fabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar and ivory, they were
rarely spread with any more sumptuous entertainment than water,
vegetables, and fruit. Whatever may have been the amusements common
among his wealthy and noble contemporaries, we know that he found his
highest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of his garden, and took some
of his exercise by running races there with a little slave.



CHAPTER III.

THE STATE OF ROMAN SOCIETY.

We have gleaned from Seneca's own writings what facts we could
respecting his early education. But in the life of every man there are
influences of a far more real and penetrating character than those which
come through the medium of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age;
the general tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social intercourse,
the political tendencies which were moulding the destiny of the
nation,--these must have told, more insensibly indeed but more
powerfully, on the mind of Seneca than even the lectures of Sotion and
of Attalus. And, if we have had reason to fear that there was much which
was hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the general
aspect of the society by which our young philosopher was surrounded from
the cradle was yet more injurious and deplorable.

The darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never did a grosser
darkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence brood over the surface of
Pagan society than at the period when the Sun of Righteousness arose
with healing in His wings. There have been many ages when the dense