"O _Piso_ thinke,
Thinke on that day when in the _Parthian_ fields
Thou cryedst to th'flying Legions to turne
And looke Death in the face; he was not grim,
But faire and lovely when he came in armes."

The character of Piso, for whom Tacitus shows such undisguised contempt,
is drawn with kindliness and sympathy. Seneca, too, who meets with
grudging praise from the stern historian, stands out ennobled in the
play. His bearing in the presence of death is admirably dignified; and
the polite philosopher, whose words were so faultless and whose deeds
were so faulty, could hardly have improved upon the chaste diction of
the farewell address assigned him by the playwright.

While Seneca's grave wise words are still ringing in our ears we are
called to watch a leave-taking of a different kind. No reader of the
_Annals_ can ever forget the strange description of the end of
Petronius;--how the man whose whole life had "gone, like a revel, by"
neither faltered, when he heard his doom pronounced, nor changed a whit
his wonted gaiety; but dying, as he had lived, in abandoned luxury, sent
under seal to the emperor, in lieu of flatteries, the unblushing record
of their common vices. The obscure playwright is no less impressive than
the world-renowned historian. While Antonius and Enanthe are picturing
to themselves the consternation into which Petronius will be thrown by
the emperor's edict, the object of their commiseration presents himself.
Briefly dismissing the centurion, he turns with kindling cheek to his
scared mistress--"Come, let us drink and dash the posts with wine!"
Then he discourses on the blessings of death; he begins in a
semi-ironical vein, but soon, forgetful of his auditors, is borne away
on the wings of ecstacy. The intense realism of the writing is