De clēmentia

De clēmentia (‘on clemency’) (AD 55–6), treatise by Seneca (2) in three books, of which the first and part of the second survive, on the need for clemency in a ruler. It was written in the second year of the emperor Nero's reign. Its theme was suggested by his exclamation when unwillingly signing a death warrant, ‘Would that I had never learnt to write!’ The praise of Nero that it contains must be judged in relation to the comparative mildness of his rule in the first years.