Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE PRINCIPATE OF CALIGULA 27shortly die in any case.^It was doubtless to thisescape that he alluded when he wrote long afterwardsto Lucilius that a disease, seemingly mortalhad prolonged the lives and proved the salvationof many men.^ Whether from this alarm, orfrom the state of his health, or because after thedeath of his father he felt more at liberty tofollow his own inclinations, Seneca at this timeceased to plead causes and devoted himself toliterature and philosophy. Through his quaestorshiphe was a member of the Senate, where hemust have been present at the remarkable sceneswhich followed the assassination of Caligulaand may have shared in the brief dream of arestoration of their old supremacy from whichthe senators were so rudely awakened by thesoldiers and the populace.Scattered about in Seneca's works are storiesof the emperor whom he declared that Naturecould only have produced to show what thegreatestvices could effect when found in thehighest station; and they are interesting as theonly accounts of the tyrant, exceptthat of PhiloJudaeus, which we have from an eye-witness.Though one of the chief amusements of Caligulawas to hold up to ridicule the bodily imperfectionsof others, his own appearance, Seneca tellsus, inhis last years was itself well adapted to mockery.He was bald, with stray hairs drawn down overhis forehead to conceal his baldness ;his livid^Dion, lix. ig.*Ep. 78.fuit videri perire.''Multorum mortem distulit morbus ;et saluti illis