DECLAMATION in ROME a Major Intellectual Force in the Time of The

CHAPTER ONE DECLAMATION IN ROME A major intellectual force in the time of the elder Seneca was declamation, a much-maligned, often baffling type of practice speech that has only recently been placed in its proper perspective. 1 Its effect on Roman education was profound and pervasive; it comprised the central core of the school curriculum until the fall of the Empire and also contributed in large measure to the educational system of the Middle Ages. The swift development from essentially a simple schoolboy exercise to a consuming pastime enjoyed and practiced during the prime of life by the leading intellectual and political figures of the early Empire (including Augustus, Pollio, Ovid, Messalla, Agrippa, and Maecenas) occurred within the lifespan of the elder Seneca. 2 Latin literature and style were never the same again, so extensively and immediately did declamation affect the literary trends of the period. Also, the habits and artifices of rhetorical logic marked Roman thought forever after ward. Not only did the elder Seneca live through this period of momentous intellectual and political change, but he also recorded in the Contro versiae and Suasoriae much of what he heard in these declamatory sessions. Nor does he just provide us with quotes-although these are themselves an invaluable record for the study of the vast changes occurring in literary style-but also, throughout, he reproduces pene trating literary criticisms of these extracts made by others, and often provides us with his own well-informed and sensible opinions. Thus the elder Seneca's life, works, and thought are inextricably tied to the world of Roman declamation, and it is to this topic we must first turn before any judicious estimate of the elder Seneca can be formed. Originally, declamation was the delivery by school-boys of practice speeches on invented themes, which in its final stage of development took two forms: suasoriae and controversiae. The former was a speech 1 Chiefly by S. F. Bonner, Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Liverpool 1949). 2 As he himself noticed: ... studium (i.e., declamation) ipsum nuper celebrari coepit: idea facile est mihi ab incunabulis nosse rem post me natam (1 pr. 12). 2 DECLAMATION IN ROME of advice for or against a particular course of action by a historical figure, for example, "Alexander deliberates whether he should cross the ocean" (Suas. 1). Obviously a preparation for deliberative oratory, it was considered the easier exercise of the two and practiced extensively until the student was considered ready for the controversia, a practice legal speech delivered within the confines of a particular situation as it related to one or several laws given the student by his teacher. A rather provocative example is furnished in Contr. 1.5: (Law) "A raped woman may choose either to marry her violator or have him executed." (Situation) "In one night a certain man rapes two women; one demands his execution, the other wants to marry him." The student would then be assigned to write a speech for either woman's attorney. Thus the controversia prepared specifically for judicial oratory. 1. The Greek origins of declamation Since Roman rhetoric was essentially Greek in origin, it is to Greece we must first tum in order to examine the origins of these exercises. 3 The Greek predecessors of the suasoria are numerous, extending back to the early sophists who employed debates on mythological topics very similar in conception to the Roman suasoria in its final form. 4 Later in this development it is possible to trace the logos protreptikos and logos apotreptikos, prominently mentioned by Aristotle (Rhet. 1.3, 3-6; 1.4) and the more elaborate and nearly perfected forms in the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum (1-2; 34). 5 The roots of the controversia are usually traced back to Aeschines, who, in 330 BC, founded a school of rhetoric on Rhodes and apparently assigned his students to practice judicial (and perhaps also deliberative) speeches. 6 Yet the origins of the exercise may extend back in time even 3 The account which follows is intended only as a general outline of the nature and growth of declamation. More detailed treatments may be found in Edward xiii-xxii; Parks 61-107; Clarke passim, esp. 85-99; Bonner passim; Lewis A. Sussman, The Elder Seneca as a Critic of Rhetoric (diss., Chapel Hill 1969) 1-48. Bornecque 3-6 has a useful and comprehensive bibliography on the subject up to 1901, which may be supplemented by Bonner 1, note I and 170-174; he leaves off at 1949. See also the study of the word declamatio in G. Fran~ois, "Declamatio et Disputatio." AC 32 (1963) 513-540, and W. Kroll, Melete, P-W vol. 15, cols. 496-500. 4 Cf. Bonner II and note 2. 5 Cf. ibid. Bonner 11-12 reasonably assumes that the topics would be based upon familiar situations in Greek city-states, such as debates on war and peace, national defense, and public expenditures. 6 See ibid. 12. .

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