Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero

by James Romm

In 55 or (more likely) 56, Seneca attained the highest constitutional office in the Roman state, that of consul. The post carried less power than his unofficial role as amicus principis, friend of the princeps, but it was a towering achievement nonetheless. Seneca’s elder brother Gallio, returned to Rome from his proconsular post in Greece, attained the same honor at about the same time. The two boys from Corduba, provincials born into the equestrian class, sons of a crusty rhetorician who had never made it to the Senate, had come far indeed—a mark of what the emperor’s favor might bring, in Rome’s winner-take-all political system. High office was not the only way Seneca’s fortunes had changed. During the six or seven years since his return from Corsica, he had gotten rich.