Читать книгу Letters from a Stoic - Donald Robertson - Страница 15

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?