Had he taken a leading part--had he been one of those who, like Chaereas, opposed the election of Claudius as being merely the substitution of an imbecile for a lunatic,--or who, like Sabinus, refused to survive the accession of another Caesar,--we should perhaps have heard of it; and we must therefore assume either that he was still absent from Rome in the retirement into which he had been driven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with quietly watching the course of events.

It will be observed that his biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted in most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on isolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest shade long and important periods of his history.

Nor are his letters and other writings full of those political and personal allusions which convert them into an autobiography.

They are, without exception, occupied exclusively with philosophical questions, or else they only refer to such personal reminiscences as may best be converted into the text for some Stoical paradox or moral declamation.

It is, however, certain from the sequel that Seneca must have seized the opportunity of Caius's death to emerge from his politic obscurity, and to occupy a conspicuous and brilliant position in the imperial court.
It would have been well for his own happiness and fame if he had adopted the wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doctrines he professed.
A court at most periods is, as the poet says, "A golden but a fatal circle, Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils In crystal forms sit tempting Innocence, And beckon early Virtue from its centre;" but the court of a Caius, of a Claudius, or of a Nero, was indeed a place wherein few of the wise could find a footing, and still fewer of the good.