THE REIGN OF NERO
In 54 CE, Emperor Claudius died after eating some mushrooms. Agrippina, who employed an expert poisoner called Locusta, was widely believed to have had her husband's meal laced with deadly belladonna. Her son Nero was therefore proclaimed emperor, aged only sixteen. Seneca went from being Nero's rhetoric tutor to his political advisor and speechwriter. (We might compare his role to that of today's presidential chief of staff and spin doctor.) Tacitus said the speech Seneca wrote for Nero to deliver following Claudius' death was ‘just as elegantly-written as one would expect from that celebrity’, confirming that Seneca's fame as a rhetorician had grown. Seneca became Nero's right-hand man and closest advisor, sharing influence with a military man, the praetorian prefect, Burrus.
As we've seen, while in exile Seneca had praised Claudius and urged Polybius to write a panegyric to him. Now Claudius had been killed off, though, and the political tides had changed direction. Seneca responded by publishing a biting satire ridiculing and degrading him, called The Pumpkinification of the (Divine) Claudius, in which he hailed Nero as the glory of Rome:
[Just as the sun god] brightly gleams on the world and renews his chariot's journey, so cometh Caesar; so in his glory shall Rome behold Nero. Thus do his radiant features gleam with a gentle effulgence, graced by the flowing locks that fall encircling his shoulders. (Pumpkinification, 4)
Now that Nero was emperor, Seneca was increasingly expected to praise him in public and extol his virtues. Nero rewarded his advisor with ‘gifts’ of money and property that quickly transformed Seneca into one of the richest men in Rome. Seneca's friends and family also benefited. His elder brother, Gallio, was made consul, the highest political office in the empire; Mela, his younger brother, was made a procurator; Lucan, his nephew, was made a quaestor; Pompeius Paulinus, Seneca's brother-in-law, was made an imperial legate; and Annaeus Serenus, one of his closest friends, was appointed commander of the night watch.
At first, Seneca's position perhaps seemed like an acceptable arrangement. Historians often view the first five years of Nero's reign, the Quinquennium Neronis, as promising, owing to the benevolent guiding influence of Seneca and Burrus. However, by accepting all these gifts and favours, Seneca was placing himself, and his friends, in a vulnerable position. Nero, in other words, had an increasing amount of leverage over Seneca. What could possibly go wrong?
MURDER OF BRITANNICUS
A year into Nero's reign, the question of his claim to the throne came to a head. His step-brother, Britannicus, was about to turn fifteen, making him an adult under Roman law. Whereas Nero had merely been adopted by Claudius, Britannicus was his flesh and blood, and therefore had a strong claim to the throne. However, Locusta the poisoner was now in Nero's service. ‘All of a sudden, unsurprisingly, Britannicus dropped dead', as Emily Wilson puts it. Thus began Nero's spiralling descent into paranoia and tyranny.
The murder of Britannicus caused public outrage, in part because he was still only a child. Seneca responded by composing and publishing another open letter, this time addressed to the emperor, and titled On Clemency. In it he encourages Nero to show forgiveness and mercy towards his opponents. Seneca also used it as an opportunity to praise his former student as a paragon of virtue and a philosopher-king in the making. More importantly, perhaps, he also used it to publicly assert Nero's innocence of any killing:
You, Caesar, have granted us the boon of keeping our state free from bloodshed, and that of which you boast, that you have not caused one single drop of blood to flow in any part of the world, is all the more magnanimous and marvellous because no one ever had the power of the sword placed in his hands at an earlier age. (On Clemency, 11)
Although Seneca does not mention the death of Britannicus, the timing makes it obvious that he was seeking to acquit Nero in the court of public opinion. The slyness with which Seneca here claims that Nero, who retained a poisoner, had never spilled a drop of blood, is very typical of his writings – it's technically true but obviously intended to mislead.
Many readers of the letter found it hard to believe that Seneca could have had the gall to shamelessly praise and exonerate Nero in the aftermath of his younger brother's murder. However, as Wilson suggests, ‘the evidence that Seneca did indeed compose this work right after the death of Britannicus is incontrovertible. Some hope to excuse Seneca's comments by claiming that they can perhaps be read in a more nuanced way. Perhaps Seneca's letter's should be seen as part of the genre known as mirrors of princes', seeking to convey not Nero's true reflection but the potential within him for virtue. However, Seneca's letter would have been widely circulated, and we must assume that many Romans would have taken them at face value. Seneca does not only say that Nero has the potential for wisdom and virtue, ‘a great mind and great gentleness’, but that he already possesses these gifts. Moreover, Seneca's claim that not even ‘one single drop of blood’ had ever been spilled at Nero's behest, probably came across to some as a twisted joke. Yet it may be that, in private, Seneca was troubled by the death of Britannicus. After all, the brutal murder of children is a theme that recurs in his plays, most notably Thyestes.
SUPER-RICH SENECA
In 56 CE, shortly after these events, Seneca was appointed consul, the most senior political office in the Roman senate. Men who had attained consular rank were esteemed as nobles alongside the hereditary patrician class. Moreover, as soon as Britannicus had been killed off, Nero ‘loaded his best friends with gifts', according to Tacitus, presumably dividing up his dead brother's property among his closest advisors. This has been taken by some historians to explain, at least in part, how Seneca rose from moderately well-off provincial origins to become, under Nero, one of the richest men in the empire. Cassius Dio makes the extraordinary claim that Seneca was worth over 300 million sesterces, which would make him the Roman equivalent of a Warren Buffet or Jeff Bezos. Typically, only the Roman emperor himself or his closest associates might command such wealth. Hence another ancient source, the poet Martial, dubbed him ‘Super-rich Seneca’.
Unsurprisingly, Seneca also seems to have owned many properties and a great deal of land throughout Italy, and possibly also in Egypt. We don't know how many slaves he owned, but given his considerable wealth and property, at a rough estimate, they may have numbered over a thousand. As an example of his extravagance, we're told that Seneca owned 500 identical citrus-wood tables with legs of ivory, used for hosting massive banquets. That may sound implausible to modern readers, but it was not unusual for Rome's elite to pride themselves on holding vast banquets, akin to festivals, where hundreds of guests would be entertained. One such banquet, hosted by Lucius Verus, the brother of Marcus Aurelius, reputedly cost 6 million sesterces to put on. Expensive furniture and tableware were highly prized status symbols in elite Roman society.
In 58 CE, a Roman senator called Publius Suillius, who was indicted by Seneca and others for judicial corruption, brought the counter-charge of financial corruption against Seneca. He accused Seneca, perhaps owing to lingering resentment over his exile, of having a vendetta against anyone who had aligned themselves with the Emperor Claudius. However, he also accused Seneca of having enriched himself at the public expense in the short space of four years, i.e. since Nero became emperor. ‘In Rome, he spread his nets to catch the wills of childless men’, alleged Suillius, while ‘Italy and the provinces were sucked dry by his insatiable usury’.
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