The scene that is most obviously reminiscent of the relationship between Seneca and Nero is that in which the scarily tyrannical Atreus discusses his wicked plans to take revenge on his brother with a Servant or Attendant (a Satelles). The Attendant seems at first to adopt a position of moral strength, advising Atreus of the best practices and responsibilities of an ideal ruler. He tells him that one should seek genuine praise, not admiration forced by fear. Atreus responds that false praise is exactly what he wants—a mark of his success, since only the most powerful people get flattery. Quod nolunt velint! (“Let them want what they don’t want!”) (212). This is a strong vote of confidence in a culture of dissimulation. But the Attendant still holds out the notion that a king ought to set a moral example for his people: “Let a king want what’s right; everyone will want the same” (213). Eventually, after Atreus declares his adamant hatred of his brother, the Attendant’s scruples all seem to fall by the wayside, and he begins to give advice on the practicalities of how exactly his master can kill his brother. “Let him die by the sword,” he suggests (245), and when Atreus rejects that possibility as too mild a punishment, the Attendant is prepared to go through a list of other possible killing methods.
We can read the scene as a reflection of Seneca’s own experience. Like the Attendant, he attempted temporarily to advise a tyrant toward ethical philosophy. Also like the Attendant, he ended up becoming a sounding-board and assistant in that same tyrant’s plans to kill members of his own family (in Nero’s case, Britannicus and Agrippina). The scene implies an entirely pessimistic notion of whether moral teaching is possible. The Attendant fails to teach the tyrant anything, but the tyrant teaches the Attendant how to fall in with crime, how to dissimulate, and how to betray his values. The Attendant takes the line that teaching can be dangerously effective: Atreus may simply teach his victims to take revenge upon him. “Crimes often return to their teacher” (311). But Atreus responds that it is pointless to worry about corrupting influences, since power in itself teaches vice: regnum docebit (“Kingship will teach it”) (313). From this point of view, Seneca’s whole project of trying to influence Nero for the better was doomed from the start. Moreover, the theme of the vicious cycle of revenge allows Seneca to explore a dark counterpart to his discussion of the virtuous cycle of favors, benefits, and kindness. The villainous Atreus seems to echo Seneca’s discussions of gratitude in the prose treatise, but with a perverted twist, when he declares that “Crime should have some limit when you’re doing it—not when you’re paying it back” (1052–1053).
We encounter yet another scene reminiscent of Seneca’s own life, and resonant with the problems inherent in moral teaching, when Atreus’ brother Thyestes returns from his long exile. At first, Thyestes is ready with conventional, quasi-philosophical wisdom about the relative unimportance of indifferent things, like power and wealth. He declares to his young son—named Tantalus for his ancestor—that the real blessing is a life of simplicity and stability, untainted by wealth or danger:
While I stood high,
my fear was endless; I was even frightened
of my own sword. How good it is, to stand
in no-one’s way, to eat your dinner safely,
lying on the ground.
(447–451)
But Thyestes’ sentiments fall away almost comically quickly once he learns that his brother claims to have forgiven him and to welcome him back to the palace. Through repeated puns, Seneca suggests that Thyestes is motivated not only by filial love but by a residual desire to regain power: for instance, he declares, “Brother, all that’s yours I count as mine” (535)—suggesting not only that he will share everything with Atreus, but that Atreus must share everything with him. His last utterance before entering the palace is a declaration that the “laws and army will serve you—and me too” (543), with an implication not only that Thyestes will share power with Atreus, but also that Atreus will have control over Thyestes along with everything else. Thyestes submits half-knowing he is making a horrible mistake but also apparently unable to resist temptation.
If the weak-willed, greedy, pompous Thyestes is one side of an unflattering self-portrait by Seneca, then Atreus, the monstrous artist, driven by ambition and an insatiable lust for power, is another. One can see both Nero and Seneca himself in this insane character who is one of Seneca’s finest creations. The drama traces, with loving detail, how desperate Atreus is to achieve something new, something unprecedented, beyond common revenge. Killing his nephews is not enough. Even feeding them to their own father is not enough; Atreus complains that he really ought to have planned better and made sure Thyestes knew what he was eating (1053–1068). The ultimate audience for the pedophagy is Thyestes himself. The play brilliantly evokes a world in which vice and greed know no limit, and in which the desire to see and be seen is unlimited and insatiable. Atreus is much more vivid and interesting than his pallid, hypocritical brother. The desperate, overreaching desire of Seneca’s most horrible tragic heroes (like Atreus, like Medea) is uncannily reminiscent of Seneca’s philosophical ideal, the Stoic Sage (Fig. 3.7). The ideal of virtue, as of vice, is for absolute autonomy, absolute power over circumstance and fortune—a desire that the tragic heroes try to achieve not by a life in conformity with nature, but by actions and passions that run counter to every natural law. One can also read the Thyestes as a gesture of admiration (as well as disgust) at the excesses of Nero: beside the emperor’s Atreus-like cruelties, Seneca sees himself as nothing but a Thyestes, or an Attendant.
Figure 3.7 Seneca in his last years tried to retire from Nero’s court and devote himself only to his books.
The play could not go on forever. In 62 BCE, Burrus, who had shared with Seneca the task of advising the young emperor and trying to restrain his behavior, suddenly died. The story went that he was poisoned by an unknown hand. Some said that the poison had been sent by Nero himself, in the guise of medicine for a sore throat (Suetonius, Nero, 35). Many—including the new head of the Guard—were delighted to see him gone. Without the backing of Burrus and the Praetorian Guard, Seneca’s position in Nero’s court became very weak and very dangerous. It was time to try harder to get out.