be growing thanks to the popularity of these letters. This one was addressed to a freedman called Polybius who served as secretary to Claudius, and had considerable influence at court. Seneca urges Polybius, who had recently lost his brother, to console himself by focusing on the happiness that serving Claudius bestowed upon him. He says things like ‘raise yourself up, and fix your eyes upon Caesar whenever tears rise to them; they will become dry on beholding that greatest and most brilliant light’. He tells Polybius to write a panegyric praising Claudius' reign, which might be read ‘by all future ages’, adding ‘for he himself will afford you both the noblest subject and the noblest example for putting together and composing a history’.
The letter eventually turns from being a consolation of Polybius into a plea for mercy directed to his master, the emperor. While taking the opportunity to beg, via Polybius, for an imperial pardon, Seneca also heaps praise on Claudius for his clemency and other virtues. As we'll see, this could not be further removed from the way Seneca later chose to portray Claudius in writing. Seneca concludes by bemoaning the fact that his ‘mind is dimmed and stupefied’ by the tedium of his long exile. He writes of the difficulty in consoling another while he is steeped in his own sorrows. He complains that his Latin has suffered because around him, on Corsica, he ‘hears nothing but a rude foreign jargon, which even barbarians of the more civilised sort regard with disgust’. Once again, his real circumstances appear to have been far more comfortable than he implies.
RETURN
In 48 CE, the Emperor Claudius had his wife, Messalina, executed. Ironically, she was accused of a crime of infidelity not unlike the one for which she had demanded Seneca's execution. Shortly thereafter, Claudius married Agrippina the Younger, the sister of Caligula mentioned earlier. Agrippina soon had her new husband, the emperor, recall Seneca from exile. After eight years honing his art and building his reputation as a writer, Seneca finally got his wish to return to the centre of power. But his recall would have costs.
Agrippina hired Seneca, presumably based on his growing reputation as a writer, to become the rhetoric tutor of her twelve-year-old son, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the future Emperor Nero. Claudius, after marrying Agrippina, had adopted the boy, her son from a previous marriage. As Lucius/Nero was three years older than the emperor's natural son, Britannicus, Nero effectively supplanted him and became second in line to the throne. Rival camps emerged supporting each of the boys, and Seneca's destiny was now bound to the faction supporting Nero.
Agrippina was a formidable woman who wielded considerable political influence behind the scenes. She promoted her son's status at court by, for example, dismissing the tutors of his rival Britannicus and replacing them with relative unknowns. Seneca, by contrast, was chosen to become Nero's tutor in part because his fame improved her son's public image. He was immediately advanced to the office of praetor, one of the most senior administrative positions in the Roman government. Roman adolescents would normally study literature and the basics of oratory under a grammarian. They would proceed to the more advanced study of formal rhetoric at around fifteen, with philosophy coming years later. So it's unlikely that Nero's lessons at this time focused directly upon Stoic philosophy, although Seneca presumably tried to incorporate some moral instruction.
THE REIGN OF NERO
In 54 CE, Emperor Claudius died after eating some mushrooms. Agrippina, who employed an expert poisoner called Locusta, was widely believed to have had her husband's meal laced with deadly belladonna. Her son Nero was therefore proclaimed emperor, aged only sixteen. Seneca went from being Nero's rhetoric tutor to his political advisor and speechwriter. (We might compare his role to that of today's presidential chief of staff and spin doctor.) Tacitus said the speech Seneca wrote for Nero to deliver following Claudius' death was ‘just as elegantly-written as one would expect from that celebrity’, confirming that Seneca's fame as a rhetorician had grown. Seneca became Nero's right-hand man and closest advisor, sharing influence with a military man, the praetorian prefect, Burrus.
As we've seen, while in exile Seneca had praised Claudius and urged Polybius to write a panegyric to him. Now Claudius had been killed off, though, and the political tides had changed direction. Seneca responded by publishing a biting satire ridiculing and degrading him, called The Pumpkinification of the (Divine) Claudius, in which he hailed Nero as the glory of Rome:
[Just as the sun god] brightly gleams on the world and renews his chariot's journey, so cometh Caesar; so in his glory shall Rome behold Nero. Thus do his radiant features gleam with a gentle effulgence, graced by the flowing locks that fall encircling his shoulders. (Pumpkinification, 4)
Now that Nero was emperor, Seneca was increasingly expected to praise him in public and extol his virtues. Nero rewarded his advisor with ‘gifts’ of money and property that quickly transformed Seneca into one of the richest men in Rome. Seneca's friends and family also benefited. His elder brother, Gallio, was made consul, the highest political office in the empire; Mela, his younger brother, was made a procurator; Lucan, his nephew, was made a quaestor; Pompeius Paulinus, Seneca's brother-in-law, was made an imperial legate; and Annaeus Serenus, one of his closest friends, was appointed commander of the night watch.
At first, Seneca's position perhaps seemed like an acceptable arrangement. Historians often view the first five years of Nero's reign, the Quinquennium Neronis, as promising, owing to the benevolent guiding influence of Seneca and Burrus. However, by accepting all these gifts and favours, Seneca was placing himself, and his friends, in a vulnerable position. Nero, in other words, had an increasing amount of leverage over Seneca. What could possibly go wrong?
MURDER OF BRITANNICUS
A year into Nero's reign, the question of his claim to the throne came to a head. His step-brother, Britannicus, was about to turn fifteen, making him an adult under Roman law. Whereas Nero had merely been adopted by Claudius, Britannicus was his flesh and blood, and therefore had a strong claim to the throne. However, Locusta the poisoner was now in Nero's service. ‘All of a sudden, unsurprisingly, Britannicus dropped dead', as Emily Wilson puts it. Thus began Nero's spiralling descent into paranoia and tyranny.
The murder of Britannicus caused public outrage, in part because he was still only a child. Seneca responded by composing and publishing another open letter, this time addressed to the emperor, and titled On Clemency. In it he encourages Nero to show forgiveness and mercy towards his opponents. Seneca also used it as an opportunity to praise his former student as a paragon of virtue and a philosopher-king in the making. More importantly, perhaps, he also used it to publicly assert Nero's innocence of any killing:
You, Caesar, have granted us the boon of keeping our state free from bloodshed, and that of which you boast, that you have not caused one single drop of blood to flow in any part of the world, is all the more magnanimous and marvellous because no one ever had the power of the sword placed in his hands at an earlier age. (On Clemency, 11)
Although Seneca does not mention the death of Britannicus, the timing makes it obvious that he was seeking to acquit Nero in the court of public opinion. The slyness with which Seneca here claims that Nero, who retained a poisoner, had never spilled a drop of blood, is very typical of his writings – it's technically true but obviously intended to mislead.
Many readers of the letter found it hard to believe that Seneca could have had the gall to shamelessly praise and exonerate Nero in the aftermath of his younger brother's murder. However, as Wilson suggests, ‘the evidence that Seneca did indeed compose this work right after the death of Britannicus is incontrovertible. Some hope to excuse Seneca's comments by claiming that they can perhaps be read in a more nuanced way. Perhaps Seneca's letter's should be seen as part of the genre known as mirrors of princes', seeking to convey not Nero's true reflection but the potential within him for virtue. However, Seneca's letter would have been widely circulated, and we must assume that many Romans would have
