Told by the emperor Vespasian to stay out of the senate, Helvidius answered that the emperor could remove him from the senate but not make him silent while he was still in it. The exchange ended in his execution.
Helvidius Priscus was a Roman senator, son-in-law of Thrasea Paetus, and one of the central figures of what is usually called the Stoic opposition. He was exiled under Nero in AD 66 after Thrasea's condemnation, returned when Galba came to power, and served as praetor in AD 70. He was exiled again and put to death under Vespasian, probably around AD 74.
Epictetus preserves the conversation, which is the reason the name survives outside specialist history. Vespasian sent word that Helvidius should not come to the senate. Helvidius replied that it was in the emperor's power to strike him off the roll, but that as long as he was a senator he was obliged to attend. Then attend and say nothing, came the answer. Do not ask my opinion, said Helvidius, and I will keep silent. But I must ask. And I must say what seems right to me. Then I will have you killed. When, said Helvidius, did I ever tell you I was immortal? You do your part and I will do mine.
Epictetus does not tell the story to recommend defiance. His comment is that Helvidius knew what his own function was, in the way a purple stripe on a garment knows what it is for, and that most people are not required to be a purple stripe. The exchange is offered as an example of a man who had worked out in advance which of his duties were his and which of the consequences were not.
The career and the death are historical, recorded by Tacitus and Suetonius. The dialogue comes from Epictetus, at a distance of some decades, in a lecture. It is likely to preserve the sense and unlikely to preserve the words. Tacitus, who admired him, also noted that contemporaries accused him of a taste for confrontation, and did not simply dismiss the charge.
Helvidius shows the division at its most uncomfortable, because acting on it cost him his life. Whether he remained a senator was not his; whether he spoke honestly while he was one, was. He is also the reason a second man appears on this site: Herennius Senecio was executed for writing his biography.
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