![]() ![]() He died only when his slaves carried him into a hot bath and he suffocated in the steam. He severed his arteries, but he was so old and emaciated that the blood hardly escaped so he asked for the hemlock that he had stashed away for just that purpose, but that had little effect either. After a brief interrogation, Seneca was told to end his own life, which he did only with great difficulty. Ironically, the captain himself was also involved in the planned coup, but had decided to follow the emperor’s orders in order to save his own skin (“he was now adding to the crimes he had conspired to avenge,” as the Roman historian Tacitus tersely put it). The knock came from the captain of a troop of praetorian guardsmen who had stationed themselves around Seneca’s house, just outside Rome. He must have been expecting the knock on the door. He had once been the emperor’s tutor and adviser, though he had withdrawn into retirement when the true character of Nero’s reign became clear, and he had recently become rather too closely involved with an unsuccessful coup (quite how closely, we shall never know). ![]() ![]() In AD 65, the elderly philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca was forced to commit suicide on the orders of the emperor Nero. Peter Paul Rubens: The Death of Seneca, 1612–1613 Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen/bpk/Art Resource ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |