Yes, positively, it was laughter. The laughter of strong and healthy people triggered by a salacious joke or a visiting jester's yarn. The fishermen off the Isle of Capri, the seamen of Puteoli, or the shepherds of Praeneste —they laughed like that who loved a joke after a hard day's work. The little man outside the house could only marvel. He had a longish face and beady round eyes. He shook his head, as though to rid himself of an importunate thought: Had he come to the right place? Was this the philosopher's house? Had Socrates, too, laughed when hemlock was dished out to him? 
He pushed the door and slipped into the tablinum. The laughter broke off. The old man turned his head. The wrinkles on his forehead were those of a man in agony. His lips were twisted with grief. Could these have been the lips that laughed so raucously a moment ago? There was no one else in the tablinum.
 "What may you wish?" the sage asked, lifting his head from the pillow. 
"I am Origenus," the little man stammered. 
''Happened to be walking past ... inadvertently..."
 "Inadvertently? Past mv house? Ha. ha, ha. Tell me another..." 
"Seemed strange—to laugh at such a time. Maybe you want my help?"
 "What do you suggest? A rope or a knife?"
 "No, no. I'm a physician! I swear by Hercules!.." the little man objected. 
"A physician? Then you must swear by Aesculapius!".
 "I swear by Aesculapius!" 
"Granted!" the philosopher said. "What then? Were you curious? Did you think people in a predicament squeal like pigs or knock their heads against the wall? Or maybe you've read inexplicable laughter is a sign of madness? Hippocrates lies. I, Seneca, die with a lucid mind. As for my laughter, I can explain."
 "Please do," the little man nodded eagerly. 
"Years ago, I was in Corsica, 3 where people don't go of their own free will. Corsica treats dangerous thoughts like Baiac 4 treats sick legs. And if you leave your head there along with the dangerous thoughts, the Palatine healers will be only too glad. Young people heed not what they say. Three of my friends and I landed there.
Swamps, mosquitoes, a slow death. Yet I was impatient. And once I saw a tuft of grass amid the rocks. I picked it, and rubbed the herbs mechanically between my fingers, which I then raised to my nose. Do you know, the world began to look different, and I laughed. For some unearthly reason I thought of Caligula wanting to lead his horse into the Senate. I laughed and laughed, louder and louder. No one about me, just the rocks — echoing my laughter. Ha, ha, ha." 
Seneca stopped talking, as though wanting to fill his lungs with air. Then, he continued: 
"Laughter was what saved me. The herb was from Sardinia. The southern wind had brought it. My friends died one after the other. I found myself alone. But my coughing had ceased, as though laughter had cleared my lungs as well as my soul. The physician there was just one for all Corsica. We called him Charon because he never healed anyone, just saw people off across the Styx to the nether world. One day, he approached me. 'How are you?' he asked. " 
"Better than Hercules.' " 
"What treatment do you take?"
 "But I told him nothing of my herb. He wouldn't have believed me. Soon, I was pardoned and made a member of the Senate. Agrippina asked me to be tutor to her son. 
"Did you continue your treatment?"
 "Oh, yes," Seneca rejoined. "But I did not need the Sardinian herb any more. Laughter had become a habit. I laughed where others moaned and wept — over the boundless flattery of the Senators, the arrogance of upstart freedmen and, certainly, at myself. For I was no better than the others!" 
A polite smile played on the little man's lips. 
"There, you see," Seneca said, "you're bored with my monologue. Me, too — I'm sick and tired of laughing all alone. Luckily, Claudius mistakenly ate poison mushrooms, not without Agrippina's prompting, and passed away. I thought a medicine that healed one man, can heal many. To start a new life, the state should purify itself with laughter. That was how I happened to write my Apocolocyntosis or Pumpkinification. Surely, you remember my lampoon of Claudius upon his arrival in Heaven as a newly-fledged god." 
"Yes, I'm a physician." 
"Did you come to me on your own?" 
"No. But..." 
"You needn't continue. Nero can't wait to find out what method I have chosen to take my own life. He wants to know if I who taught people that death was a benefit— if I perhaps flinched in cowardice. Tell him Seneca died of laughter, that.

Alexander Nemirovsky, "Tales Of The Ancient World"

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