eca, yet
there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation
before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at
all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability;
that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him
guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation
of his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for
literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some
powerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I.
remitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on
Francis Bacon.

Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate
furnish the slightest valid proofs against him. The Senate at this time
were so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word
of accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make
them fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot
with their iron pens. As for poor Claudius, his administration of
justice, patient and laborious as it was, had already grown into a
public joke. On one occasion he wrote down and delivered the wise
decision, "that he agreed with the side which had set forth the truth."
On another occasion, a common Greek whose suit came before him grew so
impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, "You are an old fool."
We are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a
good deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one
occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial
smile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. "At you,"
said the man, "you look such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck
with the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A
Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing
Claudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidence
against him, indignantly abused him for his cruel stupidity, and flung
his pen and tablets in his face so violently as to cut his cheek. In
fact, the Emperor's singular absence of mind gave rise to endless
anecdotes. Among other things, when some condemned criminals were to
fight as gladiators, and addressed him before the games in the sublime
formula--"Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!" ("Hail, Caesar! doomed
to die, we salute thee!") he gave the singularly inappropriate answer,
"Avete vo