich or poor: and the soul follows us into exile, and finds and enjoys +its own blessings even in the most barren solitudes. + +"But it does not even need philosophy to enable us to despise poverty. +Look at the poor: are they not often obviously happier than the rich? +And the times are so changed that what we would now consider the poverty +of an exile would then have been regarded as the patrimony of a prince. +Protected by such precedents as those of Homer, and Zeno, and Menenius +Agrippa, and Regulus, and Scipio, poverty becomes not only safe but +even estimable. + +"And if you make the objection that the ills which assail me are not +exile only, or poverty only, but disgrace as well, I reply that the soul +which is hard enough to resist one wound is invulnerable to all. If we +have utterly conquered the fear of death, nothing else can daunt us. +What is disgrace to one who stands above the opinion of the multitude? +what was even a death of disgrace to Socrates, who by entering a prison +made it cease to be disgraceful? Cato was twice defeated in his +candidature for the praetorship and consulship: well, this was the +disgrace of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised by +another until he has learned to despise himself. The man who has learned +to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred +fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man +bravely wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. Some +indeed say that death is preferable to contempt; to whom I reply that he +who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more +an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred +buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood. + +"On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no cause for endless +weeping: nor have you on your own. You cannot grieve for me on selfish +grounds, in consequence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were +ever eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your dealings +with your sons, and you were always a help and a benefactor to them +rather than they to you. Nor should you give way out of a regret and +longing for me in my absence. We have often previously been separated, +and, although it is natural that you should miss that delightful +conversation, that unrestricted confidence, that electrical sympathy of +heart and intellect that always existed between us, and that boyish glee +wherewith your visits always affected me, yet, as you rise above the +common herd of women in virtue, the simplicity, the purity of your life, +you must abstain from feminine tears as you have done from all feminine +follies. Consider how Cornelia, who had lost ten children by death, +instead of wailing for her dead sons, thanked fortune that had made her +sons _Gracchi_. Rutilia followed her son Cotta into exile so dearly did +she love him, yet no one saw her shed a tear after his burial. She had +shown her affection when it was needful, she restrained her sorrow when +it was superflous. Imitate the example of these great women as you have +imitated their virtues. I want you not to _beguile_ your sorrow by +amusements or occupations, but to _conquer_ it. For you may now return +to those philosophical studies in which you once showed yourself so apt +a proficient, and which formerly my father checked. They will gradually +sustain and comfort you in your hour of grief. + +"And meanwhile consider how many sources of consolation already exist +for you. My brothers are still with you; the dignity of Gallio, the +leisure of Mela, will protect you; the ever-sparkling mirth of my +darling little Marcus will cheer you up; the training of my little +favourite Novatilla will be a duty which will assuage your sorrow. For +your father's sake, too, though he is absent from you, you must moderate +your lamentations. Above all, your sister--that truly faithful, loving, +and high-souled lady, to whom I owe so deep a debt of affection for her +kindness to me from my cradle until now,--she will yield you the +fondest sympathy and the truest consolation. + +"But since I know that after all your thoughts will constantly revert to +me, and that none of your children will be more frequently before your +mind than I,--not because they are less dear to you than I, but because +it is natural to lay the hand most often upon the spot which pains,--I +will tell you how you are to think of me. Think of me as happy and +cheerful, as though I were in the midst of blessings; as indeed I am, +while my mind, free from every care, has leisure for its own pursuits, +and sometimes amuses itself with lighter studies, sometimes, eager for +truth, soars upwards to the contemplation of its own nature, and the +nature of the universe. It inquires first of all about the lands and +their situation; then into the condition of the surrounding sea, its +ebbings and flowings; then it carefully studies all this terror-fraught +interspace between heaven and earth, tumultuous with thunders and +lightnings, and the blasts of winds, and the showers of rain, and snow +and hail; then, having wandered through all the lower regions, it bursts +upwards to the highest things, and revels in the most lovely--spectacle +of that which is divine, and, mindful of its own eternity, passes into +all that hath been and all that shall be throughout all ages." + +Such in briefest outline, and without any of that grace of language with +which Seneca has invested it, is a sketch of the little treatise which +many have regarded as among the most delightful of Seneca's works. It +presents the picture of that grandest of all spectacles-- + + "A good man struggling with the storms of fate." + +So far there was something truly Stoical in the aspect of Seneca's +exile. But was this grand attitude consistently maintained? Did his +little raft of philosophy sink under him, or did it bear him safely over +the stormy waves of this great sea of adversity. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +SENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY. + +There are some misfortunes of which the very essence consists in their +continuance. They are tolerable so long as they are illuminated by a ray +of hope. Seclusion and hardship might even come at first with some charm +of novelty to a philosopher who, as was not unfrequent among the amateur +thinkers of his time, occasionally practised them in the very midst of +wealth and friends. But as the hopeless years rolled on, as the efforts +of friends proved unavailing, as the loving son, and husband, and father +felt himself cut off from the society of those whom he cherished in such +tender affection, as the dreary island seemed to him ever more barbarous +and more barren, while season after season added to its horrors without +revealing a single compensation, Seneca grew more and more disconsolate +and depressed. It seemed to be his miserable destiny to rust away, +useless, unbefriended, and forgotten. Formed to fascinate society, here +there were none for him to fascinate; gifted with an eloquence which +could keep listening senates hushed, here he found neither subject nor +audience; and his life began to resemble a river which, long before it +has reached the sea, is lost in dreary marshes and choking sands. + +Like the brilliant Ovid, when he was banished to the frozen wilds of +Tomi, Seneca vented his anguish in plaintive wailing and bitter verse. +In his handful of epigrams he finds nothing too severe for the place of +his exile. He cries-- + + "Spare thou thine exiles, lightly o'er thy dead, + Alive, yet buried, be thy dust bespread." + +And addressing some malignant enemy-- + + "Whoe'er thou art,--thy name shall I repeat?-- + Who o'er mine ashes dar'st to press thy feet, + And, uncontented with a fall so dread, + Draw'st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head, + Beware! for nature, pitying, guards the tomb, + And ghosts avenge th' invaders of their gloom, + Hear, Envy, hear the gods proclaim a truth, + Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth, + WRETCHES ARE SACRED THINGS,--thy hands refrain: + E'en sacrilegious hands from TOMBS abstain." + +The one fact that seems to have haunted him most was that his abode in +Corsica was a living death. + +But the most complete picture of his state of mind, and the most +melancholy memorial of his inconsistency as a philosopher, is to be +found in his "Consolation to Polybius." Polybius was one of those +freedmen of the Emperor whose bloated wealth and servile insolence were +one of the darkest and strangest phenomena of the time. Claudius, more +than any of his class, from the peculiar imbecility of his character, +was under the powerful influence of this class of men; and so dangerous +was their power that Messalina herself was forced to win her ascendency +over her husband's mind by making these men her supporters, and +cultivating their favour. Such were "the most excellent Felix," the +judge of St. Paul, and the slave who became a husband to three +queens,--Narcissus, in whose household (which moved the envy of the +Emperor) were some of those Christians to whom St. Paul sends greetings +from the Christians of Corinth,[31]--Pallas, who never deigned to speak +to his own slaves, but gave all his commands by signs, and who actually +condescended to receive the thanks of the Senate, because he, the +descendant of Etruscan kings, yet condescended to serve the Emperor and +the Commonwealth; a preposterous and outrageous compliment, which +appears to have been solely due to the fact of his name being identical +with that of Virgil's young hero, the son of the mythic Evander! + +[Footnote 31: Rom. xvi. 11.] + +Among this unworthy crew a certain Polybius was not the least +conspicuous. He was the director of the Emperor's studies,--a worthy +Alcuin to such a Charlemagne. All that we know about him is that he was +once the favourite of Messalina, and afterwards her victim, and that in +the day of his eminence the favour of the Emperor placed him so high +that he was often seen walking between the two consuls. Such was the man +to whom, on the occasion of his brother's death, Seneca addressed this +treatise of consolation. It has come down to us as a fragment, and it +would have been well for Seneca's fame if it had not come down to us at +all. Those who are enthusiastic for his reputation would gladly prove it +spurious, but we believe that no candid reader can study it without +perceiving its genuineness. It is very improbable that he ever intended +it to be published, and whoever suffered it to see the light was the +successful enemy of its illustrious author. + +Its sad and abject tone confirms the inference, drawn from an allusion +which it contains, that it was written towards the close of the third +year of Seneca's exile. He apologises for its style by saying that if it +betrayed any weakness of thought or inelegance of expression this was +only what might be expected from a man who had so long been surrounded +by the coarse and offensive _patois_ of barbarians. We need hardly +follow him into the ordinary topics of moral philosophy with which it +abounds, or expose the inconsistency of its tone with that of Seneca's +other writings. He consoles the freedman with the "common commonplaces" +that death is inevitable; that grief is useless; that we are all born to +sorrow; that the dead would not wish us to be miserable for their sakes. +He reminds him that, owing to his illustrious position, all eyes are +upon him. He bids him find consolation in the studies in which he has +always shown himself so pre-eminent, and lastly he refers him to those +shining examples of magnanimous fortitude, for the climax of which, no +doubt, the whole piece of interested flattery was composed. For this +passage, written in a _crescendo_ style, culminates, as might have been +expected, in the sublime spectacle of Claudius Caesar. So far from +resenting his exile, he crawls in the dust to kiss Caesar's beneficent +feet for saving him from death; so far from asserting his +innocence--which, perhaps, was impossible, since to do so might have +involved him in a fresh charge of treason--he talks with all the +abjectness of guilt. He belauds the clemency of a man, who, he tells us +elsewhere, used to kill men with as much _sang froid_ as a dog eats +offal; the prodigious powers of memory of a divine creature who used to +ask people to dice and to dinner whom he had executed the day before, +and who even inquired as to the cause of his wife's absence a few days +after having given the order for her execution; the extraordinary +eloquence of an indistinct stutterer, whose head shook and whose broad +lips seemed to be in contortions whenever he spoke.[32] If Polybius +feels sorrowful, let him turn his eyes to Caesar; the splendour of that +most great and radiant deity will so dazzle his eyes that all their +tears will be dried up in the admiring gaze. Oh that the bright +occidental star which has beamed on a world which, before its rising, +was plunged in darkness and deluge, would only shed one little beam +upon him! + +[Footnote 32: These slight discrepancies of description are taken from +counter passages of _Consol, ad Polyb._. and the _Ludus de Morte +Caesaris._] + +No doubt these grotesque and gorgeous flatteries, contrasting strangely +with the bitter language of intense hatred and scathing contempt which +Seneca poured out on the memory of Claudius after his death, were penned +with the sole purpose of being repeated in those divine and benignant +ears. No doubt the superb freedman, who had been allowed so rich a share +of the flatteries lavished on his master, would take the opportunity--if +not out of good nature, at least out of vanity,--to retail them in the +imperial ear. If the moment were but favourable, who knows but what at +some oblivious and crapulous moment the Emperor might be induced to sign +an order for our philosopher's recall? + +Let us not be hard on him. Exile and wretchedness are stern trials, and +it is difficult for him to brave a martyr's misery who has no conception +of a martyr's crown. To a man who, like Seneca, aimed at being not only +a philosopher, but also a man of the world--who in this very treatise +criticises the Stoics for their ignorance of life--there would not have +seemed to be even the shadow of disgrace in a private effusion of +insincere flattery intended to win the remission of a deplorable +banishment. Or, if we condemn Seneca, let us remember that Christians, +no less than philosophers, have attained a higher eminence only to +exemplify a more disastrous fall. The flatteries of Seneca to Claudius +are not more fulsome, and are infinitely less disgraceful, than those +which fawning bishops exuded on his counterpart, King James. And if the +Roman Stoic can gain nothing from a comparison with the yet more +egregious moral failure of the greatest of Christian thinkers---Francis +Bacon, Viscount St. Alban's--let us not forget that a Savonarola and a +Cranmer recanted under torment, and that the anguish of exile drew even +from the starry and imperial spirit of Dante Alighieri words and +sentiments for which in his noblest moments he might have blushed. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE. + +Of the last five years of Seneca's weary exile no trace has been +preserved to us. What were his alternations of hope and fear, of +devotion to philosophy and of hankering after the world which he had +lost, we cannot tell. Any hopes which he may have entertained respecting +the intervention of Polybius in his favour must have been utterly +quenched when he heard that the freedman, though formerly powerful with +Messalina, had forfeited his own life in consequence of her +machinations. But the closing period of his days in Corsica must have +brought him thrilling news, which would save him from falling into +absolute despair. + +For the career of Messalina was drawing rapidly to a close. The life of +this beautiful princess, short as it was, for she died at a very early +age, was enough to make her name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a +time she appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won for her +an unlimited sway over the facile mind of Claudius, and she had either +won over by her intrigues, or terrified by her pitiless severity, the +noblest of the Romans and the most powerful of the freedmen. But we see +in her fate, as we see on every page of history, that vice ever carries +with it the germ of its own ruin, and that a retribution, which is all +the more inevitable from being often slow, awaits every violation of the +moral law. + +There is something almost incredible in the penal infatuation which +brought about her fall. During the absence of her husband at Ostia, she +wedded in open day with C. Silius, the most beautiful and the most +promising of the young Roman nobles. She had apparently persuaded +Claudius that this was merely a mock-marriage, intended to avert some +ominous auguries which threatened to destroy "the husband of Messalina;" +but, whatever Claudius may have imagined, all the rest of the world knew +the marriage to be real, and regarded it not only as a vile enormity, +but also as a direct attempt to bring about a usurpation of the +imperial power. + +It was by this view of the case that the freedman Narcissus roused the +inert spirit and timid indignation of the injured Emperor. While the +wild revelry of the wedding ceremony was at its height, Vettius Valens, +a well-known physician of the day, had in the license of the festival +struggled up to the top of a lofty tree, and when they asked him what he +saw, he replied in words which, though meant for jest, were full of +dreadful significance, "I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia." He +had scarcely uttered the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then +numerous messengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, and was +coming to take vengeance. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the +assembled guests. Silius, as though nothing had happened, went to +transact his public duties in the Forum; Messalina instantly sending for +her children, Octavia and Britannicus, that she might meet her husband +with them by her side, implored the protection of Vibidia, the eldest of +the chaste virgins of Vesta, and, deserted by all but three companions, +fled on foot and unpitied, through the whole breadth of the city, until +she reached the Ostian gate, and mounted the rubbish-cart of a market +gardener which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed both the +looks and the attention of the Emperor by the proofs and the narrative +of her crimes, and, getting rid of the Vestal by promising her that the +cause of Messalina should be tried, he hurried Claudius forward, first +to the house of Silius, which abounded with the proofs of his guilt, and +then to the camp of the Praetorians, where swift vengeance was taken on +the whole band of those who had been involved in Messalina's crimes. She +meanwhile, in alternative paroxysms of fury and abject terror, had taken +refuge in the garden of Lucullus, which she had coveted and made her own +by injustice. Claudius, who had returned home, and had recovered some of +his facile equanimity in the pleasures of the table, showed signs of +relenting; but Narcissus knew that delay was death, and on his own +authority sent a tribune and centurions to despatch the Empress. They +found her prostrate on the ground at the feet of her mother Lepida, with +whom in her prosperity she had quarrelled, but who now came to pity and +console her misery, and to urge her to that voluntary death which alone +could save her from imminent and more cruel infamy. But the mind of +Messalina, like that of Nero afterwards, was so corrupted by wickedness +that not even such poor nobility was left in her as is implied in the +courage of despair. While she wasted the time in tears and lamentations, +a noise was heard of battering at the doors, and the tribune stood by +her in stern silence, the freedman with slavish vituperation. First she +took the dagger in her irresolute hand, and after she had twice stabbed +herself in vain, the tribune drove home the fatal blow, and the corpse +of Messalina, like that of Jezebel, lay weltering in its blood in the +plot of ground of which her crimes had robbed its lawful owner. +Claudius, still lingering at his dinner, was informed that she had +perished, and neither asked a single question at the time, nor +subsequently displayed the slightest sign of anger, of hatred, of pity, +or of any human emotion. + +The absolute silence of Seneca respecting the woman who had caused him +the bitterest anguish and humiliation of his life is, as we have +remarked already, a strange and significant phenomenon. It is clearly +not due to accident, for the vices which he is incessantly describing +and denouncing would have found in this miserable woman their most +flagrant illustration, nor could contemporary history have furnished a +more apposite example of the vindication by her fate of the stern +majesty of the moral law. But yet, though Seneca had every reason to +loathe her character and to detest her memory, though he could not have +rendered to his patrons a more welcome service than by blackening her +reputation, he never so much as mentions her name. And this honourable +silence gives us a favourable insight into his character. For it can +only be due to his pitying sense of the fact that even Messalina, bad as +she undoubtedly was, had been judged already by a higher Power, and had +met her dread punishment at the hand of God. It has been conjectured, +with every appearance of probability, that the blackest of the scandals +which were believed and circulated respecting her had their origin in +the published autobiography of her deadly enemy and victorious +successor. The many who had had a share in Messalina's fall would be +only too glad to poison every reminiscence of her life; and the deadly +implacable hatred of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar +gratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace over the +acts of a rival whose young children it was her dearest object to +supplant. That Seneca did not deign to chronicle even of an enemy what +Agrippina was not ashamed to write,--that he spared one whom it was +every one's interest and pleasure to malign,--that he regarded her +terrible fall as a sufficient claim to pity, as it was a sufficient +Nemesis upon her crimes,--is a trait in the character of the philosopher +which has hardly yet received the credit which it deserves. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO. + +Scarcely had the grave closed over Messalina when the court was plunged +into the most violent factions about the appointment of her successor. +There were three principal candidates for the honour of the aged +Emperor's hand. They were his former wife, Aelia Petina, who had only +been divorced in consequence of trivial disagreements, and who was +supported by Narcissus; Lollia Paulina, so celebrated in antiquity for +her beauty and splendour, and who for a short time had been the wife of +Caius; and Agrippina the younger, the daughter of the great Germanicus, +and the niece of Claudius himself. Claudius, indeed, who had been as +unlucky as Henry VIII. himself in the unhappiness which had attended his +five experiments of matrimony, had made the strongest possible +asseverations that he would never again submit himself to such a yoke. +But he was so completely a tool in the hands of his own courtiers that +no one attached the slightest importance to anything which he had said. + +The marriage of an uncle with his own niece was considered a violation +of natural laws, and was regarded with no less horror among the Romans +than it would be among ourselves. But Agrippina, by the use of means the +most unscrupulous, prevailed over all her rivals, and managed her +interests with such consummate skill that, before many months had +elapsed, she had become the spouse of Claudius and the Empress of Rome. + +With this princess the destinies of Seneca were most closely +intertwined, and it will enable us the better to understand his +position, and his writings, if we remember that all history discloses to +us no phenomenon more portentous and terrible than that presented to us +in the character of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. + +Of the virtues of her great parents she, like their other children, had +inherited not one; and she had exaggerated their family tendencies into +passions which urged her into every form of crime. Her career from the +very cradle had been a career of wickedness, nor had any one of the many +fierce vicissitudes of her life called forth in her a single noble or +amiable trait. Born at Oppidum Ubiorum (afterwards called in her honour +Colonia Agrippina, and still retaining its name in the form Cologne), +she lost her father at the age of three, and her mother (by banishment) +at the age of twelve. She was educated with bad sisters, with a wild and +wicked brother, and under a grandmother whom she detested. At the age of +fourteen she was married to Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the most +worthless and ill-reputed of the young Roman nobles of his day. The +gossiping biographies of the time still retain some anecdotes of his +cruelty and selfishness. They tell us how he once, without the slightest +remorse, ran over a poor boy who was playing on the Appian Road; how on +another occasion he knocked out the eye of a Roman knight who had given +him a hasty answer; and how, when his friend congratulated him on the +birth of his son (the young Claudius Domitius, afterwards the Emperor +Nero), he brutally remarked that from people like himself and Agrippina +could only be born some monster destined for the public ruin. + +Domitius was forty years old when he married Agrippina, and the young +Nero was not born till nine years afterwards. Whatever there was of +possible affection in the tigress-nature of Agrippina was now absorbed +in the person of her child. For that child, from its cradle to her own +death by his means, she toiled and sinned. The fury of her own ambition, +inextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierceness of her love for +this only son, henceforth directed every action of her life. Destiny had +made her the sister of one Emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife +of another; her own crimes made her the mother of a third. And at first +sight her career might have seemed unusually successful, for while still +in the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband, +and then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of +the Roman world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, whose +stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track +through page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to +her with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of +gratified love and pride to which she had waded through so many a deed +of sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and violent +shameful death, by the hand of that very son for whose sake she had so +often violated the laws of virtue and integrity, and spurned so often +the pure and tender obligations which even the heathen had been taught +by the voice of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore. + +Intending that her son should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, +her first step was to drive to death Silanus, a young nobleman to whom +Octavia had already been betrothed. Her next care was to get rid of all +rivals possible or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia +and her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the latter was the +wealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she trumped up an accusation of +sorcery and treason, upon which her wealth was confiscated, but her life +spared by the Emperor, who banished her from Italy. This half-vengeance +was not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the daughter of Herodias in +sacred history, she despatched a tribune with orders to bring her the +head of her enemy; and when it was brought to her, and she found a +difficulty in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a +once-celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have lifted one +of the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this was indeed the head +of Lollia. To such horrors may a woman sink, when she has abandoned the +love of God; and a fair face may hide a soul "leprous as sin itself." +Well may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and +husband-murdering Gertrude are mere children by the side of this awful +giant-shape of steely feminine cruelty. + +Such was the princess who, in the year A.D. 49, recalled Seneca from +exile.[33] She saw that her cruelties were inspiring horror even into a +city that had long been accustomed to blood, and Tacitus expressly tells +us that she hoped to counterbalance this feeling by a stroke of +popularity in recalling from the waste solitudes of Corsica the +favourite philosopher and most popular author of the Roman world. Nor +was she content with this public proof of her belief in his innocence +of the crime which had been laid to his charge, for she further procured +for him the Praetorship, and appointed him tutor and governor to her +youthful son. Even in taking this step she did not forget her ambitious +views; for she knew that Seneca cherished a secret indignation against +Claudius, and that Nero could have no more wise adviser in taking steps +to secure the fruition of his imperial hopes. It might perhaps have been +better for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, or set his +foot again in that Circean and bloodstained court. Let it, however, be +added in his exculpation, that another man of undoubted and scrupulous +honesty,--Afranius Burrus--a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of +Roman manliness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the +Praetorian cohorts, was willing to share his danger and his +responsibilities. Yet he must have lived from the first in the very +atmosphere of base and criminal intrigues. He must have formed an +important member of Agrippina's party, which was in daily and deadly +enmity against the party of Narcissus. He must have watched the +incessant artifices by which Agrippina secured the adoption of her son +Nero by an Emperor whose own son Britannicus was but three years his +junior. He must have seen Nero always honoured, promoted, paraded before +the eyes of the populace as the future hope of Rome, whilst Britannicus, +like the young Edward V. under the regency of his uncle, was neglected, +surrounded with spies, kept as much as possible out of his father's +sight, and so completely thrust into the background from all observation +that the populace began seriously to doubt whether he were alive or +dead. He must have seen Agrippina, who had now received the +unprecedented honour of the title "Augusta" in her lifetime, acting +with such haughty insolence that there could be little doubt as to her +ulterior designs upon the throne. He must have known that his splendid +intellect was practically at the service of a woman in whom avarice, +haughtiness, violence, treachery, and every form of unscrupulous +criminality had reached a point hitherto unmatched even in a corrupt and +pagan world. From this time forth the biography of Seneca must assume +the form of an apology rather than of a panegyric. + +[Footnote 33: Gallio was Proconsul of Achaia about A.D. 53, when St. +Paul was brought before his tribunal. Very possibly his elevation may +have been due to the restoration of Seneca's influence.] + +The Emperor could not but feel that in Agrippina he had chosen a wife +even more intolerable than Messalina herself. Messalina had not +interfered with the friends he loved, had not robbed him of the insignia +of empire, had not filled his palace with a hard and unfeminine tyranny, +and had of course watched with a mother's interest over the lives and +fortunes of his children. Narcissus would not be likely to leave him +long in ignorance that, in addition to her other plots and crimes, +Agrippina had been as little true to him as his former unhappy wife. The +information sank deep into his heart, and he was heard to mutter that it +had been his destiny all along first to bear, and then to avenge, the +enormities of his wives. Agrippina, whose spies filled the palace, could +not long remain uninformed of so significant a speech; and she probably +saw with an instinct quickened by the awful terrors of her own guilty +conscience that the Emperor showed distinct signs of his regret for +having married his niece, and adopted her child to the prejudice, if not +to the ruin, of his own young son. If she wanted to reach the goal which +she had held so long in view no time was to be lost. Let us hope that +Seneca and Burrus were at least ignorant of the means which she took to +effect her purpose. + +Fortune favoured her. The dreaded Narcissus, the most formidable +obstacle to her murderous plans, was seized with an attack of the gout. +Agrippina managed that his physician should recommend him the waters of +Sinuessa in Campania by way of cure. He was thus got out of the way, and +she proceeded at once to her work of blood. Entrusting the secret to +Halotus, the Emperor's _praegustator_--the slave whose office it was to +protect him from poison by tasting every dish before him--and to his +physician, Xenophon of Cos, she consulted Locusta, the Mrs. Turner of +the period of this classical King James, as to the poison best suited to +her purpose. Locusta was mistress of her art, in which long practice had +given her a consummate skill. The poison must not be too rapid, lest it +should cause suspicion; nor too slow, lest it should give the Emperor +time to consult for the interests of his son Britannicus; but it was to +be one which should disturb his intellect without causing immediate +death. Claudius was a glutton, and the poison was given him with all the +more ease because it was mixed with a dish of mushrooms, of which he was +extravagantly fond. Agrippina herself handed him the choicest mushroom +in the dish, and the poison at once reduced him to silence. As was too +frequently the case, Claudius was intoxicated at the time, and was +carried off to his bed as if nothing had happened. A violent colic +ensued, and it was feared that this, with a quantity of wine which he +had drunk, would render the poison innocuous. But Agrippina had gone too +far for retreat, and Xenophon, who knew that great crimes if frustrated +are perilous, if successful are rewarded, came to her assistance. Under +pretence of causing him to vomit, he tickled the throat of the Emperor +with a feather smeared with a swift and deadly poison. It did its work, +and before morning the Caesar was a corpse.[34] + +[Footnote 34: There is usually found among the writings of Seneca a most +remarkable burlesque called _Ludus de Morte Caesaris_. As to its +authorship opinions will always vary, but it is a work of such undoubted +genius, so interesting, and so unique in its character, that I have +thought it necessary to give in an Appendix a brief sketch of its +argument. We may at least _hope_ that this satire, which overflows with +the deadliest contempt of Claudius, is not from the same pen which wrote +for Nero his funeral oration. It has, however, been supposed (without +sufficient grounds) to be the lost [Greek: Apokolokuntoois] which Seneca +is said to have written on the apotheosis of Claudius. The very name is +a bitter satire. It imagines the Emperor transformed, not into a God, +but into a gourd--one of those "bloated gourds which sun their speckled +bellies before the doors of the Roman peasants." "The Senate decreed his +_divinity_; Seneca translated it into _pumpkinity_" (Merivale, _Rom. +Emp_. v. 601). The _Ludus_ begins by spattering mud on the memory of the +divine Claudius; it ends with a shower of poetic roses over the glory of +the diviner Nero!] + +As has been the case not unfrequently in history, from the times of +Tarquinius Priscus to those of Charles II., the death was concealed +until everything had been prepared for the production of a successor. +The palace was carefully watched; no one was even admitted into it +except Agrippina's most trusty partisans. The body was propped up with +pillows; actors were sent for "by his own desire" to afford it some +amusement; and priests and consuls were bidden to offer up their vows +for the life of the dead. Giving out that the Emperor was getting +better, Agrippina took care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters, +Octavia and Antonia, under her own immediate eye. As though overwhelmed +with sorrow she wept, and embraced them, and above all kept Britannicus +by her side, kissing him with the exclamation "that he was the very +image of his father," and taking care that he should on no account +leave her room. So the day wore on till it was the hour which the +Chaldaeans declared would be the only lucky hour in that unlucky +October day. + +Noon came; the palace doors were suddenly thrown open: and Nero with +Burrus at his side went out to the Praetorian cohort which was on guard. +By the order of their commandant, they received him with cheers. A few +only hesitated, looking round them and asking "Where was Britannicus?" +Since, however, he was not to be seen, and no one stirred in his favour, +they followed the multitude. Nero was carried in triumph to the camp, +made the soldiers a short speech, and promised to each man of them a +splendid donative. He was at once saluted Emperor. The Senate followed +the choice of the soldiers, and the provinces made no demur. Divine +honors were decreed to the murdered man, and preparations made for a +funeral which was to rival in its splendour the one which Livia had +ordered for Augustus. But the will--which beyond all doubt had provided +for the succession of Britannicus--was quietly done away with, and its +exact provisions were never known. + +And on the first evening of his imperial power, Nero, well aware to whom +he owed his throne, gave to the sentinel who came to ask him the pass +for the night the grateful and significant watchword of "Optima +Mater,"--"the best of mothers!" + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +NERO AND HIS TUTOR. + +The imperial youth, whose destinies are now inextricably mingled with +those of Seneca, was accompanied to the throne by the acclamations of +the people. Wearied by the astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath +of a Tiberius, the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of +a Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and +beautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his shoulders, and whose +features displayed the finest type of Roman beauty. There was nothing in +his antecedents to give a sinister augury to his future development, and +all classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We can +understand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own +countrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the +youthful virtue and gentleness of Edward VI. Happy would it have been +for Nero if his reign, like that of Edward, could have been cut short +before the thick night of many crimes had settled down upon the promise +of its dawn. For the first five years of Nero's reign--the famous +_Quinquennium Neronis_--were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period +of almost ideal happiness. In reality, it was Seneca who was ruling in +Nero's, name. Even so excellent an Emperor as Trajan is said to have +admitted "that no other prince had nearly equalled the praise of that +period." It is indeed probable that those years appeared to shine with +an exaggerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded them; +yet we can see in them abundant circumstances which were quite +sufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope and joy. The young Nero was +at first modest and docile. His opening speeches, written with all the +beauty of thought and language which betrayed the _style_ of Seneca no +less than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises. All +those things which had been felt to be injurious or oppressive he +promised to eschew. He would not, he said, reserve to himself, as +Claudius had done, the irresponsible decision in all matters of +business; no office or dignity should be won from him by flattery or +purchased by bribes; he would not confuse his own personal interests +with those of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient +prerogatives of the Senate; he would confine his own immediate attention +to the provinces and the army. + +Nor were such promises falsified by his immediate conduct. The odious +informers who had flourished in previous reigns were frowned upon and +punished. Offices of public dignity were relieved from unjust and +oppressive burdens. Nero prudently declined the gold and silver statues +and other extravagant honours which were offered to him by the corrupt +and servile Senate, but he treated that body, which, fallen as it was, +continued still to be the main representative of constitutional +authority, with favour and respect. Nobles and officials begun to +breathe more freely, and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was +perceptibly relaxed. Severity was reserved for notorious criminals, and +was only inflicted in a regular and authorized manner, when no one +could doubt that it had been deserved. Above all, Seneca had +disseminated an anecdote about his young pupil which tended more than +any other circumstance to his wide spread popularity. England has +remembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluctance of her +youthful Edward to sign the death-warrant of Joan Boucher; Rome, +accustomed to a cruel indifference to human life, regarded with +something like transport the sense of pity which had made Nero, when +asked to affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, "_How I +wish that I did not know how to write_!" + +It is admitted that no small share of the happiness of this period was +due to the firmness of the honest Burrus, and the wise, high-minded +precepts of Seneca. They deserve the amplest gratitude and credit for +this happy interregnum, for they had no easy task to perform. Besides +the difficulties which arose from the base and frivolous character of +their pupil, besides the infinite delicacy which was requisite for the +restraint of a youth who was absolute master of such gigantic destinies, +they had the task of curbing the wild and imperious ambition of +Agrippina, and of defeating the incessant intrigues of her many powerful +dependents. Agrippina had no doubt persuaded herself that her crimes had +been mainly committed in the interest of her son; but her conduct showed +that she wished him to be a mere instrument in her hands. She wished to +govern him, and had probably calculated on doing so by the assistance of +Seneca, just as our own Queen Caroline completely managed George II. +with the aid of Sir Robert Walpole. She rode in a litter with him; +without his knowledge she ordered the poisoning of M. Silanus, a brother +of her former victim, she goaded Narcissus to death, against his will; +through her influence the Senate was sometimes assembled in the palace, +and she took no pains to conceal from the senators that she was herself +seated behind a curtain where she could hear every word of their +deliberations;--nay, on one occasion, when Nero was about to give +audience to an important Armenian legation, she had the audacity to +enter the audience-chamber, and advance to take her seat by the side of +the Emperor. Every one else was struck dumb with amazement, and even +terror, at a proceeding so unusual; but Seneca, with ready and admirable +tact, suggested to Nero that he should rise and meet his mother, thus +obviating a public scandal under the pretext of filial affection. + +But Seneca from the very first had been guilty of a fatal error in the +education of his pupil. He had governed him throughout on the ruinous +principle of _concession_. Nero was not devoid of talent; he had a +decided turn for Latin versification, and the few lines of his +composition which have come down to us, _bizarre_ and effected as they +are, yet display a certain sense of melody and power of language. But +his vivid imagination was accompained by a want of purpose; and Seneca, +instead of trying to train him in habits of serious attention and +sustained thought, suffered him to waste his best efforts in pursuits +and amusements which were considered partly frivolous and partly +disreputable, such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca +might have argued that there was, at any rate, no great harm in such +employments, and that they probably kept Nero out of worse mischief. But +we respect Nero the less for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging +just as we respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks; and, if +Seneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the first, Rome +might have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero's subsequent +buffooneries in the cities of Greece and the theatres of Rome. We may +lay it down as an invariable axiom in all high education, that it is +_never_ sensible to permit what is bad for the supposed sake of +preventing what is worse. Seneca very probably persuaded himself that +with a mind like Nero's--the innate worthlessness of which he must early +have recognised--success of any high description would be simply +impossible. But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble +means by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable. +Let us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly +in matters which he regarded as indifferent--or, at the worst, as +discreditable--rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably +arose from an error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in +moral character. + +Yet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the worse for this +laxity of training. We have already seen that, in his maiden-speech +before the Senate, every one recognized the hand of Seneca, and many +observed with a sigh that this was the first occasion on which an +Emperor had not been able, at least to all appearance, to address the +Senate in his own words and with his own thoughts. Tiberius, as an +orator, had been dignified and forcible; Claudius had been learned and +polished; even the disturbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in +a capacity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but Nero's +youth had been frittered away in paltry and indecorus accomplishments, +which had left him neither time nor inclination for weightier and +nobler pursuits. + +The fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously from the +subsequent infamy of his pupil; and it is obvious that the dislike of +Tacitus to his memory is due to his connexion with Nero. Now, even +though the tutor's system had not been so wise as, when judged by an +inflexible standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to +make him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and it must be +remembered, to Seneca's eternal honour, that the evidence of facts, the +testimony of contemporaries, and even the grudging admission of Tacitus +himself, establishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation +characterized the earlier years of Nero's reign were due to his +counsels; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the virtuous Burrus; +that he helped to check the sanguinary audacities of Agrippina; that the +writings which he addressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for +him, breathed the loftiest counsels; and that it was not until he was +wholly removed from power and influence that Nero, under the fierce +impulses of despotic power, developed those atrocious tendencies of +which the seeds had long been latent in his disposition. An ancient +writer records the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a +savagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate; and that to +his intimate friends he used to observe that, "when once the lion tasted +human blood, his innate cruelty would return." + +But while we give Seneca this credit, and allow that his _intentions_ +were thoroughly upright, we cannot but impugn his _judgment_ for having +thus deliberately adopted the morality of expedience; and we believe +that to this cause, more than to any other, was due the extent of his +failure and the misery of his life. We may, indeed, be permitted to +doubt whether Nero himself--a vain and loose youth, the son of bad +parents, and heir to boundless expectations--would, under any +circumstances, have grown up much better than he did; but it is clear +that Seneca might have been held in infinitely higher honour but for the +share which he had in his education. Had Seneca been as firm and wise as +Socrates, Nero in all probability would not have been much worse than +Alcibiades. If the tutor had set before his pupil no ideal but the very +highest, if he had inflexibly opposed to the extent of his ability every +tendency which was dishonourable and wrong, he might _possibly_ have +been rewarded by success, and have earned the indelible gratitude of +mankind; and if he had failed he would at least have failed nobly, and +have carried with him into a calm and honourable retirement the respect, +if not the affection, of his imperial pupil. Nay, even if he had failed +_completely_, and lost his life in the attempt, it would have been +infinitely better both for him and for mankind. Even Homer might have +taught him that "it is better to die than live in sin." At any rate he +might have known from study and observation that an education founded on +compromise must always and necessarily fail. It must fail because it +overlooks that great eternal law of retribution for and continuity in +evil, which is illustrated by every single history of individuals and of +nations. And the education which Seneca gave to Nero--noble as it was in +many respects, and eminent as was its partial and temporary success--was +yet an education of compromises. Alike in the studies of Nero's boyhood +and the graver temptations of his manhood, he acted on the +foolishly-fatal principle that + + "Had the wild oat not been sown, + The soil left barren scarce had grown, + The grain whereby a man may live." + +Any Christian might have predicted the result; one would have thought +that even a pagan philosopher might have been enlightened enough to +observe it. We often quote the lines-- + + "The child is father of the man," + +and + + "Just as the twig is bent the tree inclines." + +But the ancients were quite as familiar with the same truth under other +images. "The cask," wrote Horace, "will long retain the odour of that +which has once been poured into it when new." Quintilian, describing the +depraved influences which surrounded even the infancy of a Roman child, +said, "From these arise _first familiarity, then nature_." + +No one has laid down the principle more emphatically than Seneca +himself. Take, for instance, the following passage from his Letters, on +evil conversation. "The conversation," he says, "of these men is very +injurious; for, even if it does no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds +in the mind, and follows us even when we have gone from the speakers,--a +plague sure to spring up in future resurrection. Just as those who have +heard a symphony carry in their ears the tune and sweetness of the song +which entangles their thoughts, and does not suffer them to give their +whole energy to serious matters; so the conversation of flatterers and +of those who praise evil things, lingers longer in the mind than the +time of hearing it. Nor is it easy to shake out of the soul a sweet +sound; it pursues us, and lingers with us, and at perpetual intervals +recurs. Our ears therefore must be closed to evil words, and that to the +very first we hear. For when they have once begun and been admitted, +they acquire more and more audacity;" and so he adds a little +afterwards, "our days flow on, and irreparable life passes beyond our +reach." Yet he who wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to +his imperial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encouraged +him in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named Acte, into which Nero +fell. It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the +youthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to +whom he had been bound by every tie of honour and affection, and his +union with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical +usurpation. But princes rarely love the wives to whom they owe any part +of their elevation. Henry VII. treated Elizabeth of York with many +slights. The union of William III. with Mary was overshadowed by her +superior claim to the royal power; and Nero from the first regarded with +aversion, which ended in assassination, the poor young orphan girl who +recalled to the popular memory his slender pretensions to hereditary +empire, and whom he regarded as a possible rival, if her cowed and +plastic nature should ever become a tool in the hands of more powerful +intriguers. But we do not hear of any attempt on Seneca's part to urge +upon Nero the fulfillment of this high duty, and we find him sinking +into the degraded position of an accomplice with young profligates like +Otho, as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, which +would have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to a Stoic +disgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the very principle to +which we have been pointing,--the principle of moral compromise, the +principle of permitting and encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of +thereby preventing what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca +should have erred in this way, for compromise was the character of his +entire life. He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible +task of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the +Caesars. He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a +man of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he +failed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man +_must_ make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of +Mammon and the service of God. No man ever gained anything but contempt +and ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions. + +And by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or an Antisthenes +would have taken, Seneca became more or less involved in some of the +most dreadful events of Nero's reign. Every one of the terrible doubts +under which his reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted +the principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue. One or two +of these events we must briefly narrate. + +We have already pointed out that the Nemesis which for so many years had +been secretly dogging the footsteps of Agrippina made her tremble under +the weight of its first cruel blows when she seemed to have attained the +highest summit of her ambition. Very early indeed Nero began to be +galled and irritated by the insatiate assumption and swollen authority +of "the best of mothers." The furious reproaches which she heaped upon +him when she saw in Acte a possible rival to her power drove him to take +refuge in the facile and unphilosophic worldliness of Seneca's +concessions, and goaded him almost immediately afterwards into an +atrocious crime. He naturally looked on Britannicus, the youthful son of +Claudius, with even more suspicion and hatred than that with which he +regarded Octavia. Kings have rarely been able to abstain from acts of +severity against those who might become claimants to the throne. The +feelings of King John towards Prince Arthur, of Henry IV. towards the +Earl of March, of Mary towards Lady Jane Grey, of Elizabeth towards Mary +Stuart, of King James towards Lady Arabella Stuart, resembled, but +probably by no means equalled in intensity, those of Nero towards his +kinsman and adoptive brother. To show him any affection was a dangerous +crime, and it furnished a sufficient cause for immediate removal if any +attendant behaved towards him with fidelity. Such a line of treatment +foreshadowed the catastrophe which was hastened by the rage of +Agrippina. She would go, she said, and take with her to the camp the +noble boy who was now of full age to undertake those imperial duties +which a usurper was exercising in virtue of crimes which she was now +prepared to confess. Then let the mutilated Burrus and the glib-tongued +Seneca see whether they could be a match for the son of Claudius and the +daughter of Germanicus. Such language, uttered with violent gestures and +furious imprecations, might well excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And +that alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all +the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During +the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with +all the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot +as "governor of the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue +his orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates which +would not make them blush; but Britannicus in violation of every +principle of Roman decorum, was ordered to stand up in the middle and +sing a song. The boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and +wholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well have faltered; +but he at once rose, and with a steady voice began a strain--probably +the magnificent wail of Andromache over the fall of Troy, which has been +preserved to us from a lost play of Ennius--in which he indicated his +own disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights. His courage and his +misfortunes woke in the guests a feeling of pity which night and wine +made them less careful to disguise. From that moment the fate of +Britannicus was sealed. Locusta, the celebrated poisoner of ancient +Rome, was summoned to the councils of Nero to get rid of Britannicus, as +she had already been summoned to those of his mother when she wished to +disembarrass herself of Britannicus's father. The main difficulty was to +avoid discovery, since nothing was eaten or drunk at the imperial table +till it had been tasted by the _praegustator_. To avoid this difficulty +a very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he wished for +something cooler a swift and subtle poison was dropped into the cold +water with which it was tempered. The boy drank, and instantly sank from +his seat, gasping and speechless. The guests started up in +consternation, and fixed their eyes on Nero. He with the utmost coolness +assured them that it was merely a fit of epilepsy, to which his brother +was accustomed, and from which he would soon recover. The terror and +agitation of Agrippina showed to every one that she at least was +guiltless of this dark deed; but the unhappy Octavia, young as she was, +and doubly terrible on every ground as the blow must have been to her, +sat silent and motionless, having already learnt by her misfortunes the +awful necessity for suppressing under an impassive exterior her +affections and sorrows, her hopes and fears. In the dead of night, amid +storms and murky rain, which were thought to indicate the wrath of +heaven, the last of the Claudii was hastily and meanly hurried into a +dishonourable grave. + +We may believe that in this crime Seneca had no share whatever, but we +can hardly believe that he was ignorant of it after it had been +committed, or that he had no share in the intensely hypocritical edict +in which Nero bewailed the fact of his adoptive brother's death, excused +his hurried funeral, and threw himself on the additional indulgence and +protection of the Senate. Nero showed the consciousness of guilt by the +immense largesses which he distributed to the most powerful of his +friends, "Nor were there wanting men," says Tacitus, in a most +significant manner, "_who accused certain people, notorious for their +high professions, of having at that period divided among them villas and +houses as though they had been so much spoil_." There can hardly be a +doubt that the great historian intends by this remark to point at +Seneca, to whom he tries to be fair, but whom he could never quite +forgive for his share in the disgraces of Nero's reign. That avarice was +one of Seneca's temptations is too probable; that expediency was a +guiding principle of his conduct is but too evident; and for a man with +such a character to rebut an innuendo is never an easy task. Nay more, +it was _after_ this foul event, at the close of Nero's first year, that +Seneca addressed him in the extravagant and glowing language of his +treatise on Clemency. "The quality of mercy," and the duty of princes to +practise it, has never been more eloquently extolled; but it is +accompanied by a fulsome flattery which has in it something painfully +grotesque as addressed by a philosopher to one whom he knew to have been +guilty, that very year, of an inhuman fratricide. Imagine some Jewish +Pharisee,--a Nicodemus or a Gamaliel--pronouncing an eulogy on the +tenderness of a Herod, and you have some picture of the appearance which +Seneca's consistency must have worn in the eyes of his contemporaries. + +This event took place A.D. 55, in the first year of Nero's +_Quinquennium_, and the same year was nearly signalized by the death of +his mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy was invented against her, +and it is probable that but for the intervention of Burrus, who with +Seneca was appointed to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a +very sudden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred of her +son. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of her defence created a +reaction in her favour, and secured the punishment of her accusers. But +the ties of affection could not long unite two such wicked and imperious +natures as those of Agrippina and her son. All history shows that there +can be no real love between souls exceptionally wicked, and that this is +still more impossible when the alliance between them has been sealed by +a complicity in crime. Nero had now fallen into a deep infatuation for +Poppaea Sabina, the beautiful wife of Otho, and she refused him her hand +so long as he was still under the control of his mother. At this time +Agrippina, as the just consequence of her many crimes, was regarded by +all classes with a fanaticism of hatred which in Poppaea Sabina was +intensified by manifest self-interest. Nero, always weak, had long +regarded his mother with real terror and disgust, and he scarcely needed +the urgency of constant application to make him long to get rid of her. +But the daughter of Germanicus could not be openly destroyed, while her +own precautions helped to secure her against secret assassination. It +only remained to compass her death by treachery. Nero had long compelled +her to live in suburban retirement, and had made no attempt to conceal +the open rapture which existed between them. Anicetus, admiral of the +fleet at Misenum, and a former instructor of Nero, suggested the +expedient of a pretended public reconciliation, in virtue of which +Agrippina should be invited to Baiae, and on her return should be placed +on board a vessel so constructed as to come to pieces by the removal of +bolts. The disaster might then be attributed to a mere naval accident, +and Nero might make the most ostentatious display of his affection +and regret. + +The invitation was sent, and a vessel specially decorated was ordered to +await her movements. But, either from suspicion or from secret +information, she declined to avail herself of it, and was conveyed to +Baiae in a litter. The effusion of hypocritical affection with which she +was received, the unusual tenderness and honour with which she was +treated, the earnest gaze, the warm embrace, the varied conversation, +removed her suspicions, and she consented to return in the vessel of +honour. As though for the purpose of revealing the crime, the night was +starry and the sea calm. The ship had not sailed far, and Crepereius +Gallus, one of her friends, was standing near the helm, while a lady +named Acerronia was seated at her feet as she reclined, and both were +vieing with each other in the warmth of their congratulations upon the +recent interview, when a crash was heard, and the canopy above them +which had been weighted with a quantity of lead, was suddenly let go. +Crepereius was crushed to death upon the spot; Agrippina and Acerronia +were saved by the projecting sides of the couch on which they were +resting; in the hurry and alarm, as accomplices were mingled with a +greater number who were innocent of the plot, the machinery of the +treacherous vessel failed. Some of the rowers rushed to one side of the +ship, hoping in that manner to sink it, but here too their councils were +divided and confused. Acerronia, in the selfish hope of securing +assistance, exclaimed that she was Agrippina, and was immediately +despatched with oars and poles; Agrippina, silent and unrecognized, +received a wound upon the shoulder, but succeeded in keeping herself +afloat till she was picked up by fishermen and carried in safety to +her villa. + +The hideous attempt from which she had been thus miraculously rescued +did not escape her keen intuition, accustomed as it was to deeds of +guilt; but, seeing that her only chance of safety rested in +dissimulation and reticense, she sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her +son that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible +accident, but to beg him not to be alarmed, and not to come to see her +because she needed rest. + +The news filled Nero with the wildest terror, and the expectation of an +immediate revenge. In horrible agitation and uncertainty he instantly +required the presence of Burrus and Seneca. Tacitus doubts whether they +may not have been already aware of what he had attempted, and Dion, to +whose gross calumnies, however, we need pay no attention, declares that +Seneca had frequently urged Nero to the deed, either in the hope of +overshadowing his own guilt, or of involving Nero in a crime which +should hasten his most speedy destruction at the hands of gods and men. +In the absence of all evidence we may with perfect confidence acquit the +memory of these eminent men from having gone so far as this. + +It must have been a strange and awful scene. The young man, for Nero was +but twenty-two years old, poured into the ears their tumult of his +agitation and alarm. White with fear, weak with dissipation, and +tormented by the furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth +looked from one to another of his aged ministers. A long and painful +pause ensued. If they dissuaded him in vain from the crime which he +meditated their lives would have been in danger; and perhaps they +sincerely thought that things had gone so far that, unless Agrippina +were anticipated, Nero would be destroyed. Seneca was the first to break +that silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus whether the soldiery +could be entrusted to put her to death. His reply was that the +praetorians would do nothing against a daughter of Germanicus and that +Anicetus should accomplish what he had promised. Anicetus showed himself +prompt to crime, and Nero thanked him in a rapture of gratitude. While +the freedman Agerinus was delivering to Nero his mother's message, +Anicetus dropped a dagger at his feet, declared that he had caught him +in the very act of attempting the Emperor's assassination, and hurried +off with a band of soldiers to punish Agrippina as the author of +the crime. + +The multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excitement along the shore; +their torches were seen glimmering in evident commotion about the scene +of the calamity, where some were wading into the water in search of the +body, and others were shouting incoherent questions and replies. At the +rumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed off in a body to her villa to +express their congratulations, where they were dispersed by the soldiers +of Anicetus, who had already token possession of it. Scattering or +seizing the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage +from door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted chamber, +attended only by a single handmaid. "Dost thou too desert me?" +exclaimed the wretched woman to her servant, as she rose to slip away. +In silent determination the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus +was the first to strike her with a stick. "Strike my womb," she cried to +him faintly, as he drew his sword, "for it bore Nero." The blow of +Anicetus was the signal for her immediate destruction: she was +dispatched with many wounds, and was buried that night at Misenum on a +common couch and with a mean funeral. Such an end, many years +previously, this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had +anticipated and despised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her that +her son would become Emperor, and would murder her, she is said to have +exclaimed, "Occidat dum imperet," "Let him slay me if he but reign." + +It only remained to account for the crime, and offer for it such lying +defences as were most likely to gain credit. Flying to Naples from a +scene which had now become awful to him,--for places do not change as +men's faces change, and, besides this, his disturbed conscience made him +fancy that he heard from the hill of Misenum the blowing of a ghostly +trumpet and wailings about his mother's tomb in the hours of night,--he +sent from thence a letter to the Senate, saying that his mother had been +punished for an attempt upon his life, and adding a list of her crimes, +real and imaginary, the narrative of her _accidental_ shipwreck, and his +opinion that her death was a public blessing. The author of this +shameful document was Seneca, and in composing it he reached the nadir +of his moral degradation. Even the lax morality of a most degenerate age +condemned him for calmly sitting down to decorate with the graces of +rhetoric and antithesis an atrocity too deep for the powers of +indignation. A Seneca could stoop to write what a Thrasea Paetus could +scarcely stoop to hear; for in the meeting of the Senate at which the +letter was recited, Thrasea rose in indignation, and went straight home +rather than seem to sanction by his presence the adulation of a +matricide. + +And the composition of that guily, elaborate, shameful letter was the +last prominent act of Seneca's public life. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE BEGINNING OF THE END + +Nor was it unnatural that it should be. Moral precepts, philosophic +guidance were no longer possible to one whose compliances or whose +timidity had led him so far as first to sanction matricide, and then to +defend it. He might indeed be still powerful to recommend principles of +common sense and political expediency, but the loftier lessons of +Stoicism, nay, even the better utterances of a mere ordinary Pagan +morality, could henceforth only fall from his lips with something of a +hollow ring. He might interfere, as we know he did, to render as +innocuous as possible the pernicious vanity which made Nero so ready to +degrade his imperial rank by public appearances on the orchestra or in +the race-course, but he could hardly address again such noble teachings +as that of the treatise on Clemency to one whom, on grounds of political +expediency, he had not dissuaded from the treacherous murder of a +mother, who, whatever her enormities, yet for his sake had sold her +very soul. + +Although there may have been a strong suspicion that foul play had been +committed, the actual facts and details of the death of Agrippina would +rest between Nero and Seneca as a guilty secret, in the guilt of which +Seneca himself must have his share. Such a position of things was the +inevitable death-blow, not only to all friendship, but to all +confidence, and ultimately to all intercourse. We see in sacred history +that Joab's participation in David's guilty secret gave him the absolute +mastery over his own sovereign; we see repeatedly in profane history +that the mutual knowledge of some crime is the invariable cause of +deadly hatred between a subject and a king. Such feelings as King John +may be supposed to have had to Hubert de Burgh, or King Richard III. to +Sir James Tyrrel, or King James I. to the Earl of Somerset, such +probably, in still more virulent intensity, were the feelings of Nero +towards his whilome "guide, philosopher, and friend." + +For Nero very soon learnt that Seneca was no longer _necessary_ to him. +For a time he lingered in Campania, guiltily dubious as to the kind of +reception that awaited him in the capital. The assurances of the vile +crew which surrounded him soon made that fear wear off, and when he +plucked up the courage to return to his palace, he might himself have +been amazed at the effusion of infamous loyalty and venal acclamation +with which he was received. All Rome poured itself forth to meet him; +the Senate appeared in festal robes with their wives and girls and boys +in long array; seats and scaffoldings were built up along the road by +which he had to pass, as though the populace had gone forth to see a +triumph. With haughty mein, the victor of a nation of slaves, he +ascended the Capitol, gave thanks to the gods, and went home to betray +henceforth the full perversity of a nature which the reverence for his +mother, such as it was, had hitherto in part restrained. But the +instincts of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. They +hung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the old punishment +of parricides, who were sentenced to be flung into the sea, tied up in a +sack with a serpent, a monkey, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the +Forum with a tablet on which was written, "I refuse to rear thee, lest +thou shouldst slay thy mother." They scrawled upon the blank walls of +Rome an iambic line which reminded all who read it that Nero, Orestes, +and Alcmaeon were murderers of their mothers. Even Nero must have been +well aware that he presented a hideous spectacle in the eyes of all who +had the faintest shade of righteousness among the people whom he ruled. + +All this took place in A.D. 59, and we hear no more of Seneca till the +year 62, a year memorable for the death of Burrus, who had long been his +honest, friendly, and faithful colleague. In these dark times, when all +men seemed to be speaking in a whisper, almost every death of a +conspicuous and high-minded man, if not caused by open violence, falls +under the suspicion of secret poison. The death of Burrus may have been +due (from the description) to diphtheria, but the popular voice charged +Nero with having hastened his death by a pretended remedy, and declared +that, when the Emperor visited his sick bed, the dying man turned away +from his inquiries with the laconic answer, "I am well." + +His death was regretted, not only from the memory of his virtues, but +also from the fact that Nero appointed two men as his successors, of +whom the one, Fenius Rufus, was honorable but indolent; the other and +more powerful, Sofonius Tigellinus had won for himself among cruel and +shameful associates a pre-eminence of hatred and of shame. + +However faulty and inconsistent Seneca may have been, there was at any +rate no possibility that he should divide with a Tigellinus the +direction of his still youthful master. He was by no means deceived as +to the position in which he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in +whom any spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant +calumnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tigellinus and his +friends dwelt on his enormous wealth and his magnificent villas and +gardens, which could only have been acquired with ulterior objects, and +which threw into the shade the splendour of the Emperor himself. They +tried to kindle the inflammable jealousies of Nero's feeble mind by +representing Seneca as attempting to rival him in poetry, and as +claiming the entire credit of his eloquence, while he mocked his divine +singing, and disparaged his accomplishments as a harper and charioteer +because he himself was unable to acquire them. Nero, they urged was a +boy no longer; let him get rid of his schoolmaster, and find sufficient +instruction in the example of his ancestors. + +Foreseeing how such arguments must end; Seneca requested an interview +with Nero; begged to be suffered to retire altogether from public life; +pleaded age and increasing infirmities as an excuse for desiring a calm +retreat; and offered unconditionally to resign the wealth and honours +which had excited the cupidity of his enemies, but which were simply due +to Nero's unexampled liberality during the eight years of his +government, towards one whom he had regarded as a benefactor and a +friend. But Nero did not choose to let Seneca escape so lightly. He +argued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to +accept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for +generosity. A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under +deceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and +assurances of friendship. Seneca thanked him--the usual termination, as +Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler--but nevertheless +altered his entire manner of life, forbade his friends to throng to his +levees, avoided all companions, and rarely appeared in public--wishing +it to be believed that he was suffering from weak health, or was wholly +occupied in the pursuit of philosophy. He well knew the arts of courts, +for in his book on Anger he has told an anecdote of one who, being asked +how he had managed to attain so rare a gift as old age in a palace, +replied, "By submitting to injuries, and _returning thanks for them_." +But he must have known that his life hung upon a thread, for in the very +same year an attempt was made to involve him in a charge of treason as +one of the friends of C. Calpurnius Piso, an illustrious nobleman whose +wealth and ability made him an object of jealousy and suspicion, though +he was naturally unambitious and devoid of energy. The attempt failed at +the time, and Seneca was able triumphantly to refute the charge of any +treasonable design. But the fact of such a charge being made showed how +insecure was the position of any man of eminence under the deepening +tyranny of Nero, and it precipitated the conspiracy which two years +afterwards was actually formed. + +Not long after the death of Burrus, when Nero began to add sacrilege to +his other crimes, Seneca made one more attempt to retire from Rome; and, +when permission was a second time refused, he feigned a severe illness, +and confined himself to his chamber. It was asserted, and believed, that +about this time Nero made an attempt to poison him by the +instrumentality of his freedman Cleonicus, which was only defeated by +the confession of an accomplice or by the abstemious habits of the +philosopher who now took nothing but bread and fruit, and never quenched +his thirst except out of the running stream. + +It was during those two years of Seneca's seclusion and disgrace that an +event happened of imperishable interest. On the orgies of a shameful +court, on the supineness of a degenerate people, there burst--as upon +the court of Charles II.--a sudden lightning-flash of retribution. In +its character, in its extent, in the devastation and anguish of which it +was the cause, in the improvements by which it was followed, in the +lying origin to which it was attributed, even in the general +circumstances of the period and character of the reign in which it +happened, there is a close and singular analogy between the Great Fire +of London in 1666 and the Great Fire of Rome in 64. Beginning in the +crowded part of the city, under the Palatine and Caelian Hills, it +raged, first for six, and then again for three days, among the +inflammable material of booths and shops, and driven along by a furious +wind, amid feeble and ill-directed efforts to check its course, it burst +irresistibly over palaces, temples, and porticoes, and amid the narrow +tortuous streets of old Rome, involving in a common destruction the most +magnificent works of ancient art, the choicest manuscripts of ancient +literature, and the most venerable monuments of ancient superstition. In +a few touches of inimitable compression, such as the stern genius of the +Latin language permits, but which are too condensed for direct +translation, Tacitus has depicted the horror of the scene,--wailing of +panic-stricken women, the helplessness of the very aged and the very +young, the passionate eagerness for themselves and for others, the +dragging along of the feeble or the waiting for them, the lingering and +the hurry, the common and inextricable confusion. Many, while they +looked backward, were cut off by the flames in front or at the sides; if +they sought some neighboring refuge, they found it in the grasp of the +conflagration; if they hurried to some more distant spot, that too was +found to be involved in the same calamity. At last, uncertain what to +seek or what to avoid, they crowded the streets, they lay huddled +together in the fields. Some, having lost all their possessions, died +from the want of daily food; and others, who might have escaped died of +a broken heart from the anguish of being bereaved of those whom they had +been unable to rescue; while, to add to the universal horror, it was +believed that all attempts to repress the flames were checked by +authoritive prohibition; nay more, that hired incendiaries were seen +flinging firebrands in new directions, either because they had been +bidden to do so, or that they might exercise their rapine undisturbed. + +The historians and anecdotists of the time, whose accounts must be taken +for what they are worth, attribute to Nero the origin of the +conflagration; and it is certain that he did not return to Rome until +the fire had caught the galleries of his palace. In vain did he use +every exertion to assist the homeless and ruined population; in vain did +he order food to be sold to them at a price unprecedentedly low, and +throw open to them the monuments of Agrippa, his own gardens, and a +multitude of temporary sheds. A rumour had been spread that, during the +terrible unfolding of that great "flower of flame," he had mounted to +the roof of his distant villa, and delighted with the beauty of the +spectacle, exulting in the safe sensation of a new excitement, had +dressed himself in theatrical attire, and sung to his harp a poem on the +burning of Troy. Such a heartless mixture of buffoonery and affectation +had exasperated the people too deeply for forgiveness, and Nero thought +it necessary to draw off the general odium into a new channel, since +neither his largesses nor any other popular measures succeeded in +removing from himself the ignominy of this terrible suspicion. What +follows is so remarkable, and, to a Christian reader, so deeply +interesting, that I will give it in the very words of that great +historian whom I have been so closely following. + +"Therefore, to get rid of this report, Nero trumped up an accusation +against a sect, detested for their atrocities, whom the common people +called Christians, and inflicted on them the most recondite punishments. +Christ, the founder of this sect, had been capitally punished by the +Procurator Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; and this damnable +superstition, repressed for the present, was again breaking out, not +only through Judaea, where the evil originated, but even through the +City, whither from all regions all things that are atrocious or shameful +flow together and gain a following. Those, therefore, were first +arrested who confessed their religion, and then on their evidence a vast +multitude were condemned, not so much on the charge of incendiarism, as +for their hatred towards the human race. And mockery was added to their +death; for they were covered in the skins of wild beasts and were torn +to death by dogs, or crucified, or set apart for burning, and after the +close of the day were reserved for the purpose of nocturnal +illumination. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a +chariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer, +or driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a +feeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were, +and deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being +exterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the savage +cruelty of one man." + +Such are the brief but deeply pathetic particulars which have come down +to us respecting the first great persecution of the Christians, and such +must have been the horrid events of which Seneca was a contemporary, and +probably an actual eye-witness, in the very last year of his life. +Profoundly as in all likelihood he must have despised the very name of +Christian, a heart so naturally mild and humane as his must have +shuddered at the monstrous cruelties devised against the unhappy +votaries of this new religion. But to the relations of Christianity with +the Pagan world we shall return in a subsequent chapter and we must now +hasten to the end of our biography. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE DEATH OF SENECA. + +The false charge which had been brought against Seneca, and in which the +name of Piso had been involved, tended to urge that nobleman and his +friends into a real and formidable conspiracy. Many men of influence and +distinction joined in it, and among others Annaeus Lucanus, the +celebrated poet-nephew of Seneca, and Fenius Rufus the colleague of +Tigellinus in the command of the imperial guards. The plot was long +discussed, and many were admitted into the secret, which was +nevertheless marvellously well kept. One of the most eager conspirators +was Subrius Flavus, an officer of the guards, who suggested the plan of +stabbing Nero as he sang upon the stage, or of attacking him as he went +about without guards at night in the galleries of his burning palace. +Flavus is even said to have cherished the design of subsequently +murdering Piso likewise, and of offering the imperial power to Seneca, +with the full cognisance of the philosopher himself.[35] However this +may have been--and the story has no probability--many schemes were +discussed and rejected, from the difficulty of finding a man +sufficiently bold and sufficiently in earnest to put his own life to +such imminent risk. While things were still under discussion, the plot +was nearly ruined by the information of Volusius Proculus, an admiral of +the fleet, to whom it had been mentioned by a freedwoman of the name of +Ephicharis. Although no sufficient evidence could be adduced against +her, the conspirators thought it advisable to hasten matters, and one of +them, a senator named Scaevinus, undertook the dangerous task of +assassination. Plautius Lateranus, the cousul-elect, was to pretend to +offer a petition, in which he was to embrace the Emperor's knees and +throw him to the ground, and then Scaevinus was to deal the fatal blow. +The theatrical conduct of Scaevinus--who took an antique dagger from the +Temple of Safety, made his will, ordered the dagger to be sharpened, sat +down to an unusually luxurious banquet, manumitted or made presents to +his slaves, showed great agitation, and finally ordered ligaments for +wounds to be prepared,--awoke the suspicions of one of his freedmen +named Milichus, who hastened to claim a reward for revealing his +suspicions. Confronted with Milichus, Scaevinus met and refuted his +accusations with the greatest firmness; but when Milichus mentioned +among other things that, the day before, Scaevinus had held a long and +secret conversation with another friend of Piso named Natalis, and when +Natalis, on being summoned, gave a very different account of the subject +of this conversation from that which Scaevinus had given, they were both +put in chains; and, unable to endure the threats and the sight of +tortures, revealed the entire conspiracy. Natalis was the first to +mentioned the name of Piso, and he added the hated name of Seneca, +either because he had been the confidential messenger between the two, +or because he knew that he could not do a greater favour to Nero than by +giving him the opportunity of injuring a man whom he had long sought +every possible opportunity to crush. Scaevinus, with equal weakness, +perhaps because he thought that Natalis had left nothing to reveal, +mentioned the names of the others, and among them of Lucan, whose +complicity in the plot would undoubtedly tend to give greater +probability to the supposed guilt of Seneca. Lucan, after long denying +all knowledge of the design, corrupted by the promise of impunity, was +guilty of the incredible baseness of making up for the slowness of his +confession by its completeness, and of naming among the conspirators his +chief friend Gallus and Pollio, and his own mother Atilla. The woman +Ephicharis, slave though she had once been, alone showed the slightest +constancy, and, by her brave unshaken reticence under the most +excruciating and varied tortures, put to shame the pusillanimous +treachery of senators and knights. On the second day, when, with limbs +too dislocated to admit of her standing, she was again brought to the +presence of her executioners, she succeeded, by a sudden movement, in +strangling herself with her own girdle. + +[Footnote 35: See Juv. _Sat_. viii. 212.] + +In the hurry and alarm of the moment the slightest show of resolution +would have achieved the object of the conspiracy. Fenius Rufus had not +yet been named among the conspirators, and as he sat by the side of the +Emperor, and presided over the torture of his associates, Subrius Flavus +made him a secret sign to inquire whether even then and there he should +stab Nero. Rufus not only made a sign of dissent, but actually held the +hand of Subrius as it was grasping the hilt of his sword. Perhaps it +would have been better for him if he had not done so, for it was not +likely that the numerous conspirators would long permit the same man to +be at once their accomplice and the fiercest of their judges. Shortly +afterwards, as he was urging and threatening, Scaevinus remarked, with a +quiet smile, "that nobody knew more about the matter than he did +himself, and that he had better show his gratitude to so excellent a +prince by telling all he knew." The confusion and alarm of Rufus +betrayed his consciousness of guilt; he was seized and bound on the +spot, and subsequently put to death. + +Meanwhile the friends of Piso were urging to take some bold and sudden +step, which, if it did not succeed in retrieving his fortunes, would at +least shed lustre on his death. But his somewhat slothful nature, +weakened still further by a luxurious life, was not to be aroused, and +he calmly awaited the end. It was customary among the Roman Emperors at +this period to avoid the disgrace and danger of public executions by +sending a messenger to a man's house, and ordering him to put himself to +death by whatever means he preferred. Some raw recruits--for Nero dared +not intrust any veterans with the duty--brought the mandate to Piso, who +proceeded to make a will full of disgraceful adulation towards Nero, +opened his veins, and died. Plautius Lateranus was not even allowed the +poor privilege of choosing his own death, but, without time even to +embrace his children, was hurried off to a place set apart for the +punishment of slaves, and there died, without a word, by the sword of a +tribune whom he knew to be one his own accomplices. + +Lucan, in the prime of his life and the full bloom of his genius, was +believed to have joined the plot from his indignation at the manner in +which Nero's jealousy had repressed his poetic fame, and forbidden him +the opportunity of public rectitations. He too opened his veins; and as +he felt the deathful chill creeping upwards from the extremities of his +limbs, he recited some verses from his own "Pharsalia," in which he had +described the similar death of the soldier Lycidas. They were his last +words. His mother Atilla, whom to his everlasting infamy, he had +betrayed, was passed over as a victim too insignificant for notice, and +was neither pardoned nor punished. + +But, of all the many deaths which were brought about by this unhappy and +ill-managed conspiracy, none caused more delight to Nero than that of +Seneca, whom he was now able to dispatch by the sword, since he had been +unable to do so by secret poison. What share Seneca really had in the +conspiracy is unknown. If he were really cognisant of it, he must have +acted with consummate tact, for no particle of convincing evidence was +adduced against him. All that even Natalis could relate was, that when +Piso had sent him to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to +more of his intercourse, Seneca had replied "that it was better for them +both to hold aloof from each other, but that his own safety depended on +that of Piso." A tribune was sent to ask Seneca as to the truth of this +story, and found,--which was in itself regarded as a suspicious +circumstance,--that on that very day he had returned from Campania to a +villa four miles from the city. The tribune arrived in the evening, and +surrounded the villa with soldiers. Seneca was at supper, with his wife +Paulina and two friends. He entirely denied the truth of the evidence, +and said that "the only reason which he had assigned to Piso for seeing +so little of him was his weak health and love of retirement. Nero, who +knew how little prone he was to flattery, might judge whether or no it +was likely that he, a man of consular rank, would prefer the safety of a +man of private station to his own." Such was the message which the +tribune took back to Nero, whom he found sitting with his dearest and +most detestable advisers, his wife Poppaea and his minister Tigellinus. +Nero asked "whether Seneca was preparing a voluntary death." On the +tribune replying that he showed no gloom or terror in his language or +countenance, Nero ordered that he should at once be bidden to die. The +message was taken, and Seneca, without any sign of alarm, quietly +demanded leave to revise his will. This was refused him, and he then +turned to his friends with the remark that, as he was unable to reward +their merits as they had deserved, he would bequeath to them the only, +and yet the most precious, possession left to him, namely, the example +of his life, and if they were mindful of it they would win the +reputation alike for integrity and for faithful friendship. At the same +time he checked their tears, sometimes by his conversation, and +sometimes with serious reproaches, asking them "where were their +precepts of philosophy, and where the fortitude under trials which +should have been learnt from the studies of many years? Did not every +one know the cruelty of Nero? and what was left for him to do but to +make an end of his master and tutor after the murder of his mother and +his brother?" He then embraced his wife Paulina, and, with a slight +faltering of his lofty sternness, begged and entreated her not to enter +on an endless sorrow, but to endure the loss of her husband by the aid +of those noble consolations which she must derive from the contemplation +of his virtuous life. But Paulina declared that she would die with him, +and Seneca, not opposing the deed which would win her such permanent +glory, and at the same time unwilling to leave her to future wrongs, +yielded to her wish. The veins of their arms were opened by the same +blow; but the blood of Seneca, impoverished by old age and temperate +living, flowed so slowly that it was necessary also to open the veins of +his legs. This mode of death, chosen by the Romans as comparatively +painless, is in fact under certain circumstances most agonizing. Worn +out by these cruel tortures, and unwilling to weaken his wife's +fortitude by so dreadful a spectacle, glad at the same time to spare +himself the sight of _her_ sufferings, he persuaded her to go to another +room. Even then his eloquence did not fail. It is told of Andre Chenier, +the French poet, that on his way to execution he asked for writing +materials to record some of the strange thoughts which filled his mind. +The wish was denied him, but Seneca had ample liberty to record his last +utterances. Amanuenses were summoned, who took down those dying +admonitions, and in the time of Tacitus they still were extant. To us, +however, this interesting memorial of a Pagan deathbed is +irrevocably lost. + +Nero, meanwhile, to whom the news of these circumstances was taken, +having no dislike to Paulina, and unwilling to incur the odium of too +much bloodshed, ordered her death to be prohibited and her wounds to be +bound. She was already unconscious, but her slaves and freedmen +succeeded in saving her life. She lived a few years longer, cherishing +her husband's memory, and bearing in the attenuation of her frame, and +the ghastly pallor of her countenance, the lasting proofs of that deep +affection which had characterised their married life. + +Seneca was not yet dead, and, to shorten these protracted and useless +sufferings, he begged his friend and physician Statius Annaeus to give +him a draught of hemlock, the same poison by which the great philosopher +of Athens had been put to death. But his limbs were already cold, and +the draught proved fruitless. He then entered a bath of hot water, +sprinkling the slaves who stood nearest to him, with the words that he +was pouring a libation to Jupiter the Liberator.[36] Even the warm +water failed to make the blood flow more speedily, and he was finally +carried into one of those vapour baths which the Romans called +_sudatoria_, and stifled with its steam. His body was burned privately, +without any of the usual ceremonies. Such had been his own wish, +expressed, not after the fall of his fortunes, but at a time when his +thoughts had been directed to his latter end, in the zenith of his great +wealth and conspicuous power. + +[Footnote 36: Sicco Polentone, an Italian, who wrote a Life of Seneca +(d. 1461), makes Seneca a secret Christian, and represents this as an +invocation of Christ, and says that he baptized himself with the water +of the bath!] + +So died a Pagan philosopher, whose life must always excite our interest +and pity, although we cannot apply to him the titles of great or good. +He was a man of high genius, of great susceptibility, of an ardent and +generous temperament, of far-sighted and sincere humanity. Some of his +sentiments are so remarkable for their moral beauty and profundity that +they forcibly remind us of the expressions of St. Paul. But Seneca fell +infinitely short of his own high standard, and has contemptuously been +called "the father of all them that wear shovel hats." Inconsistency is +written on the entire history of his life, and it has earned him the +scathing contempt with which many writers have treated his memory. "The +business of a philosopher," says Lord Macaulay, in his most scornful +strain, "was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling +out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of +luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about +liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant; +to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had +just before written a defence of the murder of a mother by a son." +"Seneca," says Niebuhr, "was an accomplished man of the world, who +occupied himself very much with virtue, and may have considered himself +to be an ancient Stoic. He certainly believed that he was a most +ingenious and virtuous philosopher; but he acted on the principle that, +as far as he himself was concerned, he could dispense with the laws of +morality which he laid down for others, and that he might give way to +his natural propensities." + +In Seneca's life, then, we see as clearly as in those of many professing +Christians that it is impossible to be at once worldly and righteous. +Seneca's utter failure was due to the vain attempt to combine in his own +person two opposite characters--that of a Stoic and that of a courtier. +Had he been a true philosopher, or a mere courtier, he would have been +happier, and even more respected. To be both was absurd: hence, even in +his writings, he was driven into inconsistency. He is often compelled to +abandon the lofty utterances of Stoicism, and to charge philosophers +with ignorance of life. In his treatise on a Happy Life he is obliged to +introduce a sort of indirect autobiographical apology for his wealth and +position.[37] In spite of his lofty pretensions to simplicity, in spite +of that sort of amateur asceticism which, in common with other wealthy +Romans, he occasionally practised, in spite of his final offer to +abandon his entire patrimony to the Emperor, we fear that he cannot be +acquitted of an almost insatiable avarice. We need not indeed believe +the fierce calumnies which charged him with exhausting Italy by a +boundless usury, and even stirring up a war in Britain by the severity +of his exactions; but it is quite clear that he deserved the title of +_Proedives_, "the over-wealthy," by which he has been so pointedly +signalized. It is strange that the most splendid intellects should so +often have sunk under the slavery of this meanest vice. In the Bible we +read how the "rewards of divination" seduced from his allegiance to God +the splendid enchanter of Mesopotamia: + + "In outline dim and vast + Their fearful shadows cast + The giant form of Empires on their way + To ruin:--one by one + They tower and they are gone, + Yet in the prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay. + + "No sun or star so bright, + In all the world of light, + That they should draw to heaven his downward eye: + He hears the Almighty's word, + He sees the angel's sword, + Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie." + +[Footnote 37: See _Ad. Polyb_. 37: _Ep_. 75; _De Vit. Beat_. 17, 18, +22.] + +And in Seneca we see some of the most glowing pictures of the nobility +of poverty combined with the most questionable avidity in the pursuit of +wealth. Yet how completely did he sell himself for naught. It is the +lesson which we see in every conspicuously erring life, and it was +illustrated less than three years afterwards in the terrible fate of the +tyrant who had driven him to death. For a short period of his life, +indeed, Seneca was at the summit of power; yet, courtier as he was, he +incurred the hatred, the suspicion, and the punishment of all the three +Emperors during whose reigns his manhood was passed. "Of all +unsuccessful men," says Mr. Froude, "in every shape, whether divine or +human, or devilish, there is none equal to Bunyan's Mr. +Facing-both-ways--the fellow with one eye on heaven and one on +earth--who sincerely preaches one thing and sincerely does another, and +from the intensity of his unreality is unable either to see or feel the +contradiction. He is substantially trying to cheat both God and the +devil, and is in reality only cheating himself and his neighbours. This +of all characters upon the earth appears to us to be the one of which +there is no hope at all, a character becoming in these days alarmingly +abundant; and the aboundance of which makes us find even in a Reineke an +inexpressible relief." And, in point of fact, the inconsistency of +Seneca's life was a _conscious_ inconsistency. "To the student," he +says, "who professes his wish to rise to a loftier grade of virtue, I +would answer that this is my _wish_ also, but I dare not hope it. _I am +preoccupied with vices. All I require of myself is, not to be equal to +the best_, but only _to be better than the bad_." No doubt Seneca meant +this to be understood merely for modest depreciation; but it was far +truer than he would have liked seriously to confess. He must have often +and deeply felt that he was not living in accordance with the light +which was in him. + +It would indeed be cheap and easy, to attribute the general inferiority +and the many shortcomings of Seneca's life and character to the fact +that he was a Pagan, and to suppose that if he had known Christianity he +would necessarily have attained to a loftier ideal. But such a style of +reasoning and inference, commonly as it is adopted for rhetorical +purposes, might surely be refused by any intelligent child. A more +intellectual assent to the lessons of Christianity would have probably +been but of little avail to inspire in Seneca a nobler life. The fact +is, that neither the gift of genius nor the knowledge of Christianity +are adequate to the ennoblement of the human heart, nor does the grace +of God flow through the channels of surpassing intellect or of orthodox +belief. Men there have been in all ages, Pagan no less than Christian, +who with scanty mental enlightenment and spiritual knowledge have yet +lived holy and noble lives: men there have been in all ages, Christian +no less than Pagan, who with consummate gifts and profound erudition +have disgraced some of the noblest words which ever were uttered by some +of the meanest lives which were ever lived. In the twelfth century was +there any mind that shone more brightly, was there any eloquence which +flowed more mightily, than that of Peter Abelard? Yet Abelard sank +beneath the meanest of his scholastic cotemporaries in the degradation +of his career as much as he towered above the highest of them in the +grandeur of his genius. In the seventeenth century was there any +philosopher more profound, any moralist more elevated, than Francis +Bacon? Yet Bacon could flatter a tyrant, and betray a friend, and +receive a bribe, and be one of the latest of English judges to adopt the +brutal expedient of enforcing confession by the exercise of torture. If +Seneca defended the murder of Agrippina, Bacon blackened the character +of Essex. "What I would I do not; but the thing that I would not, that I +do," might be the motto for many a confession of the sins of genius; and +Seneca need not blush if we compare him with men who were his equals in +intellectual power, but whose "means of grace," whose privileges, whose +knowledge of the truth, were infinitely higher than his own. Let the +noble constancy of his death shed a light over his memory which may +dissipate something of those dark shades which rest on portions of his +history. We think of Abelard, humble, silent, patient, God-fearing, +tended by the kindly-hearted Peter in the peaceful gardens of Clugny; we +think of Bacon, neglected, broken, and despised, dying of the chill +caught in a philosophical experiment and leaving his memory to the +judgment of posterity; let us think of Seneca, quietly yielding to his +destiny without a murmur, cheering the constancy of the mourners round +him during the long agonies of his enforced suicide and dictating some +of the purest utterances of Pagan wisdom almost with his latest breath. +The language of his great contemporary, the Apostle St. Paul, will best +help us to understand his position. He was one of those who was _seeking +the Lord, if haply he might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be +not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have +our being_. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +SENECA AND ST. PAUL. + +In the spring of the year 61, not long after the time when the murder of +Agrippina, and Seneca's justifications of it, had been absorbing the +attention of the Roman world, there disembarked at Puteoli a troop of +prisoners, whom the Procurator of Judaea had sent to Rome under the +charge of a centurion. Walking among them, chained and weary, but +affectionately tended by two younger companions,[38] and treated with +profound respect by little deputations of friends who met him at Appii +Forum and the Three Taverns, was a man of mean presence and +weather-beaten aspect, who was handed over like the rest to the charge +of Burrus, the Praefect of the Praetorian Guards. Learning from the +letters of the Jewish Procurator that the prisoner had been guilty of no +serious offence,[39] but had used his privilege of Roman citizenship to +appeal to Caesar for protection against the infuriated malice of his +co-religionists--possibly also having heard from the centurion Julius +some remarkable facts about his behaviour and history--Burrus allowed +him, pending the hearing of his appeal, to live in his own hired +apartments.[40] This lodging was in all probability in that quarter of +the city opposite the island in the Tiber, which corresponds to the +modern Trastevere. It was the resort of the very lowest and meanest of +the populace--that promiscuous jumble of all nations which makes Tacitus +call Rome at this time "the sewer of the universe." It was here +especially that the Jews exercised some of the meanest trades in Rome, +selling matches, and old clothes, and broken glass, or begging and +fortune-telling on the Cestian or Fabrican bridges.[41] In one of these +narrow, dark, and dirty streets, thronged by the dregs of the Roman +populace, St. Mark and St. Peter had in all probability lived when they +founded the little Christian Church at Rome. It was undoubtedly in the +same despised locality that St. Paul,--the prisoner who had been +consigned to the care of Burrus,--hired a room, sent for the principle +Jews, and for two years taught to Jews and Christians, to any Pagans who +would listen to him, the doctrines which were destined to regenerate +the world. + +[Footnote 38: Luke and Aristarchus.] + +[Footnote 39: Acts xxiv. 23, xxvii. 3.] + +[Footnote 40: Acts xxviii. 30, [Greek: en idio misthomati].] + +[Footnote 41: MART. _Ep_. i. 42: JUV. xiv. 186. In these few paragraphs +I follow M. Aubertin, who (as well as many other authors) has collected +many of the principal passages in which Roman writers allude to the Jews +and Christians.] + +Any one entering that mean and dingy room would have seen a Jew with +bent body and furrowed countenance, and with every appearance of age, +weakness, and disease chained by the arm to a Roman soldier. But it is +impossible that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not also +have seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, the fire of inspiration, +the serene light of exalted hope and dauntless courage upon those +withered features. And though _he_ was chained, "the Word of God was not +chained." [42] Had they listened to the words which he occasionally +dictated, or overlooked the large handwriting which alone his weak +eyesight and bodily infirmities, as well as the inconvenience of his +chains, permitted, they would have heard or read the immortal utterances +which strengthened the faith of the nascent and struggling Churches in +Ephesus, Philippi, and Colossae, and which have since been treasured +among the most inestimable possessions of a Christian world. + +[Footnote 42: 2 Tim. ii. 9.] + +His efforts were not unsuccessful; his misfortunes were for the +furtherance of the Gospel; his chains were manifest "in all the palace, +and in all other places;" [43] and many waxing confident by his bonds +were much more bold to speak the word without fear. Let us not be misled +by assuming a wrong explanation of these words, or by adopting the +Middle Age traditions which made St. Paul convert some of the immediate +favourites of the Emperor, and electrify with his eloquence an admiring +Senate. The word here rendered "palace" [44] may indeed have that +meaning, for we know that among the early converts were "they of +Caesar's household;" [45] but these were in all probability--if not +certainly--Jews of the lowest rank, who were, as we know, to be found +among the _hundreds_ of unfortunates of every age and country who +composed a Roman _familia_. And it is at least equally probable that the +word "praetorium" simply means the barrack of that detachment of Roman +soldiers from which Paul's gaolers were taken in turn. In such labours +St. Paul in all probability spent two years (61-63), during which +occurred the divorce of Octavia, the marriage with Poppaea, the death of +Burrus, the disgrace of Seneca, and the many subsequent infamies +of Nero. + +[Footnote 43: Phil. i. 12.] + +[Footnote 44: [Greek: en olo to praitorio].] + +[Footnote 45: Phil. iv. 22.] + +It is out of such materials that some early Christian forger thought it +edifying to compose the work which is supposed to contain the +correspondence of Seneca and St. Paul. The undoubted spuriousness of +that work is now universally admitted, and indeed the forgery is too +clumsy to be even worth reading. But it is worth while inquiring whether +in the circumstances of the time there is even a bare possibility that +Seneca should ever have been among the readers or the auditors of Paul. + +And the answer is, There is absolutely no such probability. A vivid +imagination is naturally attracted by the points of contrast and +resemblance offered by two such characters, and we shall see that there +is a singular likeness between many of their sentiments and expressions. +But this was a period in which, as M. Villemain observes, "from one +extremity of the social world to the other truths met each other without +recognition." Stoicism, noble as were many of its precepts, lofty as was +the morality it professed, deeply as it was imbued in many respects with +a semi-Christian piety, looked upon Christianity with profound contempt. +The Christians disliked the Stoics, the Stoics despised and persecuted +the Christians. "The world knows nothing of its greatest men." Seneca +would have stood aghast at the very notion of his receiving the lessons, +still more of his adopting the religion, of a poor, accused, and +wandering Jew. The haughty, wealthy, eloquent, prosperous, powerful +philosopher would have smiled at the notion that any future ages would +suspect him of having borrowed any of his polished and epigrammatic +lessons of philosophic morals or religion from one whom, if he heard of +him, he would have regarded as a poor wretch, half fanatic and half +barbarian. + +We learn from St. Paul himself that the early converts of Christianity +were men in the very depths of poverty,[46] and that its preachers were +regarded as fools, and weak, and were despised, and naked, and +buffeted--persecuted and homeless labourers--a spectacle to the world, +and to angels, and to men, "made as the filth of the earth and the +off-scouring of all things." We know that their preaching was to the +Greeks "foolishness," and that, when they spoke of Jesus and the +resurrection, their hearers mocked[47] and jeered. And these indications +are more than confirmed by many contemporary passages of ancient +writers. We have already seen the violent expressions of hatred which +the ardent and high-toned soul of Tacitus thought applicable to the +Christians; and such language is echoed by Roman writers of every +character and class. The fact is that at this time and for centuries +afterwards the Romans regarded the Christians with such lordly +indifference that--like Festus, and Felix and Seneca's brother +Gallio--they never took the trouble to distinguish them from the Jews. +The distinction was not fully realized by the Pagan world till the cruel +and wholesale massacre of the Christians by the pseudo-Messiah +Barchochebas in the reign of Adrian opened their eyes to the fact of the +irreconcilable differences which existed between the two religions. And +pages might be filled with the ignorant and scornful allusions which the +heathen applied to the Jews. They confused them with the whole degraded +mass of Egyptian and Oriental impostors and brute-worshippers; they +disdained them as seditious, turbulent, obstinate, and avaricious; they +regarded them as mainly composed of the very meanest slaves out of the +gross and abject multitude; their proselytism they considered as the +clandestine initiation into some strange and revolting mystery, which +involved as its direct teachings contempt of the gods, and the negation +of all patriotism and all family affection; they firmly believed that +they worshipped the head of an ass; they thought it natural that none +but the vilest slaves and the silliest woman should adopt so +misanthropic and degraded a superstition; they characterized their +customs as "absurd, sordid, foul, and depraved," and their nation as +"prone to superstition, opposed to religion." [48] And as far as they +made _any_ distinction between Jews and Christians, it was for the +latter that they reserved their choicest and most concentrated epithets +of hatred and abuse. A "new," "pernicious," "detestable," "execrable," +superstition is the only language with which Suetonius and Tacitus +vouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,--though he must have heard the name of +Christian during the reign of Claudius (when both they and the Jews were +expelled from Rome, "because of their perpetual turbulence, at the +instigation of Chrestus," as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and during +the Neronian persecution--never once alludes to them, and only mentions +the Jews to apply a few contemptuous remarks to the idleness of their +sabbaths, and to call them "a most abandoned race." + +[Footnote 46: 2 Cor. viii. 2.] + +[Footnote 47: [Greek: _Echleuazon_], Acts xvii. 32. The word expresses +the most profound and unconcealed contempt.] + +[Footnote 48: Tac. _Hist_. i. 13: ib. v. 5: JUV. xiv. 85: Pers. v. 190, +&c.] + +The reader will now judge whether there is the slightest probability +that Seneca had any intercourse with St. Paul, or was likely to have +stooped from his superfluity of wealth, and pride of power, to take +lessons from obscure and despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by +the crowded households of Caesar or Narcissus. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +SENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE. + +And yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be called, as he is +called in the title of this book, a Seeker after God; and the +resemblances to the sacred writings which may be found in the pages of +his works are numerous and striking. A few of these will probably +interest our readers, and will put them in a better position for +understanding how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had +rewarded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We will place a +few such passages side by side with the texts of Scripture which they +resemble or recall. + +1. _God's Indwelling Presence_. + +"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God +dwelleth in you?" asks St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 16). + +"_God is near you, is with you, is within you_," writes Seneca to his +friend Lucilius, in the 41st of those _Letters_ which abound in his most +valuable moral reflections; "_a sacred Spirit dwells within us, the +observer and guardian of all our evil and our good ... there is no good +man without God_." + +And again (_Ep._ 73): "_Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God +comes to men: nay, what is yet nearer; He comes into men. No good mind +is holy without God_." + +2. _The Eye of God_. + +"All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have +to do." (Heb. iv. 13.) + +"Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in +secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt. vi. 6.) + +Seneca (_On Providence_, 1): "_It is no advantage that conscience is +shut within us; we lie open to God_." + +_Letter_ 83: "_What advantage is it that anything is hidden from man? +Nothing is closed to God: He is present to our minds, and enters into +our central thoughts_." + +_Letter_ 83: "_We must live as if we were living in sight of all men; we +must think as though some one could and can gaze into our +inmost breast_." + +3. _God is a Spirit_. + +St. Paul, "We ought not to think that the God-head is like unto gold, or +silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." (Acts xvii. 29.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 31): "_Even from a corner it is possible to spring up +into heaven: rise, therefore, and form thyself into a fashion worthy of +God; thou canst not do this, however, with gold and silver: an image +like to God cannot be formed out of such materials as these_." + +4. _Imitating God_. + +"Be ye therefore followers ([Greek: _mimaetai_], imitators) of God, as +dear children." (Eph. v. 1.) + +"He that in these things [righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost] +serveth Christ is acceptable to God." (Rom. xiv. 18.) + +Seneca _(Letter_ 95): "_Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be +virtuous. To honour them it is enough to imitate them_." + +_Letter_ 124: "_Let man aim at the good which belongs to him. What is +this good? A mind reformed and pure, the imitator of God, raising itself +above things human, confining all its desires within itself_." + +5. _Hypocrites like whited Sepulchres_. + +"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto +whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within +full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matt, xxiii. 27.) + +Seneca: "_Those whom you regard as happy, if you saw them, not in their +externals, but in their hidden aspect, are wretched, sordid, base; like +their own walls adorned outwardly. It is no solid and genuine felicity; +it is a plaster, and that a thin one; and so, as long as they can stand +and be seen at their pleasure, they shine and impose on us: when +anything has fallen which disturbs and uncovers them, it is evident how +much deep and real foulness an extraneous splendour has concealed_." + +6. _Teaching compared to Seed_. + +"But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit; some an +hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold." (Matt xiii. 8.) + +Seneca (Letter 38): "_Words must be sown like seed; which, although it +be small, when it hath found a suitable ground, unfolds its strength, +and from very small size is expanded into the largest increase. Reason +does the same.... The things spoken are few; but if the mind have +received them well, they gain strength and grow_." + +7. _All Men are Sinners_. + +"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is +not in us." (1 John i. 8.) + +Seneca (_On Anger_, i. 14, ii. 27): "_If we wish to be just judges of +all things, let us first persuade ourselves of this:--that there is not +one of us without fault.... No man is found who can acquit himself; and +he who calls himself innocent does so with reference to a witness, and +not to his conscience_." + +8. _Avarice_. + +"The love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Tim. vi. 10.) + +Seneca (_On Tranquillity of Soul_, 8): "_Riches ... the greatest source +of human trouble_." + +"Be content with such things as ye have." (Heb. xiii. 5.) + +"Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." (1 Tim. vi. 8.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 114): "_We shall be wise if we desire but little; if +each man takes count of himself, and at the same time measures his own +body, he will know how little it can contain, and for how short +a time_." + +_Letter_ 110: "_We have polenta, we have water; let us challenge Jupiter +himself to a comparison of bliss!_" + +"Godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Tim. vi. 6.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 110): "_Why are you struck with wonder and +astonishment? It is all display! Those things are shown, not +possessed_.... _Turn thyself rather to the true riches, learn to be +content with little_." + +"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a +rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matt. xix. 24.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 20): "_He is a high-souled man who sees riches spread +around him, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It is much +not to be corrupted by fellowship with riches: great is he who in the +midst of wealth is poor, but safer he who has no wealth at all_." + +9. _The Duty of Kindness_. + +"Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love." (Rom. xii. +10.) + +Seneca (_On Anger_, i. 5): "_Man is born for mutual assistance_." + +"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Lev. xiv. 18.) + +_Letter_ 48: "_You must live for another, if you wish to live for +yourself_." + +_On Anger_, iii. 43: "_While we are among men let us cultivate kindness; +let us not be to any man a cause either of peril or of fear_." + +10. _Our common Membership_. + +"Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." (1 Cor. xii. +27.) + +"We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of +another." (Rom. xii. 5.) + +Seneca (_Letter_ 95): "_Do we teach that he should stretch his hand to +the shipwrecked, show his path to the wanderer, divide his bread with +the hungry_?... _when I could briefly deliver to him the formula of +human duty: all this that you see, in which things divine and human are +included, is one: we are members of one great body_." + +11. _Secrecy in doing Good_. + +"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." (Matt. vi. 3.) + +Seneca (_On Benefits_, ii. 11): "_Let him who hath conferred a favour +hold his tongue_.... _In conferring a favour nothing should be more +avoided than pride_." + +12. _God's impartial Goodness_. + +"He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain +on the just and on the unjust." (Matt. v. 45.) + +Seneca (_On Benefits_, i. 1): "_How many are unworthy of the light! and +yet the day dawns_." + +Id. vii. 31: "_The gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize +them not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them.... +They distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations +and peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir +the seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the +constellations, they temper the winter and summer by the intervention of +a gentler air_." + +It would be a needless task to continue these parallels, because by +reading any treatise of Seneca a student might add to them by scores; +and they prove incontestably that, as far as moral illumination was +concerned, Seneca "was not far from the kingdom of heaven." They have +been collected by several writers; and all of these here adduced, +together with many others, may be found in the pages of Fleury, +Troplong, Aubertin, and others. Some authors, like M. Fleury, have +endeavoured to show that they can only be accounted for by the +supposition that Seneca had some acquaintance with the sacred writings. +M. Aubertin, on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this +could not have been the case. Many words and expressions detached from +their context have been forced into a resemblance with the words of +Scripture, when the context wholly militates against its spirit; many +belong to that great common stock of moral truths which had been +elaborated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers; and +there is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enunciated which may +not be found even more nobly and more distinctly expressed in the +writings of Plato and of Cicero. In a subsequent chapter we shall show +that, in spite of them all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of +Christianity are at least as remarkable as the closest of his +resemblances; but it will be more convenient to do this when we have +also examined the doctrines of those two other great representatives of +spiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus the slave and Marcus +Aurelius the emperor. + +Meanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings such as these give +us a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of the Lord has entered +into holy men, and made them sons of God and prophets. God "left not +Himself without witness" among them. The language of St. Thomas Aquinas, +that many a heathen has had an "implicit faith," is but another way of +expressing St. Paul's statement that "not having the law they were a law +unto themselves, and showed the work of the law written in their +hearts." [49] To them the Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the +things that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the +voice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate, +knowledge. To them "the voice of nature was the voice of God." Their +revelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and +extended, but _not_ suspended, by the written law of God.[50] + +[Footnote 49: Rom. i. 2.] + +[Footnote 50: Hooker, _Eccl. Pol_. iii. 8.] + +The knowledge thus derived, i.e. the sum-total of religious impressions +resulting from the combination of reason and experience, has been called +"natural religion;" the term is in itself a convenient and +unobjectionable one, so long as it is remembered that natural religion +is itself a revelation. No _antithesis_ is so unfortunate and pernicious +as that of natural with revealed religion. It is "a contrast rather of +words than of ideas; it is an opposition of abstractions to which no +facts really correspond." God has revealed Himself, not in one but in +many ways, not only by inspiring the hearts of a few, but by vouchsafing +His guidance to all who seek it. "The spirit of man is the candle of the +Lord," and it is not religion but apostasy to deny the reality of any of +God's revelations of truth to man, merely because they have not +descended through a single channel. On the contrary, we ought to hail +with gratitude, instead of viewing with suspicion, the enunciation by +heathen writers of truths which we might at first sight have been +disposed to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. In +Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato,--in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus +Aurelius--we see the light of heaven struggling its impeded way through +clouds of darkness and ignorance; we thankfully recognize that the souls +of men in the Pagan world, surrounded as they were by perplexities and +dangers, were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface of silver, +some image of what was divine and true; we hail, with the great and +eloquent Bossuet, "THE CHRISTIANITY OF NATURE." "The divine image in +man," says St. Bernard, "may be burned, but it cannot be burnt out." + +And this is the pleasantest side on which to consider the life and the +writings of Seneca. It is true that his style partakes of the defects of +his age, that the brilliancy of his rhetoric does not always compensate +for the defectiveness of his reasoning; that he resembles, not a mirror +which clearly reflects the truth, but "a glass fantastically cut into a +thousand spangles;" that side by side with great moral truths we +sometimes find his worst errors, contradictions, and paradoxes; that his +eloquent utterances about God often degenerate into a vague Pantheism; +and that even on the doctrine of immortality his hold is too slight to +save him from waverings and contradictions;[51] yet as a moral teacher +he is full of real greatness, and was often far in advance of the +general opinion of his age. Few men have written more finely, or with +more evident sincerity, about truth and courage, about the essential +equality of man,[52] about the duty of kindness and consideration to +slaves,[53] about tenderness even in dealing with sinners,[54] about the +glory of unselfishness,[55] about the great idea of humanity[56] as +something which transcends all the natural and artificial prejudices of +country and of caste. Many of his writings are Pagan sermons and moral +essays of the best and highest type. The style, as Quintilian says, +"abounds in delightful faults," but the strain of sentiment is never +otherwise than high and true. + +[Footnote 51: Consol. ad Polyb. 27; Ad Helv. 17; Ad Marc. 24, _seqq_.] + +[Footnote 52: Ep. 32; De Benef. iii. 2.] + +[Footnote 53: De Ira, iii. 29, 32.] + +[Footnote 54: Ibid. i. 14; De Vit. beat. 24.] + +[Footnote 55: Ep. 55, 9.] + +[Footnote 56: Ibid. 28; De Oti Sapientis, 31.] + +He is to be regarded rather as a wealthy, eminent, and successful Roman, +who devoted most of his leisure to moral philosophy, than as a real +philosopher by habit and profession. And in this point of view his very +inconsistencies have their charm, as illustrating his ardent, impulsive, +imaginative temperament. He was no apathetic, self-contained, impassible +Stoic, but a passionate, warm-hearted man, who could break into a flood +of unrestrained tears at the death of his friend Annaeus Serenus,[57] +and feel a trembling solicitude for the welfare of his wife and little +ones. His was no absolute renunciation, no impossible perfection;[58] +but few men have painted more persuasively, with deeper emotion, or more +entire conviction, the pleasures of virtue, the calm of a +well-regulated soul, the strong and severe joys of a lofty self-denial. +In his youth, he tells us, he was preparing himself for a righteous +life, in his old age for a noble death.[59] And let us not forget, that +when the hour of crisis came which tested the real calm and bravery of +his soul, he was not found wanting. "With no dread," he writes to +Lucilius, "I am preparing myself for that day on which, laying aside all +artifice or subterfuge, I shall be able to judge respecting myself +whether I merely _speak_ or really _feel_ as a brave man should; whether +all those words of haughty obstinacy which I have hurled against fortune +were mere pretence and pantomime.... Disputations and literary talks, +and words collected from the precepts of philosophers, and eloquent +discourse, do not prove the true strength of the soul. For the mere +_speech_ of even the most cowardly is bold; what you have really +achieved will then be manifest when your end is near. I accept the +terms, I do not shrink from the decision." [60] + +[Footnote 57: Ep. 63.] + +[Footnote 58: Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 61.] + +[Footnote 59: Ep. 61.] + +[Footnote 60: Ep. 26.] + +"_Accipio conditionem, non reformido judicrum_." They were courageous +and noble words, and they were justified in the hour of trial. When we +remember the sins of Seneca's life, let us recall also the constancy of +his death; while we admit the inconsistencies of his systematic +philosophy, let us be grateful for the genius, the enthusiasm, the glow +of intense conviction, with which he clothes his repeated utterance of +truths, which, when based upon a surer basis, were found adequate for +the moral regeneration of the world. Nothing is more easy than to sneer +at Seneca, or to write clever epigrams on one whose moral attainments +fell infinitely short of his own great ideal. But after all he was not +more inconsistent than thousands of those who condemn him. With all his +faults he yet lived a nobler and a better life, he had loftier aims, he +was braver, more self-denying--nay, even more consistent--than the +majority of professing Christians. It would be well for us all if those +who pour such scorn upon his memory attempted to achieve one tithe of +the good which he achieved for humanity and for Rome. His thoughts +deserve our imperishable gratitude: let him who is without sin among us +be eager to fling stones at his failures and his sins! + + + +EPICTETUS. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT. + +In the court of Nero, Seneca must have been thrown into more or less +communication with the powerful freedmen of that Emperor, and especially +with his secretary or librarian, Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was a +constant companion of the Emperor; he was the earliest to draw Nero's +attention to the conspiracy in which Seneca himself perished. There can +be no doubt that Seneca knew him, and had visited at his house. Among +the slaves who thronged that house, the natural kindliness of the +philosopher's heart may have drawn his attentions to one little lame +Phrygian boy, deformed and mean-looking, whose face--if it were any +index of the mind within--must even from boyhood have worn a serene and +patient look. The great courtier, the great tutor of the Emperor, the +great Stoic and favourite writer of his age, would indeed have been +astonished if he had been suddenly told that that wretched-looking +little slave-lad was destined to attain purer and clearer heights of +philosophy than he himself had ever done, and to become quite as +illustrious as himself, and far more respected as an exponent of Stoic +doctrines. For that lame boy was Epictetus--Epictetus for whom was +written the memorable epitaph: "I was Epictetus, a slave, and maimed in +body, and a beggar for poverty, _and dear to the immortals_." + +Although we have a clear sketch of his philosophical doctrines, we have +no materials whatever for any but the most meagre description of his +life. The picture of his mind--an effigy of that which he alone regarded +as his true self--may be seen in his works, and to this we can add +little except a few general facts and uncertain anecdotes. + +Epictetus was probably born in about the fiftieth year of the Christian +era; but we do not know the exact date of his birth, nor do we even know +his real name. "Epictetus" means "bought" or "acquired," and is simply a +servile designation. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a town +between the rivers Lycus and Meander, and considered by some to be the +capital of the province. The town possessed several natural +wonders--sacred springs, stalactite grottoes, and a deep cavern +remarkable for its mephitic exhalations. It is more interesting to us to +know that it was within a few miles of Colossae and Laodicea, and is +mentioned by St. Paul (Col. iv. 13) in connexion with those two cities. +It must, therefore, have possessed a Christian Church from the earliest +times, and, if Epictetus spent any part of his boyhood there, he might +have conversed with men and women of humble rank who had heard read in +their obscure place of meeting the Epistle of St. Paul to the +Colossians, and the other, now lost, which he addressed to the Church of +Laodicea.[61] + +[Footnote 61: Col. iv. 16.] + +It is probable, however, that Hierapolis and its associations produced +very little influence on the mind of Epictetus. His parents were people +in the very lowest and humblest class, and their moral character could +hardly have been high, or they would not have consented under any +circumstance to sell into slavery their sickly child. Certainly it could +hardly have been possible for Epictetus to enter into the world under +less enviable or less promising auspices. But the whole system of life +is full of divine and memorable compensations, and Epictetus experienced +them. God kindles the light of genius where He will, and He can inspire +the highest and most regal thoughts even into the meanest slave:-- + + "Such seeds are scattered night and day + By the soft wind from Heaven, + And in the poorest human clay + Have taken root and thriven." + +What were the accidents--or rather, what was "the unseen Providence, by +man nicknamed chance"--which assigned Epictetus to the house of +Epaphroditus we do not know. To a heart refined and noble there could +hardly have been a more trying position. The slaves of a Roman _familia_ +were crowded together in immense gangs; they were liable to the most +violent and capricious punishments; they might be subjected to the most +degraded and brutalising influences. Men sink too often to the level to +which they are supposed to belong. Treated with infamy for long years, +they are apt to deem themselves worthy of infamy--to lose that +self-respect which is the invariable concomitant of religious feeling, +and which, apart from religious feeling, is the sole preventive of +personal degradation. Well may St. Paul say, "Art thou called, being a +servant? care not for it: _but if thou mayest be made free, use it +rather_." [62] + +[Footnote 62: 1 Cor. vii. 21.] + +It is true that even in the heathen world there began at this time to +be disseminated among the best and wisest thinkers a sense that slaves +were made of the same clay as their masters, that they differed from +freeborn men only in the externals and accidents of their position, and +that kindness to them and consideration for their difficulties was a +common and elementary duty of humanity. "I am glad to learn," says +Seneca, in one of his interesting letters to Lucilius, "that you live on +terms of familiarity with your slaves; it becomes your prudence and your +erudition. Are they slaves? Nay, they are men. Slaves? Nay, companions. +Slaves? Nay, humble friends. Slaves? _Nay, fellow-slaves,_ if you but +consider that fortune has power over you both." He proceeds, in a +passage to which we have already alluded, to reprobate the haughty and +inconsiderate fashion of keeping them standing for hours, mute and +fasting, while their masters gorged themselves at the banquet. He +deplores the cruelty which thinks it necessary to punish with terrible +severity an accidental cough or sneeze. He quotes the proverb--a proverb +which reveals a whole history--"So many slaves, so many foes," and +proves that they are not foes, but that men _made_ them so; whereas, +when kindly treated, when considerately addressed, they would be silent, +even under torture, rather than speak to their master's disadvantage. +"Are they not sprung," he asks, "from the same origin, do they not +breathe the same air, do they not live and die just as we do?" The +blows, the broken limbs, the clanking chains, the stinted food of the +_ergastula_ or slave-prisons, excited all Seneca's compassion, and in +all probability presented a picture of misery which the world has rarely +seen surpassed, unless it were in that nefarious trade which England to +her shame once practised, and, to her eternal glory, resolutely +swept away. + +But Seneca's inculcation of tenderness towards slaves was in reality +one of the most original of his moral teachings; and, from all that we +know of Roman life, it is to be feared that the number of those who +acted in accordance with it was small. Certainly Epaphroditus, the +master of Epictetus, was not one of them. The historical facts which we +know of this man are slight. He was one of the four who accompanied the +tragic and despicable flight of Nero from Rome in the year 69, and when, +after many waverings of cowardice, Nero at last, under imminent peril of +being captured and executed, put the dagger to his breast, it was +Epaphroditus who helped the tyrant to drive it home into his heart, for +which he was subsequently banished, and finally executed by the +Emperor Domitian. + +Epictetus was accustomed to tell one or two anecdotes which, although +given without comment, show the narrowness and vulgarity of the man. +Among his slaves was a certain worthless cobbler named Felicio; as the +cobbler was quite useless, Epaphroditus sold him, and by some chance he +was bought by some one of Caesar's household, and made Caesar's cobbler. +Instantly Epaphroditus began to pay him the profoundest respect, and to +address him in the most endearing terms, so that if any one asked what +Epaphroditus was doing, the answer, as likely as not, would be, "He is +holding an important consultation with Felicio." + +On one occasion, some one came to him bewailing, and weeping, and +embracing his knees in a paroxysm of grief, because of all his fortune +little more than 50,000_l_. was left! "What did Epaphroditus do?" asks +Epictetus; "did he laugh at the man as we did? Not at all; on the +contrary, he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 'Poor +fellow! how could you possibly keep silence and endure such a +misfortune?'" + +How brutally he could behave, and how little respect he inspired, we may +see in the following anecdote. When Plautius Lateranus, the brave +nobleman whose execution during Piso's conspiracy we have already +related, had received on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's +sword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not abstain from +pressing him with questions. The only reply which he received from the +dying man was the contemptuous remark, "Should I wish to say anything, I +will say it (not to a slave like you, but) to _your master_." + +Under a man of this calibre it is hardly likely that a lame Phrygian boy +would experience much kindness. An anecdote, indeed, has been handed +down to us by several writers, which would show that he was treated with +atrocious cruelty. Epaphroditus, it is said, once gratified his cruelty +by twisting his slave's leg in some instrument of torture. "If you go +on, you will break it," said Epictetus. The wretch did go on, and did +break it. "I told you that you would break it," said Epictetus quietly, +not giving vent to his anguish by a single word or a single groan. +Stories of heroism no less triumphant have been authenticated both in +ancient and modern times; but we may hope for the sake of human nature +that this story is false, since another authority tells us that +Epictetus became lame in consequence of a natural disease. Be that +however as it may, some of the early writers against Christianity--such, +for instance, as the physician Celsus--were fond of adducing this +anecdote in proof of a magnanimity which not even Christianity could +surpass; to which use of the anecdote Origen opposed the awful silence +of our Saviour upon the cross, and Gregory of Nazianzen pointed out +that, though it was a noble thing to endure inevitable evils, it was yet +more noble to undergo them voluntarily with an equal fortitude. But even +if Epaphroditus were not guilty of breaking the leg of Epictetus, it is +clear that the life of the poor youth was surrounded by circumstances of +the most depressing and miserable character; circumstances which would +have forced an ordinary man to the low and animal level of existence +which appears to have contented the great majority of Roman slaves. Some +of the passages in which he speaks about the consideration due to this +unhappy class show a very tender feeling towards them. "It would be +best," he says, "if, both while making your preparations and while +feasting at your banquets, you distribute among the attendants some of +the provisions. But if such a plan, at any particular time, be difficult +to carry out, remember that you who are not fatigued are being waited +upon by those who are fatigued; you who are eating and drinking by those +who are not eating and drinking; you who are conversing by those who are +mute--you who are at your ease by people under painful constraint. And +thus you will neither yourself be kindled into unseemly passion, nor +will you in a fit of fury do harm to any one else." No doubt Epictetus +is here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of which he had +himself experienced the degradation. But he had early acquired a +loftiness of soul and an insight into truth which enabled him to +distinguish the substance from the shadow, to separate the realities of +life from its accidents, and so to turn his very misfortunes into fresh +means of attaining to moral nobility. In proof of this let us see some +of his own opinions as to his state of life. + +At the very beginning of his _Discourses_ he draws a distinction +between the things which the gods _have_ and the things which they _have +not_ put in our own power, and he held (being deficient here in that +light which Christianity might have furnished to him) that the blessings +denied to us are denied not because the gods _would_ not, but because +they _could_ not grant them to us. And then he supposes that Jupiter +addresses him:-- + +"O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both your little +body and your little property free and unentangled; but now, do not be +mistaken, it is not yours at all, but only clay finely kneaded. Since, +however, I could not do this, I gave you a portion of ourselves, namely, +this power of pursuing and avoiding, of desiring and of declining, and +generally the power of _dealing with appearances_: and if you cultivate +this power, and regard it as that which constitutes your real +possession, you will never be hindered or impeded, nor will you groan or +find fault with, or flatter any one. Do these advantages then appear to +you to be trifling? Heaven forbid! Be content therefore with these, and +thank the gods." + +And again in one of his _Fragments_ (viii. ix.):-- + +"Freedom and slavery are but names, respectively, of virtue and of vice: +and both of them depend upon the will. But neither of them have anything +to do with those things in which the will has no share. For no one is a +slave whose will is free." + +"Fortune is an evil bond of the body, vice of the soul; for he is a +slave whose body is free but whose soul is bound, and, on the contrary, +he is free whose body is bound but whose soul is free." + +Who does not catch in these passages the very tone of St, Paul when he +says, "He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's +freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is +Christ's servant?" + +Nor is his independence less clearly express when he speaks of his +deformity. Being but the deformity of a body which he despised, he spoke +of himself as "an ethereal existence staggering under the burden of a +corpse." In his admirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays +down that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense that "the +universe is not made for our individual satisfaction." "_Must my leg be +lame_?" he supposes some querulous objector to inquire. "Slave!" he +replies, "do you then because of one miserable little leg find fault +with the universe? Will you not concede that accident to the existence +of general laws? Will you not dismiss the thought of it? Will you not +cheerfully assent to it for the sake of him who gave it. And will you be +indignant and displeased at the ordinances of Zeus, which he ordained +and appointed with the Destinies, who were present and wove the web of +your being? Know you not what an atom you are compared with the +whole?--that is, as regards your body, since as regards your reason you +are no whit inferior to, or less than the gods. For the greatness of +reason is not estimated by size or height, but by the doctrines which it +embraces. Will you not then lay up your treasure in those matters +wherein you are equal to the gods?" And, thanks to such principles, a +poor and persecuted slave was able to raise his voice in sincere and +eloquent thanksgiving to that God to whom he owed his "creation, +preservation, and all the blessings of this life." + +Speaking of the multitude of our natural gifts, he says, "Are these the +only gifts of Providence towards us? Nay, what power of speech suffices +adequately to praise, or to set them forth? for, had we but true +intelligence, what duty would be more perpetually incumbent on us than +both in public and in private to hymn the Divine, and bless His name and +praise His benefits? Ought we not, when we dig, and when we plough, and +when we eat, to sing this hymn to God? 'Great is God, because He hath +given us these implements whereby we may till the soil; great is God, +because He hath given us hands, and the means of nourishment by food, +and insensible growth, and breathing sleep;' these things in each +particular we ought to hymn, and to chant the greatest and the divinest +hymn, because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings, +and continuously to use them. What then? Since the most of you are +blinded, ought there not to be some one to fulfil this province for you, +and on behalf of all to sing his hymn to God? And what else can _I_ do, +who am a lame old man, except sing praises to God? Now, had I been a +nightingale, I should have sung the songs of a nightingale, or had I +been a swan the songs of a swan; but, being a reasonable being, it is my +duty to hymn God. This is my task, and I accomplish it; nor, so far as +may be granted to me, will I ever abandon this post, and you also do I +exhort to this same song." + +There is an almost lyric beauty about these expressions of resignation +and faith in God, and it is the utterance of such warm feelings towards +Divine Providence that constitutes the chief originality of Epictetus. +It is interesting to think that the oppressed heathen philosopher found +the same consolation, and enjoyed the same contentment, as the +persecuted Christian Apostle. "Whether ye eat or drink," says St. Paul, +"or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." "Think of God," says +Epictetus, "oftener than you breathe. Let discourse of God be renewed +daily more surely than your food." + +Here, again, are his views about his poverty (_Fragment_ xix.):-- + +"Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy; and if you +wish to be rich, know that it neither is a blessing, nor is it +altogether in your own power; but if to be happy, know that it both _is_ +a blessing, and is in your own power; since the former is but a +temporary loan of fortune, but the gift of happiness depends upon +the will." + +"Just as when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, in a casket of +ivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate them on the splendour of +their material, but because their nature is pernicious you turn from and +loathe them, so likewise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the +pomp of circumstance do not be astounded at the glory of its +surroundings, but despise the meanness of its character." + +"Wealth is _not_ among the number of good things; extravagance _is_ +among the number of evils, sober-mindedness of good things. Now +sober-mindedness invites us to frugality and the acquisition of real +advantages; but wealth to extravagance, and it drags us away from +sober-mindedness. It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be +sober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich." + +The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own +words, "How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel +passage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for +them that _trust_ in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God." + +But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and +Epictetus continues:-- + +"Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in +Greece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in +poverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in +poverty, and so be happy?" + +"As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little +truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it +is better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires, +than in the midst of superfluities to be discontented." + +This, too, is a thought which many have expressed. "Gentle sleep," says +Horace, "despises not the humble cottages of rustics, nor the shaded +banks, nor valleys whose foliage waves with the western wind;" and every +reader will recall the magnificent words of our own great Shakespeare-- + + "Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, + Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, + And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, + Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, + Under the canopies of costly state, + And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?" + +To the subject of freedom, and to the power which man possesses to make +himself entirely independent of all surrounding circumstances, Epictetus +incessantly recurs. With the possibility of banishment to an +_ergastulum_ perpetually before his eyes, he defines a prison as being +any situation in which a man is placed against his will; to Socrates for +instance the prison was no prison, for he was there willingly, and no +man _need_ be in prison, against his will if he has learnt, as one of +his primary duties, a cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable. By the +expression of such sentiments Epictetus had anticipated by fifteen +hundred years the immortal truth so sweetly expressed by Lovelace: + + "_Stone walls do not a prison make, + Nor iron bars a cage_; + Minds innocent and quiet take + That for a hermitage." + +Situated as he was, we can hardly wonder that thoughts like these +occupied a large share of the mind of Epictetus, or that he had taught +himself to lay hold of them with the firmest possible grasp. When asked, +"Who among men is rich?" he replied, "He who suffices for himself;" an +expression which contains the germ of the truth so forcibly expressed in +the Book of Proverbs, "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his +own ways, and a good man _shall be satisfied from himself_". Similarly, +when asked, "Who is free?" he replies, "The man who masters his own +self," with much the same tone of expressions as that of Solomon, "He +that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his +spirit than he that taketh a city." Socrates was one of the great models +whom Epictetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the +anecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When Archelaus +sent a message to express the intention of making him rich, Socrates +bade the messenger inform him that at Athens four quarts of meal might +be bought for three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. "If +then my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any rate I am +sufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient for me. Do you not +see that Polus acted the part of Oedipus in his royal state with no less +beauty of voice than that of Oedipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar? +Shall then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act well +every character imposed upon him by Divine Providence; and shall he not +imitate Ulysses, who even in rags was no less conspicuous than in the +curled nap of his purple cloak?" + +Generally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life is always +simple, and always consistent; it is a view which gave him consolation +among life's troubles, and strength to display some of its noblest +virtues, and it may be summed up in the following passages of his famous +_Manual_:-- + +"Remember," he says, "that you are an actor of just such a part as is +assigned you by the Poet of the play; of a short part, if the part be +short; of a long part, if it be long. Should He wish you to act the part +of a beggar, take care to act it naturally and nobly; and the same if it +be the part of a lame man, or a ruler, or a private man; for _this_ is +in your power, to act well the part assigned to you; but to _choose_ +that part is the function of another." + +"Let not these considerations afflict you: 'I shall live despised, and +the merest nobody;' for if dishonour be an evil, you cannot be involved +in evil any more than you can be involved in baseness through any one +else's means. Is it then at all _your_ business to be a leading man, or +to be entertained at a banquet? By no means. How then can it be a +dishonor not to be so? And how will you be a mere nobody, since it is +your duty to be somebody only in those circumstances which are in your +own power, in which you may be a person of the greatest importance?" + +"Honour, precedence, confidence," he argues in another passage, "whether +they be good things or evil things, are at any rate things for which +their own definite price must be paid. Lettuces are sold for a penny, +and if you want your lettuce you must pay your penny; and similarly, if +you want to be asked out to a person's house, you must pay the price +which he demands for asking people, whether the coin he requires be +praise or attention; but if you do not give these, do not expect the +other. Have you then gained nothing in lieu of your supper? Indeed you +have; you have escaped praising a person whom you did not want to +praise, and you have escaped the necessity of tolerating the upstart +impertinence of his menials." + +Some parts of this last thought have been so beautifully expressed by +the American poet Lowell that I will conclude this chapter in his words: + + "Earth hath her price for what earth gives us; + The beggar is tax'd for a corner to die in; + The priest hath his fee who comes and shrieves us; + We bargain for the graves we lie in: + At the devil's mart are all things sold, + Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold, + For a cap and bells our lives we pay. + Bubbles we earn with our whole soul's tasking, + '_Tis only God that is given away, + 'Tis only heaven may be had for the asking_." + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS _(continued)_. + +Whether any of these great thoughts would have suggested themselves +_spontaneously_ to Epictetus--whether there was an inborn wisdom and +nobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to +elaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do +not, however, express _his_ sentiments only, but belong in fact to the +moral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doctrines of which he +had received instruction. + +It may sound strange to the reader that one situated as Epictetus was +should yet have had a regular tutor to train him in Stoic doctrines. +That such should have been the case appears at first sight inconsistent +with the cruelty with which he was treated, but it is a fact which is +capable of easy explanation. In times of universal luxury and +display--in times when a sort of surface-refinement is found among all +the wealthy--some sort of respect is always paid to intellectual +eminence, and intellectual amusements are cultivated as well as those of +a coarser character. Hence a rich Roman liked to have people of literary +culture among his slaves; he liked to have people at hand who would get +him any information which he might desire about books, who could act as +his amanuenses, who could even correct and supply information for his +original compositions. Such learned slaves formed part of every large +establishment, and among them were usually to be found some who bore, if +they did not particularly merit, the title of "philosophers." These +men--many of whom are described as having been mere impostors, +ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites--acted somewhat like +domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an +amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative +innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in +lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he +wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an +illiterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of +high art in his drawing-room, and books of reference in his +well-furnished library. + +Accordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly useless for all +physical purposes, and since his thoughtfulness and intelligence could +not fail to command attention, his master determined to make him useful +in the only way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be +trained in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy. + +Musonius was the son of a Roman knight. His learning and eloquence, no +less than his keen appreciation of Stoic truths, had so deeply kindled +the suspicions of Nero, that he banished him to the rocky little island +of Gyaros, on the charge of his having been concerned in Piso's +conspiracy. He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived in +great distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to remain in the +city when the Emperor Vespasian banished all the other philosophers of +any eminence. + +The works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a few notices of +him, which are scattered in the _Discourses_ of his greater pupil, show +us what kind of man he was. The following anecdotes will show that he +was a philosopher of the strictest school. + +Speaking of the value of logic as a means of training the reason, +Epictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a mere error in +reasoning is no very serious fault. He points out that it _is_ a fault, +and that is sufficient. "I too," he says, "once made this very remark to +Rufus when he rebuked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in +some syllogism. 'What!' said I, 'have I then set the Capitol on fire, +that you rebuke me thus?' 'Slave!' he answered, 'what has the Capitol to +do with it? Is there no _other_ fault then short of setting the Capitol +on fire? Yes! to use one's own mere fancies rashly, at random, anyhow; +not to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or a sophism; not, in +short, to see what makes for oneself or not, in questioning and +answering--is none of these things a fault?'" + +Sometimes he used to test the Stoical endurance of his pupil by pointing +out the indignities and tortures which his master might at any moment +inflict upon him; and when Epictetus answered that, after all, such +treatment was what man _had_ borne, and therefore _could_ bear, he would +reply approvingly that every man's destiny was in his own hands; that he +need lack nothing from any one else; that, since he could derive from +himself magnanimity and nobility of soul, he might despise the notion of +receiving lands or money or office. "But," he continued, "when any one +is cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters about such a +person to speak of him as a corpse, and to say, 'Favour us with the +corpse and blood of So-and-so,' For? in fact, such a man _is_ a mere +corpse, and nothing more; for if he were anything more, he would have +perceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by another's +means." I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is a student of Epictetus, but +he, among others, has forcibly expressed the same truth. "My friends, do +you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died? +How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and +carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his +table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered +to you, in plain words, as it _is_ offered to you in dire facts, that +you should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought +yourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the +death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet +practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; +many of us grasp at it in the fulness of horror." + +The way in which Musonius treated would-be pupils much resembled the +plan adopted by Socrates. "It is not easy," says Epictetus, "to train +effeminate youths, any more than it is easy to take up whey with a hook. +But those of fine nature, even if you discourage them, desire +instruction all the more. For which reason Rufus often discouraged +pupils, using this as a criterion of fine and of common natures; for he +used to say, that just as a stone, even if you fling it into the air, +will fall down to the earth by its own gravitating force, so also a +noble nature, in proportion as it is repulsed, in that proportion tends +more in its own natural direction." As Emerson says,-- + + "Yet on the nimble air benign + Speed nimbler messages, + That waft the breath of grace divine + To hearts in sloth and ease. + So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,' + The youth replies, 'I CAN.'" + +One more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply +Epictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him. In his +_Discourse on Ostentation_, Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit +of remarking to his pupils, "If you have leisure to praise me, I can +have done you no good." "He used indeed so to address us that each one +of us, sitting there, thought that some one had been privately telling +tales against _him_ in particular, so completely did Rufus seize hold of +his characteristics, so vividly did he portray our individual faults." + +Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it +was evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were +somewhat chilling and austere. It formed an epoch in the slave's life; +it remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings +so inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were +counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt. +He would probably have admitted that it was _better_ for him to have +been sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in +freedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis. So that +Epictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an +additional argument in favour of Divine Providence: an additional proof +that God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of +conviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least +dominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the +whole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most +honestly and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again and +again that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world +has to offer, _if we are willing to pay the price by which they are +obtained_. But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should +scorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even +cast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by +that which we deliberately refuse to give. Every good and just man may +gain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness. Let no one +regard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and +definite meaning. There are certain things which all men desire, and +which all men would _gladly_, if they could _lawfully_ and _innocently_ +obtain. These things are health, wealth, ease, comfort, influence, +honour, freedom from opposition and from pain; and yet, if you were to +place all these blessings on the one side, and on the other side to +place poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and +contempt,--yet, if on _this_ side also you were to place truth and +justice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds may gather about +our life, the light of God will be visible beyond them, all the noblest +men who ever lived would choose, as without hesitation they always have +chosen, the _latter_ destiny. It is not that they like failure, but they +prefer failure to falsity; it is not that they love persecution, but +they prefer persecution to meanness; it is not that they relish +opposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty acquiescence; +it is not that they do not shrink from agony, but they would not escape +agony by crime. The selfishness of Dives in his purple is to them less +enviable than the innocence of Lazarus in rags; they would be chained +with John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast; they +would fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than be steeped in +the foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is not happiness, but it is +something higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is +satisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give +it, nor take it away,--it is something indescribable--it is the gift +of God. + +"The fallacy" of being surprised at wickedness in prosperity, and +righteousness in misery, "can only lie," says Mr. Froude, in words which +would have delighted Epictetus, and which would express the inmost +spirit of his philosophy, "in the supposed _right_ to happiness.... +Happiness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be true to the +best we know, to seek that, and do that; and if by 'virtue is its own +reward' be meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring +nothing more, then it is a true and a noble saying.... Let us do right, +and then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very mighty +matter. If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be +bitter--bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.... The well-being of our +souls depends only on what we _are_; and nobleness of character is +nothing else but _steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil_.... +Only to those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish +enjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. Man +will have what he desires, and will find what is really best for him, +exactly as he honestly seeks for it. _Happiness may fly away, pleasure +pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove +unkind; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is +never rejected_." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (_continued._) + +Of the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there is +unfortunately little more to be told. The life of + + "That halting slave, who in Nicopolis + Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son + Cleared Rome of what most shamed him," + +is not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded it are very +circumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest +biographies; their real life is in their books. + +At some period of his life, but how or when we do not know, Epictetus +was manumitted by his master, and was henceforward regarded by the world +as free. Probably the change made little or no difference in his life. +If it saved him from a certain amount of brutality, if it gave him more +uninterrupted leisure, it probably did not in the slightest degree +modify the hardships of his existence, and may have caused him some +little anxiety as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. He, +of all men, would have attached the least importance to the external +conditions under which he lived; he always regarded them as falling +under the category of things which lay beyond the sphere of his own +influence, and therefore as things with which he had nothing to do. Even +in his most oppressed days, he considered himself, by the grace of +heaven, to be more free--free in a far truer and higher sense--than +thousands of those who owed allegiance to no master's will. Whether he +had saved any small sum of money, or whether his needs were supplied by +the many who loved and honoured him, we do not know. He was a man who +was content with the barest necessaries of life, and we may be sure that +he would have refused to be indebted to any one for more than these. + +It is probable that he never married. This may have been due to that +shade of indifference to the female character of which we detect traces +here and there in his writings. In one passage he complains that women +seemed to think of nothing but admiration and getting married; and, in +another, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman ladies were +fond of Plato's _Republic_ because he allowed some very liberal marriage +regulations. We can only infer from these passages that he had been very +unfortunate in the specimens of women with whom he had been thrown. The +Roman ladies of his time were certainly not models of character; he was +not likely to fall in with very exalted females among the slaves of +Epaphroditus or the ladies of his family, and he had probably never +known the love of a sister or a mother's care. He did not, however, go +the length of condemning marriage altogether; on the contrary, he blames +the philosophers who did so. But it is equally obvious that he approves +of celibacy as a "counsel of perfection," and indeed his views on the +subject have so close and remarkable a resemblance to those of St. Paul +that our readers will be interested in seeing them side by side. + +In 1 Cor. vii. St. Paul, after speaking of the nobleness of virginity, +proceeds, nevertheless, to sanction matrimony as in itself a hallowed +and honourable estate. It was not given to all, he says, to abide even +as he was, and therefore marriage should be adopted as a sacred and +indissoluble bond. Still, without being sure that he has any divine +sanction for what he is about to say, he considers celibacy good "for +the present distress," and warns those that marry that they "shall have +trouble in the flesh." For marriage involves a direct multiplication of +the cares of the flesh: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that +belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married +careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his +wife.... And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a +snare upon you, _but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend +upon the Lord without distraction_." + +It is clear, then, that St. Paul regarded virginity as a "counsel of +perfection," and Epictetus uses respecting it almost identically the +same language. Marriage was perfectly permissible in his view, but it +was much better for a Cynic (i.e. for all who carried out most fully +their philosophical obligations) to remain single: "Since the condition +of things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve of battle, +_ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distraction_" [the Greek +word being the very same as that used by St. Paul] "_for the service of +God_? ought he not to be able to move about among mankind free from the +entanglement of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he +neglect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise and good +man, and which if he observe he will lose the function of a messenger, +and sentinel, and herald of the gods?" Epictetus proceeds to point out +that if he is married he can no longer look after the spiritual +interests of all with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer +maintain the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the genuine +philosopher. He _must_, for instance, have a bath for his child, +provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and +money to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a +general increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified +distractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing +manifestation of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a +celebrated cynic, was married, but it was to a lady as self-denying as +himself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to share +hardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetus does not venture to say +in so many words that Crates in this matter made a mistake, he takes +pains to point out that the circumstances were far too exceptional to be +accepted as a precedent for the imitation of others. + +"But," inquires the interlocutor, "how then is the world to get on?" The +question seems quite to disturb the bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it +makes him use language of the strongest and most energetic contempt: and +it is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems to lose +the nobility and grace, the "sweetness and light," which are the general +characteristic of his utterances. In spite of his complete self-mastery +he was evidently a man of strong feelings, and with a natural tendency +to express them strongly. "Heaven bless us," he exclaims in reply, "are +_they_ greater benefactors of mankind who bring into the world two or +three evilly-squalling brats,[63] or those who, to the best of their +power, keep a beneficent eye on the lives, and habits, and tendencies of +all mankind? Were the Thebans who had large families more useful to +their country than the childless Epaminondas; or was Homer less useful +to mankind than Priam with his fifty good-for-nothing sons?... Why, sir, +the true cynic is a father to all men; all men are his sons and all +women his daughters; he has a bond of union, a lien of affection with +them all." (_Dissert_. iii. 22.) + +[Footnote 63: [Greek: kakorrugcha paidia]. Another reading is [Greek: +kokorugcha], which M. Martha renders, "_Marmots a vilain petit museau_!" +It is evident that Epictetus did not like children, which makes his +subsequently mentioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more +creditable to him.] + +The whole character of Epictetus is sufficient to prove that he would +only do what he considered _most_ desirable and most exalted; and +passages like these, the extreme asperity of which I have necessarily, +softened down, are, I think, decisive in favour of the tradition which +pronounces him to have been unmarried. + +We are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest and even meanest +description: it neither needed nor possessed a fastening of any kind, +for within it there was no furniture except a lamp and the poor straw +pallet on which he slept. About his lamp there was current in antiquity +a famous story, to which he himself alludes. As a piece of unwonted +luxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which burned in front of the +images of his household deities. It was the only possession which he +had, and a thief stole it. "He will be finely disappointed when he comes +again," quietly observed Epictetus. "for he will only find an +earthenware lamp next time." At his death the little earthenware lamp +was bought by some genuine hero-worshipper for 3,000 drachmas. "The +purchaser hoped," says the satirical Lucian, "that if he read philosophy +at night by that lamp, he would at once acquire in dreams the wisdom of +the admirable old man who once possessed it." + +But, in spite of his deep poverty, it must not be supposed that there +was anything eccentric or ostentatious in the life of Epictetus. On the +contrary, his writings abound in directions as to the proper bearing of +a philosopher in life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule +to endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the _gamins_ of +Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair game," and think it fine +fun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the +sneers of much more dignified people. "If," says Epictetus, "you want to +know how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who had the +highest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present, +happened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had +received an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I _cannot_ endure it; you +are killing me; why, you'll make me _like him_! pointing to me," +evidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And, +again he says in the _Manual_. "If you wish to be a philosopher, prepare +yourself to be thoroughly laughed at since many will certainly sneer and +jeer at you, and will say, 'He has come back to us as a philosopher all +of a sudden,' and 'Where in the world did he get this superciliousness?' +Now do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which appear +best to you in such a manner as though you were conscious of having been +appointed by God to this position." Again in the little discourse _On +the Desire of Admiration_, he warns the philosopher "_not to walk as if +he had swallowed a poker_" or to care for the applause of those +multitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error. For all display, and +pretence, and hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, and boasting, and mere +fruitless book-learning he seems to have felt a genuine and profound +contempt. Recommendations to simplicity of conduct, courtesy of manner, +and moderation of language were among his practical precepts. It is +refreshing, too, to know that with the strongest and manliest good +sense, he entirely repudiated that dog-like brutality of behaviour, and +repulsive eccentricity of self-neglect, which characterised not a few of +the Cynic leaders. He expressly argues that the Cynic should be a man of +ready tact, and attractive presence; and there is something of almost +indignant energy in his words when he urges upon a pupil the plain duty +of scrupulous cleanliness. In this respect our friends the Hermits would +not quite have satisfied him, although he might possibly have pardoned +them on the plea that they abode in desert solitudes, since he bids +those who neglect the due care of their bodies to live "either in the +wilderness or alone." + +Late in life Epictetus increased his establishment by taking in an old +woman as a servant. The cause of his doing so shows an almost Christian +tenderness of character. According to the hideous custom of infanticide +which prevailed in the pagan world, a man with whom Epictetus was +acquainted exposed his infant son to perish. Epictetus in pity took the +child home to save its life, and the services of a female were necessary +to supply its wants. Such kindness and self-denial were all the more +admirable because pity, like all other deep emotions, was regarded by +the Stoics in the light rather of a vice than of a virtue. In this +respect, however, both Seneca and Epictetus, and to a still greater +extent Marcus Aurelius, were gloriously false to the rigidity of the +school to which they professed to belong. We see with delight that one +of the _Discourses_ of Epictetus was _On the Tenderness and Forbearance +due to Sinners_; and he abounds in exhortations to forbearance in +judging others. In one of his _Fragments_ he tells the following +anecdote:--A person who had seen a poor ship-wrecked and almost dying +pirate took pity on him, carried him home, gave him clothes, and +furnished him with all the necessaries of life. Somebody reproached him +for doing good to the wicked--"I have honoured," he replied, "not the +man, but humanity in his person." + +But one fact more is known in the life of Epictetus, Domitian, the +younger son of Vespasian, succeeded his far nobler brother the Emperor +Titus; and in the course of his reign a decree was passed which banished +all the philosophers from Italy. Epictetus was not exempted from this +unjust and absurd decree. That he bore it with equanimity may be +inferred from the approval with which he tells an anecdote about +Agrippinus, who while his cause was being tried in the Senate went on +with all his usual avocations, and on being informed on his return from +bathing that he had been condemned, quietly asked, "To death or +banishment?" "To banishment," said the messenger. "Is my property +confiscated?" "No," "Very well, then let us go as far as Aricia" (about +sixteen miles from Rome), "and dine there." + +There was a certain class of philosophers whose external mark and whose +sole claim to distinction rested in the length of their beards; and when +the decree of Domitian was passed these gentleman contented themselves +with shaving. Epictetus alludes to this in his second _Discourse_, +"Come, Epictetus, shave off your beard," he imagines some one to say to +him. "If I am a philosopher I will not," he replies. "Then I will take +off your head." "By all means, if that will do you any good." + +He went to Nicopolis, a town of Epirus, which had been built by Augustus +in commemoration of his victory at Actium. Whether he ever revisited +Rome is uncertain, but it is probable that he did so, for we know that +he enjoyed the friendship of several eminent philosophers and statesmen, +and was esteemed and honoured by the Emperor Hadrian himself. He is said +to have lived to a good old age, surrounded by affectionate and eager +disciples, and to have died with the same noble simplicity which had +marked his life. The date of his death is as little known as that of his +birth. It only remains to give a sketch of those thoughts which, poor +though he was, and despised, and a slave, yet made him "dear to the +immortals." + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE "MANUAL" AND "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS. + +It is nearly certain that Epictetus never committed any of his doctrines +to writing. Like his great exemplar. Socrates, he contented himself with +oral instruction, and the bulk of what has come down to us in his name +consists in the _Discourses_ reproduced for us by his pupil Arrian. It +was the ambition of Arrian "to be to Epictetus what Xenophon had been to +Socrates," that is, to hand down to posterity a noble and faithful +picture of the manner in which his master had lived and taught. With +this view, he wrote four books on Epictetus,--a life, which is now +unhappily lost; a book of conversation or "table talk," which is also +lost; and two books which have come down to us, viz. the _Discourses_ +and the _Manual_. It is from these two invaluable books, and from a good +many isolated fragments, that we are enabled to judge what was the +practical morality of Stoicism, as expounded by the holy and +upright slave. + +The _Manual_ is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles, +which, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are +also explained in the _Discourses_. Both books were so popular that by +their means Arrian first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately +attained the highest eminence and rank. The _Manual_ was to antiquity +what the _Imitatio_ of Thomas a Kempis was to later times, and what +Woodhead's _Whole Duty of Man_ or Wilberforce's _Practical View of +Christianity_ have been to large sections of modern Englishmen. It was a +clear, succinct, and practical statement of common daily duties, and the +principles upon which they rest. Expressed in a manner entirely simple +and unornate, its popularity was wholly due to the moral elevation of +the thoughts which it expressed. Epictetus did not aim at style; his one +aim was to excite his hearers to virtue, and Arrian tells us that in +this endeavour he created a deep impression by his manner and voice. It +is interesting to know that the _Manual_ was widely accepted among +Christians no less than among Pagans, and that, so late as the fifth +century, paraphrases were written of it for Christian use. No systematic +treatise of morals so simply beautiful was ever composed, and to this +day the best Christian may study it, not with interest only, but with +real advantage. It is like the voice of the Sybil, which, uttering +things simple, and unperfumed, and unadorned, by God's grace reacheth +through innumerable years. We proceed to give a short sketch of +its contents. + +Epictetus began by laying down the broad comprehensive statement that +there are some things which are in our power, and depend upon ourselves; +other things which are beyond our power, and wholly independent of us. +The things which are in our power are our opinions, our aims, our +desires, our aversions--in a word, _our actions_. The things beyond our +power are bodily accidents, possessions, fame, rank, and whatever lies +_beyond_ the sphere of our actions. To the former of these classes of +things our whole attention must be confined. In that region we may be +noble, unperturbed, and free; in the other we shall be dependent, +frustrated, querulous, miserable. Both classes cannot be successfully +attended to; they are antagonistic, antipathetic; we cannot serve God +and Mammon. + +Now, if we take a right view of all these things which in no way depend +on ourselves we shall regard them as mere semblances--as shadows which +are to be distinguished from the true substance. We shall not look upon +them as fit subjects for aversion or desire. Sin and cruelty, and +falsehood we may hate, because we can avoid them if we will; but we must +look upon sickness, and poverty, and death as things which are _not_ fit +subjects for our avoidance, because they lie wholly beyond our control. + +This, then,--endurance of the inevitable, avoidance of the evil--is the +keynote of the Epictetean philosophy. It has been summed up in the three +words, [Greek: Anechou kai apechou], "_sustine et abstine_," "Bear and +forbear,"--bear whatever God assigns to you, abstain from that which +He forbids. + +The earlier part of the _Manual_ is devoted to practical advice which +may enable men to endure nobly. For instance, "If there be anything," +says Epictetus, "which you highly value or tenderly love, estimate at +the same time its true nature. Is it some possession? remember that it +may be destroyed. Is it wife or child? remember that they may die." +"Death," says an epitaph in Chester Cathedral-- + + "Death, the great monitor, comes oft to prove, + 'Tis dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love." + +"Desire nothing too much. If you are going to the public baths and are +annoyed or hindered by the rudeness, the pushing, the abuse, the +thievish propensities of others, do not lose your temper: remind +yourself that it is more important that you should keep your will in +harmony with nature than that you should bathe. And so with all +troubles; men suffer far less from the things themselves than from the +opinions they have of them." + +"If you cannot frame your circumstances in accordance with your wishes, +frame your will into harmony with your circumstances.[64] When you lose +the best gifts of life, consider them as not lost but only resigned to +Him who gave them. You have a remedy in your own heart against all +trials--continence as a bulwark against passion, patience against +opposition, fortitude against pain. Begin with trifles: if you are +robbed, remind yourself that your peace of mind is of more value and +importance than the thing which has been stolen from you. Follow the +guidance of nature; that is the great thing; regret nothing, desire +nothing, which can disturb that end. Behave as at a banquet--take with +gratitude and in moderation what is set before you, and seek for nothing +more; a higher and diviner step will be to be ready and able to forego +even that which is given you, or which you might easily obtain. +Sympathise with others, at least externally, when they are in sorrow and +misfortune; but remember in your own heart that to the brave and wise +and true there is really no such thing as misfortune; it is but an ugly +semblance; the croak of the raven can portend no harm to such a man, he +is elevated above its power." + +[Footnote 64: "When what thou willest befalls not, thou then must will +what befalleth."] + +"We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with +those parts; our simple duty is confined to playing them well. The slave +may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it +dwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant, with it all +others become needless, without it no others are possible. No one can +insult you if you will not regard his words or deeds as insults.[65] +Keep your eye steadily fixed on the great reality of death, and all +other things will shrink to their true proportions. As in a voyage, when +a ship has come to anchor, if you have gone out to find water, you may +amuse yourself with picking up a little shell or bulb, but you must keep +your attention steadily fixed upon the ship, in case the captain should +call, and then you must leave all such things lest you should be flung +on board, bound like sheep. So in life; if, instead of a little shell or +bulb, some wifeling or childling be granted you, well and good; but, if +the captain call, run to the ship and leave such possessions behind you, +not looking back. But if you be an old man, take care not to go a long +distance from the ship at all, lest you should be called and come too +late." The metaphor is a significant one, and perhaps the following +lines of Sir Walter Scott, prefixed anonymously to one of the chapters +of the Waverley Novels, may help to throw light upon it: + + "Death finds us 'midst our playthings; snatches us, + As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, + From all our toys and baubles--the rough call + Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth: + And well if they are such as may be answered + In yonder world, where all is judged of truly." + +[Footnote 65: Compare Cowper's _Conversation_:-- + "Am I to set my life upon a throw + Because a bear is rude and surly?--No.-- + A modest, sensible, and well-bred man + Will not insult me, and _no other can_."] + +"Preserve your just relations to other men; their misconduct does not +affect your duties. Has your father done wrong, or your brother been +unjust? Still he _is_ your father, he _is_ your brother; and you must +consider your relation to him, not whether he be worthy of it or no. + +"Your duty towards the gods is to form just and true opinions respecting +them. Believe that they do all things well, and then you need never +murmur or complain." + +"As rules of practice," says Epictetus, "prescribe to yourself an ideal, +and then act up to it. Be mostly silent; or, if you converse, do not let +it be about vulgar and insignificant topics, such as dogs, horses, +racing, or prize-fighting. Avoid foolish and immoderate laughter, vulgar +entertainments, impurity, display, spectacles, recitations, and all +egotistical remarks. Set before you the examples of the great and good. +Do not be dazzled by mere appearances. Do what is right quite +irrespective of what people will say or think. Remember that your body +is a very small matter and needs but very little; just as all that the +foot needs is a shoe, and not a dazzling ornament of gold, purple, or +jewelled embroidery. To spend all one's time on the body, or on bodily +exercises, shows a weak intellect. Do not be fond of criticising others, +and do not resent their criticisms of you. Everything," he says, and +this is one of his most characteristic precepts, "has two handles! one +by which it may be borne, the other by which it cannot. If your brother +be unjust, do not take up the matter by that handle--the handle of his +injustice--for that handle is the one by which it cannot be taken up; +but rather by the handle that he is your brother and brought up with +you; and then you will be taking it up as it can be borne." + +All these precepts have a general application, but Epictetus adds +others on the right bearing of a philosopher; that is, of one whose +professed ideal is higher than the multitude. He bids him above all +things not to be censorious, and not to be ostentatious. "Feed on your +own principles; do not throw them up to show how much you have eaten. Be +self-denying, but do not boast of it. Be independent and moderate, and +regard not the opinion or censure of others, but keep a watch upon +yourself as your own most dangerous enemy. Do not plume yourself on an +_intellectual_ knowledge of philosophy, which is in itself quite +valueless, but on a consistent nobleness of action. Never relax your +efforts, but aim at perfection. Let everything which seems best be to +you a law not to be transgressed; and whenever anything painful, or +pleasurable, or glorious, or inglorious, is set before you, remember +that now is the struggle, now is the hour of the Olympian contest, and +it may not be put off, and that by a single defeat or yielding your +advance in virtue may be either secured or lost. It was thus that +Socrates attained perfection, by giving his heart to reason, and to +reason only. And thou, even if as yet thou art not a Socrates, yet +shouldst live as though it were thy wish to be one." These are noble +words, but who that reads them will not be reminded of those sacred and +far more deeply-reaching words, "_Be ye perfect, even as your Father +which is in heaven is perfect" Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, +now is the day of salvation_. + +In this brief sketch we have included all the most important thoughts in +the _Manual_. It ends in these words. "On all occasions we may keep in +mind these three sentiments:--" + +'Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me +to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be +unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the same.' +(Cleanthes.) + +'Whosoever hath nobly yielded to necessity, I hold him wise, and he +knoweth the things of God.' (Euripides.) + +And this third one also, 'O Crito, be it so, if so be the will of +heaven. Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, but harm me they cannot.' +(Socrates.) + +To this last conception of life; quoted from the end of Plato's +_Apology_, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: "What resources have we," he +asks, "in circumstances of great peril? What other than the remembrance +of what is or what is not in our own power; what is possible to us and +what is not? I must die. Be it so; but need I die groaning? I must be +bound; but must I be bound bewailing? I must be driven into exile, well, +who prevent me then from going with laughter, and cheerfulness, and +calm of mind? + +"'Betray secrets.' + +"'Indeed I will not, for _that_ rests in my own hands.' + +"'Then I will put you in chains.' + +"'My good sir, what are you talking about? Put _me_ in chains? No, no! +you may put my leg in chains, but not even Zeus himself can master +my will.' + +"'I will throw you into prison.' + +"'My poor little body; yes, no doubt.' + +"'I will cut off your head.' + +"'Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one which could not +be cut off?' + +"Such are the things of which philosophers should think, and write them +daily, and exercise themselves therein." + +There are many other passages in which Epictetus shows that the +free-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that we should not "sell +it for a trifle;" or, as Scripture still more sternly expresses it, +should not "sell ourselves for nought." He relates, for instance, the +complete failure of the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus +not to go to the Senate. "While I am a Senator," said Helvidius, "I +_must_ go." "Well, then, at least be silent there." "Ask me no +questions, and I will be silent." "But I _must_ ask your opinion." "And +_I_ must say what is right." "But I will put you to death." "Did I ever +tell you I was immortal? Do _your_ part, and _I_ will do _mine_. It is +yours to kill me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to +go into banishment without grief." + +We see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of the heathen +had, by God's grace, attained to the sense that life was subject to a +divine guidance. Yet how dim was their vision of this truth, how +insecure their hold upon it, in comparison with that which the meanest +Christian may attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of +immortality. They never quite got rid of a haunting dread that perhaps, +after all, they might be nothing better than insignificant and unheeded +atoms, swept hither and thither in the mighty eddies of an unseen, +impersonal, mysterious agency, and destined hereafter "to be sealed amid +the iron hills," or + + "To be imprisoned in the viewless winds. + And blown with reckless violence about + The pendent world." + +Their belief in a personal deity was confused with their belief in +nature, which, in the language of a modern sceptic, "acts with fearful +uniformity: stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as death; too +vast to praise, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer, +no heart for sympathy, no arm to save." How different the soothing and +tender certainty of the Christian's hope, for whom Christ has brought +life and immortality to light! For "chance" is not only "the daughter of +forethought," as the old Greek lyric poet calls her, but the daughter +also of love. How different the prayer of David, even in the hours of +his worst agony and shame, "_Let Thy loving Spirit lead me forth into +the land of righteousness_." Guidance, and guidance by the hand of love, +was--as even in that dark season he recognised--the very law of his +life; and his soul, purged by affliction, had but a single wish--the +wish to be led, not into prosperity, not into a recovery of his lost +glory, not even into the restoration of his lost innocence; but +only,--through paths however hard--only into the land of righteousness. +And because he knew that God would lead him thitherward, he had no wish, +no care for anything beyond. We will end this chapter by translating a +few of the isolated fragments of Epictetus which have been preserved for +us by other writers. The wisdom and beauty of these fragments will +interest the reader, for Epictetus was one of the few "in the very dust +of whose thoughts was gold." + + * * * * * + +"A life entangled with accident is like a wintry torrent, for it is +turbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and tyrannous, and loud, +and brief." + +"A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; for it is +pure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and serviceable, and +rich, and innocent, and uninjurious." + + * * * * * + +"If you wish to be good? first believe that you are bad." + +Compare Matt. ix. 12, "They that be whole need not a physician, but +they that are sick;" John ix. 41, "Now ye say, We see, therefore your +sin remaineth;" and 1 John i. 8, "If we say that we have no sin, we +deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." + + * * * * * + +"It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks with the gifts of +bees, to embitter by vice his reason, which is the gift of God." + + * * * * * + +"Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and +insolence: nothing nobler than high-mindedness, and gentleness, and +philanthropy, and doing good." + + * * * * * + +"The vine bears three clusters: the first of pleasure; the second of +drunkenness; the third of insult." + +"He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; even if he be not +drunken, he has exceeded moderation." + +Our own George Herbert has laid down the same limit:-- + + "Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay, + _Stay at the third cup, or forego the place_, + Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface." + + * * * * * + +"Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a great blaze by +means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over +the sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city, +himself content with little, effects great blessings for his +fellow-citizens." + +The thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare: + + "How far yon little candle throws its beams, + So shines a good deed in a naughty world." + +But the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly adopts is one no less +beautiful. "What good," asked some one, "did Helvidius Priscus do in +resisting Vespasian, being but a single person?" "What good," answers +Epictetus, "does the purple do on the garment? Why, _it is splendid in +itself, and splendid also in the example which it affords_." + + * * * * * + +"As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations that he may rise, +but shines at once, and is greeted by all; so neither wait thou for +applause, and shouts, and eulogies, that thou mayst do well;--but be a +spontaneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved like the sun." + + * * * * * + +"Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all possessions, answered, +'Hope; for even those who have nothing else have hope.'" + +"Lead, lead me on, my hopes," says Mr. Macdonald; "I know that ye are +true and not vain. Vanish from my eyes day after day, but arise in new +forms. I will follow your holy deception; follow till ye have brought me +to the feet of my Father in heaven, where I shall find you all, with +folded wings, spangling the sapphire dusk whereon stands His throne +which is our home. + +"What ought not to be done do not even think of doing." + +Compare + + "_Guard well your thoughts for thoughts are heard in heaven_.'" + + * * * * * + +Epictetus, when asked how a man could grieve his enemy, replied, "By +preparing himself to act in the noblest way." + +Compare Rom. xii. 20, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, +give him drink: _for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on +his head_" + + * * * * * + +"If you always remember that in all you do in soul or body God stands by +as a witness, in all your prayers and your actions you will not err; and +you shall have God dwelling with you." + +Compare Rev. iii. 30, "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man +hear my voice, and open the door, _I will come in to him and will sup +with him, and he with me."_ + +In the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch upon human +actions, Epictetus touches again on the same topic, saying that God has +placed beside each one of us his own guardian spirit--a spirit that +sleeps not and cannot be beguiled--and has handed us each over to that +spirit to protect us. "And to what better or more careful guardian could +He have entrusted us? So that when you have closed your doors and made +darkness within, _remember never to say that you are alone_. For you are +not alone. God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit; and +what need have _they_ of light to see what you are doing." + +There is in this passage an almost startling coincidence of thought with +those eloquent words in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: "A man that breaketh +wedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? _I am compassed about +with darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth me_: what need I to +fear? the Most Highest will not remember my sins: _such a man only +feareth the eyes of man_, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are +ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, +and considering the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever they +were created: so also after they were perfected He looked upon all. This +man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he expecteth +not he shall be taken." (Ecclus. xxiii. 11-21.) + +"When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a tutor who kept a +continual watch that we might not suffer harm; but, when we grow to +manhood, God hands us over to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must, +therefore, by no means despise this guardianship, since in that case we +shall both be displeasing to God and enemies to our own conscience." + +Beautiful and remarkable as these fragments are we have no space for +more, and must conclude by comparing the last with the celebrated lines +of George Herbert:-- + + "Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round; + _Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters + Deliver us to laws. They send us bound + To rules of reason_. Holy messengers; + Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin; + Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes; + Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in! + Bibles laid open; millions of surprises; + Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness; + The sound of glory ringing in our ears; + Without one shame; _within our consciences_; + Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears! + Yet all these fences and their whole array, + One cunning bosom sin blows quite away." + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS. + +The _Discourses_ of Epictetus, as originally published by Arrian, +contained eight books, of which only four have come down to us. They are +in many respects the most valuable expression of his views. There is +something slightly repellent in the stern concision, the "imperious +brevity," of the _Manual_. In the _Manual_, says M. Martha,[66] "the +reason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassibility which is +little human; it imposes silence on all the passions, even the most +respectable; it glories in waging against them an internecine war, and +seems even to wish to repress the most legitimate impulses of generous +sensibility. In reading these rigorous maxims one might be tempted to +believe that this legislator of morality is a man without a heart, and, +if we were not touched by the original sincerity of the language, one +would only see in this lapidary style the conventional precepts of a +chimerical system or the aspirations of an impossible perfection." The +_Discourses_ are more illustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse, +more human. In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human +being, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. The style, +indeed, is simple, but its "athletic nudity" is well suited to this +militant morality; its picturesque and incisive character, its vigorous +metaphors, its vulgar expressions, its absence of all conventional +elegance, display a certain "plebeian originality" which gives them an +almost autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid +conviction "he wrestles with the passions, questions them, makes them +answer, and confounds them in a few words which are often sublime. This +Socrates without grace does not amuse us by making his adversary fall +into the long entanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes +and often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence of +Phocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which is lifted +and falls." + +[Footnote 66: Moralistes sous l'Empire, p. 200.] + +Epictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher; a preacher with less wealth of +genius, less eloquence of expression, less width of culture, but with +far more bravery, clearness, consistency, and grasp of his subject. His +doctrine and his life were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit +of brief expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, or +chequered with any lights and shades. The _Discourses_ differ from the +_Manual_ only in their manner, their frequent anecdotes, their pointed +illustrations, and their vivid interlocutory form. The remark of Pascal, +that Epictetus knew the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know +its weakness, applies to the _Manual_ but can hardly be maintained when +we judge him by some of the answers which he gave to those who came to +seek for his consolation or advice. + +The _Discourses_ are not systematic in their character, and, even if +they were, the loss of the last four books would prevent us from working +out their system with any completeness. Our sketch of the _Manual_ will +already have put the reader in possession of the main principles and +ideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the +schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a +moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He +neither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical +reality. All that remains for us to do is to choose from the +_Discourses_ some of his most characteristic views, and the modes by +which he brought them home to his hearers. + +It was one of the most essential peculiarities of Stoicism to aim at +absolute independence, or _self_-independence. Now, as the weaknesses +and servilities of men arise most frequently from their desire for +superfluities, the true man must absolutely get rid of any such desire. +He must increase his wealth by moderating his wishes; he must despise +_all_ the luxuries for which men long, and he must greatly diminish the +number of supposed necessaries. We have already seen some of the +arguments which point in this direction, and we may add another from the +third book of _Discourses_. + +A certain magnificent orator, who was going to Rome on a lawsuit, had +called on Epictetus. The philosopher threw cold water on his visit, +because he did not believe in his sincerity. "You will get no more from +me," he said, "than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for +you have only come because it happened to be convenient, and you will +only criticise my style, not really wishing to learn _principles_" +"Well, but," answered the orator, "if I attend to that sort of thing, I +shall be a mere pauper like you, with no plate, or equipage, or land." +"I don't _want_ such things," replied Epictetus; "and, besides, you are +poorer than I am, after all." "Why, how so?" "You have no constancy, no +unanimity with nature, no freedom from perturbations. Patron or no +patron, what care I? You _do_ care. I am richer than you. _I_ don't care +what Caesar thinks of me. _I_ flatter no one. This is what I have +instead of your silver and gold plate. You have _silver_ vessels, but +_earthenware_ reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom +is, and it furnishes me abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your +restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you, mine seem +great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied." The +comparison with which he ends the discussion is very remarkable. I once +had the privilege of hearing Sir William Hooker explain to the late +Queen Adelaide the contents of the Kew Museum. Among them was a +cocoa-nut with a hole in it, and Sir William explained to the Queen that +in certain parts of India, when the natives want to catch the monkeys +they make holes in cocoa-nuts, and fill them with sugar. The monkeys +thrust in their hands and fill them with sugar; the aperture is too +small to draw the paws out again when thus increased in size; the +monkeys have not the sense to loose their hold of the sugar, and so they +are caught. This little anecdote will enable the reader to relish the +illustration of Epictetus. "When little boys thrust their hands into +narrow-mouthed jars full of figs and almonds, when they have filled +their hands they cannot draw them out again, and so begin to howl. Let +go a few of the figs and almonds, and you'll get your hand out. And so +_you_, let go your desires. Don't desire many things, and you'll get +what you _do_ desire." "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he +shall not be disappointed!" + +Another of the constant precepts of Epictetus is that we should aim +high; we are not to be common threads in the woof of life, but like the +laticlave on the robe of a senator, the broad purple stripe which gave +lustre and beauty to the whole. But how are we to know that we are +qualified for this high function? How does the bull know, when the lion +approaches, that it is his place to expose himself for all the herd? If +we have high powers we shall soon be conscious of them, and if we have +them not we may gradually acquire them. Nothing great is produced at +once,--the vine must blossom, and bear fruit, and ripen, before we have +the purple clusters of the grape,--"first the blade, then the ear, after +that the full corn in the ear." + +But whence are we to derive this high sense of duty and possible +eminence? Why, if Caesar had adopted you, would you not show your proud +sense of ennoblement in haughty looks; how is it that you are not proud +of being sons of God? You have, indeed, a body, by virtue of which many +men sink into close kinship with pernicious wolves, and savage lions, +and crafty foxes, destroying the rational within them, and so becoming +greedy cattle or mischievous vermin; but above and beyond this, "If," +says Epictetus, "a man have once been worthily interpenetrated with the +belief that we all have been in some special manner born of God, and +that God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never have +any ignoble, any humble thoughts about himself." Our own great Milton +has hardly expressed this high truth more nobly when he says, that "He +that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of +God's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he +thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit +person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than +to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, +himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and filial +relation with God." + +"And how are we to know that we have made progress? We may know it if +our own wills are bent to live in conformity with nature; if we be +noble, free, faithful, humble; if desiring nothing, and shunning nothing +which lies beyond our power, we sit loose to all earthly interests; if +our lives are under the distinct governance of immutable and noble laws. + +"But shall we not meet with troubles in life? Yes, undoubtedly; and are +there none at Olympia? Are you not burnt with heat, and pressed for +room, and wetted with showers when it rains? Is there not more than +enough clamour, and shouting, and other troubles? Yet I suppose you +tolerate and endure all these when you balance them against the +magnificence of the spectacle? And, come now, have you not received +powers wherewith to bear whatever occurs? Have you not received +magnanimity, courage, fortitude? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I +care for anything that can possibly happen? what shall alarm or trouble +me, or seem painful? Shall I not use the faculty for the ends for which +it was granted me, or shall I grieve and groan at all the accidents of +life? On the contrary, these troubles and difficulties are strong +antagonists pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in +the Olympic game of life. + +"But if life and its burdens become absolutely intolerable, may we not +go back to God, from whom we came? may we not show thieves and robbers, +and tyrants who claim power over us by means of our bodies and +possessions, that they have _no power_? In a word, may we not commit +suicide?" We know how Shakespeare treats this question:-- + + "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, + Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, + The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, + The insolence of office, and the spurns + Which patient merit of the unworthy takes, + When he himself might his quietus make + With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, + To grunt and sweat under a weary life, + _But that the dread of something after death, + The undiscovered country from whose bourne + No traveller returns, puzzles the will: + And makes us rather bear those ills we have + Than fly to others that we know not of_?" + +But Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I do not remember a +single passage in which he refers to immortality or the life to come, +and it is therefore probable either that he did not believe in it at +all, or that he put it aside as one of those things which are out of our +own power. Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we +find throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one of the +commonplaces of Stoicism. "My friends," he says, "wait God's good time +till He gives you the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then +dismiss yourself to go to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves, +inhabiting the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after +all, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for those who are +thus disposed; for what tyrant, or thief, or judgment-halls, are objects +of dread to those who thus absolutely disesteem the body and its +belongings? Stay, then, and do not depart without due cause." + +It will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without extolling it, +for in another place (ii. 1) he says: "What is pain? A mere ugly mask; +turn it, and see that it is so. This little flesh of ours is acted on +roughly, and then again smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear +it, the door is open; if it is for your interest--endure. It is right +that under all circumstances the door should be open, since so men end +all trouble." + +This power of _endurance_ is completely the keynote of the Stoical view +of life, and the method of attaining to it, by practising contempt for +all external accidents, is constantly inculcated. I have already told +the anecdote about Agrippinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that +no extreme of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a +single expression of indignation or of sorrow. + +The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from God, and it +is our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding +conception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too, +our duties spring directly from our relation to God. It is that relation +which makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us +honour others. "Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has +God for his father no less than you? But they are wicked, +perhaps--thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more +pity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their +misfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are +wicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so _very_ wise?" + +Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often +pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for +instance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), +and the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones. +He points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act +is a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which make up +our daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are +adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever +may be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with +the diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them. + +Take the instance of anger. "Do you wish not to be passionate? do not +then cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto. +Be calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in +a rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day, +then every third, then every fourth day. But should you have passed even +thirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to God. For the +habit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to +vexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but +I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say +_that_, that it will soon be all right with you." + +But _how_ is one to do all this? that is the great question, and +Epictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he can. We have, +for instance, already quoted one passage in which (unlike the majority +of Pagan moralists) he shows that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical +importance of controlling even the _thought_ of wickedness. Another +anecdote about Agrippinus will further illustrate the same doctrine. It +was the wicked practice of Nero to make noble Romans appear on the stage +or in gladiatorial shows, in order that he might thus seem to have their +sanction for his own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who +was doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, consulted +Agrippinus on the subject. "_Go by all means_," replied Agrippinus. +"But why don't _you_ go, then?" asked Florus. "_Because"_, said +Agrippinus, "_I do not deliberate about it_." He implied by this answer +that to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act +always on _principles_, we must never pause to calculate _consequences_. +"But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head cut off." +"Well, then, go, but _I_ won't." "Why won't you go?" "Because I do not +care to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the +purple sewn upon it." + +And if we want a due _motive_ for such lofty choice Epictetus will +supply it. "Wish," he says, "to win the suffrages of your own inward +approval, wish to appear beautiful to God. Desire to be pure with your +own pure self, and with God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato +says, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of +the gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even +rise and depart to the society of the noble and the good, to live +according to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the +living or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery +over temptation and passion; consider how glorious was the conscious +victory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place +him to Hercules himself.' So that, by heaven, one might justly salute +him, 'Hail, marvellous conqueror, who hast conquered, not these +miserable boxers and athletes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.' +And should you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what +shoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of mere +babblements, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who +trains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Great is the +struggle, divine the deed; it is for kingdom, for freedom, for +tranquillity, for peace. Think on God; call upon Him as thine aid and +champion, as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. And +indeed what storm is greater than that which rises from powerful +semblances that dash reason out of its course? What indeed but semblance +is a storm itself? Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring +as many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt know how +great is the tranquillity and calm in that reason which is the ruling +faculty of the soul. But should you once be worsted, and say that you +will conquer _hereafter_, and then the same again and again, know that +thus your condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will +not even know that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to +provide excuses for your sin; and then you will confirm the truth of +that saying of Hesiod,-- + + "'The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.'" + +Even so! So early did a heathen moralist learn the solemn fact that +"only this once" ends in "there is no harm in it." Well does Mr. +Coventry Patmore sing:-- + + "How easy to keep free from sin; + How hard that freedom to recall; + For awful truth it is that men + _Forget_ the heaven from which they fall." + +In another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be too easily +discouraged in our attempts after good;--and, above all, never to +_despair_. "In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he +is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has +acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor +wretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be swept along as by +a torrent. You need but _will_" he says, "and it is done; but if you +relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both +from within.--And what will you gain by all this? You will gain modesty +for inpudence, purity for vileness, moderation for drunkenness. If you +think there are any better ends than these, then by all means go on in +sin, for you are beyond the power of any god to save." + +But Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us that to +_profess_ these principles and _talk_ about them is one thing--to act up +to them quite another. He draws a humorous picture of an inconsistent +and unreal philosopher, who--after eloquently proving that nothing is +good but what pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to +vice, and that all other things are indifferent--goes to sea. A storm +comes on, and the masts creak, and the philosopher screams; and an +impertinent person stands by and asks in surprise, "Is it then _vice_ to +suffer shipwreck? because, if not, it can be no evil;" a question which +makes our philosopher so angry that he is inclined to fling a log at his +interlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that the +philosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the +schools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and +conceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name +of Stoic was usurped. + +"Why," he asks in another passage, "why do you call yourself a Stoic? +Why do you deceive the multitude? Why do you act the Jew when you are a +Greek? Don't you see on what terms each person is called a Jew? or a +Syrian? or an Egyptian? And when we see some mere _trimmer_ we are in +the habit of saying, 'This is no Jew; he is only acting the part of +one,' but when a man takes up the entire condition of a proselyte, +thoroughly imbued with Jewish doctrines, then he both _is_ in reality +and is _called_ a Jew. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye, +_are Jews in name, but in reality are something else_.... We call +ourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the part of men, as +though a man should try to heave the stone of Ajax who cannot lift ten +pounds." The passage is interesting not only on its own account, but +because of its curious similarity both with the language and with the +sentiment of St. Paul--"He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is +that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is +one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and +not in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." + +The best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by a mere study of +books and knowledge of doctrines, but by a steady diligence of actions +and adherence to original principles, to which must be added consistency +and self control. "These principles," says Epictetus, "produce +friendship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations; they make +a man grateful to God, bold under all circumstances, as though dealing +with things alien and valueless. Now we are capable of writing these +things, and reading them, and praising them when they are read, but we +are far enough off following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of +the Lacedaemonians, that they are 'lions at home, foxes at Ephesus,' +will also apply to us; in the school we are lions, out of it foxes." + +These passages include, I think, all the most original, important, and +characteristic conceptions which are to be found in the _Discourses_. +They are most prominently illustrated in the long and important chapter +on the Cynic philosophy. A genuine Cynic--one who was so, not in +brutality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a Cynic +in life and in his inmost principles--was evidently in the eyes of +Epictetus one of the loftiest of human beings. He drew a sketch of his +ideal conception to one of his scholars who inquired of him upon +the subject. + +He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who +undertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him +the anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the +imperial office of an Agamemnon. "If you think," he tells the young +student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and +sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and +rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple, +you don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a +Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider +how great a thing you are undertaking. + +"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of +God. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life +must be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal +their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your +house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must +conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as +the spy and messenger of God among mankind. + +"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their +blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and +Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not +in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for +Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their +hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances. +It lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of +every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of +contentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile, +disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this +Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face +the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped? + +"Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be +beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an +unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men +would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair. + +"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a +friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The +friend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a +friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry; +marriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, +its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted +to the service of heaven. + +"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth +is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind. + +"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of +his indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a +power of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be +clear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To +abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place +all fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this: +before you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of +God you are capable of achieving it." + +I have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chapter, but fully +to enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader should study it entire, +and observe its generous impatience, its noble ardour, its vivid +interrogations, "in which," says M. Martha, "one feels as it were a +frenzy of virtue and of piety, and in which the plenitude of a great +heart tumultuously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts." + +Epictetus was not a Christian. He has only once alluded to the +Christians in his works, and there it is under the opprobrious title of +"Galileans," who practised a kind of insensibility in painful +circumstances and an indifference to worldly interests which Epictetus +unjustly sets down to "mere habit." Unhappily it was not granted to +these heathen philosophers in any true sense to know what Christianity +was. They ignorantly thought that it was an attempt to imitate the +results of philosophy, without having passed through the necessary +discipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it with +injustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, they +would have found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest +conceptions. Nor was it only an impossible _ideal_; it was an ideal +rendered attainable by the impressive sanction of the highest authority, +and one which supported men to bear the difficulties of life with +fortitude, with peacefulness, and even with an inward joy; it ennobled +their faculties without overstraining them; it enabled them to +disregard the burden of present trials, not by vainly attempting to deny +their bitterness or ignore their weight, but in the high certainty that +they are the brief and necessary prelude to "a far more exceeding and +eternal weight of glory." + + + +MARCUS AURELIUS. + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR. + +The life of the noblest of Pagan Emperors may well follow that of the +noblest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the purer and brighter from +the midst of a corrupt and deplorable society. Epictetus showed that a +Phrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation; Aurelius +proved that a Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility. +The one--a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in squalor, bred +in degradation, the despised chattel of a despicable freedman, +surrounded by every depressing, ignoble, and pitiable circumstance of +life--showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win noble +happiness and immortal memory; the other--a Roman, a patrician, strong, +of heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the +favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher, +the greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be +virtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, +even on an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the two, +the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly +and touchingly resigned, than the slave. In him, Stoicism loses all its +haughty self-assertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly +melancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart. "It seems," says +M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, +draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it +despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown +God.' In the sad _Meditations_ of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, +sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were +unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not +yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which +Christianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction, +and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, +without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fenelon. +We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate +ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to +which profane doctrines have attained--how they laid down their pride, +and how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity. To +make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the +Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these +simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur--that +charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and +humbleness of heart by an Emperor." + +Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of +eminent men "If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the +Christian verities," says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, +"search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object +than the Antonines.... One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this +Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of +emotion. He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better +of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind." +"It is more delightful," says the great historian Niebuhr, "to speak of +Marcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime +human virtue it is his. He was certainly the noblest character of his +time, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, +mildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards +himself. We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his +time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an +expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius." + +Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, A.D. 121. His more correct +designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several +different names at different periods of his life, and since at that age +nothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth +while to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His +father, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a +line of illustrious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King +of Rome. His mother, Domitia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and +kingly race. The character of both seems to have been worthy of their +high dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since Annius died +when Aurelius was a mere infant; but in his _Meditations_ he has left us +a grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his +grandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the +government of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his +father, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence, +and _abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts_; +and, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of +the rich. + +The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian. +The times were better than those which we have contemplated in the +reigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of +Galba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time +under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of +Titus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother Titus, +was scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero; +but that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden +neck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate +that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was +fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan, +Hadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus +Aurelius were among the very gentlest and noblest sovereigns whom the +world has ever seen. + +Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial +Emperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It +is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at +the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues +which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of +mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when +he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's +paternal name of _Verus_, he called him _Verissimus_, 'the most true.'" +It is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early +developed in one who thought that all men "should speak as they think, +with an accent of heroic verity." + +Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness, +Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a +man who had few recommendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death, +which took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the senators +round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future +Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he +won by his gratitude to the memory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been +older--he was then but seventeen--it is known that Hadrian would have +chosen _him_, and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, indeed, who +was then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition +that he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the +deceased Ceionius. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even +from his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw +himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world. + +We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch +of the influences and the education which had formed him for this +exalted station. + +He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been +three times consul. He makes it a matter of congratulation, and +thankfulness to the gods, that he had not been sent to any public +school, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that +frightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had +fallen. He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for +having supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction +that on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing +jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond +of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and +he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, +his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his +public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a +beautiful and manly mould. There are, however, three respects in which +his education seems especially worthy of notice;--I mean the +_diligence_, the _gratitude_, and the _hardiness_ in which he was +encouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of +generous conviction. + +1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was _diligent_. He alludes +more than once in his _Meditations_ to the inestimable value of time, +and to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits. +He flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into +every branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he +toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the +administration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman +jurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which he expresses gratitude +to his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being +satisfied with the superficial understanding of a book. In fact, so +strenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his +health suffered by the combination of the two. + +2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his teachers--even +the most insignificant--with sincere _gratitude_. He regarded each one +of them as a man from whom something could be learnt, and from whom he +actually _did_ learn that something. Hence the honourable respect--a +respect as honourable to himself as to them--which he paid to Fronto, to +Rusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom his noble and +conscientious gratitude raised to the highest dignities of the State. He +even thanks the gods that "he made haste to place those who brought him +up in the station of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting +them off with mere _hopes_ of his doing it some time after, because they +were then still young." He was far the superior of these men, not only +socially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his +exalted rank and character he delighted to associate with them on the +most friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with +affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household +gods, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims. + +3. His _hardiness_ and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I +wish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel +second-class, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their +buttonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a +poor man for a year, would learn how _infinitely more noble_ was the +abstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of +splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of +gluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early +in life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not +only a duty but a pleasure + + "To scorn delights, and live laborious days," + +and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work +with his own hands." In his eleventh year he became acquainted with +Diognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his +twelfth year he assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to +prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to +the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the skin" was a concession to +the entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself +would have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he +acted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. His friends +found him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity +and thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a +pure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or +with gloom. + +The guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around him all the most +distinguished literary teachers of the age. Never had a prince a greater +number of eminent instructors; never were any teachers made happy by a +more grateful, a more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and +glorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, during his +campaign among the Quadi, he wrote a sketch of what he owed to them. +This sketch forms the first book of his _Meditations_, and is +characterised throughout by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty. + +The _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his private diary, +they are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, an honest examination of +his own conscience; there is not the slightest trace of their having +been intended for any eye but his own. In them he was acting on the +principle of St. Augustine: "Go up into the tribunal of thy conscience, +and set thyself before thyself." He was ever bearing about-- + + "A silent court of justice in himself, + Himself the judge and jury, and himself + The prisoner at the bar." + +And writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war which he +detested, he averted his eyes from the manifold wearinesses which daily +vexed his soul, and calmly sat down to meditate on all the great +qualities which he had observed, and all the good lessons that he might +have learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and surrounded +his manly years. + +And what had he learnt?--learnt heartily to admire, and (_we_ may say) +learnt to practise also? A sketch of his first book will show us. What +he had gained from his immediate parents we have seen already, and we +will make a brief abstract of his other obligations. + +From "his governor"--to which of his teachers this name applies we are +not sure--he had learnt to avoid factions at the races, to work hard, +and to avoid listening to slander; from Diognetus, to despise frivolous +superstitions, and to practise self-denial; from Apollonius, undeviating +steadiness of purpose, endurance of misfortune, and the reception of +favours without being humbled by them; from Sextus of Chaeronea (a +grandson of the celebrated Plutarch), tolerance of the ignorant, gravity +without affectation, and benevolence of heart; from Alexander, delicacy +in correcting others; from Severus, "a disposition to do good, and to +give to others readily, and to cherish good hope, and, to believe that I +am beloved of my friends;" from Maximus, "sweetness and dignity, and to +do what was set before me without complaining;" from Alexander the +Platonic, "_not frequently to say to any one, nor to write in a letter, +that I have no leisure_; nor continually to excuse the neglect of +ordinary duties by alleging urgent occupations." + +To one or two others his obligations were still more characteristic and +important. From Rusticus, for instance, an excellent and able man, whose +advice for years he was accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise +sophistry and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified, +to be accurate, and--an inestimable benefit this, and one which tinged +the colour of his whole life--to become acquainted with the _Discourses_ +of Epictetus. And from his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he +had derived advantages still more considerable. In him he saw the +example of a sovereign and statesman firm, self-controlled, modest, +faithful, and even tempered; a man who despised flattery and hated +meanness; who honoured the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who +was indifferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest +business; one, in short, "who had a perfect and invincible soul," who, +like Socrates, "was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things +which many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without +excess." [67] Piety, serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame, +calmness, simplicity, patience, are virtues which he attributes to him +in another full-length portrait (vi. 30) which he concludes with the +words, "Imitate all this, that thou mayest have as good a conscience +when thy last hour comes as he had." + +[Footnote 67: My quotations from Marcus Aurelius will be made (by +permission) from the forcible and admirably accurate translation of Mr. +Long. In thanking Mr. Long, I may be allowed to add that the English +reader will find in his version the best means of becoming acquainted +with the purest-and noblest book of antiquity.] + +He concludes these reminiscenses of thankfulness with a summary of what +he owed to the gods. And for what does he thanks the gods? for being +wealthy, and noble, and an emperor? Nay, for no vulgar or dubious +blessings such as these, but for the guidance which trained him in +philosophy, and for the grace which kept him from sin. And here it is +that his genuine modesty comes out. As the excellent divine used to say +when he saw a criminal led past for execution, "There, but for the grace +of God, goes John Bradford," so, after thanking the gods for the +goodness of all his family and relatives, Aurelius says, "Further, I owe +it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of +them, _though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered_, +might have led me to do something of this kind; but through their favour +there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the +trial. Further, that I was subjected to a ruler and father who took away +all pride from me, and taught me that it was possible to live in a +palace without guards, or embroidered dresses, or torches, and statues, +and such-like show, but to live very near to the fashion of a private +person, without being either mean in thought or remiss in action; that +after having fallen into amatory passions I was cured; that though it +was my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life +with me; that whenever I wished to help any man, I was never told that I +had not the means of doing it;--that I had abundance of good masters for +my children: for all these thing require the help of the gods +and fortune." + +The whole of the Emperor's _Meditations_ deserve the profound study of +this age. The self-denial which they display is a rebuke to our +ever-growing luxury; their generosity contrasts favourably with the +increasing bitterness of our cynicism; their contented acquiescence in +God's will rebukes our incessant restlessness; above all, their constant +elevation shames that multitude of little vices, and little meannesses, +which lie like a scurf over the conventionality of modern life. But this +earlier chapter has also a special value for the young. It offers a +picture which it would indeed be better for them and for us if they +could be induced to study. If even under + + "That fierce light that beats upon the throne," + +the life of Marcus Aurelius shows no moral stain, it is still more +remarkable that the free and beautiful boyhood of this Roman prince had +early learnt to recognise only the excellences of his teachers, their +patience and firmness, their benevolence and sweetness, their integrity +and virtue. Amid the frightful universality of moral corruption he +preserved a stainless conscience and a most pure soul; he thanked God in +language which breathes the most crystalline delicacy of sentiment and +language, that he had preserved uninjured the flower of his early life, +and that under the calm influences of his home in the country, and the +studies of philosophy, he had learnt to value chastity as the sacred +girdle of youth, to be retained and honoured to his latest years. +"Surely," says Mr. Carlyle, "a day is coming when it will be known again +what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush +of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable is the +duty laid on every creature in regard to these particulars. Well, if +such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come. +Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of +heart and of eye; noble pious valour to amend us and the age of bronze +and lacquers, how can they ever come? The scandalous bronze-lacquer age +of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies, and mendacities will have +to run its course till the pit swallow it." + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. + +On the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded to the +throne, and, in accordance with the late Emperor's conditions, adopted +Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the +age of fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor +broke off the engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter +Faustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven years +afterwards, A.D. 146. + +The long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy periods that have +no history. An almost unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes +were lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation +were rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. Throughout the +whole extent of his vast domain the people loved and valued their +Emperor, and the Emperor's one aim was to further, the happiness of his +people. He, too, like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the +bee was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil administrator, +of an unaggressive and united republic; he disliked war, did not value +the military title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph. + +With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his private +relations as he was admirable in the discharge of his public duties, +Marcus Aurelius spent the next twenty-three years of his life. So close +and intimate was their union, so completely did they regard each other +as father and son, that during all that period Aurelius never slept more +than twice away from the house of Antoninus. There was not a shade of +jealousy between them; each was the friend and adviser of the other, +and, so far from regarding his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor +gave him the designation "Caesar," and heaped upon him all the honours +of the Roman Commonwealth. It was in vain that the whisper of malignant +tongues attempted to shake this mutual confidence. Antoninus once saw +the mother of Aurelius in earnest prayer before the statue of Apollo. +"What do you think she is praying for so intently?" asked a wretched +mischief-maker of the name of Valerius Omulus: "it is that you may die, +and her son reign." This wicked suggestion might have driven a prince of +meaner character into violence and disgust, but Antoninus passed it over +with the silence of contempt. + +It was the main delight of Antoninus to enjoy the quiet of his country +villa. Unlike Hadrian, who traversed immense regions of his vast +dominion, Antoninus lived entirely either at Rome, or in his beautiful +villa at Lorium, a little seacoast village about twelve miles from the +capital. In this villa he had been born, and here he died, surrounded by +the reminiscences of his childhood. In this his real home it was his +special pleasure to lay aside the pomp and burden of his imperial rank. +"He did not," says Marcus, "take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was +not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he eat, nor about +the texture and colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his +slaves." Even the dress he wore was the work of the provincial artist +in his little native place. So far from checking the philosophic tastes +of his adopted son he fostered them, and sent for Apollonius of Chalcis +to be his teacher in the doctrines of Stoicism. In one of his notes to +Fronto, Marcus draws the picture of their simple country occupations and +amusements. Hunting, fishing, boxing, wrestling, occupied the leisure of +the two princes, and they shared the rustic festivities of the vintage. +"I have dined," he writes, "on a little bread.... We perspired a great +deal, shouted a great deal, and left some gleanings of the vintage +hanging on the trellis work.... When I got home I studied a little, but +not to much advantage I had a long talk with my mother, who was lying on +her couch." Who knows how much Aurelius and how much the world may have +gained from such conversation as this with a mother from whom he had +learnt to hate even the thought of evil? Nor will any one despise the +simplicity of heart which made him mingle with the peasants as an +amateur vintager, unless he is so tasteless and so morose as to think +with scorn of Scipio and Laelius as they gathered shells on the +seashore, or of Henry IV. as he played at horses with his little boys on +all-fours. The capability of unbending thus, the genuine cheerfulness +which enters at due times into simple amusements, has been found not +rarely in the highest and purest minds. + +For many years no incident of importance broke the even tenor of +Aurelius's life. He lived peaceful, happy, prosperous, and beloved, +watching without envy the increasing years of his adopted father. But in +the year 161, when Marcus was now forty years old, Antoninus Pius, who +had reached the age of seventy-five, caught a fever at Lorium. Feeling +that his end was near, he summoned his friends and the chief men of +Rome to his bedside, and there (without saying a word about his other +adopted son, who is generally known by the name of Lucius Verus) +solemnly recommended Marcus to them as his successor; and then, giving +to the captain of the guard the watchword of "Equanimity," as though his +earthly task was over he ordered to be transferred to the bedroom of +Marcus the little golden statue of Fortune, which was kept in the +private chamber of the Emperors as an omen of public prosperity. + +The very first public act of the new Emperor was one of splendid +generosity, namely, the admission of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus +into the fullest participation of imperial honours, the Tribunitian and +proconsular powers, and the titles Caesar and Augustus. The admission of +Lucius Verus to a share of the empire was due to the innate modesty of +Marcus. As he was a devoted student, and cared less for manly exercises, +in which Verus excelled, he thought that his adoptive brother would be a +better and more useful general than himself, and that he could best +serve the State by retaining the civil administration, and entrusting to +his brother the management of war. Verus, however, as soon as he got +away from the immediate influence and ennobling society of Marcus, broke +loose from all decency, and showed himself to be a weak and worthless +personage, as unfit for war as he was for all the nobler duties of +peace, and capable of nothing but enormous gluttony and disgraceful +self-indulence. Two things only can be said in his favour; the one, +that, though depraved, he was wholly free from cruelty; and the other, +that he had the good sense to submit himself entirely to his brother, +and to treat him with the gratitude and deference which were his due. + +Marcus had a large family by Faustina, and in the first year of his +reign his wife bore twins, of whom the one who survived became the +wicked and detested Emperor Commodus. As though the birth of such a +child were in itself an omen of ruin, a storm of calamity began at once +to burst over the long tranquil State. An inundation of the Tiber flung +down houses and streets over a great part of Rome, swept away multitudes +of cattle, spoiled the harvests, devastated the fields, and caused a +distress which ended in wide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified +by earthquakes, by the burning of cities, and by plagues or noxious +insects. To these miseries, which the Emperors did their best to +alleviate, was added the horrors of wars and rumours of wars. The +Partians, under their king Vologeses, defeated and all but destroyed a +Roman army, and devastated with impunity the Roman province of Syria. +The wild tribes of the Catti burst over Germany with fire and sword; and +the news from Britain was full of insurrection and tumult. Such were the +elements of trouble and discord which overshadowed the reign of Marcus +Aurelius from its very beginning down to its weary close. + +As the Partian war was the most important of the three, Verus was sent +to quell it, and but for the ability of his generals--the greatest of +whom was Avidius Cassius--would have ruined irretrievably the fortunes +of the Empire. These generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the +Roman name, and Verus returned in triumph, bringing back with him from +the East the seeds of a terrible pestilence which devastated the whole +Empire and by which, on the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus himself was +carried off at Aquileia. + +Worthless as he was, Marcus, who in his lifetime had so often pardoned +and concealed his faults, paid him the highest honours of sepulcre, and +interred his ashes in the mausoleum of Hadrian. There were not wanting +some who charged him with the guilt of fratricide, asserting that the +death of Verus had been hastened by his means! + +I have only one reason for alluding to atrocious and contemptible +calumnies like these, and that is because--since no doubt such whispers +reached his ears--they help to account for that deep unutterable +melancholy which breathes through the little golden book of the +Emperor's _Meditations_. We find, for instance, among them this isolated +fragment:-- + +"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical." + +We know not of whom he was thinking--perhaps of Nero, perhaps of +Caligula, but undoubtedly also of men whom he had seen and known, and +whose very existence darkened his soul. The same sad spirit breathes +also through the following passages:-- + +"Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name, +or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are +much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling, and _little +dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and +then straightway weeping. But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and +truth are fled_ + + "'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.'" + +(v. 33.) + +"It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having +had a taste of lying, and hypocrisy, and luxury, and pride. However to +_breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of those things_ is +the next best voyage, as the saying is." (ix. 2.) + +"_Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles._ Why +art thou thus disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles +thee?... Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and +better." (ix. 37.) The thought is like that which dominates through the +Penitential Psalms of David,--that we may take refuge from men, their +malignity and their meanness, and find rest for our souls in God. From +men David has _no_ hope; mockery, treachery, injustice, are all that he +expects from them,--the bitterness of his enemies, the far-off +indifference of his friends. Nor does this greatly trouble him, so long +as he does not wholly lose the light of _God's_ countenance. "I had no +place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O +Lord, and said, _Thou_ art my hope, and my portion in the land of the +living." "Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy +Spirit from me." + +But whatever may have been his impulse at times to give up in despair +all attempt to improve the "little breed" of men around him, Marcus had +schooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings. +Were men contemptible? It was all the more reason why he should himself +be noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust? In +that proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and +tenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his +ability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus +Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the +vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from +suffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws +fresh lessons of humanity and love. + +He says, for instance, "Begin the morning by saying to thyself, _I shall +meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, +unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance +of what is good and evil_. But I who have seen the nature of the good +that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of +him that does wrong that is akin to me,... and that it partakes of the +same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, +for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my +kinsman, nor hate him. _For we are made for co-operation,_ like feet, +like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To +act against one another then is contrary to nature; and _it_ is acting +against one another to be vexed and turn away." (ii. 1.) Another of his +rules, and an eminently wise one, was to fix his thoughts as much as +possible on the virtues of others, rather than on their vices. "When +thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the _virtues_ of those who +live with thee--the activity of one, the modesty of another, the +liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth." What a +rebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are daily tempted to +display! "An infinite being comes before us," says Robertson, "with a +whole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and we _proceed to +classify him, put a label upon him, as we would upon a jar, saying, This +is rice, that is jelly, and this pomatum_; and then we think we have +saved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How differently +our Lord treated the people who came to Him!... consequently, at His +touch each one gave out his peculiar spark of light." + +Here, again, is a singularly pithy, comprehensive, and beautiful piece +of advice:-- + +"Men exist for the sake of one another. _Teach them or bear with them_" +(viii. 59.) + +And again: "The best way of revenging thyself is not to become like the +wrong doer." + +And again, "If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps +he has not done wrong." (ix. 38.) + +Most remarkable, however, are the nine rules which he drew up for +himself, as subjects for reflection when any one had offended +him, viz.-- + +1. That men were made for each other: even the inferior for the sake of +the superior, and these for the sake of one another. + +2. The invincible influences that act upon men, and mould their opinions +and their acts. + +3. That sin is mainly error and ignorance,--an involuntary slavery. + +4. That we are ourselves feeble, and by no means immaculate; and that +often our very abstinence from faults is due more to cowardice and a +care for our reputation than to any freedom from the disposition to +commit them. + +5. That our judgments are apt to be very rash and premature. "And in +short a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct +judgment on another man's acts." + +6. When thou art much vexed or grieved, consider that man's life is only +a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead. + +7. That no wrongful act of another can bring shame on us, and that it +is not men's acts which disturb us, but our own opinions of them. + +8. That our own anger hurts us more than the acts themselves. + +9. That _benevolence is invincible, if it be not an affected smile,_ nor +acting a part. "For what will the most violent man do to thee if thou +continuest benevolent to him? gently and calmly correcting him, +admonishing him when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, '_Not so, my +child: we are constituted by nature for something else: I shall +certainly not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my child_' And +show him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and +that even bees do not do as he does, nor any gregarious animal. And this +you must do simply, unreproachfully, affectionately; without rancour, +and if possible when you and he are alone." (xi. 18.) + +"_Not so, my child_; thou art injuring thyself, my child." Can all +antiquity show anything tenderer than this, or anything more close to +the spirit of Christian teaching than these nine rules? They were worthy +of the men who, unlike the Stoics in general, considered gentleness to +be a virtue, and a proof at once of philosophy and of true manhood. They +are written with that effusion of sadness and benevolence to which it is +difficult to find a parallel. They show how completely Marcus had +triumphed over all petty malignity, and how earnestly he strove to +fulfil his own precept of always keeping the thoughts so sweet and +clear, that "if any one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That,'" In short, to give them their highest praise, they would have +delighted the great Christian Apostle who wrote,-- + +"Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the +weak, be patient towards all men. See that none render evil for evil +unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, +and to all men." (1 Thess. iv. 14. 15.) + +"Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." (2. Thess. +iv. 15.) + +"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a +quarrel against any." (Col. iii. 13.) + +Nay, are they not even in full accordance with the mind and spirit of +Him who said,-- + +"If thy brother trespass against thee, _go and tell him his fault +between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy +brother_." + +In the life of Marcus Aurelius, as in so many lives, we are able to +trace the great law of compensation. His exalted station, during the +later years of his life, threw him among many who were false and +Pharisaical and base; but his youth had been spent under happier +conditions, and this saved him from falling into the sadness of those +whom neither man nor woman please. In his earlier years it had been his +lot to see the fairer side of humanity, and the recollection of those +pure and happy days was like a healing tree thrown into the bitter and +turbid waters of his reign. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS _(continued)._ + +Marcus was now the undisputed lord of the Roman world. He was seated on +the dizziest and most splendid eminence which it was possible for human +grandeur to obtain. + +But this imperial elevation kindled no glow of pride or +self-satisfaction in his meek and chastened nature. He regarded himself +as being in fact the servant of all. It was his duty, like that of the +bull in the herd, or the ram among the flocks, to confront every peril +in his own person, to be foremost in all the hardships of war and the +most deeply immersed in all the toils of peace. The registry of the +citizens, the suppression of litigation, the elevation of public morals, +the restraining of consanguineous marriages, the care of minors, the +retrenchment of public expenses, the limitation of gladitorial games and +shows, the care of roads, the restoration of senatorial privileges, the +appointment of none but worthy magistrates--even the regulation of +street traffic--these and numberless other duties so completely absorbed +his attention that, in spite of indifferent health, they often kept him +at severe labour from early morning till long after midnight. His +position indeed often necessitated his presence at games and shows, but +on these occasions he occupied himself either in reading, or being read +to, or in writing notes. He was one of those who held that nothing +should be done hastily, and that few crimes were worse than the waste of +time. It is to such views and such habits that we owe the compositions +of his works. His _Meditations_ were written amid the painful +self-denial and distracting anxieties of his wars with the Quadi and the +Marcomanni, and he was the author of other works which unhappily have +perished. Perhaps of all the lost treasures of antiquity there are few +which we should feel a greater wish to recover than the lost +autobiography of this wisest of Emperors and holiest of Pagan men. + +As for the external trappings of his rank,--those gorgeous adjuncts and +pompous circumstances which excite the wonder and envy of mankind,--no +man could have shown himself more indifferent to them. He recognized +indeed the necessity of maintaining the dignity of his high position. +"Every moment," he says, "think steadily as a Roman and a man _to do +what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity_, and affection, +and freedom, and justice" (ii. 5); and again, "Let the Deity which is in +thee be the guardian of a living being, _manly and of ripe age, and +engaged in matters political, and a Roman, and a ruler_, who has taken +his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life" +(iii. 5). But he did _not_ think it necessary to accept the fulsome +honours and degrading adulations which were so dear to many of his +predecessors. He refused the pompous blasphemy of temples and altars, +saying that for every true ruler the world was a temple, and all good +men were priests. He declined as much as possible all golden statues and +triumphal designations. All inevitable luxuries and splendour, such as +his public duties rendered indispensable, he regarded as a mere hollow +show. Marcus Aurelius felt as deeply as our own Shakespeare seems to +have felt the unsubstantiality, the fleeting evanescence of all earthly +things: he would have delighted in the sentiment that, + + "_We are such stuff + As dreams are made on, and our little life + Is rounded by a sleep_." + +"When we have meat before us," he says, "and such eatables, we receive +the impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this is the +dead body of a bird, or of a pig; _and, again, that this Falerian is +only a little grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed +with the blood of a shellfish_: such then are these impressions, and +they reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what +kind of things they are. Just in the same way.... where there are things +which appear most worthy of our approbation, _we ought to lay them bare, +and look at their worthlessness_, and strip them of all the words by +which they are exalted." (vi. 13.) + +"What is worth being valued? To be received with clapping of hands? No. +Neither must we value the clapping of tongues, for the praise which +comes from the many is a clapping of tongues." (vi. 16.) + +"Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe; all the sea is a drop in the +universe; Athos a little clod of the universe; all the present time is a +point in eternity. All things are _little, changeable, perishable"_ +(vi. 36.) + +And to Marcus too, no less than to Shakespeare, it seemed that-- + + "All the world's a stage, + And all the men and women merely players;" + +for he writes these remarkable words:-- + +"_The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, +exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread in +fishponds, labourings of ants, and burden-carrying runnings about of +frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings_--this is what life +resembles. It is thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good +humour, and not a proud air; to understand however that _every man is +worth just so much as the things are worth about which he +busies himself_." + +In fact, the Court was to Marcus a burden; he tells us himself that +Philosophy was his mother, Empire only his stepmother; it was only his +repose in the one that rendered even tolerable to him the burdens of the +other. Emperor as he was, he thanked the gods for having enabled him to +enter into the souls of a Thrasea, an Helvidius, a Cato, a Brutus. Above +all, he seems to have had a horror of ever becoming like some of his +predecessors; he writes:-- + +"Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar;[68] take care thou art +not dyed with this dye. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, +free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, +kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Reverence the gods and +help men. Short is life. There _is only one fruit of this terrene life; +a pious disposition and social acts_." (iv. 19,) + +[Footnote 68: Marcus here invents what M. Martha justly calls "an +admirable barbarism" to express his disgust towards such men--[Greek: +ora mae apukaidaoosaes]--"take care not to be _Caesarised_."] + +It is the same conclusion as that which sorrow forced from another +weary and less admirable king: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole +matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole +duty of man." + +But it is time for us to continue the meagre record of the life of +Marcus, so far as the bare and gossiping compilations of Dion +Cassius,[69] and Capitolinus, and the scattered allusions of other +writers can enable us to do so. + +[Footnote 69: As epitomised by Xiphilinus.] + +It must have been with a heavy heart that he set out once more for +Germany to face the dangerous rising of the Quadi and Marcomanni. To +obtain soldiers sufficient to fill up the vacancies in his army which +had been decimated by the plague, he was forced to enrol slaves; and to +obtain money he had to sell the ornaments of the palace, and even some +of the Empress's jewels. Immediately before he started his heart was +wrung by the death of his little boy, the twin-brother of Commodus, +whose beautiful features are still preserved for us on coins. Early in +the war, as he was trying the depth of a ford, he was assailed by the +enemy with a sudden storm of missiles, and was only saved from imminent +death by being sheltered beneath the shields of his soldiers. One battle +was fought on the ice of the wintry Danube. But by far the most +celebrated event of the war took place in a great victory over the Quadi +which he won in A.D. 174, and which was attributed by the Christians to +what is known as the "Miracle of the Thundering Legion." + +Divested of all extraneous additions, the fact which occurred,--as +established by the evidence of medals, and by one of the bass-relievi on +the "Column of Antonine,"--appears to have been as follows. Marcus +Aurelius and his army had been entangled in a mountain defile, into +which they had too hastily pursued a sham retreat of the barbarian +archers. In this defile, unable either to fight or to fly, pent in by +the enemy, burned up with the scorching heat and tormented by thirst, +they lost all hope, burst into wailing and groans, and yielded to a +despair from which not even the strenuous efforts of Marcus could arouse +them. At the most critical moment of their danger and misery the clouds +began to gather, and heavy shows of rain descended, which the soldiers +caught in their shields and helmets to quench their own thirst and that +of their horses. While they were thus engaged the enemy attacked them; +but the rain was mingled with hail, and fell with blinding fury in the +faces of the barbarians. The storm was also accompanied with thunder and +lightning, which seems to have damaged the enemy, and filled them with +terror, while no casualty occured in the Roman ranks. The Romans +accordingly regarded this as a Divine interposition, and achieved a most +decisive victory, which proved to be the practical conclusion of a +hazardous and important war. + +The Christians regarded the event not as _providential but as +miraculous_, and attributed it to the prayers of their brethren in a +legion which, from this circumstance, received the name of the +"Thundering Legion." It is however now known that one of the legions, +distinguished by a flash of lightning which was represented on their +shields, had been known by this name since the time of Augustus; and the +Pagans themselves attributed the assistance which they had received +sometimes to a prayer of the pious Emperor and sometimes to the +incantations of an Egyptian sorcerer named Arnuphis. + +One of the Fathers, the passionate and eloquent Tertullian, attributes +to this deliverance an interposition of the Emperor in favour of the +Christians, and appeals to a letter of his to the Senate in which he +acknowledged how effectual had been the aid he had received from +Christian prayers, and forbade any one hereafter to molest the followers +of the new religion, lest they should use against him the weapon of +supplication which had been so powerful in his favour. This letter is +preserved at the end of the _Apology_ of Justin Martyr, and it adds +that, not only are no Christians to be injured or persecuted, but that +any one who informed against them is to be burned alive! We see at once +that this letter is one of those impudent and transparent forgeries in +which the literature of the first five centuries unhappily abounds. What +was the real relation of Marcus to the Christians we shall consider +hereafter. + +To the gentle heart of Marcus, all war, even when accompanied with +victories, was eminently distasteful; and in such painful and ungenial +occupations no small part of his life was passed. What he thought of war +and of its successes is graphically set forth in the following remark:-- + +"A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another when he has +caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a +net, and another when he has taken wild boars or bears, _and another +when he has taken Sarmatians._ Are not these robbers, when thou +examinest their principles?" He here condemns his own involuntary +actions; but it was his unhappy destiny not to have trodden out the +embers of this war before he was burdened with another far more painful +and formidable. + +This was the revolt of Avidius Cassius, a general of the old blunt Roman +type, whom, in spite of some ominous warnings, Marcus both loved and +trusted. The ingratitude displayed by such a man caused Marcus the +deepest anguish; but he was saved from all dangerous consequences by the +wide-spread affection which he had inspired by his virtuous reign. + +The very soldiers of the rebellious general fell away from him; and, +after he had been a nominal Emperor for only three months and six days, +he was assassinated by some of his own officers. His head was sent to +Marcus, who received it with sorrow, and did not hold out to the +murderers the slightest encouragement. The joy of success was swallowed +up in regret that his enemy had not lived to allow him the luxury of a +genuine forgiveness. He begged the Senate to pardon all the family of +Cassius, and to suffer this single life to be the only one forfeited in +consequence of civil war. The Fathers received these proofs of clemency +with the rapture which they deserved, and the Senate-house resounded +with acclamations and blessings. + +Never had a formidable conspiracy been more quietly and effectually +crushed. Marcus travelled through the provinces which had favoured the +cause of Avidius Cassius, and treated them all with the most complete +and indulgent forbearance. When he arrived in Syria, the correspondence +of Cassius was brought to him, and, with a glorious magnanimity of which +history affords but few examples, he consigned it all to the +flames unread. + +During this journey of pacification, he lost his wife Faustina, who died +suddenly in one of the valleys of Mount Taurus. History, or the +collection of anecdotes which at this period often passes as history, +has assigned to Faustina a character of the darkest infamy, and it has +even been made a charge against Aurelius that he overlooked or condoned +her offences. As far as Faustina is concerned, we have not much to say, +although there is strong reason to believe that many of the stories told +of her are scandalously exaggerated, if not absolutely false. Certain it +is, that most of the imputations upon her memory rest on the malignant +anecdotes recorded by Dion, who dearly loved every piece of scandal +which degraded human nature. The _specific_ charge brought against her +of having tempted Cassius from his allegiance is wholly unsupported, +even if it be not absolutely incompatible with what we find in her own +existent letters; and, finally, Marcus himself not only loved her +tenderly, as the kind mother of his eleven children, but in his +_Meditations_ actually thanks the gods for having granted him "such a +wife, so obedient so affectionate, and so simple." No doubt Faustina was +unworthy of her husband; but surely it is the glory and not the shame of +a noble nature to be averse from jealousy and suspicion, and to trust to +others more deeply than they deserve. + +So blameless was the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that neither the +malignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of posthumous scandal has +succeeded in discovering any flaw in the extreme integrity of his life +and principles. But meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The +hatred of all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the memory +of great men rages, though less openly, in the minds of many. They +delight to degrade human life into that dull and barren plain "in which +every molehill is a mountain, and every thistle a forest-tree." Great +men are as small in their eyes as they are said to be in the eyes of +their valets; and there are multitudes who, if they find + + "Some stain or blemish in a name of note, + Not grieving that their greatest are so small, + Innate themselves with some insane delight, + And judge all nature from her feet of clay, + Without the will to lift their eyes, and see + Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire, + And touching other worlds." + +This I suppose is the reason why, failing to drag down Marcus Aurelius +from his moral elevation, some have attempted to assail his reputation +because of the supposed vileness of Faustina and the actual depravity of +Commodus. Of Faustina I have spoken already. Respecting Commodus, I +think it sufficient to ask with Solomon: "Who knoweth whether his son +shall be a wise man or a fool?" Commodus was but nineteen when his +father died; for the first three years of his reign he ruled respectably +and acceptably. Marcus Aurelius had left no effort untried to have him +trained aright by the first teachers and the wisest men whom the age +produced; and Herodian distinctly tells us that he had lived virtuously +up to the time of his father's death. Setting aside natural affection +altogether, and even assuming (as I should conjecture from one or two +passages of his _Meditations_) that Marcus had misgivings about his son, +would it have been easy, would it have been even possible, to set aside +on general grounds a son who had attained to years of maturity? However +this may be, if there are any who think it worth while to censure Marcus +because, after all, Commodus turned out to be but "a warped slip of +wilderness," their censure is hardly sufficiently discriminating to +deserve the trouble of refutation. + +"But Marcus Aurelius cruelly persecuted the Christians." Let us briefly +consider this charge. That persecutions took place in his reign is an +undeniable fact, and is sufficiently evidenced by the Apologies of +Justin Martyr, of Melito Bishop of Sardis, of Athenagoras, and of +Apollinarius, as well as by the Letter of the Church of Smyrna +describing the martyrdom of Polycarp, and that of the Churches of Lyons +and Vienne to their brethren in Asia Minor. It is fair, however, to +mention that there is some documentary evidence on the other side; +Lactantius clearly asserts that under the reigns of those excellent +princes who succeeded Domitian the Church suffered no violence from her +enemies, and "spread her hands towards the East and the West:" +Tertullian, writing but twenty years after the death of Marcus, +distinctly says (and Eusebius quotes the assertion), that there were +letters of the Emperor, in which he not only attributed his delivery +among the Quadi to the prayers of Christian soldiers in the "Thundering +Legion," but ordered any who informed against the Christians to be most +severely punished; and at the end of the works of Justin Martyr is found +a letter of similar purport, which is asserted to have been addressed by +Marcus to the Senate of Rome. We may set aside these peremptory +testimonies, we may believe that Tertullian and Eusebius were mistaken, +and that the documents to which they referred were spurious; but this +should make us also less certain about the prominent participation of +the Emperor in these persecutions. My own belief is (and it is a belief +which could be supported by many critical arguments), that his share in +causing them was almost infinitesimal. If those who love his memory +reject the evidence of Fathers in his favour, they may be at least +permitted to withhold assent from some of the assertions in virtue of +which he is condemned. + +Marcus in his _Meditations_ alludes to the Christians once only, and +then it is to make a passing complaint of the indifference to death, +which appeared to him, as it appeared to Epictetus, to arise, not from +any noble principles, but from mere obstinacy and perversity. That he +shared the profound dislike with which Christians were regarded is very +probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent persecutor is utterly +unlike his whole character, essentially at variance with his habitual +clemency, alien to the spirit which made him interfere in every possible +instance to mitigate the severity of legal punishments, and may in short +be regarded as an assertion which is altogether false. Who will believe +that a man who during his reign built and dedicated but one single +temple, and that a Temple to Beneficence; that a man who so far from +showing any jealousy respecting foreign religions allowed honour to be +paid to them all; that a man whose writings breathe on every page the +inmost spirit of philanthropy and tenderness, went out of his way to +join in a persecution of the most innocent, the most courageous, and the +most inoffensive of his subjects? + +The true state of the case seems to have been this. The deep calamities +in which, during the whole reign of Marcus the Empire was involved, +caused wide-spread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the feelings +of the provincials against men whose atheism (for such they considered +it to be) had kindled the anger of the gods. This fury often broke out +into paroxisms of popular excitement, which none but the firmest-minded +governers were able to moderate or to repress. Marcus, when appealed to, +simply let the existing law take its usual course. That law was as old +as the time of Trajan. The young Pliny, Governor of Bithynia, had +written to ask Trajan how he was to deal with the Christians, whose +blamelessness of life he fully admitted, but whose doctrines, he said, +had emptied the temples of the gods, and exasperated their worshippers. +Trajan in reply had ordered that the Christians should not be _sought_ +for, but that, if they were brought before the governor, and proved to +be contumacious in refusing to adjure their religion, they were then to +be put to death. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius had continued the same +policy, and Marcus Aurilius saw no reason to alter it. But this law, +which in quiet times might become a mere dead letter, might at more +troubled periods be converted into a dangerous engine of persecution, as +it was in the case of the venerable Polycarp, and in the unfortunate +Churches of Lyons and Vienne. The Pagans believed that the reason why +their gods were smiling in secret,-- + + "Looking over wasted lands, + Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery + sands,-- + + "Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying + hands,--" + +was the unbelief and impiety of these hated Galileans, causes of offence +which could only be expiated by the death of the guilty. "Their +enemies," says Tertullian, "call aloud for the blood of the innocent, +alleging this vain pretext for their hatred, that they believe the +Christians to be the cause of every public misfortune. If the Tiber has +overflowed its banks, or the Nile has not overflowed, if heaven has +refused its rain, if famine or the plague has spread its ravages, the +cry is immediate, 'The Christians to the lions.'" In the first three +centuries the cry of "No Christianity" became at times as brutal, as +violent, and as unreasoning as the cry of "No Popery" has often been in +modern days. It was infinitely less disgraceful to Marcus to lend his +ear to the one than it has been to some eminent modern statesmen to be +carried away by the insensate fury of the other. + +To what extent is Marcus Aurelius to be condemned for the martyrdoms +which took place in his reign? Not, I think, heavily or +indiscriminately, or with vehement sweeping censure. Common justice +surely demands that we should not confuse the present with the past, or +pass judgment on the conduct of the Emperor as though he were living in +the nineteenth century, or as though he had been acting in full +cognisance of the Gospels and the stones of the Saints. Wise and good +men before him had, in their haughty ignorance, spoken of Christianity +with execration and contempt. The philosophers who surrounded his throne +treated it with jealousy and aversion. The body of the nation firmly +believed the current rumours which charged its votaries with horrible +midnight assemblies, rendered infamous by Thyestian banquets and the +atrocities of nameless superstitions. These foul calumnies--these +hideous charges of cannibalism and incest,--were supported by the +reiterated perjury of slaves under torture, which in that age, as well +as long afterwards, was preposterously regarded as a sure criterion +of truth. + +Christianity in that day was confounded with a multitude of debased and +foreign superstitions; and the Emperor in his judicial capacity, if he +ever encountered Christians at all, was far more likely to encounter +those who were unworthy of the name, than to become acquainted with the +meek, unworldly, retiring virtues of the calmest, the holiest, and the +best. When we have given their due weight to considerations such as +these we shall be ready to pardon Marcus Aurelius for having, in this +matter, acted ignorantly, and to admit that in persecuting Christianity +he may most honestly have thought that he was doing God service. The +very sincerity of his belief, the conscientiousness of his rule, the +intensity of his philanthrophy, the grandeur of his own philosophical +tenets, all conspired to make him a worse enemy of the Church than a +brutal Commodus or a disgusting Heliogabalus. And yet that there was not +in him the least _propensity_ to persecute; that these persecutions were +for the most part spontaneous and accidental; that they were in no +measure due to his direct instigation, or in special accordance with his +desire, is clear from the fact that the martyrdoms took place in Gaul +and Asia Minor, _not in Rome_. There must have been hundreds of +Christians in Rome, and under the very eye of the Emperor; nay, there +were even multitudes of Christians in his own army; yet we never hear of +his having molested any of them. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in addressing +the Emperor, expresses a doubt as to whether he was really aware of the +manner in which his Christian subjects were treated. Justin Martyr, in +his _Apology_, addresses him in terms of perfect confidence and deep +respect. In short he was in this matter "blameless, but unfortunate." It +is painful to think that the venerable Polycarp, and the thoughtful +Justin may have forfeited their lives for their principles, not only in +the reign of so good a man, but even by virtue of his authority; but we +must be very uncharitable or very unimaginative if we cannot readily +believe that, though they had received the crown of martyrdom from his +hands, the redeemed spirits of those great martyrs would have been the +first to welcome this holiest of the heathen into the presence of a +Saviour whose Church he persecuted, but to whose indwelling Spirit his +virtues were due? whom ignorantly and unconsciously he worshipped, and +whom had he ever heard of Him and known Him, he would have loved in his +heart and glorified by the consistency of his noble and stainless life. + +The persecution of the Churches in Lyons and Vienne happened in A.D. +177. Shortly after this period fresh wars recalled the Emperor to the +North. It is said that, in despair of ever seeing him again, the chief +men of Rome entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, and +that for three days he discoursed to them on philosophical questions. +When he arrived at the seat of war, victory again crowned his arms. But +Marcus was now getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials, +and travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties +and bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia, either +at Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of +his age and the twentieth of his reign. + +Death to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that "there is no man +so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who +are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and +wise man, will there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let us at +last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster. It is true +that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns +us.'... Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart +more contentedly by reflecting thus: 'I am going away _from a life in +which even my associates, on behalf of whom I have striven, and cared, +and prayed so much, themselves wish me to depart_, hoping perchance to +get some little advantage by it.' Why then should a man cling to a +longer stay here? _Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindly +disposed to them, but preserving thy own character, and continuing +friendly, and benevolent, and kind_" And dreading death far less than he +dreaded any departure from the laws of virtue, he exclaims, "Come +quickly, O Death, for fear that at last I should forget myself." This +utterance has been well compared to the language which Bossuet put into +the mouth of a Christian soul:--"O Death; thou dost not trouble my +designs, thou accomplishest them. Haste, then, O favourable Death!... +_Nunc Dimittis_." + +A nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul,--a soul less elated by +prosperity, or more constant in adversity--a soul more fitted by virtue, +and chastity, and self-denial to enter into the eternal peace, never +passed into the presence of its Heavenly Father. We are not surprised +that all, whose means permitted it, possessed themselves of his statues, +and that they were to be seen for years afterwards among the household +gods of heathen families, who felt themselves more hopeful and more +happy from the glorious sense of possibility which was inspired by the +memory of one who, in the midst of difficulties, and breathing an +atmosphere heavy with corruption, yet showed himself so wise, so great, +so good a man. + + O framed for nobler times and calmer hearts! + O studious thinker, eloquent for truth! + Philosopher, despising wealth and death, + But patient, childlike, full of life and love! + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE "MEDITATIONS" OF MARCUS AURELIUS. + +Emperor as he was, Marcus Aurelius found himself in a hollow and +troublous world; but he did not give himself up to idle regret or +querulous lamentations. If these sorrows and perturbations came from the +gods, he kissed the hand that smote him; "he delivered up his broken +sword to Fate the conqueror with a humble and a manly heart." In any +case he had _duties_ to do, and he set himself to perform them with a +quiet heroism--zealously, conscientiously, even cheerfully. + +The principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the hard and definite +lines of a philosophic system. But the great laws which guided his +actions and moulded his views of life were few and simple, and in his +book of _Meditations_, which is merely his private diary written to +relieve his mind amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to +them again and again. "Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery," he +says to himself, "will wipe out those holy principles of thine;" and +this is why he committed those principles to writing. Some of these I +have already adduced, and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as +before, of the beautiful and scholar-like translation of Mr. +George Long. + +All pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Emperor to be most +wisely regarded under a threefold aspect, namely, if considered in +reference to the gods, as being due to laws beyond their control; if +considered with reference to the nature of things, as being subservient +and necessary; and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being +dependent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with which we +endure them. + +The following passages will elucidate these points of view:-- + +"The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly it has made the +inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the +superior to one another." (v. 30.) + +"Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain +immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is +within.... _The Universe is Transformation; life is opinion_" (iv. 3.) + +"To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs +water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why +then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power +than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a +mad dog?" (vi. 52.) + +"How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is +troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity." +(v. 2.) + +The passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a _relative_ thing,--as +being good in the making,--the unripe and bitter bud of that which shall +be hereafter a beautiful flower,--although not expressed with perfect +clearness, yet indicate his belief that our view of evil things rises in +great measure from our inability to perceive the great whole of which +they are but subservient parts. + +"All things," he says, "come from that universal ruling power, either +directly or by way of consequence. _And accordingly the lion's gaping +jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, +as mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful_. Do not therefore +imagine that they are of another kind from that which thou dost +venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all." + +In another curious passage he says that all things which are natural and +congruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and +attractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and +corrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked. "And again, +figs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very +circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty +to the fruit. And _the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars_, and +many other things--though they are far from being beautiful, if a man +should examine them severally--still, because they are consequent upon +the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they +please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper +insight about the things found in the universe there is hardly _one of +those which follow by way of consequence_ which will not seem to him to +be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure." (iv. 2.) + +This congruity to nature--the following of nature, and obedience to all +her laws--is the key-formula to the doctrines of the Roman Stoics. + +"Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and +terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither +worse, then, nor better is a thing made by being praised.... _Is such a +thing as an emerald made worse than it was, if it is not praised? or +gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a flower, a shrub_?" +(iv. 20.) + +"Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. +Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. +Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature! from thee +are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. _The +poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear city of +God_?" (iv. 23.) + +"Willingly give thyself up to fate, allowing her to spin thy thread into +whatever thing she pleases." (iv. 34.) + +And here, in a very small matter--getting out of bed in a morning--is +one practical application of the formula:-- + +"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let these thoughts be +present--'I am rising to the work of a human being. _Why, then, am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and for +which I was brought into the world_? Or have I been made for this, to +lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?' 'But this is more +pleasant.' _Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not for +action or exertion_? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little +birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order +their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the +work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is +according to thy nature?" (v. 1.) ["Go to the ant, thou sluggard; +consider her ways, and be wise!"] + +The same principle, that Nature has assigned to us our proper +place--that a task has been given us to perform, and that our only care +should be to perform it aright, for the blessing of the great Whole of +which we are but insignificant parts--dominates through the admirable +precepts which the Emperor lays down for the regulation of our conduct +towards others. Some men, he says, do benefits to others only because +they expect a return; some men even, if they do not demand any return, +are not _forgetful_ that they have rendered a benefit; but others do not +even know what they have done, but _are like a vine which has produced +grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its proper +fruit_. So we ought to do good to others as simple and as naturally as a +horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after +season, without thinking of the grapes which it has borne. And in +another passage, "What more dost thou want when thou hast done a service +to another? Art thou not content to have done an act conformable to thy +nature, and must thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye +demanded a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking?" + +"Judge every word and deed which is according to nature to be fit for +thee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows...but if a thing is +good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee." (v. 3.) + +Sometimes, indeed, Marcus Aurelius wavers. The evils of life overpower +him. "Such as bathing appears to thee," he says, "_oil, sweat, dirt, +filthy water, all things disgusting--so is every part of life and +everything_" (viii. 24); and again:--"Of human life the time is a point, +and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the +composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a +whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment." +But more often he retains his perfect tranquillity, and says, "Either +thou livest here, and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou +art going away, and this was thine own will; or thou art dying, and hast +discharged thy duty. _But besides these things there is nothing. Be of +good cheer, then_." (x. 22.) "Take me, and cast me where thou wilt, for +then I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can +feel and act conformably to its proper constitution." (viii. 45.) + +There is something delightful in the fact that even in the Stoic +philosophy there was some comfort to keep men from despair. To a holy +and scrupulous conscience like that of Marcus, there would have been an +inestimable preciousness in the Christian doctrine of the "forgiveness +of the sins." Of that divine mercy--of that sin-uncreating power--the +ancient world knew nothing; but in Marcus we find some dim and faint +adumbration of the doctrine, expressed in a manner which might at least +breathe calm into the spirit of the philosopher, though it could never +reach the hearts of the suffering multitude. For "suppose," he says, +"that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast +made by nature a part, but now hast cut thyself off--_yet here is the +beautiful provision that it is in thy power again to unite thyself_. God +has allowed this to no other part--after it has been separated and cut +asunder, to come together again. _But consider the goodness with which +He has privileged man; for He has put it in his power, when he has been +separated, to return and to be reunited, and to resume his place_" And +elsewhere he says, "If you cannot maintain a true and magnanimous +character, go courageously into some corner where you _can_ maintain +them; or if even there you fail, depart at once from life, not with +passion, but with modest and simple freedom--which will be to have done +at least _one_ laudable act." Sad that even to Marcus Aurelius death +should have seemed the only refuge from the despair of ultimate failure +in the struggle to be wise and good! + +Marcus valued temperance and self-denial as being the best means of +keeping his heart strong and pure; but we are glad to learn he did _not_ +value the rigours of asceticism. Life brought with it enough, and more +than enough, of antagonism to brace his nerves; enough, and more than +enough, of the rough wind of adversity in his face to make it +unnecessary to add more by his own actions. "It is not fit," he says, +"that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given +pain even to another." (viii. 42.) + +It was a commonplace of ancient philosophy that the life of the wise man +should be a contemplation of, and a preparation for, death. It certainly +was so with Marcus Aurelius. The thoughts of the nothingness of man, and +of that great sea of oblivion which shall hereafter swallow up all that +he is and does, are ever present to his mind; they are thoughts to which +he recurs more constantly than any other, and from which he always draws +the same moral lesson. + +"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very +moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.... Death certainly, +and life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, all these things +happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither +better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil." (ii. 11.) + +Elsewhere he says that Hippocrates cured diseases and died; and the +Chaldaeans foretold the future and died; and Alexander, and Pompey, and +Caesar killed thousands, and then died; and lice destroyed Democritus, +and other lice killed Socrates; and Augustus, and his wife, and +daughter, and all his descendants, and all his ancestors, are dead; and +Vespasian and all his Court, and all who in his day feasted, and +married, and were sick and chaffered, and fought, and flattered, and +plotted, and grumbled, and wished other people to die, and pined to +become kings or consuls, are dead; and all the idle people who are doing +the same things now are doomed to die; and all human things are smoke, +and nothing at all; and it is not for us, but for the gods, to settle +whether we play the play out, or only a part of it. "_There are many +grains of frankincense on the same altar; one falls before, another +falls after; but it makes no difference._" And the moral of all these +thoughts is, "Death hangs over thee while thou livest: while it is in +thy power be good." (iv. 17.) "Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the +voyage, thou hast come to shore; get out. If, indeed, to another life +there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without +sensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures." (iii. 3.) + +Nor was Marcus at all comforted under present annoyances by the thought +of posthumous fame. "How ephemeral and worthless human things are," he +says, "and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy +or ashes." "Many who are now praising thee, will very soon blame thee, +and neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor +anything else." What has become of all great and famous men, and all +they desired, and all they loved? They are "smoke, and ash, and a tale, +or not even a tale." After all their rages and envyings, men are +stretched out quiet and dead at last. Soon thou wilt have forgotten all, +and soon all will have forgotten thee. But here, again, after such +thoughts, the same moral is always introduced again:--"Pass then through +the little space of time conformably to nature, and end the journey in +content, _just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature +who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew_" "One thing +only troubles me, lest I should do something which the constitution of +man does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow, or what it +does not allow now." + +To quote the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius is to me a fascinating task. But +I have already let him speak so largely for himself that by this time +the reader will have some conception of his leading motives. It only +remains to adduce a few more of the weighty and golden sentences in +which he lays down his rule of life. + +"To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, +and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour; and life is a +warfare, and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. What, +then, is that which is able to enrich a man? One thing, and only +one--philosophy. But this consists in keeping the guardian spirit within +a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, +_doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely, and with +hypocrisy_... _accepting all that happens and all that is +allotted_ ... _and finally waiting for death with a cheerful +mind_" (ii. 17.) + +"If thou findest in human life anything better than justice, truth, +temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than thine own soul's +satisfaction in the things which it enables thee to do according to +right reason, and In the condition that is assigned to thee without thy +own choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, turn to it +with all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou hast found to be the best. +But ... if thou findest everything else smaller and of less value than +this, give place to nothing else.... Simply and freely choose the +better, and hold to it." (iii. 6.) + +"Body, soul, intelligence: to the body belong sensations, to the soul +appetites, to the intelligence principles." To be impressed by the +senses is peculiar to animals; to be pulled by the strings of desire +belongs to effeminate men, and to men like Phalaris or Nero; to be +guided only by intelligence belongs to atheists and traitors, and "men +who do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors.... There +remains that which is peculiar to the good man, _to be pleased and +content with what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him; +and not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast_, nor +disturb it by a crowd of images; but to preserve it tranquil, following +it obediently as a god, neither saying anything contrary to truth, nor +doing anything contrary to justice. (iii. 16.) + +"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, +and mountains, and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. +But this is altogether a mark of the commonest sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt chose to retire into thyself. For _nowhere +either with more quiet or with more freedom does a man retire than into +his own soul_, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by +looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity,--which is +nothing else than the good ordering of the mind." (iv. 3.) + +"Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am I +_though_ this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain; +neither crushed by the present, nor fearing the future." (iv. 19.) + +It is just possible that in some of these passages some readers may +detect a trace of painful self-consciousness, and _imagine_ that they +detect a little grain of self-complacence. Something of +self-consciousness is perhaps inevitable in the diary and examination +of his own conscience by one who sat on such a lonely height; but +self-complacency there is none. Nay, there is sometimes even a cruel +sternness in the way in which the Emperor speaks of his own self. He +certainly dealt not with himself in the manner of a dissembler with God. +"When," he says (x. 8), "thou hast assumed the names of a man who is +good, modest, rational, magnanimous, cling to those names; and if thou +shouldst lose them, quickly return to them.... _For to continue to_ _be +such as thou hast hitherto been_, and to be torn in pieces, and defiled +in such a life, is the character of a very stupid man, and one over-fond +of his life, and _like those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, +who, though covered with wounds and gore, still entreat to be kept till +the following day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the +same claws and bites_. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these +few names: and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou were +removed to the Islands of the Blest." Alas! to Aurelius, in this life, +the Islands of the Blest were very far away. Heathen philosophy was +exalted and eloquent, but all its votaries were sad; to "the peace of +God, which passeth all understanding," it was not given them to attain. +We see Marcus "wise, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless," says +Mr. Arnold, "yet with all this agitated, stretching out his arms for +something beyond--_tendentemque manue ripae ulterioris amore_" + +I will quote in conclusion but three short precepts:-- + +"Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tranquillity which +others give. _A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by +others_." (iv. 5.) + +"_Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but +it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it_" (iv. 49.) + +This comparison has been used many a time since the days of Marcus +Aurelius. The reader will at once recall Goldsmith's famous lines:-- + + "As some tall cliff that rears its awful form, + Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, + Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, + Eternal sunshine settles on its head." + +"Short is the little that remains to thee of life. _Live as on a +mountain_. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here, +if he lives everywhere in the world as in a civil community. Let men +see, let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live. If they +cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live as +men do." (x. 15.) + +Such were some of the thoughts which Marcus Aurelius wrote in his diary +after days of battle with the Quadi, and the Marcomanni, and the +Sarmatae. Isolated from others no less by moral grandeur than by the +supremacy of his sovereign rank, he sought the society of his own noble +soul. I sometimes imagine that I see him seated on the borders of some +gloomy Pannonian forest or Hungarian marsh; through the darkness the +watchfires of the enemy gleam in the distance; but both among them, and +in the camp around him, every sound is hushed, except the tread of the +sentinel outside the imperial tent; and in that tent long after midnight +sits the patient Emperor by the light of his solitary lamp, and ever and +anon, amid his lonely musings, he pauses to write down the pure and holy +thoughts which shall better enable him, even in a Roman palace, even on +barbarian battlefields, daily to tolerate the meanness and the +malignity of the men around him; daily to amend his own shortcomings, +and, as the sun of earthly life begins to set, daily to draw nearer and +nearer to the Eternal Light. And when I thus think of him, I know not +whether the whole of heathen antiquity, out of its gallery of stately +and royal figures, can furnish a nobler, or purer, or more lovable +picture than that of this crowned philosopher and laurelled hero, who +was yet one of the humblest and one of the most enlightened of all +ancient "Seekers after God." + + + +CONCLUSION. + +A sceptical writer has observed, with something like a sneer, that the +noblest utterances of Gospel morality may be paralleled from the +writings of heathen philosophers. The sneer is pointless, and Christian +moralists have spontaneously drawn attention to the fact. In this +volume, so far from trying to conceal that it is so, I have taken +pleasure in placing side by side the words of Apostles and of +Philosophers. The divine origin of Christianity does not rest on its +morality alone. By the aid of the light which was within them, by +deciphering the law written on their own consciences, however much its +letters may have been obliterated or dimmed, Plato, and Cicero, and +Seneca, and Epictetus, and Aurelius were enabled to grasp and to +enunciate a multitude of great and memorable truths; yet they themselves +would have been the first to admit the wavering uncertainty of their +hopes and speculations, and the absolute necessity of a further +illumination. So strong did that necessity appear to some of the wisest +among them, that Socrates ventures in express words to prophesy the +future advent of some heaven-sent Guide.[70] Those who imagine that +_without_ a written revelation it would have been possible to learn all +that is necessary for man's well-being, are speaking in direct +contradiction of the greatest heathen teachers, in contradiction even of +those very teachers to whose writing they point as the proof of their +assertion. Augustine was expressing a very deep conviction when he said +that in Plato and in Cicero he met with many utterances which were +beautiful and wise, but among them all he never found, "Come unto me, +all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." +Glorious as was the wisdom of ancient thought, its knowledge respecting +the indwelling of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and the +forgiveness of sins, was but fragmentary and vague. Bishop Butler has +justly remarked that "The great doctrines of a future state, the dangers +of a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance are not only +_confirmed_ in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with +a degree of light to which that of nature is darkness." + +[Footnote 70: Xen. Mem. 1, iv. 14; Plato, Alcib. ii.] + +The morality of Paganism was, on its own confession, _insufficient_. It +was tentative, where Christianity is authoritative: it was dim and +partial, where Christianity is bright and complete; it was inadequate to +rouse the sluggish carelessness of mankind, where Christianity came in +with an imperial and awakening power; it gives only a _rule_, where +Christianity supplies a _principle_. And even where its teachings were +absolutely coincident with those of Scripture, it failed to ratify them +with a sufficient sanction; it failed to announce them with the same +powerful and contagious ardour; it failed to furnish an absolutely +faultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire them +with an irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a powerful +comfort under the difficulties which were sure to be encountered in the +aim after a consistent and holy life. + +The attempts of the Christian Fathers to show that the truths of ancient +philosophy were borrowed from Scripture are due in some cases to +ignorance and in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial +dealing. That Gideon (Jerubbaal) is identical with the priest +Hierombalos who supplied information to Sanchoniathon, the Berytian; +that Thales pieced together a philosophy from fragments of Jewish truth +learned in Phoenicia; that Pythagoras and Democritus availed themselves +of Hebraic traditions, collected during their travels; that Plato is a +mere "Atticising Moses;" that Aristotle picked up his ethical system +from a Jew whom he met in Asia; that Seneca corresponded with St. Paul: +are assertions every bit as unhistorical and false as that Homer was +thinking of Genesis when he described the shield of Achilles, or (as +Clemens of Alexandria gravely informs us) that Miltiades won the battle +of Marathon by copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say +that Pagan morality "kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, +whether furtively or unconsciously taken," and that it "dissembled the +obligation, and made a boast of the splendour as though it were +originally her own, or were sufficient in her hands for the moral +illumination of the world;" is to make an assertion wholly +untenable.[71] Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius, are among the truest and +loftiest of Pagan moralists, yet Seneca ignored the Christians, +Epictetus despised, and Aurelius persecuted them. All three, so far as +they knew anything about the Christians at all, had unhappily been +taught to look upon them as the most detestable sect of what they had +long regarded as the most degraded and the most detestable of religions. + +[Footnote 71: See for various statements in this passage, Josephus, _c. +Apion_. ii. Section 36; Cic. _De Fin_. v. 25; Clem. Alex. _Strom_, 1, +xxii. 150, xxv. v. 14; Euseb.; _Prof. Evang_. x. 4, ix. 5, &c.; Lactant. +_Inst. Div_. iv. 2, &c.] + +There is something very touching in this fact; but, if there be +something very touching, there is also something very encouraging. God +was their God as well as ours--their Creator, their Preserver, who left +not Himself without witness among them; who, as they blindly felt after +Him, suffered their groping hands to grasp the hem of His robe; who sent +them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with +joy and gladness. And His Spirit was with them, dwelling in them, though +unseen and unknown, purifying and sanctifying the temple of their +hearts, sending gleams of illuminating light through the gross darkness +which encompassed them, comforting their uncertainties, making +intercession for them with groaning which cannot be uttered. And more +than all, _our_ Saviour was _their_ Saviour, too; He, whom they regarded +as a crucified malefactor was their true invisible King; through His +righteousness their poor merits were accepted; their inward sicknesses +were healed; He whose worship they denounced as an "execrable +superstition" stood supplicating for them at the right hand of the +Majesty on high, helping them (though they knew Him not) to crush all +that was evil within them, and pleading for them when they persecuted +even the most beloved of His saints, "Father, forgive them; for they +know not what they do." + +Yes, they too were all His offspring. Even if they had not been, should +we grudge that some of the children's meat should be given unto dogs? +Shall we deny to these "unconscious prophecies of heathendom" their +oracular significance? Shall we be jealous of the ethical loftiness of +a Plato or an Aurelius? Shall we be loth to admit that some power of the +Spirit of Christ, even mid the dark wanderings of Seneca's life, kept +him still conscious of a nobler and a better way, or that some sweetness +of a divine hope inspired the depressions of Epictetus in his slavery? +Shall our eye be evil because God in His goodness granted the heathen +also to know such truths as enabled them "to overcome the allurements of +the visible and the terrors of the invisible world?" Yes, if we have of +the Christian Church so mean a conception that we look upon it as a mere +human society, "set up in the world to defend a certain religion against +a certain other religion." But if on the other hand we believe "that it +was _a society established by God as a witness for the true condition of +all human beings_, we shall rejoice to acknowledge its members to be +what they believed themselves to be,--confessors and martyrs for a truth +which they could not fully embrace or comprehend, but which, through +their lives and deaths, through the right and wrong acts, the true and +false words, of those who understand them least, was to manifest and +prove itself. Those who hold this conviction dare not conceal, or +misrepresent, or undervalue, any one of those weighty and memorable +sentences which are to be found in the _Meditation_ of Marcus Aurelius. +_If they did, they would be underrating a portion of that very truth +which the preachers of the Gospel were appointed to set forth_; they +would be adopting the error of the philosophical Emperor without his +excuse for it. Nor dare they pretend that the Christian teaching had +unconsciously imparted to him a portion of its own light while he seemed +to exclude it. They will believe that it was God's good pleasure that a +certain truth should be seized and apprehended by this age, and they +will see indications of what that truth was in the efforts of Plutarch +to understand the 'Daemon' which guided Socrates, in the courageous +language of Ignatius, in the bewildering dreams of the Gnostics, in the +eagerness of Justin Martyr to prove Christianity a philosophy ... in the +apprehension of Christian principles by Marcus Aurelius, and in his +hatred of the Christians. From every side they will derive evidence, +_that a doctrine and society which were meant for mankind cannot depend +upon, the partial views and apprehensions of men, must go on justifying, +reconciling, confuting, those views and apprehensions by the +demonstration of facts_" [72] + +[Footnote 72: Maurice, _Philos. of the First Six Centuries_, p. 37. We +venture specially to recommend this weighty and beautiful passage to the +reader's serious attention.] + +But perhaps some reader will say, What advantage, then, can we gain by +studying in Pagan writers truths which are expressed more nobly, more +clearly, and infinitely more effectually in our own sacred books? Before +answering the question, let me mention the traditional anecdote[73] of +the Caliph Omar. When he conquered Alexandria, he was shown its +magnificent library, in which were collected untold treasures of +literature, gathered together by the zeal, the labour, and the +liberality of a dynasty of kings. "What is the good of all those books?" +he said. "They are either in accordance with the Koran, or contrary to +it. If the former they are superfluous; if the latter they are +pernicious. In either case let them be burnt." Burnt they were, as +legend tells; but all the world has condemned the Caliph's reasoning as +a piece of stupid Philistinism and barbarous bigotry. Perhaps the +question as to the _use_ of reading Pagan ethics is equally +unphilosophical; at any rate, we can spare but very few words to its +consideration. The answer obviously is, that God has spoken to men, +[Greek: polymeros kai polytropos], "at sundry times and in divers +manners," [74] with a richly variegated wisdom.[75] Sometimes He has +taught truth by the voice of Hebrew prophets, sometimes by the voice of +Pagan philosophers. And _all_ His voices demand our listening ear. If it +was given to the Jew to speak with diviner insight and intenser power, +it is given to the Gentile also to speak at times with a large and lofty +utterance, and we may learn truth from men of alien lips and another +tongue. They, too, had the dream, the vision, the dark saying upon the +harp, the "daughter of a voice," the mystic flashes upon the graven +gems. And such truths come to us with a singular force and freshness; +with a strange beauty as the doctrines of a less brightly illuminated +manhood; with a new power of conviction from their originality of form, +which, because it is less familiar to us, is well calculated to arrest +our attention after it has been paralysed by familiar repetitions. We +cannot afford to lose these heathen testimonies to Christian truth; or +to hush the glorious utterances of Muse and Sibyl which have justly +outlived "the drums and tramplings of a hundred triumphs." We may make +them infinitely profitable to us. If St. Paul quotes Aratus, and +Menander, and Epimenides,[76] and perhaps more than one lyrical melody +besides, with earnest appreciation,--if the inspired Apostle could both +learn himself and teach others out of the utterances of a Cretan +philosopher and an Attic comedian, we may be sure that many of Seneca's +apophthegams would have filled him with pleasure, and that he would have +been able to read Epictetus and Aurelius with the same noble admiration +which made him see with thankful emotion that memorable altar TO THE +UNKNOWN GOD. + +[Footnote 73: Now known to be unhistorical.] + +[Footnote 74: Heb. i. 1.] + +[Footnote 75: [Greek: polypoikilos dophia].] + +[Footnote 76: See Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor.; Tit. i. 12.] + +Let us then make a brief and final sketch of the three great Stoics +whose lives we have been contemplating, with a view to summing up their +specialties, their deficiencies, and the peculiar relations to, or +divergences from, Christian truth, which their writings present to us. + +"Seneca saepe noster," "Seneca, often our own," is the expression of +Tertullian, and he uses it as an excuse for frequent references to his +works. Yet if, of the three, he be most like Christianity in particular +passages, he diverges most widely from it in his general spirit. + +He diverges from Christianity in many of his modes of regarding life, +and in many of his most important beliefs. What, for instance, is his +main conception of the Deity? Seneca is generally a Pantheist. No doubt +he speaks of God's love and goodness, but with him God is no personal +living Father, but the soul of the universe--the fiery, primaeval, +eternal principle which transfuses an inert, and no less eternal, +matter, and of which our souls are, as it were, but divine particles or +passing sparks. "God," he says, "is Nature, is Fate, is Fortune, is the +Universe, is the all-pervading Mind. He cannot change the substance of +the universe, He is himself under the power of Destiny, which is +uncontrollable and immutable. It is not God who rolls the thunder, it is +Fate. He does not rejoice in His works, but is identical with them." In +fact, Seneca would have heartily adopted the words of Pope: + + "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, + Whose body nature is, and God the soul." + +Though there may be a vague sense in which those words may be admitted +and explained by Christians, yet, in the mind of Seneca, they led to +conclusions directly opposed to those of Christianity. With him, for +instance, the wise man is the _equal_ of God; not His adorer, not His +servant, not His suppliant, but His associate, His relation. He differs +from God in time alone. Hence all prayer is needless he says, and the +forms of external worship are superfluous and puerile. It is foolish to +beg for that which you can impart to yourself. "What need is there of +_vows_? Make _yourself_ happy." Nay, in the intolerable arrogance which +marked the worst aberration of Stoicism, the wise man is under certain +aspects placed even higher than God--higher than God Himself--because +God is beyond the reach of misfortunes, but the wise man is superior to +their anguish; and because God is good of necessity, but the wise man +from choice. This wretched and inflated paradox occurs in Seneca's +treatise _On Providence_, and in the same treatise he glorifies suicide, +and expresses a doubt as to the immortality of the soul. + +Again, the two principles on which Seneca relied as the basis of all his +moral system are: first, the principle that we ought to follow Nature; +and, secondly, the supposed perfectibility of the ideal man. + +1. Now, of course, if we explain this precept of "following Nature" as +Juvenal has explained it, and say that the voice of Nature is always +coincident with the voice of philosophy--if we prove that our real +nature is none other than the dictate of our highest and most nobly +trained reason, and if we can establish the fact that every deed of +cruelty, of shame, of lust, or of selfishness, is essentially +_contrary_ to our nature--then we may say with Bishop Butler, that the +precept to "follow Nature" is "a manner of speaking not loose and +undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." But how +complete must be the system, how long the preliminary training, which +alone can enable us to find any practical value, any appreciable aid to +a virtuous life, in a dogma such as this! And, in the hands of Seneca, +it becomes a very empty formula. He entirely lacked the keen insight and +dialectic subtlety of such a writer as Bishop Butler; and, in his +explanation of this Stoical shibboleth, any real meaning which it may +possess is evaporated into a gorgeous mist of confused declamation and +splendid commonplace. + +2. Nor is he much more fortunate with his ideal man. This pompous +abstraction presents us with a conception at once ambitious and sterile. +The Stoic wise man is a sort of moral Phoenix, impossible and repulsive. +He is intrepid in dangers, free from all passion, happy in adversity, +calm in the storm; he alone knows how to live, because he alone knows +how to die; he is the master of the world, because he is master of +himself, and the equal of God; he looks down upon everything with +sublime imperturbability, despising the sadnesses of humanity and +smiling with irritating loftiness at all our hopes and all our fears. +But, in another sketch of this faultless and unpleasant monster, Seneca +presents us, not the proud athlete who challenges the universe and is +invulnerable to all the stings and arrows of passion or of fate, but a +hero in the serenity of absolute triumph, more tender, indeed, but still +without desires, without passions, without needs, who can fell no pity, +because pity is a weakness which disturbs his sapient calm! Well might +the eloquent Bossuet exclaim, as he read of these chimerical +perfections, "It is to take a tone too lofty for feeble and mortal men. +But, O maxims truly pompous! O affected insensibility! O false and +imaginary wisdom! which fancies itself strong because it is hard, and +generous because it is puffed up! How are these principles opposed to +the modest simplicity of the Saviour of souls, who, in our Gospel +contemplating His faithful ones in affliction, confesses that they will +be saddened by it! _Ye shall weep and lament_." Shall Christians be +jealous of such wisdom as Stoicism did really attain, when they compare +this dry and bloodless ideal with Him who wept over Jerusalem and +mourned by the grave of Lazarus, who had a mother and a friend, who +disdained none, who pitied all, who humbled Himself to death, even the +death of the cross, whose divine excellence we cannot indeed attain +because He is God, but whose example we can imitate because He was +very man?[77] + +[Footnote 77: See Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 50; Aubertin, _Seneque et +St. Paul_ p. 250.] + +The one grand aim of the life and philosophy of Seneca was _Ease_. It is +the topic which constantly recurs in his books _On a Happy Life, On +Tranquility of Mind, On Anger_, and _On the Ease_ and _On the Firmness +of the Sage_. It is the pitiless apathy, the stern repression, of every +form of emotion, which was constantly glorified as the aim of +philosophy. It made Stilpo exclaim, when he had lost wife, property, and +children, that he had lost nothing, because he carried in his own person +everything which he possessed. It led Seneca into all that is most +unnatural, all that is most fantastic, and all that is least sincere in +his writings; it was the bitter source of disgrace and failure in his +life. It comes out worst of all in his book _On Anger_. Aristotle had +said that "Anger was a good servant but a bad master;" Plato had +recognized the immense value and importance of the irascible element in +the moral constitution. Even Christian writers, in spite of Bishop +Butler, have often lost sight of this truth, and have forgotten that to +a noble nature "the hate of hate" and the "scorn of scorn" are as +indispensable as "the love of love." But Seneca almost gets angry +himself at the very notion of the wise man being angry and indignant +even against moral evil. No, he must not get angry, because it would +disturb his sublime calm; and, if he allowed himself to be angry at +wrong-doing, he would have to be angry all day long. This practical +Epicureanism, this idle acquiescence in the supposed incurability of +evil, poisoned all Seneca's career. "He had tutored himself," says +Professor Maurice, "to endure personal injuries without indulging an +anger; he had tutored himself to look upon all moral evil without anger. +If the doctrine is sound and the discipline desirable, we must be +content to take the whole result of them. If we will not do that, we +must resolve to hate oppression and wrong, _even at the cost of +philosophical composure"_ But repose is not to be our aim:-- + + "We have no right to bliss, + No title from the gods to welfare and repose." + +It is one of the truths which seems to me most needed in the modern +religious world, that the type of a Christian's virtue must be very +miserable, and ordinary, and ineffectual, if he does not feel his whole +soul burn within him with an almost implacable moral indignation at the +sight of cruelty and injustice, of Pharisaic faithlessness and +social crimes. + +I have thus freely criticised the radical defects of Stoicism, so far +as Seneca is its legitimate exponent; but I cannot consent to leave him +with the language of depreciation, and therefore here I will once more +endorse what an anonymous writer has said of him: "An unconscious +Christianity covers all his sentiments. If the fair fame of the man is +sullied, the aspiration to a higher life cannot be denied to the +philosopher; if the tinkling cymbal of a stilted Stoicism sometimes +sounds through the nobler music, it still leaves the truer melody +vibrating on the ear." + +2. If Seneca sought for EASE, the grand aim of Epictetus was FREEDOM, of +Marcus Aurelius was SELF-GOVERNMENT. This difference of aim +characterises their entire philosophy, though all three of them are +filled with precepts which arise from the Stoical contempt of opinion, +of fortune, and of death. "Epictetus, the slave, with imperturbable +calm, voluntarily strikes off the desire for all those blessings of +which fortune had already deprived him. Seneca, who lived in the Court, +fenced himself beforehand against misfortune with the spirit of a man of +the world and the emphasis of a master of eloquence. Marcus Aurelius, at +the zenith of human power--having nothing to dread except his passions, +and finding nothing above him except immutable necessity,--surveys his +own soul and meditates especially on the eternal march of things. The +one is the resigned slave, who neither desires nor fears; the other, the +great lord, who has everything to lose; the third, finally, the emperor, +who is dependent only on himself and upon God." + +Of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius we shall have very little to say by way +of summary, for they show no inconsistencies and very few of the +imperfections which characterise Seneca's ideal of the Stoic philosophy. +The "moral peddling," the pedagogic display, the puerile ostentation, +the antithetic brilliancy, which we have had to point out in Seneca, are +wanting in them. The picture of the _inner_ life, indeed, of Seneca, his +efforts after self-discipline, his untiring asceticism, his enthusiasm +for all that he esteems holy and of good report-this picture, marred as +it is by rhetoric and vain self-conceit, yet "stands out in noble +contrast to the swinishness of the Campanian villas, and is, in its +complex entirety, very sad and affecting." And yet we must admit, in the +words of the same writer, that when we go from Seneca to Epictetus and +Marcus Aurelius, "it is going from the florid to the severe, from varied +feeling to the impersonal simplicity of the teacher, often from idle +rhetoric to devout earnestness." As far as it goes, the morality of +these two great Stoics is entirely noble and entirely beautiful. If +there be even in Epictetus some passing and occasional touch of Stoic +arrogance and Stoic apathy; if there be in Marcus Aurelius a depth and +intensity of sadness which shows how comparatively powerless for comfort +was a philosophy which glorified suicide, which knew but little of +immortality, and which lost in vague Pantheism the unspeakable blessing +of realizing a personal relation to a personal God and Father--there is +yet in both of them enough and more than enough to show that in all ages +and in all countries they who have sought for God have found Him, that +they have attained to high principles of thought and to high standards +of action--that they have been enabled, even in the thick darkness, +resolutely to place their feet at least on the lowest rounds of that +ladder of sunbeams which winds up through the darkness to the great +Father of Lights. + +And yet the very existence of such men is in itself a significant +comment upon the Scriptural decision that "the world by wisdom knew not +God." For how many like them, out of all the records of antiquity, is it +possible for us to count? Are there five men in the whole circle of +ancient history and ancient literature to whom we could, without a sense +of incongruity, accord the title of "holy?" When we have mentioned +Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, I hardly know of another. +_Just_ men there were in multitudes--men capable of high actions; men +eminently worthy to be loved; men, I doubt not, who, when the children +of the kingdom shall be rejected, shall be gathered from the east and +the west with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into the kingdom of heaven. +Yes, _just_ men in multitudes; but how many _righteous_, how many +_holy_? Some, doubtless, whom we do not know, whose names were never +written, even for a few years, on the records of mankind--men and women +in unknown villages and humble homes, "the faithful who were not +famous." We do not doubt that there were such--but were they +_relatively_ numerous? If those who rose above the level of the +multitude--if those whom some form of excellence, and often of virtue, +elevated into the reverence of their fellows--present to us a few +examples of stainless life, can we hope that a tolerable ideal of +sanctity was attained by any large proportion of the ordinary myriads? +Seeing that the dangerous lot of the majority was cast amid the +weltering sea of popular depravity, can we venture to hope that many of +them succeeded in reaching some green island of purity, integrity, and +calm? We can hardly think it; and yet, in the dispensation of the +Kingdom of Heaven we see such a condition daily realized. Not only do we +see many of the eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and +obscure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with a light +from heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not known such men in +person, and whose hopes and habits have not caught some touch of +radiance reflected from the nobility and virtue of lives like these. The +thought has been well expressed by the author of _Ecce Homo_, and we may +well ask with him, "If this be so, has Christ failed, or can +Christianity die?" + +No, it has not failed; it cannot die; for the saving knowledge which it +has imparted is the most inestimable blessing which God has granted to +our race. We have watched philosophy in its loftiest flight, but that +flight rose as far above the range of the Pagan populace as Ida or +Olympus rises above the plain: and even the topmost crests of Ida and +Olympus are immeasurably below the blue vault, the body of heaven in its +clearness, to which it has been granted to some Christians to attain. As +regards the multitude, philosophy had no influence over the heart and +character; "it was sectarian, not universal; the religion of the few, +not of the many. It exercised no creative power over political or social +life; it stood in no such relation to the past as the New Testament to +the Old. Its best thoughts were but views and aspects of the truth; +there was no centre around which they moved, no divine life by which +they were impelled; they seemed to vanish and flit in uncertain +succession of light." But Christianity, on the other hand, glowed with a +steady and unwavering brightness; it not only swayed the hearts of +individuals by stirring them to their utmost depths, but it moulded the +laws of nations, and regenerated the whole condition of society. It +gave to mankind a fresh sanction in the word of Christ, a perfect +example in His life, a powerful motive in His love, an all sufficient +comfort in the life of immortality made sure and certain to us by His +Resurrection and Ascension. But if without this sanction, and example, +and motive, and comfort, the pagans could learn to do His will,--if, +amid the gross darkness through which glitters the degraded civilization +of imperial Rome, an Epictetus and an Aurelius could live blameless +lives in a cell and on a throne, and a Seneca could practise simplicity +and self-denial in the midst of luxury and pride--how much loftier +should be both the zeal and the attainments of us to whom God has spoken +by His Son? What manner of men ought we to be? If Tyre and Sidon and +Sodom shall rise in the judgment to bear witness against Chorazin and +Bethsaida, may not the pure lives of these great Seekers after God add a +certain emphasis of condemnation to the vice, the pettiness, the +mammon-worship of many among us to whom His love, His nature, His +attributes have been revealed with a clearness and fullness of knowledge +for which kings and philosophers have sought indeed and sought +earnestly, but sought in vain? + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEKERS AFTER GOD*** + + +******* This file should be named 10846.txt or 10846.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/4/10846 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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