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.

* * * * *

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.

* * * * *

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