No positive evidence of Seneca’s guilt has come down to us. On the contrary, he has been pronounced innocent by some students of history. But he was condemned by the Senate and banished to the barren shores of Corsica. He tells us that Claudius tried to prevent this, but Messalina’s schemes were too deeply laid to be thwarted. It is remarkable that Seneca does not abuse her in any of his writings that have come down to us. He bade farewell to his noble-minded mother and his beloved brother Gallio, to his nephew Lucan, the promising young poet, and to Marcus his little boy, and then left the city, banishment from which was the sorest of trials to a Roman. He retired to his place of exile. There, amid disagreeable surroundings, he consoled himself with his philosophy and wrote a “Consolation” to his mother, Helvia, which is one of the noblest of his works. It must, however, be admitted that his fine moral precepts did not prevent his writing a letter to Polybius in which he abjectly flatters Claudius, manifestly in order to secure his release and his return to Rome. If he expected this through the intervention of Polybius, he was disappointed, for that freedman and favorite, though he had formerly much influence with Messalina, soon forfeited his life through her machinations. Messalina succeeded a long time in concealing her real character, but when her shamelessness reached its highest pitch in her open marriage to another man, the indignation of the emperor was aroused. Then followed a new scene of tragedy. She had apparently persuaded Claudius that it was a mock marriage for a frolic, but all Rome knew better and regarded it not only as a vile procedure but an attempt to usurp the political throne. Some time before this, Messalina had coveted the gardens on the Pincian Hill, which had long been famous as the property of the luxurious Lucullus, and which at the present day may be a part of the grounds of the Villa Medici. After Lucullus it belonged to Valerius Asiaticus. So Messalina had suborned her son’s tutor, Silius, to accuse Asiaticus of corrupting the army. Thus she secured his death and then took possession of the gardens. Here, as the wild revelries that followed the detestable wedding ceremonies were at their height, one of the guests, Vettius Valens, climbed to the top of a tree; and, when they asked what he saw, he replied in language intended for a jest: “I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia.”