The fate of an ancient Roman philosopher

□ Wang Shaobei

Seneca was a well-known Stoic philosopher and playwright during the Roman Empire, but he also had another identity: he was the tutor of the emperor Nero, or nero's chief adviser and courtier after he became the emperor, and he was destined not to be a simple literati and philosopher, but necessarily a historical figure deeply involved in the political core of the Roman Empire. Seneca wrote a large number of articles and works during Nero's reign, but rarely mentioned Nero's rule. Perhaps the aristocratic standard of honor could explain why Senegga chose silence, perhaps because intuition told him that any disclosure could endanger his own safety. As a philosopher, Seneca's philosophy follows Stoic principles, while his other side is to assist an emperor and confidant who has the stigma of killing his mother, setting fire to the city, and persecuting believers, and this thought and behavior is confusing. Still, is Seneca really a man with a complete separation of thought and action, a split personality?

James Röhm's book The Philosopher and the Powerful Seeks to Reveal Seneca's Inner World through His Text, and by interpreting Seneca's work and analyzing the motivations behind Senegga's actions as a political figure, Röhm shows us that as a philosopher, there is a connection between his work and his political actions, and that there is also a connection between the ivory tower of philosophy and the struggle for political power. Since there is a great room for imagination in such a way of documenting history in literary and philosophical works, in order to ensure the reliability of the analysis, Roma does not include in the scope of investigation and analysis any work in which the chronology cannot be determined in Seneca's works, and works that are not written during nero's reign.

"Philosophers and Powerful Men", by James Roma, translated by Ge Xiaohu, Social Sciences Academic Press, August 2021 edition, 69.00 yuan.

Nero's mother, Agrippina, became empress of the Roman Emperor Claudius through superb political maneuvering, and paid off the army, arching Nero to the throne after Claudius's bizarre poisoning death, when Nero was only 16 years old. Prior to this, in order to teach Nero, Agrippina invited the philosopher Seneca, who had been relegated to Corsica, as Nero's tutor, and at this time Seneca was anxious about seeking to return to Rome, and he was grateful for Agrippina's appreciation, determined to become a loyal member of Nero's faction and educate a wise monarch.

Seneca lived up to his expectations, and Nero's inaugural address was appreciated by the senate nobility, but soon after Nero took the throne, he poisoned his brother Brittanikos, the son of Claudius, in public at a banquet, who was the most threatening to Nero's position. However, this action caused panic and worry among the senate nobles, fearing that Nero would be a terrible monarch in the future if he acted so viciously at such a young age. In order to defuse this crisis of rule, he reassured the nobles of the Senate and promised that there would be no more such incidents in the future, and Senega did not intend to abandon the ideal of practicing moral Führer politics. Röhm argues that Senegah's Treatise on Mercy was written in such a context that he not only communicated with Nero in the form of a belly language, but also preached to Nero, insisting on the privilege of a teacher to preach to his students. It was both an inspiring political discourse addressed to the Senate nobility and an ambitious attempt to enlighten the rulers of the Roman Empire, who wanted to restrain the adolescent emperor's rampage and allow the virtues and power of Stoic philosophy to go hand in hand.

However, the truth is that Nero did not take Seneca's teachings to heart at all, and once again committed a heinous crime: Nero designed to kill his mother. Despite Agrippina's kindness to Seneca, Seneca eventually chose to unite with the Führer Nero against his dangerous mother. Seneca went into Nero's room and became complicit in his murder of his mother, and every word Senega wrote, every treatise he published, must contradict his appearance in this room at this moment.

After this incident, Seneca's dream of being an emperor was completely shattered, and he realized that he was incapable of restraining the young emperor, and decided to withdraw from the political field and live in seclusion from then on. However, it is easy to get on the stage and difficult to step down, and once on the stage of power, it takes a high degree of skill to retreat peacefully. Seneca's assets were abundant, and given his austere lifestyle, this far exceeded his own needs. It is not so much an asset as it is a danger, because it provides the accusers with an excellent target. Instead of sitting still, Senegga chose to preemptively strike. He decided to cash out all his chips—to give nero all his possessions—in exchange for a smooth withdrawal from the royal family.

The Roman historian Tacitus recorded Seneca's conversation about the deal. Seneca offered Nero that he wanted to give up most of his assets of 500 million Sestes in exchange for his safe retirement, and Nero thanked Seneca for teaching him from an early age, but refused his request to retire, saying that he still needed his assistance. And Nero raises a more prominent question: "If you give me back the money, people will not talk about your moderation, but about my greed; if you leave your fuehrer, people will talk about your fear of my cruelty." Your self-restraint will be greatly praised; but a wise man should still not take credibility from an act that would damage his friend's name. "Seneca's dignity and status are important assets of his regime's rule. And Seneca cannot now withdraw those assets or buy them back in cash, or else do serious harm to the regime. Seneca was bound by the shackles of his own cast moral sentiments, and he had to finish the play.

Against the backdrop of constant denigration by the new reds around Nero, Seneca was implicated in a plot to stage a coup d'état in the army and ordered by the emperor to commit suicide by poisoning. Röhm argues that in the poetic tragedy Thiestes, written in Senegga's later years, he wrote about his desolate inner cry that the beautiful stars of Corsica had been extinguished, and that his sky had become dull, pitch black, and nothing else. The tragedy of Senegga's later years is very reminiscent of Li Si of the Qin Dynasty, who once had power over the world but was eventually overthrown by Zhao Gao, and finally beheaded by the three tribes, Li Si said to his son before his execution: "I want to go out with Ruofu to lead the yellow dog out of Cai Dongmen to chase the cunning rabbit, how can I get it!" ”