Perhaps Seneca did not even wish to restrict these cultural pursuits. One clue to Seneca’s attitudes toward moral training, for himself as well as for Nero, is suggested by the third book of On Anger, which was written during these years. Seneca insists on the importance of self-knowledge before any undertaking (3.7.2), an important message to send to the young Nero, and advises his readers to seek out the company of those with whom they can be their best selves (3.8). Hot-tempered people—and Seneca’s ward would have fit the category—are advised to soothe themselves with poetry, history, and music (Fig. 3.2).
Figure 3.2 Seneca must have known he was doing something very dangerous in returning to Rome and putting his literary talents at the service of Agrippina and Nero. This medieval bust suggests the connection between Seneca’s writing and his eventual death by showing his pen as the scalpel that cuts into his wrist.
The most famous passage of this third book of On Anger is Seneca’s fascinating account of his own practice of self-improvement, through daily, or rather nightly, sessions of self-examination. Seneca’s discussions of the process of self-questioning have been seen as an essential step in the development of modern conceptions of selfhood and the will (or the “I”) in that he is, far more—or at least more explicitly—than most previous ancient thinkers, preoccupied with self-fashioning. This passage is also, as we have seen, one of Seneca’s few references to the existence of his wife—who is presented as remarkable only for her ability to fall silent in order for the husband to pursue his thoughts. There is no way to tell which wife this is.
When the light has been taken away, and my wife, who has long been aware of my habit, is quiet, I examine my whole day, and I retrace my actions and my words. I hide nothing from myself; I skip nothing. Indeed, why should I be frightened of my mistakes, when I can tell myself, “See that you don’t do that any more. I forgive you this time. In that argument you spoke too grumpily; in future, don’t spend time with uneducated people. They’ve never learnt, so they don’t want to learn. You scolded that man more freely than you should have, and as a result, you didn’t fix him, you just made him annoyed. Next time, watch out not just for whether you’re speaking the truth, but whether the person you’re talking to is able to handle the truth. A good man likes being reproached; the worse a person is, the more irritable he is with one who corrects him.”
(On Anger 3.36.3–4)4
Seneca continues with more vivid evocations of the trials of daily life for the elite Roman man, such as rude conversation at a drunken dinner party or being awarded a less-than-honorable position in the seating arrangement: “Silly man! What difference does it make what part of the couch you lie on?”
From one point of view, Seneca’s practice of daily self-examination can be seen as a precursor to meditative practices and the literature of self-scrutiny: Augustine’s Confessions, or the monastic exercises of Ignatius Loyola, or in more modern times, diaries, memoirs, and the psychoanalytic couch. It is an attempt to recall times past in the present—that central concern of the work of Woolf, Proust, and Joyce. We may see his attention paid to the interior self as a prototype for the self-examinations of Montaigne or Descartes (both deeply influenced by Seneca). But Seneca’s account of “self” examination is very different from any of these, because it is not really focused on an individual self at all. His account of his day slips from the self who is supposedly the subject of the analysis to gaze around at all the other people he has encountered in the course of his waking hours. In discussing, for instance, how he snapped at an “uneducated person,” he does not then try to work out what made him snap; instead, he shifts to analyze why this kind of person might not be teachable, and therefore, why one ought to avoid such people. If this is the kind of moral training Seneca gave Nero, it is easy to see why the boy did not become strikingly self-aware or self-critical. For the teacher himself, this kind of nightly self-examination would have been a very useful tool for psychological resilience in the court of Nero, because it gave him a space in which he could meditate on his own strength, self-mastery and constant improvement, while also contemplating the hateful behavior and incurably bad character of everybody else around him.
Seneca clearly built up close alliances and friendships in court during these years. His most important ally was Sextus Afranius Burrus, the man chosen by Agrippina in 51 CE as head of the Praetorian Guard (the emperor’s personal bodyguard). It was normal for the Guard to be led by two men, so the appointment of Burrus in sole command was a sign of Agrippina’s trust in him and of her desire to keep all important posts in the hands of her own people. Seneca provided the intellectual and rhetorical structure for Agrippina’s power base, while Burrus was in control of this crucial military position. Burrus was experienced both in military spheres (he had served in the army) and in the world of court intrigue, having served Augustus’ widow Livia, then Tiberius and probably Caligula, before receiving his promotion under Claudius and Agrippina. Both Seneca and Burrus were clearly close to Agrippina herself during these years; she depended on them as advisors and agents of her growing power and that of her son.
When Nero was fourteen years old, in 41 CE, he took up the “toga of manhood” in a highly public ceremony (Tacitus, Annals, 12.41.1–3). Agrippina seized on the opportunity to increase her son’s celebrity over that of Claudius’ natural son, Britannicus. We are told that Nero rode through the town in triumphal clothing, Britannicus in the plain white toga of a young boy. Some expressed pity at this treatment of Britannicus, and Agrippina, claiming to be outraged at the implied insult to her own son, used the occasion as an excuse to get rid of all Britannicus’ most loyal attendants. She persuaded Claudius (according to Tacitus) to exile or execute his best tutors and instead install guards chosen by herself. Britannicus had no supporters left, at least not close at hand.
A couple of years later, in 53 CE, when Nero was sixteen, the engagement to Octavia was fulfilled, and they got married. At this period, too, the young Nero began to show off the skills he had learned from Seneca in public speaking, developing fantastical speeches on behalf of particular communities, such as a colony that had been afflicted by fire and another that had had an earthquake (Annals 12.58.1–2).
As Britannicus approached his age of maturity, around fourteen, Claudius may well have begun to reconsider his favor to Nero at the expense of his natural son. Agrippina’s grip on power was threatened. She had strong reason to ensure the death of her husband and the speedy accession to the throne of her son. Moreover, if Agrippina’s power fell, so too would that of her circle, including Seneca and Burrus, both of whom were too closely associated with the Empress to be welcome members of a new regime. As good luck or quick action had it, in 54 CE Claudius died after eating a dish of his favorite mushrooms; rumor had it that Agrippina had had him poisoned.5 It is possible, even likely, that Seneca and Burrus were complicit in the plan; but there is no way to be certain.
Whether or not she did actually kill her husband, Agrippina immediately seized the opportunities for advancing her son that were afforded by his stepfather’s death. Nero later joked that mushrooms were indeed the “food of the gods,” since they were the vehicle by which Claudius was deified (Suetonius, Life of Nero). Burrus and Seneca were essential agents in establishing the young heir on the throne as quickly as possible, precluding any possible challenge from the friends of Britannicus. Claudius’ condition was unclear for a few desperate hours in the night of October 12, 54 CE. He vomited the dish of fatal mushrooms, and it was hoped by some, feared by others, that he might recover. But eventually—some said after Agrippina’s personal doctor smeared his throat with poison, pretending to give him an emetic—he passed away.