Nero's excecution of Seneca

But He (Nero) spared himself the anguish of a word or a look, and merely sent in to Seneca one of his centurions, who was to announce to him his last doom.

Seneca, quite unmoved, asked for tablets on which to inscribe his will, and, on the centurions refusal, turned to his friends, protesting that he was forbidden to requite them, he bequeathed to them the only, but still the noblest possession yet remaining to him, the pattern of his life, which, if they remembered, they would win a name for moral worth and steadfast friendship. At the same time he called them back from their tears to manly resolution, now with friendly talk, and now with the sterner language of rebuke. "Where," he asked again and again, "are your maxims of philosophy, or the preparation of so many years' study against evils to come? Who knows not Nero's cruelty? After a mother's and brother's murder, nothing remains but to add the destruction of a guardian and tutor." -Tacitus

Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed. -Tacitus