The Book of Seneca 6 · Handed down at Rome, from his letters and essays
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, born at Cordoba in Spain about four years before this era, died outside Rome in the year 65. Philosopher and playwright, and one of the richest men in Rome. In 41 he was exiled to Corsica and after eight years recalled to be tutor to the boy Nero. He became his chief minister, and when nothing further could be done he asked to withdraw. In 65 Nero named him in a conspiracy and ordered him to die; he obeyed, and opened his veins. He left a hundred and twenty-four letters, a number of essays, and nine tragedies. Much of what Seneca said accords with the axioms. Much of what he did did not. Chapter 5 is his own defence, taken from On the Happy Life. One thing more is not from his hand, and this Order records it here rather than cover it over: he was Nero’s tutor; after Nero killed his mother, Seneca drafted the letter justifying it to the senate, and he did not leave.
6.1On that day the centurion stood in the doorway and said: the emperor requires you to die.
6.2I asked whether I might make my will. He said no.
6.3So I turned to my friends and said: then I leave you the only thing I still have — the pattern of my life.
6.4They wept. I said: where has your philosophy gone?
6.5We have talked all these years, and what we talked about was this hour.
6.6Paulina wished to die with me. I argued first that she should live.
6.7I said: I taught you to think little of death, not to race toward it.
6.8She was saved in the end. That was the one thing that gladdened me that day.
6.9I was old and my blood was cold; I opened my wrists and the blood came slowly.
6.10I drank what Socrates drank, and it did not work either.
6.11At the last they carried me into the hot bath.
6.12I lifted a handful of the water and sprinkled it on the servants nearest me, and said: this is a libation to the Liberator.
6.13I went on dictating. The scribes could barely keep up.
6.14I was not trying to leave behind some excellent saying.
6.15I wanted men to see that one who has spoken all his life was still, in that last half hour, saying the same thing.
6.16This is not courage. It is only refusing to change one’s account at the end.