Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Seneca: His Character and Environment
days of the Republic. Julius and Augustus Caisar
were men of depraved appetites and low morals. Their
talents as military captains and administrators, their
patronage of letters, and their tastes as literary men,
have somewhat put their moral delinquencies into the
background. There is no doubt that the example of
these and such men, accelerated the evil propensities
to which the Roman people were only too prone.
When the lowest depth of moral degradation was
reached, as in the declining years of Seneca, crime
and debauchery held high carnival in the imperial
household. There was no wickedness so flagrant, no
species of immorality so bestial, no deed so horrible,
that men shrank from it. For, had they not more
than once the example of the prince
himself? It is
sometimes charitably said that Nero was insane.
There are men who think it too degrading to human
nature to hold it
responsible
for his crimes and in
decencies. Yet Nero s excesses were the natural
results of unlimited power in irresponsible bands,
when the hands were servants of a heart that was
thoroughly corrupt, and a character that was weak,
and vain as it was weak. The same things have often
been repeated within the last eighteen hundred years;
but never was vice so rampant and so unblushing, on
such a large scale, as it was in Rome in the days of
Seneca.
We must not believe, however, that there was no
decency, no regard for morality, no love of culture, to
be found in the Roman empire even in its worst
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