Sibi vivere:  The Abdication of Responsibility Under Empire

Erin Taylor (Indiana University, Bloomington)

In his works, Seneca the Younger gives us two characters who at first seem significantly different.  Hippolytus, in his Phaedra, rants about the luxurious corruption found within cities, saying that the best kind of man mille non quaerit tegi / dives columnis nec trabes multo insolens suffigit auro (496-98).  In his efforts to be pure, he spends his time in the countryside. 

Praise of simple rural life is certainly a topos within Roman literature, but Seneca gives us another perspective when he describes a real person, Servilius Vatia, in Epistulae Morales 55.  Vatia too has escaped to the countryside, but he has brought his luxury with him, building a villa which overlooks the resort town of Baiae. 

Hippolytus and Vatia, however, have more in common than their location.  Both of them have fled the city, and by doing so have fled political and social responsibilities.  Echoes of this nonparticipatory attitude are not only found in Seneca, but in other writers of the post-Augustan empire as well.  The character of Trimalchio in Petronius’ Satyricon refuses to take part in the civil service positions open to a freedman, and is so proud of that fact that he wants it carved on his tombstone.  In addition, Tacitus and Suetonius portray emperors who neglect their imperial duties, Tiberius in his outright reluctance to take firm command, and Nero in his financial extravagance.  While these emperors cannot withdraw from public in the same way as Vatia and Hippolytus, they shun and misuse the authority their position brings them.  

In this paper, I will contend that an examination of these authors in concert reveals an underlying concern for the ethics of social responsibility in the Empire.  The worst waste of all is not the conspicuous consumption of Trimalchio and Nero, but the fact that all of these men prefer to live for their own benefit instead of using for the benefit of the state the financial, political, and social authorities available to them.