Part 65 (1/2)

CHAPTER III.

[1] Praefectus vigilum.

[2] Plin. N. H. xxii. 23, 47.

[3] Said to have amounted to 300,000,000 sesterces. Tac. An. xiii. 42.

Juvenal calls him _praedives_. Sat. x. 16.

[4] Au. xiv. 53.

[5] The great blot on his character is his having composed a justification of Nero's matricide on the plea of state necessity.

[6] Ep. 45, 4; cf. 2, 5.

[7] Ep. 110, 18.

[8] He was a scurrilous abuser of the government. Vespasian once said to him, ”You want to provoke me to kill you, but I am not going to order a dog that barks to execution.” Cf. Sen. Ep. 67, 14; De ben. vii. 2.

[9] Ep. 64, 2.

[10] Or at least in a much less degree. Tacitus and Juvenal give instances of rapacity exercised on the provinces, but it must have been inconsiderable as compared with what it had been.

[11] Ep. 6, 4.

[12] Ep. 75, 3.

[13] Ep. 75, 1.

[14] Vit. Beat. 17, 3.

[15] Ep. 38, 1. He compares philosophy to sun-light, which s.h.i.+nes on all; Ep. 41, 1. This is different from Plato: _to plaethos adunaton philosophon einai_.

[16] Martha, _Les Moralistes de l'Empire romain_.

[17] Ep. 45.

[18] Ep. 38, 1; and 94, 1.

[19] Such as Serenus, Lucilius, &c. The old families seem to have eschewed him.

[20] _Vit. Beat_. 17, 1.

[21] M. Havet, _Boiss. Rel. rom_. vol. ii. 44.

[22] The question is sifted in Aubertin, _Seneque et Saint Paul_; and in Gaston Boissier, _La Religion romaine_, vol. II. ch. ii.

[23] De Vir. Ill.u.s.t. 12. Tertullian (Ap. ii. 8, 10) had said before, _Seneca saepe noster_; but this only means that he often talks like a Christian.

[24] He afterwards repudiated her, and she died in great poverty. Her act shows a gentle and forgiving spirit.