But with time, as Nero grew vain and disillusioned, Seneca was unable to hold sway over the emperor, and between Nero's mother, Agrippina and Nero's father, how long could the young Nero have been contained?ĭying Every Day is a portrait of Seneca's moral struggle in the midst of madness and excess. We see how Seneca was able to control his young student, how, under Seneca's influence, Nero ruled with intelligence and moderation, banned capital punishment, reduced taxes, gave slaves the right to file complaints against their owners, pardoned prisoners arrested for sedition. Romm writes that Seneca watched over Nero as teacher, moral guide, and surrogate father, and, at seventeen, when Nero abruptly ascended to become emperor of Rome, Seneca became, with Nero, the ruler of the Roman Empire. Shapiro edited the forthcoming anthology, Shakespeare in America for the LOA.James Romm seamlessly weaves together the life and written words, the moral struggles, political intrigue, and bloody vengeance that enmeshed Seneca the Younger in the twisted imperial family and the perverse, paranoid regime of Emperor Nero, despot and madman. “The King and the Playwright,” his three-hour documentary on late Shakespeare, aired on BBC4 in 2012. The Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia University, James Shapiro is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, and Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, which he worked on while he was a fellow at the Cullman Center in 2006-2007. His latest book, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, which he worked on while a fellow at the Cullman Center in 2010-2011, examines the curious relationship between the sage Seneca and the despot Nero in the years between 50 and 68 AD, a period whose tumultuous events include the fire of Rome. Professor of Classics at Bard College is the author of several books on ancient Greek and Macedonian history and on imperial Rome, including The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thoughts, Ghost on the Throne, and The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander.
In a conversation about James Romm’s latest book, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, Romm and the Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro discuss the curious relationship between the sage Seneca and the despot Nero in the years between 50 and 68 AD, a period whose tumultuous events include the fire of Rome.
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