Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

DECLINE OF SENECA'S INFLUENCE 107and there live out his youth free from danger orintrigue. Plautus compHed, and was still livingin the province when the death of Burrhus andthe partial retirement of Seneca brought Tigellinusinto power. Cornelius Sulla, a dull man, whoseonly importance was derived from his descentfrom the dictator, had been living in exile atMarseilles since the year 58, whither he hadbeen sent on a trumped-up accusation of a plotagainst the emperor, of which no one who knewhis indolent disposition believed him to be capable.Tigellinus, closely studying the humours ofhis master, discovered that these two men werethe living fears in Nero's heart, and thereuponurged, as from himself, their destruction. Neroat once agreed, and on the sixth day afteremissaries sent for the purpose had left Rome,MarseillesSulla was assassinated while dining atand his head brought back to the emperor, wholaughed at the premature whiteness of the hairon it. The execution of Plautus was a moredangerous business. Unlike Sulla, he had manyfriends and great possessions. He was warned ofhis danger by a despatch from his father-in-law,Antistius, who urged him to resistance. ButPlautus was a Stoic philosopher and a fatalist,and he thought the doubtful chance of a longerlife not worth the struggle, while he hoped thathis submission might incline the emperor to abetter treatment of his wife and children.Nero'sassassin found him at noon stripped for theexercises of his gymnasium. Here he was slain,and his head, like that of Sulla, brought back to