y himself. When the messenger arrived with this mandate, Seneca
was sitting at table, with his wife Paulina and two of his friends. He
heard the message not only with philosophical firmness, but even with
symptoms of joy, and observed, that such an honour might long have been
expected from a man who had assassinated all his friends, and even
murdered his own mother. The only request which he made, was, that he
might be permitted to dispose of his possessions as he pleased; but this
was refused him. Immediately turning himself to his friends, who were
weeping at his melancholy fate, he said to them, that, since he could not
leave them what he considered as his own property, he should leave at
least his own life for an example; an innocence of conduct which they
might imitate, and by which they might acquire immortal fame. He
remonstrated with composure against their unavailing tears and (388)
lamentations, and asked them, whether they had not learnt better to
sustain the shocks of fortune, and the violence of tyranny?

The emotions of his wife he endeavoured to allay with philosophical
consolation; and when she expressed a resolution to die with him, he
said, that he was glad to find his example imitated with so much
fortitude. The veins of both were opened at the same time; but Nero's
command extending only to Seneca, the life of Paulina was preserved; and,
according to some authors, she was not displeased at being prevented from
carrying her precipitate resolution into effect. Seneca's veins bleeding
but slowly, an opportunity was offered him of displaying in his last
moments a philosophical magnanimity similar to that of Socrates; and it
appears that his conversation during this solemn period was maintained
with dignified composure. To accelerate his lingering fate, he drank a
dose of poison; but this producing no effect, he ordered his attendants
to carry him into a warm bath, for the purpose of rendering the
haemorrhage from his veins more copious. This expedient proving likewise
ineffectual, and the soldiers who witnessed the execution of the
emperor's order being clamorous for its accomplishment, he was removed
into a stove, and suffocated by the steam. He underwent his fate on the
12th of April, in the sixty-fifth year of the Christian aera, and the
fifty-third year of his age. His body was burnt, and his ashes deposited
in a private manner, according to his will, which had been made during
the period w