Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

RETURN FROM EXILE 55the legendary connection of Rome with Troyand the descent of the JuHan race from Aeneas ;and won from the wilHng Senate, with the totalremission of taxes to the men of Ilium which wasits nominal, the applause which was its real, object.This success was followed by a Latin speechon behalf of Bonona which had been wasted byfire, and a large subsidy in aid of the citizenswas the result. Of all the arts eloquence possessedthe least attraction for Nero, and thosespeeches, which excited great admiration, werethe compositions of Seneca.In the following year (54) a succession of strangeoccurrences was thought to portend a revolution.There were rumours of monstrous births ;tentsand standards were struck by lightning ; onemagistrate from each rank — a quaestor, an aedile,a tribune, a praetor, and a consul— died within afew months. The emperor's health was failing ;and he was beginning to show some symptomsof a returning affection for his son Britannicus,whose interests were advanced by the still powerfulfreedman. Narcissus. One day he exclaimed inhis cups that though he was fated to suffer thecrimes of all his wives, he was fated also topunish them.^ Agrippina, thoroughly alarmed,resolved to act ;and with the help of a womancalled Locusta— a poisoner, we are told, longconsidered a necessary instrument of the Court—gave poison to her husband in his favourite dishof mushrooms. The death was concealed, and1Tac. Ann. xii. 64 : 'Fatale sibi, ut conjugum flagitia ferret,dein puniret.'