What Seneca’s Book on Clemency Can Teach Us about Leadership

Augustus of Prima Porta.

Source: Wikimedia Commons/public domain

Seneca’s On Clemency was written in 55-56 CE for the benefit of the emperor Nero, whom Seneca served first as a tutor and then as an advisor. We know that three books were planned, but we have only the first and a part of the second. Perhaps the rest was lost, or perhaps Seneca never finished the work.

In 55 CE, Nero’s younger rival to the throne, Britannicus, died by poisoning, reportedly on Nero’s orders, and it is tempting to speculate on the role that this murder might have played in the genesis of the work. We might also wonder whether the work was circulated in Seneca’s lifetime, and whether Nero ever read it.

On the surface, the work reads as a panegyric in praise of Nero, but its real purpose is hortatory, aiming to persuade Nero to be a more moderate ruler. Seneca addresses Nero as if he were already a model of virtue so as not to antagonise him. He begins by saying that his aim is to serve “as a mirror for you, to show you to yourself.” This Senecan turn of phrase gave its name to the literary genre aimed at wisening rulers, the “mirror of princes” [specula principum]—the most notable example in the genre being, of course, Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Seneca defines clemency in four different but related ways, to fit all instances of the kind: “the mind’s moderation when it has the power to take revenge”; “mildness in a superior toward an inferior in determining punishment”; “the mind’s inclination toward mildness in exacting punishment”; and “moderation that diminishes a due and deserved punishment to some degree.”

Clemency, says Seneca, suits no one better than a ruler, and is the quality that distinguishes a king from a tyrant: “A tyrant differs from a king in his behaviour, not his title… It’s because of clemency that there’s a big difference between a king and a tyrant.” A king’s glory does not depend on his power per se, but on its proper exercise. Moreover, if people can see that their king is “for them as much as he is above them,” they will be loyal to him and act as his eyes and ears. Clemency, then, not only ennobles rulers but makes them safer: “It is at one and the same time an adornment of supreme power and its surest security.”

Anger, in contrast, is unbecoming of a ruler, in that it places him on the same level as the targets of his anger. But if he grants life and standing to those who deserve to lose them, he does something that is permitted only to a superior: “Life can be taken away from a superior but is never granted save to an inferior.”

The calm and deliberate exercise of power is like a clear and brilliant sky, but when the king is unrestrained all becomes murk and shadows: “People on every side tremble and start at sudden sounds, and not even the one who causes all the alarm is left unshaken.” The tyrant is then caught in a vicious circle: he is hated because he is feared, and must be feared because he is hated. For everyone he kills, there are parents and children and kinsmen and friends who will rise up in their place.

Ordinary people, if they are mild, risk appearing weak rather than clement; but a ruler, whom everyone knows is powerful, is sure to be praised as magnanimous if he passes on an opportunity for revenge. Overly harsh punishment, on the other hand, is only likely to work against him. When Tricho flogged his own son to death, the people attacked him in the forum; but when Tarius sentenced his son, who had been plotting to kill him, to a pampered exile, everyone knew that the son was guilty of the crime.

In 16 BCE, Augustus learned that Cinna, a grandson of Pompey, had been plotting against his life. Livia, his wife, advised him to be lenient with Cinna: now that Cinna had been caught, he could do the emperor no harm, but might still do his reputation some good. Augustus spoke privately with Cinna, telling him that he deserved his gratitude rather than his enmity. In any case, what had he been hoping to achieve by killing him? How would the people be better off if he replaced him as emperor, when, as it was, he could barely manage his own household? Augustus concluded by telling Cinna that he would not punish him, and that they would seek instead to outdo each other in good faith and friendship. Cinna became a close advisor to Augustus, even serving as consul in 5 CE, and no further conspiracies ever came to light.

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Clemency is easily confused with pity, and its opposite, strictness, with cruelty. A ruler must be careful not to lapse into pity because it might look like clemency, or lapse into cruelty because it might look like strictness. Distress at the woes of others, which is pity, is unbecoming of a wise person, not least because it may cloud his or her judgment.

Clemency is also confused with forgiveness, which, again, is unbefitting of the wise. Forgiveness is granted to one who ought to be punished, but the wise do not refrain from doing what ought to be done. Moreover, abolishing the distinction between good and bad only leads to vice and chaos. Rulers, in exercising moderation, must be able to distinguish between those who can be turned and those who are lost, but if in doubt err on the side of caution and clemency.

Ultimately, a good ruler is one who is in harmony with the logos, that is, in harmony with the purpose of life and the world according to the Stoics.

Did On Clemency serve its purpose? In 65 CE, in the aftermath of the Pisonian conspiracy to kill the emperor, Nero ordered Seneca to kill himself—even though Seneca was not likely to have been among the conspirators. Seneca slit several veins in an attempt to bleed to death, but when this failed he took poison. When this also failed, his friends carried into a hot bath, in which he finally expired.

Seneca wrote On Clemency for an emperor, but what can we ordinary people take from it? Simply that if we want to be loved, and if we want to live well, we need to make people feel that we care more about their wellbeing and the general wellbeing than our own narrow self-interest. That, in the final analysis, serving others is the best way of serving ourselves.

Neel Burton is author of Stoic Stories.