Let it be his to consider," adds Seneca, with the most dulcet flattery, "in what light he may wish my cause to be regarded; either his justice will find, or his mercy will make, it a good cause.

He will alike be worthy of my gratitude, whether his ultimate conviction of my innocence be due to his knowledge or to his will." This passage enables us to conjecture how matters stood.

The avarice of Messalina was so insatiable that the non-confiscation of Seneca's immense wealth is a proof that, for some reason, her fear or hatred of him was not implacable.

Although it is a remarkable fact that she is barely mentioned, and never once abused, in the writings of Seneca, yet there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability; that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him guilty of high treason, and condemned him to death, and the confiscation of his goods; and that Claudius, perhaps from his own respect for literature, perhaps at the intercession of Agrippina, or of some powerful freedman, remitted part of his sentence, just as King James I.
remitted all the severest portions of the sentence passed on Francis Bacon.
Neither the belief of Claudius nor the condemnation of the Senate furnish the slightest valid proofs against him.

The Senate at this time were so base and so filled with terror, that on one occasion a mere word of accusation from the freedman of an Emperor was sufficient to make them fall upon one of their number and stab him to death upon the spot with their iron pens.