Seneca: Death

The Death of a Stoic

After the death of Burrus in the year 62, Seneca found his level of power dropping even more. He therefore asked for an interview with Nero, to whom he expressed his wish to finally retire. Nero, disguising his hatred for the old man, consented, and Seneca spent the next three years of his life as a private citizen with his wife Paulina, finishing up his writings and other works. With the arrival of the year 65, however, a plot to replace Nero involving a man known as Piso was formulated. When Seneca's name was given to the Emperor as a possible conspirator, Nero jumped at the chance to finally put his former tutor out of the way for good.

A centurion was sent to the old man's house with his sentence of death: Seneca was to commit suicide immediately. Tacitus later, in his Annals of Rome, wrote of this event in great detail. After being denied the privilege of writing a will, he was forced to cut open the arteries in his wrists, legs, and knees, and let the blood flow out slowly. His wife attempted to join him in his fate, but she was forbidden to do so by Nero, who wished to preserve some of his public favor (Paulina lived for several years after the death of her husband). Eventually, to speed the process of death, he drank a small bottle of poison; this, however, was ineffective due to the state of his body. Throughout all of this, he remained calm and indifferent, meeting death as he wrote of in his philosophical writings. Finally, he had his body carried to a steam bath, where he was suffocated, ultimately ending the tedious act of suicide. His body was later incinerated without the usual funeral rites, and Nero went on to live for three more years, dying a violent death in the year 68.

Ruth T., 03'