But Seneca retreated all the same, citing his poor health. In his final years he wrote his Moral Epistles , a series of letters to a single addressee, his younger friend Lucilius, which offer advice on how to live a better life with the help of Stoic philosophy. The letters cover a huge range of topics and sometimes touch on issues such as public service. Seneca advises his friend to withdraw from the public sphere and devote himself to philosophically inspired self-improvement.
But it is very striking that Nero, with whom Seneca had been so closely associated for more than a decade, is never mentioned once. In the year 65 there was a conspiracy to get rid of Nero and make a senator called Gaius Calpurnius Piso emperor in his place. At around this time Nero was intent on a huge project, which is often taken as a symbol of his reign, his Golden House, a vast and glittering residential complex in the heart of Rome, built on land where, in the summer of 64, a devastating fire had destroyed earlier buildings.
The new palace was a triumph of ingenuity; the principal dining room, for instance, had a revolving ceiling. This was just the kind of elaborate luxury which Seneca had criticised repeatedly — and in great detail — in his Moral Epistles and elsewhere. Never naming Nero, Seneca attacks those whose houses boast elaborate water features and coloured marbles, as well as the use of gold. Skip to content Catharine Edwards The philosopher — and celebrated public speaker — Seneca the Younger, after eight years in exile on the island of Corsica, was summoned back to Rome in AD 49 aged around 50 to take on what might at first sight look like an enviable job.
Robert Kaster puts it after the death of Burrus in ad Christina Moose has the interesting observation that, as Seneca and Burrus lost their control over Nero they found themselves increasingly morally compromised as they became involved in his 'despicable' actions.
So, there are five questions to consider about Seneca and Burrus: 1. How much power over the government did Seneca and Burrus have? When did their influence begin to wane? Links: The following websites will help you complete the task:. You are recommended to read Peter Roberts's notes here starting at page , col 2. You can read Dana Gioia's summary here pp. Sensible legislation was introduced to improve public order, reforms were made to the treasury and provincial governors were prohibited from extorting large sums of money to pay for gladiatorial shows in Rome.
Nero himself followed in the steps of his predecessor Claudius in applying himself rigorously to his judicial duties. He also considered liberal ideas, such as ending the killing of gladiators and condemned criminals in public spectacles.
In fact, Nero, most likely largely due to the influence of his tutor Seneca, came across as a very humane ruler at first. Seneca and Burrus tried to guard him against too greater excesses and encouraged him to have an affair with freed woman named Acte, provided that Nero appreciated that marriage was impossible.
Read More : Roman Marriage. Agrippina meanwhile was outraged at such behaviour. But when news reached Nero of what angry gossip she was spreading about him, he became enraged and hostile toward his mother. She was the wife of his partner in frequent exploits, Marcus Salvius Otho. In AD 58 Otho was dispatched to be governor of Lusitania, no doubt to move him out of the way.
Therafter even a collapsible boat was built, which was meant to sink in the Bay of Naples. But the plot only succeeded in sinking the boat, as Agrippina managed to swim ashore. Exasperated, Nero sent an assassin who clubbed and stabbed her to death AD Nero reported to the senate that his mother had plotted to have him killed, forcing him to act first. There had never been much love lost by the senators for Agrippina.
Nero celebrated by staging yet wilder orgies and by creating two new festivals of chariot-racing and athletics. He also staged musical contests, which gave him further chance to demonstrate in public his talent for singing while accompanying himself on the lyre.
In an age when actors and performers were seen as something unsavoury, it was a moral outrage to have an emperor performing on stage. Worse still, Nero being the emperor, no one was allowed to leave the auditorium while he was performing, for whatever reason.
The historian Suetonius writes of women giving birth during a Nero recital, and of men who pretended to die and were carried out. First Burrus died from illness. He was succeeded in his position as praetorian prefect by two men who held the office as colleagues. Tigellinus was a terrible influence on Nero, who only encouraged his excesses rather than trying to curb them.
And one of Tigellinus first actions in office was to revive the hated treason courts. Seneca soon found Tigellinus — and an ever-more willful emperor — too much to bear and resigned. This left Nero totally subject to corrupt advisers.
His life turned into little else but a series of excesses in sport, music, orgies and murder. In AD 62 he divorced Octavia and then had her executed on a trumped-up charge of adultery. All this to make way for Poppaea Sabina whom he married. But then Poppaea too was later killed. Until then he had kept his stage appearances to private stages, but in AD 64 he gave his first public performance in Neapolis Naples. Romans saw it indeed as a bad omen that the very theatre Nero had performed in shortly after was destroyed by an earthquake.
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