Cicero wrote De Officiis as advice for his son Marcus. It became one of his most-read works. Seneca wrote On Mercy (De Clementia) for his pupil and sovereign, the teenager, Nero.1 A well-to-do landowner and writer, the elder Seneca left his Spanish estates to be managed by his wife, so that he could supervise the education of their three sons in Rome. One of the most important aspects of Seneca’s education would turn out to be how to conduct himself at the imperial court. The role of tutor to the emperor depended entirely on the favor of the little circle and upon the prince, in this case his mother, who placed Seneca at her son’s side. Thanks to this opportunity of a lifetime, Seneca taught and wrote his work, a mirror of princes, in the presence of the prince.
On Mercy lays out not only the principal themes of Stoic thought, but also Seneca’s particular version of it.2 The writing is clear, concise, and eloquent. Specialists may find reefs and barriers of philosophy in it; but for the non-specialist reader, the advice is direct and sometimes provides exceptionally violent examples of human action.
Seneca supported his pupil’s decision to have his mother murdered, which at the least was unkind, since he owed her his post, and eventually his wealth. After the death of Burrus, another key figure in the little circle around Nero, and as his successor (a Sicilian) was gaining increased favor with Nero, Seneca withdrew. Tigellinus permitted the more dubious aspects of Nero’s personality to develop, and it would not be very long before Seneca received an order from his former pupil to commit suicide, which he did in 65.3 With his wife objecting, despite his unsuccessful efforts to convince her otherwise, Seneca died a Stoic. His wife survived.
Seneca addresses his pupil about what he asserts to be one of the greatest of all virtues for a prince: mercy (clementia), which is especially appropriate because of the divine origins of his power.
Love for the king and the resultant willingness to sacrifice one’s life. This king-people relation is grounded in reason, part of the Stoic Credo; but can it be inferred that tyrannical governance is the absence of reason? Seneca does not emphatically say so. “The king is the mind of the commonwealth.”5 The mercy he bestows is ontological. Being merciful increases the king’s freedom of action, just as pursuing what is equitable and good does. A king is not so much above the law, though he is that, as he is bound to the mortal that it contains. This coheres with the Oriental ideal of kingship.6 With divine status, the princeps could overrule laws or make new laws, irrespective of whether those laws were consistent with already accepted law.7There is reason behind this unanimity of peoples and cities in their protection and love of kings, in their sacrifice of themselves and their own, whenever the safety of their Commander [the king] requires it.4
Kings have all the characteristics of other human beings—the virtues and the vices—but they are more intense and commanding, as absolute power builds and exaggerates whatever action they take. Kings should cultivate an image of, and a reality of, disinterestedness. So much attention falls on them, and so much is expected of them, that being king is a “noble servitude.”8 If the subject is willing to lose his life to defend the king (and the kingdom), the king is likewise willing to lose his life in a common military action. But what happens if an individual or group refuses to accept the king’s rule? There may be a plot to kill him.
Writing from the heart for his teenage pupil, Seneca remains within the power arrangements, that is, a constitution mined by Caesar; but the Senate and the city of Rome live in an ambiguous regime that, in the mirror—and ideally—is the opposite of tyranny.10True mercy, Caesar, is what you have shown. It is something that starts with remorse or savagery—it means never having shed a citizen’s blood, it means supreme power exercised with the truest self-control, an embracing love for the human race as though for oneself, it means not being corrupted by greed or natural impetuosity or examples set by earlier princes into testing how far one can go against one’s fellow citizens; it means blunting the edge of one’s imperial power. You have given us, Caesar, a state unstained by blood.9
Fond of paradox, Seneca notes with evident satisfaction that though Dionysius I of Syracuse came to be known as a tyrant, there were princes—kings—who were far more tyrannical than he was, but who were never called tyrants. “A tyrant’s savagery comes from the heart,” but there are cases where the meanings of the words no longer signify, or never signified, the type of political regime being considered here. The tyrannical conduct of Lucius Sulla is brought up: he was a dictator who killed until he ran out of enemies, but he was not called a tyrant.11
Tyrants, it seems were typically given that title, if it can be called a title, by the populations of citizens or subjects who had been exploited rather than governed. Were not tyrants called that by a frightened public, perhaps in secret! The Syracusans referred to Dionysius as a tyrant, initially owing to his usurpation, but later as a legitimate choice. They were deceived.
When Seneca points out the disjuncture between a regime and the word used to describe it, he is raising doubts about a publicly developed political language. The point becomes stronger when Sulla’s violence is mentioned, because it occurred as part of an attempt to restore the Roman Republic. True, Aristotle had used the word “tyrant” to characterize Pisistratus, but if he did so it was because, by holding power for so long, there was a period of tyranny and a period of non-tyranny.12 Here is where the context, rather than what is stated, becomes crucial for interpretation: Aristotle sought to create a typology of the various forms of government and their perversions. In the case of Seneca, doubt is left in the reader’s mind, not only about the meaning of the word “tyranny,” but about language in general. Master rhetorician that he was, Seneca’s account of Sulla’s violent regime follows right after the account of Augustus’s pardoning of crime—a success story of bringing over a former republican to a relation of fidelity between the pardoner and the pardoned. The parallels become very strong as a result of the choices made by prominent historical individuals in Roman history.
Seneca delights in his parallel. Indeed, he cannot quite leave it. He argues that once again it is mercy (pardon) that characterizes kingship: a king who has an army is a bulwark for peace, while the tyrant’s army exists in order to repress hatred with fear.13
In the general context of Stoic philosophy, with its emphasis on self-control, self-knowledge, and serenity, via the solemn invocation of reason, emotion, in this case fear, is to be measured and balanced by comprehending its causes, while always seeking greater poise and balance.
Contradictory motives drive him into self-contradiction. He is hated because he is feared, and being hated makes him want to be feared. He invokes that accursed verse which has sent many to their ruin. Let them hate, provided that they fear, in ignorance of the fear which arises when hatred grows beyond measure.14
In general, Seneca does not describe the public or the social-familial. His thought centers on the individual. There is little attention to how holding an office can change an individual’s outlook and action. True, he makes statements about collective actions: “They will trample down what scares them.”
In moderation, fear does not inhibit the mind. But if it is continuous and intense, and if it threatens death, it arouses even the sluggish to boldness, inducing them to try anything: “Courage is at its keenest when forged by the threat of death.”15
The king has guards who will die to protect him; the tyrant has lackeys who resent him and who are “fierce and bloodthirsty.” Those who work the instruments of torture are not loyal to him. Nor can the tyrant change his ways: cruelty leads to more cruelty; the only protection against crime is more crime. The loyalty of his friends and children is in doubt: “Often fearing, yet more often longing for death, he is more hateful to himself than to those who are his slaves.”16
With this reduction of all aspects of good, princely governance to mercy, and all tyrannical, violent, inhumane actions (not governance) being derived from fear, Seneca presents historical parallels: Augustus/Cinna/mercy/Sulla/violence and murder/tyranny. He strove to teach Nero an analytical frame that would enable him to characterize the individual and the political.