La morale de Sénèque : la vie heureuse, les bienfaits, la colère et la clémence

no man so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals. One servant kills his master; another saves him, nay, preserves his master’s life, perhaps, with the loss of his own: he exposes himself to torment and death; he stands firm against all threats and batteries: which is not only a benefit in a servant, but much the greater for his being so. When Domitius was besieged in Corfinium, and the place brought to great extremity, he pressed his servant so earnestly to poison him, that at last he was prevailed upon to give him a potion; which, it seems, was an innocent opiate, and Domitius outlived it: Cæsar took the town, and gave Domitius his life, but it was his servant that gave it him first. There was another town besieged, and when it was upon the last pinch, two servants made their escape, and went over to the enemy: upon the Romans entering the town, and in the heat of the soldiers’ fury, these two fellows ran directly home, took their mistress out of her house, and drove her before them, telling every body how barbarously she had used them formerly, and that they would now have their revenge; when they had her without the gates, they kept her close till the danger was over; by which means they gave their mistress her life, and she gave them their freedom. This was not the action of a servile mind, to do so glorious a thing, under an appearance of so great a villainy; for if they had not passed for deserters and parricides, they could not have gained their end. With one instance more (and that a very brave one) I shall conclude this chapter. In the civil wars of Rome, a party coming to search for a person of quality that was proscribed, a servant put on his master’s clothes, and delivered himself up to the soldiers as the master of the house; he was taken into custody, and put to death, without discovering the mistake.…