194
CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
it could be so easily dissolved. Men generally lived in
concubinage with, their female slaves; and their children
were the offspring of such connexions, for which reason
they are called in inscriptions lιbeτti. The celebrated lex Julia
and the lex Papia Poppaea, though necessary measures, were of
little avail; for the state of morality among free women was
still so dissolute, that an honest man generally found a more
faithful friend and companion in his female slave than in a
Roman lady of rank, and therefore considered it as a matter of
conscience not to marry. The number of Iibertini and slaves
thus increased to a prodigious extent, and was far greater than
that of free-born persons. In addition to this, there were
hosts of purchased slaves in the houses of the nobles. This,
however, was not the case in the provinces, where the parsi-
monia provinciales still prevailed. Their population consisted of
ingenui ; and they, moreover, received new life and a supple-
mentary population through the military colonies. Such
soldiers, who were otherwise little better than robbers, might
turn out quite honest people when they acquired a home of
their own. The soldiers made the use of the Latin language
more general: and this was a great good; for the languages
of the subject-countries were mere jargon, and the provincials
themselves wished to give them up, whereby their position did
not become worse : their object was, and could be, no other
than to become Romans. The military colonies probably did
not exercise a very demoralising influence upon the provincials,
since we find that the vital energy of the provinces became
gradually restored, even in the midst of their military despots ;
and a governor against whom a charge was brought could not
now purchase his acquittal; at least not under Tiberius, as
had been so frequently the case during the latter period of the
republic.
After the death of Claudius, Kero, then seventeen years old,
ascended the throne; but whether Claudius had appointed
him his successor in his will, or whether he had made any
regulation in favour of Britannicus, is one of those questions
on which we can form conjectures only. Nero was a pupil of
Seneca and Burrus, and we have every reason for believing
that he was a person of great natural talents, especially for
music, art, and mechanics. The history of his reign is so well
known, that to enumerate its events would be only repeating
INFLUENCE OF SENECA AND BURRUS ON NERO. 195
that which is familiar to every one of you; and those who do
not know the history may read it in Tacitus. At first his
reign raised the most happy expectations; but, even then, the
intelligent found it difficult to believe that they would be
realised; they were convinced that the offspring of a viper
must have the nature of a serpent. Nero was the son of
Agrippina, the unworthy daughter of Germanicus, but the
true sister of Caligula. Her husband, Cn. Domitius Aheno-
barbus, was no better than herself; and, after the birth of
Nero, he himself said to his congratulating friends, that his
and Agrippina's offspιing could be nothing but a monster.3
The whole of the Roman world shared this apprehension with
him, and hence the general astonishment of the Romans during
the first years of Nero’s reign, when he conducted himself as
the disciple of Seneca and Burrus. Burrus was a stern man
and of a genuine virtue: he was an able warrior, and Nero
appointed him praefectus praetorio. Seneca, on the other hand,
was an accomplished man of the world, who occupied himself
very much with virtue, and may have considered himself to
be an ancient Stoic. He certainly believed that he was a most
ingenious and virtuous philosopher ; but he acted on the
principle that, as far as he himself was concerned, he might
dispense with the laws of morality which he laid down for
others, and that he might give way to his natural propensities.
The influence of these two men upon Nero produced decided
effects during the first years of his reign. They had to counter-
act the evil influence of the courtezans by whom he was sur-
rounded, no less than that of his mother Agrippina. Burrus
acted from his desire to promote the public good; but Scneca
may have been actuated by his knowledge that he was hated
by Agrippina.
The fair dream of Nero’s amiable character did not last
long. His two guides were very soon got rid of. Things
gradually took a different turn; and the licentiousness in which
he had lived from his earliest youth, the influence of the
beautiful but dissolute Poppaca Sabina, the wife of M. Salvius
Otho, and the far more injurious influence of his mother, pro-
duced the complete degeneracy which we afterwards find in
Nero. When this change began to shew itself, is uncertain.
Burrus and Seneca endeavoured to counteract the evil influences
a Sueton. Nero, 6.
o 2