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Finally a charge of conspiracy was fastened upon him, and Nero ordered him to die by his own hand. His wife was determined to go with him, and one stroke severed the veins of both.

The beautiful Sabina realized her hopes–she divorced her husband, and married the Emperor of Rome. She died from a sudden kick given her by the booted foot of her liege.

Three years after the death of Seneca, Nero passed hence by the same route, killing himself to escape the fury of the Pretorian Guard. And so ended the Julian line, none of whom, except the first, was a Julian.

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From the death of Augustus on to the time of Nero there was for Rome a steady tide of disintegration. The Emperor was the head of the Church, and he usually encouraged the idea that he was something different from common men–that his mission was from On High and that he should be worshiped. Gibbon, making a free translation from Seneca, says, “Religion was regarded by the common people as true, by the philosophers as false, and by the rulers as useful.” And Saint Augustine, using the same smoothly polished style, says, in reference to a Roman Senator, “He worshiped what he blamed, he did what he refuted, he adored that with which he found fault.” The sentence is Seneca’s, and when he wrote it he doubtless had himself in mind, for in spite of his Stoic philosophy the life of luxury lured him, and although he sang the praises of poverty he charged a goodly sum for so doing, and the nobles who listened to him doubtless found a vicarious atonement by applauding him as he played to the gallery gods of their self-esteem, like rich ladies who go a-slumming mix in with the poor on an equality, and then hasten home to dress for dinner.

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Seneca was one of the purest and loftiest intellects the world has ever known. Canon Farrar calls him “A Seeker after God,” and has printed parallel passages from Saint Paul and Seneca which, for many, seem to show that the men were in communication with each other. Every ethical maxim of Christianity was expressed by this “noble pagan,” and his influence was always directed toward that which he thought was right. His mistakes were all in the line of infirmities of the will. Voltaire calls him, “The father of all those who wear shovel hats,” and in another place refers to him as an “amateur ascetic,” but in this the author of the Philosophical Dictionary pays Seneca the indirect compliment of regarding him as a Christian. Renan says, “Seneca shines out like a great white star through a rift of clouds on a night of darkness.” The wonder is not that Seneca at times lapsed from his high estate and manifested his Sophist training, but that to the day of his death he saw the truth with unblinking eyes and held the Ideal firmly in his heart.