Reading Roman Declamation: Seneca the Elder

Situated at the crossroads of rhetoric and fiction, the genre of declamatio offers its practitioners the freedom to experiment with new forms of discourse. This volume places the literariness of Roman declamation into the spotlight by showcasing its theoretical influences, stylistic devices, and generic conventions as related by Seneca the Elder, the author of the Controversiae and Suasoriae, which jointly make up the largest surviving collection of declamatory speeches from antiquity.

Authored by an international group of leading scholars of Latin literature and rhetoric, the chapters explore not only the historical roles of individual declaimers, but also the physical and linguistic techniques upon which they collectively drew. In addition, the 'dark side of declamation' is illuminated by contributions on the competitiveness of the arena and the manipulative potential of declamatory skill and, in keeping with the overall treatment of declamation as a literary phenomenon, a section has also been dedicated to intertextuality. Drawing on thought-provoking analyses of Seneca the Elder's works, the volume highlights the complexity of these texts and maps out, for the first time, the socio-cultural context for their composition, delivery, and reception, as well as providing a comprehensive, innovative, and up-to-date treatment of Roman declamation that will be essential for both students and scholars in the fields of Latin literature, Republican Roman history, and rhetoric.

Martin T. Dinter, Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Literature, King's College London,Charles Guérin, Professor of Latin Literature, Sorbonne Université, Paris,Marcos Martinho dos Santos, Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, University of São Paulo

Martin T. Dinter is Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Literature at King's College London. He is the author of Anatomizing Civil War: Studies in Lucan's Epic Technique (University of Michigan Press, 2013) and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy (CUP, 2019), as well as the co-editor of A Companion to the Neronian Age (with Emma Buckley; Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) and two other volumes on Roman declamation: Reading Roman Declamation: The Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian (with Charles Guérin and Marcos Martinho; De Gruyter, 2016) and Reading Roman Declamation: Calpurnius Flaccus (with Charles Guérin and Marcos Martinho; De Gruyter, 2017). He has also written articles on Roman drama, Roman epic, and epigram, and is currently working on a book on Cato the Elder.

Charles Guérin is Professor of Latin Literature at Sorbonne Université, Paris. He has published monographs on the rhetorical notion of persona (J. Vrin, 2009; J. Vrin, 2011) and on witness testimony in the Roman courts of the first century BC (La Voix de la vérité; 2015), and has also edited and co-edited several volumes on ancient rhetoric, oratory, declamation, and literature. A former junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France, he is a member of the council of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (2018-2021) and the executive committee of L'Année Philologique.

Marcos Martinho dos Santos is Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is a specialist in ancient rhetoric and in addition has published extensively on ancient grammarians and mythographers. He also serves on the editorial boards of nine Classics related journals and has edited and co-edited six volumes on Roman declamation, Cicero, and Greek mythology. He is currently preparing a book length study on Hyginus.