Nero, they urged was a boy no longer; let him get rid of his schoolmaster, and find sufficient instruction in the example of his ancestors.
Foreseeing how such arguments must end; Seneca requested an interview with Nero; begged to be suffered to retire altogether from public life; pleaded age and increasing infirmities as an excuse for desiring a calm retreat; and offered unconditionally to resign the wealth and honours which had excited the cupidity of his enemies, but which were simply due to Nero's unexampled liberality during the eight years of his government, towards one whom he had regarded as a benefactor and a friend.

But Nero did not choose to let Seneca escape so lightly.

He argued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to accept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for generosity.

A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under deceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and assurances of friendship.

Seneca thanked him--the usual termination, as Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler--but nevertheless altered his entire manner of life, forbade his friends to throng to his levees, avoided all companions, and rarely appeared in public--wishing it to be believed that he was suffering from weak health, or was wholly occupied in the pursuit of philosophy.