Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE TRAGEDY OF BAIAE 93been as unwise from the standpoint of their owninterests as wicked from every other. After thedeed had been done, Seneca probably convincedhimself that there was nothing better to do thanto make the best of a bad situation, and that if todesert his post, to abandon Burrhus, and to leavethe Empire to the mercies of Nero would be anunpatriotic course, the only alternative was, notto condone the crime, but to deny that a crime'had been committed. What better proof cana man give of devotion to virtue,' he wrote in*one of his letters, than a readiness to sacrificereputation itself for conscience' sake ? ' ^Yet whenall is said, the letter to the Senate remains of allthe recorded actions of Seneca the least defensible.Nero might have spared himself anxiety withregard to the Senate. The chief preoccupationof that assembly at this crisis was to show theunqualified nature of their submission to theautocrat. Decrees were passed for thanksgivingsto the gods at every shrine for the annual cele-;bration of the day on which the supposed plothad been frustrated ;and for the erection of agolden statue to Minerva to be placed next tothat of the prince in the senate-house. ThraseaPaetus, who up to that time had acquiesced insilence or in a few formal words to decrees passedin honour of Nero, refused further compliance and,decHning to assent to these new compliments onsuch an occasion, withdrew from the senate-house,'to which he but seldom returned. His action,'observes Tacitus drily,'1Ep. 81.though fullof danger to