Av de Isabel la Católica, 41004 Sevilla, Spain
Seneca the elder bust in the Plaza de España in Sevilla.
Av de Isabel la Católica, 41004 Sevilla, Spain
Seneca the elder bust in the Plaza de España in Sevilla.
(Roman secondary education aimed principally at training f...)
Roman secondary education aimed principally at training future lawyers and politicians. Under the late Republic and the Empire, the main instrument was an import from Greece: declamation, the making of practice speeches on imaginary subjects. There were two types of such speeches: controversiae on law-court themes, suasoriae on deliberative topics. On both types, a prime source of our knowledge is the work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Spaniard from Cordoba, father of the distinguished philosopher.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674995104/?tag=2022091-20
(Roman secondary education aimed principally at training f...)
Roman secondary education aimed principally at training future lawyers and politicians. Under the late Republic and the Empire, the main instrument was an import from Greece: declamation, the making of practice speeches on imaginary subjects. There were two types of such speeches: controversiae on law-court themes, suasoriae on deliberative topics. On both types, a prime source of our knowledge is the work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Spaniard from Cordoba, father of the distinguished philosopher.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674995112/?tag=2022091-20
https://www.amazon.com/Annaei-Senecae-Oratorum-Rhetorum-Sententiae/dp/036473048X/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Oratorum+et+rhetorum+sententiae+divisiones+colores&qid=1591604652&s=books&sr=1-2
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born around 54 B.C. in Cordova, Andalusia, Spain (then Corduba, Hispania, Roman Empire) to a wealthy equestrian family. Little is known of his life though it is definite that he spent much time in the capital both as a young man and after his marriage.
Seneca's knowledge of the contemporary schools of rhetoric implies that he spent much time in the capital. During a lengthy stay on two occasions at Rome, Seneca attended the lectures of famous orators and rhetoricians, to prepare for an official career as an advocate.
At an advanced age, at the request of his children, Seneca the Elder prepared, from memory, a collection of different school subjects and their treatment by Greek and Roman speakers. His extant work, the Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae divisiones colores (excerpts of the two kinds of declamation, controversiae and suasoriae), is exceedingly rich in information about the early imperial declamation and about the literary culture of that period in general. While his historiographical work, the Historiae, has not survived (apart from a few fragments), his declamation excerpts document not only the declamation as such; they also offer us an insight into the whole process of declamation and the declamation schools. This insight is highly important for the history of declamation because it is the first one we possess, despite the fact that declamation itself is a phenomenon that originated in Greece and has a centuries-long tradition. It is important also for the history of rhetoric and for Roman education and culture in general because declamation formed an integral part of the curriculum of higher education. In its original state, Seneca the Elder’s declamatory work consisted of ten books of excerpts from controversiae (fictitious court cases), and there may have been perhaps at least a second book of excerpts from suasoriae (fictitious speeches of advice to historical or mythical personages). It is not known whether each book was introduced by a preface addressed to his sons, but it is likely that more prefaces existed than we have today. Unfortunately, only parts of the original work survive. In the process of transmission, probably in Late Antiquity, excerpts were drafted of Seneca the Elder’s declamatory work. These excerpts are shortened versions of the excerpts from the controversiae (not from the suasoriae), and they contain some prefaces that otherwise would have been lost.
Although the Controversiae in themselves are wearisome, their prefaces contain valuable critical judgments, informative characterizations of the speakers in the text, and valuable items of literary and historical interest. The Controversiae and Suasoriae served as texts for students of Cicero.
Towards the end of his long life, Seneca the Elder collected together ten books devoted to controversiae (some only preserved in excerpt) and at least one (surviving) of suasoriae. These books contained his memories of the famous rhetorical teachers and practitioners of his day: their lines of argument, their methods of approach, their idiosyncrasies, and above all their epigrams. The extracts from the declaimers, though scrappy, throw invaluable light on the influences that colored the styles of most pagan (and many Christian) writers of the Empire. Unity is provided by Seneca's own contribution, the lively prefaces, engaging anecdote about speakers, writers and politicians, and brisk criticism of declamatory excess. His account is a valuable contribution to the study of contemporary Roman Empire culture and history and makes Seneca the Elder an important figure for the research on the theme.
(Roman secondary education aimed principally at training f...)
(Roman secondary education aimed principally at training f...)
Seneca the Elder was a Roman Pagan.
There is little doubt that the habit of considering hypothetical cases, illustrated in Seneca, encouraged the liberalization of Roman law and abetted a growing interest in equity. During the Roman civil war he remained in Córdoba, which deprived him of listening to Cicero's speeches. His sympathies, as happened with many other Cordovan people were with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.
Seneca disapproved of the artificial cleverness, often degenerating into absurdity, of many declaimers. He preferred the firmly disciplined style of Cicero, but he preserved some 100 examples of the declaimers’ art. Depressed by the decadence of contemporary oratory, Seneca, in his exercises, recalled to his sons and to a wider public the excellence of Roman oratory in Cicero's day. Distrusting Greek cleverness, as Cato had before him, he believed that the finest achievements of Greek oratory had been equaled by Romans of the earlier time.
Seneca's sons were primarily interested in epigram, and his book is biased towards smart sayings. The accumulated sententiae, vividly illustrative of an important aspect of Silver Age Latin, tend to cloy. Relief is provided by the prefaces, which sketch with graphic detail the characters of the major declaimers on whom Seneca, relying (it seems) only on a phenomenal memory, primarily drew. Elsewhere, Seneca's own stories and digressions give information on declamatory practice and on the literary scene of the early empire. His literary criticism is conservative and somewhat mechanical, and he is out of sympathy with a good deal of what he writes about.
Quotations:
"It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence."
"We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed! What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?"
"We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality."
"What you think about yourself is much more important than what others think of you."
"No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline."
"The road to learning by precept is long, but by example short and effective."
Seneca's family wealth was increased by his marriage to Helvia, a fellow countrywoman, by whom he had three sons, Annaeus Novatus (Gallio), Seneca the Younger, and Annaeus Mela, the father of Lucan.
