The tutor of young Domitius, afterwards the Emperor Nero, by whom he was
condemned and sentenced to self-destruction---probably that Nero might
secure his great possessions. Seneca underwent his punishment with great
firmness and philosophic calm. He was a writer of many works, and
Quintilian says that he corrupted the taste of his age by an affected
though elegant style. Many of his epistles and moral and physical
treatises are extant. His philosophy was Stoical, with modifications;
his manner of writing is antithetical, and apparently laboured. He
rejected the superstitions of his country, and was a monotheist.
[From the marble in the Berlin Museum. In the Florence collection
there are three Busts of him. The portrait of Seneca was identified as
early as the sixteenth century by a medallion engraved with his name,
possessed by Cardinal Mattei. A Bust in bronze was found at
Herculaneum.]
122*. LIVY--TITUS LIVIUS. _Roman Historian._
[Born at Petavium (Padua), B.C. 59. Died A.D. 17. Aged 76.]
Little is known of the life of this famous historian, save that he
enjoyed the patronage and friendship of Augustus, and established a wide
and instantaneous fame in his own time. The great and only extant work
of Livy is his History of Rome. It originally consisted of 142 books: 35
only have come down to us--of the remainder we have merely short
summaries. Livy is an admirable weaver together, without sifting
criticism, of received records and traditions. His reader glides on the
stream of his flowing narration. His style is lucid, animated,
picturesque. But in the annals of the warlike republic--that setter up
and putter down of kings--that mistress of the nations--we look for and
desire, more stern and majestic strength;--a profounder disclosure of
the heroic political wisdom, which steadily advanced in building up the
most memorable empire in the world.
[Bust yet to come.]
(_Leaving the Court of Roman Generals, we proceed to the Nave. The
numbers of the Portrait Gallery continue into the Nave from left to
right_.)