Skip to main content

Seneca before Nero



A story from history

“You will kill yourself,” Emperor Nero uttered majestically staring straight into the eyes of Seneca.  Seneca had been summoned to the Palace.  When he was ushered in, the Emperor was playing a violently cheerful tune on his fiddle.  He made Seneca stand and listen to his recital for a long time.  Every now and then he threw a mocking look at Seneca, his former advisor.

“You have the liberty to choose the means of your death,” the Emperor said with ostensible magnanimity.

“That’s very generous of you,” said Seneca.

Nero glowered at him for a moment, ran the bow on his fiddle to produce a culminating crescendo and then handed over the fiddle to the maid who stood near him holding a chalice of wine. The Emperor took the wine from her hand just as he handed over the fiddle and took a sip.

“Death,” said the Emperor, solemn and mocking at once.  “Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.  Which is it for you, Seneca?”

The Emperor was throwing at him his own words, Seneca knew.

“Man is often more frightened than hurt.  He suffers more from imagination than from reality,” Seneca said.  “I’m more hurt than frightened. But I embrace reality bravely.”

“Good, good,” the Emperor chuckled.  “You brought this upon yourself.  I had forgiven you too much.  I overlooked all the allegations against you: corruption, amassing wealth, your lust to be equal to the Emperor. Yet you dared to conspire against the Emperor.”

“When the Emperor becomes like the captain of a ship which destroys the little boats in the ocean, he has no right to sail on.”

“Ha ha ha, the same old Seneca with wise words.  Words won’t save you now, old man.  You once counselled me that when the captain does not know the port, all the winds are unfavourable to him.  I know the port, old man.  You are the iceberg blocking my way.”

“When disasters are waiting to fall upon a man, he becomes blind.  You don’t see clearly, Nero.  Power has blinded you.  Your power will be useless to you soon.”

Nero gulped down the remaining wine in his chalice and threw the empty chalice at Seneca.  The philosopher ducked and the chalice hit the wall behind him with a clatter.

“Take him away,” Nero commanded.  “Make sure he is dead before tomorrow’s sunrise whatever means he may choose for his end.”

Seneca chooses his death
“I selected my ship when I went on a voyage, I chose the house for my residence, and now I choose my death.”  Seneca cut the veins on his arms one by one.  “Take me to the bathtub if the water is hot enough.”

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end,” Seneca mumbled as his energy kept draining into the bathtub whose water turned redder and redder.  “A new beginning is awaiting Rome.  New … begin…”

Comments

  1. You said a lot in just few words. Amazing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. After giving my first comment, I read it again and saved it for offline reading. It's a masterpiece.

      Delete
  2. A nice read. History always hide jewels of wisdom, only someone search for that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. His bathtub became his sinking ship. But what difference did it make in the end to him who drowned dead under the knowledge of ports and to the other who got blind under the knowledge of ports. Perhaps no-one can know the extent of ports while being on the sea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Seneca was a bundle of contradictions. I couldn't bring even a fraction of the complexity of his character in the story. I didn't want to make it too boring for a blog.

      What difference does it all make in the end is a question that has bothered me quite a lot.

      Delete
  4. Absolutely wonderful! A masterpiece indeed!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser