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288 DARKNESS AND DAWN
'He is a pompous sham, who wants taking down,' said the
gilded youth.
It was a fearful comment on the wretchedness of the times
that most of the prominent thinkers and statesmen looked on
self-destruction as the sole path to freedom, and the hest boon
of heaven. They thought it a proof of philosophic heroism
when a man died calmly by his own hand, though the act
involves no more courage than the vilest of mankind can
evince. Seneca tells with rapture the story of the death of
Julius Canus. The Emperor Gaius had said to him, after a
quarrel, ' That you may not deceive yourself, I have ordered
you to be led to execution.' ' I thank you, excellent prince,'
said Canus. Ten days passed, and Canus spent them without
the smallest sign of trepidation, awaiting the tyrant's mandate.
When the centurion arrived at his house with the order that
he was to die, he was playing at draughts. He first counted
'
the pieces, and then said with a smile to his friend, Mind
you don't claim the victory when I am dead. You, centurion,
will be the witness that I have one piece more than he has.'
Observing the grief of his '
friends, he said, Why are you sad?
You are perplexed about the question whether souls are
immortal or not. In a moment or two I shall know. If I
can come back I will tell you.' l
The letters, and all the latest writings, of Seneca vibrate
with terror. They are full of the thought of death, and doubtless
he lived with the sense of such grim satisfaction as could
be derived from the thought that if life became too unbearable
he could end it. And ' death/ he said to himself, means
'
only " not to be." ' 2
And all this was felt even in Nero's 'golden quinquennium
' ! Men boasted of the happiness of the days in which
their lot was cast, but they knew that under their vineyards
burnt the fires of a volcano. Common conversation,
home life, dinner parties, literature, philosophy, virtue, wealth,
were all dangerous.
Neither retirement nor obscurity always
availed to save a man. The only remedy was to learn endurance
;
not to fill too prominent a place ; not to display too
much ability; never to speak in public without a digression in
est,
1 Sen. De Tranq. An. xiv. 7.
2 Sen. Up. liv. '
Mors est non esse.' Troades, v. 393: ' Post mortem nihil
:
ipsaque Mors nihil.