Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- PART I THE PLACE OF SENECA THE ELDER IN LITERARY HISTORY
- PART II SENECA THE ELDER ON THE HISTORY OF ELOQUENCE
- 1 Oratory and rhetorical theory up to his own time
- 2 The history of declamation
- 3 The decline of rhetoric in the early Empire
- PART III FIVE ASPECTS OF DECLAMATION: THE ELDER SENECA'S EVIDENCE
- PART IV THE PLACE OF EARLY IMPERIAL DECLAMATION IN LITERARY HISTORY: THE ELDER SENECA'S EVIDENCE
- Indexes
3 - The decline of rhetoric in the early Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- PART I THE PLACE OF SENECA THE ELDER IN LITERARY HISTORY
- PART II SENECA THE ELDER ON THE HISTORY OF ELOQUENCE
- 1 Oratory and rhetorical theory up to his own time
- 2 The history of declamation
- 3 The decline of rhetoric in the early Empire
- PART III FIVE ASPECTS OF DECLAMATION: THE ELDER SENECA'S EVIDENCE
- PART IV THE PLACE OF EARLY IMPERIAL DECLAMATION IN LITERARY HISTORY: THE ELDER SENECA'S EVIDENCE
- Indexes
Summary
To Seneca the Elder, the time of Cicero seemed the golden age of Roman eloquence; its glory had lingered on for perhaps one more generation – he was grateful for the illumination shed on his studies by the brilliant minds ‘born at that time’ (Contr. I pr. 7) – but since then rhetoric, in his view, had shown a rapid decline. The causes of this decline were to be the topic of much discussion throughout the first century A.D., just as the decay of Greek eloquence after the downfall of the democracies appears to have been the subject of earlier scholarly debate. Seneca's is one of the earliest of the Roman discussions, and it is interesting to consider which of the explanations for the decline that were to become more or less standard, he does, or does not, give.
In Contr. I pr. 7 he offers us three alternative explanations:
in deterius deinde cotidie data res est, sive luxu temporum – nihil enim tarn mortiferum ingeniis quam luxuria est – sive, cum praemium pulcherrimae rei cecidisset, translatum est omne certamen ad turpia multo honore quaestuque vigentia, sive fato quodam, cuius maligna perpetuaque in rebus omnibus lex est, ut ad summum perducta rursus ad infimum, velocius quidem quam ascenderant, relabantur.
He then proceeds to give a highly coloured description of contemporary decadence, which owes much to the clichés of declamatory convicium saeculi (Contr. I.pr. 8–10).
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- Information
- Seneca the Elder , pp. 132 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1981