Spanish Declaimers in the Elder Seneca

Abstract

Abstract As a child in Corduba, a Romanized city in southern Spain, the Elder Seneca was heavily influenced by Roman society and literary tastes. He left his home and his family, for long periods of time as an adult, to experience the talents of professional declaimers in Rome. From his memory of the controversiae and suasoriae of these declaimers, he wrote the Oratorum et rhetoruni sententiae, divisiones, colores. In his collection, along with various Roman and Greek declaimers, are several Spanish declaimers. Seneca claims he included them “not out of excess of enthusiasm for them, but on the basis of considered judgement” (Con. 10.pr.16). Here, I examine how Seneca presents these Spanish declaimers and their distinguishing characteristics, in comparison with Roman declamatory standards, and consider his purpose in doing so.