The Book of Seneca 6 · Handed down at Rome, from his letters and essays
Much of what Seneca said accords with the axioms. Much of what he did did not. Chapter 5 is his own account of it. This book keeps what does not accord, and does not cover it over.
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.