Why should this ancient succession of disasters concern anyone living in the modern world dominated by democracy? The malady is oligarchy working behind a façade of democracy. After ensuring the death of his kin, rivals and all his close advisers, the emperor turned on his teacher, forcing him to commit suicide. But in the end, he wanted to renounce political life or as the Romans would said, seek otium. Notionally a stoic, Seneca was very much a worldly man. In the end, after decades of enrichment, complicity in crimes and contentment, the stoic found himself hollow, an empty shell. He used his talents to justify every action of his masters-Agrippina first and then Nero-even the murder of one by the other, in this case that of Nero getting his mother killed. The philosopher’s first crime was his complicity in the murder of the emperor by his wife Agrippina. Seneca was a political ally of the ambitious Agrippina and along with Burrus Afranius, the head of the Praetorian Guard, one of the three most powerful persons after the emperor Claudius (10BC-AD54), the adoptive father of Nero. The book begins with Seneca being recalled from exile by Nero’s mother Agrippina to guide her teenage son. Famous for writing stoic treatises, Seneca was a philosopher who enjoyed life and wealth. Romm deals carefully with the difficulty in assessing Seneca’s career.
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