Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero

From Booklist Was Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger an exemplar of Stoic virtue who, pulled into politics in the service of Emperor Nero, did his best to modulate the young despot’s cruelty? Or was he a shrewd manipulator whose ethical treatises were just a cynical attempt to restore a reputation sullied by his complicity in Nero’s cruel and decadent court? Tacitus, who wrote a lot about Seneca, seems to have had trouble making up his mind. Romm suggests that we might bring together these conflicting portraits by understanding Seneca as a serious thinker who suffered from passivity and obsequiousness, and had the misfortune to live at a time when intellectual activity had become particularly dangerous. Seneca’s elegant humanistic vision (which would influence, among other things, Roman Catholic church doctrine), therefore, was not fraudulent, but aspirational, and somewhat tragic: ideals articulated by a flawed man who was all too aware of his inability to live up to them. Vividly describing the intensity of political life in the Nero years, and paying particular attention to the Roman fascination with suicide, Romm’s narrative is gripping, erudite, and occasionally quite grim. --Brendan Driscoll Praise for James Romm’sxa0DYING EVERY DAYxa0xa0“Romm adeptly expounds the puzzle of Seneca’s life.”xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 - The New Yorker “James Romm stitches this tapestry of evil together with a practiced hand.”xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 -Michael D. Langan, Buffalo News “A splendid and incisive historical page-turner... This is how history should be written: vivid storytelling springing to life at a master’s touch... Romm’s narrative proves so compelling precisely because he concentrates on character, combining erudite scholarship with a novelist’s flair for telling detail. The result becomes an exception to the rule: When exercised with wisdom, dexterity and fervor, literary power shines as incorruptible.”xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 -Arlice Davenport, Wichita Eagle “Thoroughly engaging and fascinating...A high-stakes drama, laced with murders, madness, and despotism...The highlight of the spring season.”xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 -Anne La Farge, Hudson Valley News “Romm's compulsively readable account of imperial intrigues (incest, murder, suicide) brings contradictory visions of Seneca into three-dimensional focus.” xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 - Chronogram “Romm's approach combines the commonly known with the fascinating, but more obscure. He makes a sustained point of showing Seneca as neither black nor white, neither totally deserving of his fate, nor so noble that all charges should drip off his well-oiled back. He shows different sides to the emperors as well and puts the women of the Caesars into their well-deserved positions of prominence…The fact that Romm presents the Stoic philosopher in this novel complex light and that he shows sides of the more famous that aren't common knowledge leaves me feeling [like] I got an awful lot out of reading it.xa0 Have I mentioned, I really, really liked this book?”xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 -N. S. Gill, About.com “Historians from Seneca’s contemporaries through the present day have puzzled over his true character. Ascetic Stoic moralist or conniving courtier?xa0 Romm doesn't claim to settle the centuries-old mystery, but sheds light using ancient sources and occasional references to modern critics, joining his readers in marveling at a regime remembered by history for its shocking excesses.”xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 -Julia Jenkins, Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)xa0“Extensively researched.xa0 A book that will be welcomed by both scholars and those with a more casual interest in history. In addition and most important to our time is the detailed study of power politics and the inevitable consequences of weakness and corruption allowing power to be concentrated into few hands… An engrossing account of a time when rational thought was set aside in favor of passion and when good men cowed in the face of tyranny and did nothing to stem it.”xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 -Jeremy McGuire, New York Journal of Books “A compelling, and terrifying, vision of a bloodthirsty, ruthlessly ambitious emperor and his court.”xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 -Jenny Yabroff, Biographile James Romm is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. His books on the ancient world include Ghost on the Throne, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought , Herodotus and, as editor, The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Seneca and Nero had been together for ten years now. Nero hadxa0grown up, and Seneca had grown old. The princeps had found new allies,xa0among them another former tutor, a Greek freedman named Anicetusxa0(“Invincible”). Nero had elevated this man to admiral of the Misenumxa0fleet, a naval force he was grooming to be his own corps d’élite— the Praetoriansxa0being more devoted to his mother. Other freedmen, slaves, andxa0foreigners had begun to rise at court, men whose complete dependencexa0and subservience gratified Nero. The voices that whispered against Senecaxa0and Burrus had grown in number and stridency, and Nero had shownxa0more willingness to listen.It was to Anicetus, not to Seneca or Burrus, that Nero turned as hexa0approached the great crisis of his reign, in the summer of 59. By thatxa0time, the young man’s love for Poppaea had brought him to a pitch ofxa0dire resolve. He had decided on a crime that the future will believe withxa0difficulty, and ages to come, with reluctance, as the play Octavia forecast—correctly. He had decided to kill his mother.It was what he had wanted to do years before but was prevented by Senecaxa0and Burrus. Now, abetted by Anicetus, Nero found the courage toxa0act. Perhaps Poppaea goaded him on, as Tacitus claims, by insisting shexa0could never be his wife as long as Agrippina lived. But Nero needed no Lady Macbeth to harangue him into crime. He had already killed hisxa0adoptive brother on his own initiative; his mother posed a greater threatxa0and caused him greater psychic torment.Did Seneca take part in Nero’s matricidal plan? Tacitus wondered butxa0didn’t know. Dio made Seneca chief instigator, though like much of hisxa0testimony on Seneca, this seems little more than slander. The question ofxa0collaboration is indeed hard to resolve. A princeps could not have easilyxa0hid such a plot from a high- ranked counselor, but perhaps Seneca no longerxa0ranked very high. If Nero kept him in the dark, declining to consultxa0his old ally against Agrippina, then relations between teacher and pupilxa0had truly gone downhill. If Seneca was consulted, he may have seen hexa0could not prevent Nero from acting but could at least help him succeed.xa0Under that scenario, he may have consented to murder if it could be donexa0cunningly, so as to look like an accident.Cunning was indeed what was needed, for a daughter of Germanicusxa0could not be attacked either with blades or legal writs. Poison too wasxa0out of the question; Agrippina, having long suspected Nero’s intentions,xa0had taken precautions, perhaps even fortifying herself with antidotes. Axa0technologically savvy method was called for, and Nero was a great lover ofxa0technology. One day he saw in the theater, according to Dio, a collapsiblexa0boat that fell apart when a lever was worked, simulating a shipwreck. Thexa0idea took root in his obsessed mind. With a move as clean and remote asxa0the proverbial push of a button, Nero could crush his mother, or drownxa0her, or both, far out in the water and away from the public’s eyes. Hexa0delegated the mission to Anicetus.Constructing the trick ship in secret was no simple task. Anicetus noxa0doubt recruited his best shipwrights at Misenum and also trained loyalxa0sailors who would crew on the fateful voyage. Meanwhile Nero set aboutxa0making up with his mother. The two had become estranged of late— some breakup had followed their overly intimate union— but Nero hastenedxa0to repair the breach. He had to regain Agrippina’s trust enough toxa0get her on that boat.Writing in jocular tones, admitting to having lost his temper, Neroxa0cajoled his mother into joining him at Baiae, the sumptuous resort surroundedxa0by lakes and a quiet bay, for the celebration of that year’s Quinquatria,xa0a rite of Minerva held at the spring equinox.Both Nero and his mother had villas at Baiae, as did many of thexa0Roman elite. The place was famous for high living, loose morals, andxa0easy pleasures, a den of vice that good men should shun, in the eyesxa0of Seneca— though he did sometimes go there. In his disdain, Senecaxa0painted a vivid picture: “Why do we need to see drunken men wanderingxa0the beach and boaters on riotous pleasure cruises, and the lakes resoundingxa0with songs of musicians? . . . Do you think Cato would ever havexa0lived there, to count the adulteresses as they sail past, the many kindsxa0of boats painted with vivid colors, the roses bobbing everywhere on thexa0lake’s surface?” No was of course his answer, though he perhaps made thexa0high season at Baiae sound more appealing than he meant to.Boating was the great thing at Baiae. Because most of the villas stoodxa0along a curving shore, or across a small bay at Puteoli, partiers could getxa0from house to house by boat, putting in at small private docks. In herxa0grander days, Agrippina had plied these waters in a state warship rowedxa0by picked sailors. Just down the coast from her villa, an estate calledxa0Bauli, was the naval station at Misenum, where such ships and crewsxa0stood ready. Now, though, it was a different boat that arrived from Misenumxa0for her use, a luxury yacht fi tted out with regal ornaments, mannedxa0by a special crew— many of them Anicetus’ trained assassins.Nero had this boat moored at a Baiae villa, where he had arrangedxa0a grand dinner party in Agrippina’s honor. He presented the boat to hisxa0mother after dinner as a gift. It was only one of the many filial gesturesxa0he made that night, in an effort to overcome her distrust. Agrippina had her guard up, for she had long suspected her son might seek her life. But the splendidly arrayed ship appealed to her vanity, and Nero’s kisses, as hexa0put her on board, seemed sincere.It was a cloudless, windless night, “with a calm that seemed sent byxa0the gods to reveal the crime,” as Tacitus says in one of his most memorablexa0sentences. The ship slipped along through shallow water, on itsxa0coasting voyage from Baiae to Bauli. Agrippina reclined with a friend,xa0Acerronia, on a special couch on the vessel’s rear deck. The two womenxa0talked warmly of the evening’s entertainment and of the fond attentionsxa0of Nero. Nearby stood another of Agrippina’s entourage, her procurator—manager of her estates— Crepereius Gallus.Without warning, a section of roofi ng above these three collapsed,xa0slamming onto Gallus with the full force of its lead- reinforced weight.xa0The man was immediately crushed to death.Had Agrippina not been reclining on her couch, or had Acerronia notxa0been sitting lower still as she bent over her friend’s feet, both would havexa0died with Gallus. But the couch saved them. Its back and arms extendedxa0high enough to block the force of the falling lead. The two women got out from under the lethal weight and emerged into a frantic scene.Anicetus’ agents among the crew were trying to complete their mission.xa0They had expected the ship to break apart and pitch Agrippina intoxa0the sea, but this had failed to happen. Confused and seemingly lacking axa0backup plan, they rushed about on the boat’s splintered deck. Some had the idea of capsizing the craft by putting all their weight on one side. Butxa0other crewmen who were not part of the plot, perhaps surmising whatxa0their comrades were up to, countered them by running to the oppositexa0side. Shouts echoed across the bay’s still surface, barely heard, if at all, byxa0those on shore.As the boat gradually tipped, Agrippina and Acerronia slid into thexa0water. Acerronia, perhaps failing to see the design behind the calamity,xa0called out that she was Agrippina and asked for rescue. Her cries drew axa0hail of blows from oars and other naval gear, as nearby assassins saw axa0chance to finish their job. Acerronia was clubbed to death in the water,xa0while Agrippina, who had kept a prudent silence, took only a hit on the shoulder. Glimpsing the lanterns of some fishing smacks nearby, shexa0swam off unnoticed. Indefatigable to the last, she had escaped Nero’sxa0deathtrap.Safely returned to Bauli, Agrippina reflected on her position. Neroxa0clearly meant to kill her but had gone to extreme lengths to keep thexa0crime secret. Her high stature as daughter of Germanicus, and her son’sxa0timidity, had prevented an open attack, and these might now be enoughxa0to save her. She sent a messenger to Nero to inform him of the night’sxa0events, pretending it had all been a freak accident. If she could feign trustxa0in her son, prevent him from striking a second blow, she could somehowxa0rally support and strengthen her position. Already crowds of well- wishers,xa0festival- goers who had heard about the collapse of the ship, were gatheredxa0outside her villa. She had a fighting chance, if she could only survive thisxa0night.Meanwhile at Baiae, Nero, accompanied by Anicetus, had fretted forxa0hours awaiting word of the plot’s outcome. The news that it had failedxa0sent him into a tailspin. He knew that his mother would now spot hisxa0intentions. Wounded but not killed, Agrippina would become more dangerous than ever. She might march on his villa that very night with a bandxa0of armed slaves, or make her way back to Rome to denounce him beforexa0the Senate. Nero was determined that his mother must die before thexa0next day dawned, but he had no idea how to proceed. In despair, he sentxa0for his two senior counselors to be roused from their chambers— Senecaxa0and Burrus.None of Seneca’s meditations on morality, Virtue, Reason, and thexa0good life could have prepared him for this. Before him, as he enteredxa0Nero’s room, stood a frightened and enraged youth of twenty- three, hisxa0student and protégé for the past ten years. For the past fi ve, he had alliedxa0with the princeps against his dangerous mother. Now the path he hadxa0first opened for Nero, by supporting his dalliance with Acte, had led to axa0botched murder and a political debacle of the first magnitude. It was tooxa0late for Seneca to detach himself. The path had to be followed to its end.Every word Seneca wrote, every treatise he published, must be readxa0against his presence in this room at this moment. He stood in silence forxa0a long time, as though contemplating the choices before him. There werexa0no good ones. When he fi nally spoke, it was to pass the buck to Burrus.xa0Seneca asked whether Burrus could dispatch his Praetorians to take Agrippina’s life.Now it was Burrus’ turn to face the awful choices that came withxa0collaboration. He too declined to do what the situation, and what fullxa0loyalty to Nero, demanded. The Praetorians, he said, had too strong anxa0allegiance to Agrippina, and to the memory of her father. He suggestedxa0that Anicetus and the sailors at Misenum finish what they had started.xa0Nero’s old guard had temporized at a critical pass and thus cededxa0power to the new. Anicetus eagerly took on the task that Seneca andxa0Burrus had cast off, and Nero instantly affirmed how highly he ratedxa0this boon. “Only today did I get control of the empire,” he declared,xa0“and it was a mere freedman who conferred such a great gift.” This barbxa0was aimed at Seneca who, despite having worked for a decade to firm upxa0Nero’s power, had now been found wanting. The sage’s influence over thexa0princeps, long in decline, had taken another lurch downward.With opportune timing, the messenger sent earlier by Agrippina,xa0Agerinus, now arrived with news of his mistress’s “accident.” Nero wasxa0grateful for a pretext, however slim, to move openly against his mother.xa0As Agerinus delivered his message, Nero dropped a sword by the man’sxa0feet and ordered him seized as an assassin. Then he dispatched Anicetusxa0to Bauli.It was well past midnight when Anicetus’ hit squad arrived at Agrippina’sxa0villa. In spite of the hour, the grounds and beach were thronged withxa0Agrippina’s well- wishers. Anicetus ordered them to disperse, then brokexa0down the door and began removing household slaves.Agrippina was in her bedroom with a lone servant, but even this lastxa0companion disappeared when armed men were heard in the house. Thexa0queen mother was alone when Anicetus and two other officers burst into her room. She had been hoping it was her messenger Agerinus arriving; his long delay meant she was still in grave danger.Agrippina’s only chance was to shame her attackers out of completingxa0their mission, to remind them of the glory of her line. But she wasxa0exhausted, shaken from the night’s ordeal, and wounded. The best she could manage, according to Tacitus, was to protest that Anicetus must have made some terrible mistake. Surely Nero would never order herxa0death.The captain accompanying Anicetus, a man named Herculeius,xa0answered by hitting her on the head with a club. The other officer standingxa0by, Obaritus, drew his sword. Agrippina was all out of stratagems.xa0There was little left for her but to die.Agrippina had been betrayed by those she had put in power, by Neroxa0above all, but also by Burrus, Anicetus, and not least, Seneca. The sagexa0she had rescued from Corsica, who owed all he had to her, had declinedxa0to raise his voice against her murder. Politics had first made bedfellows ofxa0her and Seneca— in the literal sense, some claimed. But politics, and herxa0son’s disordered mind, had arranged things such that only one of themxa0could survive.The foremost woman of her age— sister of one emperor, wife of axa0second, mother of a third, the last of Germanicus’ children— was aboutxa0to die, friendless, abandoned, alone. One last, bold gesture remained toxa0her, a gesture reported by three ancient sources. The author of Octaviaxa0describes it best:Dying and wretched, she makes one last request of her assassin: to sink his lethal sword in her womb. “Here’s where to bury your sword, right here— The place from which such a monster came. . . .” After those words, she lets her sad soul seep out through savage wounds together with a final groan. Read more