- Narrator: Seneca grew unimaginable rich writing speeches justifying Nero's crimes, like the killing of his mother. He got the name "Seneca praedives," Fat-cat Seneca.
- Seneca: The world should crack with cataclysms and earthquakes. But we know how it is. Everything marches on as always, and Evil becomes the New Normal.
- Nero: There is one - only one - thing that I ever wanted from this job. And that is for fear of my cruelty to be on everyone's lips.
- Seneca: Could it be that we, of all generations, are deserving of the sky's collapse and an Earth knocked off its axes? Could it be?
- [last lines]
- Narrator: Later, Nero would desert his post as a commander. He was tried in absentia and sentenced to death. He killed himself in a fashion more cowardly than Seneca's, but shorter. It was reported by Seneca's scribe that his last words were a favorite quote from Cicero, often repeated by Seneca as if they were his own. The words apply to our world perhaps more than his: "Male parta, male dilabuntur," What is wrongly gained is wrongly lost.
- [first lines]
- Narrator: Seneca was a senator and considered the wisest man in Rome. He also got the job of tutoring Nero in all things and became the life coach to our city's mass-murdering president for life, a terrible idea that would later end Seneca's life.
- Seneca: Though we may dream of justice, we can't believe in it. Except as a kid story our grandmother told us.
- Seneca: What is required of those who are allowed to dine at the president's table? What are the conditions necessary for the good life, all the benefits, the eating, the drinking to continue? Exactly this: You must smile at the slaughter of your loved ones and say, "Thank you, boss. might I have another?" You must eat the shit you were told to eat, and beg for more. Like love, like relations, all is transactional. Alas! Whether life is worth living at such a price is a whole other question.