Then in A.D. 65 came the disastrous conspiracy against the emperor by Piso and others, quite possibly including Seneca. There was a report of a sub-conspiracy to kill Piso as well and make Seneca emperor – ‘being a man who seemed to be marked out for supreme power by the good qualities for which he was so famous’.27 Many people lost their lives on the discovery of the plot. Seneca, like many others, was asked to commit suicide, the then prevailing method of imperial execution. Tacitus’ description of his death is not quickly forgotten.28 His brothers and Lucan followed him, all by their own
...more
