But as Seneca retells the story, Cato's death is not only an example but an illustration of the need for examples. Cato required two things in order to kill himself. One was a sword; the other, a book: Plato's Phaedo. Without the example of Socrates ready to hand, Seneca suggests, Cato could not have performed that heroic suicide. 'In desperate circum- stances he had provided himself with these two weapons: one, to make him willing to die; the other, to make him able to do so.' Without the death of Socrates, Cato could not have found the courage to die.
THREE WAYS TO IMITATE SOCRATES
The caustic Roman historian Tacitus (ad 55-120) describes a series of three forced suicides under Nero, including that of Seneca himself. Tacitus presents these deaths as three differ- ent ways in which a Roman might try to die like Socrates. But he seems to challenge Seneca's claim about the usefulness of the Socratic example. For him, the man who tries hardest to die like Socrates - Seneca himself - is also the man whose death is most tainted by self-consciousness and egotism. Posing as Socrates makes the dying Seneca absurd. Theatre becomes a substitute for true courage.
Nero ordered Seneca to commit suicide in ad 65. Plato insists that Socrates did not commit suicide. But the distinc- tion between self-administered execution and suicide under political duress can be hard to maintain.
In Tacitus' narrative (Annals book 4), when the philoso- pher receives the order he turns to his friends and tells them that only one service remains to them, the most beautiful one of alclass="underline" to bear witness to the image of his life. Thereafter, Tacitus' Seneca seems concerned above all to make the image of his death resemble that of Socrates as closely as possible. Like Socrates, Seneca reproaches his friends when they express grief - though not because the soul is immortal, but because wise men should always show equanimity. He asks, 'Where were those precepts of wisdom, where was the rational attitude against disaster, which they had meditated for so many years?'
He begins to say farewell to his wife, telling her to restrain her grief. But here the Socratic model breaks down, for Seneca's wife, unlike Xanthippe, insists on committing suicide along with Seneca. She is permitted to share in his experience, though she is later rescued from death. This is one way in which the scene is a Romanised version of the death of Socrates: the Romans idealised marriage far more than the Athenians had done.
Seneca and his wife slit their arms with a single cut. But Seneca, being old and feeble as a result of his abstinent way of life, cannot let out enough blood. He slits the veins of his legs and knees also. Being a thoughtful husband, he asks his wife to leave the room, so she will be spared the sight of his sufferings. He remains in full possession of his rhetori- cal skills and summons secretaries to write down his words. Tacitus remarks drily, 'Since the long discourse he delivered has been published, I spare myself the trouble of writing it down.' The historian need not waste time rewriting the Phaedo on behalf of a man who was egotistical enough to dictate his own last words. Tacitus skips over Seneca's final discourses entirely - and leads his readers to believe that they were mere rhetorical posturing.
Seneca's death is an extraordinary combination of almost all possible methods of suicide: wounding and bleeding, poison, suffocation, drowning and finally cremation. Seneca orders a cup of hemlock, because the blood-letting is taking so long - the very same drink, as Tacitus remarks, which the Athenians used to give for public executions. But even hemlock will not work for the Roman philosopher: his limbs are too cold to be affected by the poison. Finally he gets into a hot bath and, as he does so, sprinkles a libation on the nearest slaves, for Jupiter the Liberator. He suffocates in the steam and then his body is burned. In making Seneca die by as many different means as possible, Tacitus seems to cast a satirical eye on the whole notion that philosophy is learn- ing how to die. The philosopher has clearly not learned his lesson very welclass="underline" he is singularly bad at dying, much worse than most people. It is as if trying to learn about death from Socrates has made Seneca all but incapable of experiencing death for himself. The academic study of the subject has des- iccated his body until it has no blood left to spill.
Rubens's painting of the death of Seneca, which was based on a (wrongly identified) ancient sculpture, shows us a hugely muscular, solid-limbed man, standing in a copper basin. His pose echoes the iconography of Jesus' baptism. Seneca's upward gaze seems to look towards an invisible dove. Tacitus tells us that Seneca was too old and shrivelled to let the blood flow from his wrists. Rubens shows us a
7. The Stoic philosopher Seneca modelled his own forced suicide on that of Socrates. He drank hemlock before slitting his wrists in the bath. This splendid painting by Rubens was based on an ancient sculpture of a fisherman, once thought to be Seneca. To our hero's left, a secretary writes down the great man's final words.
Seneca who is almost too vigorous to die; his legs are strong enough to leap straight from the bath to the next life. Rubens restores some of the dignity that Tacitus tries to remove from the dying Seneca.
Tacitus sets the death of Seneca against those of other people forced to die under Nero. The strongest contrast is with the death of Petronius, author of the raucous satiri- cal comic novel the Satyricon. Tacitus presents Petronius as a hedonist and a wastrel who enjoys extravagant pleasures and takes nothing seriously. He is the opposite of a serious- minded philosopher. Tacitus notes explicitly that immedi- ately before he takes the poison, Petronius talks with his friends, but not - like Socrates - about the 'immortality of the soul' (nihil de immortalitate animae), but instead he enjoys light songs and frivolous poetry. This is an anti-Socratic death. However, Petronius shows no less courage than Seneca, or indeed Socrates. He makes little of his own demise - in sharp contrast to Seneca's willingness to make himself a spectacle for the admiration of his followers. Petronius sits at table and drowses as the poison takes hold: his death looks like an eternal after-dinner nap.
A final forced suicide is significantly different from those Neronian deaths that preceded it. Thrasea, another Stoic philosopher, is condemned to death by the Senate. When he hears the news, he just happens to be debating 'the nature of the soul and the divorce of spirit and body' with another philosopher. In contrast to Seneca, Thrasea does not have to stage-manage his own death; he is already behaving in the approved manner for a dying philosopher.
However, the nod to the death of Socrates is followed by several details suggesting that Thrasea, the Roman Stoic martyr, is superior to the Athenian Socrates. He is far more solicitous of his family's welfare than Socrates had been. He urges his friends not to risk their lives by associating with a condemned man. Thrasea tells his wife to stay alive and take care of their child - trumping Seneca, who was willing to allow his wife to die by his side. Socrates was made happy by the thought of his own immortality; the dying Thrasea is happy because his friends and family will outlive him. On his request, two friends cut the arteries in each of his arms. His death is bloody and excruciatingly painful - in contrast to the easy end of Socrates.
Thrasea's refusal to limit himself to the Socratic model makes his death far more admirable, in Tacitus' eyes, than that of Seneca. Thrasea is patriotic where Socrates was cosmopolitan. Socrates wanted to pour a libation with the hemlock; Thrasea uses his own blood as a libation to Jupiter the Liberator. Socrates gave thanks for his own safe delivery to Asclepius; Thrasea calls on a god who can aid and liber- ate the entire city. Socrates submitted to the judgement of his city and died a death without pain. Thrasea, more nobly from a Roman perspective, gives his blood in agony that his city may be free.