Brief as the epitomes are which bear the name of L. Annæus Florus, the style is characterized by the rhetorical spirit of the age to which they belong. They are diffuse and declamatory, and their author is rather the panegyrist of his countrymen than the grave and sober narrator of the most important events contained in their history. This short summary, entitled “Rerum Romanarum, Libri IV.,” or “Epitome de Gestis Romanorum,” is a well-arranged compilation from the authorities extant; but it is probable that, like all other Roman historians except Velleius Paterculus, he derived his materials principally from Livy. Such a dry skeleton of history, however, must be uninteresting. Who the author was is by no means certain. Some have supposed him to be the same with Annæus Florus, who wrote three trochaic verses to Hadrian. Titze[[1245]] imagines that it is the work of two authors, one a contemporary of Horace,[[1246]] the other belonging to a later literary period.
It is generally assumed that the author[[1247]] of the Epitomes was either a Spaniard or a Gaul; and, if we may consider the introduction to the work as genuine, he lived in the reign of Trajan.
CHAPTER VIII.
M. ANNÆUS SENECA—HIS CONTROVERSY AND SUASORIÆ—L. ANNÆUS SENECA—TUTOR TO NERO—HIS ENORMOUS FORTUNE—HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER—INCONSISTENCIES IN HIS PHILOSOPHY—A FAVOURITE WITH EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS—HIS EPISTLES—WORK ON NATURAL PHENOMENA—APOCOLOCYNTOSIS—HIS STYLE.
M. Annæus Seneca.
The family of the Senecas exercised a remarkable influence over literature; they may, in fact, be said to have given the tone to the taste of their age.
M. Annæus Seneca was born at Corduba (Cordova.) The precise date of his birth is unknown; but Clinton places it about B. C. 61. This is not improbable, for he asserts[[1248]] that he had heard all the eminent orators except Cicero, and that he might have enjoyed that privilege also if the civil wars had not compelled him to remain in his native country. After this hinderance was removed by the accession of Augustus he came to Rome, and, as a professional rhetorician, amassed a considerable fortune. Subsequently he returned to Cordova, and married Helvia, by whom he had three sons, of whom L. Annæus Seneca, the philosopher, was the eldest.
He left behind him two works, the composition of which was the employment of his old age. They are the results of his long and successful experience as a teacher of rhetoric, the gleanings of his commonplace book, the stores accumulated by his astonishing memory, which enabled him to repeat two thousand unconnected words after once hearing them, and to report literally any orations which he had heard delivered. They are valuable as showing how a hollow and artificial system, based upon the recollection of stock-passages and commonplaces, had supplanted the natural promptings of true eloquence. They explain the principles and practice of instruction in the popular schools of rhetoric, the means by which the absence of natural endowments could be compensated. They exhibit wit, learning, ingenuity, and taste to select and admire the best literary specimens of earlier periods; but it is plain that matter was now subordinate to form—that the orator was content to borrow the phraseology of his predecessors in which to clothe sentiments which he could neither feel nor understand. The ear still yearned for the language of sincerity, although the heart no longer throbbed with the ardour of patriotism. It is this want of conformity of ideas to words which causes the coldness of a declamatory and florid style. It is a mere representation of warmth: it disappoints like a mere painted fire.
The first work of M. Seneca was entitled Controversiæ: it was divided into ten books, of which, with the exception of fragments, only the first, second, seventh, eighth, and tenth are extant. It contains a series of exercises or declamations in judicial oratory on fictitious cases. The imaginary causes were probably sketched out by the professor. The students composed their speeches according to the rules of rhetoric: they were then corrected, committed to memory, and recited, partly with a view to practice, partly in order to amuse an admiring audience. The cases are frequently as puerile as a schoolboy’s theme, sometimes extravagant and absurd.
His other work, the Suasoriæ, contains exercises in deliberative oratory. The subjects of them are taken from the historians and poets: they are as harmless as tyranny could desire: there is no danger that languid patriotism should revive, or the empire be menaced, by such uninteresting discussions. Nor were they confined to mere students. Public recitations had, since the days of Juvenal, been one of the crying nuisances of the times. The poets began it, the rhetoricians followed, and the most absurd trash was listened to with patience, being ushered into popular notice by partial flatterers or hired claqueurs.