Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

54 SENECAand were believed to be devoted to the cause ofher children. They were now removed, on thewouldpretext that in the interests of discipline itbe better ifthe whole force were commanded bya single prefect,and Afranius Burrhus, a soldierof great distinction though of humble origin, wasappointed in their room. History has little thatisgood to record of Agrippina, but it must beadmitted to her credit that to her the world owedthe rise to power of Burrhus and of Seneca, andso indirectly the five years of admirable governmentwhich those statesmen afterwards enabledit to enjoy.Though Seneca obeyed the call of Agrippinato return to Rome and undertake the educationof her son, he would have preferred to makeother use of his recovered liberty. His own wishwas to settle in Athens, as Atticus had done, andthere to live a contemplative life in the study ofmoral and natural philosophy. He soon perceivedhow cruel and profligate was the dispositionof his young pupil; and, though he persuadedhimself that he had in some degree succeededin mollifying it, he is said to have observed inconversation with his intimates that if ever theyoung lion tasted human blood the ingrainedferocity of his nature would assert itself.^In the year 53 Nero, then in his seventeenthyear, was married to Octavia and in the same;year made his firstappearance in the Senate asan orator by pleading the cause of the citizens ofIlium. This speech was in Greek. It dealt with^Scholiast in Juv. Sat. 5, 109.