Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero

by James Romm

Emperors felt entitled to any woman they desired, regardless of either party’s marital status. Nero’s passion for Acte was not in itself worrisome. Indeed, it brought relief to many, who had seen Caligula debauch himself with the wives of senators and consuls, humiliating the elite with rape and degradation. The affair with Acte harmed no one—but it sent Agrippina into a rage. She regarded it as a betrayal by her son and a challenge to her authority. “A handmaid for a daughter-in-law!” she exclaimed to her partisans, and demanded of Nero that he end the liaison. “I made you emperor,” she reminded him, implying that she might undo what she had done. Nero had had enough. His mother’s carping and bullying had annoyed him before, so much that he had threatened to abdicate and run off to Rhodes, far from her influence. Now he was ready to risk a true breach, and he turned to his best natural ally, Seneca. Seneca had aided Nero early on in the affair with Acte, directing his close friend Annaeus Serenus, newly appointed as head of Rome’s vigiles (a combined police and fire-fighting corps), to help conceal it. Serenus pretended to be Acte’s lover, passing along Nero’s gifts to the girl as though they came from him. It was a sneaky and passive form of support—given no doubt in hope the affair would soon run its course—but it showed plainly where Seneca’s sympathies lay. If mother and son were going to war, he would side with the son.