[Sidenote:  A.D. 58 (a.u. 811)] [Sidenote:—­10—­] Subsequent to this, oratorical contests took place, and as a result even of these numbers were exiled and put to death.—­Seneca also was held to account, one of the charges against him being that he was intimate with Agrippina. [It had not been enough for him to debauch Julia, nor had he become better as a result of exile, but he went on to make advances to such a woman as Agrippina, with such a son.] Not only in this instance but in others he was convicted of doing precisely the opposite of what he taught in his philosophical doctrines.  He brought accusations against tyranny, yet he made himself a teacher of tyrants:  he denounced such of his associates as were powerful, yet he did not hold aloof from the palace himself:  he had nothing good to say of flatterers, yet he had so fawned upon Messalina and Claudius’s freedmen [that he had sent them from the island a book containing eulogies upon them; this latter caused him such mortification that he erased the passage.] While finding fault with the rich, he himself possessed a property of seven thousand five hundred myriads; and though he censured the extravagances of others, he kept five hundred three-legged tables of cedar wood, every one of them with identical ivory feet, and he gave banquets on them.  In mentioning these details I have at least given a hint of their inevitable adjuncts,—­the licentiousness in which he indulged at the very time that he made a most brilliant marriage, and the delight that he took in boys past their prime (a practice which he also taught Nero to follow).  Nevertheless, his austerity of life had earlier been so severe that he had asked his pupil neither to kiss him nor to eat at the same table with him. [For the latter request he had a good reason, namely, that Nero’s absence would enable him to conduct his philosophical studies at leisure without being hindered by the young man’s dinners.  But as for the kiss, I can not conceive how that tradition came about.  The only explanation which one could imagine, namely, his unwillingness to kiss that sort of mouth, is proved to be false by the facts concerning his favorites.  For this and for his adultery some complaints were lodged against him, but at this time he was himself released without formal accusations and succeeded in begging off Pallas and Burrus.  Later on he did not come out so well.]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 59 (a.u. 811)] [Sidenote:—­11—­] There was a certain Marcus Salvius Otho, who through similarity of character and sharing in wrongdoing had become so intimate with Nero that he was not even punished for saying one day to the latter:  “Then I hope you may see me Caesar.”  All that came of it was the response:  “I sha’n’t see you even consul.”  It was to him that the emperor gave Sabina, of patrician family, after separating her from her husband, and they both enjoyed her together.  Agrippina, therefore, fearing that Nero would marry the woman (for he was now beginning