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. He well knew the arts of courts,
for in his book on Anger he has told an anecdote of one who, being asked
how he had managed to attain so rare a gift as old age in a palace,
replied, "By submitting to injuries, and _returning thanks for them_."
But he must have known that his life hung upon a thread, for in the very
same year an attempt was made to involve him in a charge of treason as
one of the friends of C. Calpurnius Piso, an illustrious nobleman whose
wealth and ability made him an object of jealousy and suspicion, though
he was naturally unambitious and devoid of energy.
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