{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10846/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10846","id":"gutenberg_10846","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10846","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - Ancient","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Epictetus","Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, 121-180","Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D. -- Religion"],"text":"SEEKERS AFTER GOD\n\nBY THE REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.,\n\nCANON OF WESTMINSTER.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSENECA.\n\n\n     \"Ce nuage frang\u00e9 de rayons qui toucbe presqu' \u00e0 l'immortelle aurore\n      des v\u00e9rit\u00e9s chr\u00e9tiennes.\"--PONTMAOTIN.\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\nOn the banks of the Baetis--the modern Guadalquiver,--and under the\nwoods that crown the southern slopes of the Sierra Morena, lies the\nbeautiful and famous city of Cordova. It had been selected by Marcellus\nas the site of a Roman colony; and so many Romans and Spaniards of high\nrank chose it for their residence, that it obtained from Augustus the\nhonourable surname of the \"Patrician Colony.\" Spain, during this period\nof the Empire, exercised no small influence upon the literature and\npolitics of Rome. No less than three great Emperors--Trajan, Hadrian,\nand Theodosius,--were natives of Spain. Columella, the writer on\nagriculture, was born at Cadiz; Quintilian, the great writer on the\neducation of an orator, was born at Calahorra; the poet Martial was a\nnative of Bilbilis; but Cordova could boast the yet higher honour of\nhaving given birth to the Senecas, an honour which won for it the\nepithet of \"The Eloquent.\" A ruin is shown to modern travellers which\nis popularly called the House of Seneca, and the fact is at least a\nproof that the city still retains some memory of its illustrious sons.\n\nMarcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher, was by rank a\nRoman knight. What causes had led him or his family to settle in Spain\nwe do not know, and the names Annaeus and Seneca are alike obscure. It\nhas been vaguely conjectured that both names may involve an allusion to\nthe longevity of some of the founders of the family, for Annaeus seems\nto be connected with _annus_, a year, and Seneca with _senex_, an old\nman. The common English composite plant ragwort is called _senecio_ from\nthe white and feathery pappus or appendage of its seeds; and similarly,\nIsidore says that the first Seneca was so named because \"he was born\nwith white hair.\"\n\nAlthough the father of Seneca was of knightly rank, his family had never\nrisen to any eminence; it belonged to the class of _nouveaux riches_,\nand we do not know whether it was of Roman or of Spanish descent. But\nhis mother Helvia--an uncommon name, which, by a curious coincidence,\nbelonged also to the mother of Cicero--was a Spanish lady; and it was\nfrom her that Seneca, as well as his famous nephew, the poet Lucan,\ndoubtless derived many of the traits which mark their intellect and\ntheir character. There was in the Spaniard a richness and splendour of\nimagination, an intensity and warmth, a touch of \"phantasy and flame,\"\nwhich we find in these two men of genius, and which was wholly wanting\nto the Roman temperament.\n\nOf Cordova itself, except in a single epigram, Seneca makes no mention;\nbut this epigram suffices to show that he must have been familiar with\nits stirring and memorable traditions. The elder Seneca must have been\nliving at Cordova during all the troublous years of civil war, when his\nnative city caused equal offence to Pompey and to Caesar. Doubtless,\ntoo, he would have had stories to tell of the noble Sertorius, and of\nthe tame fawn which gained for him the credit of divine assistance; and\ncontemporary reminiscences of that day of desperate disaster when\nCaesar, indignant that Cordova should have embraced the cause of the\nsons of Pompey, avenged himself by a massacre of 22,000 of the citizens.\nFrom his mother Helvia, Seneca must often have heard about the fierce\nand gallant struggle in which her country had resisted the iron yoke of\nRome. Many a time as a boy must he have been told how long and how\nheroically Saguntum had withstood the assaults and baffled the triumph\nof Hannibal; how bravely Viriathus had fought, and how shamefully he\nfell; and how at length the unequal contest, which reduced Spain to the\ncondition of a province, was closed, when the heroic defenders of\nNumantia, rather than yield to Scipio, reduced their city to a heap of\nbloodstained ruins.\n\nBut, whatever may have been the extent to which Seneca was influenced by\nthe Spanish blood which flowed in his veins, and the Spanish legends on\nwhich his youth was fed, it was not in Spain that his lot was cast. When\nhe was yet an infant in arms his father, with all his family, emigrated\nfrom Cordova to Rome. What may have been the special reason for this\nimportant step we do not know; possibly, like the father of Horace, the\nelder Seneca may have sought a better education for his sons than could\nbe provided by even so celebrated a provincial town as Cordova;\npossibly--for he belonged to a somewhat pushing family--he may have\ndesired to gain fresh wealth and honour in the imperial city.\n\nThither we must follow him; and, as it is our object not only to depict\na character but also to sketch the characteristics of a very memorable\nage in the world's history, we must try to get a glimpse of the family\nin the midst of which our young philosopher grew up, of the kind of\neducation which he received, and of the influences which were likely to\ntell upon him during his childish and youthful years. Only by such means\nshall we be able to judge of him aright. And it is worth while to try\nand gain a right conception of the man, not only because he was very\neminent as a poet, an author, and a politician, not only because he\nfills a very prominent place in the pages of the great historian, who\nhas drawn so immortal a picture of Rome under the Emperors; not only\nbecause in him we can best study the inevitable signs which mark, even\nin the works of men of genius, a degraded people and a decaying\nliterature; but because he was, as the title of this volume designates\nhim, a \"SEEKER AFTER GOD.\" Whatever may have been the dark and\nquestionable actions of his life--and in this narrative we shall\nendeavor to furnish a plain and unvarnished picture of the manner in\nwhich he lived,--it is certain that, as a philosopher and as a moralist,\nhe furnishes us with the grandest and most eloquent series of truths to\nwhich, unilluminated by Christianity, the thoughts of man have ever\nattained. The purest and most exalted philosophic sect of antiquity was\n\"the sect of the Stoics;\" and Stoicism never found a literary exponent\nmore ardent, more eloquent, or more enlightened than Lucius Annaeus\nSeneca. So nearly, in fact, does he seem to have arrived at the truths\nof Christianity, that to many it seemed a matter for marvel that he\ncould have known them without having heard them from inspired lips. He\nis constantly cited with approbation by some of the most eminent\nChristian fathers. Tertullian, Lactantius, even St. Augustine himself,\nquote his words with marked admiration, and St. Jerome appeals to him as\n\"_our_ Seneca.\" The Council of Trent go further still, and quote him as\nthough he were an acknowledged father of the Church. For many centuries\nthere were some who accepted as genuine the spurious letters supposed to\nhave been interchanged between Seneca and St. Paul, in which Seneca is\nmade to express a wish to hold among the Pagans the same beneficial\nposition which St. Paul held in the Christian world. The possibility of\nsuch an intercourse, the nature and extent of such supposed obligations,\nwill come under our consideration hereafter. All that I here desire to\nsay is, that in considering the life of Seneca we are not only dealing\nwith a life which was rich in memorable incidents, and which was cast\ninto an age upon which Christianity dawned as a new light in the\ndarkness, but also the life of one who climbed the loftiest peaks of the\nmoral philosophy of Paganism, and who in many respects may be regarded\nas the Coryphaeus of what has been sometimes called a Natural Religion.\n\nIt is not my purpose to turn aside from the narrative in order to\nindulge in moral reflections, because such reflections will come with\ntenfold force if they are naturally suggested to the reader's mind by\nthe circumstances of the biography. But from first to last it will be\nabundantly obvious to every thoughtful mind that alike the morality and\nthe philosophy of Paganism, as contrasted with the splendour of revealed\ntruth and the holiness of Christian life, are but as moonlight is to\nsunlight. The Stoical philosophy may be compared to a torch which flings\na faint gleam here and there in the dusky recesses of a mighty cavern;\nChristianity to the sun pouring into the inmost depths of the same\ncavern its sevenfold illumination. The torch had a value and brightness\nof its own, but compared with the dawning of that new glory it appears\nto be dim and ineffectual, even though its brightness was a real\nbrightness, and had been drawn from the same etherial source.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA.\n\nThe exact date of Seneca's birth is uncertain, but it took place in all\nprobability about seven years before the commencement of the Christian\nera. It will give to his life a touch of deep and solemn interest if we\nremember that, during all those guilty and stormy scenes amid which his\nearlier destiny was cast, there lived and taught in Palestine the Son of\nGod, the Saviour of the world.\n\nThe problems which for many years tormented his mind were beginning to\nfind their solution, amid far other scenes, by men whose creed and\ncondition he despised. While Seneca was being guarded by his attendant\nslave through the crowded and dangerous streets of Rome on his way to\nschool, St. Peter and St. John were fisher-lads by the shores of\nGennesareth; while Seneca was ardently assimilating the doctrine of the\nstoic Attalus, St. Paul, with no less fervancy of soul, sat learning at\nthe feet of Gamaliel; and long before Seneca had made his way, through\npaths dizzy and dubious, to the zenith of his fame, unknown to him that\nSaviour had been crucified through whose only merits he and we can ever\nattain to our final rest.\n\nSeneca was about two years old when he was carried to Rome in his\nnurse's arms. Like many other men who have succeeded in attaining\neminence, he suffered much from ill-health in his early years. He tells\nus of one serious illness from which he slowly recovered under the\naffectionate and tender nursing of his mother's sister. All his life\nlong he was subject to attacks of asthma, which, after suffering every\nform of disease, he says that he considers to be the worst. At one time\nhis personal sufferings weighed so heavily on his spirits that nothing\nsave a regard for his father's wishes prevented him from suicide: and\nlater in life he was only withheld from seeking the deliverance of death\nby the tender affection of his wife Paulina. He might have used with\nlittle alteration the words of Pope, that his various studies but served\nto help him\n\n     \"Through _this long disease, my life_.\"\n\nThe recovery from this tedious illness is the only allusion which Seneca\nhas made to the circumstances of his childhood. The ancient writers,\neven the ancient poets, but rarely refer, even in the most cursory\nmanner, to their early years. The cause of this reticence offers a\ncurious problem for our inquiry, but the fact is indisputable. Whereas\nthere is scarcely a single modern poet who has not lingered with\nundisguised feelings of happiness over the gentle memories of his\nchildhood, not one of the ancient poets has systematically touched upon\nthe theme at all. From Lydgate down to Tennyson, it would be easy to\nquote from our English poets a continuous line of lyric songs on the\nsubject of boyish years. How to the young child the fir-trees seemed to\ntouch the sky, how his heart leaped up at the sight of the rainbow, how\nhe sat at his mother's feet and pricked into paper the tissued flowers\nof her dress, how he chased the bright butterfly, or in his tenderness\nfeared to brush even the dust from off its wings, how he learnt sweet\nlessons and said innocent prayers at his father's knee; trifles like\nthese, yet trifles which may have been rendered noble and beautiful by a\nloving imagination, have been narrated over and over again in the songs\nof our poets. The lovely lines of Henry Vaughan might be taken as a type\nof thousands more:--\n\n     \"Happy those early days, when I\n      Shined in my Angel infancy.\n      Before I understood this place\n      Appointed for my second race,\n      Or taught my soul to fancy aught\n      But a white celestial thought;\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"Before I taught my tongue to wound\n      My conscience with a sinful sound\n      Or had the black art to dispense\n      A several sin to every sense;\n      But felt through all this fleshy dress,\n      Bright shoots of everlastingness.\"\n\nThe memory of every student of English poetry will furnish countless\nparallels to thoughts like these. How is it that no similar poem could\nbe quoted from the whole range of ancient literature? How is it that to\nthe Greek and Roman poets that morning of life, which should have been\nso filled with \"natural blessedness,\" seems to have been a blank? How is\nit that writers so voluminous, so domestic, so affectionate as Cicero,\nVirgil, and Horace do not make so much as a single allusion to the\nexistence of their own mothers?\n\nTo answer this question fully would be to write an entire essay on the\ndifference between ancient and modern life, and would carry me far away\nfrom my immediate subject.[1] But I may say generally, that the\nexplanation rests in the fact that in all probability childhood among\nthe ancients was a disregarded, and in most cases a far less happy,\nperiod than it is with us. The birth of a child in the house of a Greek\nor a Roman was not necessarily a subject for rejoicing. If the father,\nwhen the child was first shown to him, stooped down and took it in his\narms, it was received as a member of the family; if he left it unnoticed\nthen it was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or barren\nplace to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first passer by. And\neven if a child escaped this fate, yet for the first seven or eight\nyears of life he was kept in the gynaeceum, or women's apartments, and\nrarely or never saw his father's face. No halo of romance or poetry was\nshed over those early years. Until the child was full grown the absolute\npower of life or death rested in his father's hands; he had no freedom,\nand met with little notice. For individual life the ancients had a very\nslight regard; there was nothing autobiographic or introspective in\ntheir temperament. With them public life, the life of the State, was\neverything; domestic life, the life of the individual, occupied but a\nsmall share of their consideration. All the innocent pleasures of\ninfancy, the joys of the hearth, the charm of the domestic circle, the\nflow and sparkle of childish gaity, were by them but little appreciated.\nThe years before manhood were years of prospect, and in most cases they\noffered but little to make them worth the retrospect. It is a mark of\nthe more modern character which stamps the writings of Seneca, as\ncompared with earlier authors, that he addresses his mother in terms of\nthe deepest affection, and cannot speak of his darling little son except\nin a voice that seems to break with tears.\n\n[Footnote 1: See, however, the same question treated from a somewhat\ndifferent point of view by M. Nisard, in his charming _\u00c9tudes sur les\nPo\u00ebtes de la D\u00e9cadence_, ii. 17, _sqq_.]\n\nLet us add another curious consideration. The growth of the personal\ncharacter, the reminiscences of a life advancing into perfect\nconsciousness, are largely moulded by the gradual recognition of moral\nlaws, by the sense of mystery evolved in the inevitable struggle between\nduty and pleasure,--between the desire to do right and the temptation to\ndo wrong. But among the ancients the conception of morality was so\nwholly different from ours, their notions of moral obligation were, in\nthe immense majority of cases, so much less stringent and so much less\nimportant, they had so faint a disapproval for sins which we condemn,\nand so weak an indignation against vices which we abhor, that in their\nearly years we can hardly suppose them to have often fathomed those\n\"abysmal deeps of personality,\" the recognition of which is a necessary\nelement of marked individual growth.\n\nWe have, therefore, no materials for forming any vivid picture of\nSeneca's childhood; but, from what we gather about the circumstances and\nthe character of his family, we should suppose that he was exceptionally\nfortunate. The Senecas were wealthy; they held a good position in\nsociety; they were a family of cultivated taste, of literary pursuits,\nof high character, and of amiable dispositions. Their wealth raised them\nabove the necessity of those mean cares and degrading shifts to eke out\na scanty livelihood which mark the career of other literary men who were\ntheir contemporaries. Their rank and culture secured them the intimacy\nof all who were best worth knowing in Roman circles; and the general\ndignity and morality which marked their lives would free them from all\nlikelihood of being thrown into close intercourse with the numerous\nclass of luxurious epicureans, whose unblushing and unbounded vice gave\nan infamous notority to the capital of the world.\n\nOf Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of our philosopher, we know few\npersonal particulars, except that he was a professional rhetorician, who\ndrew up for the use of his sons and pupils a number of oratorical\nexercises, which have come down to us under the names of _Suasoriae_ and\n_Controversiae_. They are a series of declamatory arguments on both\nsides, respecting a number of historical or purely imaginary subjects;\nand it would be impossible to conceive any reading more utterly\nunprofitable. But the elder Seneca was steeped to the lips in an\nartificial rhetoric; and these highly elaborated arguments, invented in\norder to sharpen the faculties for purposes of declamation and debate,\nwere probably due partly to his note-book and partly to his memory. His\nmemory was so prodigious that after hearing two thousand words he could\nrepeat them again in the same order. Few of those who have possessed\nsuch extraordinary powers of memory have been men of first-rate talent,\nand the elder Seneca was no exception. But if his memory did not improve\nhis original genius, it must at any rate have made him a very agreeable\nmember of society, and have furnished him with an abundant store of\npersonal and political anecdotes. In short, Marcus Seneca was a\nwell-to-do, intelligent man of the world, with plenty of common sense,\nwith a turn for public speaking, with a profound dislike and contempt\nfor anything which he considered philosophical or fantastic, and with a\nkeen eye to the main advantage.\n\nHis wife Helvia, if we may trust the panegyric of her son, was on the\nother hand a far less commonplace character. But for her husband's\ndislike to learning and philosophy she would have become a proficient in\nboth, and in a short period of study she had made a considerable\nadvance. Yet her intellect was less remarkable than the nobility and\nsweetness of her mind; other mothers loved their sons because their own\nambition was gratified by their honours, and their feminine wants\nsupplied by their riches; but Helvia loved her sons for their own sakes,\ntreated them with liberal generosity, but refused to reap any personal\nbenefit from their wealth, managed their patrimonies with disinterested\nzeal, and spent her own money to bear the expenses of their political\ncareer. She rose superior to the foibles and vices of her time.\nImmodesty, the plague-spot of her age, had never infected her pure life.\nGems and pearls had little charms for her. She was never ashamed of her\nchildren, as though their presence betrayed her own advancing age. \"You\nnever stained your face,\" says her son, when writing to console her in\nhis exile, \"with walnut-juice or rouge; you never delighted in dresses\nindelicately low; your single ornament was a loveliness which no age\ncould destroy; your special glory was a conspicuous chastity.\" We may\nwell say with Mr. Tennyson--\n\n     \"Happy he\n      With such a mother! faith in womankind\n      Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high\n      Comes easy to him, and, though he trip and fall,\n      He shall not blind his soul with clay.\"\n\nNor was his mother Helvia the only high-minded lady in whose society\nthe boyhood of Seneca was spent. Her sister, whose name is unknown, that\naunt who had so tenderly protected the delicate boy, and nursed him\nthrough the sickness of his infancy, seems to have inspired him with an\naffection of unusual warmth. He tells us how, when her husband was\nPrefect of Egypt, so far was she from acting as was usual with the wives\nof provincial governors, that she was as much respected and beloved as\nthey were for the most part execrated and shunned. So serious was the\nevil caused by these ladies, so intolerable was their cruel rapacity,\nthat it had been seriously debated in the Senate whether they should\never be allowed to accompany their husbands. Not so with Helvia's\nsister. She was never seen in public; she allowed no provincial to visit\nher house; she begged no favour for herself, and suffered none to be\nbegged from her. The province not only praised her, but, what was still\nmore to her credit, barely knew anything about her, and longed in vain\nfor another lady who should imitate her virtue and self-control. Egypt\nwas the headquarters for biting and loquacious calumny, yet even Egypt\nnever breathed a word against the sanctity of her life. And when during\ntheir homeward voyage her husband died, in spite of danger and tempest\nand the deeply-rooted superstition which considered it perilous to sail\nwith a corpse on board, not even the imminent peril of shipwreck could\ndrive her to separate herself from her husband's body until she had\nprovided for its safe and honorable sepulchre. These are the traits of a\ngood and heroic woman; and that she reciprocated the regard which makes\nher nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact\nthat, when he made his _d\u00e9but_ as a candidate for the honours of the\nState, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time\nher matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced\nfor his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the\ncrowds who thronged the Forum and the streets of Rome.\n\nTwo brothers, very different from each other in their habits and\ncharacter, completed the family circle, Marcus Annaeus Novatus and\nLucius Annaeus Mela, of whom the former was older the latter younger,\nthan their more famous brother.\n\nMarcus Annaeus Novatus is known to history under the name of Junius\nGallio, which he took when adopted by the orator of that name, who was a\nfriend of his father. He is none other than the Gallio of the Acts, the\nProconsul of Achaia, whose name has passed current among Christians as a\nproverb of complacent indifference.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Acts xxv. 19.]\n\nThe scene, however, in which Scripture gives us a glimpse of him has\nbeen much misunderstood, and to talk of him as \"careless Gallio,\" or to\napply the expression that \"he cared for none of these things,\" to\nindifference in religious matters, is entirely to misapply the spirit of\nthe narrative. What really happened was this. The Jews, indignant at the\nsuccess of Paul's preaching, dragged him before the tribunal of Gallio,\nand accused him of introducing illegal modes of worship. When the\nApostle was about to defend himself, Gallio contemptuously cut him short\nby saying to the Jews, \"If in truth there were in question any act of\ninjustice or wicked misconduct, I should naturally have tolerated your\ncomplaint. But if this is some verbal inquiry about mere technical\nmatters of your law, look after it yourselves. I do not choose to be a\njudge of such matters.\" With these words he drove them from his\njudgment-seat with exactly the same fine Roman contempt for the Jews and\ntheir religious affairs as was subsequently expressed by Festus to the\nsceptical Agrippa, and as had been expressed previously by Pontius\nPilate[3] to the tumultous Pharisees. Exulting at this discomfiture of\nthe hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in\na body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat\nhim in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal. This was the\nevent at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What\ncould it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks\nbeat a poor wretch of a Jew or not? So long as they did not make a riot,\nor give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat\nSosthenes or any number of Jews black and blue if it pleased them, for\nall he was likely to care.\n\n[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 24, \"See ye to it.\" Cf. Acts xiv. 15, \"Look ye\nto it.\" Toleration existed in the Roman Empire, and the magistrates\noften interfered to protect the Jews from massacre; but they absolutely\nand persistently refused to trouble themselves with any attempt to\nunderstand their doctrines or enter into their disputes. The tradition\nthat Gallio sent some of St. Paul's writings to his brother Seneca is\nutterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written\nnothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. (See Conybeare and\nHowson, _St. Paul_, vol. i. Ch. xii.; Aubertin, _S\u00e9n\u00e8que et St. Paul_.)]\n\nWhat a vivid glimpse do we here obtain, from the graphic picture of an\neye-witness, of the daily life in an ancient provincial forum; how\ncompletely do we seem to catch sight for a moment of that habitual\nexpression of contempt which curled the thin lips of a Roman aristocrat\nin the presence of subject nations, and especially of Jews! If Seneca\nhad come across any of the Alexandrian Jews in his Egyptian travels, the\nonly impression left on his mind was that expressed by Tacitus, Juvenal,\nand Suetonius, who never mention the Jews without execration. In a\npassage, quoted by St. Augustine (_De Civit. Dei_, iv. 11) from his lost\nbook on Superstitions, Seneca speaks of the multitude of their\nproselytes, and calls them \"_gens sceleratissima_,\" a \"_most criminal\nrace_.\" It has been often conjectured--it has even been seriously\nbelieved--that Seneca had personal intercourse with St. Paul and learnt\nfrom him some lessons of Christianity. The scene on which we have just\nbeen gazing will show us the utter unlikelihood of such a supposition.\nProbably the nearest opportunity which ever occurred to bring the\nChristian Apostle into intellectual contact with the Roman philosopher\nwas this occasion, when St. Paul was dragged as a prisoner into the\npresence of Seneca's elder brother. The utter contempt and indifference\nwith which he was treated, the manner in which he was summarily cut\nshort before he could even open his lips in his own defence, will give\nus a just estimate of the manner in which Seneca would have been likely\nto regard St. Paul. It is highly improbable that Gallio ever retained\nthe slightest impression or memory of so every-day a circumstance as\nthis, by which alone he is known to the world. It is possible that he\nhad not even heard the mere name of Paul, and that, if he ever thought\nof him at all, it was only as a miserable, ragged, fanatical Jew, of dim\neyes and diminutive stature, who had once wished to inflict upon him a\nharangue, and who had once come for a few moments \"betwixt the wind and\nhis nobility.\" He would indeed have been unutterably amazed if anyone\nhad whispered to him that well nigh the sole circumstance which would\nentitle him to be remembered by posterity, and the sole event of his\nlife by which he would be at all generally known, was that momentary and\naccidental relation to his despised prisoner.\n\nBut Novatus--or, to give him his adopted name, Gallio--presented to his\nbrother Seneca, and to the rest of the world, a very different aspect\nfrom that under which we are wont to think of him. By them he was\nregarded as an illustrious declaimer, in an age when declamation was the\nmost valued of all accomplishments. It was true that there was a sort of\n\"tinkle,\" a certain falsetto tone in his style, which offended men of\nrobust and severe taste; but this meretricious resonance of style was a\nmatter of envy and admiration when affectation was the rage, and when\nthe times were too enervated and too corrupt for the manly conciseness\nand concentrated force of an eloquence dictated by liberty and by\npassion. He seems to have acquired both among his friends and among\nstrangers the epithet of \"dulcis,\" \"the charming or fascinating Gallio:\"\n\"This is more,\" says the poet Statius, \"than to have given Seneca to the\nworld, and to have begotten the sweet Gallio.\" Seneca's portrait of him\nis singularly faultless. He says that no one was so gentle to any one as\nGallio was to every one; that his charm of manner won over even the\npeople whom mere chance threw in his way, and that such was the force of\nhis natural goodness that no one suspected his behaviour, as though it\nwere due to art or simulation. Speaking of flattery, in his fourth book\nof Natural Questions, he says to his friend Lucilius, \"I used to say to\nyou that my brother Gallio _(whom every one loves a little, even people\nwho cannot love him more)_ was wholly _ignorant_ of other vices, but\neven _detested_ this. You might try him in any direction. You began to\npraise his intellect--an intellect of the highest and worthiest kind,...\nand he walked away! You began to praise his moderation, he instantly cut\nshort your first words. You began to express admiration for his\nblandness and natural suavity of manner,... yet even here he resisted\nyour compliments; and if you were led to exclaim that you had found a\nman who could not be overcome by those insidious attacks which every one\nelse admits, and hoped that he would at least tolerate _this_ compliment\nbecause of its truth, even on this ground he would resist your flattery;\nnot as though you had been awkward, or as though he suspected that you\nwere jesting with him, or had some secret end in view, but simply\nbecause he had a horror of every form of adulation.\" We can easily\nimagine that Gallio was Seneca's favorite brother, and we are not\nsurprised to find that the philosopher dedicates to him his three books\non Anger, and his charming little treatise \"On a Happy Life.\"\n\nOf the third brother, L. Annaeus Mela, we have fewer notices; but, from\nwhat we know, we should conjecture that his character no less than his\nreputation was inferior to that of his brothers; yet he seems to have\nbeen the favorite of his father, who distinctly asserts that his\nintellect was capable of every excellence, and superior to that of his\nbrothers.[4] This, however, may have been because Mela, \"longing only to\nlong for nothing,\" was content with his father's rank, and devoted\nhimself wholly to the study of eloquence. Instead of entering into\npublic life, he deliberately withdrew himself from all civil duties, and\ndevoted himself to tranquility and ease. Apparently he preferred to be a\nfarmer-general (_publicanus_) and not a consul. His chief fame rests in\nthe fact that he was father of Lucan, the poet of the decadence or\ndeclining literature of Rome. The only anecdote about him which has come\ndown to us is one that sets his avarice in a very unfavourable light.\nWhen his famous son, the unhappy poet, had forfeited his life, as well\nas covered himself with infamy by denouncing his own mother Attila in\nthe conspiracy of Piso, Mela, instead of being overwhelmed with shame\nand agony, immediately began to collect with indecent avidity his son's\ndebts, as though to show Nero that he felt no great sorrow for his\nbereavement. But this was not enough for Nero's malice; he told Mela\nthat he must follow his son, and Mela was forced to obey the order,\nand to die.\n\n[Footnote 4: M. Ann. Senec. _Controv_. ii. _Praef_.]\n\nDoubtless Helvia, if she survived her sons and grandsons, must have\nbitterly rued the day when, with her husband and her young children, she\nleft the quiet retreat of a life in Cordova. Each of the three boys grew\nup to a man of genius, and each of them grew up to stain his memory with\ndeeds that had been better left undone, and to die violent deaths by\ntheir own hands or by a tyrant's will. Mela died as we have seen; his\nson Lucan and his brother Seneca were driven to death by the cruel\norders of Nero. Gallio, after stooping to panic-stricken supplications\nfor his preservation, died ultimately by suicide. It was a shameful and\nmiserable end for them all, but it was due partly to their own errors,\npartly to the hard necessity of the degraded times in which they lived.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE EDUCATION OF SENECA.\n\nFor a reason which I have already indicated--I mean the habitual\nreticence of the ancient writers respecting the period of their\nboyhood--it is not easy to form a very vivid conception of the kind of\neducation given to a Roman boy of good family up to the age of fifteen,\nwhen he laid aside the golden amulet and embroidered toga to assume a\nmore independent mode of life.\n\nA few facts, however, we can gather from the scattered allusions of the\npoets Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Persius. From these we learn that\nthe schoolmasters were for the most part underpaid and despised,[5]\nwhile at the same time an erudition alike minute and useless was rigidly\ndemanded of them. We learn also that they were exceedingly severe in the\ninfliction of corporeal punishment; Orbilius, the schoolmaster of\nHorace, appears to have been a perfect Dr. Busby, and the poet Martial\nrecords with indignation the barbarities of chastisement which he daily\nwitnessed.\n\n[Footnote 5: For the miseries of the literary class, and especially of\nschoolmasters, see Juv, _Sat_. vii.]\n\nThe things taught were chiefly arithmetic, grammar--both Greek and\nLatin--reading, and repetition of the chief Latin poets. There was also\na good deal of recitation and of theme-writing on all kinds of trite\nhistorical subjects. The arithmetic seems to have been mainly of a very\nsimple and severely practical kind, especially the computation of\ninterest and compound interest; and the philology generally, both\ngrammar and criticism, was singularly narrow, uninteresting, and\nuseless. Of what conceivable advantage can it have been to any human\nbeing to know the name of the mother of Hecuba, of the nurse of\nAnchises, of the stepmother of Anchemolus, the number of years Acestes\nlived, and how many casks of wine the Sicilians gave to the Phrygians?\nYet these were the dispicable _minutiae_ which every schoolmaster was\nthen expected to have at his fingers' ends, and every boy-scholar to\nlearn at the point of the ferule--trash which was only fit to be\nunlearned the moment it was known.\n\nFor this kind of verbal criticism and fantastic archaeology Seneca, who\nhad probably gone through it all, expresses a profound and very rational\ncontempt. In a rather amusing passage[6] he contrasts the kind of use\nwhich would be made of a Virgil lesson by a philosopher and a\ngrammarian. Coming to the lines,\n\n     \"Each happiest day for mortals speeds the first,\n      Then crowds disease behind and age accurst,\"\n\nthe philosopher will point out why and in what sense the early days of\nlife are the best days, and how rapidly the evil days succeed them, and\nconsequently how infinitely important it is to use well the golden dawn\nof our being. But the verbal critic will content himself with the\nremark that Virgil always uses _fugio_ of the flight of time, and\nalways joins \"old age\" with \"disease,\" and consequently that these are\ntags to be remembered, and plagiarized hereafter in the pupils'\n\"_original_ composition.\" Similarly, if the book in hand be Cicero's\ntreatise \"On the Commonwealth,\" instead of entering into great political\nquestions, our grammarian will note that one of the Roman kings had no\nfather (to speak of), and another no mother; that dictators used\nformerly to be called \"masters of the people;\" that Romulus perished\nduring an eclipse; that the old form of _reipsa_ was _reapse_, and of\n_se ipse_ was _sepse_; that the starting point in the circus which is\nnow called _creta_, or \"chalk,\" used to be called _caix_, or _carcer_;\nthat in the time of Ennuis _opera_ meant not only \"work,\" but also\n\"assistance,\" and so on, and so on. Is this true education? or rather,\nshould our great aim ever be to translate noble precepts into daily\naction? \"Teach me,\" he says, \"to despise pleasure and glory;\n_afterwards_ you shall teach me to disentangle difficulties, to\ndistinguish ambiguities, to see through obscurities; _now_ teach me what\nis necessary.\" Considering the condition of much which in modern times\npasses under the name of \"education,\" we may possibly find that the\nhints of Seneca are not yet wholly obsolete.\n\n[Footnote 6: Ep. cviii.]\n\nWhat kind of schoolmaster taught the little Seneca when under the care\nof the slave who was called _pedagogus_, or a \"boy-leader\" (whence our\nword _pedagogue_), he daily went with his brothers to school through the\nstreets of Rome, we do not know. He may have been a severe Orbilius, or\nhe may have been one of those noble-minded tutors whose ideal\nportraiture is drawn in such beautiful colours by the learned and\namiable Quintilian. Seneca has not alluded to any one who taught him\nduring his early days. The only schoolfellow whom he mentions by name\nin his voluminous writings is a certain Claranus, a deformed boy, whom,\nafter leaving school, Seneca never met again until they were both old\nmen, but of whom he speaks with great admiration. In spite of his\nhump-back, Claranus appeared even beautiful in the eyes of those who\nknew him well, because his virtue and good sense left a stronger\nimpression than his deformity, and \"his body was adorned by the beauty\nof his soul.\"\n\nIt was not until mere school-lessons were finished that a boy began\nseriously to enter upon the studies of eloquence and philosophy, which\ntherefore furnish some analogy to what we should call \"a university\neducation.\" Gallio and Mela, Seneca's elder and younger brothers,\ndevoted themselves heart and soul to the theory and practice of\neloquence; Seneca made the rarer and the wiser choice in giving his\nentire enthusiasm to the study of philosophy.\n\nI say the wiser choice, because eloquence is not a thing for which one\ncan give a receipt as one might give a receipt for making\n_eau-de-Cologne_. Eloquence is the noble, the harmonious, the passionate\nexpression of truths profoundly realized, or of emotions intensely felt.\nIt is a flame which cannot be kindled by artificial means. _Rhetoric_\nmay be taught if any one thinks it worth learning; but _eloquence_ is a\ngift as innate as the genius from which it springs. \"_Cujus vita fulgur,\nejus verba tonitrua_\"--\"if a man's life be lightning, his words will be\nthunders.\" But the kind of oratory to be obtained by a constant practice\nof declamation such as that which occupied the schools of the Rhetors\nwill be a very artificial lightning and a very imitated thunder--not the\nartillery of heaven, but the Chinese fire and rolled bladders of the\nstage. Nothing could be more false, more hollow, more pernicious than\nthe perpetual attempt to drill numerous classes of youths into a\nreproduction of the mere manner of the ancient orators. An age of\nunlimited declamation, an age of incessant talk, is a hotbed in which\nreal depth and nobility of feeling runs miserably to seed. Style is\nnever worse than it is in ages which employ themselves in teaching\nlittle else. Such teaching produces an emptiness of thought concealed\nunder a plethora of words. This age of countless oratorical masters was\nemphatically the period of decadence and decay. There is a hollow ring\nabout it, a falsetto tone in its voice; a fatiguing literary grimace in\nthe manner of its authors. Even its writers of genius were injured and\ncorrupted by the prevailing mode. They can say nothing simply; they are\nalways in contortions. Their very indignation and bitterness of heart,\ngenuine as it is, assumes a theatrical form of expression.[7] They\nabound in unrealities: their whole manner is defaced with would-be\ncleaverness, with antitheses, epigrams, paradoxes, forced expressions,\nfigures and tricks of speech, straining after originality and profundity\nwhen they are merely repeating very commonplace remarks. What else could\none expect in an age of salaried declaimers, educated in a false\natmosphere of superficial talk, for ever haranguing and perorating about\ngreat passions which they had never felt, and great deeds which they\nwould have been the last to imitate? After perpetually immolating the\nTarquins and the Pisistratids in inflated grandiloquence, they would go\nto lick the dust off a tyrant's shoes. How could eloquence survive when\nthe magnanimity and freedom which inspired it were dead, and when the\nmen and books which professed to teach it were filled with despicable\ndirections about the exact position in which the orator was to use his\nhands, and as to whether it was a good thing or not for him to slap his\nforehead and disarrange his hair?\n\n[Footnote 7:\n     \"Juv\u00e9nal, \u00e9lev\u00e9 dans les cris de l'\u00e9cole\n      Poussa jusqu'\u00e0 l'exc\u00e8s sa mordante hyperbole.\"--\n      BOILEAU.]\n\nThe philosophic teaching which even from boyhood exercised a powerful\nfascination on the eager soul of Seneca was at least something better\nthan this; and more than one of his philosophic teachers succeeded in\nwinning his warm affection, and in moulding the principles and habits of\nhis life. Two of them he mentions with special regard, namely Sotion the\nPythagorean, and Attalus the Stoic. He also heard the lectures of the\nfluent and musical Fabianus Papirius, but seems to have owed less to him\nthan to his other teachers.\n\nSotion had embraced the views of Pythagoras respecting the\ntransmigration of souls, a doctrine which made the eating of animal food\nlittle better than cannibalism or parricide. But, even if any of his\nfollowers rejected this view, Sotion would still maintain that the\neating of animals, if not an impiety, was at least a cruelty and a\nwaste. \"What hardship does my advice inflict on you?\" he used to ask. \"I\ndo but deprive you of the food of vultures and lions.\" The ardent\nboy--for at this time he could not have been more than seventeen years\nold--was so convinced by these considerations that he became a\nvegetarian. At first the abstinence from meat was painful, but after a\nyear he tells us (and many vegetarians will confirm his experience) it\nwas not only easy but delightful; and he used to believe, though he\nwould not assert it as a fact, that it made his intellect more keen and\nactive. He only ceased to be a vegetarian in obedience to the\nremonstrance of his unphilosophical father, who would have easily\ntolerated what he regarded as a mere vagary had it not involved the\ndanger of giving rise to a calumny. For about this time Tiberius\nbanished from Rome all the followers of strange and foreign religions;\nand, as fasting was one of the rites practiced in some of them, Seneca's\nfather thought that perhaps his son might incur, by abstaining from\nmeat, the horrible suspicion of being a Christian or a Jew!\n\nAnother Pythagorean philosopher whom he admired and whom he quotes was\nSextius, from whom he learnt the admirable practice of daily\nself-examination:--\"When the day was over, and he betook himself to his\nnightly rest, he used to ask himself, What evil have you cured to day?\nWhat vice have you resisted? In what particular have you improved?\" \"I\ntoo adopt this custom,\" says Seneca, in his book on Anger, \"and I daily\nplead my cause before myself, when the light has been taken away, and my\nwife, who is now aware of my habit, has become silent; I carefully\nconsider in my heart the entire day, and take a deliberate estimate of\nmy deeds and words.\"\n\nIt was however the Stoic Attalus who seems to have had the main share in\nthe instruction of Seneca; and _his_ teaching did not involve any\npractical results which the elder Seneca considered objectionable. He\ntells us how he used to haunt the school of the eloquent philosopher,\nbeing the first to enter and the last to leave it. \"When I heard him\ndeclaiming,\" he says, \"against vice, and error, and the ills of life, I\noften felt compassion for the human race, and believed my teacher to be\nexalted above the ordinary stature of mankind. In Stoic fashion he used\nto call himself a king; but to me his sovereignty seemed more than\nroyal, seeing that it was in his power to pass his judgments on kings\nthemselves. When he began to set forth the praises of poverty, and to\nshow how heavy and superfluous was the burden of all that exceeded the\nordinary wants of life, I often longed to leave school a poor man. When\nhe began to reprehend our pleasures, to praise a chaste body, a moderate\ntable, and a mind pure not from all unlawful but even from all\nsuperfluous pleasures, it was my delight to set strict limits to all\nvoracity and gluttony. And these precepts, my Lucilius, have left some\npermanent results; for I embraced them with impetuous eagerness, and\nafterwards, when I entered upon a political career, I retained a few of\nmy good beginnings. In consequence of them, I have all my life long\nrenounced eating oysters and mushrooms, which do not satisfy hunger but\nonly sharpen appetite; for this reason I habitually abstain from\nperfumes, because the sweetest perfume for the body is none at all: for\nthis reason I do without wines and baths. Other habits which I once\nabandoned have come back to me, but in such a way that I merely\nsubstitute moderation for abstinence, which perhaps is a still more\ndifficult task; since there are some things which it is easier for the\nmind to cut away altogether than to enjoy in moderation. Attalus used to\nrecommend a hard couch in which the body could not sink; and, even in my\nold age, I use one of such a kind that it leaves no impress of the\nsleeper. I have told you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager\nimpulses our little scholars would have to all that is good, if any one\nwere to exhort them and urge them on. But the harm springs partly from\nthe fault of preceptors, who teach us how to _argue_, not how to _live_;\nand partly from the fault of pupils, who bring to their teacher a\npurpose of training their intellect and not their souls. Thus it is\nthat philosophy has been degraded into mere philology.\"\n\nIn another lively passage, Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of\nthe various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers. After\nobserving that philosophy exercises some influence even over those who\ndo not go deeply in it, just as people sitting in a shop of perfumes\ncarry away with them some of the odour, he adds, \"Do we not, however,\nknow some who have been among the audience of a philosopher for many\nyears, and have been even entirely uncoloured by his teaching? Of course\nI do, even most persistent and continuous hearers; whom I do not call\npupils, but mere passing auditors of philosophers. Some come to hear,\nnot to learn, just as we are brought into a theatre for pleasure's sake,\nto delight our ears with language, or with the voice, or with plays. You\nwill observe a large portion of the audience to whom the philosopher's\nschool is a mere haunt of their leisure. Their object is not to lay\naside any vices there, or to accept any law in accordance with which\nthey may conform their life, but that they may enjoy a mere tickling of\ntheir ears. Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, to\ncatch up not _things_ but _words_. Some with eager countenances and\nspirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, and these are charmed by\nthe beauty of the thoughts, not by the sound of empty words; but the\nimpression is not lasting. Few only have attained the power of carrying\nhome with them the frame of mind into which they had been elevated.\"\n\nIt was to this small latter class that Seneca belonged. He became a\nStoic from very early years. The Stoic philosophers, undoubtedly the\nnoblest and purest of ancient sects, received their name from the fact\nthat their founder Zeno had lectured in the Painted Porch or Stoa\nPaecile of Athens. The influence of these austere and eloquent masters,\nteaching high lessons of morality and continence, and inspiring their\nyoung audience with the glow of their own enthusiasm for virtue, must\nhave been invaluable in that effete and drunken age. Their doctrines\nwere pushed to yet more extravagant lengths by the Cynics, who were so\ncalled from a Greek word meaning \"dog,\" from what appeared to the\nancients to be the dog-like brutality of their manners. Juvenal\nscornfully remarks, that the Stoics only differed from the Cynics \"by a\ntunic,\" which the Stoics wore and the Cynics discarded. Seneca never\nindeed adopted the practices of Cynicism, but he often speaks admiringly\nof the arch-Cynic Diogenes, and repeatedly refers to the Cynic\nDemetrius, as a man deserving of the very highest esteem. \"I take with\nme everywhere,\" writes he to Lucilius, \"that best of men, Demetrius;\nand, leaving those who wear purple robes, I talk with him who is half\nnaked. Why should I not admire him? I have seen that he has no want. Any\none may despise all things, but no one _can_ possess all things. The\nshortest road to riches lies through contempt of riches. But our\nDemetrius lives not as though he _despised_ all things, but as though he\nsimply suffered others to possess them.\"\n\nThese habits and sentiments throw considerable light on Seneca's\ncharacter. They show that even from his earliest days he was capable of\nadopting self-denial as a principle, and that to his latest days he\nretained many private habits of a simple and honourable character, even\nwhen the exigencies of public life had compelled him to modify others.\nAlthough he abandoned an unusual abstinence out of respect for his\nfather, we have positive evidence that he resumed in his old age the\nspare practices which in his enthusiastic youth he had caught from the\nlessons of high-minded teachers. These facts are surely sufficient to\nrefute at any rate those gross charges against the private character of\nSeneca, venomously retailed by a jealous Greekling like Dio Cassius,\nwhich do not rest on a tittle of evidence, and seem to be due to a mere\nspirit of envy and calumny. I shall not again allude to these scandals\nbecause I utterly disbelieve them. A man who in his \"History\" could, as\nDio Cassius has done, put into the mouth of a Roman senator such insane\nfalsehoods as he has pretended that Fufius Calenus uttered in full\nsenate against Cicero, was evidently actuated by a spirit which\ndisentitles his statements to my credence. Seneca was an inconsistent\nphilosopher both in theory and in practice; he fell beyond all question\ninto serious errors, which deeply compromise his character; but, so far\nfrom being a dissipated or luxurious man, there is every reason to\nbelieve that in the very midst of wealth and splendour, and all the\ntemptations which they involve, he retained alike the simplicity of his\nhabits and the rectitude of his mind. Whatever may have been the almost\nfabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar and ivory, they were\nrarely spread with any more sumptuous entertainment than water,\nvegetables, and fruit. Whatever may have been the amusements common\namong his wealthy and noble contemporaries, we know that he found his\nhighest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of his garden, and took some\nof his exercise by running races there with a little slave.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY.\n\nWe have gleaned from Seneca's own writings what facts we could\nrespecting his early education. But in the life of every man there are\ninfluences of a far more real and penetrating character than those which\ncome through the medium of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age;\nthe general tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social intercourse,\nthe political tendencies which were moulding the destiny of the\nnation,--these must have told, more insensibly indeed but more\npowerfully, on the mind of Seneca than even the lectures of Sotion and\nof Attalus. And, if we have had reason to fear that there was much which\nwas hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the general\naspect of the society by which our young philosopher was surrounded from\nthe cradle was yet more injurious and deplorable.\n\nThe darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never did a grosser\ndarkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence brood over the surface of\nPagan society than at the period when the Sun of Righteousness arose\nwith healing in His wings. There have been many ages when the dense\ngloom of a heartless immorality seemed to settle down with unusual\nweight; there have been many places where, under the gaslight of an\nartificial system, vice has seemed to acquire an unusual audacity; but\nnever probably was there any age or any place where the worst forms of\nwickedness were practiced with a more unblushing effrontery than in the\ncity of Rome under the government of the Caesars. A deeply-seated\ncorruption seemed to have fastened upon the very vitals of the national\nexistence. It is surely a lesson of deep moral significance that just as\nthey became most polished in their luxury they became most vile in their\nmanner of life. Horace had already bewailed that \"the age of our\nfathers, worse than that of our grandsires, has produced us who are yet\nbaser, and who are doomed to give birth to a still more degraded\noffspring.\" But fifty years later it seemed to Juvenal that in his times\nthe very final goal of iniquity had been attained, and he exclaims, in a\nburst of despair, that \"posterity will add _nothing_ to our immorality;\nour descendents can but do and desire the same crimes as ourselves.\" He\nwho would see but for a moment and afar off to what the Gentile world\nhad sunk, at the very period when Christianity began to spread, may form\nsome faint and shuddering conception from the picture of it drawn in the\nEpistle to the Romans.\n\nWe ought to realize this fact if we would judge of Seneca aright. Let us\nthen glance at the condition of the society in the midst of which he\nlived. Happily we can but glance at it. The worst cannot be told. Crimes\nmay be spoken of; but things monstrous and inhuman should for ever be\nconcealed. We can but stand at the cavern's mouth, and cast a single ray\nof light into its dark depths. Were we to enter, our lamp would be\nquenched by the foul things which would cluster round it.\n\nIn the age of Augustus began that \"long slow agony,\" that melancholy\nprocess of a society gradually going to pieces under the dissolving\ninfluence of its own vices which lasted almost without interruption till\nnothing was left for Rome except the fire and sword of barbaric\ninvasions. She saw not only her glories but also her virtues \"star by\nstar expire.\" The old heroism, the old beliefs, the old manliness and\nsimplicity, were dead and gone; they had been succeeded by prostration\nand superstition by luxury and lust.\n\n     \"There is the moral of all human tales,\n     'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,\n     First freedom, and then glory; when that fails,\n     Wealth, vice, corruption,--barbarism at last:\n     And history, with all her volumes vast,\n     Hath but one page; 'tis better written here\n     Where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed\n     All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,\n     Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask.\"\n\nThe mere elements of society at Rome during this period were very\nunpromising. It was a mixture of extremes. There was no middle class. At\nthe head of it was an emperor, often deified in his lifetime, and\nseparated from even the noblest of the senators by a distance of\nimmeasurable superiority. He, was, in the startling language of Gibbon,\nat once \"a priest, an atheist, and a god.\" [8] Surrounding his person and\nforming his court were usually those of the nobility who were the most\nabsolutely degraded by their vices, their flatteries, or their abject\nsubservience. But even these men were not commonly the repositories of\npolitical power. The people of the greatest influence were the freedmen\nof the emperors--men who had been slaves, Egyptians and Bithynians who\nhad come to Rome with bored ears and with chalk on their naked feet to\nshow that they were for sale, or who had bawled \"sea-urchins all alive\"\nin the Velabrum or the Saburra--who had acquired enormous wealth by\nmeans often the most unscrupulous and the most degraded, and whose\ninsolence and baseness had kept pace with their rise to power. Such a\nman was the Felix before whom St. Paul was tried, and such was his\nbrother Pallas,[9] whose golden statue might have been seen among the\nhousehold gods of the senator, afterwards the emperor, Vitellius.\nAnother of them might often have been observed parading the streets\nbetween two consuls. Imagine an Edward II. endowed with absolute and\nunquestioned powers of tyranny,--imagine some pestilent Piers Gaveston,\nor Hugh de le Spenser exercising over nobles and people a hideous\ndespotism of the back stairs,--and you have some faint picture of the\ngovernment of Rome under some of the twelve Caesars. What the barber\nOlivier le Diable was under Louis XI., what Mesdames du Barri and\nPompadour were under Louis XV., what the infamous Earl of Somerset was\nunder James I., what George Villiers became under Charles I., will\nfurnish us with a faint analogy of the far more exaggerated and\ndetestable position held by the freedman Glabrio under Domitian, by the\nactor Tigellinus under Nero, by Pallus and Narcissus under Claudius, by\nthe obscure knight Sejanus under the iron tyranny of the\ngloomy Tiberius.\n\n[Footnote 8:\n                               \"To the sound\n     Of fifes and drums they danced, or in the shade\n     Sung Caesar great and terrible in war,\n     Immortal Caesar! 'Lo, a god! a god!\n     He cleaves the yielding skies!' Caesar meanwhile\n     Gathers the ocean pebbles, or the gnat\n     Enraged pursues; or at his lonely meal\n     Starves a wide province; tastes, dislikes, and flings\n     To dogs and sycophants. 'A god! a god!'\n     The flowery shades and shrines obscene return.\"\n     DYER, _Ruins of Rome_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The pride of this man was such that he never deigned to\nspeak a word in the presence of his own slaves, but only made known his\nwishes by signs!--TACITUS.]\n\nI. It was an age of the most enormous wealth existing side by side with\nthe most abject poverty. Around the splendid palaces wandered hundreds\nof mendicants, who made of their mendicity a horrible trade, and even\nwent so far as to steal or mutilate infants in order to move compassion\nby their hideous maladies. This class was increased by the exposure of\nchildren, and by that overgrown accumulation of landed property which\ndrove the poor from their native fields. It was increased also by the\nambitious attempt of people whose means were moderate to imitate the\nenormous display of the numerous millionaires. The great Roman conquests\nin the East, the plunder of the ancient kingdoms of Antiochus, of\nAttalus, of Mithridates, had caused a turbid stream of wealth to flow\ninto the sober current of Roman life. One reads with silent astonishment\nof the sums expended by wealthy Romans on their magnificence or their\npleasures. And as commerce was considered derogatory to rank and\nposition, and was therefore pursued by men who had no character to lose,\nthese overgrown fortunes were often acquired by wretches of the meanest\nstamp--by slaves brought from over the sea, who had to conceal the holes\nbored in their ears;[10] or even by malefactors who had to obliterate,\nby artificial means, the three letters[11] which had been branded by the\nexecutioner on their foreheads. But many of the richest men in Rome, who\nhad not sprung from this convict origin, were fully as well deserving of\nthe same disgraceful stigma. Their houses were built, their coffers were\nreplenished, from the drained resources of exhausted provincials. Every\nyoung man of active ambition or noble birth, whose resources had been\nimpoverished by debauchery and extravagance, had but to borrow fresh\nsums in order to give magnificent gladiatorial shows, and then, if he\ncould once obtain an aedileship, and mount to the higher offices of the\nState, he would in time become the procurator or proconsul of a\nprovince, which he might pillage almost at his will. Enter the house of\na Felix or a Verres. Those splendid pillars of mottled green marble were\ndug by the forced labour of Phrygians from the quarry of Synnada; that\nembossed silver, those murrhine vases, those jeweled cups, those\nmasterpieces of antique sculpture, have all been torn from the homes or\nthe temples of Sicily or Greece. Countries were pilaged and nations\ncrushed that an Apicius might dissolve pearls[12] in the wine he drank,\nor that Lollia Paulina might gleam in a second-best dress of emeralds\nand pearls which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or more than\n32,000_l_.[13]\n\n[Footnote 10: This was a common ancient practice; the very words\n\"thrall,\" \"thralldom,\" are etymologically connected with the roots\n\"thrill,\" \"trill,\" \"drill,\" (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut.\n_Cic_. 26; and Juv. _Sat_. i. 104.)]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Fur_, \"thief.\" (See Martial, ii. 29.)]\n\n[Footnote 12: \"Dissolved pearls, Apicius' diet 'gainst the\nepilepsy.\"--BEN JONSON.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Pliny actually saw her thus arrayed. (Nat. Hist. ix. 35,\n36.)]\n\nEach of these \"gorgeous criminals\" lived in the midst of an humble\ncrowd of flatterers, parasites, clients, dependents, and slaves. Among\nthe throng that at early morning jostled each other in the marble\n_atrium_ were to be found a motley and hetrogeneous set of men. Slaves\nof every age and nation--Germans, Egyptians, Gauls, Goths, Syrians,\nBritons, Moors, pampered and consequential freedmen, impudent\nconfidential servants, greedy buffoons, who lived by making bad jokes at\nother people's tables; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a\ntrade; philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length of\ntheir beards; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, ready to\nflatter and lie with consummate skill, and spreading their vile\ncharacter like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a\nnumber of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a\nthousand forms of contumely[14] and insult, and living in discontented\nidleness on the _sportula_ or daily largesse which was administered by\nthe grudging liberality of their haughty patrons. The stout old Roman\nburgher had well-nigh disappeared; the sturdy independence, the manly\nself-reliance of an industrial population were all but unknown. The\ninsolent loungers who bawled in the Forum were often mere stepsons of\nItaly, who had been dragged thither in chains,--the dregs of all\nnations, which had flowed into Rome as into a common sewer,[15] bringing\nwith them no heritage except the specialty of their national vices.\nTheir two wants were bread and the shows of the circus; so long as the\n_sportula_ of their patron, the occasional donative of an emperor, and\nthe ambition of political candidates supplied these wants, they lived in\ncontented abasement, anxious neither for liberty nor for power.\n\n[Footnote 14: Few of the many sad pictures in the _Satires_ of Juvenal\nare more pitiable than that of the wretched \"Quirites\" struggling at\ntheir patrons' doors for the pittance which formed their daily dole.\n(Sat i. 101.)]\n\n[Footnote 15: See Juv. _Sat_. iii. 62. Scipio, on being interrupted by\nthe mob in the Forum, exclaimed,--\"Silence, ye stepsons of Italy! What!\nshall I fear these fellows now they are free, whom I myself have brought\nin chains to Rome?\" (See Cic. _De Orat_. ii. 61.)]\n\nII. It was an age at once of atheism and superstition. Strange to say,\nthe two things usually go together. Just as Philippe Egalit\u00e9, Duke of\nOrleans, disbelieved in God, and yet tried to conjecture his fate from\nthe inspection of coffee-grounds at the bottom of a cup,--just as Louis\nXI. shrank from no perjury and no crime, and yet retained a profound\nreverence for a little leaden image which he carried in his cap,--so the\nRomans under the Empire sneered at all the whole crowd of gods and\ngoddesses whom their fathers had worshipped, but gave an implicit\ncredence to sorcerers, astrologers, spirit-rappers, exorcists, and every\nspecies of imposter and quack. The ceremonies of religion were performed\nwith ritualistic splendour, but all belief in religion was dead and\ngone. \"That there are such things as ghosts and subterranean realms not\neven boys believe,\" says Juvenal, \"except those who are still too young\nto pay a farthing for a bath.\" [16] Nothing can exceed the cool\nimpertinence with which the poet Martial prefers the favour of Domitian\nto that of the great Jupiter of the Capitol. Seneca, in his lost book\n\"Against Superstitions,\"[17] openly sneered at the old mythological\nlegends of gods married and gods unmarried, and at the gods Panic and\nPaleness, and at Cloacina, the goddess of sewers, and at other deities\nwhose cruelty and license would have been infamous even in mankind. And\nyet the priests, and Salii, and Flamens, and Augurs continued to fulfil\ntheir solemn functions, and the highest title of the Emperor himself was\nthat of _Pontifex Maximus_, or Chief Priest, which he claimed as the\nrecognized head of the national religion. \"The common worship was\nregarded,\" says Gibbon, \"by the people as equally true, by the\nphilosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally\nuseful.\" And this famous remark is little more than a translation from\nSeneca, who, after exposing the futility of the popular beliefs, adds:\n\"And yet the wise man will observe them all, not as pleasing to the\ngods, but as commanded by the laws. We shall so adore _all that ignoble\ncrowd of gods_ which long superstition has heaped together in a long\nperiod of years, as to remember that their worship has more to do with\ncustom than with reality.\" \"Because he was an illustrious senator of the\nRoman people,\" observes St. Augustine, who has preserved for us this\nfragment, \"he worshipped what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he\nadored that with which he found fault.\" Could anything be more hollow or\nheartless than this? Is there anything which is more certain to sap the\nvery foundations of morality than the public maintenance of a creed\nwhich has long ceased to command the assent, and even the respect of its\nrecognized defenders? Seneca, indeed, and a few enlightened\nphilosophers, might have taken refuge from the superstitions which they\nabandoned in a truer and purer form of faith. \"Accordingly,\" says\nLactantius, one of the Christian Fathers, \"he has said many things like\nourselves concerning God.\" [18] He utters what Tertullian finely calls\n\"the testimony of A MIND NATURALLY CHRISTIAN.\" But, meanwhile, what\nbecame of the common multitude? They too, like their superiors, learnt\nto disbelieve or to question the power of the ancient deities; but, as\nthe mind absolutely requires _some_ religion on which to rest, they gave\ntheir real devotion to all kinds of strange and foreign deities,--to\nIsis and Osiris, and the dog Anubus, to Chaldaean magicians, to Jewish\nexercisers, to Greek quacks, and to the wretched vagabond priests of\nCybele, who infested all the streets with their Oriental dances and\ntinkling tambourines. The visitor to the ruins of Pompeii may still see\nin her temple the statue of Isis, through whose open lips the gaping\nworshippers heard the murmured answers they came to seek. No doubt they\nbelieved as firmly that the image spoke, as our forefathers believed\nthat their miraculous Madonnas nodded and winked. But time has exposed\nthe cheat. By the ruined shrine the worshipper may now see the secret\nsteps by which the priest got to the back of the statue, and the pipe\nentering the back of its head through which he whispered the answers of\nthe oracle.\n\n[Footnote 16: JUV. _Sat_. ii. 149. Cf. Sen. _Ep_. xxiv. \"Nemo tam puer\nest at Cerberum timeat, et tenebras,\" &c.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Fragm. xxxiv.]\n\n[Footnote 18: Lactantius, _Divin. Inst_. i. 4.]\n\nIII. It was an age of boundless luxury,--an age in which women\nrecklessly vied with one another in the race of splendour and\nextravagance, and in which men plunged headlong, without a single\nscruple of conscience, and with every possible resource at their\ncommand, into the pursuit of pleasure. There was no form of luxury,\nthere was no refinement of vice invented by any foreign nation, which\nhad not been eagerly adopted by the Roman patricians. \"The softness of\nSybaris, the manners of Rhodes and Antioch, and of perfumed, drunken,\nflower-crowned Miletus,\" were all to be found at Rome. There was no\nmore of the ancient Roman severity and dignity and self-respect. The\ndescendants of Aemilius and Gracchus--even generals and consuls and\npraetors--mixed familiarly with the lowest _canaille_ of Rome in their\nvilest and most squalid purlieus of shameless vice. They fought as\namateur gladiators in the arena. They drove as competing charioteers on\nthe race-course. They even condescended to appear as actors on the\nstage. They devoted themselves with such frantic eagerness to the\nexcitement of gambling, that we read of their staking hundreds of pounds\non a single throw of the dice, when they could not even restore the\npawned tunics to their shivering slaves. Under the cold marble statues,\nor amid the waxen likenesses of their famous stately ancestors, they\nturned night into day with long and foolish orgies, and exhausted land\nand sea with the demands of their gluttony. \"Woe to that city,\" says an\nancient proverb, \"in which a fish costs more than an ox;\" and this\nexactly describes the state of Rome. A banquet would sometimes cost the\nprice of an estate; shell-fish were brought from remote and unknown\nshores, birds from Parthia and the banks of the Phasis; single dishes\nwere made of the brains of the peacocks and the tongues of nightingales\nand flamingoes. Apicius, after squandering nearly a million of money in\nthe pleasures of the table, committed suicide, Seneca tells us, because\nhe found that he had only 80,000_l_. left. Cowley speaks of--\n\n     \"Vitellius' table, which did hold\n      As many creatures as the ark of old.\"\n\n\"They eat,\" said Seneca, \"and then they vomit; they vomit, and then\nthey eat.\" But even in this matter we cannot tell anything like the\nworst facts about--\n\n     \"Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts\n      On citron tables and Atlantic stone,\n      Their wines of Setia, Gales, and Falerne,\n      Chios, and Crete, and how they quaff in gold,\n      Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems\n      And studs of pearl.\" [19]\n\nStill less can we pretend to describe the unblushing and unutterable\ndegradation of this period as it is revealed to us by the poets and the\nsatirists. \"All things,\" says Seneca, \"are full of iniquity and vice;\nmore crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint. We struggle\nin a huge contest of criminality: daily the passion for sin is greater,\nthe shame in committing it is less.... Wickedness is no longer committed\nin secret: it flaunts before our eyes, and\n\n     \"The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems,\n                      ... whatever is known\n      Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs,\n      Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food,\n      And flavoured Chian wines, with incense fumed,\n      To slake patrician thirst: for these their rights\n      In the vile atreets they prostitute for sale,\n      Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws,\n      Their native glorious freedom.\n\nhas been sent forth so openly into public sight, and has prevailed so\ncompletely in the breast of all, that innocence is not _rare_, but\n_non-existent_.\"\n\n[Footnote 19: Compare the lines in Dyer's little-remembered _Ruins of\nRome_.]\n\nIV. And it was an age of deep sadness. That it should have been so is an\ninstructive and solemn lesson. In proportion to the luxury of the age\nwere its misery and its exhaustion. The mad pursuit of pleasure was the\ndeath and degradation of all true happiness. Suicide--suicide out of\npure _ennui_ and discontent at a life overflowing with every possible\nmeans of indulgence--was extraordinarily prevalent. The Stoic\nphilosophy, especially as we see it represented in the tragedies\nattributed to Seneca, rang with the glorification of it. Men ran to\ndeath because their mode of life had left them no other refuge. They\ndied because it seemed so tedious and so superfluous to be seeing and\ndoing and saying the same things over and over again; and because they\nhad exhausted the very possibility of the only pleasures of which they\nhad left themselves capable. The satirical epigram of Destouches,--\n\n     \"Ci-g\u00eet Jean Rosbif, \u00e9cuyer,\n      Qui se pendit pour se d\u00e9sennuyer,\"\n\nwas literally and strictly true of many Romans during this epoch.\nMarcellinus, a young and wealthy noble, starved himself, and then had\nhimself suffocated in a warm bath, merely because he was attacked with a\nperfectly curable illness. The philosophy which alone professed itself\nable to heal men's sorrows applauded the supposed courage of a voluntary\ndeath, and it was of too abstract, too fantastic, and too purely\ntheoretical a character to furnish them with any real or lasting\nconsolations. No sentiment caused more surprise to the Roman world than\nthe famous one preserved in the fragment of Maecenas,--\n\n     \"Debilem facito manu,\n        Debilem pede, cox\u00e2,\n      Tuber adstrue gibberum,\n        Lubricos quate dentes;\n      Vita dum superest bene est;\n        Hanc mihi vel acut\u00e2\n      Si sedeam cruce sustine;\"\n\nwhich may be paraphrased,--\n\n     \"Numb my hands with palsy,\n        Rack my feet with gout,\n      Hunch my back and shoulder,\n        Let my teeth fall out;\n      Still, if _Life_ be granted,\n        I prefer the loss;\n      Save my life, and give me\n        Anguish on the cross.\"\n\nSeneca, in his 101st Letter, calls this \"a most disgraceful and most\ncontemptible wish;\" but it may be paralleled out of Euripides, and still\nmore closely out of Homer. \"Talk not,\" says the shade of Achilles to\nUlysses in the Odyssey,--\n\n     \"'Talk not of reigning in this dolorous gloom,\n      Nor think vain lies,' he cried, 'can ease my doom.\n      _Better by far laboriously to bear\n      A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air,\n      Slave to the meanest hind that begs his bread,\n      Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead_.'\"\n\nBut this falsehood of extremes was one of the sad outcomes of the\npopular Paganism. Either, like the natural savage, they dreaded death\nwith an intensity of terror; or, when their crimes and sorrows had made\nlife unsupportable, they slank to it as a refuge, with a cowardice which\nvaunted itself as courage.\n\nV. And it was an age of cruelty. The shows of gladiators, the sanguinary\ncombats of wild beasts, the not unfrequent spectacle of savage tortures\nand capital punishments, the occasional sight of innocent martyrs\nburning to death in their shirts of pitchy fire, must have hardened and\nimbruted the public sensibility. The immense prevalence of slavery\ntended still more inevitably to the general corruption. \"Lust,\" as\nusual, was \"hard by hate.\" One hears with perfect amazement of the\nnumber of slaves in the wealthy houses. A thousand slaves was no\nextravagant number, and the vast majority of them were idle, uneducated\nand corrupt. Treated as little better than animals, they lost much of\nthe dignity of men. Their masters possessed over them the power of life\nand death, and it is shocking to read of the cruelty with which they\nwere often treated. An accidental murmur, a cough, a sneeze, was\npunished with rods. Mute, motionless, fasting, the slaves had to stand\nby while their masters supped; A brutal and stupid barbarity often\nturned a house into the shambles of an executioner, sounding with\nscourges, chains, and yells.[20] One evening the Emperor Augustus was\nsupping at the house of Vedius Pollio, when one of the slaves, who was\ncarrying a crystal goblet, slipped down, and broke it. Transported with\nrage Vedius at once ordered the slave to be seized, and plunged into the\nfish-pond as food to the lampreys. The boy escaped from the hands of his\nfellow-slaves, and fled to Caesar's feet to implore, not that his life\nshould be spared--a pardon which he neither expected nor hoped--but that\nhe might die by a mode of death less horrible than being devoured by\nfishes. Common as it was to torment slaves, and to put them to death,\nAugustus, to his honor be it spoken, was horrified by the cruelty of\nVedius, and commanded both that the slave should be set free, that every\ncrystal vase in the house of Vedius should be broken in his presence and\nthat the fish pond should be filled up. Even women inflicted upon their\nfemale slaves punishments of the most cruel atrocity for faults of the\nmost venial character. A brooch wrongly placed, a tress of hair\nill-arranged, and the enraged matron orders her slave to be lashed and\ncrucified. If her milder husband interferes, she not only justifies the\ncruelty, but asks in amazement: \"What! is a slave so much of a human\nbeing?\" No wonder that there was a proverb, \"As many slaves, so many\nfoes.\" No wonder that many masters lived in perpetual fear, and that\n\"the tyrant's devilish plea, necessity,\" might be urged in favor of that\nodious law which enacted that, if a master was murdered by an unknown\nhand, the whole body of his slaves should suffer death,--a law which\nmore than once was carried into effect under the reigns of the Emperors.\nSlavery, as we see in the case of Sparta and many other nations, always\ninvolves its own retribution. The class of free peasant proprietors\ngradually disappears. Long before this time Tib. Gracchus, in coming\nhome from Sardinia, had observed that there was scarcely a single\nfreeman to be seen in the fields. The slaves were infinitely more\nnumerous than their owners. Hence arose the constant dread of servile\ninsurrections; the constant hatred of a slave population to which any\nconspirator revolutionist might successfully appeal; and the constant\ninsecurity of life, which must have struck terror into many hearts.\n\n[Footnote 20: Juv. _Sat_. i. 219--222.]\n\nSuch is but a faint and broad outline of some of the features of\nSeneca's age; and we shall be unjust if we do not admit that much at\nleast of the life he lived, and nearly all the sentiments he uttered,\ngain much in grandeur and purity from the contrast they offer to the\ncommon life of--\n\n     \"That people victor once, now vile and base,\n      Deservedly made vassal, who, once just,\n      Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well,\n      But govern ill the nations under yoke,\n      Peeling their provinces, exhausted all\n      By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown\n      Of triumph, that insulting vanity;\n      Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured\n      Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed,\n      Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still,\n      And from the daily scene effeminate.\n      What wise and valient men would seek to free\n      These thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved;\n      Or could of inward slaves make outward free?\"\n           MILTON, _Paradise Regained_, iv. 132-145.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nPOLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME UNDER TIBERIUS AND CAIUS.\n\nThe personal notices of Seneca's life up to the period of his manhood\nare slight and fragmentary. From an incidental expression we conjecture\nthat he visited his aunt in Egypt when her husband was Prefect of that\ncountry, and that he shared with her the dangers of shipwreck when her\nhusband had died on board ship during the homeward voyage. Possibly the\nvisit may have excited in his mind that deep interest and curiosity\nabout the phenomena of the Nile which appear so strongly in several\npassages of his _Natural Questions_; and, indeed nothing is more likely\nthan that he suggested to Nero the earliest recorded expedition to\ndiscover the source of the mysterious river. No other allusion to his\ntravels occur in his writings, but we may infer that from very early\ndays he had felt an interest for physical inquiry, since while still a\nyouth he had written a book on earthquakes; which has not come down\nto us.\n\nDeterred by his father from the pursuit of philosophy, he entered on the\nduties of a profession. He became an advocate, and distinguished himself\nby his genius and eloquence in pleading causes. Entering on a political\ncareer, he became a successful candidate for the quaestorship, which\nwas an important step towards the highest offices of the state. During\nthis period of his life he married a lady whose name has not been\npreserved to us, and to whom we have only one allusion, which is a\ncurious one. As in our own history it has been sometimes the fashion for\nladies of rank to have dwarves and negroes among their attendants, so it\nseems to have been the senseless and revolting custom of the Roman\nladies of this time to keep idiots among the number of their servants.\nThe first wife of Seneca had followed this fashion, and Seneca in his\nfiftieth letter to his friend Lucilius[21] makes the following\ninteresting allusion to the fact. \"You know,\" he says, \"that my wife's\nidiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy. For\npersonally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind.\nIf ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for\none. I laugh at myself. This idiot girl has suddenly become blind. Now,\nincredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious\nof her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere,\nbecause the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we\nlaugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is\navaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide; _we_ wander about\nwithout a guide.\"\n\n[Footnote 21: It will be observed that the main biographical facts about\nthe life of Seneca are to be gleaned from his letters to Lucilius, who\nwas his constant friend from youth to old age, and to whom he has\ndedicated his Natural Questions. Lucilius was a procurator of Sicily, a\nman of cultivated taste and high principle. He was the author of a poem\non Aetna, which in the opinion of many competent judges is the poem\nwhich has come down to us, and has been attributed to Varus, Virgil, and\nothers. It has been admirably edited by Mr. Munro. (See _Nat. Quaest._,\niv. _ad init. Ep_. lxxix.) He also wrote a poem on the fountain\nArethusa. _(Nat. Quaest_. iii, 26.)]\n\nThis passage will furnish us with an excellent example of Seneca's\ninvariable method of improving every occasion and circumstance into an\nopportunity for a philosophic harangue.\n\nBy this wife, who died shortly before Seneca's banishment to Corsica, he\nhad two sons, one of whom expired in the arms and amid the kisses of\nHelvia less than a month before Seneca's departure for Corsica. To the\nother, whose name was Marcus, he makes the following pleasant allusion.\nAfter urging his mother Helvia to find consolation in the devotion of\nhis brothers Gallio and Mela, he adds, \"From these turn your eyes also\non your grandsons--to Marcus, that most charming little boy, in sight of\nwhom no melancholy can last long. No misfortune in the breast of any one\ncan have been so great or so recent as not to be soothed by his\ncaresses. Whose tears would not his mirth repress? whose mind would not\nhis prattling loose from the pressure of anxiety? whom will not that\njoyous manner of his incline to jesting? whose attention, even though he\nbe fixed in thought, will not be attracted and absorbed by that\nchildlike garrulity of which no one can grow tired? God grant that he\nmay survive me: may all the cruelty of destiny be weared out on me!\"\n\nWhether the prayer of Seneca was granted we do not know; but, as we do\nnot again hear of Marcus, it is probable that he died before his father,\nand that the line of Seneca, like that of so many great men, became\nextinct in the second generation.\n\nIt was probably during this period that Seneca laid the foundations of\nthat enormous fortune which excited the hatred and ridicule of his\nopponents. There is every reason to believe that this fortune was\nhonourably gained. As both his father and mother were wealthy, he had\ndoubtless inherited an ample competency; this was increased by the\nlucrative profession of a successful advocate, and was finally swollen\nby the princely donations of his pupil Nero. It is not improbable that\nSeneca, like Cicero, and like all the wealthy men of their day,\nincreased his property by lending money upon interest. No disgrace\nattached to such a course; and as there is no proof for the charges of\nDio Cassius on this head, we may pass them over with silent contempt.\nDio gravely informs us that Seneca excited an insurrection in Britain,\nby suddenly calling in the enormous sum of 40,000,000 sesterces; but\nthis is in all probability the calumny of a professed enemy. We shall\nrefer again to Seneca's wealth; but we may here admit that it was\nundoubtedly ungraceful and incongruous in a philosopher who was\nperpetually dwelling on the praises of poverty, and that even in his own\nage it attracted unfavourable notice, as we may see from the epithet\n_Proedives_, \"the over-wealthy,\" which is applied to him alike by a\nsatiric poet and by a grave historian. Seneca was perfectly well aware\nthat this objection could be urged against him, and it must be admitted\nthat the grounds on which he defends himself in his treatise _On a Happy\nLife_ are not very conclusive or satisfactory.\n\nThe boyhood of Seneca fell in the last years of the Emperor Augustus,\nwhen, in spite of the general decorum and amiability of their ruler,\npeople began to see clearly that nothing was left of liberty except the\nname. His youth and early manhood were spent during those\nthree-and-twenty years of the reign of Tiberius, that reign of terror,\nduring which the Roman world was reduced to a frightful silence and\ntorpor as of death;[22] and, although he was not thrown into personal\ncollision with that \"brutal monster,\" he not unfrequently alludes to\nhim, and to the dangerous power and headlong ruin of his wicked minister\nSejanus. Up to this time he had not experienced in his own person those\ncrimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who are brought into\nclose contact with tyrants. This first happened to him in the reign of\nCaius Caesar, of whom we are enabled, from the writings of Seneca alone,\nto draw a full-length portrait.\n\n[Footnote 22: Milton, _Paradise Regained_, iv. 128. For a picture of\nTiberius as he appeared in his old age at Capreae, \"hated of all and\nhating,\" see Id. 90-97.]\n\nCaius Caesar was the son of Germanicus and the elder Agrippina.\nGermanicus was the bravest and most successful general, and one of the\nwisest and most virtuous men, of his day. His wife Agrippina, in her\nfidelity, her chastity, her charity, her nobility of mind, was the very\nmodel of a Roman matron of the highest and purest stamp. Strange that\nthe son of such parents should have been one of the vilest, cruelest,\nand foulest of the human race. So, however, it was; and it is a\nremarkable fact that scarcely one of the six children of this marriage\ndisplayed the virtues of their father and mother, while two of them,\nCaius Caesar and the younger Agrippina, lived to earn an exceptional\ninfamy by their baseness and their crimes. Possibly this unhappy result\nmay have been partly due to the sad circumstances of their early\neducation. Their father, Germanicus, who by his virtue and his successes\nhad excited the suspicious jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, was by his\ndistinct connivance, if not by his actual suggestion, atrociously\npoisoned in Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless cruel\ninsults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the island of\nPandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and Drusus Germanicus, were\nproclaimed public enemies: Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and\nthere put to death; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison\nof the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known by the name\nCaligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his wicked retirement at Capreae,\nand there only saved his life by the most abject flattery and the most\nadroit submission.\n\nCapreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming one\nextremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea bright and\nlimpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated by its position, it is\nyet within easy reach of Rome. At that time, before Vesuvius had\nrekindled those wasteful fires which first shook down, and then deluged\nunder lava and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii,\nthe scene which it commanded was even more pre-eminently beautiful than\nnow. Vineyards and olive-groves clothed the sides of that matchless bay,\ndown to the very line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with\ntheir ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, with its\nsides dotted with picturesque villas and happy villages, towered the\ngiant cone of the volcano which for centuries had appeared to be\nextinct, and which was clothed up to the very crater with luxurious\nvegetation. Such was the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for\never by the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself to every\nrefinement of wickedness, and from hence, being by common consent the\nmost miserable of men, he wrote to the Senate that memorable letter in\nwhich he confesses his daily and unutterable misery under the stings of\na guilty conscience, which neither solitude nor power enabled him\nto escape.\n\nNever did a fairer scene undergo a worse degradation; and here, in one\nor other of the twelve villas which Tiberius had built, and among the\nazure grottoes which he caused to be constructed, the youthful Caius[23]\ngrew up to manhood. It would have been a terrible school even for a\nnoble nature; for a nature corrupt and bloodthirsty like that of Caius\nit was complete and total ruin. But, though he was so obsequious to the\nEmperor as to originate the jest that never had there been a worse\nmaster and never a more cringing slave,--though he suppressed every sign\nof indignation at the horrid deaths of his mother and his\nbrothers,--though he assiduously reflected the looks, and carefully\nechoed the very words, of his patron,--yet not even by the deep\ndissimulation which such a position required did he succeed in\nconcealing from the penetrating eye of Tiberius the true ferocity of his\ncharacter. Not being the acknowledged heir to the kingdom,--for Tiberius\nGemellus, the youthful grandson of Tiberius, was living, and Caius was\nby birth only his grand-nephew,--he became a tool for the machinations\nof Marco the praetorian praefect and his wife Ennia. One of his chief\nfriends was the cruel Herod Agrippa,[24] who put to death St. James and\nimprisoned St. Peter, and whose tragical fate is recorded in the 12th\nchap. of the Acts. On one occasion, when Caius had been abusing the\ndictator Sulla, Tiberius scornfully remarked that he would have all\nSulla's vices and none of his virtues; and on another, after a quarrel\nbetween Caius and his cousin, the Emperor embraced with tears his young\ngrandson, and said to the frowning Caius, with one of those strange\nflashes of prevision of which we sometimes read in history. \"Why are you\nso eager? Some day you will kill this boy, and some one else will murder\nyou.\" There were some who believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished\nthe intention of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman\nworld might relent towards his own memory under the tyranny of a worse\nmonster than himself. Even the Romans, who looked up to the family of\nGermanicus with extraordinary affection, seem early to have lost all\nhopes about Caius. They looked for little improvement under the\ngovernment of a vicious boy, \"ignorant of all things, or nurtured only\nin the worst,\" who would be likely to reflect the influence of Macro,\nand present the spectacle of a worse Tiberius under a worse Sejanus.\n\n[Footnote 23: We shall call him Caius, because it is as little correct\nto write of him by the _sobriquet_ Caligula as it would be habitually to\nwrite of our kings Edward or John as Longshanks or Lackland. The name\nCaligula means \"a little shoe,\" and was the pet name given to him by the\nsoldiers of his father, in whose camp he was born.]\n\n[Footnote 24: Josephus adds some curious and interesting particulars to\nthe story of this Herod and his death which are not mentioned in the\nnarrative of St. Luke (_Antiq_. xix. 7, 8. Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_,\n\u00a7 cxxvi.)]\n\nAt last health and strength failed Tiberius, but not his habitual\ndissimulation. He retained the same unbending soul, and by his fixed\ncountenance and measured language, sometimes by an artificial\naffability, he tried to conceal his approaching end. After many restless\nchanges, he finally settled down in a villa at Misenum which had once\nbelonged to the luxurious Lucullus. There the real state of his health\nwas discovered. Charicles, a distinguished physician, who had been\npaying him a friendly visit on kissing his hand to bid farewell, managed\nto ascertain the state of his pulse. Suspecting that this was the case\nTiberius, concealing his displeasure, ordered a banquet to be spread,\nas though in honour of his friend's departure, and stayed longer than\nusual at table. A similar story is told of Louis XIV. who, noticing from\nthe whispers of his courtiers that they believed him to be dying, ate an\nunusually large dinner on the very day of his death, and sarcastically\nobserved, \"Il me semble que pour un homme qui va mourir je ne mange pas\nmal.\" But, in spite of the precautions of Tiberius, Charicles informed\nMacro that the Emperor could not last beyond two days.\n\nA scene of secret intrigue at once began. The court broke up into knots\nand cliques. Hasty messengers were sent to the provinces and their\narmies, until at last, on the 16th of March, it was believed that\nTiberius had breathed his last. Just as on the death of Louis XV. a\nsudden noise was heard as of thunder, the sound of courtiers rushing\nalong the corridors to congratulate Louis XVI. in the famous words, \"Le\nroi est mort, vive le roi,\" so a crowd instantly thronged round Caius\nwith their congratulations, as he went out of the palace to assume his\nimperial authority. Suddenly a message reached him that Tiberius had\nrecovered voice and sight. Seneca says, that feeling his last hour to be\nnear, he had taken off his ring, and, holding it in his shut left hand,\nhad long lain motionless; then calling his servants, since no one\nanswered his call, he rose from his couch, and, his strength failing\nhim, after a few tottering steps fell prostrate on the ground.\n\nThe news produced the same consternation as that which was produced\namong the conspirators at Adonijah's banquet, when they heard of the\nmeasures taken by the dying David. There was a panic-stricken\ndispersion, and every one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what\nwas going on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of\nempire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind. With the utmost\nintrepidity, he gave orders that the old man should be suffocated by\nheaping over him a mass of clothes, and that every one should then leave\nthe chamber. Such was the miserable and unpitied end of the Emperor\nTiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Such was the death, and\nso miserable had been the life, of the man to whom the Tempter had\nalready given \"the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them,\" when he\ntried to tempt with them the Son of God. That this man should have been\nthe chief Emperor of the earth at a time when its true King was living\nas a peasant in his village home at Nazareth, is a fact suggestive of\nmany and of solemn thoughts.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE REIGN OF CAIUS.\n\nThe poet Gray, in describing the deserted deathbed of our own great\nEdward III., says:--\n\n     \"Low on his funeral couch he lies!\n      No pitying heart, no eye afford\n      A tear to grace his obsequies!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"The swarm that in the noontide beam were born?\n      Gone to salute the rising Morn.\n      Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the zephyr blows,\n      While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,\n      In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;\n      Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm;\n      Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway,\n    That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.\"\n\nThe last lines of this passage would alone have been applicable to Caius\nCaesar. There was nothing fair or gay even about the beginning of his\nreign. From first to last it was a reign of fury and madness, and lust\nand blood. There was an hereditary taint of insanity in this family,\nwhich was developed by their being placed on the dizzy pinnacle of\nimperial despotism, and which usually took the form of monstrous and\nabnormal crime. If we would seek a parallel for Caius Caesar, we must\nlook for it in the history of Christian VII. of Denmark, and Paul of\nRussia. In all three we find the same ghastly pallor, the same\nsleeplessness which compelled them to rise, and pace their rooms at\nnight, the same incessant suspicion; the same inordinate thirst for\ncruelty and torture. He took a very early opportunity to disembarrass\nhimself of his benefactors, Macro and Ennia, and of his rival, the young\nTiberius. The rest of his reign was a series of brutal extravagances. We\nhave lost the portion of those matchless Annals of Tacitus which\ncontained the reign of Caius, but more than enough to revolt and horrify\nis preserved in the scattered notices of Seneca, and in the narratives\nof Suetonius in Latin and Dio Cassius in Greek.\n\nHis madness showed itself sometimes in gluttonous extravagance, as when\nhe ordered a supper which cost more than 8,000_l_; sometimes in a\n_bizarre_ and disgraceful mode of dress, as when he appeared in public\nin women's stockings, embroidered with gold and pearls; sometimes in a\npersonality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank and class in\nRome, which made him ask a senator to supper, and ply him with drunken\ntoasts, on the very evening on which he had condemned his son to death;\nsometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed his furious\nindignation against Jupiter for presuming to thunder while he was\nsupping, or looking at the pantomimes; but most of all in a ferocity\nwhich makes Seneca apply to him the name of \"Bellua,\" or \"wild monster,\"\nand say that he seems to have been produced \"for the disgrace and\ndestruction of the human race.\"\n\nWe will quote from the pages of Seneca but one single passage to justify\nhis remark \"that he was most greedy for human blood, which he ordered\nto stream in his very presence with such eagerness as though he were\ngoing to drink it up with his lips.\" He says that in one day he scourged\nand tortured men of consular and quaestorial parentage, knights and\nsenators, not by way of examination, but out of pure caprice and rage;\nhe seriously meditated the butchery of the entire senate; he expressed a\nwish that the Roman people had but a single neck, that he might strike\nit off at one blow; he silenced the screams or reproaches of his victims\nsometimes by thrusting a sponge in their mouths, sometimes by having\ntheir mouths gagged with their own torn robes, sometimes by ordering\ntheir tongues to be cut out before they were thrown to the wild beasts.\nOn one occasion, rising from a banquet, he called for his slippers,\nwhich were kept by the slaves while the guests reclined on the purple\ncouches, and so impatient was he for the sight of death, that, walking\nup and down his covered portico by lamplight with ladies and senators,\nhe then and there ordered some of his wretched victims to be beheaded in\nhis sight.\n\nIt is a singular proof of the unutterable dread and detestation inspired\nby some of these Caesars, that their mere countenance is said to have\ninspired anguish. Tacitus, in the life of his father-in-law Agricola,\nmentions the shuddering recollection of the red face of Domitian, as it\nlooked on at the games. Seneca speaks in one place of wretches doomed to\nundergo stones, sword, fire, and _Caius_; in another he says that he had\ntortured the noblest Romans with everything which could possibly cause\nthe intensest agony,--with cords, plates, rack, fire, and, as though it\nwere the worst torture of all, with his look! What that look was, we\nlearn from Seneca himself, \"His face was ghastly pale, with a look of\ninsanity; his fierce, dull eyes were half-hidden under a wrinkled brow;\nhis ill-shaped head was partly bald, partly covered with dyed-hair; his\nneck covered with bristles, his legs thin, and his feet mis-shapen.\" Woe\nto the nation that lies under the heel of a brutal despotism; treble woe\nto the nation that can tolerate a despot so brutal as this! Yet this was\nthe nation in the midst of which Seneca lived, and this was the despot\nunder whom his early manhood was spent.\n\n     \"But what more oft in nations grown corrupt,\n      And by their vices brought to servitude,\n      Than to love bondage more than liberty,\n      Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?\"\n\nIt was one of the peculiarities of Caius Caesar that he hated the very\nexistence of any excellence. He used to bully and insult the gods\nthemselves, frowning even at the statues of Apollo and Jupiter of the\nCapitol. He thought of abolishing Homer, and order the works of Livy and\nVirgil to be removed from all libraries, because he could not bear that\nthey should be praised. He ordered Julius Graecinus to be put to death\nfor no other reason than this, \"That he was a better man than it was\nexpedient for a tyrant that any one should be;\" for, as Pliny tells us,\nthe Caesars deliberately preferred that their people should be vicious\nthan that they should be virtuous. It was hardly likely that such a man\nshould view with equanimity the rising splendour of Seneca's reputation.\nHitherto, the young man, who was thirty-five years old at the accession\nof Caius, had not written any of his philosophic works, but in all\nprobability he had published his early, and no longer extant, treatises\non earthquakes, on superstitions, and the books _On India_, and _On the\nManners of Egypt_, which had been the fruit of his early travels. It is\nprobable, too, that he had recited in public some of those tragedies\nwhich have come down to us under his name, and in the composition of\nwhich he was certainly concerned. All these works, and especially the\napplause won by the public reading of his poems, would have given him\nthat high literary reputation which we know him to have earned. It was\nnot, however, this reputation, but the brilliancy and eloquence of his\norations at the bar which excited the jealous hatred of the Emperor.\nCaius piqued himself on the possession of eloquence; and, strange to\nsay, there are isolated expressions of his which seem to show that, in\nlucid intervals, he was by no means devoid of intellectual acuteness.\nFor instance, there is real humour and insight in the nicknames of \"a\ngolden sheep\" which he gave to the rich and placid Silanus, and of\n\"Ulysses in petticoats,\" by which he designated his grandmother, the\naugust Livia. The two epigrammetic criticisms which he passed upon the\nstyle of Seneca are not wholly devoid of truth; he called his works\n_Commissiones meras_, or mere displays.[25] In this expression he hit\noff, happily enough, the somewhat theatrical, the slightly pedantic and\npedagogic and professorial character of Seneca's diction, its rhetorical\nornament and antitheses, and its deficiency in stern masculine\nsimplicity and strength. In another remark he showed himself a still\nmore felicitous critic. He called Seneca's writings _Arenu sine Calce_,\n\"sand without lime,\" or, as we might say, \"a rope of sand.\" This epigram\nshowed a real critical faculty. It exactly hits off Seneca's short and\ndisjointed sentences, consisting as they often do of detached\nantitheses. It accords with the amusing comparison of Malebranche, that\nSeneca's composition, with its perpetual and futile recurrences, calls\nup to him the image of a dancer who ends where he begins.\n\n[Footnote 25: Suet. _Calig._ liii.]\n\nBut Caius did not confine himself to clever and malignant criticism. On\none occasion, when Seneca was pleading in his presence, he was so\njealous and displeased at the brilliancy and power of the orator that he\nmarked him out for immediate execution. Had Seneca died at this period\nhe would probably have been little known, and he might have left few\ntraces of his existence beyond a few tragedies of uncertain\nauthenticity, and possibly a passing notice in the page of Dio or\nTacitus. But destiny reserved him for a more splendid and more\nquestionable career. One of Caius's favourites whispered to the Emperor\nthat it was useless to extinguish a waning lamp; that the health of the\norator was so feeble that a natural death by the progress of his\nconsumptive tendencies would, in a very short time, remove him out of\nthe tyrant's way.\n\nThroughout the remainder of the few years during which the reign of\nCaius continued, Seneca, warned in time, withdrew himself into complete\nobscurity, employing his enforced leisure in that unbroken industry\nwhich stored his mind with such encyclopaedic wealth. \"None of my days,\"\nhe says, in describing at a later period the way in which he spent his\ntime, \"is passed in complete ease. I claim even a part of the night for\nmy studies. I do not _find leisure_ for sleep, but I _succumb_ to it,\nand I keep my eyes at their work even when they are wearied and drooping\nwith watchfulness. I have retired, not only from men, but from affairs,\nand especially from my own. I am doing the work for posterity; I am\nwriting out things which may prove of advantage to them. I am\nintrusting to writing healthful admonitions--compositions, as it were,\nof useful medicines.\"\n\nBut the days of Caius drew rapidly to an end. His gross and unheard-of\ninsults to Valerius Asiaticus and Cassius Chaereas brought on him\ncondign vengeance. It is an additional proof, if proof were wanting, of\nthe degradation of Imperial Rome, that the deed of retribution was due,\nnot to the people whom he taxed; not to the soldiers, whole regiments of\nwhom he had threatened to decimate; not to the knights, of whom scores\nhad been put to death by his orders; not to the nobles, multitudes of\nwhom had been treated by him with conspicuous infamy; not even to the\nSenate, which illustrious body he had on all occasions deliberately\ntreated with contumely and hatred,--but to the private revenge of an\ninsulted soldier. The weak thin voice of Cassius Chaereas, tribune of\nthe praetorian cohort, had marked him out for the coarse and calumnious\nbanter of the imperial buffoon; and he determined to avenge himself, and\nat the same time rid the world of a monster. He engaged several\naccomplices in the conspiracy, which was nearly frustrated by their want\nof resolution. For four whole days they hesitated, while day after day,\nCaius presided in person at the bloody games of the amphitheatre. On the\nfifth day (Jan. 24, A.D. 41), feeling unwell after one of his gluttonous\nsuppers, he was indisposed to return to the shows, but at last rose to\ndo so at the solicitation of his attendants. A vaulted corridor led from\nthe palace to the circus, and in that corridor Caius met a body of noble\nAsiatic boys, who were to dance a Pyrrhic dance and sing a laudatory ode\nupon the stage. Caius wished them at once to practice a rehearsal in his\npresence, but their leader excused himself on the grounds of\nhoarseness. At this moment Chaereas asked him for the watchword of the\nnight. He gave the watchword, \"Jupiter.\" \"Receive him in his wrath!\"\nexclaimed Chaereas, striking him on the throat, while almost at the same\nmoment the blow of Sabinus cleft the tyrant's jaw, and brought him to\nhis knee. He crouched his limbs together to screen himself from further\nblows, screaming aloud, \"I live! I live!\" The bearers of his litter\nrushed to his assistance, and fought with their poles, but Caius fell\npierced with thirty wounds; and, leaving the body weltering in its\nblood, the conspirators rushed out of the palace, and took measures to\nconcert with the Senate a restoration of the old Republic. On the very\nnight after the murder the consuls gave to Chaereas the long-forgotten\nwatchword of \"Liberty.\" But this little gleam of hope proved delusive to\nthe last degree. It was believed that the unquiet ghost of the murdered\nmadman haunted the palace, and long before it had been laid to rest by\nthe forms of decent sepulchre, a new emperor of the great Julian family\nwas securely seated upon the throne.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE REIGN OF CLAUDIUS, AND THE BANISHMENT OF SENECA.\n\nWhile the senators were deliberating, the soldiers were acting. They\nfelt a true, though degraded, instinct that to restore the ancient forms\nof democratic freedom would be alike impossible and useless, and with\nthem the only question lay between the rival claimants for the vacant\npower. Strange to say that, among these claimants, no one seems ever to\nhave thought of mentioning the prince who became the actual successor.\n\nThere was living in the palace at this time a brother of the great\nGermanicus, and consequently an uncle of the late emperor, whose name\nwas Claudius Caesar. Weakened both in mind and body by the continuous\nmaladies of an orphaned infancy, kept under the cruel tyranny of a\nbarbarous slave, the unhappy youth had lived in despised obscurity among\nthe members of a family who were utterly ashamed of him. His mother\nAntonia called him a monstrosity, which Nature had begun but never\nfinished; and it became a proverbial expression with her, as is said to\nhave been the case with the mother of the great Wellington, to say of a\ndull person, \"that he was a greater fool than her son Claudius.\" His\ngrandmother Livia rarely deigned to address him except in the briefest\nand bitterest terms. His sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of\nhis ever becoming emperor. Augustus, his grandfather by adoption, took\npains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a\nwool-gathering[26] and discreditable member of the family, denied him\nall public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when\nlooking out for a successor, deliberately passed him over as a man of\ndeficient intellect. Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and\nblows, and for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the unhappy\nClaudius came late for dinner, he would find every place occupied, and\npeer about disconsolately amid insulting smiles. If, as was his usual\ncustom, he dropped asleep, after a meal, he was pelted with olives and\ndate-stones, or rough stockings were drawn over his hands that he might\nbe seen rubbing his face with them when he was suddenly awaked.\n\n[Footnote 26: He calls him [Greek meteoros] which implies awkwardness\nand constant absence of mind.]\n\nThis was the unhappy being who was now summoned to support the falling\nweight of empire. While rummaging the palace for plunder, a common\nsoldier had spied a pair of feet protruding from under the curtains\nwhich shaded the sides of an upper corridor. Seizing these feet, and\ninquiring who owned them, he dragged out an uncouth, panic-stricken\nmortal, who immediately prostrated himself at his knees and begged hard\nfor mercy. It was Claudius, who scared out of his wits by the tragedy\nwhich he had just beheld, had thus tried to conceal himself until the\nstorm was passed. \"Why, this is Germanicus!\" [27] exclaimed the soldier,\n\"let's make him emperor.\" Half joking and half in earnest, they hoisted\nhim on their shoulders--for terror had deprived him of the use of his\nlegs--and hurried him off to the camp of the Praetorians. Miserable and\nanxious he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd of\npassers-by, who believed that he was being hurried off to execution. But\nthe soldiers, who well knew their own interests, accepted him with\nacclamations, the more so as, by a fatal precedent, he promised them a\nlargess of more than 80_l_. apiece. The supple Agrippa (the Herod of\nActs xii.), seeing how the wind lay, offered to plead his cause with the\nSenate, and succeeded partly by arguments, partly by intimidation, and\npartly by holding out the not unreasonable hopes of a great improvement\non the previous reign.\n\n[Footnote 27: The full name of Claudius was Tiberius Claudius Drusus\nCaesar Germanicus.]\n\nFor although Claudius had been accused of gambling and drunkenness, not\nonly were no _worse_ sins laid to his charge, but he had successfully\nestablished some claim to being considered a learned man. Had fortune\nblessed him till death with a private station, he might have been the\nLucien Bonaparte of his family--a studious prince, who preferred the\ncharms of literature to the turmoil of ambition. The anecdotes which\nhave been recorded of him show that he was something of an\narchaeologist, and something of a philologian. The great historian Livy,\npitying the neglect with which the poor young man was treated, had\nencouraged him in the study of history; and he had written memoirs of\nhis own time, memoirs of Augustus, and even a history of the civil wars\nsince the battle of Actium, which was so correct and so candid that his\nfamily indignantly suppressed it as a fresh proof of his stupidity.\n\nSuch was the man who, at the age of fifty, became master of the\ncivilized world. He offers some singular points of resemblance to our\nown \"most mighty and dread sovereign,\" King James I. Both were learned,\nand both were eminently unwise;[28] both of them were authors, and both\nof them were pedants; both of them delegated their highest powers to\nworthless favourites, and both of them enriched these favourites with\nsuch foolish liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them\nhad been terrified into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary\npresence at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good\ndispositions, were misled by selfishness into acts of cruelty; and both\nof them, though laborious in the discharge of duty, succeeded only in\nrendering royalty ridiculous. King James kept Sir Walter Raleigh in\nprison, and Claudius drove Seneca into exile. The parallel, so far as I\nam aware, has never been noticed, but is susceptible of being drawn out\ninto the minutest particulars.\n\n[Footnote 28: \"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,\" says our own poet.\nHeraclitus had said the same thing more than two thousand years before\nhim, [Greek: polumaoiae ou didasho].]\n\nOne of his first acts was to recall his nieces, Julia and Agrippina,\nfrom the exile into which their brother had driven them; and both these\nprincesses were destined to effect a powerful influence on the life of\nour philosopher.\n\nWhat part Seneca had taken during the few troubled days after the murder\nof Caius we do not know. Had he taken a leading part--had he been one of\nthose who, like Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being\nmerely the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic,--or who, like\nSabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Caesar,--we should\nperhaps have heard of it; and we must therefore assume either that he\nwas still absent from Rome in the retirement into which he had been\ndriven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with\nquietly watching the course of events. It will be observed that his\nbiography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted\nin most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on\nisolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest\nshade long and important periods of his history. Nor are his letters and\nother writings full of those political and personal allusions which\nconvert them into an autobiography. They are, without exception,\noccupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they only\nrefer to such personal reminiscences as may best be converted into the\ntext for some Stoical paradox or moral declamation. It is, however,\ncertain from the sequel that Seneca must have seized the opportunity of\nCaius's death to emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a\nconspicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court.\n\nIt would have been well for his own happiness and fame if he had adopted\nthe wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doctrines he professed.\nA court at most periods is, as the poet says,\n\n     \"A golden but a fatal circle,\n      Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils\n      In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence,\n      And beckon early Virtue from its centre;\"\n\nbut the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was indeed a\nplace wherein few of the wise could find a footing, and still fewer of\nthe good. And all that Seneca gained from his career of ambition was to\nbe suspected by the first of these Emperors, banished by the second, and\nmurdered by the third.\n\nThe first few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and kindly disposition;\nbut it soon became fatally obvious that the real powers of the\ngovernment would be wielded, not by the timid and absent-minded\nEmperor, but by any one who for the time being could acquire an\nascendency over his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the\nfriends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen from the ranks\nof his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and Don Miguel, the barbers of these\nmonarchs were the real governors, so Claudius was but the minister\nrather than the master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius\nhis literary adviser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third person, with\nwhose name Scripture has made us familiar, was a freedman of Claudius.\nThis was Felix, the brother of Pallas, and that Procurator who, though\nhe had been the husband or the paramour of three queens, trembled before\nthe simple eloquence of a feeble and imprisoned Jew.[29] These men\nbecame proverbial for their insolence and wealth; and once, when\nClaudius was complaining of his own poverty, some one wittily replied,\n\"that he would have abundance if two of his freedmen would but admit him\ninto partnership with them.\"\n\n[Footnote 29: Acts xix.]\n\nBut these men gained additional power from the countenance and intrigues\nof the young and beautiful wife of Claudius, Valeria Messalina. In his\nmarriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune.\nHe lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was\nthat its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men; and it was\nthe misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been\nunited by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the\nBerenice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the\nsacred historians were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of\nthem were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. He was\nbetrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined\nfor his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended\nAugustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By\nhis first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he\nhad two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidentally choked in\nboyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the\nair. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the\nunfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the\nchild to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, Aelia\nPetina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he\ndivorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal\ninfamy--Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the\nyounger for her unscrupulous ambition.\n\nMessalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old,\nyet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of\nthe most unblushing wickedness.\n\nBut she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own\njealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and\nAgrippina, the two nieces of the Emperor. They were, no less than\nherself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to\nmake their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the\nsupremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their\nwealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal\nfascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when\nthe proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy. It is unlikely that, even\nin the first flush of her husband's strange and unexpected triumph,\nMessalina should have contemplated with any satisfaction their return\nfrom exile. In this respect it is probable that the Emperor succeeded in\nresisting her expressed wishes; so that the mere appearance of the two\ndaughters of Germanicus in her presence was a standing witness of the\nlimitations to which her influence was subjected.\n\nAt this period, as is usual among degraded peoples, the history of the\nRomans degenerates into mere anecdotes of their rulers. Happily,\nhowever, it is not our duty to enter on the _chronique scandaleuse_ of\nplots and counterplots, as little tolerable to contemplate as the\nfactions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We\ncan only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a\ncourt? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of\nhis philosophical professions; and that we can contemplate his presence\nthere with as little satisfaction as we look on the figure of the\nworldly and frivolous bishop in Mr. Frith's picture of \"The Last Sunday\nof Charles II. at Whitehall.\"\n\nAnd such inconsistencies involve their own retribution, not only in loss\nof influence and fair fame, but even in direct consequences. It was so\nwith Seneca. Circumstances--possibly a genuine detestation of\nMessalina's exceptional infamy--seem to have thrown him among the\npartisans of her rivals. Messalina was only waiting her opportunity to\nstrike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the younger and the less\npowerful of the two sisters, was marked out as the first victim, and the\nopportunity seemed a favourable one for involving Seneca in her ruin.\nHis enormous wealth, his high reputation, his splendid abilities, made\nhim a formidable opponent to the Empress, and a valuable ally to her\nrivals. It was determined to get rid of both by a single scheme. Julia\nwas accused of an intrigue with Seneca, and was first driven into exile\nand then put to death. Seneca was banished to the barren and\npestilential shores of the island of Corsica.\n\nSeneca, as one of the most enlightened men of his age, should have aimed\nat a character which would have been above the possibility of suspicion:\nbut we must remember that charges such as those which were brought\nagainst him were the easiest of all to make, and the most impossible to\nrefute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we are not forced\nto believe his guilt; his character was indeed deplorably weak, and the\nlaxity of the age in such matters was fearfully demoralising; but there\nare sufficient circumstances in his favour to justify us in returning a\nverdict of \"Not guilty.\" Unless we attach an unfair importance to the\nbitter calumny of his open enemies, we may consider that the general\ntenor of his life has sufficient weight to exculpate him from an\nunsupported accusation.\n\nOf Julia, Suetonius expressly says that the crime of which she was\naccused was uncertain, and that she was condemned unheard. Seneca, on\nthe other hand, was tried in the Senate and found guilty. He tells us\nthat it was not Claudius who flung him down, but rather that, when he\nwas falling headlong, the Emperor supported him with the moderation of\nhis divine hand; \"he entreated the Senate on my behalf; he not only\n_gave_ me life, but even _begged_ it for me. Let it be his to consider,\"\nadds Seneca, with the most dulcet flattery, \"in what light he may wish\nmy cause to be regarded; either his justice will find, or his mercy will\nmake, it a good cause. He will alike be worthy of my gratitude, whether\nhis ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to his knowledge or to\nhis will.\"\n\nThis passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood. The avarice of\nMessalina was so insatiable that the non-confiscation of Seneca's\nimmense wealth is a proof that, for some reason, her fear or hatred of\nhim was not implacable. Although it is a remarkable fact that she is\nbarely mentioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, yet\nthere can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation\nbefore the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at\nall, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability;\nthat the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him\nguilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation\nof his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for\nliterature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some\npowerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I.\nremitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on\nFrancis Bacon.\n\nNeither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate\nfurnish the slightest valid proofs against him. The Senate at this time\nwere so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word\nof accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make\nthem fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot\nwith their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his administration of\njustice, patient and laborious as it was, had already grown into a\npublic joke. On one occasion he wrote down and delivered the wise\ndecision, \"that he agreed with the side which had set forth the truth.\"\nOn another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came before him grew so\nimpatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, \"You are an old fool.\"\nWe are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a\ngood deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one\noccasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial\nsmile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. \"At you,\"\nsaid the man, \"you look such a humbug.\" The grim tyrant was so struck\nwith the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A\nRoman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing\nClaudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidence\nagainst him, indignantly abused him for his cruel stupidity, and flung\nhis pen and tablets in his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In\nfact, the Emperor's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless\nanecdotes. Among other things, when some condemned criminals were to\nfight as gladiators, and addressed him before the games in the sublime\nformula--\"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!\" (\"Hail, Caesar! doomed\nto die, we salute thee!\") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer,\n\"Avete vos!\" (\"Hail ye also!\") which they took as a sign of pardon, and\nwere unwilling to fight until they were actually forced to do so by the\ngestures of the Emperor.\n\nThe decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very\nlittle in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence\nwas that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nSENECA IN EXILE.\n\nSo, in A.D. 41, in the prime of life and the full vigour of his\nfaculties, with a name stained by a charge of which he may have been\ninnocent, but of which he was condemned as guilty, Seneca bade farewell\nto his noble-minded mother, to his loving aunt, to his brothers, the\nbeloved Gallio and the literary Mela, to his nephew, the ardent and\npromising young Lucan, and, above all--which cost him the severest\npang--to Marcus, his sweet and prattling boy. It was a calamity which\nmight have shaken the fortitude of the very noblest soul, and it had by\nno means come upon him single handed. Already he had lost his wife, he\nhad suffered from acute and chronic ill-health, he had been bereaved but\nthree weeks previously of another little son. He had been cut short by\nthe jealousy of one emperor from a career of splendid success; he was\nnow banished by the imbecile subservience of another from all that he\nheld most dear.\n\nWe are hardly able to conceive the intensity of anguish with which an\nancient Roman generally regarded the thought of banishment. In the long\nmelancholy wail of Ovid's \"Tristia;\" in the bitter and heart-rending\ncomplaints of Cicero's \"Epistles,\" we may see something of that intense\nabsorption in the life of Rome which to most of her eminent citizens\nmade a permanent separation from the city and its interests a thought\nalmost as terrible as death itself. Even the stoical and heroic Thrasea\nopenly confessed that he should prefer death to exile. To a heart so\naffectionate, to a disposition so social, to a mind so active and\nambitious as that of Seneca, it must have been doubly bitter to exchange\nthe happiness of his family circle, the splendour of an imperial court,\nthe luxuries of enormous wealth, the refined society of statesmen, and\nthe ennobling intercourse of philosophers for the savage wastes of a\nrocky island and the society of boorish illiterate islanders, or at the\nbest, of a few other political exiles, all of whom would be as miserable\nas himself, and some of whom would probably have deserved their fate.\n\nThe Mediteranean rocks selected for political exiles--Gyaros, Seriphos,\nScyathos, Patmos, Pontia, Pandataria--were generally rocky, barren,\nfever-stricken places, chosen by design as the most wretched conceivable\nspots in which human life could be maintained at all. Yet these islands\nwere crowded with exiles, and in them were to be found not a few\nprincesses of Caesarian origin. We must not draw a parallel to their\nposition from that of an Eleanor, the wife of Duke Humphrey, immured in\nPeel Castle in the Isle of Man, or of a Mary Stuart in the Isle of Loch\nLevin--for it was something incomparably worse. No care was taken even\nto provide for their actual wants. Their very lives were not secure.\nAgrippa Posthumus and Nero, the brothers of the Emperor Caligula, had\nbeen so reduced by starvation that both of the wretched youths had been\ndriven to support life by eating the materials with which their beds\nwere stuffed. The Emperor Caius had once asked an exile, whom he had\nrecalled from banishment, in what manner he had been accustomed to\nemploy his time on the island. \"I used,\" said the flatterer, \"to pray\nthat Tiberius might die, and that you might succeed.\" It immediately\nstruck Caius that the exiles whom he had banished might be similarly\nemployed, and accordingly he sent centurions round the islands to put\nthem all to death. Such were the miserable circumstances which might be\nin store for a political outlaw.[30] If we imagine what must have been\nthe feelings of a d'Espr\u00e9m\u00e9nil, when a _lettee de cachet_ consigned him\nto a prison in the Isle d'Hi\u00e8res; or what a man like Burke might have\nfelt, if he had been compelled to retire for life to the Bermudas; we\nmay realize to some extent the heavy trial which now befel the life\nof Seneca.\n\n[Footnote 30: Among the Jews the homicides who had fled to a city of\nrefuge were set free on the high priest's death, and, in order _to\nprevent them from praying for his death_, the mother and other relatives\nof the high priest used to supply them with clothes and other\nnecessaries. See the author's article on \"Asylum\" in Kitto's\n_Encyclopedia_ (ed. Alexander.)]\n\nCorsica was the island chosen for his place of banishment, and a spot\nmore uninviting could hardly have been selected. It was an island\n\"shaggy and savage,\" intersected from north to south by a chain of wild,\ninaccessible mountains, clothed to their summits with gloomy and\nimpenetrable forests of pine and fir. Its untamable inhabitants are\ndescribed by the geographer Strabo as being \"wilder than the wild\nbeasts.\" It produced but little corn, and scarcely any fruit-trees. It\nabounded, indeed, in swarms of wild bees, but its very honey was bitter\nand unpalatable, from being infected with the acrid taste of the\nbox-flowers on which they fed. Neither gold nor silver were found\nthere; it produced nothing worth exporting, and barely sufficient for\nthe mere necessaries of its inhabitants; it rejoiced in no great\nnavigable rivers, and even the trees, in which it abounded, were neither\nbeautiful nor fruitful. Seneca describes it in more than one of his\nepigrams, as a\n\n     \"Terrible isle, when earliest summer glows\n      Yet fiercer when his face the dog-star shows;\"\n\nand again as a\n\n     \"Barbarous land, which rugged rocks surround,\n      Whose horrent cliffs with idle wastes are crowned,\n      No autumn fruit, no tilth the summer yields,\n      Nor olives cheer the winter-silvered fields:\n      Nor joyous spring her tender foliage lends,\n      Nor genial herb the luckless soil befriends;\n      Nor bread, nor sacred fire, nor freshening wave;--\n      Nought here--save exile, and the exile's grave!\"\n\nIn such a place, and under such conditions, Seneca had ample need for\nall his philosophy. And at first it did not fail him. Towards the close\nof his first year of exile he wrote the \"Consolation to his mother\nHelvia,\" which is one of the noblest and most charming of all his works.\n\nHe had often thought, he said, of writing to console her under this deep\nand wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto he had abstained from doing\nso, lest, while his own anguish and hers were fresh, he should only\nrenew the pain of the wound by his unskilful treatment. He waited,\ntherefore till time had laid its healing hand upon her sorrows,\nespecially because he found no precedent for one in his position\ncondoling with others when he himself seemed more in need of\nconsolation, and because something new and admirable would be required\nof a man who, as it were, raised his head from the funeral pyre to\nconsole his friends. Still he now feels impelled to write to her,\nbecause to alleviate her regrets will be to lay aside his own. He does\nnot attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, because\nso far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has tasted it from her\nearliest years in all its varieties; and because his purpose was to\nconquer her grief, not to extenuate its causes. Those many miseries\nwould indeed have been in vain, if they had not taught her how to bear\nwretchedness. He will prove to her therefore that she has no cause to\ngrieve either on his account, or on her own. Not on his--because he is\nhappy among circumstances which others would think miserable and because\nhe assures her with his own lips that not only is he _not_ miserable,\nbut that he can never be made so. Every one can secure his own\nhappiness, if he learns to seek it, not in external circumstances, but\nin himself. He cannot indeed claim for himself the title of wise, for,\nif so, he would be the most fortunate of men, and near to God Himself;\nbut, which is the next best thing, he has devoted himself to the study\nof wise men, and from them he has learnt to expect nothing and to be\nprepared for all things. The blessings which Fortune had hitherto\nbestowed on him,--wealth, honours, glory,--he had placed in such a\nposition that she might rob him of them all without disturbing him.\nThere was a great _space_ between them and himself, so that they could\nbe _taken_ but not _torn_ away. Undazzled by the glamour of prosperity,\nhe was unshaken by the blow of adversity. In circumstances which were\nthe envy of all men he had never seen any real or solid blessing, but\nrather a painted emptiness, a gilded deception; and similarly he found\nnothing really hard or terrible in ills which the common voice has so\ndescribed.\n\nWhat, for instance, was exile? it was but a change of place, an absence\nfrom one's native land; and, if you looked at the swarming multitudes in\nRome itself, you would find that the majority of them were practically\nin contented and willing exile, drawn thither by necessity, by ambition,\nor by the search for the best opportunities of vice. No isle so wretched\nand so bleak which did not attract some voluntary sojourners; even this\nprecipitous and naked rock of Corsica, the hungriest, roughest, most\nsavage, most unhealthy spot conceivable, had more foreigners in it than\nnative inhabitants. The natural restlessness and mobility of the human\nmind, which arose from its aetherial origin, drove men to change from\nplace to place. The colonies of different nations, scattered all over\nthe civilized and uncivilized world even in spots the most chilly and\nuninviting, show that the condition of place is no necessary ingredient\nin human happiness. Even Corsica had often changed its owners; Greeks\nfrom Marseilles had first lived there, then Ligurians and Spaniards,\nthen some Roman colonists, whom the aridity and thorniness of the rock\nhad not kept away.\n\n\"Varro thought that nature, Brutus that the consciousness of virtue,\nwere sufficient consolations for any exile. How little have I lost in\ncomparison with those two fairest possessions which I shall everywhere\nenjoy--nature and my own integrity! Whoever or whatever made the\nworld--whether it were a deity, or disembodied reason, or a divine\ninterfusing spirit, or destiny, or an immutable series of connected\ncauses--the result was that nothing, except our very meanest\npossessions, should depend on the will of another. Man's best gifts lie\nbeyond the power of man either to give or to take away. This Universe,\nthe grandest and loveliest work of nature, and the Intellect which was\ncreated to observe and to admire it, are our special and eternal\npossessions, which shall last as long as we last ourselves. Cheerful,\ntherefore, and erect, let us hasten with undaunted footsteps\nwhithersoever our fortunes lead us.\n\n\"There is no land where man cannot dwell,--no land where he cannot\nuplift his eyes to heaven; wherever we are, the distance of the divine\nfrom the human remains the same. So then, as long as my eyes are not\nrobbed of that spectacle with which they cannot be satiated, so long as\nI may look upon the sun and moon, and fix my lingering gaze on the other\nconstellations, and consider their rising and setting and the spaces\nbetween them and the causes of their less and greater speed,--while I\nmay contemplate the multitude of stars glittering throughout the heaven,\nsome stationary, some revolving, some suddenly blazing forth, others\ndazzling the gaze with a flood of fire as though they fell, and others\nleaving over a long space their trails of light; while I am in the midst\nof such phenomena, and mingle myself, as far as a man may, with things\ncelestial,--while my soul is ever occupied in contemplations so sublime\nas these, what matters it what ground I tread?\n\n\"What though fortune has thrown me where the most magnificent abode is\nbut a cottage? the humblest cottage, if it be but the home of virtue,\nmay be more beautiful than all temples; no place is narrow which can\ncontain the crowd of glorious virtues; no exile severe into which you\nmay go with such a reliance. When Brutus left Marcellus at Mitylene, he\nseemed to be himself going into exile because he left that illustrious\nexile behind him. Caesar would not land at Mitylene, because he blushed\nto see him. Marcellus therefore, though he was living in exile and\npoverty, was living a most happy and a most noble life.\n\n     \"'One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs\n      Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas;\n      And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,\n      Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.'\n\n\"And as for poverty every one who is not corrupted by the madness of\navarice and luxury know that it is no evil. How little does man need,\nand how easily can he secure that! As for me, I consider myself as\nhaving lost not wealth, but the trouble of looking after it. Bodily\nwants are few--warmth and food, nothing more. May the gods and goddesses\nconfound that gluttony which sweeps the sky, and sea and land for birds,\nand animals, and fish; which eats to vomit and vomits to eat, and hunts\nover the whole world for that which after all it cannot even digest!\nThey might satisfy their hunger with little, and they excite it with\nmuch. What harm can poverty inflict on a man who despises such excesses?\nLook at the god-like and heroic poverty of our ancestors, and compare\nthe simple glory of a Camillus with the lasting infamy of a luxurious\nApicius! Even exile will yield a sufficiency of necessaries, but not\neven kingdoms are enough for superfluities. It is the soul that makes us\nrich or poor: and the soul follows us into exile, and finds and enjoys\nits own blessings even in the most barren solitudes.\n\n\"But it does not even need philosophy to enable us to despise poverty.\nLook at the poor: are they not often obviously happier than the rich?\nAnd the times are so changed that what we would now consider the poverty\nof an exile would then have been regarded as the patrimony of a prince.\nProtected by such precedents as those of Homer, and Zeno, and Menenius\nAgrippa, and Regulus, and Scipio, poverty becomes not only safe but\neven estimable.\n\n\"And if you make the objection that the ills which assail me are not\nexile only, or poverty only, but disgrace as well, I reply that the soul\nwhich is hard enough to resist one wound is invulnerable to all. If we\nhave utterly conquered the fear of death, nothing else can daunt us.\nWhat is disgrace to one who stands above the opinion of the multitude?\nwhat was even a death of disgrace to Socrates, who by entering a prison\nmade it cease to be disgraceful? Cato was twice defeated in his\ncandidature for the praetorship and consulship: well, this was the\ndisgrace of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised by\nanother until he has learned to despise himself. The man who has learned\nto triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred\nfillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man\nbravely wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. Some\nindeed say that death is preferable to contempt; to whom I reply that he\nwho is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more\nan object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred\nbuildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood.\n\n\"On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no cause for endless\nweeping: nor have you on your own. You cannot grieve for me on selfish\ngrounds, in consequence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were\never eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your dealings\nwith your sons, and you were always a help and a benefactor to them\nrather than they to you. Nor should you give way out of a regret and\nlonging for me in my absence. We have often previously been separated,\nand, although it is natural that you should miss that delightful\nconversation, that unrestricted confidence, that electrical sympathy of\nheart and intellect that always existed between us, and that boyish glee\nwherewith your visits always affected me, yet, as you rise above the\ncommon herd of women in virtue, the simplicity, the purity of your life,\nyou must abstain from feminine tears as you have done from all feminine\nfollies. Consider how Cornelia, who had lost ten children by death,\ninstead of wailing for her dead sons, thanked fortune that had made her\nsons _Gracchi_. Rutilia followed her son Cotta into exile so dearly did\nshe love him, yet no one saw her shed a tear after his burial. She had\nshown her affection when it was needful, she restrained her sorrow when\nit was superflous. Imitate the example of these great women as you have\nimitated their virtues. I want you not to _beguile_ your sorrow by\namusements or occupations, but to _conquer_ it. For you may now return\nto those philosophical studies in which you once showed yourself so apt\na proficient, and which formerly my father checked. They will gradually\nsustain and comfort you in your hour of grief.\n\n\"And meanwhile consider how many sources of consolation already exist\nfor you. My brothers are still with you; the dignity of Gallio, the\nleisure of Mela, will protect you; the ever-sparkling mirth of my\ndarling little Marcus will cheer you up; the training of my little\nfavourite Novatilla will be a duty which will assuage your sorrow. For\nyour father's sake, too, though he is absent from you, you must moderate\nyour lamentations. Above all, your sister--that truly faithful, loving,\nand high-souled lady, to whom I owe so deep a debt of affection for her\nkindness to me from my cradle until now,--she will yield you the\nfondest sympathy and the truest consolation.\n\n\"But since I know that after all your thoughts will constantly revert to\nme, and that none of your children will be more frequently before your\nmind than I,--not because they are less dear to you than I, but because\nit is natural to lay the hand most often upon the spot which pains,--I\nwill tell you how you are to think of me. Think of me as happy and\ncheerful, as though I were in the midst of blessings; as indeed I am,\nwhile my mind, free from every care, has leisure for its own pursuits,\nand sometimes amuses itself with lighter studies, sometimes, eager for\ntruth, soars upwards to the contemplation of its own nature, and the\nnature of the universe. It inquires first of all about the lands and\ntheir situation; then into the condition of the surrounding sea, its\nebbings and flowings; then it carefully studies all this terror-fraught\ninterspace between heaven and earth, tumultuous with thunders and\nlightnings, and the blasts of winds, and the showers of rain, and snow\nand hail; then, having wandered through all the lower regions, it bursts\nupwards to the highest things, and revels in the most lovely--spectacle\nof that which is divine, and, mindful of its own eternity, passes into\nall that hath been and all that shall be throughout all ages.\"\n\nSuch in briefest outline, and without any of that grace of language with\nwhich Seneca has invested it, is a sketch of the little treatise which\nmany have regarded as among the most delightful of Seneca's works. It\npresents the picture of that grandest of all spectacles--\n\n     \"A good man struggling with the storms of fate.\"\n\nSo far there was something truly Stoical in the aspect of Seneca's\nexile. But was this grand attitude consistently maintained? Did his\nlittle raft of philosophy sink under him, or did it bear him safely over\nthe stormy waves of this great sea of adversity.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nSENECA'S PHILOSOPHY GIVES WAY.\n\nThere are some misfortunes of which the very essence consists in their\ncontinuance. They are tolerable so long as they are illuminated by a ray\nof hope. Seclusion and hardship might even come at first with some charm\nof novelty to a philosopher who, as was not unfrequent among the amateur\nthinkers of his time, occasionally practised them in the very midst of\nwealth and friends. But as the hopeless years rolled on, as the efforts\nof friends proved unavailing, as the loving son, and husband, and father\nfelt himself cut off from the society of those whom he cherished in such\ntender affection, as the dreary island seemed to him ever more barbarous\nand more barren, while season after season added to its horrors without\nrevealing a single compensation, Seneca grew more and more disconsolate\nand depressed. It seemed to be his miserable destiny to rust away,\nuseless, unbefriended, and forgotten. Formed to fascinate society, here\nthere were none for him to fascinate; gifted with an eloquence which\ncould keep listening senates hushed, here he found neither subject nor\naudience; and his life began to resemble a river which, long before it\nhas reached the sea, is lost in dreary marshes and choking sands.\n\nLike the brilliant Ovid, when he was banished to the frozen wilds of\nTomi, Seneca vented his anguish in plaintive wailing and bitter verse.\nIn his handful of epigrams he finds nothing too severe for the place of\nhis exile. He cries--\n\n     \"Spare thou thine exiles, lightly o'er thy dead,\n      Alive, yet buried, be thy dust bespread.\"\n\nAnd addressing some malignant enemy--\n\n     \"Whoe'er thou art,--thy name shall I repeat?--\n      Who o'er mine ashes dar'st to press thy feet,\n      And, uncontented with a fall so dread,\n      Draw'st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head,\n      Beware! for nature, pitying, guards the tomb,\n      And ghosts avenge th' invaders of their gloom,\n      Hear, Envy, hear the gods proclaim a truth,\n      Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth,\n      WRETCHES ARE SACRED THINGS,--thy hands refrain:\n      E'en sacrilegious hands from TOMBS abstain.\"\n\nThe one fact that seems to have haunted him most was that his abode in\nCorsica was a living death.\n\nBut the most complete picture of his state of mind, and the most\nmelancholy memorial of his inconsistency as a philosopher, is to be\nfound in his \"Consolation to Polybius.\" Polybius was one of those\nfreedmen of the Emperor whose bloated wealth and servile insolence were\none of the darkest and strangest phenomena of the time. Claudius, more\nthan any of his class, from the peculiar imbecility of his character,\nwas under the powerful influence of this class of men; and so dangerous\nwas their power that Messalina herself was forced to win her ascendency\nover her husband's mind by making these men her supporters, and\ncultivating their favour. Such were \"the most excellent Felix,\" the\njudge of St. Paul, and the slave who became a husband to three\nqueens,--Narcissus, in whose household (which moved the envy of the\nEmperor) were some of those Christians to whom St. Paul sends greetings\nfrom the Christians of Corinth,[31]--Pallas, who never deigned to speak\nto his own slaves, but gave all his commands by signs, and who actually\ncondescended to receive the thanks of the Senate, because he, the\ndescendant of Etruscan kings, yet condescended to serve the Emperor and\nthe Commonwealth; a preposterous and outrageous compliment, which\nappears to have been solely due to the fact of his name being identical\nwith that of Virgil's young hero, the son of the mythic Evander!\n\n[Footnote 31: Rom. xvi. 11.]\n\nAmong this unworthy crew a certain Polybius was not the least\nconspicuous. He was the director of the Emperor's studies,--a worthy\nAlcuin to such a Charlemagne. All that we know about him is that he was\nonce the favourite of Messalina, and afterwards her victim, and that in\nthe day of his eminence the favour of the Emperor placed him so high\nthat he was often seen walking between the two consuls. Such was the man\nto whom, on the occasion of his brother's death, Seneca addressed this\ntreatise of consolation. It has come down to us as a fragment, and it\nwould have been well for Seneca's fame if it had not come down to us at\nall. Those who are enthusiastic for his reputation would gladly prove it\nspurious, but we believe that no candid reader can study it without\nperceiving its genuineness. It is very improbable that he ever intended\nit to be published, and whoever suffered it to see the light was the\nsuccessful enemy of its illustrious author.\n\nIts sad and abject tone confirms the inference, drawn from an allusion\nwhich it contains, that it was written towards the close of the third\nyear of Seneca's exile. He apologises for its style by saying that if it\nbetrayed any weakness of thought or inelegance of expression this was\nonly what might be expected from a man who had so long been surrounded\nby the coarse and offensive _patois_ of barbarians. We need hardly\nfollow him into the ordinary topics of moral philosophy with which it\nabounds, or expose the inconsistency of its tone with that of Seneca's\nother writings. He consoles the freedman with the \"common commonplaces\"\nthat death is inevitable; that grief is useless; that we are all born to\nsorrow; that the dead would not wish us to be miserable for their sakes.\nHe reminds him that, owing to his illustrious position, all eyes are\nupon him. He bids him find consolation in the studies in which he has\nalways shown himself so pre-eminent, and lastly he refers him to those\nshining examples of magnanimous fortitude, for the climax of which, no\ndoubt, the whole piece of interested flattery was composed. For this\npassage, written in a _crescendo_ style, culminates, as might have been\nexpected, in the sublime spectacle of Claudius Caesar. So far from\nresenting his exile, he crawls in the dust to kiss Caesar's beneficent\nfeet for saving him from death; so far from asserting his\ninnocence--which, perhaps, was impossible, since to do so might have\ninvolved him in a fresh charge of treason--he talks with all the\nabjectness of guilt. He belauds the clemency of a man, who, he tells us\nelsewhere, used to kill men with as much _sang froid_ as a dog eats\noffal; the prodigious powers of memory of a divine creature who used to\nask people to dice and to dinner whom he had executed the day before,\nand who even inquired as to the cause of his wife's absence a few days\nafter having given the order for her execution; the extraordinary\neloquence of an indistinct stutterer, whose head shook and whose broad\nlips seemed to be in contortions whenever he spoke.[32] If Polybius\nfeels sorrowful, let him turn his eyes to Caesar; the splendour of that\nmost great and radiant deity will so dazzle his eyes that all their\ntears will be dried up in the admiring gaze. Oh that the bright\noccidental star which has beamed on a world which, before its rising,\nwas plunged in darkness and deluge, would only shed one little beam\nupon him!\n\n[Footnote 32: These slight discrepancies of description are taken from\ncounter passages of _Consol, ad Polyb._. and the _Ludus de Morte\nCaesaris._]\n\nNo doubt these grotesque and gorgeous flatteries, contrasting strangely\nwith the bitter language of intense hatred and scathing contempt which\nSeneca poured out on the memory of Claudius after his death, were penned\nwith the sole purpose of being repeated in those divine and benignant\nears. No doubt the superb freedman, who had been allowed so rich a share\nof the flatteries lavished on his master, would take the opportunity--if\nnot out of good nature, at least out of vanity,--to retail them in the\nimperial ear. If the moment were but favourable, who knows but what at\nsome oblivious and crapulous moment the Emperor might be induced to sign\nan order for our philosopher's recall?\n\nLet us not be hard on him. Exile and wretchedness are stern trials, and\nit is difficult for him to brave a martyr's misery who has no conception\nof a martyr's crown. To a man who, like Seneca, aimed at being not only\na philosopher, but also a man of the world--who in this very treatise\ncriticises the Stoics for their ignorance of life--there would not have\nseemed to be even the shadow of disgrace in a private effusion of\ninsincere flattery intended to win the remission of a deplorable\nbanishment. Or, if we condemn Seneca, let us remember that Christians,\nno less than philosophers, have attained a higher eminence only to\nexemplify a more disastrous fall. The flatteries of Seneca to Claudius\nare not more fulsome, and are infinitely less disgraceful, than those\nwhich fawning bishops exuded on his counterpart, King James. And if the\nRoman Stoic can gain nothing from a comparison with the yet more\negregious moral failure of the greatest of Christian thinkers---Francis\nBacon, Viscount St. Alban's--let us not forget that a Savonarola and a\nCranmer recanted under torment, and that the anguish of exile drew even\nfrom the starry and imperial spirit of Dante Alighieri words and\nsentiments for which in his noblest moments he might have blushed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nSENECA'S RECALL FROM EXILE.\n\nOf the last five years of Seneca's weary exile no trace has been\npreserved to us. What were his alternations of hope and fear, of\ndevotion to philosophy and of hankering after the world which he had\nlost, we cannot tell. Any hopes which he may have entertained respecting\nthe intervention of Polybius in his favour must have been utterly\nquenched when he heard that the freedman, though formerly powerful with\nMessalina, had forfeited his own life in consequence of her\nmachinations. But the closing period of his days in Corsica must have\nbrought him thrilling news, which would save him from falling into\nabsolute despair.\n\nFor the career of Messalina was drawing rapidly to a close. The life of\nthis beautiful princess, short as it was, for she died at a very early\nage, was enough to make her name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a\ntime she appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won for her\nan unlimited sway over the facile mind of Claudius, and she had either\nwon over by her intrigues, or terrified by her pitiless severity, the\nnoblest of the Romans and the most powerful of the freedmen. But we see\nin her fate, as we see on every page of history, that vice ever carries\nwith it the germ of its own ruin, and that a retribution, which is all\nthe more inevitable from being often slow, awaits every violation of the\nmoral law.\n\nThere is something almost incredible in the penal infatuation which\nbrought about her fall. During the absence of her husband at Ostia, she\nwedded in open day with C. Silius, the most beautiful and the most\npromising of the young Roman nobles. She had apparently persuaded\nClaudius that this was merely a mock-marriage, intended to avert some\nominous auguries which threatened to destroy \"the husband of Messalina;\"\nbut, whatever Claudius may have imagined, all the rest of the world knew\nthe marriage to be real, and regarded it not only as a vile enormity,\nbut also as a direct attempt to bring about a usurpation of the\nimperial power.\n\nIt was by this view of the case that the freedman Narcissus roused the\ninert spirit and timid indignation of the injured Emperor. While the\nwild revelry of the wedding ceremony was at its height, Vettius Valens,\na well-known physician of the day, had in the license of the festival\nstruggled up to the top of a lofty tree, and when they asked him what he\nsaw, he replied in words which, though meant for jest, were full of\ndreadful significance, \"I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia.\" He\nhad scarcely uttered the words when first an uncertain rumour, and then\nnumerous messengers brought the news that Claudius knew all, and was\ncoming to take vengeance. The news fell like a thunderbolt on the\nassembled guests. Silius, as though nothing had happened, went to\ntransact his public duties in the Forum; Messalina instantly sending for\nher children, Octavia and Britannicus, that she might meet her husband\nwith them by her side, implored the protection of Vibidia, the eldest of\nthe chaste virgins of Vesta, and, deserted by all but three companions,\nfled on foot and unpitied, through the whole breadth of the city, until\nshe reached the Ostian gate, and mounted the rubbish-cart of a market\ngardener which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed both the\nlooks and the attention of the Emperor by the proofs and the narrative\nof her crimes, and, getting rid of the Vestal by promising her that the\ncause of Messalina should be tried, he hurried Claudius forward, first\nto the house of Silius, which abounded with the proofs of his guilt, and\nthen to the camp of the Praetorians, where swift vengeance was taken on\nthe whole band of those who had been involved in Messalina's crimes. She\nmeanwhile, in alternative paroxysms of fury and abject terror, had taken\nrefuge in the garden of Lucullus, which she had coveted and made her own\nby injustice. Claudius, who had returned home, and had recovered some of\nhis facile equanimity in the pleasures of the table, showed signs of\nrelenting; but Narcissus knew that delay was death, and on his own\nauthority sent a tribune and centurions to despatch the Empress. They\nfound her prostrate on the ground at the feet of her mother Lepida, with\nwhom in her prosperity she had quarrelled, but who now came to pity and\nconsole her misery, and to urge her to that voluntary death which alone\ncould save her from imminent and more cruel infamy. But the mind of\nMessalina, like that of Nero afterwards, was so corrupted by wickedness\nthat not even such poor nobility was left in her as is implied in the\ncourage of despair. While she wasted the time in tears and lamentations,\na noise was heard of battering at the doors, and the tribune stood by\nher in stern silence, the freedman with slavish vituperation. First she\ntook the dagger in her irresolute hand, and after she had twice stabbed\nherself in vain, the tribune drove home the fatal blow, and the corpse\nof Messalina, like that of Jezebel, lay weltering in its blood in the\nplot of ground of which her crimes had robbed its lawful owner.\nClaudius, still lingering at his dinner, was informed that she had\nperished, and neither asked a single question at the time, nor\nsubsequently displayed the slightest sign of anger, of hatred, of pity,\nor of any human emotion.\n\nThe absolute silence of Seneca respecting the woman who had caused him\nthe bitterest anguish and humiliation of his life is, as we have\nremarked already, a strange and significant phenomenon. It is clearly\nnot due to accident, for the vices which he is incessantly describing\nand denouncing would have found in this miserable woman their most\nflagrant illustration, nor could contemporary history have furnished a\nmore apposite example of the vindication by her fate of the stern\nmajesty of the moral law. But yet, though Seneca had every reason to\nloathe her character and to detest her memory, though he could not have\nrendered to his patrons a more welcome service than by blackening her\nreputation, he never so much as mentions her name. And this honourable\nsilence gives us a favourable insight into his character. For it can\nonly be due to his pitying sense of the fact that even Messalina, bad as\nshe undoubtedly was, had been judged already by a higher Power, and had\nmet her dread punishment at the hand of God. It has been conjectured,\nwith every appearance of probability, that the blackest of the scandals\nwhich were believed and circulated respecting her had their origin in\nthe published autobiography of her deadly enemy and victorious\nsuccessor. The many who had had a share in Messalina's fall would be\nonly too glad to poison every reminiscence of her life; and the deadly\nimplacable hatred of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar\ngratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace over the\nacts of a rival whose young children it was her dearest object to\nsupplant. That Seneca did not deign to chronicle even of an enemy what\nAgrippina was not ashamed to write,--that he spared one whom it was\nevery one's interest and pleasure to malign,--that he regarded her\nterrible fall as a sufficient claim to pity, as it was a sufficient\nNemesis upon her crimes,--is a trait in the character of the philosopher\nwhich has hardly yet received the credit which it deserves.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nAGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO.\n\nScarcely had the grave closed over Messalina when the court was plunged\ninto the most violent factions about the appointment of her successor.\nThere were three principal candidates for the honour of the aged\nEmperor's hand. They were his former wife, Aelia Petina, who had only\nbeen divorced in consequence of trivial disagreements, and who was\nsupported by Narcissus; Lollia Paulina, so celebrated in antiquity for\nher beauty and splendour, and who for a short time had been the wife of\nCaius; and Agrippina the younger, the daughter of the great Germanicus,\nand the niece of Claudius himself. Claudius, indeed, who had been as\nunlucky as Henry VIII. himself in the unhappiness which had attended his\nfive experiments of matrimony, had made the strongest possible\nasseverations that he would never again submit himself to such a yoke.\nBut he was so completely a tool in the hands of his own courtiers that\nno one attached the slightest importance to anything which he had said.\n\nThe marriage of an uncle with his own niece was considered a violation\nof natural laws, and was regarded with no less horror among the Romans\nthan it would be among ourselves. But Agrippina, by the use of means the\nmost unscrupulous, prevailed over all her rivals, and managed her\ninterests with such consummate skill that, before many months had\nelapsed, she had become the spouse of Claudius and the Empress of Rome.\n\nWith this princess the destinies of Seneca were most closely\nintertwined, and it will enable us the better to understand his\nposition, and his writings, if we remember that all history discloses to\nus no phenomenon more portentous and terrible than that presented to us\nin the character of Agrippina, the mother of Nero.\n\nOf the virtues of her great parents she, like their other children, had\ninherited not one; and she had exaggerated their family tendencies into\npassions which urged her into every form of crime. Her career from the\nvery cradle had been a career of wickedness, nor had any one of the many\nfierce vicissitudes of her life called forth in her a single noble or\namiable trait. Born at Oppidum Ubiorum (afterwards called in her honour\nColonia Agrippina, and still retaining its name in the form Cologne),\nshe lost her father at the age of three, and her mother (by banishment)\nat the age of twelve. She was educated with bad sisters, with a wild and\nwicked brother, and under a grandmother whom she detested. At the age of\nfourteen she was married to Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the most\nworthless and ill-reputed of the young Roman nobles of his day. The\ngossiping biographies of the time still retain some anecdotes of his\ncruelty and selfishness. They tell us how he once, without the slightest\nremorse, ran over a poor boy who was playing on the Appian Road; how on\nanother occasion he knocked out the eye of a Roman knight who had given\nhim a hasty answer; and how, when his friend congratulated him on the\nbirth of his son (the young Claudius Domitius, afterwards the Emperor\nNero), he brutally remarked that from people like himself and Agrippina\ncould only be born some monster destined for the public ruin.\n\nDomitius was forty years old when he married Agrippina, and the young\nNero was not born till nine years afterwards. Whatever there was of\npossible affection in the tigress-nature of Agrippina was now absorbed\nin the person of her child. For that child, from its cradle to her own\ndeath by his means, she toiled and sinned. The fury of her own ambition,\ninextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierceness of her love for\nthis only son, henceforth directed every action of her life. Destiny had\nmade her the sister of one Emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife\nof another; her own crimes made her the mother of a third. And at first\nsight her career might have seemed unusually successful, for while still\nin the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband,\nand then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of\nthe Roman world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, whose\nstealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track\nthrough page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to\nher with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of\ngratified love and pride to which she had waded through so many a deed\nof sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and violent\nshameful death, by the hand of that very son for whose sake she had so\noften violated the laws of virtue and integrity, and spurned so often\nthe pure and tender obligations which even the heathen had been taught\nby the voice of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore.\n\nIntending that her son should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius,\nher first step was to drive to death Silanus, a young nobleman to whom\nOctavia had already been betrothed. Her next care was to get rid of all\nrivals possible or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia\nand her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the latter was the\nwealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she trumped up an accusation of\nsorcery and treason, upon which her wealth was confiscated, but her life\nspared by the Emperor, who banished her from Italy. This half-vengeance\nwas not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the daughter of Herodias in\nsacred history, she despatched a tribune with orders to bring her the\nhead of her enemy; and when it was brought to her, and she found a\ndifficulty in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a\nonce-celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have lifted one\nof the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this was indeed the head\nof Lollia. To such horrors may a woman sink, when she has abandoned the\nlove of God; and a fair face may hide a soul \"leprous as sin itself.\"\nWell may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and\nhusband-murdering Gertrude are mere children by the side of this awful\ngiant-shape of steely feminine cruelty.\n\nSuch was the princess who, in the year A.D. 49, recalled Seneca from\nexile.[33] She saw that her cruelties were inspiring horror even into a\ncity that had long been accustomed to blood, and Tacitus expressly tells\nus that she hoped to counterbalance this feeling by a stroke of\npopularity in recalling from the waste solitudes of Corsica the\nfavourite philosopher and most popular author of the Roman world. Nor\nwas she content with this public proof of her belief in his innocence\nof the crime which had been laid to his charge, for she further procured\nfor him the Praetorship, and appointed him tutor and governor to her\nyouthful son. Even in taking this step she did not forget her ambitious\nviews; for she knew that Seneca cherished a secret indignation against\nClaudius, and that Nero could have no more wise adviser in taking steps\nto secure the fruition of his imperial hopes. It might perhaps have been\nbetter for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, or set his\nfoot again in that Circean and bloodstained court. Let it, however, be\nadded in his exculpation, that another man of undoubted and scrupulous\nhonesty,--Afranius Burrus--a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of\nRoman manliness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the\nPraetorian cohorts, was willing to share his danger and his\nresponsibilities. Yet he must have lived from the first in the very\natmosphere of base and criminal intrigues. He must have formed an\nimportant member of Agrippina's party, which was in daily and deadly\nenmity against the party of Narcissus. He must have watched the\nincessant artifices by which Agrippina secured the adoption of her son\nNero by an Emperor whose own son Britannicus was but three years his\njunior. He must have seen Nero always honoured, promoted, paraded before\nthe eyes of the populace as the future hope of Rome, whilst Britannicus,\nlike the young Edward V. under the regency of his uncle, was neglected,\nsurrounded with spies, kept as much as possible out of his father's\nsight, and so completely thrust into the background from all observation\nthat the populace began seriously to doubt whether he were alive or\ndead. He must have seen Agrippina, who had now received the\nunprecedented honour of the title \"Augusta\" in her lifetime, acting\nwith such haughty insolence that there could be little doubt as to her\nulterior designs upon the throne. He must have known that his splendid\nintellect was practically at the service of a woman in whom avarice,\nhaughtiness, violence, treachery, and every form of unscrupulous\ncriminality had reached a point hitherto unmatched even in a corrupt and\npagan world. From this time forth the biography of Seneca must assume\nthe form of an apology rather than of a panegyric.\n\n[Footnote 33: Gallio was Proconsul of Achaia about A.D. 53, when St.\nPaul was brought before his tribunal. Very possibly his elevation may\nhave been due to the restoration of Seneca's influence.]\n\nThe Emperor could not but feel that in Agrippina he had chosen a wife\neven more intolerable than Messalina herself. Messalina had not\ninterfered with the friends he loved, had not robbed him of the insignia\nof empire, had not filled his palace with a hard and unfeminine tyranny,\nand had of course watched with a mother's interest over the lives and\nfortunes of his children. Narcissus would not be likely to leave him\nlong in ignorance that, in addition to her other plots and crimes,\nAgrippina had been as little true to him as his former unhappy wife. The\ninformation sank deep into his heart, and he was heard to mutter that it\nhad been his destiny all along first to bear, and then to avenge, the\nenormities of his wives. Agrippina, whose spies filled the palace, could\nnot long remain uninformed of so significant a speech; and she probably\nsaw with an instinct quickened by the awful terrors of her own guilty\nconscience that the Emperor showed distinct signs of his regret for\nhaving married his niece, and adopted her child to the prejudice, if not\nto the ruin, of his own young son. If she wanted to reach the goal which\nshe had held so long in view no time was to be lost. Let us hope that\nSeneca and Burrus were at least ignorant of the means which she took to\neffect her purpose.\n\nFortune favoured her. The dreaded Narcissus, the most formidable\nobstacle to her murderous plans, was seized with an attack of the gout.\nAgrippina managed that his physician should recommend him the waters of\nSinuessa in Campania by way of cure. He was thus got out of the way, and\nshe proceeded at once to her work of blood. Entrusting the secret to\nHalotus, the Emperor's _praegustator_--the slave whose office it was to\nprotect him from poison by tasting every dish before him--and to his\nphysician, Xenophon of Cos, she consulted Locusta, the Mrs. Turner of\nthe period of this classical King James, as to the poison best suited to\nher purpose. Locusta was mistress of her art, in which long practice had\ngiven her a consummate skill. The poison must not be too rapid, lest it\nshould cause suspicion; nor too slow, lest it should give the Emperor\ntime to consult for the interests of his son Britannicus; but it was to\nbe one which should disturb his intellect without causing immediate\ndeath. Claudius was a glutton, and the poison was given him with all the\nmore ease because it was mixed with a dish of mushrooms, of which he was\nextravagantly fond. Agrippina herself handed him the choicest mushroom\nin the dish, and the poison at once reduced him to silence. As was too\nfrequently the case, Claudius was intoxicated at the time, and was\ncarried off to his bed as if nothing had happened. A violent colic\nensued, and it was feared that this, with a quantity of wine which he\nhad drunk, would render the poison innocuous. But Agrippina had gone too\nfar for retreat, and Xenophon, who knew that great crimes if frustrated\nare perilous, if successful are rewarded, came to her assistance. Under\npretence of causing him to vomit, he tickled the throat of the Emperor\nwith a feather smeared with a swift and deadly poison. It did its work,\nand before morning the Caesar was a corpse.[34]\n\n[Footnote 34: There is usually found among the writings of Seneca a most\nremarkable burlesque called _Ludus de Morte Caesaris_. As to its\nauthorship opinions will always vary, but it is a work of such undoubted\ngenius, so interesting, and so unique in its character, that I have\nthought it necessary to give in an Appendix a brief sketch of its\nargument. We may at least _hope_ that this satire, which overflows with\nthe deadliest contempt of Claudius, is not from the same pen which wrote\nfor Nero his funeral oration. It has, however, been supposed (without\nsufficient grounds) to be the lost [Greek: Apokolokuntoois] which Seneca\nis said to have written on the apotheosis of Claudius. The very name is\na bitter satire. It imagines the Emperor transformed, not into a God,\nbut into a gourd--one of those \"bloated gourds which sun their speckled\nbellies before the doors of the Roman peasants.\" \"The Senate decreed his\n_divinity_; Seneca translated it into _pumpkinity_\" (Merivale, _Rom.\nEmp_. v. 601). The _Ludus_ begins by spattering mud on the memory of the\ndivine Claudius; it ends with a shower of poetic roses over the glory of\nthe diviner Nero!]\n\nAs has been the case not unfrequently in history, from the times of\nTarquinius Priscus to those of Charles II., the death was concealed\nuntil everything had been prepared for the production of a successor.\nThe palace was carefully watched; no one was even admitted into it\nexcept Agrippina's most trusty partisans. The body was propped up with\npillows; actors were sent for \"by his own desire\" to afford it some\namusement; and priests and consuls were bidden to offer up their vows\nfor the life of the dead. Giving out that the Emperor was getting\nbetter, Agrippina took care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters,\nOctavia and Antonia, under her own immediate eye. As though overwhelmed\nwith sorrow she wept, and embraced them, and above all kept Britannicus\nby her side, kissing him with the exclamation \"that he was the very\nimage of his father,\" and taking care that he should on no account\nleave her room. So the day wore on till it was the hour which the\nChaldaeans declared would be the only lucky hour in that unlucky\nOctober day.\n\nNoon came; the palace doors were suddenly thrown open: and Nero with\nBurrus at his side went out to the Praetorian cohort which was on guard.\nBy the order of their commandant, they received him with cheers. A few\nonly hesitated, looking round them and asking \"Where was Britannicus?\"\nSince, however, he was not to be seen, and no one stirred in his favour,\nthey followed the multitude. Nero was carried in triumph to the camp,\nmade the soldiers a short speech, and promised to each man of them a\nsplendid donative. He was at once saluted Emperor. The Senate followed\nthe choice of the soldiers, and the provinces made no demur. Divine\nhonors were decreed to the murdered man, and preparations made for a\nfuneral which was to rival in its splendour the one which Livia had\nordered for Augustus. But the will--which beyond all doubt had provided\nfor the succession of Britannicus--was quietly done away with, and its\nexact provisions were never known.\n\nAnd on the first evening of his imperial power, Nero, well aware to whom\nhe owed his throne, gave to the sentinel who came to ask him the pass\nfor the night the grateful and significant watchword of \"Optima\nMater,\"--\"the best of mothers!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nNERO AND HIS TUTOR.\n\nThe imperial youth, whose destinies are now inextricably mingled with\nthose of Seneca, was accompanied to the throne by the acclamations of\nthe people. Wearied by the astuteness of an Augustus, the sullen wrath\nof a Tiberius, the mad ferocity of a Caius, the senile insensibility of\na Claudius, they could not but welcome the succession of a bright and\nbeautiful youth, whose fair hair floated over his shoulders, and whose\nfeatures displayed the finest type of Roman beauty. There was nothing in\nhis antecedents to give a sinister augury to his future development, and\nall classes alike dreamt of the advent of a golden age. We can\nunderstand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own\ncountrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the\nyouthful virtue and gentleness of Edward VI. Happy would it have been\nfor Nero if his reign, like that of Edward, could have been cut short\nbefore the thick night of many crimes had settled down upon the promise\nof its dawn. For the first five years of Nero's reign--the famous\n_Quinquennium Neronis_--were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period\nof almost ideal happiness. In reality, it was Seneca who was ruling in\nNero's, name. Even so excellent an Emperor as Trajan is said to have\nadmitted \"that no other prince had nearly equalled the praise of that\nperiod.\" It is indeed probable that those years appeared to shine with\nan exaggerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded them;\nyet we can see in them abundant circumstances which were quite\nsufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope and joy. The young Nero was\nat first modest and docile. His opening speeches, written with all the\nbeauty of thought and language which betrayed the _style_ of Seneca no\nless than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises. All\nthose things which had been felt to be injurious or oppressive he\npromised to eschew. He would not, he said, reserve to himself, as\nClaudius had done, the irresponsible decision in all matters of\nbusiness; no office or dignity should be won from him by flattery or\npurchased by bribes; he would not confuse his own personal interests\nwith those of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient\nprerogatives of the Senate; he would confine his own immediate attention\nto the provinces and the army.\n\nNor were such promises falsified by his immediate conduct. The odious\ninformers who had flourished in previous reigns were frowned upon and\npunished. Offices of public dignity were relieved from unjust and\noppressive burdens. Nero prudently declined the gold and silver statues\nand other extravagant honours which were offered to him by the corrupt\nand servile Senate, but he treated that body, which, fallen as it was,\ncontinued still to be the main representative of constitutional\nauthority, with favour and respect. Nobles and officials begun to\nbreathe more freely, and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was\nperceptibly relaxed. Severity was reserved for notorious criminals, and\nwas only inflicted in a regular and authorized manner, when no one\ncould doubt that it had been deserved. Above all, Seneca had\ndisseminated an anecdote about his young pupil which tended more than\nany other circumstance to his wide spread popularity. England has\nremembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluctance of her\nyouthful Edward to sign the death-warrant of Joan Boucher; Rome,\naccustomed to a cruel indifference to human life, regarded with\nsomething like transport the sense of pity which had made Nero, when\nasked to affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, \"_How I\nwish that I did not know how to write_!\"\n\nIt is admitted that no small share of the happiness of this period was\ndue to the firmness of the honest Burrus, and the wise, high-minded\nprecepts of Seneca. They deserve the amplest gratitude and credit for\nthis happy interregnum, for they had no easy task to perform. Besides\nthe difficulties which arose from the base and frivolous character of\ntheir pupil, besides the infinite delicacy which was requisite for the\nrestraint of a youth who was absolute master of such gigantic destinies,\nthey had the task of curbing the wild and imperious ambition of\nAgrippina, and of defeating the incessant intrigues of her many powerful\ndependents. Agrippina had no doubt persuaded herself that her crimes had\nbeen mainly committed in the interest of her son; but her conduct showed\nthat she wished him to be a mere instrument in her hands. She wished to\ngovern him, and had probably calculated on doing so by the assistance of\nSeneca, just as our own Queen Caroline completely managed George II.\nwith the aid of Sir Robert Walpole. She rode in a litter with him;\nwithout his knowledge she ordered the poisoning of M. Silanus, a brother\nof her former victim, she goaded Narcissus to death, against his will;\nthrough her influence the Senate was sometimes assembled in the palace,\nand she took no pains to conceal from the senators that she was herself\nseated behind a curtain where she could hear every word of their\ndeliberations;--nay, on one occasion, when Nero was about to give\naudience to an important Armenian legation, she had the audacity to\nenter the audience-chamber, and advance to take her seat by the side of\nthe Emperor. Every one else was struck dumb with amazement, and even\nterror, at a proceeding so unusual; but Seneca, with ready and admirable\ntact, suggested to Nero that he should rise and meet his mother, thus\nobviating a public scandal under the pretext of filial affection.\n\nBut Seneca from the very first had been guilty of a fatal error in the\neducation of his pupil. He had governed him throughout on the ruinous\nprinciple of _concession_. Nero was not devoid of talent; he had a\ndecided turn for Latin versification, and the few lines of his\ncomposition which have come down to us, _bizarre_ and effected as they\nare, yet display a certain sense of melody and power of language. But\nhis vivid imagination was accompained by a want of purpose; and Seneca,\ninstead of trying to train him in habits of serious attention and\nsustained thought, suffered him to waste his best efforts in pursuits\nand amusements which were considered partly frivolous and partly\ndisreputable, such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca\nmight have argued that there was, at any rate, no great harm in such\nemployments, and that they probably kept Nero out of worse mischief. But\nwe respect Nero the less for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging\njust as we respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks; and, if\nSeneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the first, Rome\nmight have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero's subsequent\nbuffooneries in the cities of Greece and the theatres of Rome. We may\nlay it down as an invariable axiom in all high education, that it is\n_never_ sensible to permit what is bad for the supposed sake of\npreventing what is worse. Seneca very probably persuaded himself that\nwith a mind like Nero's--the innate worthlessness of which he must early\nhave recognised--success of any high description would be simply\nimpossible. But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble\nmeans by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable.\nLet us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly\nin matters which he regarded as indifferent--or, at the worst, as\ndiscreditable--rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably\narose from an error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in\nmoral character.\n\nYet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the worse for this\nlaxity of training. We have already seen that, in his maiden-speech\nbefore the Senate, every one recognized the hand of Seneca, and many\nobserved with a sigh that this was the first occasion on which an\nEmperor had not been able, at least to all appearance, to address the\nSenate in his own words and with his own thoughts. Tiberius, as an\norator, had been dignified and forcible; Claudius had been learned and\npolished; even the disturbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in\na capacity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but Nero's\nyouth had been frittered away in paltry and indecorus accomplishments,\nwhich had left him neither time nor inclination for weightier and\nnobler pursuits.\n\nThe fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously from the\nsubsequent infamy of his pupil; and it is obvious that the dislike of\nTacitus to his memory is due to his connexion with Nero. Now, even\nthough the tutor's system had not been so wise as, when judged by an\ninflexible standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to\nmake him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and it must be\nremembered, to Seneca's eternal honour, that the evidence of facts, the\ntestimony of contemporaries, and even the grudging admission of Tacitus\nhimself, establishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation\ncharacterized the earlier years of Nero's reign were due to his\ncounsels; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the virtuous Burrus;\nthat he helped to check the sanguinary audacities of Agrippina; that the\nwritings which he addressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for\nhim, breathed the loftiest counsels; and that it was not until he was\nwholly removed from power and influence that Nero, under the fierce\nimpulses of despotic power, developed those atrocious tendencies of\nwhich the seeds had long been latent in his disposition. An ancient\nwriter records the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a\nsavagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate; and that to\nhis intimate friends he used to observe that, \"when once the lion tasted\nhuman blood, his innate cruelty would return.\"\n\nBut while we give Seneca this credit, and allow that his _intentions_\nwere thoroughly upright, we cannot but impugn his _judgment_ for having\nthus deliberately adopted the morality of expedience; and we believe\nthat to this cause, more than to any other, was due the extent of his\nfailure and the misery of his life. We may, indeed, be permitted to\ndoubt whether Nero himself--a vain and loose youth, the son of bad\nparents, and heir to boundless expectations--would, under any\ncircumstances, have grown up much better than he did; but it is clear\nthat Seneca might have been held in infinitely higher honour but for the\nshare which he had in his education. Had Seneca been as firm and wise as\nSocrates, Nero in all probability would not have been much worse than\nAlcibiades. If the tutor had set before his pupil no ideal but the very\nhighest, if he had inflexibly opposed to the extent of his ability every\ntendency which was dishonourable and wrong, he might _possibly_ have\nbeen rewarded by success, and have earned the indelible gratitude of\nmankind; and if he had failed he would at least have failed nobly, and\nhave carried with him into a calm and honourable retirement the respect,\nif not the affection, of his imperial pupil. Nay, even if he had failed\n_completely_, and lost his life in the attempt, it would have been\ninfinitely better both for him and for mankind. Even Homer might have\ntaught him that \"it is better to die than live in sin.\" At any rate he\nmight have known from study and observation that an education founded on\ncompromise must always and necessarily fail. It must fail because it\noverlooks that great eternal law of retribution for and continuity in\nevil, which is illustrated by every single history of individuals and of\nnations. And the education which Seneca gave to Nero--noble as it was in\nmany respects, and eminent as was its partial and temporary success--was\nyet an education of compromises. Alike in the studies of Nero's boyhood\nand the graver temptations of his manhood, he acted on the\nfoolishly-fatal principle that\n\n     \"Had the wild oat not been sown,\n      The soil left barren scarce had grown,\n      The grain whereby a man may live.\"\n\nAny Christian might have predicted the result; one would have thought\nthat even a pagan philosopher might have been enlightened enough to\nobserve it. We often quote the lines--\n\n     \"The child is father of the man,\"\n\nand\n\n     \"Just as the twig is bent the tree inclines.\"\n\nBut the ancients were quite as familiar with the same truth under other\nimages. \"The cask,\" wrote Horace, \"will long retain the odour of that\nwhich has once been poured into it when new.\" Quintilian, describing the\ndepraved influences which surrounded even the infancy of a Roman child,\nsaid, \"From these arise _first familiarity, then nature_.\"\n\nNo one has laid down the principle more emphatically than Seneca\nhimself. Take, for instance, the following passage from his Letters, on\nevil conversation. \"The conversation,\" he says, \"of these men is very\ninjurious; for, even if it does no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds\nin the mind, and follows us even when we have gone from the speakers,--a\nplague sure to spring up in future resurrection. Just as those who have\nheard a symphony carry in their ears the tune and sweetness of the song\nwhich entangles their thoughts, and does not suffer them to give their\nwhole energy to serious matters; so the conversation of flatterers and\nof those who praise evil things, lingers longer in the mind than the\ntime of hearing it. Nor is it easy to shake out of the soul a sweet\nsound; it pursues us, and lingers with us, and at perpetual intervals\nrecurs. Our ears therefore must be closed to evil words, and that to the\nvery first we hear. For when they have once begun and been admitted,\nthey acquire more and more audacity;\" and so he adds a little\nafterwards, \"our days flow on, and irreparable life passes beyond our\nreach.\" Yet he who wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to\nhis imperial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encouraged\nhim in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named Acte, into which Nero\nfell. It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the\nyouthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to\nwhom he had been bound by every tie of honour and affection, and his\nunion with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical\nusurpation. But princes rarely love the wives to whom they owe any part\nof their elevation. Henry VII. treated Elizabeth of York with many\nslights. The union of William III. with Mary was overshadowed by her\nsuperior claim to the royal power; and Nero from the first regarded with\naversion, which ended in assassination, the poor young orphan girl who\nrecalled to the popular memory his slender pretensions to hereditary\nempire, and whom he regarded as a possible rival, if her cowed and\nplastic nature should ever become a tool in the hands of more powerful\nintriguers. But we do not hear of any attempt on Seneca's part to urge\nupon Nero the fulfillment of this high duty, and we find him sinking\ninto the degraded position of an accomplice with young profligates like\nOtho, as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, which\nwould have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to a Stoic\ndisgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the very principle to\nwhich we have been pointing,--the principle of moral compromise, the\nprinciple of permitting and encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of\nthereby preventing what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca\nshould have erred in this way, for compromise was the character of his\nentire life. He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible\ntask of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the\nCaesars. He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a\nman of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he\nfailed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man\n_must_ make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of\nMammon and the service of God. No man ever gained anything but contempt\nand ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions.\n\nAnd by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or an Antisthenes\nwould have taken, Seneca became more or less involved in some of the\nmost dreadful events of Nero's reign. Every one of the terrible doubts\nunder which his reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted\nthe principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue. One or two\nof these events we must briefly narrate.\n\nWe have already pointed out that the Nemesis which for so many years had\nbeen secretly dogging the footsteps of Agrippina made her tremble under\nthe weight of its first cruel blows when she seemed to have attained the\nhighest summit of her ambition. Very early indeed Nero began to be\ngalled and irritated by the insatiate assumption and swollen authority\nof \"the best of mothers.\" The furious reproaches which she heaped upon\nhim when she saw in Acte a possible rival to her power drove him to take\nrefuge in the facile and unphilosophic worldliness of Seneca's\nconcessions, and goaded him almost immediately afterwards into an\natrocious crime. He naturally looked on Britannicus, the youthful son of\nClaudius, with even more suspicion and hatred than that with which he\nregarded Octavia. Kings have rarely been able to abstain from acts of\nseverity against those who might become claimants to the throne. The\nfeelings of King John towards Prince Arthur, of Henry IV. towards the\nEarl of March, of Mary towards Lady Jane Grey, of Elizabeth towards Mary\nStuart, of King James towards Lady Arabella Stuart, resembled, but\nprobably by no means equalled in intensity, those of Nero towards his\nkinsman and adoptive brother. To show him any affection was a dangerous\ncrime, and it furnished a sufficient cause for immediate removal if any\nattendant behaved towards him with fidelity. Such a line of treatment\nforeshadowed the catastrophe which was hastened by the rage of\nAgrippina. She would go, she said, and take with her to the camp the\nnoble boy who was now of full age to undertake those imperial duties\nwhich a usurper was exercising in virtue of crimes which she was now\nprepared to confess. Then let the mutilated Burrus and the glib-tongued\nSeneca see whether they could be a match for the son of Claudius and the\ndaughter of Germanicus. Such language, uttered with violent gestures and\nfurious imprecations, might well excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And\nthat alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all\nthe ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During\nthe festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with\nall the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot\nas \"governor of the feast,\" and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue\nhis orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates which\nwould not make them blush; but Britannicus in violation of every\nprinciple of Roman decorum, was ordered to stand up in the middle and\nsing a song. The boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and\nwholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well have faltered;\nbut he at once rose, and with a steady voice began a strain--probably\nthe magnificent wail of Andromache over the fall of Troy, which has been\npreserved to us from a lost play of Ennius--in which he indicated his\nown disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights. His courage and his\nmisfortunes woke in the guests a feeling of pity which night and wine\nmade them less careful to disguise. From that moment the fate of\nBritannicus was sealed. Locusta, the celebrated poisoner of ancient\nRome, was summoned to the councils of Nero to get rid of Britannicus, as\nshe had already been summoned to those of his mother when she wished to\ndisembarrass herself of Britannicus's father. The main difficulty was to\navoid discovery, since nothing was eaten or drunk at the imperial table\ntill it had been tasted by the _praegustator_. To avoid this difficulty\na very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he wished for\nsomething cooler a swift and subtle poison was dropped into the cold\nwater with which it was tempered. The boy drank, and instantly sank from\nhis seat, gasping and speechless. The guests started up in\nconsternation, and fixed their eyes on Nero. He with the utmost coolness\nassured them that it was merely a fit of epilepsy, to which his brother\nwas accustomed, and from which he would soon recover. The terror and\nagitation of Agrippina showed to every one that she at least was\nguiltless of this dark deed; but the unhappy Octavia, young as she was,\nand doubly terrible on every ground as the blow must have been to her,\nsat silent and motionless, having already learnt by her misfortunes the\nawful necessity for suppressing under an impassive exterior her\naffections and sorrows, her hopes and fears. In the dead of night, amid\nstorms and murky rain, which were thought to indicate the wrath of\nheaven, the last of the Claudii was hastily and meanly hurried into a\ndishonourable grave.\n\nWe may believe that in this crime Seneca had no share whatever, but we\ncan hardly believe that he was ignorant of it after it had been\ncommitted, or that he had no share in the intensely hypocritical edict\nin which Nero bewailed the fact of his adoptive brother's death, excused\nhis hurried funeral, and threw himself on the additional indulgence and\nprotection of the Senate. Nero showed the consciousness of guilt by the\nimmense largesses which he distributed to the most powerful of his\nfriends, \"Nor were there wanting men,\" says Tacitus, in a most\nsignificant manner, \"_who accused certain people, notorious for their\nhigh professions, of having at that period divided among them villas and\nhouses as though they had been so much spoil_.\" There can hardly be a\ndoubt that the great historian intends by this remark to point at\nSeneca, to whom he tries to be fair, but whom he could never quite\nforgive for his share in the disgraces of Nero's reign. That avarice was\none of Seneca's temptations is too probable; that expediency was a\nguiding principle of his conduct is but too evident; and for a man with\nsuch a character to rebut an innuendo is never an easy task. Nay more,\nit was _after_ this foul event, at the close of Nero's first year, that\nSeneca addressed him in the extravagant and glowing language of his\ntreatise on Clemency. \"The quality of mercy,\" and the duty of princes to\npractise it, has never been more eloquently extolled; but it is\naccompanied by a fulsome flattery which has in it something painfully\ngrotesque as addressed by a philosopher to one whom he knew to have been\nguilty, that very year, of an inhuman fratricide. Imagine some Jewish\nPharisee,--a Nicodemus or a Gamaliel--pronouncing an eulogy on the\ntenderness of a Herod, and you have some picture of the appearance which\nSeneca's consistency must have worn in the eyes of his contemporaries.\n\nThis event took place A.D. 55, in the first year of Nero's\n_Quinquennium_, and the same year was nearly signalized by the death of\nhis mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy was invented against her,\nand it is probable that but for the intervention of Burrus, who with\nSeneca was appointed to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a\nvery sudden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred of her\nson. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of her defence created a\nreaction in her favour, and secured the punishment of her accusers. But\nthe ties of affection could not long unite two such wicked and imperious\nnatures as those of Agrippina and her son. All history shows that there\ncan be no real love between souls exceptionally wicked, and that this is\nstill more impossible when the alliance between them has been sealed by\na complicity in crime. Nero had now fallen into a deep infatuation for\nPoppaea Sabina, the beautiful wife of Otho, and she refused him her hand\nso long as he was still under the control of his mother. At this time\nAgrippina, as the just consequence of her many crimes, was regarded by\nall classes with a fanaticism of hatred which in Poppaea Sabina was\nintensified by manifest self-interest. Nero, always weak, had long\nregarded his mother with real terror and disgust, and he scarcely needed\nthe urgency of constant application to make him long to get rid of her.\nBut the daughter of Germanicus could not be openly destroyed, while her\nown precautions helped to secure her against secret assassination. It\nonly remained to compass her death by treachery. Nero had long compelled\nher to live in suburban retirement, and had made no attempt to conceal\nthe open rapture which existed between them. Anicetus, admiral of the\nfleet at Misenum, and a former instructor of Nero, suggested the\nexpedient of a pretended public reconciliation, in virtue of which\nAgrippina should be invited to Baiae, and on her return should be placed\non board a vessel so constructed as to come to pieces by the removal of\nbolts. The disaster might then be attributed to a mere naval accident,\nand Nero might make the most ostentatious display of his affection\nand regret.\n\nThe invitation was sent, and a vessel specially decorated was ordered to\nawait her movements. But, either from suspicion or from secret\ninformation, she declined to avail herself of it, and was conveyed to\nBaiae in a litter. The effusion of hypocritical affection with which she\nwas received, the unusual tenderness and honour with which she was\ntreated, the earnest gaze, the warm embrace, the varied conversation,\nremoved her suspicions, and she consented to return in the vessel of\nhonour. As though for the purpose of revealing the crime, the night was\nstarry and the sea calm. The ship had not sailed far, and Crepereius\nGallus, one of her friends, was standing near the helm, while a lady\nnamed Acerronia was seated at her feet as she reclined, and both were\nvieing with each other in the warmth of their congratulations upon the\nrecent interview, when a crash was heard, and the canopy above them\nwhich had been weighted with a quantity of lead, was suddenly let go.\nCrepereius was crushed to death upon the spot; Agrippina and Acerronia\nwere saved by the projecting sides of the couch on which they were\nresting; in the hurry and alarm, as accomplices were mingled with a\ngreater number who were innocent of the plot, the machinery of the\ntreacherous vessel failed. Some of the rowers rushed to one side of the\nship, hoping in that manner to sink it, but here too their councils were\ndivided and confused. Acerronia, in the selfish hope of securing\nassistance, exclaimed that she was Agrippina, and was immediately\ndespatched with oars and poles; Agrippina, silent and unrecognized,\nreceived a wound upon the shoulder, but succeeded in keeping herself\nafloat till she was picked up by fishermen and carried in safety to\nher villa.\n\nThe hideous attempt from which she had been thus miraculously rescued\ndid not escape her keen intuition, accustomed as it was to deeds of\nguilt; but, seeing that her only chance of safety rested in\ndissimulation and reticense, she sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her\nson that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible\naccident, but to beg him not to be alarmed, and not to come to see her\nbecause she needed rest.\n\nThe news filled Nero with the wildest terror, and the expectation of an\nimmediate revenge. In horrible agitation and uncertainty he instantly\nrequired the presence of Burrus and Seneca. Tacitus doubts whether they\nmay not have been already aware of what he had attempted, and Dion, to\nwhose gross calumnies, however, we need pay no attention, declares that\nSeneca had frequently urged Nero to the deed, either in the hope of\novershadowing his own guilt, or of involving Nero in a crime which\nshould hasten his most speedy destruction at the hands of gods and men.\nIn the absence of all evidence we may with perfect confidence acquit the\nmemory of these eminent men from having gone so far as this.\n\nIt must have been a strange and awful scene. The young man, for Nero was\nbut twenty-two years old, poured into the ears their tumult of his\nagitation and alarm. White with fear, weak with dissipation, and\ntormented by the furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth\nlooked from one to another of his aged ministers. A long and painful\npause ensued. If they dissuaded him in vain from the crime which he\nmeditated their lives would have been in danger; and perhaps they\nsincerely thought that things had gone so far that, unless Agrippina\nwere anticipated, Nero would be destroyed. Seneca was the first to break\nthat silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus whether the soldiery\ncould be entrusted to put her to death. His reply was that the\npraetorians would do nothing against a daughter of Germanicus and that\nAnicetus should accomplish what he had promised. Anicetus showed himself\nprompt to crime, and Nero thanked him in a rapture of gratitude. While\nthe freedman Agerinus was delivering to Nero his mother's message,\nAnicetus dropped a dagger at his feet, declared that he had caught him\nin the very act of attempting the Emperor's assassination, and hurried\noff with a band of soldiers to punish Agrippina as the author of\nthe crime.\n\nThe multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excitement along the shore;\ntheir torches were seen glimmering in evident commotion about the scene\nof the calamity, where some were wading into the water in search of the\nbody, and others were shouting incoherent questions and replies. At the\nrumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed off in a body to her villa to\nexpress their congratulations, where they were dispersed by the soldiers\nof Anicetus, who had already token possession of it. Scattering or\nseizing the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage\nfrom door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted chamber,\nattended only by a single handmaid. \"Dost thou too desert me?\"\nexclaimed the wretched woman to her servant, as she rose to slip away.\nIn silent determination the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus\nwas the first to strike her with a stick. \"Strike my womb,\" she cried to\nhim faintly, as he drew his sword, \"for it bore Nero.\" The blow of\nAnicetus was the signal for her immediate destruction: she was\ndispatched with many wounds, and was buried that night at Misenum on a\ncommon couch and with a mean funeral. Such an end, many years\npreviously, this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had\nanticipated and despised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her that\nher son would become Emperor, and would murder her, she is said to have\nexclaimed, \"Occidat dum imperet,\" \"Let him slay me if he but reign.\"\n\nIt only remained to account for the crime, and offer for it such lying\ndefences as were most likely to gain credit. Flying to Naples from a\nscene which had now become awful to him,--for places do not change as\nmen's faces change, and, besides this, his disturbed conscience made him\nfancy that he heard from the hill of Misenum the blowing of a ghostly\ntrumpet and wailings about his mother's tomb in the hours of night,--he\nsent from thence a letter to the Senate, saying that his mother had been\npunished for an attempt upon his life, and adding a list of her crimes,\nreal and imaginary, the narrative of her _accidental_ shipwreck, and his\nopinion that her death was a public blessing. The author of this\nshameful document was Seneca, and in composing it he reached the nadir\nof his moral degradation. Even the lax morality of a most degenerate age\ncondemned him for calmly sitting down to decorate with the graces of\nrhetoric and antithesis an atrocity too deep for the powers of\nindignation. A Seneca could stoop to write what a Thrasea Paetus could\nscarcely stoop to hear; for in the meeting of the Senate at which the\nletter was recited, Thrasea rose in indignation, and went straight home\nrather than seem to sanction by his presence the adulation of a\nmatricide.\n\nAnd the composition of that guily, elaborate, shameful letter was the\nlast prominent act of Seneca's public life.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE BEGINNING OF THE END\n\nNor was it unnatural that it should be. Moral precepts, philosophic\nguidance were no longer possible to one whose compliances or whose\ntimidity had led him so far as first to sanction matricide, and then to\ndefend it. He might indeed be still powerful to recommend principles of\ncommon sense and political expediency, but the loftier lessons of\nStoicism, nay, even the better utterances of a mere ordinary Pagan\nmorality, could henceforth only fall from his lips with something of a\nhollow ring. He might interfere, as we know he did, to render as\ninnocuous as possible the pernicious vanity which made Nero so ready to\ndegrade his imperial rank by public appearances on the orchestra or in\nthe race-course, but he could hardly address again such noble teachings\nas that of the treatise on Clemency to one whom, on grounds of political\nexpediency, he had not dissuaded from the treacherous murder of a\nmother, who, whatever her enormities, yet for his sake had sold her\nvery soul.\n\nAlthough there may have been a strong suspicion that foul play had been\ncommitted, the actual facts and details of the death of Agrippina would\nrest between Nero and Seneca as a guilty secret, in the guilt of which\nSeneca himself must have his share. Such a position of things was the\ninevitable death-blow, not only to all friendship, but to all\nconfidence, and ultimately to all intercourse. We see in sacred history\nthat Joab's participation in David's guilty secret gave him the absolute\nmastery over his own sovereign; we see repeatedly in profane history\nthat the mutual knowledge of some crime is the invariable cause of\ndeadly hatred between a subject and a king. Such feelings as King John\nmay be supposed to have had to Hubert de Burgh, or King Richard III. to\nSir James Tyrrel, or King James I. to the Earl of Somerset, such\nprobably, in still more virulent intensity, were the feelings of Nero\ntowards his whilome \"guide, philosopher, and friend.\"\n\nFor Nero very soon learnt that Seneca was no longer _necessary_ to him.\nFor a time he lingered in Campania, guiltily dubious as to the kind of\nreception that awaited him in the capital. The assurances of the vile\ncrew which surrounded him soon made that fear wear off, and when he\nplucked up the courage to return to his palace, he might himself have\nbeen amazed at the effusion of infamous loyalty and venal acclamation\nwith which he was received. All Rome poured itself forth to meet him;\nthe Senate appeared in festal robes with their wives and girls and boys\nin long array; seats and scaffoldings were built up along the road by\nwhich he had to pass, as though the populace had gone forth to see a\ntriumph. With haughty mein, the victor of a nation of slaves, he\nascended the Capitol, gave thanks to the gods, and went home to betray\nhenceforth the full perversity of a nature which the reverence for his\nmother, such as it was, had hitherto in part restrained. But the\ninstincts of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. They\nhung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the old punishment\nof parricides, who were sentenced to be flung into the sea, tied up in a\nsack with a serpent, a monkey, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the\nForum with a tablet on which was written, \"I refuse to rear thee, lest\nthou shouldst slay thy mother.\" They scrawled upon the blank walls of\nRome an iambic line which reminded all who read it that Nero, Orestes,\nand Alcmaeon were murderers of their mothers. Even Nero must have been\nwell aware that he presented a hideous spectacle in the eyes of all who\nhad the faintest shade of righteousness among the people whom he ruled.\n\nAll this took place in A.D. 59, and we hear no more of Seneca till the\nyear 62, a year memorable for the death of Burrus, who had long been his\nhonest, friendly, and faithful colleague. In these dark times, when all\nmen seemed to be speaking in a whisper, almost every death of a\nconspicuous and high-minded man, if not caused by open violence, falls\nunder the suspicion of secret poison. The death of Burrus may have been\ndue (from the description) to diphtheria, but the popular voice charged\nNero with having hastened his death by a pretended remedy, and declared\nthat, when the Emperor visited his sick bed, the dying man turned away\nfrom his inquiries with the laconic answer, \"I am well.\"\n\nHis death was regretted, not only from the memory of his virtues, but\nalso from the fact that Nero appointed two men as his successors, of\nwhom the one, Fenius Rufus, was honorable but indolent; the other and\nmore powerful, Sofonius Tigellinus had won for himself among cruel and\nshameful associates a pre-eminence of hatred and of shame.\n\nHowever faulty and inconsistent Seneca may have been, there was at any\nrate no possibility that he should divide with a Tigellinus the\ndirection of his still youthful master. He was by no means deceived as\nto the position in which he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in\nwhom any spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant\ncalumnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tigellinus and his\nfriends dwelt on his enormous wealth and his magnificent villas and\ngardens, which could only have been acquired with ulterior objects, and\nwhich threw into the shade the splendour of the Emperor himself. They\ntried to kindle the inflammable jealousies of Nero's feeble mind by\nrepresenting Seneca as attempting to rival him in poetry, and as\nclaiming the entire credit of his eloquence, while he mocked his divine\nsinging, and disparaged his accomplishments as a harper and charioteer\nbecause he himself was unable to acquire them. Nero, they urged was a\nboy no longer; let him get rid of his schoolmaster, and find sufficient\ninstruction in the example of his ancestors.\n\nForeseeing how such arguments must end; Seneca requested an interview\nwith Nero; begged to be suffered to retire altogether from public life;\npleaded age and increasing infirmities as an excuse for desiring a calm\nretreat; and offered unconditionally to resign the wealth and honours\nwhich had excited the cupidity of his enemies, but which were simply due\nto Nero's unexampled liberality during the eight years of his\ngovernment, towards one whom he had regarded as a benefactor and a\nfriend. But Nero did not choose to let Seneca escape so lightly. He\nargued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to\naccept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for\ngenerosity. A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under\ndeceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and\nassurances of friendship. Seneca thanked him--the usual termination, as\nTacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler--but nevertheless\naltered his entire manner of life, forbade his friends to throng to his\nlevees, avoided all companions, and rarely appeared in public--wishing\nit to be believed that he was suffering from weak health, or was wholly\noccupied in the pursuit of philosophy. He well knew the arts of courts,\nfor in his book on Anger he has told an anecdote of one who, being asked\nhow he had managed to attain so rare a gift as old age in a palace,\nreplied, \"By submitting to injuries, and _returning thanks for them_.\"\nBut he must have known that his life hung upon a thread, for in the very\nsame year an attempt was made to involve him in a charge of treason as\none of the friends of C. Calpurnius Piso, an illustrious nobleman whose\nwealth and ability made him an object of jealousy and suspicion, though\nhe was naturally unambitious and devoid of energy. The attempt failed at\nthe time, and Seneca was able triumphantly to refute the charge of any\ntreasonable design. But the fact of such a charge being made showed how\ninsecure was the position of any man of eminence under the deepening\ntyranny of Nero, and it precipitated the conspiracy which two years\nafterwards was actually formed.\n\nNot long after the death of Burrus, when Nero began to add sacrilege to\nhis other crimes, Seneca made one more attempt to retire from Rome; and,\nwhen permission was a second time refused, he feigned a severe illness,\nand confined himself to his chamber. It was asserted, and believed, that\nabout this time Nero made an attempt to poison him by the\ninstrumentality of his freedman Cleonicus, which was only defeated by\nthe confession of an accomplice or by the abstemious habits of the\nphilosopher who now took nothing but bread and fruit, and never quenched\nhis thirst except out of the running stream.\n\nIt was during those two years of Seneca's seclusion and disgrace that an\nevent happened of imperishable interest. On the orgies of a shameful\ncourt, on the supineness of a degenerate people, there burst--as upon\nthe court of Charles II.--a sudden lightning-flash of retribution. In\nits character, in its extent, in the devastation and anguish of which it\nwas the cause, in the improvements by which it was followed, in the\nlying origin to which it was attributed, even in the general\ncircumstances of the period and character of the reign in which it\nhappened, there is a close and singular analogy between the Great Fire\nof London in 1666 and the Great Fire of Rome in 64. Beginning in the\ncrowded part of the city, under the Palatine and Caelian Hills, it\nraged, first for six, and then again for three days, among the\ninflammable material of booths and shops, and driven along by a furious\nwind, amid feeble and ill-directed efforts to check its course, it burst\nirresistibly over palaces, temples, and porticoes, and amid the narrow\ntortuous streets of old Rome, involving in a common destruction the most\nmagnificent works of ancient art, the choicest manuscripts of ancient\nliterature, and the most venerable monuments of ancient superstition. In\na few touches of inimitable compression, such as the stern genius of the\nLatin language permits, but which are too condensed for direct\ntranslation, Tacitus has depicted the horror of the scene,--wailing of\npanic-stricken women, the helplessness of the very aged and the very\nyoung, the passionate eagerness for themselves and for others, the\ndragging along of the feeble or the waiting for them, the lingering and\nthe hurry, the common and inextricable confusion. Many, while they\nlooked backward, were cut off by the flames in front or at the sides; if\nthey sought some neighboring refuge, they found it in the grasp of the\nconflagration; if they hurried to some more distant spot, that too was\nfound to be involved in the same calamity. At last, uncertain what to\nseek or what to avoid, they crowded the streets, they lay huddled\ntogether in the fields. Some, having lost all their possessions, died\nfrom the want of daily food; and others, who might have escaped died of\na broken heart from the anguish of being bereaved of those whom they had\nbeen unable to rescue; while, to add to the universal horror, it was\nbelieved that all attempts to repress the flames were checked by\nauthoritive prohibition; nay more, that hired incendiaries were seen\nflinging firebrands in new directions, either because they had been\nbidden to do so, or that they might exercise their rapine undisturbed.\n\nThe historians and anecdotists of the time, whose accounts must be taken\nfor what they are worth, attribute to Nero the origin of the\nconflagration; and it is certain that he did not return to Rome until\nthe fire had caught the galleries of his palace. In vain did he use\nevery exertion to assist the homeless and ruined population; in vain did\nhe order food to be sold to them at a price unprecedentedly low, and\nthrow open to them the monuments of Agrippa, his own gardens, and a\nmultitude of temporary sheds. A rumour had been spread that, during the\nterrible unfolding of that great \"flower of flame,\" he had mounted to\nthe roof of his distant villa, and delighted with the beauty of the\nspectacle, exulting in the safe sensation of a new excitement, had\ndressed himself in theatrical attire, and sung to his harp a poem on the\nburning of Troy. Such a heartless mixture of buffoonery and affectation\nhad exasperated the people too deeply for forgiveness, and Nero thought\nit necessary to draw off the general odium into a new channel, since\nneither his largesses nor any other popular measures succeeded in\nremoving from himself the ignominy of this terrible suspicion. What\nfollows is so remarkable, and, to a Christian reader, so deeply\ninteresting, that I will give it in the very words of that great\nhistorian whom I have been so closely following.\n\n\"Therefore, to get rid of this report, Nero trumped up an accusation\nagainst a sect, detested for their atrocities, whom the common people\ncalled Christians, and inflicted on them the most recondite punishments.\nChrist, the founder of this sect, had been capitally punished by the\nProcurator Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; and this damnable\nsuperstition, repressed for the present, was again breaking out, not\nonly through Judaea, where the evil originated, but even through the\nCity, whither from all regions all things that are atrocious or shameful\nflow together and gain a following. Those, therefore, were first\narrested who confessed their religion, and then on their evidence a vast\nmultitude were condemned, not so much on the charge of incendiarism, as\nfor their hatred towards the human race. And mockery was added to their\ndeath; for they were covered in the skins of wild beasts and were torn\nto death by dogs, or crucified, or set apart for burning, and after the\nclose of the day were reserved for the purpose of nocturnal\nillumination. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a\nchariot-race, mingling with the people in the costume of a charioteer,\nor driving among them in his chariot; by which conduct he raised a\nfeeling of commiseration towards the sufferers, guilty though they were,\nand deserving of the extremest penalties, as though they were being\nexterminated, not for the public interests, but to gratify the savage\ncruelty of one man.\"\n\nSuch are the brief but deeply pathetic particulars which have come down\nto us respecting the first great persecution of the Christians, and such\nmust have been the horrid events of which Seneca was a contemporary, and\nprobably an actual eye-witness, in the very last year of his life.\nProfoundly as in all likelihood he must have despised the very name of\nChristian, a heart so naturally mild and humane as his must have\nshuddered at the monstrous cruelties devised against the unhappy\nvotaries of this new religion. But to the relations of Christianity with\nthe Pagan world we shall return in a subsequent chapter and we must now\nhasten to the end of our biography.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE DEATH OF SENECA.\n\nThe false charge which had been brought against Seneca, and in which the\nname of Piso had been involved, tended to urge that nobleman and his\nfriends into a real and formidable conspiracy. Many men of influence and\ndistinction joined in it, and among others Annaeus Lucanus, the\ncelebrated poet-nephew of Seneca, and Fenius Rufus the colleague of\nTigellinus in the command of the imperial guards. The plot was long\ndiscussed, and many were admitted into the secret, which was\nnevertheless marvellously well kept. One of the most eager conspirators\nwas Subrius Flavus, an officer of the guards, who suggested the plan of\nstabbing Nero as he sang upon the stage, or of attacking him as he went\nabout without guards at night in the galleries of his burning palace.\nFlavus is even said to have cherished the design of subsequently\nmurdering Piso likewise, and of offering the imperial power to Seneca,\nwith the full cognisance of the philosopher himself.[35] However this\nmay have been--and the story has no probability--many schemes were\ndiscussed and rejected, from the difficulty of finding a man\nsufficiently bold and sufficiently in earnest to put his own life to\nsuch imminent risk. While things were still under discussion, the plot\nwas nearly ruined by the information of Volusius Proculus, an admiral of\nthe fleet, to whom it had been mentioned by a freedwoman of the name of\nEphicharis. Although no sufficient evidence could be adduced against\nher, the conspirators thought it advisable to hasten matters, and one of\nthem, a senator named Scaevinus, undertook the dangerous task of\nassassination. Plautius Lateranus, the cousul-elect, was to pretend to\noffer a petition, in which he was to embrace the Emperor's knees and\nthrow him to the ground, and then Scaevinus was to deal the fatal blow.\nThe theatrical conduct of Scaevinus--who took an antique dagger from the\nTemple of Safety, made his will, ordered the dagger to be sharpened, sat\ndown to an unusually luxurious banquet, manumitted or made presents to\nhis slaves, showed great agitation, and finally ordered ligaments for\nwounds to be prepared,--awoke the suspicions of one of his freedmen\nnamed Milichus, who hastened to claim a reward for revealing his\nsuspicions. Confronted with Milichus, Scaevinus met and refuted his\naccusations with the greatest firmness; but when Milichus mentioned\namong other things that, the day before, Scaevinus had held a long and\nsecret conversation with another friend of Piso named Natalis, and when\nNatalis, on being summoned, gave a very different account of the subject\nof this conversation from that which Scaevinus had given, they were both\nput in chains; and, unable to endure the threats and the sight of\ntortures, revealed the entire conspiracy. Natalis was the first to\nmentioned the name of Piso, and he added the hated name of Seneca,\neither because he had been the confidential messenger between the two,\nor because he knew that he could not do a greater favour to Nero than by\ngiving him the opportunity of injuring a man whom he had long sought\nevery possible opportunity to crush. Scaevinus, with equal weakness,\nperhaps because he thought that Natalis had left nothing to reveal,\nmentioned the names of the others, and among them of Lucan, whose\ncomplicity in the plot would undoubtedly tend to give greater\nprobability to the supposed guilt of Seneca. Lucan, after long denying\nall knowledge of the design, corrupted by the promise of impunity, was\nguilty of the incredible baseness of making up for the slowness of his\nconfession by its completeness, and of naming among the conspirators his\nchief friend Gallus and Pollio, and his own mother Atilla. The woman\nEphicharis, slave though she had once been, alone showed the slightest\nconstancy, and, by her brave unshaken reticence under the most\nexcruciating and varied tortures, put to shame the pusillanimous\ntreachery of senators and knights. On the second day, when, with limbs\ntoo dislocated to admit of her standing, she was again brought to the\npresence of her executioners, she succeeded, by a sudden movement, in\nstrangling herself with her own girdle.\n\n[Footnote 35: See Juv. _Sat_. viii. 212.]\n\nIn the hurry and alarm of the moment the slightest show of resolution\nwould have achieved the object of the conspiracy. Fenius Rufus had not\nyet been named among the conspirators, and as he sat by the side of the\nEmperor, and presided over the torture of his associates, Subrius Flavus\nmade him a secret sign to inquire whether even then and there he should\nstab Nero. Rufus not only made a sign of dissent, but actually held the\nhand of Subrius as it was grasping the hilt of his sword. Perhaps it\nwould have been better for him if he had not done so, for it was not\nlikely that the numerous conspirators would long permit the same man to\nbe at once their accomplice and the fiercest of their judges. Shortly\nafterwards, as he was urging and threatening, Scaevinus remarked, with a\nquiet smile, \"that nobody knew more about the matter than he did\nhimself, and that he had better show his gratitude to so excellent a\nprince by telling all he knew.\" The confusion and alarm of Rufus\nbetrayed his consciousness of guilt; he was seized and bound on the\nspot, and subsequently put to death.\n\nMeanwhile the friends of Piso were urging to take some bold and sudden\nstep, which, if it did not succeed in retrieving his fortunes, would at\nleast shed lustre on his death. But his somewhat slothful nature,\nweakened still further by a luxurious life, was not to be aroused, and\nhe calmly awaited the end. It was customary among the Roman Emperors at\nthis period to avoid the disgrace and danger of public executions by\nsending a messenger to a man's house, and ordering him to put himself to\ndeath by whatever means he preferred. Some raw recruits--for Nero dared\nnot intrust any veterans with the duty--brought the mandate to Piso, who\nproceeded to make a will full of disgraceful adulation towards Nero,\nopened his veins, and died. Plautius Lateranus was not even allowed the\npoor privilege of choosing his own death, but, without time even to\nembrace his children, was hurried off to a place set apart for the\npunishment of slaves, and there died, without a word, by the sword of a\ntribune whom he knew to be one his own accomplices.\n\nLucan, in the prime of his life and the full bloom of his genius, was\nbelieved to have joined the plot from his indignation at the manner in\nwhich Nero's jealousy had repressed his poetic fame, and forbidden him\nthe opportunity of public rectitations. He too opened his veins; and as\nhe felt the deathful chill creeping upwards from the extremities of his\nlimbs, he recited some verses from his own \"Pharsalia,\" in which he had\ndescribed the similar death of the soldier Lycidas. They were his last\nwords. His mother Atilla, whom to his everlasting infamy, he had\nbetrayed, was passed over as a victim too insignificant for notice, and\nwas neither pardoned nor punished.\n\nBut, of all the many deaths which were brought about by this unhappy and\nill-managed conspiracy, none caused more delight to Nero than that of\nSeneca, whom he was now able to dispatch by the sword, since he had been\nunable to do so by secret poison. What share Seneca really had in the\nconspiracy is unknown. If he were really cognisant of it, he must have\nacted with consummate tact, for no particle of convincing evidence was\nadduced against him. All that even Natalis could relate was, that when\nPiso had sent him to complain to Seneca of his not admitting Piso to\nmore of his intercourse, Seneca had replied \"that it was better for them\nboth to hold aloof from each other, but that his own safety depended on\nthat of Piso.\" A tribune was sent to ask Seneca as to the truth of this\nstory, and found,--which was in itself regarded as a suspicious\ncircumstance,--that on that very day he had returned from Campania to a\nvilla four miles from the city. The tribune arrived in the evening, and\nsurrounded the villa with soldiers. Seneca was at supper, with his wife\nPaulina and two friends. He entirely denied the truth of the evidence,\nand said that \"the only reason which he had assigned to Piso for seeing\nso little of him was his weak health and love of retirement. Nero, who\nknew how little prone he was to flattery, might judge whether or no it\nwas likely that he, a man of consular rank, would prefer the safety of a\nman of private station to his own.\" Such was the message which the\ntribune took back to Nero, whom he found sitting with his dearest and\nmost detestable advisers, his wife Poppaea and his minister Tigellinus.\nNero asked \"whether Seneca was preparing a voluntary death.\" On the\ntribune replying that he showed no gloom or terror in his language or\ncountenance, Nero ordered that he should at once be bidden to die. The\nmessage was taken, and Seneca, without any sign of alarm, quietly\ndemanded leave to revise his will. This was refused him, and he then\nturned to his friends with the remark that, as he was unable to reward\ntheir merits as they had deserved, he would bequeath to them the only,\nand yet the most precious, possession left to him, namely, the example\nof his life, and if they were mindful of it they would win the\nreputation alike for integrity and for faithful friendship. At the same\ntime he checked their tears, sometimes by his conversation, and\nsometimes with serious reproaches, asking them \"where were their\nprecepts of philosophy, and where the fortitude under trials which\nshould have been learnt from the studies of many years? Did not every\none know the cruelty of Nero? and what was left for him to do but to\nmake an end of his master and tutor after the murder of his mother and\nhis brother?\" He then embraced his wife Paulina, and, with a slight\nfaltering of his lofty sternness, begged and entreated her not to enter\non an endless sorrow, but to endure the loss of her husband by the aid\nof those noble consolations which she must derive from the contemplation\nof his virtuous life. But Paulina declared that she would die with him,\nand Seneca, not opposing the deed which would win her such permanent\nglory, and at the same time unwilling to leave her to future wrongs,\nyielded to her wish. The veins of their arms were opened by the same\nblow; but the blood of Seneca, impoverished by old age and temperate\nliving, flowed so slowly that it was necessary also to open the veins of\nhis legs. This mode of death, chosen by the Romans as comparatively\npainless, is in fact under certain circumstances most agonizing. Worn\nout by these cruel tortures, and unwilling to weaken his wife's\nfortitude by so dreadful a spectacle, glad at the same time to spare\nhimself the sight of _her_ sufferings, he persuaded her to go to another\nroom. Even then his eloquence did not fail. It is told of Andr\u00e8 Ch\u00e9nier,\nthe French poet, that on his way to execution he asked for writing\nmaterials to record some of the strange thoughts which filled his mind.\nThe wish was denied him, but Seneca had ample liberty to record his last\nutterances. Amanuenses were summoned, who took down those dying\nadmonitions, and in the time of Tacitus they still were extant. To us,\nhowever, this interesting memorial of a Pagan deathbed is\nirrevocably lost.\n\nNero, meanwhile, to whom the news of these circumstances was taken,\nhaving no dislike to Paulina, and unwilling to incur the odium of too\nmuch bloodshed, ordered her death to be prohibited and her wounds to be\nbound. She was already unconscious, but her slaves and freedmen\nsucceeded in saving her life. She lived a few years longer, cherishing\nher husband's memory, and bearing in the attenuation of her frame, and\nthe ghastly pallor of her countenance, the lasting proofs of that deep\naffection which had characterised their married life.\n\nSeneca was not yet dead, and, to shorten these protracted and useless\nsufferings, he begged his friend and physician Statius Annaeus to give\nhim a draught of hemlock, the same poison by which the great philosopher\nof Athens had been put to death. But his limbs were already cold, and\nthe draught proved fruitless. He then entered a bath of hot water,\nsprinkling the slaves who stood nearest to him, with the words that he\nwas pouring a libation to Jupiter the Liberator.[36] Even the warm\nwater failed to make the blood flow more speedily, and he was finally\ncarried into one of those vapour baths which the Romans called\n_sudatoria_, and stifled with its steam. His body was burned privately,\nwithout any of the usual ceremonies. Such had been his own wish,\nexpressed, not after the fall of his fortunes, but at a time when his\nthoughts had been directed to his latter end, in the zenith of his great\nwealth and conspicuous power.\n\n[Footnote 36: Sicco Polentone, an Italian, who wrote a Life of Seneca\n(d. 1461), makes Seneca a secret Christian, and represents this as an\ninvocation of Christ, and says that he baptized himself with the water\nof the bath!]\n\nSo died a Pagan philosopher, whose life must always excite our interest\nand pity, although we cannot apply to him the titles of great or good.\nHe was a man of high genius, of great susceptibility, of an ardent and\ngenerous temperament, of far-sighted and sincere humanity. Some of his\nsentiments are so remarkable for their moral beauty and profundity that\nthey forcibly remind us of the expressions of St. Paul. But Seneca fell\ninfinitely short of his own high standard, and has contemptuously been\ncalled \"the father of all them that wear shovel hats.\" Inconsistency is\nwritten on the entire history of his life, and it has earned him the\nscathing contempt with which many writers have treated his memory. \"The\nbusiness of a philosopher,\" says Lord Macaulay, in his most scornful\nstrain, \"was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling\nout at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of\nluxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about\nliberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant;\nto celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had\njust before written a defence of the murder of a mother by a son.\"\n\"Seneca,\" says Niebuhr, \"was an accomplished man of the world, who\noccupied himself very much with virtue, and may have considered himself\nto be an ancient Stoic. He certainly believed that he was a most\ningenious and virtuous philosopher; but he acted on the principle that,\nas far as he himself was concerned, he could dispense with the laws of\nmorality which he laid down for others, and that he might give way to\nhis natural propensities.\"\n\nIn Seneca's life, then, we see as clearly as in those of many professing\nChristians that it is impossible to be at once worldly and righteous.\nSeneca's utter failure was due to the vain attempt to combine in his own\nperson two opposite characters--that of a Stoic and that of a courtier.\nHad he been a true philosopher, or a mere courtier, he would have been\nhappier, and even more respected. To be both was absurd: hence, even in\nhis writings, he was driven into inconsistency. He is often compelled to\nabandon the lofty utterances of Stoicism, and to charge philosophers\nwith ignorance of life. In his treatise on a Happy Life he is obliged to\nintroduce a sort of indirect autobiographical apology for his wealth and\nposition.[37] In spite of his lofty pretensions to simplicity, in spite\nof that sort of amateur asceticism which, in common with other wealthy\nRomans, he occasionally practised, in spite of his final offer to\nabandon his entire patrimony to the Emperor, we fear that he cannot be\nacquitted of an almost insatiable avarice. We need not indeed believe\nthe fierce calumnies which charged him with exhausting Italy by a\nboundless usury, and even stirring up a war in Britain by the severity\nof his exactions; but it is quite clear that he deserved the title of\n_Proedives_, \"the over-wealthy,\" by which he has been so pointedly\nsignalized. It is strange that the most splendid intellects should so\noften have sunk under the slavery of this meanest vice. In the Bible we\nread how the \"rewards of divination\" seduced from his allegiance to God\nthe splendid enchanter of Mesopotamia:\n\n       \"In outline dim and vast\n        Their fearful shadows cast\n    The giant form of Empires on their way\n        To ruin:--one by one\n        They tower and they are gone,\n    Yet in the prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.\n\n       \"No sun or star so bright,\n        In all the world of light,\n    That they should draw to heaven his downward eye:\n        He hears the Almighty's word,\n        He sees the angel's sword,\n    Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie.\"\n\n[Footnote 37: See _Ad. Polyb_. 37: _Ep_. 75; _De Vit. Beat_. 17, 18,\n22.]\n\nAnd in Seneca we see some of the most glowing pictures of the nobility\nof poverty combined with the most questionable avidity in the pursuit of\nwealth. Yet how completely did he sell himself for naught. It is the\nlesson which we see in every conspicuously erring life, and it was\nillustrated less than three years afterwards in the terrible fate of the\ntyrant who had driven him to death. For a short period of his life,\nindeed, Seneca was at the summit of power; yet, courtier as he was, he\nincurred the hatred, the suspicion, and the punishment of all the three\nEmperors during whose reigns his manhood was passed. \"Of all\nunsuccessful men,\" says Mr. Froude, \"in every shape, whether divine or\nhuman, or devilish, there is none equal to Bunyan's Mr.\nFacing-both-ways--the fellow with one eye on heaven and one on\nearth--who sincerely preaches one thing and sincerely does another, and\nfrom the intensity of his unreality is unable either to see or feel the\ncontradiction. He is substantially trying to cheat both God and the\ndevil, and is in reality only cheating himself and his neighbours. This\nof all characters upon the earth appears to us to be the one of which\nthere is no hope at all, a character becoming in these days alarmingly\nabundant; and the aboundance of which makes us find even in a Reineke an\ninexpressible relief.\" And, in point of fact, the inconsistency of\nSeneca's life was a _conscious_ inconsistency. \"To the student,\" he\nsays, \"who professes his wish to rise to a loftier grade of virtue, I\nwould answer that this is my _wish_ also, but I dare not hope it. _I am\npreoccupied with vices. All I require of myself is, not to be equal to\nthe best_, but only _to be better than the bad_.\" No doubt Seneca meant\nthis to be understood merely for modest depreciation; but it was far\ntruer than he would have liked seriously to confess. He must have often\nand deeply felt that he was not living in accordance with the light\nwhich was in him.\n\nIt would indeed be cheap and easy, to attribute the general inferiority\nand the many shortcomings of Seneca's life and character to the fact\nthat he was a Pagan, and to suppose that if he had known Christianity he\nwould necessarily have attained to a loftier ideal. But such a style of\nreasoning and inference, commonly as it is adopted for rhetorical\npurposes, might surely be refused by any intelligent child. A more\nintellectual assent to the lessons of Christianity would have probably\nbeen but of little avail to inspire in Seneca a nobler life. The fact\nis, that neither the gift of genius nor the knowledge of Christianity\nare adequate to the ennoblement of the human heart, nor does the grace\nof God flow through the channels of surpassing intellect or of orthodox\nbelief. Men there have been in all ages, Pagan no less than Christian,\nwho with scanty mental enlightenment and spiritual knowledge have yet\nlived holy and noble lives: men there have been in all ages, Christian\nno less than Pagan, who with consummate gifts and profound erudition\nhave disgraced some of the noblest words which ever were uttered by some\nof the meanest lives which were ever lived. In the twelfth century was\nthere any mind that shone more brightly, was there any eloquence which\nflowed more mightily, than that of Peter Abelard? Yet Abelard sank\nbeneath the meanest of his scholastic cotemporaries in the degradation\nof his career as much as he towered above the highest of them in the\ngrandeur of his genius. In the seventeenth century was there any\nphilosopher more profound, any moralist more elevated, than Francis\nBacon? Yet Bacon could flatter a tyrant, and betray a friend, and\nreceive a bribe, and be one of the latest of English judges to adopt the\nbrutal expedient of enforcing confession by the exercise of torture. If\nSeneca defended the murder of Agrippina, Bacon blackened the character\nof Essex. \"What I would I do not; but the thing that I would not, that I\ndo,\" might be the motto for many a confession of the sins of genius; and\nSeneca need not blush if we compare him with men who were his equals in\nintellectual power, but whose \"means of grace,\" whose privileges, whose\nknowledge of the truth, were infinitely higher than his own. Let the\nnoble constancy of his death shed a light over his memory which may\ndissipate something of those dark shades which rest on portions of his\nhistory. We think of Abelard, humble, silent, patient, God-fearing,\ntended by the kindly-hearted Peter in the peaceful gardens of Clugny; we\nthink of Bacon, neglected, broken, and despised, dying of the chill\ncaught in a philosophical experiment and leaving his memory to the\njudgment of posterity; let us think of Seneca, quietly yielding to his\ndestiny without a murmur, cheering the constancy of the mourners round\nhim during the long agonies of his enforced suicide and dictating some\nof the purest utterances of Pagan wisdom almost with his latest breath.\nThe language of his great contemporary, the Apostle St. Paul, will best\nhelp us to understand his position. He was one of those who was _seeking\nthe Lord, if haply he might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be\nnot far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have\nour being_.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nSENECA AND ST. PAUL.\n\nIn the spring of the year 61, not long after the time when the murder of\nAgrippina, and Seneca's justifications of it, had been absorbing the\nattention of the Roman world, there disembarked at Puteoli a troop of\nprisoners, whom the Procurator of Judaea had sent to Rome under the\ncharge of a centurion. Walking among them, chained and weary, but\naffectionately tended by two younger companions,[38] and treated with\nprofound respect by little deputations of friends who met him at Appii\nForum and the Three Taverns, was a man of mean presence and\nweather-beaten aspect, who was handed over like the rest to the charge\nof Burrus, the Praefect of the Praetorian Guards. Learning from the\nletters of the Jewish Procurator that the prisoner had been guilty of no\nserious offence,[39] but had used his privilege of Roman citizenship to\nappeal to Caesar for protection against the infuriated malice of his\nco-religionists--possibly also having heard from the centurion Julius\nsome remarkable facts about his behaviour and history--Burrus allowed\nhim, pending the hearing of his appeal, to live in his own hired\napartments.[40] This lodging was in all probability in that quarter of\nthe city opposite the island in the Tiber, which corresponds to the\nmodern Trastevere. It was the resort of the very lowest and meanest of\nthe populace--that promiscuous jumble of all nations which makes Tacitus\ncall Rome at this time \"the sewer of the universe.\" It was here\nespecially that the Jews exercised some of the meanest trades in Rome,\nselling matches, and old clothes, and broken glass, or begging and\nfortune-telling on the Cestian or Fabrican bridges.[41] In one of these\nnarrow, dark, and dirty streets, thronged by the dregs of the Roman\npopulace, St. Mark and St. Peter had in all probability lived when they\nfounded the little Christian Church at Rome. It was undoubtedly in the\nsame despised locality that St. Paul,--the prisoner who had been\nconsigned to the care of Burrus,--hired a room, sent for the principle\nJews, and for two years taught to Jews and Christians, to any Pagans who\nwould listen to him, the doctrines which were destined to regenerate\nthe world.\n\n[Footnote 38: Luke and Aristarchus.]\n\n[Footnote 39: Acts xxiv. 23, xxvii. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 40: Acts xxviii. 30, [Greek: en idio misthomati].]\n\n[Footnote 41: MART. _Ep_. i. 42: JUV. xiv. 186. In these few paragraphs\nI follow M. Aubertin, who (as well as many other authors) has collected\nmany of the principal passages in which Roman writers allude to the Jews\nand Christians.]\n\nAny one entering that mean and dingy room would have seen a Jew with\nbent body and furrowed countenance, and with every appearance of age,\nweakness, and disease chained by the arm to a Roman soldier. But it is\nimpossible that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not also\nhave seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, the fire of inspiration,\nthe serene light of exalted hope and dauntless courage upon those\nwithered features. And though _he_ was chained, \"the Word of God was not\nchained.\" [42] Had they listened to the words which he occasionally\ndictated, or overlooked the large handwriting which alone his weak\neyesight and bodily infirmities, as well as the inconvenience of his\nchains, permitted, they would have heard or read the immortal utterances\nwhich strengthened the faith of the nascent and struggling Churches in\nEphesus, Philippi, and Colossae, and which have since been treasured\namong the most inestimable possessions of a Christian world.\n\n[Footnote 42: 2 Tim. ii. 9.]\n\nHis efforts were not unsuccessful; his misfortunes were for the\nfurtherance of the Gospel; his chains were manifest \"in all the palace,\nand in all other places;\" [43] and many waxing confident by his bonds\nwere much more bold to speak the word without fear. Let us not be misled\nby assuming a wrong explanation of these words, or by adopting the\nMiddle Age traditions which made St. Paul convert some of the immediate\nfavourites of the Emperor, and electrify with his eloquence an admiring\nSenate. The word here rendered \"palace\" [44] may indeed have that\nmeaning, for we know that among the early converts were \"they of\nCaesar's household;\" [45] but these were in all probability--if not\ncertainly--Jews of the lowest rank, who were, as we know, to be found\namong the _hundreds_ of unfortunates of every age and country who\ncomposed a Roman _familia_. And it is at least equally probable that the\nword \"praetorium\" simply means the barrack of that detachment of Roman\nsoldiers from which Paul's gaolers were taken in turn. In such labours\nSt. Paul in all probability spent two years (61-63), during which\noccurred the divorce of Octavia, the marriage with Poppaea, the death of\nBurrus, the disgrace of Seneca, and the many subsequent infamies\nof Nero.\n\n[Footnote 43: Phil. i. 12.]\n\n[Footnote 44: [Greek: en olo to praitorio].]\n\n[Footnote 45: Phil. iv. 22.]\n\nIt is out of such materials that some early Christian forger thought it\nedifying to compose the work which is supposed to contain the\ncorrespondence of Seneca and St. Paul. The undoubted spuriousness of\nthat work is now universally admitted, and indeed the forgery is too\nclumsy to be even worth reading. But it is worth while inquiring whether\nin the circumstances of the time there is even a bare possibility that\nSeneca should ever have been among the readers or the auditors of Paul.\n\nAnd the answer is, There is absolutely no such probability. A vivid\nimagination is naturally attracted by the points of contrast and\nresemblance offered by two such characters, and we shall see that there\nis a singular likeness between many of their sentiments and expressions.\nBut this was a period in which, as M. Villemain observes, \"from one\nextremity of the social world to the other truths met each other without\nrecognition.\" Stoicism, noble as were many of its precepts, lofty as was\nthe morality it professed, deeply as it was imbued in many respects with\na semi-Christian piety, looked upon Christianity with profound contempt.\nThe Christians disliked the Stoics, the Stoics despised and persecuted\nthe Christians. \"The world knows nothing of its greatest men.\" Seneca\nwould have stood aghast at the very notion of his receiving the lessons,\nstill more of his adopting the religion, of a poor, accused, and\nwandering Jew. The haughty, wealthy, eloquent, prosperous, powerful\nphilosopher would have smiled at the notion that any future ages would\nsuspect him of having borrowed any of his polished and epigrammatic\nlessons of philosophic morals or religion from one whom, if he heard of\nhim, he would have regarded as a poor wretch, half fanatic and half\nbarbarian.\n\nWe learn from St. Paul himself that the early converts of Christianity\nwere men in the very depths of poverty,[46] and that its preachers were\nregarded as fools, and weak, and were despised, and naked, and\nbuffeted--persecuted and homeless labourers--a spectacle to the world,\nand to angels, and to men, \"made as the filth of the earth and the\noff-scouring of all things.\" We know that their preaching was to the\nGreeks \"foolishness,\" and that, when they spoke of Jesus and the\nresurrection, their hearers mocked[47] and jeered. And these indications\nare more than confirmed by many contemporary passages of ancient\nwriters. We have already seen the violent expressions of hatred which\nthe ardent and high-toned soul of Tacitus thought applicable to the\nChristians; and such language is echoed by Roman writers of every\ncharacter and class. The fact is that at this time and for centuries\nafterwards the Romans regarded the Christians with such lordly\nindifference that--like Festus, and Felix and Seneca's brother\nGallio--they never took the trouble to distinguish them from the Jews.\nThe distinction was not fully realized by the Pagan world till the cruel\nand wholesale massacre of the Christians by the pseudo-Messiah\nBarchochebas in the reign of Adrian opened their eyes to the fact of the\nirreconcilable differences which existed between the two religions. And\npages might be filled with the ignorant and scornful allusions which the\nheathen applied to the Jews. They confused them with the whole degraded\nmass of Egyptian and Oriental impostors and brute-worshippers; they\ndisdained them as seditious, turbulent, obstinate, and avaricious; they\nregarded them as mainly composed of the very meanest slaves out of the\ngross and abject multitude; their proselytism they considered as the\nclandestine initiation into some strange and revolting mystery, which\ninvolved as its direct teachings contempt of the gods, and the negation\nof all patriotism and all family affection; they firmly believed that\nthey worshipped the head of an ass; they thought it natural that none\nbut the vilest slaves and the silliest woman should adopt so\nmisanthropic and degraded a superstition; they characterized their\ncustoms as \"absurd, sordid, foul, and depraved,\" and their nation as\n\"prone to superstition, opposed to religion.\" [48] And as far as they\nmade _any_ distinction between Jews and Christians, it was for the\nlatter that they reserved their choicest and most concentrated epithets\nof hatred and abuse. A \"new,\" \"pernicious,\" \"detestable,\" \"execrable,\"\nsuperstition is the only language with which Suetonius and Tacitus\nvouchsafe to notice it. Seneca,--though he must have heard the name of\nChristian during the reign of Claudius (when both they and the Jews were\nexpelled from Rome, \"because of their perpetual turbulence, at the\ninstigation of Chrestus,\" as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and during\nthe Neronian persecution--never once alludes to them, and only mentions\nthe Jews to apply a few contemptuous remarks to the idleness of their\nsabbaths, and to call them \"a most abandoned race.\"\n\n[Footnote 46: 2 Cor. viii. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 47: [Greek: _Echleuazon_], Acts xvii. 32. The word expresses\nthe most profound and unconcealed contempt.]\n\n[Footnote 48: Tac. _Hist_. i. 13: ib. v. 5: JUV. xiv. 85: Pers. v. 190,\n&c.]\n\nThe reader will now judge whether there is the slightest probability\nthat Seneca had any intercourse with St. Paul, or was likely to have\nstooped from his superfluity of wealth, and pride of power, to take\nlessons from obscure and despised slaves in the purlieus inhabited by\nthe crowded households of Caesar or Narcissus.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nSENECA'S RESEMBLANCES TO SCRIPTURE.\n\nAnd yet in a very high sense of the word Seneca may be called, as he is\ncalled in the title of this book, a Seeker after God; and the\nresemblances to the sacred writings which may be found in the pages of\nhis works are numerous and striking. A few of these will probably\ninterest our readers, and will put them in a better position for\nunderstanding how large a measure of truth and enlightenment had\nrewarded the honest search of the ancient philosophers. We will place a\nfew such passages side by side with the texts of Scripture which they\nresemble or recall.\n\n1. _God's Indwelling Presence_.\n\n\"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God\ndwelleth in you?\" asks St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 16).\n\n\"_God is near you, is with you, is within you_,\" writes Seneca to his\nfriend Lucilius, in the 41st of those _Letters_ which abound in his most\nvaluable moral reflections; \"_a sacred Spirit dwells within us, the\nobserver and guardian of all our evil and our good ... there is no good\nman without God_.\"\n\nAnd again (_Ep._ 73): \"_Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God\ncomes to men: nay, what is yet nearer; He comes into men. No good mind\nis holy without God_.\"\n\n2. _The Eye of God_.\n\n\"All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have\nto do.\" (Heb. iv. 13.)\n\n\"Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in\nsecret shall reward thee openly.\" (Matt. vi. 6.)\n\nSeneca (_On Providence_, 1): \"_It is no advantage that conscience is\nshut within us; we lie open to God_.\"\n\n_Letter_ 83: \"_What advantage is it that anything is hidden from man?\nNothing is closed to God: He is present to our minds, and enters into\nour central thoughts_.\"\n\n_Letter_ 83: \"_We must live as if we were living in sight of all men; we\nmust think as though some one could and can gaze into our\ninmost breast_.\"\n\n3. _God is a Spirit_.\n\nSt. Paul, \"We ought not to think that the God-head is like unto gold, or\nsilver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.\" (Acts xvii. 29.)\n\nSeneca (_Letter_ 31): \"_Even from a corner it is possible to spring up\ninto heaven: rise, therefore, and form thyself into a fashion worthy of\nGod; thou canst not do this, however, with gold and silver: an image\nlike to God cannot be formed out of such materials as these_.\"\n\n4. _Imitating God_.\n\n\"Be ye therefore followers ([Greek: _mimaetai_], imitators) of God, as\ndear children.\" (Eph. v. 1.)\n\n\"He that in these things [righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost]\nserveth Christ is acceptable to God.\" (Rom. xiv. 18.)\n\nSeneca _(Letter_ 95): \"_Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be\nvirtuous. To honour them it is enough to imitate them_.\"\n\n_Letter_ 124: \"_Let man aim at the good which belongs to him. What is\nthis good? A mind reformed and pure, the imitator of God, raising itself\nabove things human, confining all its desires within itself_.\"\n\n5. _Hypocrites like whited Sepulchres_.\n\n\"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto\nwhited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within\nfull of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.\" (Matt, xxiii. 27.)\n\nSeneca: \"_Those whom you regard as happy, if you saw them, not in their\nexternals, but in their hidden aspect, are wretched, sordid, base; like\ntheir own walls adorned outwardly. It is no solid and genuine felicity;\nit is a plaster, and that a thin one; and so, as long as they can stand\nand be seen at their pleasure, they shine and impose on us: when\nanything has fallen which disturbs and uncovers them, it is evident how\nmuch deep and real foulness an extraneous splendour has concealed_.\"\n\n6. _Teaching compared to Seed_.\n\n\"But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit; some an\nhundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold.\" (Matt xiii. 8.)\n\nSeneca (Letter 38): \"_Words must be sown like seed; which, although it\nbe small, when it hath found a suitable ground, unfolds its strength,\nand from very small size is expanded into the largest increase. Reason\ndoes the same.... The things spoken are few; but if the mind have\nreceived them well, they gain strength and grow_.\"\n\n7. _All Men are Sinners_.\n\n\"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is\nnot in us.\" (1 John i. 8.)\n\nSeneca (_On Anger_, i. 14, ii. 27): \"_If we wish to be just judges of\nall things, let us first persuade ourselves of this:--that there is not\none of us without fault.... No man is found who can acquit himself; and\nhe who calls himself innocent does so with reference to a witness, and\nnot to his conscience_.\"\n\n8. _Avarice_.\n\n\"The love of money is the root of all evil.\" (1 Tim. vi. 10.)\n\nSeneca (_On Tranquillity of Soul_, 8): \"_Riches ... the greatest source\nof human trouble_.\"\n\n\"Be content with such things as ye have.\" (Heb. xiii. 5.)\n\n\"Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.\" (1 Tim. vi. 8.)\n\nSeneca (_Letter_ 114): \"_We shall be wise if we desire but little; if\neach man takes count of himself, and at the same time measures his own\nbody, he will know how little it can contain, and for how short\na time_.\"\n\n_Letter_ 110: \"_We have polenta, we have water; let us challenge Jupiter\nhimself to a comparison of bliss!_\"\n\n\"Godliness with contentment is great gain.\" (1 Tim. vi. 6.)\n\nSeneca (_Letter_ 110): \"_Why are you struck with wonder and\nastonishment? It is all display! Those things are shown, not\npossessed_.... _Turn thyself rather to the true riches, learn to be\ncontent with little_.\"\n\n\"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a\nrich man to enter into the kingdom of God.\" (Matt. xix. 24.)\n\nSeneca (_Letter_ 20): \"_He is a high-souled man who sees riches spread\naround him, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It is much\nnot to be corrupted by fellowship with riches: great is he who in the\nmidst of wealth is poor, but safer he who has no wealth at all_.\"\n\n9. _The Duty of Kindness_.\n\n\"Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love.\" (Rom. xii.\n10.)\n\nSeneca (_On Anger_, i. 5): \"_Man is born for mutual assistance_.\"\n\n\"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.\" (Lev. xiv. 18.)\n\n_Letter_ 48: \"_You must live for another, if you wish to live for\nyourself_.\"\n\n_On Anger_, iii. 43: \"_While we are among men let us cultivate kindness;\nlet us not be to any man a cause either of peril or of fear_.\"\n\n10. _Our common Membership_.\n\n\"Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.\" (1 Cor. xii.\n27.)\n\n\"We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of\nanother.\" (Rom. xii. 5.)\n\nSeneca (_Letter_ 95): \"_Do we teach that he should stretch his hand to\nthe shipwrecked, show his path to the wanderer, divide his bread with\nthe hungry_?... _when I could briefly deliver to him the formula of\nhuman duty: all this that you see, in which things divine and human are\nincluded, is one: we are members of one great body_.\"\n\n11. _Secrecy in doing Good_.\n\n\"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.\" (Matt. vi. 3.)\n\nSeneca (_On Benefits_, ii. 11): \"_Let him who hath conferred a favour\nhold his tongue_.... _In conferring a favour nothing should be more\navoided than pride_.\"\n\n12. _God's impartial Goodness_.\n\n\"He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain\non the just and on the unjust.\" (Matt. v. 45.)\n\nSeneca (_On Benefits_, i. 1): \"_How many are unworthy of the light! and\nyet the day dawns_.\"\n\nId. vii. 31: \"_The gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize\nthem not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them....\nThey distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations\nand peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir\nthe seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the\nconstellations, they temper the winter and summer by the intervention of\na gentler air_.\"\n\nIt would be a needless task to continue these parallels, because by\nreading any treatise of Seneca a student might add to them by scores;\nand they prove incontestably that, as far as moral illumination was\nconcerned, Seneca \"was not far from the kingdom of heaven.\" They have\nbeen collected by several writers; and all of these here adduced,\ntogether with many others, may be found in the pages of Fleury,\nTroplong, Aubertin, and others. Some authors, like M. Fleury, have\nendeavoured to show that they can only be accounted for by the\nsupposition that Seneca had some acquaintance with the sacred writings.\nM. Aubertin, on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this\ncould not have been the case. Many words and expressions detached from\ntheir context have been forced into a resemblance with the words of\nScripture, when the context wholly militates against its spirit; many\nbelong to that great common stock of moral truths which had been\nelaborated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers; and\nthere is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enunciated which may\nnot be found even more nobly and more distinctly expressed in the\nwritings of Plato and of Cicero. In a subsequent chapter we shall show\nthat, in spite of them all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of\nChristianity are at least as remarkable as the closest of his\nresemblances; but it will be more convenient to do this when we have\nalso examined the doctrines of those two other great representatives of\nspiritual enlightenment in Pagan souls, Epictetus the slave and Marcus\nAurelius the emperor.\n\nMeanwhile, it is a matter for rejoicing that writings such as these give\nus a clear proof that in all ages the Spirit of the Lord has entered\ninto holy men, and made them sons of God and prophets. God \"left not\nHimself without witness\" among them. The language of St. Thomas Aquinas,\nthat many a heathen has had an \"implicit faith,\" is but another way of\nexpressing St. Paul's statement that \"not having the law they were a law\nunto themselves, and showed the work of the law written in their\nhearts.\" [49] To them the Eternal Power and Godhead were known from the\nthings that do appear, and alike from the voice of conscience and the\nvoice of nature they derived a true, although a partial and inadequate,\nknowledge. To them \"the voice of nature was the voice of God.\" Their\nrevelation was the law of nature, which was confirmed, strengthened, and\nextended, but _not_ suspended, by the written law of God.[50]\n\n[Footnote 49: Rom. i. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 50: Hooker, _Eccl. Pol_. iii. 8.]\n\nThe knowledge thus derived, i.e. the sum-total of religious impressions\nresulting from the combination of reason and experience, has been called\n\"natural religion;\" the term is in itself a convenient and\nunobjectionable one, so long as it is remembered that natural religion\nis itself a revelation. No _antithesis_ is so unfortunate and pernicious\nas that of natural with revealed religion. It is \"a contrast rather of\nwords than of ideas; it is an opposition of abstractions to which no\nfacts really correspond.\" God has revealed Himself, not in one but in\nmany ways, not only by inspiring the hearts of a few, but by vouchsafing\nHis guidance to all who seek it. \"The spirit of man is the candle of the\nLord,\" and it is not religion but apostasy to deny the reality of any of\nGod's revelations of truth to man, merely because they have not\ndescended through a single channel. On the contrary, we ought to hail\nwith gratitude, instead of viewing with suspicion, the enunciation by\nheathen writers of truths which we might at first sight have been\ndisposed to regard as the special heritage of Christianity. In\nPythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato,--in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus\nAurelius--we see the light of heaven struggling its impeded way through\nclouds of darkness and ignorance; we thankfully recognize that the souls\nof men in the Pagan world, surrounded as they were by perplexities and\ndangers, were yet enabled to reflect, as from the dim surface of silver,\nsome image of what was divine and true; we hail, with the great and\neloquent Bossuet, \"THE CHRISTIANITY OF NATURE.\" \"The divine image in\nman,\" says St. Bernard, \"may be burned, but it cannot be burnt out.\"\n\nAnd this is the pleasantest side on which to consider the life and the\nwritings of Seneca. It is true that his style partakes of the defects of\nhis age, that the brilliancy of his rhetoric does not always compensate\nfor the defectiveness of his reasoning; that he resembles, not a mirror\nwhich clearly reflects the truth, but \"a glass fantastically cut into a\nthousand spangles;\" that side by side with great moral truths we\nsometimes find his worst errors, contradictions, and paradoxes; that his\neloquent utterances about God often degenerate into a vague Pantheism;\nand that even on the doctrine of immortality his hold is too slight to\nsave him from waverings and contradictions;[51] yet as a moral teacher\nhe is full of real greatness, and was often far in advance of the\ngeneral opinion of his age. Few men have written more finely, or with\nmore evident sincerity, about truth and courage, about the essential\nequality of man,[52] about the duty of kindness and consideration to\nslaves,[53] about tenderness even in dealing with sinners,[54] about the\nglory of unselfishness,[55] about the great idea of humanity[56] as\nsomething which transcends all the natural and artificial prejudices of\ncountry and of caste. Many of his writings are Pagan sermons and moral\nessays of the best and highest type. The style, as Quintilian says,\n\"abounds in delightful faults,\" but the strain of sentiment is never\notherwise than high and true.\n\n[Footnote 51: Consol. ad Polyb. 27; Ad Helv. 17; Ad Marc. 24, _seqq_.]\n\n[Footnote 52: Ep. 32; De Benef. iii. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 53: De Ir\u00e2, iii. 29, 32.]\n\n[Footnote 54: Ibid. i. 14; De Vit. beat. 24.]\n\n[Footnote 55: Ep. 55, 9.]\n\n[Footnote 56: Ibid. 28; De Oti Sapientis, 31.]\n\nHe is to be regarded rather as a wealthy, eminent, and successful Roman,\nwho devoted most of his leisure to moral philosophy, than as a real\nphilosopher by habit and profession. And in this point of view his very\ninconsistencies have their charm, as illustrating his ardent, impulsive,\nimaginative temperament. He was no apathetic, self-contained, impassible\nStoic, but a passionate, warm-hearted man, who could break into a flood\nof unrestrained tears at the death of his friend Annaeus Serenus,[57]\nand feel a trembling solicitude for the welfare of his wife and little\nones. His was no absolute renunciation, no impossible perfection;[58]\nbut few men have painted more persuasively, with deeper emotion, or more\nentire conviction, the pleasures of virtue, the calm of a\nwell-regulated soul, the strong and severe joys of a lofty self-denial.\nIn his youth, he tells us, he was preparing himself for a righteous\nlife, in his old age for a noble death.[59] And let us not forget, that\nwhen the hour of crisis came which tested the real calm and bravery of\nhis soul, he was not found wanting. \"With no dread,\" he writes to\nLucilius, \"I am preparing myself for that day on which, laying aside all\nartifice or subterfuge, I shall be able to judge respecting myself\nwhether I merely _speak_ or really _feel_ as a brave man should; whether\nall those words of haughty obstinacy which I have hurled against fortune\nwere mere pretence and pantomime.... Disputations and literary talks,\nand words collected from the precepts of philosophers, and eloquent\ndiscourse, do not prove the true strength of the soul. For the mere\n_speech_ of even the most cowardly is bold; what you have really\nachieved will then be manifest when your end is near. I accept the\nterms, I do not shrink from the decision.\" [60]\n\n[Footnote 57: Ep. 63.]\n\n[Footnote 58: Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 61.]\n\n[Footnote 59: Ep. 61.]\n\n[Footnote 60: Ep. 26.]\n\n\"_Accipio conditionem, non reformido judicrum_.\" They were courageous\nand noble words, and they were justified in the hour of trial. When we\nremember the sins of Seneca's life, let us recall also the constancy of\nhis death; while we admit the inconsistencies of his systematic\nphilosophy, let us be grateful for the genius, the enthusiasm, the glow\nof intense conviction, with which he clothes his repeated utterance of\ntruths, which, when based upon a surer basis, were found adequate for\nthe moral regeneration of the world. Nothing is more easy than to sneer\nat Seneca, or to write clever epigrams on one whose moral attainments\nfell infinitely short of his own great ideal. But after all he was not\nmore inconsistent than thousands of those who condemn him. With all his\nfaults he yet lived a nobler and a better life, he had loftier aims, he\nwas braver, more self-denying--nay, even more consistent--than the\nmajority of professing Christians. It would be well for us all if those\nwho pour such scorn upon his memory attempted to achieve one tithe of\nthe good which he achieved for humanity and for Rome. His thoughts\ndeserve our imperishable gratitude: let him who is without sin among us\nbe eager to fling stones at his failures and his sins!\n\n\n\nEPICTETUS.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE LIFE OF EPICTETUS, AND HOW HE REGARDED IT.\n\nIn the court of Nero, Seneca must have been thrown into more or less\ncommunication with the powerful freedmen of that Emperor, and especially\nwith his secretary or librarian, Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was a\nconstant companion of the Emperor; he was the earliest to draw Nero's\nattention to the conspiracy in which Seneca himself perished. There can\nbe no doubt that Seneca knew him, and had visited at his house. Among\nthe slaves who thronged that house, the natural kindliness of the\nphilosopher's heart may have drawn his attentions to one little lame\nPhrygian boy, deformed and mean-looking, whose face--if it were any\nindex of the mind within--must even from boyhood have worn a serene and\npatient look. The great courtier, the great tutor of the Emperor, the\ngreat Stoic and favourite writer of his age, would indeed have been\nastonished if he had been suddenly told that that wretched-looking\nlittle slave-lad was destined to attain purer and clearer heights of\nphilosophy than he himself had ever done, and to become quite as\nillustrious as himself, and far more respected as an exponent of Stoic\ndoctrines. For that lame boy was Epictetus--Epictetus for whom was\nwritten the memorable epitaph: \"I was Epictetus, a slave, and maimed in\nbody, and a beggar for poverty, _and dear to the immortals_.\"\n\nAlthough we have a clear sketch of his philosophical doctrines, we have\nno materials whatever for any but the most meagre description of his\nlife. The picture of his mind--an effigy of that which he alone regarded\nas his true self--may be seen in his works, and to this we can add\nlittle except a few general facts and uncertain anecdotes.\n\nEpictetus was probably born in about the fiftieth year of the Christian\nera; but we do not know the exact date of his birth, nor do we even know\nhis real name. \"Epictetus\" means \"bought\" or \"acquired,\" and is simply a\nservile designation. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a town\nbetween the rivers Lycus and Meander, and considered by some to be the\ncapital of the province. The town possessed several natural\nwonders--sacred springs, stalactite grottoes, and a deep cavern\nremarkable for its mephitic exhalations. It is more interesting to us to\nknow that it was within a few miles of Colossae and Laodicea, and is\nmentioned by St. Paul (Col. iv. 13) in connexion with those two cities.\nIt must, therefore, have possessed a Christian Church from the earliest\ntimes, and, if Epictetus spent any part of his boyhood there, he might\nhave conversed with men and women of humble rank who had heard read in\ntheir obscure place of meeting the Epistle of St. Paul to the\nColossians, and the other, now lost, which he addressed to the Church of\nLaodicea.[61]\n\n[Footnote 61: Col. iv. 16.]\n\nIt is probable, however, that Hierapolis and its associations produced\nvery little influence on the mind of Epictetus. His parents were people\nin the very lowest and humblest class, and their moral character could\nhardly have been high, or they would not have consented under any\ncircumstance to sell into slavery their sickly child. Certainly it could\nhardly have been possible for Epictetus to enter into the world under\nless enviable or less promising auspices. But the whole system of life\nis full of divine and memorable compensations, and Epictetus experienced\nthem. God kindles the light of genius where He will, and He can inspire\nthe highest and most regal thoughts even into the meanest slave:--\n\n     \"Such seeds are scattered night and day\n        By the soft wind from Heaven,\n      And in the poorest human clay\n        Have taken root and thriven.\"\n\nWhat were the accidents--or rather, what was \"the unseen Providence, by\nman nicknamed chance\"--which assigned Epictetus to the house of\nEpaphroditus we do not know. To a heart refined and noble there could\nhardly have been a more trying position. The slaves of a Roman _familia_\nwere crowded together in immense gangs; they were liable to the most\nviolent and capricious punishments; they might be subjected to the most\ndegraded and brutalising influences. Men sink too often to the level to\nwhich they are supposed to belong. Treated with infamy for long years,\nthey are apt to deem themselves worthy of infamy--to lose that\nself-respect which is the invariable concomitant of religious feeling,\nand which, apart from religious feeling, is the sole preventive of\npersonal degradation. Well may St. Paul say, \"Art thou called, being a\nservant? care not for it: _but if thou mayest be made free, use it\nrather_.\" [62]\n\n[Footnote 62: 1 Cor. vii. 21.]\n\nIt is true that even in the heathen world there began at this time to\nbe disseminated among the best and wisest thinkers a sense that slaves\nwere made of the same clay as their masters, that they differed from\nfreeborn men only in the externals and accidents of their position, and\nthat kindness to them and consideration for their difficulties was a\ncommon and elementary duty of humanity. \"I am glad to learn,\" says\nSeneca, in one of his interesting letters to Lucilius, \"that you live on\nterms of familiarity with your slaves; it becomes your prudence and your\nerudition. Are they slaves? Nay, they are men. Slaves? Nay, companions.\nSlaves? Nay, humble friends. Slaves? _Nay, fellow-slaves,_ if you but\nconsider that fortune has power over you both.\" He proceeds, in a\npassage to which we have already alluded, to reprobate the haughty and\ninconsiderate fashion of keeping them standing for hours, mute and\nfasting, while their masters gorged themselves at the banquet. He\ndeplores the cruelty which thinks it necessary to punish with terrible\nseverity an accidental cough or sneeze. He quotes the proverb--a proverb\nwhich reveals a whole history--\"So many slaves, so many foes,\" and\nproves that they are not foes, but that men _made_ them so; whereas,\nwhen kindly treated, when considerately addressed, they would be silent,\neven under torture, rather than speak to their master's disadvantage.\n\"Are they not sprung,\" he asks, \"from the same origin, do they not\nbreathe the same air, do they not live and die just as we do?\" The\nblows, the broken limbs, the clanking chains, the stinted food of the\n_ergastula_ or slave-prisons, excited all Seneca's compassion, and in\nall probability presented a picture of misery which the world has rarely\nseen surpassed, unless it were in that nefarious trade which England to\nher shame once practised, and, to her eternal glory, resolutely\nswept away.\n\nBut Seneca's inculcation of tenderness towards slaves was in reality\none of the most original of his moral teachings; and, from all that we\nknow of Roman life, it is to be feared that the number of those who\nacted in accordance with it was small. Certainly Epaphroditus, the\nmaster of Epictetus, was not one of them. The historical facts which we\nknow of this man are slight. He was one of the four who accompanied the\ntragic and despicable flight of Nero from Rome in the year 69, and when,\nafter many waverings of cowardice, Nero at last, under imminent peril of\nbeing captured and executed, put the dagger to his breast, it was\nEpaphroditus who helped the tyrant to drive it home into his heart, for\nwhich he was subsequently banished, and finally executed by the\nEmperor Domitian.\n\nEpictetus was accustomed to tell one or two anecdotes which, although\ngiven without comment, show the narrowness and vulgarity of the man.\nAmong his slaves was a certain worthless cobbler named Felicio; as the\ncobbler was quite useless, Epaphroditus sold him, and by some chance he\nwas bought by some one of Caesar's household, and made Caesar's cobbler.\nInstantly Epaphroditus began to pay him the profoundest respect, and to\naddress him in the most endearing terms, so that if any one asked what\nEpaphroditus was doing, the answer, as likely as not, would be, \"He is\nholding an important consultation with Felicio.\"\n\nOn one occasion, some one came to him bewailing, and weeping, and\nembracing his knees in a paroxysm of grief, because of all his fortune\nlittle more than 50,000_l_. was left! \"What did Epaphroditus do?\" asks\nEpictetus; \"did he laugh at the man as we did? Not at all; on the\ncontrary, he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 'Poor\nfellow! how could you possibly keep silence and endure such a\nmisfortune?'\"\n\nHow brutally he could behave, and how little respect he inspired, we may\nsee in the following anecdote. When Plautius Lateranus, the brave\nnobleman whose execution during Piso's conspiracy we have already\nrelated, had received on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's\nsword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not abstain from\npressing him with questions. The only reply which he received from the\ndying man was the contemptuous remark, \"Should I wish to say anything, I\nwill say it (not to a slave like you, but) to _your master_.\"\n\nUnder a man of this calibre it is hardly likely that a lame Phrygian boy\nwould experience much kindness. An anecdote, indeed, has been handed\ndown to us by several writers, which would show that he was treated with\natrocious cruelty. Epaphroditus, it is said, once gratified his cruelty\nby twisting his slave's leg in some instrument of torture. \"If you go\non, you will break it,\" said Epictetus. The wretch did go on, and did\nbreak it. \"I told you that you would break it,\" said Epictetus quietly,\nnot giving vent to his anguish by a single word or a single groan.\nStories of heroism no less triumphant have been authenticated both in\nancient and modern times; but we may hope for the sake of human nature\nthat this story is false, since another authority tells us that\nEpictetus became lame in consequence of a natural disease. Be that\nhowever as it may, some of the early writers against Christianity--such,\nfor instance, as the physician Celsus--were fond of adducing this\nanecdote in proof of a magnanimity which not even Christianity could\nsurpass; to which use of the anecdote Origen opposed the awful silence\nof our Saviour upon the cross, and Gregory of Nazianzen pointed out\nthat, though it was a noble thing to endure inevitable evils, it was yet\nmore noble to undergo them voluntarily with an equal fortitude. But even\nif Epaphroditus were not guilty of breaking the leg of Epictetus, it is\nclear that the life of the poor youth was surrounded by circumstances of\nthe most depressing and miserable character; circumstances which would\nhave forced an ordinary man to the low and animal level of existence\nwhich appears to have contented the great majority of Roman slaves. Some\nof the passages in which he speaks about the consideration due to this\nunhappy class show a very tender feeling towards them. \"It would be\nbest,\" he says, \"if, both while making your preparations and while\nfeasting at your banquets, you distribute among the attendants some of\nthe provisions. But if such a plan, at any particular time, be difficult\nto carry out, remember that you who are not fatigued are being waited\nupon by those who are fatigued; you who are eating and drinking by those\nwho are not eating and drinking; you who are conversing by those who are\nmute--you who are at your ease by people under painful constraint. And\nthus you will neither yourself be kindled into unseemly passion, nor\nwill you in a fit of fury do harm to any one else.\" No doubt Epictetus\nis here describing conduct which he had often seen, and of which he had\nhimself experienced the degradation. But he had early acquired a\nloftiness of soul and an insight into truth which enabled him to\ndistinguish the substance from the shadow, to separate the realities of\nlife from its accidents, and so to turn his very misfortunes into fresh\nmeans of attaining to moral nobility. In proof of this let us see some\nof his own opinions as to his state of life.\n\nAt the very beginning of his _Discourses_ he draws a distinction\nbetween the things which the gods _have_ and the things which they _have\nnot_ put in our own power, and he held (being deficient here in that\nlight which Christianity might have furnished to him) that the blessings\ndenied to us are denied not because the gods _would_ not, but because\nthey _could_ not grant them to us. And then he supposes that Jupiter\naddresses him:--\n\n\"O Epictetus, had it been possible, I would have made both your little\nbody and your little property free and unentangled; but now, do not be\nmistaken, it is not yours at all, but only clay finely kneaded. Since,\nhowever, I could not do this, I gave you a portion of ourselves, namely,\nthis power of pursuing and avoiding, of desiring and of declining, and\ngenerally the power of _dealing with appearances_: and if you cultivate\nthis power, and regard it as that which constitutes your real\npossession, you will never be hindered or impeded, nor will you groan or\nfind fault with, or flatter any one. Do these advantages then appear to\nyou to be trifling? Heaven forbid! Be content therefore with these, and\nthank the gods.\"\n\nAnd again in one of his _Fragments_ (viii. ix.):--\n\n\"Freedom and slavery are but names, respectively, of virtue and of vice:\nand both of them depend upon the will. But neither of them have anything\nto do with those things in which the will has no share. For no one is a\nslave whose will is free.\"\n\n\"Fortune is an evil bond of the body, vice of the soul; for he is a\nslave whose body is free but whose soul is bound, and, on the contrary,\nhe is free whose body is bound but whose soul is free.\"\n\nWho does not catch in these passages the very tone of St, Paul when he\nsays, \"He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's\nfreeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is\nChrist's servant?\"\n\nNor is his independence less clearly express when he speaks of his\ndeformity. Being but the deformity of a body which he despised, he spoke\nof himself as \"an ethereal existence staggering under the burden of a\ncorpse.\" In his admirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays\ndown that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense that \"the\nuniverse is not made for our individual satisfaction.\" \"_Must my leg be\nlame_?\" he supposes some querulous objector to inquire. \"Slave!\" he\nreplies, \"do you then because of one miserable little leg find fault\nwith the universe? Will you not concede that accident to the existence\nof general laws? Will you not dismiss the thought of it? Will you not\ncheerfully assent to it for the sake of him who gave it. And will you be\nindignant and displeased at the ordinances of Zeus, which he ordained\nand appointed with the Destinies, who were present and wove the web of\nyour being? Know you not what an atom you are compared with the\nwhole?--that is, as regards your body, since as regards your reason you\nare no whit inferior to, or less than the gods. For the greatness of\nreason is not estimated by size or height, but by the doctrines which it\nembraces. Will you not then lay up your treasure in those matters\nwherein you are equal to the gods?\" And, thanks to such principles, a\npoor and persecuted slave was able to raise his voice in sincere and\neloquent thanksgiving to that God to whom he owed his \"creation,\npreservation, and all the blessings of this life.\"\n\nSpeaking of the multitude of our natural gifts, he says, \"Are these the\nonly gifts of Providence towards us? Nay, what power of speech suffices\nadequately to praise, or to set them forth? for, had we but true\nintelligence, what duty would be more perpetually incumbent on us than\nboth in public and in private to hymn the Divine, and bless His name and\npraise His benefits? Ought we not, when we dig, and when we plough, and\nwhen we eat, to sing this hymn to God? 'Great is God, because He hath\ngiven us these implements whereby we may till the soil; great is God,\nbecause He hath given us hands, and the means of nourishment by food,\nand insensible growth, and breathing sleep;' these things in each\nparticular we ought to hymn, and to chant the greatest and the divinest\nhymn, because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings,\nand continuously to use them. What then? Since the most of you are\nblinded, ought there not to be some one to fulfil this province for you,\nand on behalf of all to sing his hymn to God? And what else can _I_ do,\nwho am a lame old man, except sing praises to God? Now, had I been a\nnightingale, I should have sung the songs of a nightingale, or had I\nbeen a swan the songs of a swan; but, being a reasonable being, it is my\nduty to hymn God. This is my task, and I accomplish it; nor, so far as\nmay be granted to me, will I ever abandon this post, and you also do I\nexhort to this same song.\"\n\nThere is an almost lyric beauty about these expressions of resignation\nand faith in God, and it is the utterance of such warm feelings towards\nDivine Providence that constitutes the chief originality of Epictetus.\nIt is interesting to think that the oppressed heathen philosopher found\nthe same consolation, and enjoyed the same contentment, as the\npersecuted Christian Apostle. \"Whether ye eat or drink,\" says St. Paul,\n\"or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.\" \"Think of God,\" says\nEpictetus, \"oftener than you breathe. Let discourse of God be renewed\ndaily more surely than your food.\"\n\nHere, again, are his views about his poverty (_Fragment_ xix.):--\n\n\"Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy; and if you\nwish to be rich, know that it neither is a blessing, nor is it\naltogether in your own power; but if to be happy, know that it both _is_\na blessing, and is in your own power; since the former is but a\ntemporary loan of fortune, but the gift of happiness depends upon\nthe will.\"\n\n\"Just as when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, in a casket of\nivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate them on the splendour of\ntheir material, but because their nature is pernicious you turn from and\nloathe them, so likewise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the\npomp of circumstance do not be astounded at the glory of its\nsurroundings, but despise the meanness of its character.\"\n\n\"Wealth is _not_ among the number of good things; extravagance _is_\namong the number of evils, sober-mindedness of good things. Now\nsober-mindedness invites us to frugality and the acquisition of real\nadvantages; but wealth to extravagance, and it drags us away from\nsober-mindedness. It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be\nsober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich.\"\n\nThe last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own\nwords, \"How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel\npassage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for\nthem that _trust_ in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God.\"\n\nBut this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and\nEpictetus continues:--\n\n\"Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in\nGreece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in\npoverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in\npoverty, and so be happy?\"\n\n\"As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little\ntruckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it\nis better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires,\nthan in the midst of superfluities to be discontented.\"\n\nThis, too, is a thought which many have expressed. \"Gentle sleep,\" says\nHorace, \"despises not the humble cottages of rustics, nor the shaded\nbanks, nor valleys whose foliage waves with the western wind;\" and every\nreader will recall the magnificent words of our own great Shakespeare--\n\n     \"Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,\n      Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,\n      And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,\n      Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,\n      Under the canopies of costly state,\n      And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?\"\n\nTo the subject of freedom, and to the power which man possesses to make\nhimself entirely independent of all surrounding circumstances, Epictetus\nincessantly recurs. With the possibility of banishment to an\n_ergastulum_ perpetually before his eyes, he defines a prison as being\nany situation in which a man is placed against his will; to Socrates for\ninstance the prison was no prison, for he was there willingly, and no\nman _need_ be in prison, against his will if he has learnt, as one of\nhis primary duties, a cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable. By the\nexpression of such sentiments Epictetus had anticipated by fifteen\nhundred years the immortal truth so sweetly expressed by Lovelace:\n\n     \"_Stone walls do not a prison make,\n        Nor iron bars a cage_;\n      Minds innocent and quiet take\n        That for a hermitage.\"\n\nSituated as he was, we can hardly wonder that thoughts like these\noccupied a large share of the mind of Epictetus, or that he had taught\nhimself to lay hold of them with the firmest possible grasp. When asked,\n\"Who among men is rich?\" he replied, \"He who suffices for himself;\" an\nexpression which contains the germ of the truth so forcibly expressed in\nthe Book of Proverbs, \"The backslider in heart shall be filled with his\nown ways, and a good man _shall be satisfied from himself_\". Similarly,\nwhen asked, \"Who is free?\" he replies, \"The man who masters his own\nself,\" with much the same tone of expressions as that of Solomon, \"He\nthat is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his\nspirit than he that taketh a city.\" Socrates was one of the great models\nwhom Epictetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the\nanecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When Archelaus\nsent a message to express the intention of making him rich, Socrates\nbade the messenger inform him that at Athens four quarts of meal might\nbe bought for three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. \"If\nthen my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any rate I am\nsufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient for me. Do you not\nsee that Polus acted the part of Oedipus in his royal state with no less\nbeauty of voice than that of Oedipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar?\nShall then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act well\nevery character imposed upon him by Divine Providence; and shall he not\nimitate Ulysses, who even in rags was no less conspicuous than in the\ncurled nap of his purple cloak?\"\n\nGenerally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life is always\nsimple, and always consistent; it is a view which gave him consolation\namong life's troubles, and strength to display some of its noblest\nvirtues, and it may be summed up in the following passages of his famous\n_Manual_:--\n\n\"Remember,\" he says, \"that you are an actor of just such a part as is\nassigned you by the Poet of the play; of a short part, if the part be\nshort; of a long part, if it be long. Should He wish you to act the part\nof a beggar, take care to act it naturally and nobly; and the same if it\nbe the part of a lame man, or a ruler, or a private man; for _this_ is\nin your power, to act well the part assigned to you; but to _choose_\nthat part is the function of another.\"\n\n\"Let not these considerations afflict you: 'I shall live despised, and\nthe merest nobody;' for if dishonour be an evil, you cannot be involved\nin evil any more than you can be involved in baseness through any one\nelse's means. Is it then at all _your_ business to be a leading man, or\nto be entertained at a banquet? By no means. How then can it be a\ndishonor not to be so? And how will you be a mere nobody, since it is\nyour duty to be somebody only in those circumstances which are in your\nown power, in which you may be a person of the greatest importance?\"\n\n\"Honour, precedence, confidence,\" he argues in another passage, \"whether\nthey be good things or evil things, are at any rate things for which\ntheir own definite price must be paid. Lettuces are sold for a penny,\nand if you want your lettuce you must pay your penny; and similarly, if\nyou want to be asked out to a person's house, you must pay the price\nwhich he demands for asking people, whether the coin he requires be\npraise or attention; but if you do not give these, do not expect the\nother. Have you then gained nothing in lieu of your supper? Indeed you\nhave; you have escaped praising a person whom you did not want to\npraise, and you have escaped the necessity of tolerating the upstart\nimpertinence of his menials.\"\n\nSome parts of this last thought have been so beautifully expressed by\nthe American poet Lowell that I will conclude this chapter in his words:\n\n     \"Earth hath her price for what earth gives us;\n        The beggar is tax'd for a corner to die in;\n      The priest hath his fee who comes and shrieves us;\n        We bargain for the graves we lie in:\n      At the devil's mart are all things sold,\n      Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold,\n      For a cap and bells our lives we pay.\n        Bubbles we earn with our whole soul's tasking,\n      '_Tis only God that is given away,\n        'Tis only heaven may be had for the asking_.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nLIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS _(continued)_.\n\nWhether any of these great thoughts would have suggested themselves\n_spontaneously_ to Epictetus--whether there was an inborn wisdom and\nnobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to\nelaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do\nnot, however, express _his_ sentiments only, but belong in fact to the\nmoral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doctrines of which he\nhad received instruction.\n\nIt may sound strange to the reader that one situated as Epictetus was\nshould yet have had a regular tutor to train him in Stoic doctrines.\nThat such should have been the case appears at first sight inconsistent\nwith the cruelty with which he was treated, but it is a fact which is\ncapable of easy explanation. In times of universal luxury and\ndisplay--in times when a sort of surface-refinement is found among all\nthe wealthy--some sort of respect is always paid to intellectual\neminence, and intellectual amusements are cultivated as well as those of\na coarser character. Hence a rich Roman liked to have people of literary\nculture among his slaves; he liked to have people at hand who would get\nhim any information which he might desire about books, who could act as\nhis amanuenses, who could even correct and supply information for his\noriginal compositions. Such learned slaves formed part of every large\nestablishment, and among them were usually to be found some who bore, if\nthey did not particularly merit, the title of \"philosophers.\" These\nmen--many of whom are described as having been mere impostors,\nostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites--acted somewhat like\ndomestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an\namateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative\ninnocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in\nlassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he\nwished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an\nilliterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of\nhigh art in his drawing-room, and books of reference in his\nwell-furnished library.\n\nAccordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly useless for all\nphysical purposes, and since his thoughtfulness and intelligence could\nnot fail to command attention, his master determined to make him useful\nin the only way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be\ntrained in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy.\n\nMusonius was the son of a Roman knight. His learning and eloquence, no\nless than his keen appreciation of Stoic truths, had so deeply kindled\nthe suspicions of Nero, that he banished him to the rocky little island\nof Gyaros, on the charge of his having been concerned in Piso's\nconspiracy. He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived in\ngreat distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to remain in the\ncity when the Emperor Vespasian banished all the other philosophers of\nany eminence.\n\nThe works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a few notices of\nhim, which are scattered in the _Discourses_ of his greater pupil, show\nus what kind of man he was. The following anecdotes will show that he\nwas a philosopher of the strictest school.\n\nSpeaking of the value of logic as a means of training the reason,\nEpictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a mere error in\nreasoning is no very serious fault. He points out that it _is_ a fault,\nand that is sufficient. \"I too,\" he says, \"once made this very remark to\nRufus when he rebuked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in\nsome syllogism. 'What!' said I, 'have I then set the Capitol on fire,\nthat you rebuke me thus?' 'Slave!' he answered, 'what has the Capitol to\ndo with it? Is there no _other_ fault then short of setting the Capitol\non fire? Yes! to use one's own mere fancies rashly, at random, anyhow;\nnot to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or a sophism; not, in\nshort, to see what makes for oneself or not, in questioning and\nanswering--is none of these things a fault?'\"\n\nSometimes he used to test the Stoical endurance of his pupil by pointing\nout the indignities and tortures which his master might at any moment\ninflict upon him; and when Epictetus answered that, after all, such\ntreatment was what man _had_ borne, and therefore _could_ bear, he would\nreply approvingly that every man's destiny was in his own hands; that he\nneed lack nothing from any one else; that, since he could derive from\nhimself magnanimity and nobility of soul, he might despise the notion of\nreceiving lands or money or office. \"But,\" he continued, \"when any one\nis cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters about such a\nperson to speak of him as a corpse, and to say, 'Favour us with the\ncorpse and blood of So-and-so,' For? in fact, such a man _is_ a mere\ncorpse, and nothing more; for if he were anything more, he would have\nperceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by another's\nmeans.\" I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is a student of Epictetus, but\nhe, among others, has forcibly expressed the same truth. \"My friends, do\nyou remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died?\nHow he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and\ncarried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his\ntable's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered\nto you, in plain words, as it _is_ offered to you in dire facts, that\nyou should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought\nyourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the\ndeath-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet\npractically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure;\nmany of us grasp at it in the fulness of horror.\"\n\nThe way in which Musonius treated would-be pupils much resembled the\nplan adopted by Socrates. \"It is not easy,\" says Epictetus, \"to train\neffeminate youths, any more than it is easy to take up whey with a hook.\nBut those of fine nature, even if you discourage them, desire\ninstruction all the more. For which reason Rufus often discouraged\npupils, using this as a criterion of fine and of common natures; for he\nused to say, that just as a stone, even if you fling it into the air,\nwill fall down to the earth by its own gravitating force, so also a\nnoble nature, in proportion as it is repulsed, in that proportion tends\nmore in its own natural direction.\" As Emerson says,--\n\n     \"Yet on the nimble air benign\n      Speed nimbler messages,\n      That waft the breath of grace divine\n      To hearts in sloth and ease.\n      So nigh is grandeur to our dust,\n        So near is God to man,\n      When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,'\n        The youth replies, 'I CAN.'\"\n\nOne more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply\nEpictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him. In his\n_Discourse on Ostentation_, Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit\nof remarking to his pupils, \"If you have leisure to praise me, I can\nhave done you no good.\" \"He used indeed so to address us that each one\nof us, sitting there, thought that some one had been privately telling\ntales against _him_ in particular, so completely did Rufus seize hold of\nhis characteristics, so vividly did he portray our individual faults.\"\n\nSuch was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it\nwas evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were\nsomewhat chilling and austere. It formed an epoch in the slave's life;\nit remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings\nso inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were\ncounter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt.\nHe would probably have admitted that it was _better_ for him to have\nbeen sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in\nfreedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis. So that\nEpictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an\nadditional argument in favour of Divine Providence: an additional proof\nthat God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of\nconviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least\ndominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the\nwhole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most\nhonestly and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again and\nagain that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world\nhas to offer, _if we are willing to pay the price by which they are\nobtained_. But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should\nscorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even\ncast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by\nthat which we deliberately refuse to give. Every good and just man may\ngain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness. Let no one\nregard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and\ndefinite meaning. There are certain things which all men desire, and\nwhich all men would _gladly_, if they could _lawfully_ and _innocently_\nobtain. These things are health, wealth, ease, comfort, influence,\nhonour, freedom from opposition and from pain; and yet, if you were to\nplace all these blessings on the one side, and on the other side to\nplace poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and\ncontempt,--yet, if on _this_ side also you were to place truth and\njustice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds may gather about\nour life, the light of God will be visible beyond them, all the noblest\nmen who ever lived would choose, as without hesitation they always have\nchosen, the _latter_ destiny. It is not that they like failure, but they\nprefer failure to falsity; it is not that they love persecution, but\nthey prefer persecution to meanness; it is not that they relish\nopposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty acquiescence;\nit is not that they do not shrink from agony, but they would not escape\nagony by crime. The selfishness of Dives in his purple is to them less\nenviable than the innocence of Lazarus in rags; they would be chained\nwith John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast; they\nwould fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than be steeped in\nthe foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is not happiness, but it is\nsomething higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is\nsatisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give\nit, nor take it away,--it is something indescribable--it is the gift\nof God.\n\n\"The fallacy\" of being surprised at wickedness in prosperity, and\nrighteousness in misery, \"can only lie,\" says Mr. Froude, in words which\nwould have delighted Epictetus, and which would express the inmost\nspirit of his philosophy, \"in the supposed _right_ to happiness....\nHappiness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be true to the\nbest we know, to seek that, and do that; and if by 'virtue is its own\nreward' be meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring\nnothing more, then it is a true and a noble saying.... Let us do right,\nand then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very mighty\nmatter. If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be\nbitter--bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.... The well-being of our\nsouls depends only on what we _are_; and nobleness of character is\nnothing else but _steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil_....\nOnly to those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish\nenjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. Man\nwill have what he desires, and will find what is really best for him,\nexactly as he honestly seeks for it. _Happiness may fly away, pleasure\npall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove\nunkind; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is\nnever rejected_.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nLIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (_continued._)\n\nOf the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there is\nunfortunately little more to be told. The life of\n\n     \"That halting slave, who in Nicopolis\n      Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son\n      Cleared Rome of what most shamed him,\"\n\nis not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded it are very\ncircumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest\nbiographies; their real life is in their books.\n\nAt some period of his life, but how or when we do not know, Epictetus\nwas manumitted by his master, and was henceforward regarded by the world\nas free. Probably the change made little or no difference in his life.\nIf it saved him from a certain amount of brutality, if it gave him more\nuninterrupted leisure, it probably did not in the slightest degree\nmodify the hardships of his existence, and may have caused him some\nlittle anxiety as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. He,\nof all men, would have attached the least importance to the external\nconditions under which he lived; he always regarded them as falling\nunder the category of things which lay beyond the sphere of his own\ninfluence, and therefore as things with which he had nothing to do. Even\nin his most oppressed days, he considered himself, by the grace of\nheaven, to be more free--free in a far truer and higher sense--than\nthousands of those who owed allegiance to no master's will. Whether he\nhad saved any small sum of money, or whether his needs were supplied by\nthe many who loved and honoured him, we do not know. He was a man who\nwas content with the barest necessaries of life, and we may be sure that\nhe would have refused to be indebted to any one for more than these.\n\nIt is probable that he never married. This may have been due to that\nshade of indifference to the female character of which we detect traces\nhere and there in his writings. In one passage he complains that women\nseemed to think of nothing but admiration and getting married; and, in\nanother, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman ladies were\nfond of Plato's _Republic_ because he allowed some very liberal marriage\nregulations. We can only infer from these passages that he had been very\nunfortunate in the specimens of women with whom he had been thrown. The\nRoman ladies of his time were certainly not models of character; he was\nnot likely to fall in with very exalted females among the slaves of\nEpaphroditus or the ladies of his family, and he had probably never\nknown the love of a sister or a mother's care. He did not, however, go\nthe length of condemning marriage altogether; on the contrary, he blames\nthe philosophers who did so. But it is equally obvious that he approves\nof celibacy as a \"counsel of perfection,\" and indeed his views on the\nsubject have so close and remarkable a resemblance to those of St. Paul\nthat our readers will be interested in seeing them side by side.\n\nIn 1 Cor. vii. St. Paul, after speaking of the nobleness of virginity,\nproceeds, nevertheless, to sanction matrimony as in itself a hallowed\nand honourable estate. It was not given to all, he says, to abide even\nas he was, and therefore marriage should be adopted as a sacred and\nindissoluble bond. Still, without being sure that he has any divine\nsanction for what he is about to say, he considers celibacy good \"for\nthe present distress,\" and warns those that marry that they \"shall have\ntrouble in the flesh.\" For marriage involves a direct multiplication of\nthe cares of the flesh: \"He that is unmarried careth for the things that\nbelong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married\ncareth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his\nwife.... And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a\nsnare upon you, _but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend\nupon the Lord without distraction_.\"\n\nIt is clear, then, that St. Paul regarded virginity as a \"counsel of\nperfection,\" and Epictetus uses respecting it almost identically the\nsame language. Marriage was perfectly permissible in his view, but it\nwas much better for a Cynic (i.e. for all who carried out most fully\ntheir philosophical obligations) to remain single: \"Since the condition\nof things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve of battle,\n_ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distraction_\" [the Greek\nword being the very same as that used by St. Paul] \"_for the service of\nGod_? ought he not to be able to move about among mankind free from the\nentanglement of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he\nneglect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise and good\nman, and which if he observe he will lose the function of a messenger,\nand sentinel, and herald of the gods?\" Epictetus proceeds to point out\nthat if he is married he can no longer look after the spiritual\ninterests of all with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer\nmaintain the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the genuine\nphilosopher. He _must_, for instance, have a bath for his child,\nprovisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and\nmoney to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a\ngeneral increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified\ndistractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing\nmanifestation of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a\ncelebrated cynic, was married, but it was to a lady as self-denying as\nhimself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to share\nhardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetus does not venture to say\nin so many words that Crates in this matter made a mistake, he takes\npains to point out that the circumstances were far too exceptional to be\naccepted as a precedent for the imitation of others.\n\n\"But,\" inquires the interlocutor, \"how then is the world to get on?\" The\nquestion seems quite to disturb the bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it\nmakes him use language of the strongest and most energetic contempt: and\nit is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems to lose\nthe nobility and grace, the \"sweetness and light,\" which are the general\ncharacteristic of his utterances. In spite of his complete self-mastery\nhe was evidently a man of strong feelings, and with a natural tendency\nto express them strongly. \"Heaven bless us,\" he exclaims in reply, \"are\n_they_ greater benefactors of mankind who bring into the world two or\nthree evilly-squalling brats,[63] or those who, to the best of their\npower, keep a beneficent eye on the lives, and habits, and tendencies of\nall mankind? Were the Thebans who had large families more useful to\ntheir country than the childless Epaminondas; or was Homer less useful\nto mankind than Priam with his fifty good-for-nothing sons?... Why, sir,\nthe true cynic is a father to all men; all men are his sons and all\nwomen his daughters; he has a bond of union, a lien of affection with\nthem all.\" (_Dissert_. iii. 22.)\n\n[Footnote 63: [Greek: kakorrugcha paidia]. Another reading is [Greek:\nkokorugcha], which M. Martha renders, \"_Marmots \u00e0 vilain petit museau_!\"\nIt is evident that Epictetus did not like children, which makes his\nsubsequently mentioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more\ncreditable to him.]\n\nThe whole character of Epictetus is sufficient to prove that he would\nonly do what he considered _most_ desirable and most exalted; and\npassages like these, the extreme asperity of which I have necessarily,\nsoftened down, are, I think, decisive in favour of the tradition which\npronounces him to have been unmarried.\n\nWe are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest and even meanest\ndescription: it neither needed nor possessed a fastening of any kind,\nfor within it there was no furniture except a lamp and the poor straw\npallet on which he slept. About his lamp there was current in antiquity\na famous story, to which he himself alludes. As a piece of unwonted\nluxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which burned in front of the\nimages of his household deities. It was the only possession which he\nhad, and a thief stole it. \"He will be finely disappointed when he comes\nagain,\" quietly observed Epictetus. \"for he will only find an\nearthenware lamp next time.\" At his death the little earthenware lamp\nwas bought by some genuine hero-worshipper for 3,000 drachmas. \"The\npurchaser hoped,\" says the satirical Lucian, \"that if he read philosophy\nat night by that lamp, he would at once acquire in dreams the wisdom of\nthe admirable old man who once possessed it.\"\n\nBut, in spite of his deep poverty, it must not be supposed that there\nwas anything eccentric or ostentatious in the life of Epictetus. On the\ncontrary, his writings abound in directions as to the proper bearing of\na philosopher in life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule\nto endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the _gamins_ of\nRome, appear to consider a philosopher \"fair game,\" and think it fine\nfun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the\nsneers of much more dignified people. \"If,\" says Epictetus, \"you want to\nknow how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who had the\nhighest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present,\nhappened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had\nreceived an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I _cannot_ endure it; you\nare killing me; why, you'll make me _like him_! pointing to me,\"\nevidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And,\nagain he says in the _Manual_. \"If you wish to be a philosopher, prepare\nyourself to be thoroughly laughed at since many will certainly sneer and\njeer at you, and will say, 'He has come back to us as a philosopher all\nof a sudden,' and 'Where in the world did he get this superciliousness?'\nNow do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which appear\nbest to you in such a manner as though you were conscious of having been\nappointed by God to this position.\" Again in the little discourse _On\nthe Desire of Admiration_, he warns the philosopher \"_not to walk as if\nhe had swallowed a poker_\" or to care for the applause of those\nmultitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error. For all display, and\npretence, and hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, and boasting, and mere\nfruitless book-learning he seems to have felt a genuine and profound\ncontempt. Recommendations to simplicity of conduct, courtesy of manner,\nand moderation of language were among his practical precepts. It is\nrefreshing, too, to know that with the strongest and manliest good\nsense, he entirely repudiated that dog-like brutality of behaviour, and\nrepulsive eccentricity of self-neglect, which characterised not a few of\nthe Cynic leaders. He expressly argues that the Cynic should be a man of\nready tact, and attractive presence; and there is something of almost\nindignant energy in his words when he urges upon a pupil the plain duty\nof scrupulous cleanliness. In this respect our friends the Hermits would\nnot quite have satisfied him, although he might possibly have pardoned\nthem on the plea that they abode in desert solitudes, since he bids\nthose who neglect the due care of their bodies to live \"either in the\nwilderness or alone.\"\n\nLate in life Epictetus increased his establishment by taking in an old\nwoman as a servant. The cause of his doing so shows an almost Christian\ntenderness of character. According to the hideous custom of infanticide\nwhich prevailed in the pagan world, a man with whom Epictetus was\nacquainted exposed his infant son to perish. Epictetus in pity took the\nchild home to save its life, and the services of a female were necessary\nto supply its wants. Such kindness and self-denial were all the more\nadmirable because pity, like all other deep emotions, was regarded by\nthe Stoics in the light rather of a vice than of a virtue. In this\nrespect, however, both Seneca and Epictetus, and to a still greater\nextent Marcus Aurelius, were gloriously false to the rigidity of the\nschool to which they professed to belong. We see with delight that one\nof the _Discourses_ of Epictetus was _On the Tenderness and Forbearance\ndue to Sinners_; and he abounds in exhortations to forbearance in\njudging others. In one of his _Fragments_ he tells the following\nanecdote:--A person who had seen a poor ship-wrecked and almost dying\npirate took pity on him, carried him home, gave him clothes, and\nfurnished him with all the necessaries of life. Somebody reproached him\nfor doing good to the wicked--\"I have honoured,\" he replied, \"not the\nman, but humanity in his person.\"\n\nBut one fact more is known in the life of Epictetus, Domitian, the\nyounger son of Vespasian, succeeded his far nobler brother the Emperor\nTitus; and in the course of his reign a decree was passed which banished\nall the philosophers from Italy. Epictetus was not exempted from this\nunjust and absurd decree. That he bore it with equanimity may be\ninferred from the approval with which he tells an anecdote about\nAgrippinus, who while his cause was being tried in the Senate went on\nwith all his usual avocations, and on being informed on his return from\nbathing that he had been condemned, quietly asked, \"To death or\nbanishment?\" \"To banishment,\" said the messenger. \"Is my property\nconfiscated?\" \"No,\" \"Very well, then let us go as far as Aricia\" (about\nsixteen miles from Rome), \"and dine there.\"\n\nThere was a certain class of philosophers whose external mark and whose\nsole claim to distinction rested in the length of their beards; and when\nthe decree of Domitian was passed these gentleman contented themselves\nwith shaving. Epictetus alludes to this in his second _Discourse_,\n\"Come, Epictetus, shave off your beard,\" he imagines some one to say to\nhim. \"If I am a philosopher I will not,\" he replies. \"Then I will take\noff your head.\" \"By all means, if that will do you any good.\"\n\nHe went to Nicopolis, a town of Epirus, which had been built by Augustus\nin commemoration of his victory at Actium. Whether he ever revisited\nRome is uncertain, but it is probable that he did so, for we know that\nhe enjoyed the friendship of several eminent philosophers and statesmen,\nand was esteemed and honoured by the Emperor Hadrian himself. He is said\nto have lived to a good old age, surrounded by affectionate and eager\ndisciples, and to have died with the same noble simplicity which had\nmarked his life. The date of his death is as little known as that of his\nbirth. It only remains to give a sketch of those thoughts which, poor\nthough he was, and despised, and a slave, yet made him \"dear to the\nimmortals.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE \"MANUAL\" AND \"FRAGMENTS\" OF EPICTETUS.\n\nIt is nearly certain that Epictetus never committed any of his doctrines\nto writing. Like his great exemplar. Socrates, he contented himself with\noral instruction, and the bulk of what has come down to us in his name\nconsists in the _Discourses_ reproduced for us by his pupil Arrian. It\nwas the ambition of Arrian \"to be to Epictetus what Xenophon had been to\nSocrates,\" that is, to hand down to posterity a noble and faithful\npicture of the manner in which his master had lived and taught. With\nthis view, he wrote four books on Epictetus,--a life, which is now\nunhappily lost; a book of conversation or \"table talk,\" which is also\nlost; and two books which have come down to us, viz. the _Discourses_\nand the _Manual_. It is from these two invaluable books, and from a good\nmany isolated fragments, that we are enabled to judge what was the\npractical morality of Stoicism, as expounded by the holy and\nupright slave.\n\nThe _Manual_ is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles,\nwhich, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are\nalso explained in the _Discourses_. Both books were so popular that by\ntheir means Arrian first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately\nattained the highest eminence and rank. The _Manual_ was to antiquity\nwhat the _Imitatio_ of Thomas \u00e0 Kempis was to later times, and what\nWoodhead's _Whole Duty of Man_ or Wilberforce's _Practical View of\nChristianity_ have been to large sections of modern Englishmen. It was a\nclear, succinct, and practical statement of common daily duties, and the\nprinciples upon which they rest. Expressed in a manner entirely simple\nand unornate, its popularity was wholly due to the moral elevation of\nthe thoughts which it expressed. Epictetus did not aim at style; his one\naim was to excite his hearers to virtue, and Arrian tells us that in\nthis endeavour he created a deep impression by his manner and voice. It\nis interesting to know that the _Manual_ was widely accepted among\nChristians no less than among Pagans, and that, so late as the fifth\ncentury, paraphrases were written of it for Christian use. No systematic\ntreatise of morals so simply beautiful was ever composed, and to this\nday the best Christian may study it, not with interest only, but with\nreal advantage. It is like the voice of the Sybil, which, uttering\nthings simple, and unperfumed, and unadorned, by God's grace reacheth\nthrough innumerable years. We proceed to give a short sketch of\nits contents.\n\nEpictetus began by laying down the broad comprehensive statement that\nthere are some things which are in our power, and depend upon ourselves;\nother things which are beyond our power, and wholly independent of us.\nThe things which are in our power are our opinions, our aims, our\ndesires, our aversions--in a word, _our actions_. The things beyond our\npower are bodily accidents, possessions, fame, rank, and whatever lies\n_beyond_ the sphere of our actions. To the former of these classes of\nthings our whole attention must be confined. In that region we may be\nnoble, unperturbed, and free; in the other we shall be dependent,\nfrustrated, querulous, miserable. Both classes cannot be successfully\nattended to; they are antagonistic, antipathetic; we cannot serve God\nand Mammon.\n\nNow, if we take a right view of all these things which in no way depend\non ourselves we shall regard them as mere semblances--as shadows which\nare to be distinguished from the true substance. We shall not look upon\nthem as fit subjects for aversion or desire. Sin and cruelty, and\nfalsehood we may hate, because we can avoid them if we will; but we must\nlook upon sickness, and poverty, and death as things which are _not_ fit\nsubjects for our avoidance, because they lie wholly beyond our control.\n\nThis, then,--endurance of the inevitable, avoidance of the evil--is the\nkeynote of the Epictetean philosophy. It has been summed up in the three\nwords, [Greek: Anechou kai apechou], \"_sustine et abstine_,\" \"Bear and\nforbear,\"--bear whatever God assigns to you, abstain from that which\nHe forbids.\n\nThe earlier part of the _Manual_ is devoted to practical advice which\nmay enable men to endure nobly. For instance, \"If there be anything,\"\nsays Epictetus, \"which you highly value or tenderly love, estimate at\nthe same time its true nature. Is it some possession? remember that it\nmay be destroyed. Is it wife or child? remember that they may die.\"\n\"Death,\" says an epitaph in Chester Cathedral--\n\n     \"Death, the great monitor, comes oft to prove,\n      'Tis dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love.\"\n\n\"Desire nothing too much. If you are going to the public baths and are\nannoyed or hindered by the rudeness, the pushing, the abuse, the\nthievish propensities of others, do not lose your temper: remind\nyourself that it is more important that you should keep your will in\nharmony with nature than that you should bathe. And so with all\ntroubles; men suffer far less from the things themselves than from the\nopinions they have of them.\"\n\n\"If you cannot frame your circumstances in accordance with your wishes,\nframe your will into harmony with your circumstances.[64] When you lose\nthe best gifts of life, consider them as not lost but only resigned to\nHim who gave them. You have a remedy in your own heart against all\ntrials--continence as a bulwark against passion, patience against\nopposition, fortitude against pain. Begin with trifles: if you are\nrobbed, remind yourself that your peace of mind is of more value and\nimportance than the thing which has been stolen from you. Follow the\nguidance of nature; that is the great thing; regret nothing, desire\nnothing, which can disturb that end. Behave as at a banquet--take with\ngratitude and in moderation what is set before you, and seek for nothing\nmore; a higher and diviner step will be to be ready and able to forego\neven that which is given you, or which you might easily obtain.\nSympathise with others, at least externally, when they are in sorrow and\nmisfortune; but remember in your own heart that to the brave and wise\nand true there is really no such thing as misfortune; it is but an ugly\nsemblance; the croak of the raven can portend no harm to such a man, he\nis elevated above its power.\"\n\n[Footnote 64: \"When what thou willest befalls not, thou then must will\nwhat befalleth.\"]\n\n\"We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with\nthose parts; our simple duty is confined to playing them well. The slave\nmay be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it\ndwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant, with it all\nothers become needless, without it no others are possible. No one can\ninsult you if you will not regard his words or deeds as insults.[65]\nKeep your eye steadily fixed on the great reality of death, and all\nother things will shrink to their true proportions. As in a voyage, when\na ship has come to anchor, if you have gone out to find water, you may\namuse yourself with picking up a little shell or bulb, but you must keep\nyour attention steadily fixed upon the ship, in case the captain should\ncall, and then you must leave all such things lest you should be flung\non board, bound like sheep. So in life; if, instead of a little shell or\nbulb, some wifeling or childling be granted you, well and good; but, if\nthe captain call, run to the ship and leave such possessions behind you,\nnot looking back. But if you be an old man, take care not to go a long\ndistance from the ship at all, lest you should be called and come too\nlate.\" The metaphor is a significant one, and perhaps the following\nlines of Sir Walter Scott, prefixed anonymously to one of the chapters\nof the Waverley Novels, may help to throw light upon it:\n\n     \"Death finds us 'midst our playthings; snatches us,\n      As a cross nurse might do a wayward child,\n      From all our toys and baubles--the rough call\n      Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth:\n      And well if they are such as may be answered\n      In yonder world, where all is judged of truly.\"\n\n[Footnote 65: Compare Cowper's _Conversation_:--\n     \"Am I to set my life upon a throw\n      Because a bear is rude and surly?--No.--\n      A modest, sensible, and well-bred man\n      Will not insult me, and _no other can_.\"]\n\n\"Preserve your just relations to other men; their misconduct does not\naffect your duties. Has your father done wrong, or your brother been\nunjust? Still he _is_ your father, he _is_ your brother; and you must\nconsider your relation to him, not whether he be worthy of it or no.\n\n\"Your duty towards the gods is to form just and true opinions respecting\nthem. Believe that they do all things well, and then you need never\nmurmur or complain.\"\n\n\"As rules of practice,\" says Epictetus, \"prescribe to yourself an ideal,\nand then act up to it. Be mostly silent; or, if you converse, do not let\nit be about vulgar and insignificant topics, such as dogs, horses,\nracing, or prize-fighting. Avoid foolish and immoderate laughter, vulgar\nentertainments, impurity, display, spectacles, recitations, and all\negotistical remarks. Set before you the examples of the great and good.\nDo not be dazzled by mere appearances. Do what is right quite\nirrespective of what people will say or think. Remember that your body\nis a very small matter and needs but very little; just as all that the\nfoot needs is a shoe, and not a dazzling ornament of gold, purple, or\njewelled embroidery. To spend all one's time on the body, or on bodily\nexercises, shows a weak intellect. Do not be fond of criticising others,\nand do not resent their criticisms of you. Everything,\" he says, and\nthis is one of his most characteristic precepts, \"has two handles! one\nby which it may be borne, the other by which it cannot. If your brother\nbe unjust, do not take up the matter by that handle--the handle of his\ninjustice--for that handle is the one by which it cannot be taken up;\nbut rather by the handle that he is your brother and brought up with\nyou; and then you will be taking it up as it can be borne.\"\n\nAll these precepts have a general application, but Epictetus adds\nothers on the right bearing of a philosopher; that is, of one whose\nprofessed ideal is higher than the multitude. He bids him above all\nthings not to be censorious, and not to be ostentatious. \"Feed on your\nown principles; do not throw them up to show how much you have eaten. Be\nself-denying, but do not boast of it. Be independent and moderate, and\nregard not the opinion or censure of others, but keep a watch upon\nyourself as your own most dangerous enemy. Do not plume yourself on an\n_intellectual_ knowledge of philosophy, which is in itself quite\nvalueless, but on a consistent nobleness of action. Never relax your\nefforts, but aim at perfection. Let everything which seems best be to\nyou a law not to be transgressed; and whenever anything painful, or\npleasurable, or glorious, or inglorious, is set before you, remember\nthat now is the struggle, now is the hour of the Olympian contest, and\nit may not be put off, and that by a single defeat or yielding your\nadvance in virtue may be either secured or lost. It was thus that\nSocrates attained perfection, by giving his heart to reason, and to\nreason only. And thou, even if as yet thou art not a Socrates, yet\nshouldst live as though it were thy wish to be one.\" These are noble\nwords, but who that reads them will not be reminded of those sacred and\nfar more deeply-reaching words, \"_Be ye perfect, even as your Father\nwhich is in heaven is perfect\" Behold, now is the accepted time; behold,\nnow is the day of salvation_.\n\nIn this brief sketch we have included all the most important thoughts in\nthe _Manual_. It ends in these words. \"On all occasions we may keep in\nmind these three sentiments:--\"\n\n'Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me\nto go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be\nunwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the same.'\n(Cleanthes.)\n\n'Whosoever hath nobly yielded to necessity, I hold him wise, and he\nknoweth the things of God.' (Euripides.)\n\nAnd this third one also, 'O Crito, be it so, if so be the will of\nheaven. Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, but harm me they cannot.'\n(Socrates.)\n\nTo this last conception of life; quoted from the end of Plato's\n_Apology_, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: \"What resources have we,\" he\nasks, \"in circumstances of great peril? What other than the remembrance\nof what is or what is not in our own power; what is possible to us and\nwhat is not? I must die. Be it so; but need I die groaning? I must be\nbound; but must I be bound bewailing? I must be driven into exile, well,\nwho prevent me then from going with laughter, and cheerfulness, and\ncalm of mind?\n\n\"'Betray secrets.'\n\n\"'Indeed I will not, for _that_ rests in my own hands.'\n\n\"'Then I will put you in chains.'\n\n\"'My good sir, what are you talking about? Put _me_ in chains? No, no!\nyou may put my leg in chains, but not even Zeus himself can master\nmy will.'\n\n\"'I will throw you into prison.'\n\n\"'My poor little body; yes, no doubt.'\n\n\"'I will cut off your head.'\n\n\"'Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one which could not\nbe cut off?'\n\n\"Such are the things of which philosophers should think, and write them\ndaily, and exercise themselves therein.\"\n\nThere are many other passages in which Epictetus shows that the\nfree-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that we should not \"sell\nit for a trifle;\" or, as Scripture still more sternly expresses it,\nshould not \"sell ourselves for nought.\" He relates, for instance, the\ncomplete failure of the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus\nnot to go to the Senate. \"While I am a Senator,\" said Helvidius, \"I\n_must_ go.\" \"Well, then, at least be silent there.\" \"Ask me no\nquestions, and I will be silent.\" \"But I _must_ ask your opinion.\" \"And\n_I_ must say what is right.\" \"But I will put you to death.\" \"Did I ever\ntell you I was immortal? Do _your_ part, and _I_ will do _mine_. It is\nyours to kill me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to\ngo into banishment without grief.\"\n\nWe see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of the heathen\nhad, by God's grace, attained to the sense that life was subject to a\ndivine guidance. Yet how dim was their vision of this truth, how\ninsecure their hold upon it, in comparison with that which the meanest\nChristian may attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of\nimmortality. They never quite got rid of a haunting dread that perhaps,\nafter all, they might be nothing better than insignificant and unheeded\natoms, swept hither and thither in the mighty eddies of an unseen,\nimpersonal, mysterious agency, and destined hereafter \"to be sealed amid\nthe iron hills,\" or\n\n     \"To be imprisoned in the viewless winds.\n      And blown with reckless violence about\n      The pendent world.\"\n\nTheir belief in a personal deity was confused with their belief in\nnature, which, in the language of a modern sceptic, \"acts with fearful\nuniformity: stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as death; too\nvast to praise, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer,\nno heart for sympathy, no arm to save.\" How different the soothing and\ntender certainty of the Christian's hope, for whom Christ has brought\nlife and immortality to light! For \"chance\" is not only \"the daughter of\nforethought,\" as the old Greek lyric poet calls her, but the daughter\nalso of love. How different the prayer of David, even in the hours of\nhis worst agony and shame, \"_Let Thy loving Spirit lead me forth into\nthe land of righteousness_.\" Guidance, and guidance by the hand of love,\nwas--as even in that dark season he recognised--the very law of his\nlife; and his soul, purged by affliction, had but a single wish--the\nwish to be led, not into prosperity, not into a recovery of his lost\nglory, not even into the restoration of his lost innocence; but\nonly,--through paths however hard--only into the land of righteousness.\nAnd because he knew that God would lead him thitherward, he had no wish,\nno care for anything beyond. We will end this chapter by translating a\nfew of the isolated fragments of Epictetus which have been preserved for\nus by other writers. The wisdom and beauty of these fragments will\ninterest the reader, for Epictetus was one of the few \"in the very dust\nof whose thoughts was gold.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"A life entangled with accident is like a wintry torrent, for it is\nturbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and tyrannous, and loud,\nand brief.\"\n\n\"A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; for it is\npure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and serviceable, and\nrich, and innocent, and uninjurious.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"If you wish to be good? first believe that you are bad.\"\n\nCompare Matt. ix. 12, \"They that be whole need not a physician, but\nthey that are sick;\" John ix. 41, \"Now ye say, We see, therefore your\nsin remaineth;\" and 1 John i. 8, \"If we say that we have no sin, we\ndeceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks with the gifts of\nbees, to embitter by vice his reason, which is the gift of God.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and\ninsolence: nothing nobler than high-mindedness, and gentleness, and\nphilanthropy, and doing good.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"The vine bears three clusters: the first of pleasure; the second of\ndrunkenness; the third of insult.\"\n\n\"He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; even if he be not\ndrunken, he has exceeded moderation.\"\n\nOur own George Herbert has laid down the same limit:--\n\n     \"Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay,\n      _Stay at the third cup, or forego the place_,\n      Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a great blaze by\nmeans of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over\nthe sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city,\nhimself content with little, effects great blessings for his\nfellow-citizens.\"\n\nThe thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare:\n\n     \"How far yon little candle throws its beams,\n      So shines a good deed in a naughty world.\"\n\nBut the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly adopts is one no less\nbeautiful. \"What good,\" asked some one, \"did Helvidius Priscus do in\nresisting Vespasian, being but a single person?\" \"What good,\" answers\nEpictetus, \"does the purple do on the garment? Why, _it is splendid in\nitself, and splendid also in the example which it affords_.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations that he may rise,\nbut shines at once, and is greeted by all; so neither wait thou for\napplause, and shouts, and eulogies, that thou mayst do well;--but be a\nspontaneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved like the sun.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all possessions, answered,\n'Hope; for even those who have nothing else have hope.'\"\n\n\"Lead, lead me on, my hopes,\" says Mr. Macdonald; \"I know that ye are\ntrue and not vain. Vanish from my eyes day after day, but arise in new\nforms. I will follow your holy deception; follow till ye have brought me\nto the feet of my Father in heaven, where I shall find you all, with\nfolded wings, spangling the sapphire dusk whereon stands His throne\nwhich is our home.\n\n\"What ought not to be done do not even think of doing.\"\n\nCompare\n\n     \"_Guard well your thoughts for thoughts are heard in heaven_.'\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEpictetus, when asked how a man could grieve his enemy, replied, \"By\npreparing himself to act in the noblest way.\"\n\nCompare Rom. xii. 20, \"If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst,\ngive him drink: _for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on\nhis head_\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"If you always remember that in all you do in soul or body God stands by\nas a witness, in all your prayers and your actions you will not err; and\nyou shall have God dwelling with you.\"\n\nCompare Rev. iii. 30, \"Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man\nhear my voice, and open the door, _I will come in to him and will sup\nwith him, and he with me.\"_\n\nIn the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch upon human\nactions, Epictetus touches again on the same topic, saying that God has\nplaced beside each one of us his own guardian spirit--a spirit that\nsleeps not and cannot be beguiled--and has handed us each over to that\nspirit to protect us. \"And to what better or more careful guardian could\nHe have entrusted us? So that when you have closed your doors and made\ndarkness within, _remember never to say that you are alone_. For you are\nnot alone. God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit; and\nwhat need have _they_ of light to see what you are doing.\"\n\nThere is in this passage an almost startling coincidence of thought with\nthose eloquent words in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: \"A man that breaketh\nwedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? _I am compassed about\nwith darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth me_: what need I to\nfear? the Most Highest will not remember my sins: _such a man only\nfeareth the eyes of man_, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are\nten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men,\nand considering the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever they\nwere created: so also after they were perfected He looked upon all. This\nman shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he expecteth\nnot he shall be taken.\" (Ecclus. xxiii. 11-21.)\n\n\"When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a tutor who kept a\ncontinual watch that we might not suffer harm; but, when we grow to\nmanhood, God hands us over to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must,\ntherefore, by no means despise this guardianship, since in that case we\nshall both be displeasing to God and enemies to our own conscience.\"\n\nBeautiful and remarkable as these fragments are we have no space for\nmore, and must conclude by comparing the last with the celebrated lines\nof George Herbert:--\n\n     \"Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round;\n       _Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters\n      Deliver us to laws. They send us bound\n        To rules of reason_. Holy messengers;\n      Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin;\n        Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes;\n      Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in!\n        Bibles laid open; millions of surprises;\n      Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness;\n        The sound of glory ringing in our ears;\n      Without one shame; _within our consciences_;\n        Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears!\n      Yet all these fences and their whole array,\n        One cunning bosom sin blows quite away.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS.\n\nThe _Discourses_ of Epictetus, as originally published by Arrian,\ncontained eight books, of which only four have come down to us. They are\nin many respects the most valuable expression of his views. There is\nsomething slightly repellent in the stern concision, the \"imperious\nbrevity,\" of the _Manual_. In the _Manual_, says M. Martha,[66] \"the\nreason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassibility which is\nlittle human; it imposes silence on all the passions, even the most\nrespectable; it glories in waging against them an internecine war, and\nseems even to wish to repress the most legitimate impulses of generous\nsensibility. In reading these rigorous maxims one might be tempted to\nbelieve that this legislator of morality is a man without a heart, and,\nif we were not touched by the original sincerity of the language, one\nwould only see in this lapidary style the conventional precepts of a\nchimerical system or the aspirations of an impossible perfection.\" The\n_Discourses_ are more illustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse,\nmore human. In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human\nbeing, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. The style,\nindeed, is simple, but its \"athletic nudity\" is well suited to this\nmilitant morality; its picturesque and incisive character, its vigorous\nmetaphors, its vulgar expressions, its absence of all conventional\nelegance, display a certain \"plebeian originality\" which gives them an\nalmost autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid\nconviction \"he wrestles with the passions, questions them, makes them\nanswer, and confounds them in a few words which are often sublime. This\nSocrates without grace does not amuse us by making his adversary fall\ninto the long entanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes\nand often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence of\nPhocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which is lifted\nand falls.\"\n\n[Footnote 66: Moralistes sous l'Empire, p. 200.]\n\nEpictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher; a preacher with less wealth of\ngenius, less eloquence of expression, less width of culture, but with\nfar more bravery, clearness, consistency, and grasp of his subject. His\ndoctrine and his life were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit\nof brief expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, or\nchequered with any lights and shades. The _Discourses_ differ from the\n_Manual_ only in their manner, their frequent anecdotes, their pointed\nillustrations, and their vivid interlocutory form. The remark of Pascal,\nthat Epictetus knew the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know\nits weakness, applies to the _Manual_ but can hardly be maintained when\nwe judge him by some of the answers which he gave to those who came to\nseek for his consolation or advice.\n\nThe _Discourses_ are not systematic in their character, and, even if\nthey were, the loss of the last four books would prevent us from working\nout their system with any completeness. Our sketch of the _Manual_ will\nalready have put the reader in possession of the main principles and\nideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the\nschools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a\nmoral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He\nneither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical\nreality. All that remains for us to do is to choose from the\n_Discourses_ some of his most characteristic views, and the modes by\nwhich he brought them home to his hearers.\n\nIt was one of the most essential peculiarities of Stoicism to aim at\nabsolute independence, or _self_-independence. Now, as the weaknesses\nand servilities of men arise most frequently from their desire for\nsuperfluities, the true man must absolutely get rid of any such desire.\nHe must increase his wealth by moderating his wishes; he must despise\n_all_ the luxuries for which men long, and he must greatly diminish the\nnumber of supposed necessaries. We have already seen some of the\narguments which point in this direction, and we may add another from the\nthird book of _Discourses_.\n\nA certain magnificent orator, who was going to Rome on a lawsuit, had\ncalled on Epictetus. The philosopher threw cold water on his visit,\nbecause he did not believe in his sincerity. \"You will get no more from\nme,\" he said, \"than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for\nyou have only come because it happened to be convenient, and you will\nonly criticise my style, not really wishing to learn _principles_\"\n\"Well, but,\" answered the orator, \"if I attend to that sort of thing, I\nshall be a mere pauper like you, with no plate, or equipage, or land.\"\n\"I don't _want_ such things,\" replied Epictetus; \"and, besides, you are\npoorer than I am, after all.\" \"Why, how so?\" \"You have no constancy, no\nunanimity with nature, no freedom from perturbations. Patron or no\npatron, what care I? You _do_ care. I am richer than you. _I_ don't care\nwhat Caesar thinks of me. _I_ flatter no one. This is what I have\ninstead of your silver and gold plate. You have _silver_ vessels, but\n_earthenware_ reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom\nis, and it furnishes me abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your\nrestless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you, mine seem\ngreat to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied.\" The\ncomparison with which he ends the discussion is very remarkable. I once\nhad the privilege of hearing Sir William Hooker explain to the late\nQueen Adelaide the contents of the Kew Museum. Among them was a\ncocoa-nut with a hole in it, and Sir William explained to the Queen that\nin certain parts of India, when the natives want to catch the monkeys\nthey make holes in cocoa-nuts, and fill them with sugar. The monkeys\nthrust in their hands and fill them with sugar; the aperture is too\nsmall to draw the paws out again when thus increased in size; the\nmonkeys have not the sense to loose their hold of the sugar, and so they\nare caught. This little anecdote will enable the reader to relish the\nillustration of Epictetus. \"When little boys thrust their hands into\nnarrow-mouthed jars full of figs and almonds, when they have filled\ntheir hands they cannot draw them out again, and so begin to howl. Let\ngo a few of the figs and almonds, and you'll get your hand out. And so\n_you_, let go your desires. Don't desire many things, and you'll get\nwhat you _do_ desire.\" \"Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he\nshall not be disappointed!\"\n\nAnother of the constant precepts of Epictetus is that we should aim\nhigh; we are not to be common threads in the woof of life, but like the\nlaticlave on the robe of a senator, the broad purple stripe which gave\nlustre and beauty to the whole. But how are we to know that we are\nqualified for this high function? How does the bull know, when the lion\napproaches, that it is his place to expose himself for all the herd? If\nwe have high powers we shall soon be conscious of them, and if we have\nthem not we may gradually acquire them. Nothing great is produced at\nonce,--the vine must blossom, and bear fruit, and ripen, before we have\nthe purple clusters of the grape,--\"first the blade, then the ear, after\nthat the full corn in the ear.\"\n\nBut whence are we to derive this high sense of duty and possible\neminence? Why, if Caesar had adopted you, would you not show your proud\nsense of ennoblement in haughty looks; how is it that you are not proud\nof being sons of God? You have, indeed, a body, by virtue of which many\nmen sink into close kinship with pernicious wolves, and savage lions,\nand crafty foxes, destroying the rational within them, and so becoming\ngreedy cattle or mischievous vermin; but above and beyond this, \"If,\"\nsays Epictetus, \"a man have once been worthily interpenetrated with the\nbelief that we all have been in some special manner born of God, and\nthat God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never have\nany ignoble, any humble thoughts about himself.\" Our own great Milton\nhas hardly expressed this high truth more nobly when he says, that \"He\nthat holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of\nGod's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he\nthinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit\nperson to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than\nto deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is,\nhimself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and filial\nrelation with God.\"\n\n\"And how are we to know that we have made progress? We may know it if\nour own wills are bent to live in conformity with nature; if we be\nnoble, free, faithful, humble; if desiring nothing, and shunning nothing\nwhich lies beyond our power, we sit loose to all earthly interests; if\nour lives are under the distinct governance of immutable and noble laws.\n\n\"But shall we not meet with troubles in life? Yes, undoubtedly; and are\nthere none at Olympia? Are you not burnt with heat, and pressed for\nroom, and wetted with showers when it rains? Is there not more than\nenough clamour, and shouting, and other troubles? Yet I suppose you\ntolerate and endure all these when you balance them against the\nmagnificence of the spectacle? And, come now, have you not received\npowers wherewith to bear whatever occurs? Have you not received\nmagnanimity, courage, fortitude? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I\ncare for anything that can possibly happen? what shall alarm or trouble\nme, or seem painful? Shall I not use the faculty for the ends for which\nit was granted me, or shall I grieve and groan at all the accidents of\nlife? On the contrary, these troubles and difficulties are strong\nantagonists pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in\nthe Olympic game of life.\n\n\"But if life and its burdens become absolutely intolerable, may we not\ngo back to God, from whom we came? may we not show thieves and robbers,\nand tyrants who claim power over us by means of our bodies and\npossessions, that they have _no power_? In a word, may we not commit\nsuicide?\" We know how Shakespeare treats this question:--\n\n     \"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,\n      Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,\n      The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,\n      The insolence of office, and the spurns\n      Which patient merit of the unworthy takes,\n      When he himself might his quietus make\n      With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,\n      To grunt and sweat under a weary life,\n      _But that the dread of something after death,\n      The undiscovered country from whose bourne\n      No traveller returns, puzzles the will:\n      And makes us rather bear those ills we have\n      Than fly to others that we know not of_?\"\n\nBut Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I do not remember a\nsingle passage in which he refers to immortality or the life to come,\nand it is therefore probable either that he did not believe in it at\nall, or that he put it aside as one of those things which are out of our\nown power. Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we\nfind throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one of the\ncommonplaces of Stoicism. \"My friends,\" he says, \"wait God's good time\ntill He gives you the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then\ndismiss yourself to go to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves,\ninhabiting the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after\nall, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for those who are\nthus disposed; for what tyrant, or thief, or judgment-halls, are objects\nof dread to those who thus absolutely disesteem the body and its\nbelongings? Stay, then, and do not depart without due cause.\"\n\nIt will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without extolling it,\nfor in another place (ii. 1) he says: \"What is pain? A mere ugly mask;\nturn it, and see that it is so. This little flesh of ours is acted on\nroughly, and then again smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear\nit, the door is open; if it is for your interest--endure. It is right\nthat under all circumstances the door should be open, since so men end\nall trouble.\"\n\nThis power of _endurance_ is completely the keynote of the Stoical view\nof life, and the method of attaining to it, by practising contempt for\nall external accidents, is constantly inculcated. I have already told\nthe anecdote about Agrippinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that\nno extreme of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a\nsingle expression of indignation or of sorrow.\n\nThe inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from God, and it\nis our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding\nconception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too,\nour duties spring directly from our relation to God. It is that relation\nwhich makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us\nhonour others. \"Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has\nGod for his father no less than you? But they are wicked,\nperhaps--thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more\npity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their\nmisfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are\nwicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so _very_ wise?\"\n\nNor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often\npauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for\ninstance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18),\nand the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones.\nHe points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act\nis a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which make up\nour daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are\nadding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever\nmay be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with\nthe diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them.\n\nTake the instance of anger. \"Do you wish not to be passionate? do not\nthen cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto.\nBe calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in\na rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day,\nthen every third, then every fourth day. But should you have passed even\nthirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to God. For the\nhabit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to\nvexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but\nI restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say\n_that_, that it will soon be all right with you.\"\n\nBut _how_ is one to do all this? that is the great question, and\nEpictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he can. We have,\nfor instance, already quoted one passage in which (unlike the majority\nof Pagan moralists) he shows that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical\nimportance of controlling even the _thought_ of wickedness. Another\nanecdote about Agrippinus will further illustrate the same doctrine. It\nwas the wicked practice of Nero to make noble Romans appear on the stage\nor in gladiatorial shows, in order that he might thus seem to have their\nsanction for his own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who\nwas doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, consulted\nAgrippinus on the subject. \"_Go by all means_,\" replied Agrippinus.\n\"But why don't _you_ go, then?\" asked Florus. \"_Because\"_, said\nAgrippinus, \"_I do not deliberate about it_.\" He implied by this answer\nthat to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act\nalways on _principles_, we must never pause to calculate _consequences_.\n\"But if I don't go,\" objected Florus, \"I shall have my head cut off.\"\n\"Well, then, go, but _I_ won't.\" \"Why won't you go?\" \"Because I do not\ncare to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the\npurple sewn upon it.\"\n\nAnd if we want a due _motive_ for such lofty choice Epictetus will\nsupply it. \"Wish,\" he says, \"to win the suffrages of your own inward\napproval, wish to appear beautiful to God. Desire to be pure with your\nown pure self, and with God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato\nsays, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of\nthe gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even\nrise and depart to the society of the noble and the good, to live\naccording to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the\nliving or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery\nover temptation and passion; consider how glorious was the conscious\nvictory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place\nhim to Hercules himself.' So that, by heaven, one might justly salute\nhim, 'Hail, marvellous conqueror, who hast conquered, not these\nmiserable boxers and athletes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.'\nAnd should you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what\nshoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of mere\nbabblements, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who\ntrains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Great is the\nstruggle, divine the deed; it is for kingdom, for freedom, for\ntranquillity, for peace. Think on God; call upon Him as thine aid and\nchampion, as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. And\nindeed what storm is greater than that which rises from powerful\nsemblances that dash reason out of its course? What indeed but semblance\nis a storm itself? Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring\nas many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt know how\ngreat is the tranquillity and calm in that reason which is the ruling\nfaculty of the soul. But should you once be worsted, and say that you\nwill conquer _hereafter_, and then the same again and again, know that\nthus your condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will\nnot even know that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to\nprovide excuses for your sin; and then you will confirm the truth of\nthat saying of Hesiod,--\n\n     \"'The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.'\"\n\nEven so! So early did a heathen moralist learn the solemn fact that\n\"only this once\" ends in \"there is no harm in it.\" Well does Mr.\nCoventry Patmore sing:--\n\n     \"How easy to keep free from sin;\n        How hard that freedom to recall;\n      For awful truth it is that men\n        _Forget_ the heaven from which they fall.\"\n\nIn another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be too easily\ndiscouraged in our attempts after good;--and, above all, never to\n_despair_. \"In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he\nis bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has\nacquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor\nwretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be swept along as by\na torrent. You need but _will_\" he says, \"and it is done; but if you\nrelax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both\nfrom within.--And what will you gain by all this? You will gain modesty\nfor inpudence, purity for vileness, moderation for drunkenness. If you\nthink there are any better ends than these, then by all means go on in\nsin, for you are beyond the power of any god to save.\"\n\nBut Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us that to\n_profess_ these principles and _talk_ about them is one thing--to act up\nto them quite another. He draws a humorous picture of an inconsistent\nand unreal philosopher, who--after eloquently proving that nothing is\ngood but what pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to\nvice, and that all other things are indifferent--goes to sea. A storm\ncomes on, and the masts creak, and the philosopher screams; and an\nimpertinent person stands by and asks in surprise, \"Is it then _vice_ to\nsuffer shipwreck? because, if not, it can be no evil;\" a question which\nmakes our philosopher so angry that he is inclined to fling a log at his\ninterlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that the\nphilosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the\nschools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and\nconceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name\nof Stoic was usurped.\n\n\"Why,\" he asks in another passage, \"why do you call yourself a Stoic?\nWhy do you deceive the multitude? Why do you act the Jew when you are a\nGreek? Don't you see on what terms each person is called a Jew? or a\nSyrian? or an Egyptian? And when we see some mere _trimmer_ we are in\nthe habit of saying, 'This is no Jew; he is only acting the part of\none,' but when a man takes up the entire condition of a proselyte,\nthoroughly imbued with Jewish doctrines, then he both _is_ in reality\nand is _called_ a Jew. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye,\n_are Jews in name, but in reality are something else_.... We call\nourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the part of men, as\nthough a man should try to heave the stone of Ajax who cannot lift ten\npounds.\" The passage is interesting not only on its own account, but\nbecause of its curious similarity both with the language and with the\nsentiment of St. Paul--\"He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is\nthat circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is\none inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and\nnot in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.\"\n\nThe best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by a mere study of\nbooks and knowledge of doctrines, but by a steady diligence of actions\nand adherence to original principles, to which must be added consistency\nand self control. \"These principles,\" says Epictetus, \"produce\nfriendship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations; they make\na man grateful to God, bold under all circumstances, as though dealing\nwith things alien and valueless. Now we are capable of writing these\nthings, and reading them, and praising them when they are read, but we\nare far enough off following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of\nthe Lacedaemonians, that they are 'lions at home, foxes at Ephesus,'\nwill also apply to us; in the school we are lions, out of it foxes.\"\n\nThese passages include, I think, all the most original, important, and\ncharacteristic conceptions which are to be found in the _Discourses_.\nThey are most prominently illustrated in the long and important chapter\non the Cynic philosophy. A genuine Cynic--one who was so, not in\nbrutality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a Cynic\nin life and in his inmost principles--was evidently in the eyes of\nEpictetus one of the loftiest of human beings. He drew a sketch of his\nideal conception to one of his scholars who inquired of him upon\nthe subject.\n\nHe begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who\nundertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him\nthe anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the\nimperial office of an Agamemnon. \"If you think,\" he tells the young\nstudent, \"that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and\nsleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and\nrebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple,\nyou don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a\nCynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider\nhow great a thing you are undertaking.\n\n\"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of\nGod. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life\nmust be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal\ntheir actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your\nhouse, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must\nconceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as\nthe spy and messenger of God among mankind.\n\n\"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their\nblindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and\nOfellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not\nin power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for\nNero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their\nhair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances.\nIt lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of\nevery ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of\ncontentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile,\ndisease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this\nOlympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face\nthe fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped?\n\n\"Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be\nbeaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an\nunshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men\nwould cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair.\n\n\"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a\nfriend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The\nfriend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a\nfriend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry;\nmarriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements,\nits expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted\nto the service of heaven.\n\n\"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth\nis not Athens or Corinth, but mankind.\n\n\"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of\nhis indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a\npower of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be\nclear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To\nabuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place\nall fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this:\nbefore you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of\nGod you are capable of achieving it.\"\n\nI have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chapter, but fully\nto enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader should study it entire,\nand observe its generous impatience, its noble ardour, its vivid\ninterrogations, \"in which,\" says M. Martha, \"one feels as it were a\nfrenzy of virtue and of piety, and in which the plenitude of a great\nheart tumultuously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts.\"\n\nEpictetus was not a Christian. He has only once alluded to the\nChristians in his works, and there it is under the opprobrious title of\n\"Galileans,\" who practised a kind of insensibility in painful\ncircumstances and an indifference to worldly interests which Epictetus\nunjustly sets down to \"mere habit.\" Unhappily it was not granted to\nthese heathen philosophers in any true sense to know what Christianity\nwas. They ignorantly thought that it was an attempt to imitate the\nresults of philosophy, without having passed through the necessary\ndiscipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it with\ninjustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, they\nwould have found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest\nconceptions. Nor was it only an impossible _ideal_; it was an ideal\nrendered attainable by the impressive sanction of the highest authority,\nand one which supported men to bear the difficulties of life with\nfortitude, with peacefulness, and even with an inward joy; it ennobled\ntheir faculties without overstraining them; it enabled them to\ndisregard the burden of present trials, not by vainly attempting to deny\ntheir bitterness or ignore their weight, but in the high certainty that\nthey are the brief and necessary prelude to \"a far more exceeding and\neternal weight of glory.\"\n\n\n\nMARCUS AURELIUS.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR.\n\nThe life of the noblest of Pagan Emperors may well follow that of the\nnoblest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the purer and brighter from\nthe midst of a corrupt and deplorable society. Epictetus showed that a\nPhrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation; Aurelius\nproved that a Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility.\nThe one--a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in squalor, bred\nin degradation, the despised chattel of a despicable freedman,\nsurrounded by every depressing, ignoble, and pitiable circumstance of\nlife--showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win noble\nhappiness and immortal memory; the other--a Roman, a patrician, strong,\nof heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the\nfavourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher,\nthe greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be\nvirtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness,\neven on an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the two,\nthe Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly\nand touchingly resigned, than the slave. In him, Stoicism loses all its\nhaughty self-assertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly\nmelancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart. \"It seems,\" says\nM. Martha, \"that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud,\ndraws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it\ndespised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown\nGod.' In the sad _Meditations_ of Aurelius we find a pure serenity,\nsweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were\nunknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not\nyet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which\nChristianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction,\nand one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy,\nwithout thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon.\nWe must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate\nancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to\nwhich profane doctrines have attained--how they laid down their pride,\nand how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity. To\nmake the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the\nStoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these\nsimple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur--that\ncharity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and\nhumbleness of heart by an Emperor.\"\n\nAurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of\neminent men \"If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the\nChristian verities,\" says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu,\n\"search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object\nthan the Antonines.... One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this\nEmperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of\nemotion. He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better\nof ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind.\"\n\"It is more delightful,\" says the great historian Niebuhr, \"to speak of\nMarcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime\nhuman virtue it is his. He was certainly the noblest character of his\ntime, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness,\nmildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards\nhimself. We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his\ntime was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an\nexpression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius.\"\n\nMarcus Aurelius was born on April 26, A.D. 121. His more correct\ndesignation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several\ndifferent names at different periods of his life, and since at that age\nnothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth\nwhile to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His\nfather, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a\nline of illustrious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King\nof Rome. His mother, Domitia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and\nkingly race. The character of both seems to have been worthy of their\nhigh dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since Annius died\nwhen Aurelius was a mere infant; but in his _Meditations_ he has left us\na grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his\ngrandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the\ngovernment of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his\nfather, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence,\nand _abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts_;\nand, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of\nthe rich.\n\nThe childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian.\nThe times were better than those which we have contemplated in the\nreigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of\nGalba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time\nunder the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of\nTitus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother Titus,\nwas scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero;\nbut that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden\nneck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate\nthat a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was\nfulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan,\nHadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus\nAurelius were among the very gentlest and noblest sovereigns whom the\nworld has ever seen.\n\nHadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial\nEmperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It\nis, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at\nthe early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues\nwhich afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of\nmankind. \"Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him,\" says Niebuhr, \"when\nhe gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's\npaternal name of _Verus_, he called him _Verissimus_, 'the most true.'\"\nIt is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early\ndeveloped in one who thought that all men \"should speak as they think,\nwith an accent of heroic verity.\"\n\nToward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness,\nHadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a\nman who had few recommendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death,\nwhich took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the senators\nround his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future\nEmperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he\nwon by his gratitude to the memory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been\nolder--he was then but seventeen--it is known that Hadrian would have\nchosen _him_, and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, indeed, who\nwas then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition\nthat he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the\ndeceased Ceionius. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even\nfrom his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw\nhimself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world.\n\nWe are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch\nof the influences and the education which had formed him for this\nexalted station.\n\nHe was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been\nthree times consul. He makes it a matter of congratulation, and\nthankfulness to the gods, that he had not been sent to any public\nschool, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that\nfrightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had\nfallen. He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for\nhaving supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction\nthat on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing\njealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond\nof boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and\nhe was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus,\nhis healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his\npublic dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a\nbeautiful and manly mould. There are, however, three respects in which\nhis education seems especially worthy of notice;--I mean the\n_diligence_, the _gratitude_, and the _hardiness_ in which he was\nencouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of\ngenerous conviction.\n\n1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was _diligent_. He alludes\nmore than once in his _Meditations_ to the inestimable value of time,\nand to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits.\nHe flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into\nevery branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he\ntoiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the\nadministration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman\njurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which he expresses gratitude\nto his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being\nsatisfied with the superficial understanding of a book. In fact, so\nstrenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his\nhealth suffered by the combination of the two.\n\n2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his teachers--even\nthe most insignificant--with sincere _gratitude_. He regarded each one\nof them as a man from whom something could be learnt, and from whom he\nactually _did_ learn that something. Hence the honourable respect--a\nrespect as honourable to himself as to them--which he paid to Fronto, to\nRusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom his noble and\nconscientious gratitude raised to the highest dignities of the State. He\neven thanks the gods that \"he made haste to place those who brought him\nup in the station of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting\nthem off with mere _hopes_ of his doing it some time after, because they\nwere then still young.\" He was far the superior of these men, not only\nsocially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his\nexalted rank and character he delighted to associate with them on the\nmost friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with\naffection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household\ngods, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims.\n\n3. His _hardiness_ and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I\nwish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel\nsecond-class, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their\nbuttonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a\npoor man for a year, would learn how _infinitely more noble_ was the\nabstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of\nsplendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of\ngluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early\nin life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not\nonly a duty but a pleasure\n\n     \"To scorn delights, and live laborious days,\"\n\nand had learnt \"endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work\nwith his own hands.\" In his eleventh year he became acquainted with\nDiognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his\ntwelfth year he assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him \"to\nprefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to\nthe Grecian discipline.\" It is said that \"the skin\" was a concession to\nthe entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself\nwould have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he\nacted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. His friends\nfound him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity\nand thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a\npure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or\nwith gloom.\n\nThe guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around him all the most\ndistinguished literary teachers of the age. Never had a prince a greater\nnumber of eminent instructors; never were any teachers made happy by a\nmore grateful, a more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and\nglorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, during his\ncampaign among the Quadi, he wrote a sketch of what he owed to them.\nThis sketch forms the first book of his _Meditations_, and is\ncharacterised throughout by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty.\n\nThe _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his private diary,\nthey are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, an honest examination of\nhis own conscience; there is not the slightest trace of their having\nbeen intended for any eye but his own. In them he was acting on the\nprinciple of St. Augustine: \"Go up into the tribunal of thy conscience,\nand set thyself before thyself.\" He was ever bearing about--\n\n     \"A silent court of justice in himself,\n      Himself the judge and jury, and himself\n      The prisoner at the bar.\"\n\nAnd writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war which he\ndetested, he averted his eyes from the manifold wearinesses which daily\nvexed his soul, and calmly sat down to meditate on all the great\nqualities which he had observed, and all the good lessons that he might\nhave learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and surrounded\nhis manly years.\n\nAnd what had he learnt?--learnt heartily to admire, and (_we_ may say)\nlearnt to practise also? A sketch of his first book will show us. What\nhe had gained from his immediate parents we have seen already, and we\nwill make a brief abstract of his other obligations.\n\nFrom \"his governor\"--to which of his teachers this name applies we are\nnot sure--he had learnt to avoid factions at the races, to work hard,\nand to avoid listening to slander; from Diognetus, to despise frivolous\nsuperstitions, and to practise self-denial; from Apollonius, undeviating\nsteadiness of purpose, endurance of misfortune, and the reception of\nfavours without being humbled by them; from Sextus of Chaeronea (a\ngrandson of the celebrated Plutarch), tolerance of the ignorant, gravity\nwithout affectation, and benevolence of heart; from Alexander, delicacy\nin correcting others; from Severus, \"a disposition to do good, and to\ngive to others readily, and to cherish good hope, and, to believe that I\nam beloved of my friends;\" from Maximus, \"sweetness and dignity, and to\ndo what was set before me without complaining;\" from Alexander the\nPlatonic, \"_not frequently to say to any one, nor to write in a letter,\nthat I have no leisure_; nor continually to excuse the neglect of\nordinary duties by alleging urgent occupations.\"\n\nTo one or two others his obligations were still more characteristic and\nimportant. From Rusticus, for instance, an excellent and able man, whose\nadvice for years he was accustomed to respect, he had learnt to despise\nsophistry and display, to write with simplicity, to be easily pacified,\nto be accurate, and--an inestimable benefit this, and one which tinged\nthe colour of his whole life--to become acquainted with the _Discourses_\nof Epictetus. And from his adoptive father, the great Antoninus Pius, he\nhad derived advantages still more considerable. In him he saw the\nexample of a sovereign and statesman firm, self-controlled, modest,\nfaithful, and even tempered; a man who despised flattery and hated\nmeanness; who honoured the wise and distinguished the meritorious; who\nwas indifferent to contemptable trifles, and indefatigable in earnest\nbusiness; one, in short, \"who had a perfect and invincible soul,\" who,\nlike Socrates, \"was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things\nwhich many are too weak to abstain from and cannot enjoy without\nexcess.\" [67] Piety, serenity, sweetness, disregard of empty fame,\ncalmness, simplicity, patience, are virtues which he attributes to him\nin another full-length portrait (vi. 30) which he concludes with the\nwords, \"Imitate all this, that thou mayest have as good a conscience\nwhen thy last hour comes as he had.\"\n\n[Footnote 67: My quotations from Marcus Aurelius will be made (by\npermission) from the forcible and admirably accurate translation of Mr.\nLong. In thanking Mr. Long, I may be allowed to add that the English\nreader will find in his version the best means of becoming acquainted\nwith the purest-and noblest book of antiquity.]\n\nHe concludes these reminiscenses of thankfulness with a summary of what\nhe owed to the gods. And for what does he thanks the gods? for being\nwealthy, and noble, and an emperor? Nay, for no vulgar or dubious\nblessings such as these, but for the guidance which trained him in\nphilosophy, and for the grace which kept him from sin. And here it is\nthat his genuine modesty comes out. As the excellent divine used to say\nwhen he saw a criminal led past for execution, \"There, but for the grace\nof God, goes John Bradford,\" so, after thanking the gods for the\ngoodness of all his family and relatives, Aurelius says, \"Further, I owe\nit to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of\nthem, _though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered_,\nmight have led me to do something of this kind; but through their favour\nthere never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the\ntrial. Further, that I was subjected to a ruler and father who took away\nall pride from me, and taught me that it was possible to live in a\npalace without guards, or embroidered dresses, or torches, and statues,\nand such-like show, but to live very near to the fashion of a private\nperson, without being either mean in thought or remiss in action; that\nafter having fallen into amatory passions I was cured; that though it\nwas my mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life\nwith me; that whenever I wished to help any man, I was never told that I\nhad not the means of doing it;--that I had abundance of good masters for\nmy children: for all these thing require the help of the gods\nand fortune.\"\n\nThe whole of the Emperor's _Meditations_ deserve the profound study of\nthis age. The self-denial which they display is a rebuke to our\never-growing luxury; their generosity contrasts favourably with the\nincreasing bitterness of our cynicism; their contented acquiescence in\nGod's will rebukes our incessant restlessness; above all, their constant\nelevation shames that multitude of little vices, and little meannesses,\nwhich lie like a scurf over the conventionality of modern life. But this\nearlier chapter has also a special value for the young. It offers a\npicture which it would indeed be better for them and for us if they\ncould be induced to study. If even under\n\n     \"That fierce light that beats upon the throne,\"\n\nthe life of Marcus Aurelius shows no moral stain, it is still more\nremarkable that the free and beautiful boyhood of this Roman prince had\nearly learnt to recognise only the excellences of his teachers, their\npatience and firmness, their benevolence and sweetness, their integrity\nand virtue. Amid the frightful universality of moral corruption he\npreserved a stainless conscience and a most pure soul; he thanked God in\nlanguage which breathes the most crystalline delicacy of sentiment and\nlanguage, that he had preserved uninjured the flower of his early life,\nand that under the calm influences of his home in the country, and the\nstudies of philosophy, he had learnt to value chastity as the sacred\ngirdle of youth, to be retained and honoured to his latest years.\n\"Surely,\" says Mr. Carlyle, \"a day is coming when it will be known again\nwhat virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush\nof young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable is the\nduty laid on every creature in regard to these particulars. Well, if\nsuch a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come.\nMagnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of\nheart and of eye; noble pious valour to amend us and the age of bronze\nand lacquers, how can they ever come? The scandalous bronze-lacquer age\nof hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies, and mendacities will have\nto run its course till the pit swallow it.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.\n\nOn the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded to the\nthrone, and, in accordance with the late Emperor's conditions, adopted\nMarcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the\nage of fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor\nbroke off the engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter\nFaustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven years\nafterwards, A.D. 146.\n\nThe long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy periods that have\nno history. An almost unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes\nwere lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation\nwere rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. Throughout the\nwhole extent of his vast domain the people loved and valued their\nEmperor, and the Emperor's one aim was to further, the happiness of his\npeople. He, too, like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the\nbee was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil administrator,\nof an unaggressive and united republic; he disliked war, did not value\nthe military title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph.\n\nWith this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his private\nrelations as he was admirable in the discharge of his public duties,\nMarcus Aurelius spent the next twenty-three years of his life. So close\nand intimate was their union, so completely did they regard each other\nas father and son, that during all that period Aurelius never slept more\nthan twice away from the house of Antoninus. There was not a shade of\njealousy between them; each was the friend and adviser of the other,\nand, so far from regarding his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor\ngave him the designation \"Caesar,\" and heaped upon him all the honours\nof the Roman Commonwealth. It was in vain that the whisper of malignant\ntongues attempted to shake this mutual confidence. Antoninus once saw\nthe mother of Aurelius in earnest prayer before the statue of Apollo.\n\"What do you think she is praying for so intently?\" asked a wretched\nmischief-maker of the name of Valerius Omulus: \"it is that you may die,\nand her son reign.\" This wicked suggestion might have driven a prince of\nmeaner character into violence and disgust, but Antoninus passed it over\nwith the silence of contempt.\n\nIt was the main delight of Antoninus to enjoy the quiet of his country\nvilla. Unlike Hadrian, who traversed immense regions of his vast\ndominion, Antoninus lived entirely either at Rome, or in his beautiful\nvilla at Lorium, a little seacoast village about twelve miles from the\ncapital. In this villa he had been born, and here he died, surrounded by\nthe reminiscences of his childhood. In this his real home it was his\nspecial pleasure to lay aside the pomp and burden of his imperial rank.\n\"He did not,\" says Marcus, \"take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was\nnot fond of building houses, nor curious about what he eat, nor about\nthe texture and colour of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his\nslaves.\" Even the dress he wore was the work of the provincial artist\nin his little native place. So far from checking the philosophic tastes\nof his adopted son he fostered them, and sent for Apollonius of Chalcis\nto be his teacher in the doctrines of Stoicism. In one of his notes to\nFronto, Marcus draws the picture of their simple country occupations and\namusements. Hunting, fishing, boxing, wrestling, occupied the leisure of\nthe two princes, and they shared the rustic festivities of the vintage.\n\"I have dined,\" he writes, \"on a little bread.... We perspired a great\ndeal, shouted a great deal, and left some gleanings of the vintage\nhanging on the trellis work.... When I got home I studied a little, but\nnot to much advantage I had a long talk with my mother, who was lying on\nher couch.\" Who knows how much Aurelius and how much the world may have\ngained from such conversation as this with a mother from whom he had\nlearnt to hate even the thought of evil? Nor will any one despise the\nsimplicity of heart which made him mingle with the peasants as an\namateur vintager, unless he is so tasteless and so morose as to think\nwith scorn of Scipio and Laelius as they gathered shells on the\nseashore, or of Henry IV. as he played at horses with his little boys on\nall-fours. The capability of unbending thus, the genuine cheerfulness\nwhich enters at due times into simple amusements, has been found not\nrarely in the highest and purest minds.\n\nFor many years no incident of importance broke the even tenor of\nAurelius's life. He lived peaceful, happy, prosperous, and beloved,\nwatching without envy the increasing years of his adopted father. But in\nthe year 161, when Marcus was now forty years old, Antoninus Pius, who\nhad reached the age of seventy-five, caught a fever at Lorium. Feeling\nthat his end was near, he summoned his friends and the chief men of\nRome to his bedside, and there (without saying a word about his other\nadopted son, who is generally known by the name of Lucius Verus)\nsolemnly recommended Marcus to them as his successor; and then, giving\nto the captain of the guard the watchword of \"Equanimity,\" as though his\nearthly task was over he ordered to be transferred to the bedroom of\nMarcus the little golden statue of Fortune, which was kept in the\nprivate chamber of the Emperors as an omen of public prosperity.\n\nThe very first public act of the new Emperor was one of splendid\ngenerosity, namely, the admission of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus\ninto the fullest participation of imperial honours, the Tribunitian and\nproconsular powers, and the titles Caesar and Augustus. The admission of\nLucius Verus to a share of the empire was due to the innate modesty of\nMarcus. As he was a devoted student, and cared less for manly exercises,\nin which Verus excelled, he thought that his adoptive brother would be a\nbetter and more useful general than himself, and that he could best\nserve the State by retaining the civil administration, and entrusting to\nhis brother the management of war. Verus, however, as soon as he got\naway from the immediate influence and ennobling society of Marcus, broke\nloose from all decency, and showed himself to be a weak and worthless\npersonage, as unfit for war as he was for all the nobler duties of\npeace, and capable of nothing but enormous gluttony and disgraceful\nself-indulence. Two things only can be said in his favour; the one,\nthat, though depraved, he was wholly free from cruelty; and the other,\nthat he had the good sense to submit himself entirely to his brother,\nand to treat him with the gratitude and deference which were his due.\n\nMarcus had a large family by Faustina, and in the first year of his\nreign his wife bore twins, of whom the one who survived became the\nwicked and detested Emperor Commodus. As though the birth of such a\nchild were in itself an omen of ruin, a storm of calamity began at once\nto burst over the long tranquil State. An inundation of the Tiber flung\ndown houses and streets over a great part of Rome, swept away multitudes\nof cattle, spoiled the harvests, devastated the fields, and caused a\ndistress which ended in wide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified\nby earthquakes, by the burning of cities, and by plagues or noxious\ninsects. To these miseries, which the Emperors did their best to\nalleviate, was added the horrors of wars and rumours of wars. The\nPartians, under their king Vologeses, defeated and all but destroyed a\nRoman army, and devastated with impunity the Roman province of Syria.\nThe wild tribes of the Catti burst over Germany with fire and sword; and\nthe news from Britain was full of insurrection and tumult. Such were the\nelements of trouble and discord which overshadowed the reign of Marcus\nAurelius from its very beginning down to its weary close.\n\nAs the Partian war was the most important of the three, Verus was sent\nto quell it, and but for the ability of his generals--the greatest of\nwhom was Avidius Cassius--would have ruined irretrievably the fortunes\nof the Empire. These generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the\nRoman name, and Verus returned in triumph, bringing back with him from\nthe East the seeds of a terrible pestilence which devastated the whole\nEmpire and by which, on the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus himself was\ncarried off at Aquileia.\n\nWorthless as he was, Marcus, who in his lifetime had so often pardoned\nand concealed his faults, paid him the highest honours of sepulcre, and\ninterred his ashes in the mausoleum of Hadrian. There were not wanting\nsome who charged him with the guilt of fratricide, asserting that the\ndeath of Verus had been hastened by his means!\n\nI have only one reason for alluding to atrocious and contemptible\ncalumnies like these, and that is because--since no doubt such whispers\nreached his ears--they help to account for that deep unutterable\nmelancholy which breathes through the little golden book of the\nEmperor's _Meditations_. We find, for instance, among them this isolated\nfragment:--\n\n\"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial,\nchildish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent,\ntyrannical.\"\n\nWe know not of whom he was thinking--perhaps of Nero, perhaps of\nCaligula, but undoubtedly also of men whom he had seen and known, and\nwhose very existence darkened his soul. The same sad spirit breathes\nalso through the following passages:--\n\n\"Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name,\nor not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are\nmuch valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling, and _little\ndogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and\nthen straightway weeping. But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and\ntruth are fled_\n\n     \"'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.'\"\n\n(v. 33.)\n\n\"It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having\nhad a taste of lying, and hypocrisy, and luxury, and pride. However to\n_breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of those things_ is\nthe next best voyage, as the saying is.\" (ix. 2.)\n\n\"_Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles._ Why\nart thou thus disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles\nthee?... Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and\nbetter.\" (ix. 37.) The thought is like that which dominates through the\nPenitential Psalms of David,--that we may take refuge from men, their\nmalignity and their meanness, and find rest for our souls in God. From\nmen David has _no_ hope; mockery, treachery, injustice, are all that he\nexpects from them,--the bitterness of his enemies, the far-off\nindifference of his friends. Nor does this greatly trouble him, so long\nas he does not wholly lose the light of _God's_ countenance. \"I had no\nplace to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O\nLord, and said, _Thou_ art my hope, and my portion in the land of the\nliving.\" \"Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy\nSpirit from me.\"\n\nBut whatever may have been his impulse at times to give up in despair\nall attempt to improve the \"little breed\" of men around him, Marcus had\nschooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings.\nWere men contemptible? It was all the more reason why he should himself\nbe noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust? In\nthat proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and\ntenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his\nability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus\nMarcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the\nvilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from\nsuffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws\nfresh lessons of humanity and love.\n\nHe says, for instance, \"Begin the morning by saying to thyself, _I shall\nmeet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious,\nunsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance\nof what is good and evil_. But I who have seen the nature of the good\nthat it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of\nhim that does wrong that is akin to me,... and that it partakes of the\nsame portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them,\nfor no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my\nkinsman, nor hate him. _For we are made for co-operation,_ like feet,\nlike hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To\nact against one another then is contrary to nature; and _it_ is acting\nagainst one another to be vexed and turn away.\" (ii. 1.) Another of his\nrules, and an eminently wise one, was to fix his thoughts as much as\npossible on the virtues of others, rather than on their vices. \"When\nthou wishest to delight thyself, think of the _virtues_ of those who\nlive with thee--the activity of one, the modesty of another, the\nliberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth.\" What a\nrebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are daily tempted to\ndisplay! \"An infinite being comes before us,\" says Robertson, \"with a\nwhole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and we _proceed to\nclassify him, put a label upon him, as we would upon a jar, saying, This\nis rice, that is jelly, and this pomatum_; and then we think we have\nsaved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How differently\nour Lord treated the people who came to Him!... consequently, at His\ntouch each one gave out his peculiar spark of light.\"\n\nHere, again, is a singularly pithy, comprehensive, and beautiful piece\nof advice:--\n\n\"Men exist for the sake of one another. _Teach them or bear with them_\"\n(viii. 59.)\n\nAnd again: \"The best way of revenging thyself is not to become like the\nwrong doer.\"\n\nAnd again, \"If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps\nhe has not done wrong.\" (ix. 38.)\n\nMost remarkable, however, are the nine rules which he drew up for\nhimself, as subjects for reflection when any one had offended\nhim, viz.--\n\n1. That men were made for each other: even the inferior for the sake of\nthe superior, and these for the sake of one another.\n\n2. The invincible influences that act upon men, and mould their opinions\nand their acts.\n\n3. That sin is mainly error and ignorance,--an involuntary slavery.\n\n4. That we are ourselves feeble, and by no means immaculate; and that\noften our very abstinence from faults is due more to cowardice and a\ncare for our reputation than to any freedom from the disposition to\ncommit them.\n\n5. That our judgments are apt to be very rash and premature. \"And in\nshort a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct\njudgment on another man's acts.\"\n\n6. When thou art much vexed or grieved, consider that man's life is only\na moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.\n\n7. That no wrongful act of another can bring shame on us, and that it\nis not men's acts which disturb us, but our own opinions of them.\n\n8. That our own anger hurts us more than the acts themselves.\n\n9. That _benevolence is invincible, if it be not an affected smile,_ nor\nacting a part. \"For what will the most violent man do to thee if thou\ncontinuest benevolent to him? gently and calmly correcting him,\nadmonishing him when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, '_Not so, my\nchild: we are constituted by nature for something else: I shall\ncertainly not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my child_' And\nshow him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and\nthat even bees do not do as he does, nor any gregarious animal. And this\nyou must do simply, unreproachfully, affectionately; without rancour,\nand if possible when you and he are alone.\" (xi. 18.)\n\n\"_Not so, my child_; thou art injuring thyself, my child.\" Can all\nantiquity show anything tenderer than this, or anything more close to\nthe spirit of Christian teaching than these nine rules? They were worthy\nof the men who, unlike the Stoics in general, considered gentleness to\nbe a virtue, and a proof at once of philosophy and of true manhood. They\nare written with that effusion of sadness and benevolence to which it is\ndifficult to find a parallel. They show how completely Marcus had\ntriumphed over all petty malignity, and how earnestly he strove to\nfulfil his own precept of always keeping the thoughts so sweet and\nclear, that \"if any one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy\nthoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This\nor That,'\" In short, to give them their highest praise, they would have\ndelighted the great Christian Apostle who wrote,--\n\n\"Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the\nweak, be patient towards all men. See that none render evil for evil\nunto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves,\nand to all men.\" (1 Thess. iv. 14. 15.)\n\n\"Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.\" (2. Thess.\niv. 15.)\n\n\"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a\nquarrel against any.\" (Col. iii. 13.)\n\nNay, are they not even in full accordance with the mind and spirit of\nHim who said,--\n\n\"If thy brother trespass against thee, _go and tell him his fault\nbetween thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy\nbrother_.\"\n\nIn the life of Marcus Aurelius, as in so many lives, we are able to\ntrace the great law of compensation. His exalted station, during the\nlater years of his life, threw him among many who were false and\nPharisaical and base; but his youth had been spent under happier\nconditions, and this saved him from falling into the sadness of those\nwhom neither man nor woman please. In his earlier years it had been his\nlot to see the fairer side of humanity, and the recollection of those\npure and happy days was like a healing tree thrown into the bitter and\nturbid waters of his reign.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS _(continued)._\n\nMarcus was now the undisputed lord of the Roman world. He was seated on\nthe dizziest and most splendid eminence which it was possible for human\ngrandeur to obtain.\n\nBut this imperial elevation kindled no glow of pride or\nself-satisfaction in his meek and chastened nature. He regarded himself\nas being in fact the servant of all. It was his duty, like that of the\nbull in the herd, or the ram among the flocks, to confront every peril\nin his own person, to be foremost in all the hardships of war and the\nmost deeply immersed in all the toils of peace. The registry of the\ncitizens, the suppression of litigation, the elevation of public morals,\nthe restraining of consanguineous marriages, the care of minors, the\nretrenchment of public expenses, the limitation of gladitorial games and\nshows, the care of roads, the restoration of senatorial privileges, the\nappointment of none but worthy magistrates--even the regulation of\nstreet traffic--these and numberless other duties so completely absorbed\nhis attention that, in spite of indifferent health, they often kept him\nat severe labour from early morning till long after midnight. His\nposition indeed often necessitated his presence at games and shows, but\non these occasions he occupied himself either in reading, or being read\nto, or in writing notes. He was one of those who held that nothing\nshould be done hastily, and that few crimes were worse than the waste of\ntime. It is to such views and such habits that we owe the compositions\nof his works. His _Meditations_ were written amid the painful\nself-denial and distracting anxieties of his wars with the Quadi and the\nMarcomanni, and he was the author of other works which unhappily have\nperished. Perhaps of all the lost treasures of antiquity there are few\nwhich we should feel a greater wish to recover than the lost\nautobiography of this wisest of Emperors and holiest of Pagan men.\n\nAs for the external trappings of his rank,--those gorgeous adjuncts and\npompous circumstances which excite the wonder and envy of mankind,--no\nman could have shown himself more indifferent to them. He recognized\nindeed the necessity of maintaining the dignity of his high position.\n\"Every moment,\" he says, \"think steadily as a Roman and a man _to do\nwhat thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity_, and affection,\nand freedom, and justice\" (ii. 5); and again, \"Let the Deity which is in\nthee be the guardian of a living being, _manly and of ripe age, and\nengaged in matters political, and a Roman, and a ruler_, who has taken\nhis post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life\"\n(iii. 5). But he did _not_ think it necessary to accept the fulsome\nhonours and degrading adulations which were so dear to many of his\npredecessors. He refused the pompous blasphemy of temples and altars,\nsaying that for every true ruler the world was a temple, and all good\nmen were priests. He declined as much as possible all golden statues and\ntriumphal designations. All inevitable luxuries and splendour, such as\nhis public duties rendered indispensable, he regarded as a mere hollow\nshow. Marcus Aurelius felt as deeply as our own Shakespeare seems to\nhave felt the unsubstantiality, the fleeting evanescence of all earthly\nthings: he would have delighted in the sentiment that,\n\n     \"_We are such stuff\n      As dreams are made on, and our little life\n      Is rounded by a sleep_.\"\n\n\"When we have meat before us,\" he says, \"and such eatables, we receive\nthe impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this is the\ndead body of a bird, or of a pig; _and, again, that this Falerian is\nonly a little grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed\nwith the blood of a shellfish_: such then are these impressions, and\nthey reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what\nkind of things they are. Just in the same way.... where there are things\nwhich appear most worthy of our approbation, _we ought to lay them bare,\nand look at their worthlessness_, and strip them of all the words by\nwhich they are exalted.\" (vi. 13.)\n\n\"What is worth being valued? To be received with clapping of hands? No.\nNeither must we value the clapping of tongues, for the praise which\ncomes from the many is a clapping of tongues.\" (vi. 16.)\n\n\"Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe; all the sea is a drop in the\nuniverse; Athos a little clod of the universe; all the present time is a\npoint in eternity. All things are _little, changeable, perishable\"_\n(vi. 36.)\n\nAnd to Marcus too, no less than to Shakespeare, it seemed that--\n\n     \"All the world's a stage,\n      And all the men and women merely players;\"\n\nfor he writes these remarkable words:--\n\n\"_The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds,\nexercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread in\nfishponds, labourings of ants, and burden-carrying runnings about of\nfrightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings_--this is what life\nresembles. It is thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good\nhumour, and not a proud air; to understand however that _every man is\nworth just so much as the things are worth about which he\nbusies himself_.\"\n\nIn fact, the Court was to Marcus a burden; he tells us himself that\nPhilosophy was his mother, Empire only his stepmother; it was only his\nrepose in the one that rendered even tolerable to him the burdens of the\nother. Emperor as he was, he thanked the gods for having enabled him to\nenter into the souls of a Thrasea, an Helvidius, a Cato, a Brutus. Above\nall, he seems to have had a horror of ever becoming like some of his\npredecessors; he writes:--\n\n\"Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar;[68] take care thou art\nnot dyed with this dye. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious,\nfree from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods,\nkind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Reverence the gods and\nhelp men. Short is life. There _is only one fruit of this terrene life;\na pious disposition and social acts_.\" (iv. 19,)\n\n[Footnote 68: Marcus here invents what M. Martha justly calls \"an\nadmirable barbarism\" to express his disgust towards such men--[Greek:\nora mae apukaidaoosaes]--\"take care not to be _Caesarised_.\"]\n\nIt is the same conclusion as that which sorrow forced from another\nweary and less admirable king: \"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole\nmatter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole\nduty of man.\"\n\nBut it is time for us to continue the meagre record of the life of\nMarcus, so far as the bare and gossiping compilations of Dion\nCassius,[69] and Capitolinus, and the scattered allusions of other\nwriters can enable us to do so.\n\n[Footnote 69: As epitomised by Xiphilinus.]\n\nIt must have been with a heavy heart that he set out once more for\nGermany to face the dangerous rising of the Quadi and Marcomanni. To\nobtain soldiers sufficient to fill up the vacancies in his army which\nhad been decimated by the plague, he was forced to enrol slaves; and to\nobtain money he had to sell the ornaments of the palace, and even some\nof the Empress's jewels. Immediately before he started his heart was\nwrung by the death of his little boy, the twin-brother of Commodus,\nwhose beautiful features are still preserved for us on coins. Early in\nthe war, as he was trying the depth of a ford, he was assailed by the\nenemy with a sudden storm of missiles, and was only saved from imminent\ndeath by being sheltered beneath the shields of his soldiers. One battle\nwas fought on the ice of the wintry Danube. But by far the most\ncelebrated event of the war took place in a great victory over the Quadi\nwhich he won in A.D. 174, and which was attributed by the Christians to\nwhat is known as the \"Miracle of the Thundering Legion.\"\n\nDivested of all extraneous additions, the fact which occurred,--as\nestablished by the evidence of medals, and by one of the bass-relievi on\nthe \"Column of Antonine,\"--appears to have been as follows. Marcus\nAurelius and his army had been entangled in a mountain defile, into\nwhich they had too hastily pursued a sham retreat of the barbarian\narchers. In this defile, unable either to fight or to fly, pent in by\nthe enemy, burned up with the scorching heat and tormented by thirst,\nthey lost all hope, burst into wailing and groans, and yielded to a\ndespair from which not even the strenuous efforts of Marcus could arouse\nthem. At the most critical moment of their danger and misery the clouds\nbegan to gather, and heavy shows of rain descended, which the soldiers\ncaught in their shields and helmets to quench their own thirst and that\nof their horses. While they were thus engaged the enemy attacked them;\nbut the rain was mingled with hail, and fell with blinding fury in the\nfaces of the barbarians. The storm was also accompanied with thunder and\nlightning, which seems to have damaged the enemy, and filled them with\nterror, while no casualty occured in the Roman ranks. The Romans\naccordingly regarded this as a Divine interposition, and achieved a most\ndecisive victory, which proved to be the practical conclusion of a\nhazardous and important war.\n\nThe Christians regarded the event not as _providential but as\nmiraculous_, and attributed it to the prayers of their brethren in a\nlegion which, from this circumstance, received the name of the\n\"Thundering Legion.\" It is however now known that one of the legions,\ndistinguished by a flash of lightning which was represented on their\nshields, had been known by this name since the time of Augustus; and the\nPagans themselves attributed the assistance which they had received\nsometimes to a prayer of the pious Emperor and sometimes to the\nincantations of an Egyptian sorcerer named Arnuphis.\n\nOne of the Fathers, the passionate and eloquent Tertullian, attributes\nto this deliverance an interposition of the Emperor in favour of the\nChristians, and appeals to a letter of his to the Senate in which he\nacknowledged how effectual had been the aid he had received from\nChristian prayers, and forbade any one hereafter to molest the followers\nof the new religion, lest they should use against him the weapon of\nsupplication which had been so powerful in his favour. This letter is\npreserved at the end of the _Apology_ of Justin Martyr, and it adds\nthat, not only are no Christians to be injured or persecuted, but that\nany one who informed against them is to be burned alive! We see at once\nthat this letter is one of those impudent and transparent forgeries in\nwhich the literature of the first five centuries unhappily abounds. What\nwas the real relation of Marcus to the Christians we shall consider\nhereafter.\n\nTo the gentle heart of Marcus, all war, even when accompanied with\nvictories, was eminently distasteful; and in such painful and ungenial\noccupations no small part of his life was passed. What he thought of war\nand of its successes is graphically set forth in the following remark:--\n\n\"A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another when he has\ncaught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a\nnet, and another when he has taken wild boars or bears, _and another\nwhen he has taken Sarmatians._ Are not these robbers, when thou\nexaminest their principles?\" He here condemns his own involuntary\nactions; but it was his unhappy destiny not to have trodden out the\nembers of this war before he was burdened with another far more painful\nand formidable.\n\nThis was the revolt of Avidius Cassius, a general of the old blunt Roman\ntype, whom, in spite of some ominous warnings, Marcus both loved and\ntrusted. The ingratitude displayed by such a man caused Marcus the\ndeepest anguish; but he was saved from all dangerous consequences by the\nwide-spread affection which he had inspired by his virtuous reign.\n\nThe very soldiers of the rebellious general fell away from him; and,\nafter he had been a nominal Emperor for only three months and six days,\nhe was assassinated by some of his own officers. His head was sent to\nMarcus, who received it with sorrow, and did not hold out to the\nmurderers the slightest encouragement. The joy of success was swallowed\nup in regret that his enemy had not lived to allow him the luxury of a\ngenuine forgiveness. He begged the Senate to pardon all the family of\nCassius, and to suffer this single life to be the only one forfeited in\nconsequence of civil war. The Fathers received these proofs of clemency\nwith the rapture which they deserved, and the Senate-house resounded\nwith acclamations and blessings.\n\nNever had a formidable conspiracy been more quietly and effectually\ncrushed. Marcus travelled through the provinces which had favoured the\ncause of Avidius Cassius, and treated them all with the most complete\nand indulgent forbearance. When he arrived in Syria, the correspondence\nof Cassius was brought to him, and, with a glorious magnanimity of which\nhistory affords but few examples, he consigned it all to the\nflames unread.\n\nDuring this journey of pacification, he lost his wife Faustina, who died\nsuddenly in one of the valleys of Mount Taurus. History, or the\ncollection of anecdotes which at this period often passes as history,\nhas assigned to Faustina a character of the darkest infamy, and it has\neven been made a charge against Aurelius that he overlooked or condoned\nher offences. As far as Faustina is concerned, we have not much to say,\nalthough there is strong reason to believe that many of the stories told\nof her are scandalously exaggerated, if not absolutely false. Certain it\nis, that most of the imputations upon her memory rest on the malignant\nanecdotes recorded by Dion, who dearly loved every piece of scandal\nwhich degraded human nature. The _specific_ charge brought against her\nof having tempted Cassius from his allegiance is wholly unsupported,\neven if it be not absolutely incompatible with what we find in her own\nexistent letters; and, finally, Marcus himself not only loved her\ntenderly, as the kind mother of his eleven children, but in his\n_Meditations_ actually thanks the gods for having granted him \"such a\nwife, so obedient so affectionate, and so simple.\" No doubt Faustina was\nunworthy of her husband; but surely it is the glory and not the shame of\na noble nature to be averse from jealousy and suspicion, and to trust to\nothers more deeply than they deserve.\n\nSo blameless was the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that neither the\nmalignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of posthumous scandal has\nsucceeded in discovering any flaw in the extreme integrity of his life\nand principles. But meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The\nhatred of all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the memory\nof great men rages, though less openly, in the minds of many. They\ndelight to degrade human life into that dull and barren plain \"in which\nevery molehill is a mountain, and every thistle a forest-tree.\" Great\nmen are as small in their eyes as they are said to be in the eyes of\ntheir valets; and there are multitudes who, if they find\n\n     \"Some stain or blemish in a name of note,\n      Not grieving that their greatest are so small,\n      Innate themselves with some insane delight,\n      And judge all nature from her feet of clay,\n      Without the will to lift their eyes, and see\n      Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire,\n      And touching other worlds.\"\n\nThis I suppose is the reason why, failing to drag down Marcus Aurelius\nfrom his moral elevation, some have attempted to assail his reputation\nbecause of the supposed vileness of Faustina and the actual depravity of\nCommodus. Of Faustina I have spoken already. Respecting Commodus, I\nthink it sufficient to ask with Solomon: \"Who knoweth whether his son\nshall be a wise man or a fool?\" Commodus was but nineteen when his\nfather died; for the first three years of his reign he ruled respectably\nand acceptably. Marcus Aurelius had left no effort untried to have him\ntrained aright by the first teachers and the wisest men whom the age\nproduced; and Herodian distinctly tells us that he had lived virtuously\nup to the time of his father's death. Setting aside natural affection\naltogether, and even assuming (as I should conjecture from one or two\npassages of his _Meditations_) that Marcus had misgivings about his son,\nwould it have been easy, would it have been even possible, to set aside\non general grounds a son who had attained to years of maturity? However\nthis may be, if there are any who think it worth while to censure Marcus\nbecause, after all, Commodus turned out to be but \"a warped slip of\nwilderness,\" their censure is hardly sufficiently discriminating to\ndeserve the trouble of refutation.\n\n\"But Marcus Aurelius cruelly persecuted the Christians.\" Let us briefly\nconsider this charge. That persecutions took place in his reign is an\nundeniable fact, and is sufficiently evidenced by the Apologies of\nJustin Martyr, of Melito Bishop of Sardis, of Athenagoras, and of\nApollinarius, as well as by the Letter of the Church of Smyrna\ndescribing the martyrdom of Polycarp, and that of the Churches of Lyons\nand Vienne to their brethren in Asia Minor. It is fair, however, to\nmention that there is some documentary evidence on the other side;\nLactantius clearly asserts that under the reigns of those excellent\nprinces who succeeded Domitian the Church suffered no violence from her\nenemies, and \"spread her hands towards the East and the West:\"\nTertullian, writing but twenty years after the death of Marcus,\ndistinctly says (and Eusebius quotes the assertion), that there were\nletters of the Emperor, in which he not only attributed his delivery\namong the Quadi to the prayers of Christian soldiers in the \"Thundering\nLegion,\" but ordered any who informed against the Christians to be most\nseverely punished; and at the end of the works of Justin Martyr is found\na letter of similar purport, which is asserted to have been addressed by\nMarcus to the Senate of Rome. We may set aside these peremptory\ntestimonies, we may believe that Tertullian and Eusebius were mistaken,\nand that the documents to which they referred were spurious; but this\nshould make us also less certain about the prominent participation of\nthe Emperor in these persecutions. My own belief is (and it is a belief\nwhich could be supported by many critical arguments), that his share in\ncausing them was almost infinitesimal. If those who love his memory\nreject the evidence of Fathers in his favour, they may be at least\npermitted to withhold assent from some of the assertions in virtue of\nwhich he is condemned.\n\nMarcus in his _Meditations_ alludes to the Christians once only, and\nthen it is to make a passing complaint of the indifference to death,\nwhich appeared to him, as it appeared to Epictetus, to arise, not from\nany noble principles, but from mere obstinacy and perversity. That he\nshared the profound dislike with which Christians were regarded is very\nprobable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent persecutor is utterly\nunlike his whole character, essentially at variance with his habitual\nclemency, alien to the spirit which made him interfere in every possible\ninstance to mitigate the severity of legal punishments, and may in short\nbe regarded as an assertion which is altogether false. Who will believe\nthat a man who during his reign built and dedicated but one single\ntemple, and that a Temple to Beneficence; that a man who so far from\nshowing any jealousy respecting foreign religions allowed honour to be\npaid to them all; that a man whose writings breathe on every page the\ninmost spirit of philanthropy and tenderness, went out of his way to\njoin in a persecution of the most innocent, the most courageous, and the\nmost inoffensive of his subjects?\n\nThe true state of the case seems to have been this. The deep calamities\nin which, during the whole reign of Marcus the Empire was involved,\ncaused wide-spread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the feelings\nof the provincials against men whose atheism (for such they considered\nit to be) had kindled the anger of the gods. This fury often broke out\ninto paroxisms of popular excitement, which none but the firmest-minded\ngoverners were able to moderate or to repress. Marcus, when appealed to,\nsimply let the existing law take its usual course. That law was as old\nas the time of Trajan. The young Pliny, Governor of Bithynia, had\nwritten to ask Trajan how he was to deal with the Christians, whose\nblamelessness of life he fully admitted, but whose doctrines, he said,\nhad emptied the temples of the gods, and exasperated their worshippers.\nTrajan in reply had ordered that the Christians should not be _sought_\nfor, but that, if they were brought before the governor, and proved to\nbe contumacious in refusing to adjure their religion, they were then to\nbe put to death. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius had continued the same\npolicy, and Marcus Aurilius saw no reason to alter it. But this law,\nwhich in quiet times might become a mere dead letter, might at more\ntroubled periods be converted into a dangerous engine of persecution, as\nit was in the case of the venerable Polycarp, and in the unfortunate\nChurches of Lyons and Vienne. The Pagans believed that the reason why\ntheir gods were smiling in secret,--\n\n     \"Looking over wasted lands,\n      Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery\n      sands,--\n\n     \"Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying\n      hands,--\"\n\nwas the unbelief and impiety of these hated Galileans, causes of offence\nwhich could only be expiated by the death of the guilty. \"Their\nenemies,\" says Tertullian, \"call aloud for the blood of the innocent,\nalleging this vain pretext for their hatred, that they believe the\nChristians to be the cause of every public misfortune. If the Tiber has\noverflowed its banks, or the Nile has not overflowed, if heaven has\nrefused its rain, if famine or the plague has spread its ravages, the\ncry is immediate, 'The Christians to the lions.'\" In the first three\ncenturies the cry of \"No Christianity\" became at times as brutal, as\nviolent, and as unreasoning as the cry of \"No Popery\" has often been in\nmodern days. It was infinitely less disgraceful to Marcus to lend his\near to the one than it has been to some eminent modern statesmen to be\ncarried away by the insensate fury of the other.\n\nTo what extent is Marcus Aurelius to be condemned for the martyrdoms\nwhich took place in his reign? Not, I think, heavily or\nindiscriminately, or with vehement sweeping censure. Common justice\nsurely demands that we should not confuse the present with the past, or\npass judgment on the conduct of the Emperor as though he were living in\nthe nineteenth century, or as though he had been acting in full\ncognisance of the Gospels and the stones of the Saints. Wise and good\nmen before him had, in their haughty ignorance, spoken of Christianity\nwith execration and contempt. The philosophers who surrounded his throne\ntreated it with jealousy and aversion. The body of the nation firmly\nbelieved the current rumours which charged its votaries with horrible\nmidnight assemblies, rendered infamous by Thyestian banquets and the\natrocities of nameless superstitions. These foul calumnies--these\nhideous charges of cannibalism and incest,--were supported by the\nreiterated perjury of slaves under torture, which in that age, as well\nas long afterwards, was preposterously regarded as a sure criterion\nof truth.\n\nChristianity in that day was confounded with a multitude of debased and\nforeign superstitions; and the Emperor in his judicial capacity, if he\never encountered Christians at all, was far more likely to encounter\nthose who were unworthy of the name, than to become acquainted with the\nmeek, unworldly, retiring virtues of the calmest, the holiest, and the\nbest. When we have given their due weight to considerations such as\nthese we shall be ready to pardon Marcus Aurelius for having, in this\nmatter, acted ignorantly, and to admit that in persecuting Christianity\nhe may most honestly have thought that he was doing God service. The\nvery sincerity of his belief, the conscientiousness of his rule, the\nintensity of his philanthrophy, the grandeur of his own philosophical\ntenets, all conspired to make him a worse enemy of the Church than a\nbrutal Commodus or a disgusting Heliogabalus. And yet that there was not\nin him the least _propensity_ to persecute; that these persecutions were\nfor the most part spontaneous and accidental; that they were in no\nmeasure due to his direct instigation, or in special accordance with his\ndesire, is clear from the fact that the martyrdoms took place in Gaul\nand Asia Minor, _not in Rome_. There must have been hundreds of\nChristians in Rome, and under the very eye of the Emperor; nay, there\nwere even multitudes of Christians in his own army; yet we never hear of\nhis having molested any of them. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in addressing\nthe Emperor, expresses a doubt as to whether he was really aware of the\nmanner in which his Christian subjects were treated. Justin Martyr, in\nhis _Apology_, addresses him in terms of perfect confidence and deep\nrespect. In short he was in this matter \"blameless, but unfortunate.\" It\nis painful to think that the venerable Polycarp, and the thoughtful\nJustin may have forfeited their lives for their principles, not only in\nthe reign of so good a man, but even by virtue of his authority; but we\nmust be very uncharitable or very unimaginative if we cannot readily\nbelieve that, though they had received the crown of martyrdom from his\nhands, the redeemed spirits of those great martyrs would have been the\nfirst to welcome this holiest of the heathen into the presence of a\nSaviour whose Church he persecuted, but to whose indwelling Spirit his\nvirtues were due? whom ignorantly and unconsciously he worshipped, and\nwhom had he ever heard of Him and known Him, he would have loved in his\nheart and glorified by the consistency of his noble and stainless life.\n\nThe persecution of the Churches in Lyons and Vienne happened in A.D.\n177. Shortly after this period fresh wars recalled the Emperor to the\nNorth. It is said that, in despair of ever seeing him again, the chief\nmen of Rome entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, and\nthat for three days he discoursed to them on philosophical questions.\nWhen he arrived at the seat of war, victory again crowned his arms. But\nMarcus was now getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials,\nand travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties\nand bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia, either\nat Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of\nhis age and the twentieth of his reign.\n\nDeath to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that \"there is no man\nso fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who\nare pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and\nwise man, will there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let us at\nlast breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster. It is true\nthat he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns\nus.'... Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart\nmore contentedly by reflecting thus: 'I am going away _from a life in\nwhich even my associates, on behalf of whom I have striven, and cared,\nand prayed so much, themselves wish me to depart_, hoping perchance to\nget some little advantage by it.' Why then should a man cling to a\nlonger stay here? _Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindly\ndisposed to them, but preserving thy own character, and continuing\nfriendly, and benevolent, and kind_\" And dreading death far less than he\ndreaded any departure from the laws of virtue, he exclaims, \"Come\nquickly, O Death, for fear that at last I should forget myself.\" This\nutterance has been well compared to the language which Bossuet put into\nthe mouth of a Christian soul:--\"O Death; thou dost not trouble my\ndesigns, thou accomplishest them. Haste, then, O favourable Death!...\n_Nunc Dimittis_.\"\n\nA nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul,--a soul less elated by\nprosperity, or more constant in adversity--a soul more fitted by virtue,\nand chastity, and self-denial to enter into the eternal peace, never\npassed into the presence of its Heavenly Father. We are not surprised\nthat all, whose means permitted it, possessed themselves of his statues,\nand that they were to be seen for years afterwards among the household\ngods of heathen families, who felt themselves more hopeful and more\nhappy from the glorious sense of possibility which was inspired by the\nmemory of one who, in the midst of difficulties, and breathing an\natmosphere heavy with corruption, yet showed himself so wise, so great,\nso good a man.\n\n     O framed for nobler times and calmer hearts!\n     O studious thinker, eloquent for truth!\n     Philosopher, despising wealth and death,\n     But patient, childlike, full of life and love!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE \"MEDITATIONS\" OF MARCUS AURELIUS.\n\nEmperor as he was, Marcus Aurelius found himself in a hollow and\ntroublous world; but he did not give himself up to idle regret or\nquerulous lamentations. If these sorrows and perturbations came from the\ngods, he kissed the hand that smote him; \"he delivered up his broken\nsword to Fate the conqueror with a humble and a manly heart.\" In any\ncase he had _duties_ to do, and he set himself to perform them with a\nquiet heroism--zealously, conscientiously, even cheerfully.\n\nThe principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the hard and definite\nlines of a philosophic system. But the great laws which guided his\nactions and moulded his views of life were few and simple, and in his\nbook of _Meditations_, which is merely his private diary written to\nrelieve his mind amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to\nthem again and again. \"Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery,\" he\nsays to himself, \"will wipe out those holy principles of thine;\" and\nthis is why he committed those principles to writing. Some of these I\nhave already adduced, and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as\nbefore, of the beautiful and scholar-like translation of Mr.\nGeorge Long.\n\nAll pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Emperor to be most\nwisely regarded under a threefold aspect, namely, if considered in\nreference to the gods, as being due to laws beyond their control; if\nconsidered with reference to the nature of things, as being subservient\nand necessary; and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being\ndependent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with which we\nendure them.\n\nThe following passages will elucidate these points of view:--\n\n\"The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly it has made the\ninferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the\nsuperior to one another.\" (v. 30.)\n\n\"Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain\nimmovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is\nwithin.... _The Universe is Transformation; life is opinion_\" (iv. 3.)\n\n\"To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs\nwater causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why\nthen am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power\nthan the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a\nmad dog?\" (vi. 52.)\n\n\"How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is\ntroublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity.\"\n(v. 2.)\n\nThe passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a _relative_ thing,--as\nbeing good in the making,--the unripe and bitter bud of that which shall\nbe hereafter a beautiful flower,--although not expressed with perfect\nclearness, yet indicate his belief that our view of evil things rises in\ngreat measure from our inability to perceive the great whole of which\nthey are but subservient parts.\n\n\"All things,\" he says, \"come from that universal ruling power, either\ndirectly or by way of consequence. _And accordingly the lion's gaping\njaws, and that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn,\nas mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful_. Do not therefore\nimagine that they are of another kind from that which thou dost\nvenerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all.\"\n\nIn another curious passage he says that all things which are natural and\ncongruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and\nattractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and\ncorrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked. \"And again,\nfigs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very\ncircumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty\nto the fruit. And _the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's\neyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars_, and\nmany other things--though they are far from being beautiful, if a man\nshould examine them severally--still, because they are consequent upon\nthe things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they\nplease the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper\ninsight about the things found in the universe there is hardly _one of\nthose which follow by way of consequence_ which will not seem to him to\nbe in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure.\" (iv. 2.)\n\nThis congruity to nature--the following of nature, and obedience to all\nher laws--is the key-formula to the doctrines of the Roman Stoics.\n\n\"Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and\nterminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither\nworse, then, nor better is a thing made by being praised.... _Is such a\nthing as an emerald made worse than it was, if it is not praised? or\ngold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a flower, a shrub_?\"\n(iv. 20.)\n\n\"Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe.\nNothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee.\nEverything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature! from thee\nare all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. _The\npoet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear city of\nGod_?\" (iv. 23.)\n\n\"Willingly give thyself up to fate, allowing her to spin thy thread into\nwhatever thing she pleases.\" (iv. 34.)\n\nAnd here, in a very small matter--getting out of bed in a morning--is\none practical application of the formula:--\n\n\"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let these thoughts be\npresent--'I am rising to the work of a human being. _Why, then, am I\ndissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and for\nwhich I was brought into the world_? Or have I been made for this, to\nlie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?' 'But this is more\npleasant.' _Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, and not for\naction or exertion_? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little\nbirds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order\ntheir several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the\nwork of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is\naccording to thy nature?\" (v. 1.) [\"Go to the ant, thou sluggard;\nconsider her ways, and be wise!\"]\n\nThe same principle, that Nature has assigned to us our proper\nplace--that a task has been given us to perform, and that our only care\nshould be to perform it aright, for the blessing of the great Whole of\nwhich we are but insignificant parts--dominates through the admirable\nprecepts which the Emperor lays down for the regulation of our conduct\ntowards others. Some men, he says, do benefits to others only because\nthey expect a return; some men even, if they do not demand any return,\nare not _forgetful_ that they have rendered a benefit; but others do not\neven know what they have done, but _are like a vine which has produced\ngrapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its proper\nfruit_. So we ought to do good to others as simple and as naturally as a\nhorse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after\nseason, without thinking of the grapes which it has borne. And in\nanother passage, \"What more dost thou want when thou hast done a service\nto another? Art thou not content to have done an act conformable to thy\nnature, and must thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye\ndemanded a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking?\"\n\n\"Judge every word and deed which is according to nature to be fit for\nthee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows...but if a thing is\ngood to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee.\" (v. 3.)\n\nSometimes, indeed, Marcus Aurelius wavers. The evils of life overpower\nhim. \"Such as bathing appears to thee,\" he says, \"_oil, sweat, dirt,\nfilthy water, all things disgusting--so is every part of life and\neverything_\" (viii. 24); and again:--\"Of human life the time is a point,\nand the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the\ncomposition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a\nwhirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment.\"\nBut more often he retains his perfect tranquillity, and says, \"Either\nthou livest here, and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou\nart going away, and this was thine own will; or thou art dying, and hast\ndischarged thy duty. _But besides these things there is nothing. Be of\ngood cheer, then_.\" (x. 22.) \"Take me, and cast me where thou wilt, for\nthen I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can\nfeel and act conformably to its proper constitution.\" (viii. 45.)\n\nThere is something delightful in the fact that even in the Stoic\nphilosophy there was some comfort to keep men from despair. To a holy\nand scrupulous conscience like that of Marcus, there would have been an\ninestimable preciousness in the Christian doctrine of the \"forgiveness\nof the sins.\" Of that divine mercy--of that sin-uncreating power--the\nancient world knew nothing; but in Marcus we find some dim and faint\nadumbration of the doctrine, expressed in a manner which might at least\nbreathe calm into the spirit of the philosopher, though it could never\nreach the hearts of the suffering multitude. For \"suppose,\" he says,\n\"that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast\nmade by nature a part, but now hast cut thyself off--_yet here is the\nbeautiful provision that it is in thy power again to unite thyself_. God\nhas allowed this to no other part--after it has been separated and cut\nasunder, to come together again. _But consider the goodness with which\nHe has privileged man; for He has put it in his power, when he has been\nseparated, to return and to be reunited, and to resume his place_\" And\nelsewhere he says, \"If you cannot maintain a true and magnanimous\ncharacter, go courageously into some corner where you _can_ maintain\nthem; or if even there you fail, depart at once from life, not with\npassion, but with modest and simple freedom--which will be to have done\nat least _one_ laudable act.\" Sad that even to Marcus Aurelius death\nshould have seemed the only refuge from the despair of ultimate failure\nin the struggle to be wise and good!\n\nMarcus valued temperance and self-denial as being the best means of\nkeeping his heart strong and pure; but we are glad to learn he did _not_\nvalue the rigours of asceticism. Life brought with it enough, and more\nthan enough, of antagonism to brace his nerves; enough, and more than\nenough, of the rough wind of adversity in his face to make it\nunnecessary to add more by his own actions. \"It is not fit,\" he says,\n\"that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given\npain even to another.\" (viii. 42.)\n\nIt was a commonplace of ancient philosophy that the life of the wise man\nshould be a contemplation of, and a preparation for, death. It certainly\nwas so with Marcus Aurelius. The thoughts of the nothingness of man, and\nof that great sea of oblivion which shall hereafter swallow up all that\nhe is and does, are ever present to his mind; they are thoughts to which\nhe recurs more constantly than any other, and from which he always draws\nthe same moral lesson.\n\n\"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very\nmoment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.... Death certainly,\nand life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, all these things\nhappen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither\nbetter nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.\" (ii. 11.)\n\nElsewhere he says that Hippocrates cured diseases and died; and the\nChaldaeans foretold the future and died; and Alexander, and Pompey, and\nCaesar killed thousands, and then died; and lice destroyed Democritus,\nand other lice killed Socrates; and Augustus, and his wife, and\ndaughter, and all his descendants, and all his ancestors, are dead; and\nVespasian and all his Court, and all who in his day feasted, and\nmarried, and were sick and chaffered, and fought, and flattered, and\nplotted, and grumbled, and wished other people to die, and pined to\nbecome kings or consuls, are dead; and all the idle people who are doing\nthe same things now are doomed to die; and all human things are smoke,\nand nothing at all; and it is not for us, but for the gods, to settle\nwhether we play the play out, or only a part of it. \"_There are many\ngrains of frankincense on the same altar; one falls before, another\nfalls after; but it makes no difference._\" And the moral of all these\nthoughts is, \"Death hangs over thee while thou livest: while it is in\nthy power be good.\" (iv. 17.) \"Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the\nvoyage, thou hast come to shore; get out. If, indeed, to another life\nthere is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without\nsensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures.\" (iii. 3.)\n\nNor was Marcus at all comforted under present annoyances by the thought\nof posthumous fame. \"How ephemeral and worthless human things are,\" he\nsays, \"and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy\nor ashes.\" \"Many who are now praising thee, will very soon blame thee,\nand neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor\nanything else.\" What has become of all great and famous men, and all\nthey desired, and all they loved? They are \"smoke, and ash, and a tale,\nor not even a tale.\" After all their rages and envyings, men are\nstretched out quiet and dead at last. Soon thou wilt have forgotten all,\nand soon all will have forgotten thee. But here, again, after such\nthoughts, the same moral is always introduced again:--\"Pass then through\nthe little space of time conformably to nature, and end the journey in\ncontent, _just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature\nwho produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew_\" \"One thing\nonly troubles me, lest I should do something which the constitution of\nman does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow, or what it\ndoes not allow now.\"\n\nTo quote the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius is to me a fascinating task. But\nI have already let him speak so largely for himself that by this time\nthe reader will have some conception of his leading motives. It only\nremains to adduce a few more of the weighty and golden sentences in\nwhich he lays down his rule of life.\n\n\"To say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream,\nand what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour; and life is a\nwarfare, and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. What,\nthen, is that which is able to enrich a man? One thing, and only\none--philosophy. But this consists in keeping the guardian spirit within\na man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures,\n_doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely, and with\nhypocrisy_... _accepting all that happens and all that is\nallotted_ ... _and finally waiting for death with a cheerful\nmind_\" (ii. 17.)\n\n\"If thou findest in human life anything better than justice, truth,\ntemperance, fortitude, and, in a word, than thine own soul's\nsatisfaction in the things which it enables thee to do according to\nright reason, and In the condition that is assigned to thee without thy\nown choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, turn to it\nwith all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou hast found to be the best.\nBut ... if thou findest everything else smaller and of less value than\nthis, give place to nothing else.... Simply and freely choose the\nbetter, and hold to it.\" (iii. 6.)\n\n\"Body, soul, intelligence: to the body belong sensations, to the soul\nappetites, to the intelligence principles.\" To be impressed by the\nsenses is peculiar to animals; to be pulled by the strings of desire\nbelongs to effeminate men, and to men like Phalaris or Nero; to be\nguided only by intelligence belongs to atheists and traitors, and \"men\nwho do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors.... There\nremains that which is peculiar to the good man, _to be pleased and\ncontent with what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him;\nand not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast_, nor\ndisturb it by a crowd of images; but to preserve it tranquil, following\nit obediently as a god, neither saying anything contrary to truth, nor\ndoing anything contrary to justice. (iii. 16.)\n\n\"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores,\nand mountains, and thou too art wont to desire such things very much.\nBut this is altogether a mark of the commonest sort of men, for it is in\nthy power whenever thou shalt chose to retire into thyself. For _nowhere\neither with more quiet or with more freedom does a man retire than into\nhis own soul_, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by\nlooking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity,--which is\nnothing else than the good ordering of the mind.\" (iv. 3.)\n\n\"Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am I\n_though_ this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain;\nneither crushed by the present, nor fearing the future.\" (iv. 19.)\n\nIt is just possible that in some of these passages some readers may\ndetect a trace of painful self-consciousness, and _imagine_ that they\ndetect a little grain of self-complacence. Something of\nself-consciousness is perhaps inevitable in the diary and examination\nof his own conscience by one who sat on such a lonely height; but\nself-complacency there is none. Nay, there is sometimes even a cruel\nsternness in the way in which the Emperor speaks of his own self. He\ncertainly dealt not with himself in the manner of a dissembler with God.\n\"When,\" he says (x. 8), \"thou hast assumed the names of a man who is\ngood, modest, rational, magnanimous, cling to those names; and if thou\nshouldst lose them, quickly return to them.... _For to continue to_ _be\nsuch as thou hast hitherto been_, and to be torn in pieces, and defiled\nin such a life, is the character of a very stupid man, and one over-fond\nof his life, and _like those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts,\nwho, though covered with wounds and gore, still entreat to be kept till\nthe following day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the\nsame claws and bites_. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these\nfew names: and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou were\nremoved to the Islands of the Blest.\" Alas! to Aurelius, in this life,\nthe Islands of the Blest were very far away. Heathen philosophy was\nexalted and eloquent, but all its votaries were sad; to \"the peace of\nGod, which passeth all understanding,\" it was not given them to attain.\nWe see Marcus \"wise, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless,\" says\nMr. Arnold, \"yet with all this agitated, stretching out his arms for\nsomething beyond--_tendentemque manue ripae ulterioris amore_\"\n\nI will quote in conclusion but three short precepts:--\n\n\"Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tranquillity which\nothers give. _A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by\nothers_.\" (iv. 5.)\n\n\"_Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but\nit stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it_\" (iv. 49.)\n\nThis comparison has been used many a time since the days of Marcus\nAurelius. The reader will at once recall Goldsmith's famous lines:--\n\n     \"As some tall cliff that rears its awful form,\n      Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,\n      Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,\n      Eternal sunshine settles on its head.\"\n\n\"Short is the little that remains to thee of life. _Live as on a\nmountain_. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here,\nif he lives everywhere in the world as in a civil community. Let men\nsee, let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live. If they\ncannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live as\nmen do.\" (x. 15.)\n\nSuch were some of the thoughts which Marcus Aurelius wrote in his diary\nafter days of battle with the Quadi, and the Marcomanni, and the\nSarmatae. Isolated from others no less by moral grandeur than by the\nsupremacy of his sovereign rank, he sought the society of his own noble\nsoul. I sometimes imagine that I see him seated on the borders of some\ngloomy Pannonian forest or Hungarian marsh; through the darkness the\nwatchfires of the enemy gleam in the distance; but both among them, and\nin the camp around him, every sound is hushed, except the tread of the\nsentinel outside the imperial tent; and in that tent long after midnight\nsits the patient Emperor by the light of his solitary lamp, and ever and\nanon, amid his lonely musings, he pauses to write down the pure and holy\nthoughts which shall better enable him, even in a Roman palace, even on\nbarbarian battlefields, daily to tolerate the meanness and the\nmalignity of the men around him; daily to amend his own shortcomings,\nand, as the sun of earthly life begins to set, daily to draw nearer and\nnearer to the Eternal Light. And when I thus think of him, I know not\nwhether the whole of heathen antiquity, out of its gallery of stately\nand royal figures, can furnish a nobler, or purer, or more lovable\npicture than that of this crowned philosopher and laurelled hero, who\nwas yet one of the humblest and one of the most enlightened of all\nancient \"Seekers after God.\"\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\nA sceptical writer has observed, with something like a sneer, that the\nnoblest utterances of Gospel morality may be paralleled from the\nwritings of heathen philosophers. The sneer is pointless, and Christian\nmoralists have spontaneously drawn attention to the fact. In this\nvolume, so far from trying to conceal that it is so, I have taken\npleasure in placing side by side the words of Apostles and of\nPhilosophers. The divine origin of Christianity does not rest on its\nmorality alone. By the aid of the light which was within them, by\ndeciphering the law written on their own consciences, however much its\nletters may have been obliterated or dimmed, Plato, and Cicero, and\nSeneca, and Epictetus, and Aurelius were enabled to grasp and to\nenunciate a multitude of great and memorable truths; yet they themselves\nwould have been the first to admit the wavering uncertainty of their\nhopes and speculations, and the absolute necessity of a further\nillumination. So strong did that necessity appear to some of the wisest\namong them, that Socrates ventures in express words to prophesy the\nfuture advent of some heaven-sent Guide.[70] Those who imagine that\n_without_ a written revelation it would have been possible to learn all\nthat is necessary for man's well-being, are speaking in direct\ncontradiction of the greatest heathen teachers, in contradiction even of\nthose very teachers to whose writing they point as the proof of their\nassertion. Augustine was expressing a very deep conviction when he said\nthat in Plato and in Cicero he met with many utterances which were\nbeautiful and wise, but among them all he never found, \"Come unto me,\nall ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.\"\nGlorious as was the wisdom of ancient thought, its knowledge respecting\nthe indwelling of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and the\nforgiveness of sins, was but fragmentary and vague. Bishop Butler has\njustly remarked that \"The great doctrines of a future state, the dangers\nof a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance are not only\n_confirmed_ in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with\na degree of light to which that of nature is darkness.\"\n\n[Footnote 70: Xen. Mem. 1, iv. 14; Plato, Alcib. ii.]\n\nThe morality of Paganism was, on its own confession, _insufficient_. It\nwas tentative, where Christianity is authoritative: it was dim and\npartial, where Christianity is bright and complete; it was inadequate to\nrouse the sluggish carelessness of mankind, where Christianity came in\nwith an imperial and awakening power; it gives only a _rule_, where\nChristianity supplies a _principle_. And even where its teachings were\nabsolutely coincident with those of Scripture, it failed to ratify them\nwith a sufficient sanction; it failed to announce them with the same\npowerful and contagious ardour; it failed to furnish an absolutely\nfaultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire them\nwith an irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a powerful\ncomfort under the difficulties which were sure to be encountered in the\naim after a consistent and holy life.\n\nThe attempts of the Christian Fathers to show that the truths of ancient\nphilosophy were borrowed from Scripture are due in some cases to\nignorance and in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial\ndealing. That Gideon (Jerubbaal) is identical with the priest\nHierombalos who supplied information to Sanchoniathon, the Berytian;\nthat Thales pieced together a philosophy from fragments of Jewish truth\nlearned in Phoenicia; that Pythagoras and Democritus availed themselves\nof Hebraic traditions, collected during their travels; that Plato is a\nmere \"Atticising Moses;\" that Aristotle picked up his ethical system\nfrom a Jew whom he met in Asia; that Seneca corresponded with St. Paul:\nare assertions every bit as unhistorical and false as that Homer was\nthinking of Genesis when he described the shield of Achilles, or (as\nClemens of Alexandria gravely informs us) that Miltiades won the battle\nof Marathon by copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say\nthat Pagan morality \"kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light,\nwhether furtively or unconsciously taken,\" and that it \"dissembled the\nobligation, and made a boast of the splendour as though it were\noriginally her own, or were sufficient in her hands for the moral\nillumination of the world;\" is to make an assertion wholly\nuntenable.[71] Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius, are among the truest and\nloftiest of Pagan moralists, yet Seneca ignored the Christians,\nEpictetus despised, and Aurelius persecuted them. All three, so far as\nthey knew anything about the Christians at all, had unhappily been\ntaught to look upon them as the most detestable sect of what they had\nlong regarded as the most degraded and the most detestable of religions.\n\n[Footnote 71: See for various statements in this passage, Josephus, _c.\nApion_. ii. Section 36; Cic. _De Fin_. v. 25; Clem. Alex. _Strom_, 1,\nxxii. 150, xxv. v. 14; Euseb.; _Prof. Evang_. x. 4, ix. 5, &c.; Lactant.\n_Inst. Div_. iv. 2, &c.]\n\nThere is something very touching in this fact; but, if there be\nsomething very touching, there is also something very encouraging. God\nwas their God as well as ours--their Creator, their Preserver, who left\nnot Himself without witness among them; who, as they blindly felt after\nHim, suffered their groping hands to grasp the hem of His robe; who sent\nthem rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with\njoy and gladness. And His Spirit was with them, dwelling in them, though\nunseen and unknown, purifying and sanctifying the temple of their\nhearts, sending gleams of illuminating light through the gross darkness\nwhich encompassed them, comforting their uncertainties, making\nintercession for them with groaning which cannot be uttered. And more\nthan all, _our_ Saviour was _their_ Saviour, too; He, whom they regarded\nas a crucified malefactor was their true invisible King; through His\nrighteousness their poor merits were accepted; their inward sicknesses\nwere healed; He whose worship they denounced as an \"execrable\nsuperstition\" stood supplicating for them at the right hand of the\nMajesty on high, helping them (though they knew Him not) to crush all\nthat was evil within them, and pleading for them when they persecuted\neven the most beloved of His saints, \"Father, forgive them; for they\nknow not what they do.\"\n\nYes, they too were all His offspring. Even if they had not been, should\nwe grudge that some of the children's meat should be given unto dogs?\nShall we deny to these \"unconscious prophecies of heathendom\" their\noracular significance? Shall we be jealous of the ethical loftiness of\na Plato or an Aurelius? Shall we be loth to admit that some power of the\nSpirit of Christ, even mid the dark wanderings of Seneca's life, kept\nhim still conscious of a nobler and a better way, or that some sweetness\nof a divine hope inspired the depressions of Epictetus in his slavery?\nShall our eye be evil because God in His goodness granted the heathen\nalso to know such truths as enabled them \"to overcome the allurements of\nthe visible and the terrors of the invisible world?\" Yes, if we have of\nthe Christian Church so mean a conception that we look upon it as a mere\nhuman society, \"set up in the world to defend a certain religion against\na certain other religion.\" But if on the other hand we believe \"that it\nwas _a society established by God as a witness for the true condition of\nall human beings_, we shall rejoice to acknowledge its members to be\nwhat they believed themselves to be,--confessors and martyrs for a truth\nwhich they could not fully embrace or comprehend, but which, through\ntheir lives and deaths, through the right and wrong acts, the true and\nfalse words, of those who understand them least, was to manifest and\nprove itself. Those who hold this conviction dare not conceal, or\nmisrepresent, or undervalue, any one of those weighty and memorable\nsentences which are to be found in the _Meditation_ of Marcus Aurelius.\n_If they did, they would be underrating a portion of that very truth\nwhich the preachers of the Gospel were appointed to set forth_; they\nwould be adopting the error of the philosophical Emperor without his\nexcuse for it. Nor dare they pretend that the Christian teaching had\nunconsciously imparted to him a portion of its own light while he seemed\nto exclude it. They will believe that it was God's good pleasure that a\ncertain truth should be seized and apprehended by this age, and they\nwill see indications of what that truth was in the efforts of Plutarch\nto understand the 'Daemon' which guided Socrates, in the courageous\nlanguage of Ignatius, in the bewildering dreams of the Gnostics, in the\neagerness of Justin Martyr to prove Christianity a philosophy ... in the\napprehension of Christian principles by Marcus Aurelius, and in his\nhatred of the Christians. From every side they will derive evidence,\n_that a doctrine and society which were meant for mankind cannot depend\nupon, the partial views and apprehensions of men, must go on justifying,\nreconciling, confuting, those views and apprehensions by the\ndemonstration of facts_\" [72]\n\n[Footnote 72: Maurice, _Philos. of the First Six Centuries_, p. 37. We\nventure specially to recommend this weighty and beautiful passage to the\nreader's serious attention.]\n\nBut perhaps some reader will say, What advantage, then, can we gain by\nstudying in Pagan writers truths which are expressed more nobly, more\nclearly, and infinitely more effectually in our own sacred books? Before\nanswering the question, let me mention the traditional anecdote[73] of\nthe Caliph Omar. When he conquered Alexandria, he was shown its\nmagnificent library, in which were collected untold treasures of\nliterature, gathered together by the zeal, the labour, and the\nliberality of a dynasty of kings. \"What is the good of all those books?\"\nhe said. \"They are either in accordance with the Koran, or contrary to\nit. If the former they are superfluous; if the latter they are\npernicious. In either case let them be burnt.\" Burnt they were, as\nlegend tells; but all the world has condemned the Caliph's reasoning as\na piece of stupid Philistinism and barbarous bigotry. Perhaps the\nquestion as to the _use_ of reading Pagan ethics is equally\nunphilosophical; at any rate, we can spare but very few words to its\nconsideration. The answer obviously is, that God has spoken to men,\n[Greek: polymeros kai polytropos], \"at sundry times and in divers\nmanners,\" [74] with a richly variegated wisdom.[75] Sometimes He has\ntaught truth by the voice of Hebrew prophets, sometimes by the voice of\nPagan philosophers. And _all_ His voices demand our listening ear. If it\nwas given to the Jew to speak with diviner insight and intenser power,\nit is given to the Gentile also to speak at times with a large and lofty\nutterance, and we may learn truth from men of alien lips and another\ntongue. They, too, had the dream, the vision, the dark saying upon the\nharp, the \"daughter of a voice,\" the mystic flashes upon the graven\ngems. And such truths come to us with a singular force and freshness;\nwith a strange beauty as the doctrines of a less brightly illuminated\nmanhood; with a new power of conviction from their originality of form,\nwhich, because it is less familiar to us, is well calculated to arrest\nour attention after it has been paralysed by familiar repetitions. We\ncannot afford to lose these heathen testimonies to Christian truth; or\nto hush the glorious utterances of Muse and Sibyl which have justly\noutlived \"the drums and tramplings of a hundred triumphs.\" We may make\nthem infinitely profitable to us. If St. Paul quotes Aratus, and\nMenander, and Epimenides,[76] and perhaps more than one lyrical melody\nbesides, with earnest appreciation,--if the inspired Apostle could both\nlearn himself and teach others out of the utterances of a Cretan\nphilosopher and an Attic comedian, we may be sure that many of Seneca's\napophthegams would have filled him with pleasure, and that he would have\nbeen able to read Epictetus and Aurelius with the same noble admiration\nwhich made him see with thankful emotion that memorable altar TO THE\nUNKNOWN GOD.\n\n[Footnote 73: Now known to be unhistorical.]\n\n[Footnote 74: Heb. i. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 75: [Greek: polypoikilos dophia].]\n\n[Footnote 76: See Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor.; Tit. i. 12.]\n\nLet us then make a brief and final sketch of the three great Stoics\nwhose lives we have been contemplating, with a view to summing up their\nspecialties, their deficiencies, and the peculiar relations to, or\ndivergences from, Christian truth, which their writings present to us.\n\n\"Seneca saepe noster,\" \"Seneca, often our own,\" is the expression of\nTertullian, and he uses it as an excuse for frequent references to his\nworks. Yet if, of the three, he be most like Christianity in particular\npassages, he diverges most widely from it in his general spirit.\n\nHe diverges from Christianity in many of his modes of regarding life,\nand in many of his most important beliefs. What, for instance, is his\nmain conception of the Deity? Seneca is generally a Pantheist. No doubt\nhe speaks of God's love and goodness, but with him God is no personal\nliving Father, but the soul of the universe--the fiery, primaeval,\neternal principle which transfuses an inert, and no less eternal,\nmatter, and of which our souls are, as it were, but divine particles or\npassing sparks. \"God,\" he says, \"is Nature, is Fate, is Fortune, is the\nUniverse, is the all-pervading Mind. He cannot change the substance of\nthe universe, He is himself under the power of Destiny, which is\nuncontrollable and immutable. It is not God who rolls the thunder, it is\nFate. He does not rejoice in His works, but is identical with them.\" In\nfact, Seneca would have heartily adopted the words of Pope:\n\n     \"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,\n      Whose body nature is, and God the soul.\"\n\nThough there may be a vague sense in which those words may be admitted\nand explained by Christians, yet, in the mind of Seneca, they led to\nconclusions directly opposed to those of Christianity. With him, for\ninstance, the wise man is the _equal_ of God; not His adorer, not His\nservant, not His suppliant, but His associate, His relation. He differs\nfrom God in time alone. Hence all prayer is needless he says, and the\nforms of external worship are superfluous and puerile. It is foolish to\nbeg for that which you can impart to yourself. \"What need is there of\n_vows_? Make _yourself_ happy.\" Nay, in the intolerable arrogance which\nmarked the worst aberration of Stoicism, the wise man is under certain\naspects placed even higher than God--higher than God Himself--because\nGod is beyond the reach of misfortunes, but the wise man is superior to\ntheir anguish; and because God is good of necessity, but the wise man\nfrom choice. This wretched and inflated paradox occurs in Seneca's\ntreatise _On Providence_, and in the same treatise he glorifies suicide,\nand expresses a doubt as to the immortality of the soul.\n\nAgain, the two principles on which Seneca relied as the basis of all his\nmoral system are: first, the principle that we ought to follow Nature;\nand, secondly, the supposed perfectibility of the ideal man.\n\n1. Now, of course, if we explain this precept of \"following Nature\" as\nJuvenal has explained it, and say that the voice of Nature is always\ncoincident with the voice of philosophy--if we prove that our real\nnature is none other than the dictate of our highest and most nobly\ntrained reason, and if we can establish the fact that every deed of\ncruelty, of shame, of lust, or of selfishness, is essentially\n_contrary_ to our nature--then we may say with Bishop Butler, that the\nprecept to \"follow Nature\" is \"a manner of speaking not loose and\nundeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true.\" But how\ncomplete must be the system, how long the preliminary training, which\nalone can enable us to find any practical value, any appreciable aid to\na virtuous life, in a dogma such as this! And, in the hands of Seneca,\nit becomes a very empty formula. He entirely lacked the keen insight and\ndialectic subtlety of such a writer as Bishop Butler; and, in his\nexplanation of this Stoical shibboleth, any real meaning which it may\npossess is evaporated into a gorgeous mist of confused declamation and\nsplendid commonplace.\n\n2. Nor is he much more fortunate with his ideal man. This pompous\nabstraction presents us with a conception at once ambitious and sterile.\nThe Stoic wise man is a sort of moral Phoenix, impossible and repulsive.\nHe is intrepid in dangers, free from all passion, happy in adversity,\ncalm in the storm; he alone knows how to live, because he alone knows\nhow to die; he is the master of the world, because he is master of\nhimself, and the equal of God; he looks down upon everything with\nsublime imperturbability, despising the sadnesses of humanity and\nsmiling with irritating loftiness at all our hopes and all our fears.\nBut, in another sketch of this faultless and unpleasant monster, Seneca\npresents us, not the proud athlete who challenges the universe and is\ninvulnerable to all the stings and arrows of passion or of fate, but a\nhero in the serenity of absolute triumph, more tender, indeed, but still\nwithout desires, without passions, without needs, who can fell no pity,\nbecause pity is a weakness which disturbs his sapient calm! Well might\nthe eloquent Bossuet exclaim, as he read of these chimerical\nperfections, \"It is to take a tone too lofty for feeble and mortal men.\nBut, O maxims truly pompous! O affected insensibility! O false and\nimaginary wisdom! which fancies itself strong because it is hard, and\ngenerous because it is puffed up! How are these principles opposed to\nthe modest simplicity of the Saviour of souls, who, in our Gospel\ncontemplating His faithful ones in affliction, confesses that they will\nbe saddened by it! _Ye shall weep and lament_.\" Shall Christians be\njealous of such wisdom as Stoicism did really attain, when they compare\nthis dry and bloodless ideal with Him who wept over Jerusalem and\nmourned by the grave of Lazarus, who had a mother and a friend, who\ndisdained none, who pitied all, who humbled Himself to death, even the\ndeath of the cross, whose divine excellence we cannot indeed attain\nbecause He is God, but whose example we can imitate because He was\nvery man?[77]\n\n[Footnote 77: See Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 50; Aubertin, _S\u00e9n\u00e8que et\nSt. Paul_ p. 250.]\n\nThe one grand aim of the life and philosophy of Seneca was _Ease_. It is\nthe topic which constantly recurs in his books _On a Happy Life, On\nTranquility of Mind, On Anger_, and _On the Ease_ and _On the Firmness\nof the Sage_. It is the pitiless apathy, the stern repression, of every\nform of emotion, which was constantly glorified as the aim of\nphilosophy. It made Stilpo exclaim, when he had lost wife, property, and\nchildren, that he had lost nothing, because he carried in his own person\neverything which he possessed. It led Seneca into all that is most\nunnatural, all that is most fantastic, and all that is least sincere in\nhis writings; it was the bitter source of disgrace and failure in his\nlife. It comes out worst of all in his book _On Anger_. Aristotle had\nsaid that \"Anger was a good servant but a bad master;\" Plato had\nrecognized the immense value and importance of the irascible element in\nthe moral constitution. Even Christian writers, in spite of Bishop\nButler, have often lost sight of this truth, and have forgotten that to\na noble nature \"the hate of hate\" and the \"scorn of scorn\" are as\nindispensable as \"the love of love.\" But Seneca almost gets angry\nhimself at the very notion of the wise man being angry and indignant\neven against moral evil. No, he must not get angry, because it would\ndisturb his sublime calm; and, if he allowed himself to be angry at\nwrong-doing, he would have to be angry all day long. This practical\nEpicureanism, this idle acquiescence in the supposed incurability of\nevil, poisoned all Seneca's career. \"He had tutored himself,\" says\nProfessor Maurice, \"to endure personal injuries without indulging an\nanger; he had tutored himself to look upon all moral evil without anger.\nIf the doctrine is sound and the discipline desirable, we must be\ncontent to take the whole result of them. If we will not do that, we\nmust resolve to hate oppression and wrong, _even at the cost of\nphilosophical composure\"_ But repose is not to be our aim:--\n\n     \"We have no right to bliss,\n      No title from the gods to welfare and repose.\"\n\nIt is one of the truths which seems to me most needed in the modern\nreligious world, that the type of a Christian's virtue must be very\nmiserable, and ordinary, and ineffectual, if he does not feel his whole\nsoul burn within him with an almost implacable moral indignation at the\nsight of cruelty and injustice, of Pharisaic faithlessness and\nsocial crimes.\n\nI have thus freely criticised the radical defects of Stoicism, so far\nas Seneca is its legitimate exponent; but I cannot consent to leave him\nwith the language of depreciation, and therefore here I will once more\nendorse what an anonymous writer has said of him: \"An unconscious\nChristianity covers all his sentiments. If the fair fame of the man is\nsullied, the aspiration to a higher life cannot be denied to the\nphilosopher; if the tinkling cymbal of a stilted Stoicism sometimes\nsounds through the nobler music, it still leaves the truer melody\nvibrating on the ear.\"\n\n2. If Seneca sought for EASE, the grand aim of Epictetus was FREEDOM, of\nMarcus Aurelius was SELF-GOVERNMENT. This difference of aim\ncharacterises their entire philosophy, though all three of them are\nfilled with precepts which arise from the Stoical contempt of opinion,\nof fortune, and of death. \"Epictetus, the slave, with imperturbable\ncalm, voluntarily strikes off the desire for all those blessings of\nwhich fortune had already deprived him. Seneca, who lived in the Court,\nfenced himself beforehand against misfortune with the spirit of a man of\nthe world and the emphasis of a master of eloquence. Marcus Aurelius, at\nthe zenith of human power--having nothing to dread except his passions,\nand finding nothing above him except immutable necessity,--surveys his\nown soul and meditates especially on the eternal march of things. The\none is the resigned slave, who neither desires nor fears; the other, the\ngreat lord, who has everything to lose; the third, finally, the emperor,\nwho is dependent only on himself and upon God.\"\n\nOf Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius we shall have very little to say by way\nof summary, for they show no inconsistencies and very few of the\nimperfections which characterise Seneca's ideal of the Stoic philosophy.\nThe \"moral peddling,\" the pedagogic display, the puerile ostentation,\nthe antithetic brilliancy, which we have had to point out in Seneca, are\nwanting in them. The picture of the _inner_ life, indeed, of Seneca, his\nefforts after self-discipline, his untiring asceticism, his enthusiasm\nfor all that he esteems holy and of good report-this picture, marred as\nit is by rhetoric and vain self-conceit, yet \"stands out in noble\ncontrast to the swinishness of the Campanian villas, and is, in its\ncomplex entirety, very sad and affecting.\" And yet we must admit, in the\nwords of the same writer, that when we go from Seneca to Epictetus and\nMarcus Aurelius, \"it is going from the florid to the severe, from varied\nfeeling to the impersonal simplicity of the teacher, often from idle\nrhetoric to devout earnestness.\" As far as it goes, the morality of\nthese two great Stoics is entirely noble and entirely beautiful. If\nthere be even in Epictetus some passing and occasional touch of Stoic\narrogance and Stoic apathy; if there be in Marcus Aurelius a depth and\nintensity of sadness which shows how comparatively powerless for comfort\nwas a philosophy which glorified suicide, which knew but little of\nimmortality, and which lost in vague Pantheism the unspeakable blessing\nof realizing a personal relation to a personal God and Father--there is\nyet in both of them enough and more than enough to show that in all ages\nand in all countries they who have sought for God have found Him, that\nthey have attained to high principles of thought and to high standards\nof action--that they have been enabled, even in the thick darkness,\nresolutely to place their feet at least on the lowest rounds of that\nladder of sunbeams which winds up through the darkness to the great\nFather of Lights.\n\nAnd yet the very existence of such men is in itself a significant\ncomment upon the Scriptural decision that \"the world by wisdom knew not\nGod.\" For how many like them, out of all the records of antiquity, is it\npossible for us to count? Are there five men in the whole circle of\nancient history and ancient literature to whom we could, without a sense\nof incongruity, accord the title of \"holy?\" When we have mentioned\nSocrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, I hardly know of another.\n_Just_ men there were in multitudes--men capable of high actions; men\neminently worthy to be loved; men, I doubt not, who, when the children\nof the kingdom shall be rejected, shall be gathered from the east and\nthe west with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into the kingdom of heaven.\nYes, _just_ men in multitudes; but how many _righteous_, how many\n_holy_? Some, doubtless, whom we do not know, whose names were never\nwritten, even for a few years, on the records of mankind--men and women\nin unknown villages and humble homes, \"the faithful who were not\nfamous.\" We do not doubt that there were such--but were they\n_relatively_ numerous? If those who rose above the level of the\nmultitude--if those whom some form of excellence, and often of virtue,\nelevated into the reverence of their fellows--present to us a few\nexamples of stainless life, can we hope that a tolerable ideal of\nsanctity was attained by any large proportion of the ordinary myriads?\nSeeing that the dangerous lot of the majority was cast amid the\nweltering sea of popular depravity, can we venture to hope that many of\nthem succeeded in reaching some green island of purity, integrity, and\ncalm? We can hardly think it; and yet, in the dispensation of the\nKingdom of Heaven we see such a condition daily realized. Not only do we\nsee many of the eminent, but also countless multitudes of the lowly and\nobscure, whose common lives are, as it were, transfigured with a light\nfrom heaven. Unhappy, indeed, is he who has not known such men in\nperson, and whose hopes and habits have not caught some touch of\nradiance reflected from the nobility and virtue of lives like these. The\nthought has been well expressed by the author of _Ecce Homo_, and we may\nwell ask with him, \"If this be so, has Christ failed, or can\nChristianity die?\"\n\nNo, it has not failed; it cannot die; for the saving knowledge which it\nhas imparted is the most inestimable blessing which God has granted to\nour race. We have watched philosophy in its loftiest flight, but that\nflight rose as far above the range of the Pagan populace as Ida or\nOlympus rises above the plain: and even the topmost crests of Ida and\nOlympus are immeasurably below the blue vault, the body of heaven in its\nclearness, to which it has been granted to some Christians to attain. As\nregards the multitude, philosophy had no influence over the heart and\ncharacter; \"it was sectarian, not universal; the religion of the few,\nnot of the many. It exercised no creative power over political or social\nlife; it stood in no such relation to the past as the New Testament to\nthe Old. Its best thoughts were but views and aspects of the truth;\nthere was no centre around which they moved, no divine life by which\nthey were impelled; they seemed to vanish and flit in uncertain\nsuccession of light.\" But Christianity, on the other hand, glowed with a\nsteady and unwavering brightness; it not only swayed the hearts of\nindividuals by stirring them to their utmost depths, but it moulded the\nlaws of nations, and regenerated the whole condition of society. It\ngave to mankind a fresh sanction in the word of Christ, a perfect\nexample in His life, a powerful motive in His love, an all sufficient\ncomfort in the life of immortality made sure and certain to us by His\nResurrection and Ascension. But if without this sanction, and example,\nand motive, and comfort, the pagans could learn to do His will,--if,\namid the gross darkness through which glitters the degraded civilization\nof imperial Rome, an Epictetus and an Aurelius could live blameless\nlives in a cell and on a throne, and a Seneca could practise simplicity\nand self-denial in the midst of luxury and pride--how much loftier\nshould be both the zeal and the attainments of us to whom God has spoken\nby His Son? What manner of men ought we to be? If Tyre and Sidon and\nSodom shall rise in the judgment to bear witness against Chorazin and\nBethsaida, may not the pure lives of these great Seekers after God add a\ncertain emphasis of condemnation to the vice, the pettiness, the\nmammon-worship of many among us to whom His love, His nature, His\nattributes have been revealed with a clearness and fullness of knowledge\nfor which kings and philosophers have sought indeed and sought\nearnestly, but sought in vain?","title":"Seekers after God","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":85893}