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Saturday, June 09, 2018

Qualis Artifex Pereo!

From The Daily Stoic: It would be today, June 9th, in the year 68 AD, when the people of Rome finally had enough. They had seen Nero kill his political rivals, his stepbrother, and his wife. They had even seen him kill his own mother. They endured decades of incompetence and deranged violence and literally watched Rome burn. Seneca had tried to contain it (though he was also complicit in its continuance) until he, too, was killed by Nero.
But on that day, 1,950 years ago, Nero’s time ran out. After a rebellion in one of Rome’s territories, there was so much dissatisfaction within the Senate, the state, and the Praetorian Guard, that Nero was forced to flee. He found himself without friend, without quarter. A new emperor was named. Nero was tried (in absentia) and sentenced to death.
There was a dark karmic justice in this. The Emperor who had forced so many to commit suicide while he was in power (Seneca, Thrasea, Piso, Lucan, and more), now faced the same choice. Except when Nero called upon his friends to deliver a compassionate death with a sword, no one came. Because he had already ruined, killed, or driven them away. “Have I neither friend nor foe?” he cried out. The answer was that he had none of the former, and too many of the latter, to go out with any sort of dignity.
Even in his final moments, Nero was deluded by ego. He paced back and forth saying to himself, Qualis artifex pereo ("What an artist dies in me"), until he eventually demanded his secretary, Epaphroditos, to kill him. Like Seneca and Cato, Nero’s suicide would not come easily. Bystanders attempted to save him, only prolonging the pain and delaying the inevitable. Finally, Nero passed.
What is the lesson of Nero’s death? Well, first, that an undignified and cowardly life almost always presages an undignified and cowardly end. It also reminds us that power built on lies, on evil, on narcissism and delusion will always come crashing down. How long it will take is unknown, but we can take it as a historical law that the Hitlers and the Neros always end up dying painfully, alone, and in a way that exposes their moral bankruptcy one last undeniable time.
Needless to say this is a life and a death that a Stoic attempts to learn from—to learn what not to do. Because it was not only toxic and unbearable to the man who lived it, but it sucked in and stained the lives of nearly everyone around him, including Seneca.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

This better not be about President Trump. He is saving America. The liberal nonsense is insane.

Bernie O'Hare said...

This has nothing to do with Trump. It is not “liberal nonsense,” but history as editorialized by a stoic. I am amazed that you would yourself debase Trump this way.

Bernie O'Hare said...

The adminishment in this story is intended as a lesson for us all.

Anonymous said...

When I was a kid, I was paid five bucks to be a pallbearer at a funeral for an old bastard who outlived his entire family and was always nasty as boil to everyone around him. He left a house and lots of money to another bastard who'd swooped in to "take care" of him toward the end. He died lonely and miserable, having been taken advantage of by one of the legions of people who learned to despise him throughout his life. Good post.

Bernie O'Hare said...

I am deleting any and all off-topic comments.this is not about Leslie Altieri or the “deep state” or Donald Trump

Anonymous said...

7.15 It seems someone thinks bernie doesnt have any friends.

Anonymous said...

Nice piece Bernie.

Kevin F. Danyi said...

Interesting post, Bernie: I don't see this kind of thing very often. I'm more familiar with Republican Rome than I am with the Julio-Claudians, although Nero was a Domitius Ahenobarbus and that name goes back to Sulla's time, if not further back. Some of the Ahenobarbii were known for their ferocity and cruelty (by Roman standards, too). I think it was his great-grandfather who was one of the boni party who opposed Julius Caesar's proposed reforms.

Bernie O'Hare said...

Kevin, Lucius Cornelius Sulla is one of my favorites. He and Scipio Africannus are perhaps two of history’s most under-rated generals, with the latter being the person responsible for defeating Hannibal. Sulla, as I suspect you know, had Julius Caesar in his claws and let him go.

Anonymous said...

Bernie 8:05 is way OT! Thank you

Anonymous said...

Some people get good conduct awards, others don't.

Anonymous said...

Quo Warranto!

Anonymous said...

You hate Trump, we got that, like, so long ago ...

Canary_In_Coalmine said...

Nice post Bernie.