Seneca was also in mind of his wife, Pompeia Paulina, whose life in exile—if that was to be her fate—would be much harder without him. “Her spiritus depends on mine,” he had written in one of the Letters, using the Latin word for the breath of life. “The spiritus must be called back as it flees—though in torment—out of reverence for our dear ones, and held on the tip of our lips. For a good man must live not as long as he wants, but as long as he ought.” Those words might have recurred to him as he sat with Paulina, a woman who had never offended Nero but, if familiar patterns prevailed, would
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