“Whoe’er thou art,—­thy name shall I repeat?—­
      Who o’er mine ashes dar’st to press thy feet,
      And, uncontented with a fall so dread,
      Draw’st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head,
      Beware! for nature, pitying, guards the tomb,
      And ghosts avenge th’ invaders of their gloom,
      Hear, Envy, hear the gods proclaim a truth,
      Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth,
      WRETCHES ARE SACRED THINGS,—­thy hands refrain: 
      E’en sacrilegious hands from TOMBS abstain.”

The one fact that seems to have haunted him most was that his abode in Corsica was a living death.

But the most complete picture of his state of mind, and the most melancholy memorial of his inconsistency as a philosopher, is to be found in his “Consolation to Polybius.”  Polybius was one of those freedmen of the Emperor whose bloated wealth and servile insolence were one of the darkest and strangest phenomena of the time.  Claudius, more than any of his class, from the peculiar imbecility of his character, was under the powerful influence of this class of men; and so dangerous was their power that Messalina herself was forced to win her ascendency over her husband’s mind by making these men her supporters, and cultivating their favour.  Such were “the most excellent Felix,” the judge of St. Paul, and the slave who became a husband to three queens,—­Narcissus, in whose household (which moved the envy of the Emperor) were some of those Christians to whom St. Paul sends greetings from the Christians of Corinth,[31]—­Pallas, who never deigned to speak to his own slaves, but gave all his commands by signs, and who actually condescended to receive the thanks of the Senate, because he, the descendant of Etruscan kings, yet condescended to serve the Emperor and the Commonwealth; a preposterous and outrageous compliment, which appears to have been solely due to the fact of his name being identical with that of Virgil’s young hero, the son of the mythic Evander!

[Footnote 31:  Rom. xvi. 11.]

Among this unworthy crew a certain Polybius was not the least conspicuous.  He was the director of the Emperor’s studies,—­a worthy Alcuin to such a Charlemagne.  All that we know about him is that he was once the favourite of Messalina, and afterwards her victim, and that in the day of his eminence the favour of the Emperor placed him so high that he was often seen walking between the two consuls.  Such was the man to whom, on the occasion of his brother’s death, Seneca addressed this treatise of consolation.  It has come down to us as a fragment, and it would have been well for Seneca’s fame if it had not come down to us at all.  Those who are enthusiastic for his reputation would gladly prove it spurious, but we believe that no candid reader can study it without perceiving its genuineness.  It is very improbable that he ever intended it to be published, and whoever suffered it to see the light was the successful enemy of its illustrious author.