Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

22 SENECAmagistracies to senatorial rank and the governmentof provinces.Your brothers [the elder Seneca wrote to Mela] areambitious ;and are preparing themselves for a careerin the forum and in office in which even success has itsdangers. Time was when I myself longed for andapplauded such a career ; and, dangerous though it be,I have urged your brothers to pursue it, so far at leastas they can do so within the strictest limits of honour.^That the temptations to overstepthese limitsin the closing years of Tiberius were numerousmay be inferred from the short description leftus by Seneca of the time — a description by adisinterested eye-witness with no anti-imperialprejudices which the defenders of that emperorfind it more difficult to explain away than theinvectives of later writers.Under Tiberius [he wrote] there grew up a frenziedpassion for bringing accusations which increased till itbecame almost universal and proved more destructiveto citizens than any civil war. Words spoken by menwhen drunk and the most harmless pleasantries weredenounced. There was safety nowhere ; any pretextwas good enough to serve for an information. Nor,after a time, did the accused think it worth while toawait the result of their trials, for this was always thesame.^There had never been a public prosecutorin Rome it had been of old the ;duty of citizensto keep watch over one another in the interestsof the republic ;and for the republic was after-*'^DeSeneca, Controv. ii.Benef. iii. i6.Praef.