Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

I02STOICISM.their joy when Poppsea bore a son to Nero, and oftheir grief when the young child was hurried off bydeath. Thrasea could not sitcalmly by when thanksgivingservices, temples, priesthoods, canonizationseven, were decreed. He had already left the senatehousein silence when the news of Agrippina's death,sent by the parricide himself, became the signal forpublic curses on her memory and compliments tothe Imperial assassin. But now he withdrew altogetherfrom official life, when it was idle to resist byineffectual remonstrance, and when silence might beconstrued into assent.But his was too marked a figure to escape unnoticed,and the protest of his silent absence was a theme forevery tongue. The members of the civil service in theprovinces, the military circles in the camp, read overthe longlist of decrees and votes and acclamations tosee what it was in which Thrasea would take no part ;malevolent informers whispered into Nero's ears thatsuch a policy of abstention could not be trifled withmuch longer, that society was being parted into twogreat camps, and that as Caesar and Cato were of oldthe chiefs of rival parties, so the State was nowdivided between the adherents of Thrasea and ofNero. Yet the emperor still hesitated to pushmatters to extremes. For a time he soothed hisvanity by the public slight which he put on Thraseawhen he appeared before him in a deputation fromthe senate ;he gave him time even now to bend beforethe threatening storm, and to make his peace bysome show of submission.