The Epistles of Lucius Annaeus Seneca

An Extract from Tacitus concerning the Death of Seneca.

Granius Sylvanus, Tribune of a Pretorian Cohort, having been ordered to enquire into a conversation which was supposed to have passed between one Natalis and Seneca relating to Piso's conspiracy, being further asked whether he thought Seneca was determined upon a voluntary death, answered that Seneca had manifested no one symptom of fear, and neither in his words nor looks was aught of anguish to be discovered. Hence he was commanded to return and carry him the denunciation of death.

But this in no wise dismayed Seneca, who called calmly for his will. As this was prohibited by the centurion, turning to his friends, he told them:
"That since he was disabled from a grateful requital of their benefits, he bequeathed them that which alone was now left him, yet something more glorious and amiable than all the rest: the pattern of his life. If they retained the impressions and resemblance, they would thence reap the applause of virtuous manners as well as that of persevering in their friendship." He withal repressed their tears, sometimes with gentle reasoning, sometimes in the style of authority and correction, and strove to recover them to resolution and constancy.
"Where," he often asked, "where are now all the documents of philosophy? Where that philosophical principle, for so many years premeditated, against the sudden encounter of calamities? For to whom was unknown the bloody nature of Nero? Nor, after the butchering of his mother and the murdering of his brother, did aught remain to consummate his cruelty but to add to theirs the slaughter of his nursing-father and instructor."

Having uttered these and the like reasonings, directed to the company in general, he embraced his wife; an affecting object, which somewhat abated his firmness and softened him into anxiety for her future lot. He pressed and besought her "to moderate her sorrow, to beware of perpetuating such a dismal passion, but to bear the death of her husband by contemplating his life spent in a steady course of virtue, and to support his loss by all worthy consolations." Paulina, his wife, on the contrary, urged her purpose to die with him and called for the aid of a minister of death. Upon this declaration...