The Themes Treated by the Elder Seneca DISSERTATION 'HESENTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PH. D., JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY JUNE, 1896 BY THOMAS STANLEY SIMONDS THE FRIEDENWALD CO. BALTIMORE, MD. The Themes Treated by the Elder Seneca DISSERTATION PRESENTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PH. D., JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY JUNE, 1896 BY THOMAS STANLEY SIMONDS THE FRIEDENWALD CO. BALTIMORE, MD. Sr? CONTENTS. PART I. PAGE Preface 5 I. Rhetoric in general 7-14 1. Evolution of the late rhetoric 7 a. Asian schools 8 b. Causes of the decline of Greek oratory 8-9 2. Political and social conditions favoring the evolution of rhetoric at Rome 9 a. Oratory among the Romans 9-12 b. Decay of oratory at Rome 12-14 II. The Roman rhetoricians 15-38 1. Their position in the new fabric of the state *$- l 7 2. Their method of instruction 17-20 a. Various kinds of declamations in the imperial period. . . . 21-22 b. Character of the declamations of the imperial period. ... 23-33 c. Influence of rhetoric on other branches of literature 33~35 3. The character and attainments of the rhetoricians 35-38 PART II. I. Seneca the Elder 39~5 2 1. His life 39~4 2 2. His character 4 2 ~44 3. His writings 44~47 4. Value of his rhetorical writings 47-5 5. His attitude toward rhetoric and rhetoricians 50-52 II. MSS. and editions of his rhetorical writings 53~56 1. MSS 53-55 2. Editions 55~56 PART in. I. The sources of the Suasoriae and Controversiae 57-68 II. Classification of the subjects of the Suasoriae and Controversiae 68-70 III. Parallels of the subjects discussed in the Controversiae of Se- neca, the Declamations of the pseudo-Quintilian, and Cal- purnius Flaccus 71-81 IV. The legal aspects of the Controversiae 82-98 Bibliography 98-100 254832 PREFACE. The writings of Seneca the Elder, as well as the declamations preserved under the names of Quintilian and Calpurnius Flaccus, introduce us to a peculiar and characteristic phase of mental and literary activity. This activity has neither the charm of youth nor the repose of maturity, but is rather that of degeneration and decay. Antique mental life is presented in these writings as it verged on its second childhood, and it will not be without interest to sketch briefly on the basis of Seneca's writings this phase of classical literature, to state its causes and, as far as may be, to trace to their sources the examples of it which remain. PART I. I. RHETORIC IN GENERAL. i. Evolution of the late rhetoric. Of all the species of Roman literature none traces its origin to Greece more directly than rhetoric, and it will not therefore be without advantage to consider briefly rhetoric as distinguished from the old oratory among the Greeks. It was Isocrates who gave to Greek eloquence its finish and polish and, what is perhaps of greater importance, infused into it an ethical element. 1 It attained its height in Demosthenes. Aristotle in his Rhetoric gave it a scientific basis. But very early there manifested itself in oratory a tendency to go astray, which provoked the censure of Isocrates, 2 and the sharp attacks of Plato. 3 Its decline was steady. After the downfall of Athenian freedom scarcely one great orator can be mentioned. Signs of decay or at least of a lack of productiveness are already shown in Dinarchus, who was an imitator. 4 The style also became lax and weak. 5 In subjugated Athens there was no longer a field for oratory, which accordingly emigrated to the free and flourishing cities of Asia-Minor. There it exhibited great activity but in a dreadfully artificial and distorted manner. We refer to the so-called Asian style. 1 Cf. Blass, Die griechische Beredsamkeit, p. 78 sq.; Geschichte der attischen Beredsamkeit ii, p. 41 ; Spengel, Ueber das Studium der Rhetor ik bei den Alien, p. 8. 2 Cf. 10 (Hel.) i sq.; n (Busir.) 9. 49. 8 C. Phaedr. 267 A sq. 4 Cf . Dionysius Halicarnassus, De Dinarcho judicium c. 5 : " . . .OVJU.TJV ak7.a Kal TOV Aijfj.oG'&eMKOv ^apa/cr^pof, bv ^a/Uora c^^craro ; " Blass, Die griech. Bereds., p. 15; Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litterat^ir in der Alexandrinerzeit, 1892, ii, p. 461. 5 Cf. Cicero, De oratore ii, 23, 95 : posteaquam extinctis his omnis eorum memoria sensim obscurata est et evanuit, alia quaedam dicendi molliora ac remissiora genera viguerunt. 8' THE 'THEMES "TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. a. The Asian schools. Hegesias of Magnesia at Mount Sipylos, who lived about 250 B. C., 6 is regarded as the founder or at any rate the foremost representative of the Asian school. 7 Hegesias's diction was marked by a striving after metaphors and figures, an indulgence in surprising puns and puerile witticisms, and by a lack of dignity and sincere feeling. In his attempt to imitate the simple periodic structure of Lysias, he minced everything into short sentences to which he added the frequent use of hyperbaton. 8 It may be said in general that the Asian style is distinguished from the old Attic by its affectation, turgidily of verbal ornament, and inanity of thought. 9 b. Causes of the decline of Greek oratory. What Seneca says in reference to Roman eloquence is applicable to the Grecian also and to human achievement in general: "fato quodam cuius maligna perpetuaque in rebus omnibus lex est, ut ad summum perducta rursus ad infimum velocius quidem quam ascenderant, 6 Cf. Blass, Die griech. Bereds.^ p. 25; Susemihl, Gesch. der griech. Litterat. ii, pp. 463 sq. 7 Cf. Strabo xiv, 648 : " avdpef 6' kyivovro yv&pi/uoi Mdywyref 'Hy^ciaf re b pr/Tup, 6f r]p^ e fiaTiicra TOV 'Aaiavov fayopevov tyfav 6t,a'deipar TO /cai? pp. 290 sq. and in Rheinisches Museum xli (1886), p. 170-190. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Q relabantur." 10 In the art of oratory there seems to be an inherent tendency to deviate from simplicity and truth, and to run riot. As particular causes of its decay in Greece, its proper home, may be mentioned the general decadence of the Greek nation ; true oratory can flourish only among a free, patriotic, high-minded people, not under a " fierce democracy which has sunk into the lifelessness of a cheerless and dishonored old age." 11 Then, too, there was the change of the seat of artistic speech from Attica to Asia, exuberant and exaggerating in all things. To this must be added the absence of any lively political interest ; as liberty declined, deliberative discourse was deprived of its real object, and the corruptness of the courts left little room for true forensic oratory. All orations became more or less show-speeches, and the speaker could indulge only in rhetorical commonplaces ; having no attainable object before him, he was led to employ all his efforts on form and to exhibit his art in ostentation and bom- bast. Moreover, there had come into being a subtle and minute development of rhetorical technique which of necessity hindered, if it did not wholly stifle, spontaneous heartborn eloquence. It will be seen that causes precisely similar brought about the decline of Roman oratory also. 2. Political and social conditions favoring the evolution of rhetoric at Rome. a. Oratory among the Romans. Next to Greece no country afforded a grander field for the growth and display of oratorical genius than Rome. If the Roman character lacked the elegance and grace of the Greek, especially the Athenian, this was counter- balanced by a dignity and gravity of speech which was supported by the senatorial system and which was never reached at Athens. " The Roman mind, unlike the Greek, did not instinctively con- ceive the public speaker as an artist. It conceived him strictly as a citizen, weighty by piety and years of office, who has something to say for the good of other citizens, and whose dignity, hardly less than the value of his hearers' time, enjoins a pregnant and severe conciseness." 12 The practical sturd)' Roman of the earlier IQ Praefatio Contr overs, i, 7. 11 Freeman, History of Federal Government i, p. 221 ; cf. Seneca, Praef. Controv. i, 8 sq. 12 Jebb, The Attic Orators ii, p. 446. 10 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. period took no interest in theories and technical treatises on oratory. Even the writing down of speeches after delivery was rarely if ever resorted to. 13 The theory and technique of eloquence do not begin to receive attention among the Romans before the middle of the second century B. C. in consequence of the great oratorical activity of that period, all the works of which seem to be rhetorically colored. This development took place under the influence of Greece. Rhetoric was, as it were, the inheritance of the Greek nation, and when her own independence was at an end, it was to Rome that her children carried their talents. 14 Many Romans received lessons from Greek rhetoricians, and at first the Greek language was predominantly employed in rhetorical exer- cises. 15 There was at first a strong opposition at Rome to Greek rhetoric and rhetoricians, led by Cato and those like-minded to him ; 16 but after the Gracchi, who were more Hellenic in their tastes, Greek rhetorical art began to exercise a considerable in- fluence on Roman oratory, and before 100 B. C. florid Asianism had its admirers at Rome. 17 It was in fact in its Asian form that Greek rhetoric became the teacher of the Romans, 18 but it was not until about 90 B. C. that L. Plotius Gallus and others established a school and taught the principles of rhetoric in Latin. 19 Accord- ing to Blass, 20 L. Crassus (140-91 B. C.) and M. Antonius (143-87 B. C.) were the first Roman orators who were influenced by Helle- 13 Cf. Seneca, Praef. Contr. i, 9 : " ille enim vir (sc. Cato) quid ait ? orator est . . . vir bonus dicendi peritus^ 14 Cf. Blass, Die griechische Beredsamkeit, pp. 104 ., 115; Marx, Chauvi- nismus und Schulreform, p. 13. 15 Cf. Cicero, Brutus Ixxxix, 310 : " Commentabar declamitans . . . ; idque faciebam multum etiam Latine, sed Graece saepius, vel quod Graeca oratio plura ornamenta suppeditans consuetudinem similiter Latine dicendi adferebat, vel quod a Graecis summis doctoribus, nisi Graece dicerem neque corrigi possem neque doceri"; Suetonius, De clar. rhet.: "Cicero ad praeturam usque Graece declamavit, Latine vero senior quoque. . . ." 16 Cf. Blass, Die griech. JBereds.,^. 105. 115; Mommsen, Rdmische Ge- schichte ii, p. 246; Marx, op. cit., p. 12. 17 Cf. Blass, ibid.\ Jebb, The Attic Orators ii, pp. 446 sq. 18 Cf. Rohde, Der griechische Roman, p. 288. 19 Cf. Quintilian, Instil. Orat. ii, 4, 42: "Latinos vero dicendi praecep- tores extremis L. Crassi temporibus coepisse Cicero auctor est; quorum insignis maxime Plotius fuit"; Seneca, Praef. Control', ii, 5; Suetonius, De clar. rhet. 2 ; Cicero, De orat. iii, 24, 93, cf. also Marx, Chauvinismus und Schulreform, p. 15; Cucheval, Hist, de Vttoq. rom. ;, p. 224. 20 Die griech. Bereds.^ p. 120. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. II nism. M. Antonius was also the first after Cato to write a rhetori- cal treatise in Latin. 21 The most important work on the subject is the treatise Ad Herennium, ascribed to Cornificius and probably written some years previous to 80 B. C. It is of the same char- acter as the Greek manual of Anaximenes, 22 only brought up to date and adapted to the more practical requirements of Roman oratory." Latin rhetoric indeed always remained essentially a Greek form of mental discipline, and as such became eventually a great and lasting force for the ruin of Latin literature. 24 We wit- ness at Rome a repetition of the process which took place in Greece. The different styles or rather manners of oratory arose in succession at Rome ; the pure Asian is represented by Quintus Hortensius ; the Atticizing or eclectic style, which was developed in the Rhodian school, by M. Tullius Cicero, 26 and the pure Attic style, upheld among the Greeks by Dionysius Halicarnassus, by C. Licinius Calvus. 26 The victory of the old Attic oratory over Asianism at Rome and in Greece, and the other provinces as well, dates from about 60 B. C., but even from the middle of the second century -a reaction had set in against this unwholesome and unnatural outgrowth. A struggle against it arose in Pergamum especially. 27 Hermagoras of Temnos also and his school about the middle of the second century B. C., subtle and scholastic as his system was, " did good service by reviving the conception of oratory not as a knack but as an art, and so preparing men once 21 Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. iii, I, 19; Cicero, Brutus xliv, 163 ; De orat. i, 21,94; 48, 208. 22 It is also called Rhetor, ad Alexandrum and was ascribed to Aristotle, but it is now generally agreed that it is a work of Anaximenes of Lamp- sacus ; Susemihl alone disputes this, and thinks it originated as a connect- ing link between the Isocratean and Hermagorean methods at the begin- ning or in the middle of the third century B. C. 23 Cf. Spengel, Ueber das Studi^tm der Rhetorik, p. 102, and in Rheinisch. Museum, xviii (1863), p. 487. 24 Cf. Marx, Chauvinismus u. Schulref., pp. 17 . 18. 20 Cf. Dion. Hal., De Din.jud. c. 8; Cicero, Orator viii, 25 ; Brutus xiii, 51 : " Khodii saniores et Atticorum similiores"; Quint., Inst. Orat. xii, 10, 18 : "Genus Rhodium quod velut medium esse "; comp. also Rohde, Der griech. Roman, p. 289; Susemihl, Gesch. der griech. Lift, ii, p. 489; Wes- termann, Geschichte der Beredsamkeit i, p. 176 \ 81, and Blass, Die griech. Beredsamkeit, p. 4 .89, who, however, thinks that the school of Rhodes did not deserve the credit accorded to it. 26 For a characterization of him comp. Seneca, Controv. vii, 4, 6 sq. 27 Cf. Susemihl, Gesch. der griech. Lift, ii, p. 482 sq. 12 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. more to discern the true artists and the false." 2 But the decisive battle against Asianism was fought and won at Rome especially through the agency of Apollodorus of Pergamum, 100-18 B. C, the teacher of Augustus.'' 9 The principal cause for the defeat of Asianism is probably the fact that its pompous and inane jingling could not satisfy the great and practical needs of Roman public life, and therefore the sturdy Roman orators abandoned their liv- ing Asianic teachers for the immortal masters of the old Attic eloquence. 30 b. Decay of oratory at Rome. The victory of old Attic oratory over Asian rhetoric at Rome was of short duration. " Quidquid Romana facundia habet, quod insolenti Graciae aut opponat aut praeferat, circa Ciceronem effloruit ; omnia ingenia, quae lucem studiis nostris attulerunt tune nata sunt. In deterius deinde cotidie data res est," complains Seneca. 31 As has been stated already, the causes of the speedy decadence of oratory at Rome are about the same as those which brought about its decline in Greece. " Sive luxu temporum," continues Seneca, " nihil enim tarn mortiferum ingeniis quam luxuria est, sive cum pretium pulcherrimae rei cecidisset, translatum est omne certamen ad turpia multo honore quaestuque vigentia. . . ." The turning- point for the worse should be placed in the Augustan period with the overthrow of republican institutions, as in Athens the down- fall of liberty drew in its train that of oratory also, for true elo- quence is the child of liberty as on the other hand it nourishes and supports it. There no longer existed any material to kindle the fires of eloquence. 32 Order and peace and quiet, even if the quiet of a cemetery, now prevailed at Rome in place of the former 28 Jebb, The Attic Orators ii, p. 445 ; on Hermagoras's system compare Thiele, Hermagoras, pp. 143 sq. 29 Cf. Susemihl, Geschich. der gr. Lift, ii, pp. 473 . 502 sq.; Blass, Die gr. Bereds., pp. 3 . 149 . 160. 30 Cf. Rohde, Der griech. Roman, p. 289. * l Praefatio Controv. i, 6 sq. 32 Cf. Dialogus de oratorib.us (ascribed to Tacitus) c. 36: "Magna eloqu- entia sicut flamma materia alitur et motibus excitatur et urendo clarescit . . . " ; c. 41 : " Quid enim (sc. at the present day as compared with the former time of the republic) opus est longis in senatu sententiis, cum optimi cito consentiant? quid multis apud contionibus cum de republica non imperiti at multi deliberent, sed sapientissimus et unus . . . ?" cc. 36-41 are all extremely interesting on this point. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 13 fierce rivalries and contentions of parties and party leaders. And soon despotism on the one hand and its counterpart servility on the other, attained such proportions as to stifle all noble and high- spirited thought and action. Seneca complains bitterly over the literary auto-da-fe s which came into use in his time for the disci- pline of refractory minds. 33 In addition to this the prosperity and wealth which came to the Roman empire under Augustus contributed their part toward obliterating all remnants of the old Roman simplicity and engendering a taste for superficial splendor and a striving after display. 34 A lively scientific and literary activity did indeed spring up ; 36 circles were formed for the promo- tion of culture and literary taste ; we need only recall Maecenas, This age in the mental history of Rome may be not inaptly likened to that of Louis the Fourteenth of France. But what this literary activity gained in breadth it lost in depth and earnestness of purpose ; it aimed merely at the brilliant, the piquant, and the interesting ; it was marked by flippancy and entire subordination of matter to form. This change in the spirit of Roman literature exhibited itself in the evolution of that diction which is designated as " Silver Latin." The vocabulary became changed ; new words and phrases were invented and many of those hitherto in use were lost or rejected ; the syntax was simplified, numerous short sentences replacing a less number of long ones ; the use of abstract substantives became frequent ; in the periodic structure parataxis took the place of hypotaxis; natural expressions gave way to rhetorical figures ; the lines separating prose and poetry became obliterated ; objectivity was replaced by subjectivity and arbitrari- ness ; sublimity and depth of diction were supplanted by an arti- ficial elegance. Of all this the rhetors represented in the works of the elder Seneca are the type, and Quintilian in vain opposed it." This great change in the tendency and aims of Roman literature manifested itself in the most marked degree in the art 38 Praef. Contr. x, 5 sq. : "Effectum est enim per inimicos ut omnes eius (sc. T. Labieni) libri comburerentur ; res nova et inusitata supplicium de studiis sumi"; cf. also 7. 34 Cf. Hainmer, Beitrdge zu den 19 grossen quintilianischen Declamationcn, P-3- 35 Cf. Bernhardy, Grundriss der romischen Litteratur, p. 75. Literary facts as well as explicit testimonies show that no preceding age possessed more susceptibility to fine, sometimes superfine, form or a more cultivated taste. 36 Cf. Koerber, Ueber den Rhetor Seneca^ pp. 24 sq. 14 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. of eloquence. Naturally so, for this department of mental activity can thrive and reach its normal development only in a state of political freedom, and this no longer existed. On the other hand speech-making and speech-hearing were deeply rooted in the Roman nature. Hence, when the forum became dull, speech-mak- ing retired to the schoolroom to continue there a shadowy life. Rhetoric supplanted oratory, rhetoricians took the place of ora- tors, and speaking was superseded by declaiming. 37 Yet another reason for the development of these schools of rhetoric may be found in the fact that already in Cicero's time and still more after- wards, jurisprudence attained at Rome an importance before unheard of. It assumed an independent position and treated rhetoric as it had been treated by it with disregard. The orator when in court found himself under the control of the judge, by whom he was compelled to fully realize his subordinate position and to confine his discourse closely to his subject. 38 Rhetoric, thus driven from political life and repressed in the courts, came to be treated as an art or science independent of all others, an end in itself, its value consisting in the formal training it gave the mind. 37 Even in the time of the elder Seneca, when the rhetoricians and the rhetorical schools were in the height of their prosperity, the language still distinguished between dicere and declamare, as also between orator and rhetor or declamator. Compare Sen., Praef. Controv. i, 12: " Ipsa decla- matio apud nullum antiquum auctorem ante Ciceronem et Calvum inveniri potest, qui declamationem a dictione distinguit; ait enim declamare iam se non mediocriter, dicere bene ; alterum putat domes- ticae exercitationis esse, alterum verae dictionis . . . "; Contr. vii, i, 20 : " De colore inter maximos et oratores et declamatores disputatum est. . . Pasianus et Albucius et praeter oratores magna novorum rhetorum manus . . ."; Suas. vi, n : "Itaque Cassius Severus aiebat alios decla- masse, Varium Geminum vivum consilium dedisse." 38 Cf. Spengel, Ueber das Studium, etc., p. 25. Tacitus, Dialogtts c. 19: "Qui (sc. indices) vi et potestate, non iure aut legibus cognoscunt, nee accipiunt tempora, sed constituunt, nee expectandum habent oratorem dura illi libeat de ipso negotio dicere, sed saepe ultro admovent atque alio transgredientem revocant at festinare se testantur " ; Quintilian, Instit. Orat. iv, i, 72 "... si sit praeparatus satis etiam sine hoc index"; iv, 5, 10 : " Festinat enim index ad id, quod potentissimum est." THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 15 II. THE ROMAN RHETORICIANS. i. Their position in the new fabric of the state. It has been already stated 39 that L. Plotius Gallus was the first to open a school for Latin rhetoric about 90 B. C. This does not of course imply that there had never previously been instruction and exercise at Rome in the art of speech-making. Thus Lucius Praeconius of Lanuvium, surnamed Stilo, although not a profes- sional teacher, had gathered about him ten years before a select circle of young men for the purpose of reading old authors and probably also to give them some training in the theory and prac- tice of speech-making.* But before Blandus no native Roman of position had been a professional teacher of rhetoric, the profession indeed being looked upon as disgraceful and hence practiced only by libertini.^ Plotius found many imitators and followers. In vain had the censors as early as 92 B. C. issued an edict against these schools. 42 They remained henceforth a permanent institu- tion of the Roman Empire. In the imperial epoch rhetorical schools sprang up everywhere. 43 It was for the interest of the rulers to favor their establishment and development, inasmuch as they diverted the public mind from the great constitutional changes which had taken place and caused the loss of public discussion to be felt less keenly. The public too favored these schools because in them dying liberty lingered longer than in the forum and the senate, which were under the immediate control of the government. 44 These schools, moreover, met the demand of the times for a general and broad culture. As it had been for- merly claimed by Isocrates that oratory should be regarded as uniting in itself all the element of culture 45 and that even the name 39 See above, p. 10. 40 Cf. Mommsen, Romische Geschichte ii, p. 425. 41 Cf. Seneca, Praef. Contr. ii, 5: " Qui (sc. Blandus) primus eques Romanus Romae docuit ; ante ilium inter libeitinos praeceptores pulcher- rimae disciplinae continebantur et minime probabili more turpe erat docere quod honestum erat discere." 42 Cf. Cicero, DC oratore iii, 24,93; Gellius, Noctes Att. xv, ii ; Tacitus Dial. c. 35; Suetonius, De clar. rhet. c. I ; Cucheval, Hist, de V ttoq. rom i, pp. 224 sq. 43 Cf. Hulsebos, De educ. et inst. apud Kom., p. 109. 44 Cf. Morawski, De rhet. lat., p. 16. . (2) 5 sq. 39; Havriy. (4) 47-49. l6 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. of philosophy should be bestowed upon it, 46 so now a training in the art of rhetoric was considered as the foundation of a liberal education and the fitting preparation for the higher walks of life. 47 The study of rhetoric thus held nearly the same place as was occupied later by the " humaniora" Even an ethical force was ascribed to it.* 8 Seneca relates 49 that Augustus was present together with Agrippa at a declamation of Latro, and that the rhetor Gaius Silo was also heard by Augustus. 50 Later, chairs of rhetoric were established and endowed by the state. 51 Vespasian was the first to do this. 52 Hadrian, noted for his Philhellenism, established at Rome the Athenaeum which was henceforth sup- ported by the emperors and which possessed a chair of rhetoric. 53 The emperors themselves entrusted their children to the rhetor- ical schools for education. 54 Marcus Aurelius attended the lectures of Hermogenes even after he became emperor. 55 It may be fairly assumed that most of the large cities of Italy had their 46 Kara TUV oo' df ?/ laropla ayet, i]p^ 6z rijg JJ.EV 'apxaiorepac; T'o/oytaf 6 kv 9erra/loZf, T% 6e devrepag A.iax' LV *K o 'Arpo//^rov, r&v fj,si> 'A-&f/vij p. 9. 3 34 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. the schools were out of touch with actual life, the schools them- selves influenced living men. Single sayings of the rhetoricians were widely promulgated and became a kind of eicea Trre^oevra. 162 The mannerisms of the rhetoricians, with their confusion of prose and poetic diction, with their ' ' egressiones " for the sake of variety, in splendid descriptions of men, cities, mountains, the sea, etc., 163 crept especially into the historical works of the time. 164 It would seem that while in this epoch the various kinds of literature became mixed, a characteristic of a nervous and unsettled period, the line of demarcation between rhetoric and history was particularly effaced. 165 Among the poets the one most influenced by rhetoric was Ovid, 166 as Euripides among the Greeks. Persius at the age of sixteen became the pupil of the rhetor Cornutus and remained his devoted adherent for the rest of his life. 167 Lucan as a fellow-pupil of Persius, also surrendered himself to the fasci- nating influence of Cornutus, 168 and the Pharsalia affords many examples of epigrammatic power acquired in the rhetorical 162 Cf. Seneca, Suas. ii, 10: " Recolo nihil fuisse me iuvene tarn notum, quam has cxplicationes Fusci, quas nemo nostrum non alius alia incli- natione vocis velut sua quisque modulatione cantabat ": Quintilian, Inst. Orat. viii, 3, 76 : " Quae me iuvene ubique cantari solebant "; Tacitus, Dialogus c. 20 : " luvenes . . . non solum audire sed etiam referre domum aliquod inlustre et dignum memoria volunt ; traduntque invicem ac saepe in colonias ac provincias suas scribunt, sive sensus aliquis arguta et brevi sententia affulsit, sive locus exquisite et poetico cultu enituit"; cf also Morawski, DC rhet. lat., pp. 4sq. 163 Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. iv, 3, 12. 164 Op. cit. x, 2, 21 : " Id quoque vitandum, in quo magna pars errat, ne in oratione poetas nobis et historicos, in illis operibus oratores at declama- tores imitandos putemus. Sua cuique proposita lex, suus cuique decor est"; cf. also Lucian ITwf 6el Icropiav ovyypdQEiv, 15 sq. 27 ; Spengel, Ueber das Studiunty etc., p. 28; Blass, Die griech. Bereds., p. 146 sq. 165 Cf. Seneca, Suas. v, 8 : "... sententiam . . . dignam quae vel in ora- tione vel in historia ponatur"; Pliny, Epist. ii, 5: "Nam descriptiones locorum, quae in hoc libro frequentiores erunt, non historice tantum, sed paene poetice prosequi fas est "; Morawski in Zeitschrift filr die osterreich- ischen Gymnasien xliv (1881), pp. 97 sq. 166 Cf. Seneca, Contr. ii, 2, 8 : "... Latronis admirator fuit (sc. Ovid) . . . adeo autem studiose Latronem amavit ut multas illius sententias in versus suos transtulerit . . . "; cf. also Gruppe, Quaest. Ann., pp. 36 sq.; Cucheval, Hist, de Veloq. rom. i, pp. 288 sq. 167 Cf. Persius, Sat. v, 22-65 5 Dio Cassius Ixii, 29. 168 Cf. Monceaux, Les Africains, p. 186; Quintilian, Inst. Orat. x, i, 90. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 35 school. 169 The rhetor Septimus Severus had as his intimate friends the poets Statius and Martial ; the former dedicated to Severus, Silvae iv, 5 (cf. 1. 29-52), and the latter dedicated to him four of his epigrams. 170 The declamations had a no less marked influence upon the tragedies of the younger Seneca. 171 As the declamations contain among much chaff many precious grains, so was their influence on Latin literature not an unmixed evil. On this point the judgment of Bernhardy is as follows : "The weak as well as the brilliant points of the authors of that time have their final cause in the declamation ; if on the one hand we are dis- turbed by their cut up, inflated and hasty manner, they on the other hand owe to rhetoric, which was developed to the extreme, an elasticity and keenness of thought which compensates for the shapelessness and tastelessness which are met with here and there." 172 3. The character and attainments of the rhetoricians. It has been stated already that after the emperors took the rhetorical schools under their protection, the social status of the rhetors became in a measure a respected and honored one. Rich men engaged rhetors to give exhibitions of the declamatory art for the entertainment of guests in their own houses. 173 At other times they delivered their discourses in schools, at their homes, or in public places such as basilicas and theaters. Rhetoricians were often the companions of prominent men : so Albucius Silus of Plan- cus, 174 Timagenes of Pollio. 175 What a colossal opinion of their own importance and that of their art the rhetoricians had, may be seen from Aper's exposition in Tacitus, Dialogus c. 5-y. 176 It may 169 Cf. Lucan, Pharsalia iv, 185, 823. 170 Cf. Monceaux, /. c., p. 189 sq. 171 Cf. Leo, De Sen. trag. obs. crit., pp. 147 sq. Seneca's tragedies arc " Declamationes ad tragoediae amussim deductas et in actus deductas." 172 Cf. Bernhardy, Grundriss der rdmischen Litteratur, p. 282. 173 Cf. Suetonius, De vir. ill. c. 7 : " M. Antonius Grypho docuit primum in Divi Julii domo pueri adhuc, deinde in sua privata"; Gruppe, Quaest. Ann., p. 27. 174 Cf. Suetonius, De rJiet. clar. c. 30. 175 Cf. Seneca philos., De Ira iii, 23. 178 Cf. for instance c. 7 end : "Quid? fama et laus cuius artis cum ora- torum gloria comparanda est ? Qui tam inlustres et in urbe . . . non solum apud negotiosos et rebus intentos sed etiam apud vacuos at adulescentes quibus modo recta indoles est et bona spes sui." 36 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. be safely asserted that the immoderate vanity, conceit, and rivalry of the rhetoricians, which led them to make a display of their skill and acumen an end in itself, or rather the end, and to adopt every expedient to draw attenton to it, was a leading cause of the perversion of oratory at that time. As might be expected of men who lived, moved and had their being in an unreal world and whose life-work was confined within the four walls of a school- room, the rhetoricians must have been as a rule unpractical and pedantic. As Koerber 177 remarks, this may have been implied in the name " scholasticus," which was given to them. Thus Seneca 178 says with reference to Bassus who endeavored in his declamations to imitate the force and earnestness of an orator of the forum : " Nihil est indecentius quam ubi scholasticus forum, quod non novit, imitatur. Amabam itaque Capitonem .... bona fide scholasticus erat." 179 And Seneca 180 relates that Albucius affected in his declamations, vulgarities and low expressions in order not to appear as a scholasticus. The rhetoricians took their task and the preparation for it very easily. 181 When origi- nality was lacking they were content to appropriate the mental property of others, changing or omitting a word. 182 Still there were individual exceptions who were earnestly devoted to their art, and endeavored to cultivate and perfect it. So for instance Latro. 183 Moreover there was not an absolute lack of able men with sound judgment and clear insight, who made no secret of their opinion of the unwholesome character of the school decla- mations and the shortcomings of the rhetoricians. The crushing judgment of Cassius Severus 184 has been quoted already. Mon- 177 Ueber den Rhetor Seneca, pp. 44 sq. Praef. Contr. x, 12. 179 Cf. Tacitus, Dialogus c. 35: "At nunc adulescentuli nostri deducuntur in scaenam scholasticorum, qui rhetores vocantur "; Koerber, Ueber den Rhet. Seneca, p. 45, foot note 212 : " In the same meaning Petronius in his first Satire employs the word 'impracticus,' ;'. e. 'scholasticus, qui in umbra sub tecto vitam agit,' according to an old glossary on Petronius." 180 Praef. Contr. vii, 3 sq. 181 Cf. Seneca, Praef. Contr. i, 10 : " Quis est, qui memoriae studeat ? Quis, qui non dico magnis virtutibus, sed suis placeat ? Sententias a diser- tissimis viris iactas facile in tanta hominum desidia pro suis dicunt." 182 Cf. Seneca, Contr. x, 5, 20: "Multi sunt, qui detracto verbo aut mutato aut adiecto putent se alienas sententias lucri fecisse." 183 Cf. Seneca, Praef. Contr. i, 23. 184 Cf. Seneca, Praef. Contr. iii, 12 sq. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 37 tanus Votienus speaks in terms no less sharp of the vanity and want of conscientiousness of the rhetoricians. 185 To a certain degree they seem to have exercised a mutual criticism. 186 From the fact that the rhetoricians were allowed to harangue freely against tyranny, to exalt tyrannicide in the most glowing terms, and to kill off their imaginary tyrants to their heart's content, unmolested by the actual tyrants who were sitting on the throne, 18 * it may be inferred that they were regarded as a harmless sort of people and that they exercised no influence whatever on the movements of political life. Reference has been made to the possibility that the emperors favored the rhetorical schools as a safety-valve for the lingering remnant of the old Roman love of liberty. Real life as it seems went on its course ignoring them as it was ignored by them. So likewise the dissensions of the various rhetorical sects 188 must have been a harmless matter, merely in the nature of personal attachments to individual masters, and not as in the warring philosophical schools, a differ- ence of principles, 189 for the obvious reason that professionally the rhetoricians had no principles. It cannot, however, be too strongly emphasized that they could never have attained such a height of foolishness and such an absurd feeling of self-importance had they not been strongly supported by the public opinion of the times, 190 and the reason for this strong support has in it an 185 Ibid., Praef. Contr. ix, I sq. 186 Ibid., Contr. i, 2, 22; vii, 5, 7; ix, 6, 13; Koerber, Ueber den Rhet. Sen.) pp. 52 sq. 187 Cf. Bonnell, De mut. sub. prim. Caes. Eloq., p. 29. 188 Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ii, n, 2. 189 Cf. Blass, Diegriech. Bcreds., p. 157. 190 Fronto, perhaps the most courted and flattered of all the rhetoricians, expresses on almost every page of his writings his fatuous consciousness that the whole universe has its eyes fixed upon him (cf. Ad amicos, i, 12); that nothing exists outside of rhetoric ; that rhetoric is the queen of the world, and that Fronto is the king of rhetors. His sorrow and disappoint- ment when his imperial pupil, Marcus Aurelius, turned from rhetoric to philosophy, are amusingly characteristic of the man (cf. Monceaux, Les Africains, pp. 215, 227 sq.). To explain such ridiculous vanity it is neces- sary to remember that the whole world then thought of Fronto what he thought of himself. He was compared by his contemporaries to the ancient Greek orators and to Cato, and pronounced their superior (cf. Monceaux, ibid., pp. 221 sq.). So well did he understand the prevailing taste that for a long time cultivated Rome " Frontonized "; his age recognized and 38 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. element of pathos. The Roman, filled with the memory of the glory that had been, the reality gone from his citizenship, from his oratory, and from his religion, attributing to rhetoric an ethical power strong to help, turned to it as an end in itself, 191 his only link with the past, his only means of education for the present ; clinging to it with a sort of despairing frenzy lest if sacred rhetoric should perish, with it should vanish from the world his only hope for the future. Only from this point of view can be comprehended rightly that intense devotion to an artificial thing, a devotion which inevitably defeated its own purpose. admired itself in his works (cf. Monceaux, ibid., p. 239). Unfortunately for Fronto's reputation in modern times, the discovery of a portion of his writings in a palimpsest at the beginning of this century, has shown how exaggerated beyond his deserts was the estimate of his own age. 191 Cf. Theo, Progymnasmata (Spengel, Rhet. Grace, ii, 60); "ml urjv -fj 6ia xP ia yvfjLvaoia ov ju,6vov, riva 6vvafj.iv Xoyuv ipyd^eTat, aA/ld /cat xpqaTov rt f)-So<; kyyvp)a(,o[jivuv fj(j.uv roZf ruv oo&uv aTro^tfey^acw "; cf. also Jebb, The Attic Orators ii, p. 54. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 39 PART II. I. SENECA THE ELDER. i. His life. For a long time it was the fate of the elder Seneca not only to be overshadowed by his greater son the philosopher, but to be entirely merged in him, so that his writings were attributed to his son and always combined with those of the latter. It was Raphael of Volaterra, who lived until the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury, who first distinguished Seneca the Elder Irom Seneca the philosopher. 192 The confusion between father and son was fully cleared up later by Justus Lipsius. 193 To this amalgamation of the two is probably due the fact that the praenomen of the father is differently given. The MSS. have either L (Lucius) which is the praenomen of the philosopher, or omit it entirely, while the name of Marcus is first mentioned by Raphael Volaterra. This may have originated, as Koerber surmises, 194 from the fact that it was customary among the Romans to give children the praenomen of the grandfather, and as the children of Mela 195 and of Seneca the philosopher 196 bore the name of Marcus, it was assumed that this was the praenomen of the elder Seneca also. 197 The praenomen 192 In his Commentariorum urbanorum octo et triginta libri Anthropol. 1. 19 (Raphael Maffeius Volaterranus); cf. Antonius Hispalensis, Bibliotheca Hispana vetus i, i . 193 Electorum liber i (appeared in 1580). 194 Ueber den Rhetor Seneca, p. 4. 193 The poet M. Lucanus. 196 Cf. Seneca philos., Consol. ad Helv. 18, 4. 197 H. J. Miiller, in the preface to his edition of Seneca Rhetor (Vindo- bonae MDCCCLXXXVII), p. viii, thinks it probable that father and son were confounded because they had the same praenomen. Wolfflin (Rh. Mus. 1., (1895), p 320) assumes that the praenomen is Lucius on the ground that Quintilian, Inst. Orat. x, i, 125, mentions the philosopher simply as Seneca, while ibid. 101, 114 he speaks of T. Livius and C. Caesar to distinguish the historian from the poet Livius, and the dictator from another Caesar, as also Varro Aticinus is cited by Priscian 10, 3, to distinguish him from M. Varro of Reate. Wolfflin argues that Quintilian would have marked the distinction of praenomen between the Senecas, father and son, had such a distinction existed. This argument does not seem very convincing as Quintilian is speaking only of philosophers, so that there was no possible ambiguity as to which Seneca he meant. 4O THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. therefore must be regarded as uncertain. Seneca was born at Cordova in Spain. 198 His family was wealthy 199 and belonged to the equestrian order. 800 The date of his birth can be only approx- imately established by the combination of other data. Seneca himself says 201 that but for the civil war which kept him in his native province, he would have had the opportunity of hearing Cicero declaiming with the two great men who bore the toga praetexta. By these are to be understood Hirtius and Pansa who were consuls in 43 B. C., 202 and Seneca must refer to this very year. The question of Seneca's age at this time depends on another, viz. at what age pupils usually entered the rhetorical schools. Koerber 203 assumes in consideration of the confusion of the courses of the grammatical and rhetorical schools mentioned above, 204 that boys entered the rhetorical schools at the early age of ten, and would accordingly fix the birth of Seneca in the year 53 B. C. But even granting that some boys may have come when ten years old under the training of the rhetoricians, it is not likely that one would be sent at that tender age from a distant province to the metropolis for the sake of study. It seems safer therefore not to fix upon any year as the certain date of birth but to leave it undecided between 60 and 53 B. C. 205 It is generally assumed that Seneca visited Rome twice. 206 As regards the date of his first coming, it would seem from the passage Praef. Contr. i, 1 1 198 Cf. Seneca philos., Epigr., ix (Ed. Haase) : ''Nunc longinqua tuum deplora, Corduba, vatem . . . Ille tuus quondam magnus tua gloria civisln- figar scopulo "; Seneca, Praef. Contr. i, 1 1 : " Bellorum civilium furor . . . intra coloniam meam me continuit "; Martial, i, 61, 7 : "Duosque Senecas unicumque Lucanum facunda loquitur Corduba." 199 Cf. Seneca philos., Cons, ad Helv. 14, 2. 200 Cf. Tacitus, Annales xiv, 53: " Egone, equestri et provincial! loco ortus proceribus civitatis adnumeror." 201 Praef. Contr. i, n. 202 Cf. Suetonius, De clar. rhet. c. i : "Cicero adpraeturam usque Graece declamavit ; Latine vero senior quoque, et quidem consulibus Hirtio et Pansa, quos discipulos et grandes praetextatos vocabat "; cf. also Cicero, Ad Fam. vii, 33, i ; ix, 16, 7. * m Ueber den Rhet. Seneca, p. 3. 204 Page 17. 205 Cf. Clinton, Fasti Hellenica iii, p. 261, 2d edition, who adopts 61 B. C. as the date of Seneca's birth. 206 Cf. Seneca, Praef. Contr. iv, 3 : " Audivi autem ilium (sc. Asinium Pollionem) et viridem et postea iam senem." This passage, quoted by Koerber (Ueber den Rhet. Seneca, p. 4) in support of this assumption, does not seem at all decisive. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 41 quoted in Note 198, that he left Cordova soon after the death of Cicero. This date is also supported by two other passages of the same preface 13 and 24, in which Seneca relates that he lived in close friendship with Porcius Latro from early boyhood ("aprima pueritia "), and that he heard him recite his first Controversia while still a youth ("admodum iuvenem ") in the school of Marullus where he was himself a student. 207 On the other hand the civil wars which prevented him from going to Rome during Cicero's lifetime, did not cease before 29 B. C. 208 How long Seneca re- mained in Rome on his first visit is not known. We may assume that he staid there long enough to complete his rhetorical edu- cation. 209 Returning to Cordova he married Helvia who belonged to an old conservative family and who seems personally to have been a woman of no common parts. 210 By this marriage there were three sons : Novatus, who was adopted by the rhetor L. Junius Gallio, Lucius Seneca the philosopher, and Mela the father of the poet Lucan. 211 The latest possible date of Seneca's second coming to Rome is 4 A. D. For Asinius Pollio, of whom he says : 212 " Audivi ilium et viridem et postea iam senem " (on which words, especially postea, Koerber and Gruppe base their theory of a double visit) died 5 A. D. And at least five years later Seneca must have been still at Rome. 213 The date of Seneca's death can be ascertained only approximately. On the one hand it is certain that he was still alive in 34 A. D. For in Suas. ii, 22 he speaks of the accusation raised against Scaurus Mamercus by Fus- cus, and the extinction of the Scaurus family in the person of this Mamercus. This accusation was made in 32 A. D., 2U and two 207 Cf. Koerber, Ueber den Rhet. Sen., p. 5 ; Gruppe, Quaest. Ann., p. 25. 208 Cf. Baurnm, 'De rhet. Grace, a Seneca in Suas. el Contr* adhib., p. 12. Baumm assumes this date for Seneca's first coming to Rome and offers the explanation that the youthful recitation of Latro and the teaching of Marullus occurred in Cordova. 209 Cf. Koerber, Ueber den Rhet. Sen., p. 6; Gruppe, Quaest. Ann., p. 25. Gruppe assumes that he did not leave Rome before 16 B. C. 210 Cf. Seneca philos., Consol. ad Helv., passim, especially xiv sq. 211 They are introduced in this order in the prefaces to the Controversiae, except in that to book ix, where Lucius is wanting. 212 Praef. Contr. iv, 3. 213 Cf. Seneca, Contr. i, 3, 10, where he mentions " Varus Quintilius tune Germanici gener ut praetextatus "; Gruppe, Qiiaest. Ann., pp. 25 sq. 214 Cf. Tacitus, Annales vi, c. 9 : " Appius Silanus Scauro Mamerco simul ac Sabino Calvisio maiestatis postulantur " (under Tiberius). 42 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. years after, another accusation induced Mamercus to commit sui- cide, by which, as Seneca says, his family became extinct. 215 On the other hand Seneca did not survive the banishment of his son Lucius, which took place in 41 A. D., 216 and accordingly the date of his death is to be set between 34 and 41 A. D. These limits may be narrowed if Suetonius's account of the death of Tiberius is an extract from Seneca's, lost historical work, the existence of which is attested by Seneca the philosopher. 217 The passage of Sueto- nius 218 reads : " Seneca eum (sc. Tiberium) scribit, intellecta defec- tione exempturum annulum quasi alicui traditurum parumper tenuisse, dein rursus aptasse digito et compressa sinistra manu iacuisse diu immobilem, subitoque vocatis ministris ac nemine respondente consurrexisse nee procul a lectulo deficientibus viri- bus concidisse." In this case Seneca would at least have survived Tiberius who died 37 A. D. 219 2. His character. The character of Seneca is reflected especially in the prefaces to the single books of the Controversiae, in which he writes in an unaffected epistolary style as a father to his children, in a tone which bears the stamp of sincerity and conviction. We recognize a man of the old sterling, almost severe Roman, character after the pattern of M. Porcius Cato, of whom he was a great admirer. 220 215 Cf. Tacitus, ibid, c, 29: "Mamercus dein Scaurus rursum postulatur . . . ab Servilio et Cornelio accusatoribus adulterium Liviae, magorum sacra obiectabantur. Scaurus, ut dignum veteribus Aemiliis, damnationem anteit, hortante Sextia uxore, quae incitamentum mortis etparticeps fuit." 216 This follows from the passages in Cons, ad Helv. ii, 4 sq.: " Carissi- murn virum, ex quo mater trium liberorum eras, extulisti. Lugenti tibi luctus nuntiatus est omnibus quidem absentibus liberis, quasi de industria in id tempus coniectis malis tuis, ut nihil esset ubi se dolor tuus reclinaret. Transeo tot pericula, tot metus, quos sine intervallo in te incursantes, pertulisti; modo in eundem sinum, ex quo tres nepotes emiseras, ossa trium nepotum recepisti. Intra vicesimum diem, quam filium meum in manibus et in osculis tuis mortuum funeraveras, raptum me audisti ; hoc adhuc defuerat tibi lugere vivos." 217 Cf. Fragm. 98. 218 Tiber, c. 73. 219 Cf. on this question Niebuhr, M. Tull. Cic. orat. pro M. Font, et pro Rab. fragm.; T. Liv. Lib. xci fragm. plen. et. emend.; L. Sen. fragm. ex membr. Bibl. Vat., p. 104 ; Koerber, Ueber den Rhet. Sen., pp. 8-10 ; Teuffel, Hist, of Rom. Lit. 269. 5. 220 Cf. Praef. Contr. i, 9. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 43 He passes a censure 221 upon the corruption and laxity of the times, to which there are numerous allusions in the Controversiae, 222 and probably goes too far and exaggerates, as is usually the case with the laudator temporis acti. Seneca indeed exhibits some traces of the rigor antiquus He disapproved of the higher education of women, "propter istas quae litteris non ad sapientiam utuntur, sed ad luxuriam instruuntur." In his earlier years he took part in political life and was not indifferent to political ambitions and honors ; but later he regarded political life as beset with dangers compared with which the life of a scholar afforded a safe harbor but little exposed to the storms of fate. 224 As far as we know even as a scholar his activity was confined to writing, for although it is certain that he passed much of his time in the rhetorical schools, where alone he could have acquired his vast knowledge of con- temporary rhetoric, there is nothing whatever to show that he took any active part in them or that he has the slightest claim to the title of rhetor which has been given him. Seneca shows himself again as an old Roman of the Catonian type in his unconcealed antipathy to the Greek rhetoricians and Greek culture in general. In fact he overlooks no opportunity of giving the Greeks a re- buke; compare for instance Praef. Contr. i, 6: "insolens Graecia"; Contr. x, 4, 23: "Graecas sententias in hoc refero, ut possitis aestimare, primum quam facilis e Graeca eloquentia in Latinum transitus sit et quam omne, quod bene dici potest, commune omnibus gentibus sit, deinde ut ingenia ingeniis conferatis et cogitetis Latinum linguam facultatis non minus habere, liceiitiae minus"; compare besides: Contr. i, 6, 12; i, 7, 12; i, 8, 7; ii, 6, 12, ix, 2, 29. Still his sense of justice occasionally compels him to accord praise to the Greeks, as in Contr. x, 4, 18, but even this he usually qualifies with a"nescio an" when the Greeks have the advantage in a comparison with the Roman rhetoricians as in Contr. i, 4, 10 and I2. 225 As regards Seneca's attitude toward 221 Cf. Praef. Contr. i, 2, 8 sq. 23. 22-2 Cf. i, 7, 5 ; ii, 4, 10 ; x, 4, 17 sq. 2J3 Thus Contr. iv, 6 he considers it a weakness (" imbecillus animus ") in Haterius who had lost six sons, to burst into tears in the midst of a dis- course which recalled his loss ; cf. also Sen., Consol. ad Helv. xvii, 3 : " Patris mei antiquus rigor . . . Virorum optimus, pater meus,maiorum con- suetudini deditus." 224 Cf. Praef. Contr. ii, 3 sq. 225 Cf. Buschmann, Character der griechischen Rhetoren beim Rhetor Seneca, pp. 1,2; Koerber, Ueber den Rhet. Sen., pp. 63 sq. 44 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. the political conditions of his time, it may be said that he was on the whole reconciled to the change from the confusion and unrest of the later period of the Republic to the imperial rule, although the love of liberty, especially so far as it concerned the freedom of the scientific spirit, was still alive in his breast. He is in complete sympathy with Augustus whom he terms a "clementis- simus vir," 226 and praises for allowing to a certain extent freedom of speech. 227 But he is fully aroused to ire by the literary auto-da-fts of his time. 228 He has, however, no sympathy for those foolhardy persons who would rather risk their heads than forego some seditious saying. 229 3. His writings. The rhetorical writings of Seneca which have survived under the title " Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae, divisiones, colores," consist of one book of Suasoriae and ten books of Controversiae. 230 The first contains seven themes, of which the beginning is incom- plete, and Bonnell is perhaps right in thinking that they repre- sent only a small remnant of the original number of Suasoriae, possibly not even the whole of the first book. 231 Of the ten books of Controversiae, only five, viz. i, ii, vii, ix and x, have the decla- mations, thirty-five in number, in full, although even these exhibit many lacunae. 238 Of the thirty-nine Controversiae of the other books, viz. iii, iv, v, vi and viii, there are in existence only the 826 Praef. Contr. iv, 5. 227 Cf. Contr. ii, 4, 5 : " Tanta autem sub divo Augusto libertas fuit, ut praepotenti tune M. Agrippae non defuerint qui ignobilitatem exprobra- rent." It was by no means an excessive freedom of speech which Augustus left to the proud Romans. 228 Cf. Praef. Contr. x, 6, where he says of the burning of the writings of Labienus : " Bono hercules publico ista in poenas ingeniorum versa crude- litas post Ciceronetn inventa est "; 7 : " Facem studiis subdere, et in monumenta disciplinarum animadvertere quanta et quam non contenta cet- era materia saevitia est." 229 Cf. Contr. ii, 4, 13 : "... sed horum non possum misereri, qui tanti putant caput potius quarn dictum perdere." 230 That the division of the Controversiae into books originated with Sen- eca himself, is shown by the fact that each book is introduced by a preface. 231 Cf. Bonnell, DC mut. sub. prim. Caes. eloq., p. 22: " Videtur autem, quae ad nos pervenerunt septem (sc. Suasoriae) exigua tantum pars a Sen- ecae libris mandatum f uisse, fortasse ne primus quidem liber integer, quo certe numero antiquissima Suasoriarum editio Veneta inscribitur." 232 The ignorance of the copyist played special havoc in transcribing the dicta of the Greek rhetoricians ; cf. Buschmann, Char, der griech. Khet. beim Rhet. Seneca, p. 3. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 45 Excerpts. 233 In this loss it is some consolation that the valuable prefaces to books iii and iv have been preserved. In regard to the date of composition of the writings we know that Seneca pro- duced them in extreme old age. 234 For a more precise date the same points come under consideration which were discussed con- cerning the date of his death, i. e. they must have been written between 34 and 41 A. D. Schanz 235 would limit this interval to the first years of Caligula's reign, because, he thinks, during the reign of Tiberius, Seneca would not have dared to quote in Suas. vii, 19 from the book of Cremutius Cordus, which had been officially burned, in a work which was intended not only for his sons but for the public. Schanz quotes Praef. Contr. i, 10 : " Quaecunque a celeberrimis viris facunde dicta teneo, ne ad quemquam priva- tim pertineant, populo dedicabo." But this is not at all conclu- sive. Seneca may have intended his rhetorical writings, which he composed in the first place at the request and for the benefit of his sons, for the general public, yet not have delivered them to the public during his lifetime, but entrusted this matter to his sons, so as not to come into conflict with the tyrannical Tiberius even if he censured him in his book. 236 The Controversiae were com- 233 Cf. Bursian in the Preface to his edition of Seneca, p. vii sq., concern- ing the date of origin and the value of the Excerpts : c ' Controversiarum libros magna fuisse etiam apud posteriores aevi homines auctoritate ex eo colligere liceat, quod saeculo fere quarto vel quinto p. Chr. n. extitit qui illas ad scholarum, ut mihi videtur, usus in epitomen redegerit, praefationes autem sive epistulas ad filios datas, quas Seneca singulislibris praemiserat integras in hanc exerptorum collectionem transtulerit, exceptis praefa- tionibus libri quinti, sexti, octavi, et noni, quas cur omiserit rationem reddere non possumus. Epitimator autem quisquis fuit in negotio suo exsequendo nee satis perite nee satis diligenter est versatus ; nam, ut omit- tam quod plurima ex arbitrio suo immutavit, baud raro sententias tarn arte cum aliis connexas ut sine damno ab illis divelli non possent, nexu exsolutas ita posuit ut legentibus nobis ineptae omnique sensu destitutae videantur . . . Quin etiam est ubi sententias a Seneca positas, quia non intellexerat prorsus corruperit "j cf. Konitzer, Quaest. in Sen. pair, crit>, p. 12; H. J. Muller in the Preface to his edition of Seneca, p. xxii. 234 Cf. Seneca, Praef. Contr. i, 2 : " Sed cum multa iam mihi ex meis des- ideranda senectus fecerit, oculorum aciem retuderit, aurium sensum hebe- taverit, nervorum firmitatem fatigaverit ..." 235 Geschichte der romischen Litteratur ii, p. 200; cf. also Bursian in the Preface to his edition of Seneca, p. vii. 836 That he entrusted some works to his son Seneca the philosopher, for publication, follows from the passage of Seneca philosopher, fragm. 98 (ed. Haase iii, p. 436); cf. Koerber, Ueber den Rhet. Sen., pp. 9 sq. 4-6 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. posed before the Suasoriae. 237 The primary reason of Seneca's writing his rhetorical works was the request of his sons who desired to become acquainted with the sa)^ngs of the rhetoricians in order to form an independent judgment on them. 238 At the same time the work was intended for the general public eventu- ally. 239 Still a third motive was to rescue some of the prominent rhetoricians from oblivion or from what is worse, misrepresenta- tion. 240 Besides the Suasoriae and Controversiae, Seneca composed an historical work on the period from the beginning of the civil wars down to his own time, and, as it would seem, some other works which have been lost. This would follow from what his son says in fragm. 98 : " Si quaecunque composuit pater meus et edi voluit, iam in manus populi emisissem, ad claritatem nominis sui satis sibi ipse prospexerat : nam nisi me decipit pietas, cuius hon- 237 Cf. Seneca, Contr. ii, 4, 8 : " Quae dixerit (sc. Latro) suo loco reddam cum ad suasorias venero." This passage confirms the opinion that the Suasoriae extant do not represent all which were edited by Seneca as he would scarcely have failed to reproduce this long Suasoria of his beloved Latro. In the MSS. and most of the editions the Suasoriae are placed be- fore the Controversiae in accordance with the gradation adopted for instruc- tion in the rhetorical schools, where the Suasoriae being easier came first. Cf. Schott in his Preface, p. 7 : " Etsi non me fugit Controversias prius edi- disse M. Annaeum quam Suasorias, has enim Controversia xii promittit, tamen feci libenter ut has illis ordine anteponerem, cum tradendarum artium Methodo, quae perfaciliora notaque, ad ea quae difficilia magis, obscura atque ignota sunt, viam sternit, turn priorum editionum exemplo Frobinii, etc." Cf. Teuffel, Hist, of Rom. Lit. 269, 7 ; H. J. Miiller (Preface, p. viii) thinks it might be concluded from the circumstance that the end of the Controversiae and the beginning of the Suasoriae are wanting, that in the older MSS. now lost, the Suasoriae were preceded by the Controversiae. The lacuna could thus be easily explained by the loss of several leaves or an entire quaternion. But if the Suasoriae preceded the Controversiae this lacuna may be easily accounted for in another way, viz. the beginning and end of a book are the first to suffer all kinds of vicissitudes. 238 Cf. Praef. Contr. i, I : " Jubetis . . . ab illis (sc. declamatoribus) dicta colligere, ut, quamvis notitiae vestrae subducti sint, tamen non credatis tantum de illis, sed et iudicetis." 239 Cf. Ibid. I 10. 240 Cf. Ibid. ii : " Ipsis quoque multum praestaturus videor, quibus ob- livio imminet, nisi aliquid quo memoria eorum producatur, posteris trad- itur. Fere enim aut nulli commentarii maximorum declamatorum extant aut, quod peius est, falsi. Itaque ne aut ignoti sint aut aliter quam debent noti, summa cum fide suum cuique reddam." THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 47 estas etiam error est, inter eos haberetur, qui ingenio meruerunt ut puris scriptorum titulis nobiles essent. Quisquis legisset eius historias ab initio bellorum civilium, unde primum veritas retro obiit, paene usque ad mortis suae diem, magni aestimaret scire, quibus natus esset parentibus ille,quires Romanas. . . ." Whether the " quaecunque " refers to works besides the history, and whether these works were independent treatises on rhetoric as Koerber 241 surmises, is, although very likely, not certain. Nor does the pas- sage seem conclusive which is quoted by Quintilian from a Con- troversia of Seneca to support the view that Seneca published declamations of his own. For Koerber's arguments 242 to prove that this passage is not from one of the Controversiae, i. e. which Seneca merely collected and which were afterward lost, are not decisive. The tone and tenor of the passage in question are entirely in keeping with the style of the Controversiae which we find in the collection of Seneca, 243 and the theme is in a degree parallel to that of Contr. vi, 7. 4. Value of his rhetorical writings. The rhetorical writings are the richest and most trustworthy source of our information on the methods and condition of the study of rhetoric, and since rhetoric, as has been said above, com- prised the whole of what we term a liberal education, we may add of the pursuit of liberal studies and general culture in the ages of Augustus and Tiberius. It is true, they do not convey an adequate picture of the schools of that time ; the individual declama- tion is not presented as it was delivered and discussed in some definite place and at a definite time, but solely with regard to its contents. For since most of the themes were stereotyped and in vogue in various schools, Seneca reproduced what he has heard on each of them in several places and on several occasions. 244 241 Ueber den Rhet. Sen., p. 22. 242 Loc. cit. 248 Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ix, 2, 42: " Noyi vero et praecipue decla- matores audacius nee mehercule sine motu quodam imaginantur ; ut Seneca ista in controversia, cuius summa est, quod pater filium et novercam indu- cente altero filio in adulterio deprehensos occidit : Due, sequor ; accipe hanc senilem manum et quocunque vis imprime. Et post paulo, Aspice, in- quit, quod diu non credidisti. Ego vero non video, nox oboritur et crassa- caligo." 244 Cf. Suas. ii, n : "Non quidem in hac suasoria, sed in hac materia dissertissima ilia fertur sententia Dorionis "; ibid. 12 : " Occurrit mihi sen- sus in eiusmodi materia a Severe Cornelio dictus"; cf. also Contr. i, 2, 22. 48 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Still we have the personal observations and experiences of a man devoted to the subject in question, who, notwithstanding he was in the noise and clamor of the schools, preserved a clear insight and a sober judgment. This he shows amply in the prefaces to the various books of the Controversiae and his personal remarks interspersed throughout the declamations. The prefaces are the most readable portions of the work and not only are most impor- tant for a knowledge of the life and character of Seneca himself, but also contain the most direct information concerning the state of literary taste and education as well as the life, methods, and manners of the prominent rhetors. The style of the prefaces shows few traces of the influence of Silver Latinity and is not inelegant. 245 Seneca imitated Cicero, whom he admired so much, 246 not without success. The style of the prefaces is marked by clearness, precision, purity of expression, and a regular and perspicuous periodic structure. In the declamations the influence of the Silver Latin is predominant. The question arises, to whom are the diction and style of these (the Controversiae and Suasoriae) to be attributed ? Have we in them a faithful reproduc- tion in form and contents of the sayings of each rhetorician to whom they are ascribed ; or did Seneca freely give the thoughts of the rhetors his own form ? This latter view is adopted by Teuffel. 247 But the difference between the language of the prefaces and that of the declamations, and also in the manner of expression of the different rhetoricians, is so marked that it would seem that Seneca endeavored also to reproduce the peculiarities of the style of the individual rhetors. This is the view adopted by M. Sander 248 and H. T. Karsten. 249 They regard the wording of the declamations as an attempt on the part of Seneca to reproduce the varying styles of the different speakers, and appeal to the fact that Seneca had no other sources for his work than his memory which, good as it was, could not be expected to be absolutely faithful as regards the details of the mode of expression, They 245 Cf. Schott, De aucl. el decl. rat., p. 5. " De cuius scriptoris stylo ita iudicare non dubitem, nihil esse in lingua Latina, cum a Cicerone Fabioque discesseris, scripto purius et elegantius." 246 Cf. Praef. Contr. i, 7, n ; Suas. vi, 14 sq. 247 Hist, of Rom. Lit. 269. 6. 248 Quaest. in Sen. rhet. synt., p. 4 sq. ; Der Sprachgebratich des Rhet. Ann. Sen. i, p. i sq. 942 )ds ; ^ ffTtq elxdst xaXw^ . l au de y a> fiaffilso,' syaffav ol 7) Tipbq dufffj-dq dtpopwv auroc ftyds Tyv GTpaTidv ravTy sXftelv' dX^d ixTtepieXftuiv Tzpoz a> /ua/Uov 1 ' Compare also Pompeius Trogus, Epitome of Justinus, Philippicarum xii. Suasoria v. The Athenians deliberate whether they shall remove their Persian trophies, since Xerxes threatens to return unless they do so. The only element of reality in the subject of this Suasoria is the reference to the custom of preserving trophies taken from defeated foes. Suasoria vi. Cicero deliberates whether he shall implore mercy from Antony. The fictitious argument of this Suasoria was suggested by the enmity between Cicero and M. Antonius,. which led to the violent death of the former. Moreover this theme and that of the next Suasoria also, seem to have belonged to the stock subjects of the rhetorical schools. 300 It may be said that the signal success of Cicero's life and its tragic end were favorite topics with the later Roman writers in general. 301 299 De rer. nat. i, 95 sq. 300 Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. iii, 8, 46. 301 Cf. Morawski, De rhet. Zat., pp. 16 sq. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 63 Suasoria vii. Cicero deliberates whether he shall burn his own writings, since Antony promised him security if he should do so. On the theme of the seventh and last Suasoria compare what was said above in regard to the sixth. Compare also Suas. vi, 14: "Solent enim scholastici declamitare : deliberat Cicero an salutem promittente Antonio orationes suas comburat. Haec inepte ficta cuilibet videri potest." Controversies i, i. Patruus abdicans. Liberi parentes alant aut vinciantur. Two brothers, one of whom had a son, disagreed. When the uncle became needy the nephew against the prohibition of his father supported him. Being disinherited by his father for this, he was silent. He was adopted by the uncle who by receiving an inheritance became rich. Then the young man's father began to suffer want and was supported by his son against the prohibi- tion of the uncle, who thereupon disinherited the young man. The subjects of the support of the aged, and disinheritance were two of the revelling grounds of the declaimers, cf. Contr. iii, 19; vii, 4 ; Quintilian, Decl. maj., 5; Quintilian, Inst. Oral, v, 10, 16 and vii, 6, 5. Contr oversia i, 3. Incesta saxo deiciatur. A priestess, accused of incest, before she was hurled from the rock invoked Vesta. She remained alive and was demanded again for a repetition of the penalty. This is a fictitious law of the schools, for by Roman law an incestuous priestess was buried alive. The penalty imagined by the rhetoricians may have had its origin in a confusion of the well- known story of Sappho's precipitating herself from a rock on account of misfortune in love, and the fact that traitors in the early time at Rome were thrown down from the Tarpeian Rock. In 273 B. C. a Vestal was hanged. 302 Controversies i, 4. Fortis sine manibus. A brave man, who had lost both hands in war, caught his wife and her paramour inflagrante and ordered his son to kill them. 302 cf. Orosius, iv, 5, 9. 64 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. The young man refused, and the adulterer escaped ; whereupon the son is disinherited. This theme is very similar to that of Quintilian, Decl. 330. It was very likely suggested per contrarium by the story of Orestes. 303 Controversia i, 5. Raptor duarum. A man raped two maidens in the same night ; one demanded his death, the other marriage. This seems to have been a favorite subject with both the Roman and Greek rhetoricians, and was in all probability transferred from the latter to the Roman schools. It is introduced by Hermogenes in his " xep\ rtiv araffzuv, " 30i and is the theme, in a more developed form, with a sequel of Calpurnius Flaccus, Decl. 49. Controversia i, 6. Archipiratae filia. A man captured by pirates wrote to his father in regard to a ransom but was not ransomed. The daughter of the pirate-chief compelled the captive to swear that he would marry her if he were freed. He did so, and thereupon the daughter left her father and followed the youth. He returned to his father and married her. His father afterward commanded him to divorce the pirate's daughter and marry a certain orphan. When he refused, his father disinherited him. For the introduction of the orphan reference may be made to the Attic law quoted in Terence, Phormio 125, which compelled orphans to marry their next of kin, and also made it obligatory on the latter to receive them as wives. A somewhat similar sub- ject is found in Quintilian, Decl. 376. Controversia ii, 5. Torta a tyranno pro marito. A wife was tortured by a tyrant in order to obtain from her information as to the complicity in a plot of her husband. She could not be forced to tell. Afterward the husband killed the tyrant and divorced his wife on the charge of barrenness, as she had borne him no children in a period of five years. She sued him for ingratitude. 303 Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. iii, n, 4 sq. 304 Cf. Spengel, Rhet. Grace, ii, 171. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 65 This law (ingrati actid), like so many made use of in the declamations, was an Attic one. 805 A similar case of iniusti re- pudii is treated in Quintilian, DecL 251, only that in this latter case the wife was raped and demanded marriage instead of the death of the ravisher. The subject of wife and tyrant is also introduced by Hermogenes, " -Kepi ra>v v ffrdffecw " 31 uses as an example the case of a youth who used cosmetics, and was thereupon charged with x Controversia v, 7. Trecenti ab imperatore non recepti. Lex : Nocte portas aperire in bello non liceat. Three hundred captives fleeing from the enemy came to the gates at night. The commander would not open to them and they were killed before the gates. After a victory the com- mander was charged with injuring the state. This theme must have been current in the Greek schools also, as it is given by Hermogenes " xepl eup^ffsax; " ft 311 Controversia vi, 5. Iphicrates reus. Lex : Qui vim in iudicio fecerit, capite puni- atur. Iphicrates, having been twice defeated in battle by the king of the Thracians, concluded a treaty with him and married his daughter. When he returned to Athens and pleaded his cause certain Thracians were seen about the court armed with knives, and Iphicrates himself, although a defendant, drew his sword. When the judges were called upon to give their opinion they openly pronounced for an acquittal. Iphicrates was thereupon accused of having used violence in court. This theme appears to be taken from history, but with the facts a good deal modified. Xenophon 312 states that Iphicrates carried on war against the Thracians. Cornelius Nepos, Iphicrates 2, i: " Bellum cum Thracibus gessit ; Seuthem socium Atheniensium in regnum restituit "; compare also Aeschinus, xep} -apar.peffpzias, 27-29; Diodorus Siculus, xvi, 21; Plutarch, Apoph., 1876; Aristotle, Rhet. ii, 23, 6 : " . . . . typrjffa.ro "Itpupdrrjq <; el xodoir uv rdq vaix; T 309 Cf. Aeschines against Timarchus. 3n Cf. Spengel, Rhet. Grace, ii, 196. 310 Cf. Spengel, Rhet. Graec. ii, 147. 312 ffellen. iv, 8, 34 sq. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 67 slra The same topic is treated in Quintilian, DecL 386. 313 Controversia vi, 7. Demens qui filio cessit uxorem. A man having two sons married a second wife. When one of the young men was ill nigh unto death, the physicians said the cause of his illness was a love affair. When the father compelled the son at the sword's point to tell him the truth, the young man confessed that he loved his step-mother. The father gave up his wife to him and thereupon was charged with insanity by his other son. It seems evident that this theme is taken from the history of Seleucus who gave up his wife Stratonice to his sick son Antiochus. 314 A similar case is treated in Quintilian, DecL 291 and Calpurnius Flaccus, DecL 46, except that in this latter case it is a brother who at the request of his father yields his wife to his sick brother and is afterward caught in adultery with his former wife. Controversia vii, 2. Popilius Ciceronis interfector. Compare on this theme the remarks made on Suasoriae vi and vii. 315 Controversia vii, 6. Demens qui servo filiam iunxit. A tyrant permitted the slaves to outrage their mistresses. The chief men of the state fled and among them one who had a son and a daughter. While all the other slaves outraged their mis- tresses his slave saved the daughter from this fate. After the tyrant was killed and the chiefs had returned the slaves were crucified. But the faithful slave was set free by his master who gave him his daughter as a wife. Thereupon the son charged his father with insanity. This theme was taken from the history of the Volsinii, the inhabitants of a city in Etruria who, becoming enervated by excessive luxury, were overpowered by their slaves and freedman. The tyrant is an addition made to the story by the rhetoricians. 316 313 Cf. also Quintilian, Inst. Orat. v, 12, 10. 314 Cf. Plutarch, Demetrius c. 28 ; Valerius Maximus, v, 7, Ext. I. 315 Cf. also Livy, Epit. cxx. 316 Cf. Valerius Maximus, ix, i, Ext. 2 ; Orosius, iv, 5, 3; Aurelius Victor, De viris illustribus c. xxxvi. 68 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Controversia viii, 6. Pater naufragus divitis socer. A rich man three times importuned a poor man to give him his daughter in marriage, and the poor man three times refused, but having started with his daughter on a voyage he was shipwrecked on the estate of the rich man who again asks for the daughter as his wife. The poor man wept in silence. After the marriage they return to the city where the poor man wishes to lead his daughter before the magistrate, but the rich man opposes this. This theme may easily have been formed on the analogy of Plautus, Trinum. Act iii, Scene 2, where the poor but proud Lesbonicus refuses to give his sister to Lysiteles without a mar- riage portion. Controversia ix, 2. Maiestatis laesae sit actio. The proconsul Flamininus, at the request of his mistress while at table, who said that she never had witnessed a decapitation, had a condemned man executed. He is thereupon accused of laesae maiestatis. This theme is based upon an historical fact. L. Flamininus was expelled from the senate by Cato when censor in 184 B. C, because of his conduct seven years before, when he wantonly killed a chief of the Boii, who had taken refuge in his camp. Valerius Maximus agrees with Seneca that this was done to please a mistress, while Valerius Antias, cited in Livy, xxxix, 43, gives a similar story. Livy and Plutarch say that the cruel act was done to please a favorite boy. 317 II. CLASSIFICATION. A. The Suasoriae. I. Simple (whether something is or is not to be done), i, vi. Duplex (a choice between two alternatives), ii, iii, iv, v, vii. II. According to the sources : 1. Historical, iv. 2. Suggested by an historical occurrence, i, ii. 3. Derived from the poets, iii. 4. Fictitious, v, vi, vii. 317 Cf. Livy, xxxix, 42; Cicero, De senectute 12; Plutarch, Cato c. 17; Flamininus c. 18; Valerius Maximus, ii, 9, 3; Aurelius Victor, De viris illustribus 47. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 69 B. The Contr oversiae* I. General character of the suit. J > 3> 5- ii, 7. iii, 5, 9- iv, i, 4, 6. v, i, 6, 7. vi, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8. vii, 3, 5> 7, 8. viii, i, 6. ix, 2, 4, 5, 6. x, i, 4. 5, 6. i. Criminal 2. Civil: i, i, 4, 6, 7, 8. ii, i, 2. iii, i, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8. iv, 3, 5, 8. v, 2, 4, 5. vi, i, 2. vii, i, 4. viii, 2, 3. X, 2. i, 2, ii, 3> 4, 5> 6. iii, 7. iv, 2, 7. v, 3, 8. vi, 7. vii, 2, 6. viii, 4, 5. ix, i, 3- II. According to the point at issue (i. e. the question to be decided, or the charge brought). 1. Admission of a tyrant to office, v, 8. 2. Adultery, iv, 7 ; vi, 6. 3. Claims of the blinded, iii, i. 4. Damage to property, iii, 6 ; v, 5. 3. Affecting the political or social status : 7O THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 5. Deception (circumscriptio), vi, 3. 6. Desecration of a tomb, iv, 4. 7. Disinheritance (abdicated), i, i, 4, 6, 8 ; ii, i, 2 ; iii, 2, 3, 4 ; iv, 3> 5 ; v, 2, 4 ; vi, i, 2 ; vii, i ; viii, 3, 5 ; x, 2. 8. Force unlawfully applied (vis), ix, 5. 9. Force in court (vis in iudicio), vi, 5 ; ix, 3. 10. Force and intimidation (vis et metus), iv, 8. 11. Ingratitude (ingrati actio), ii, 5 ; ix, i. 12. Injury to the person (iniuria), iv, i ; v, 6 ; x, i, 6. 13. Insanity, ii, 3, 4 ; vi, 7 ; vii, 6 ; x, 3. 14. Laesae maiestatis, ix, 2. 15. Laesae reipublicae, v, 7 ; x, 4, 5. 1 6. Maleficium, v, i. 17. Maltreatment (malae tractionis actid), iii, 7 ; iv, 6 ; v, 3. 1 8. Misbehavior (de moribus), vii, 2. 19. Parricide, iii, 2 ; v, 4 ; vii, 3, 5 ; ix, 4. 20. Poisoning, iii, 7 ; vi, 4, 6; vii, 3 ; ix, 6. 21. Priestly integrity (moral and physical) i, 2, 3 ; iv, 2 ; vi, 8. 22. Punishment of rape, i, 5 ; iii, 5 ; vii, 8. 23. Reward of bravery, iv, 7. 24. Sacrilege, viii, i, 2. 25. Seditious meeting (coetus et concur -sus), iii, 8. 26. Slaves, punishment of, iii, 9 ; viii, 3; (cf. vii, 6.) 27. Suicide, refusal of burial to, viii, 4. 28. Support of parents, i, i, 7 ; vii, 4. 29. Treason, vii, 7 ; (cf. x, 6.) III. Side issues (i. e. with what the action is concerned). 1. Adultery, rape and incest, i, 2, 3, 4, 5 ; ii, 3, 7 ; iii, 5, 8 ; iv, 3 ; v, 6 ; vi, 8 ; vii, 8 ; viii, 6 ; ix, i, 6. 2. Exposed children, ix, 3 ; x, 4. 3. Mistresses, ii, 4 ; ix, 2. 4. Pirates, i, 6, 7 ; iii, 3; vii, i, 4. 5. Poor and rich, ii, i ; v, 2, 5 ; viii, 6 ; x, i. 6. Step-mother and step-children, ii, 7 ; iv, 5, 6; ix, 5, 6. 7. Suicide, v, i ; viii, i, 3, 4. 8. Tyrants and tyrannicide, ii, 5 ; iii, 6 ; iv, 7 ; v, 8 ; ix, 4. 9. Valiant man {fortis), i, 4, 8 ; iv, 4 ; viii, 5 ; x, 2. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. /I III. PARALLELS OF THE SUBJECTS DISCUSSED IN THE CON- TROVERSIAE OF SENECA, THE DECLAMATIONS OF THE PSEUDO-QUINTILIAN, AND CALPURNIUS FLACCUS. i. Subjects identical. Seneca, ii, 3 Quintilian, 349. A ravisher must perish unless within thirty days he appeases his own father and the father of the ravished. A ravisher appeased the father of the ravished but not his own. He charges him with insanity. 318 Seneca, ii, 4 Calpurnius Flaccus, 30. A man disinherited his son ; the latter betook himself to a courtesan and begot a son by her. Being ill he sent for his father; when he had come he commended his son to him and died. After his death his father adopted the child ; he is charged with insanity by his other son. 819 Seneca, iii, 5 Calpurnius Flaccus, 33. A ravished woman may require either the death of the ravisher, or that he shall marry her without dowry. 320 A ravisher demands that the ravished one be produced (so that she may make her choice). The father does not permit. 821 Seneca, iii, 9 Quintilian, 380. A master being ill asked his slave to give him poison, the latter refused. The master provided by his will that the slave should be crucified by the heirs. The slave appeals to the tribunes. 322 Seneca, iv, 4 Quintilian, 369. Action for desecration of a tomb. During a war in a certain state a valiant man, who had lost his arms in battle, took the arms from the tomb of another valiant man. After fighting bravely he restored the arms. He received the reward (of bravery) but was accused of desecration of a tomb. 323 318 Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ix, 2, 90. 319 The slight variations in the theme as given by Calpurnius Flaccus do not affect the point at issue. These are that the father disinherited the son on account of his love affair, and that he only wished to adopt the child. 3 ' Cf. Seneca, i, 5 ; vii, 8 ; viii, 6. 321 In Calpurnius Flaccus the father forcibly restrains the woman. 322 Quintilian adds that the master had promised the slave his liberty. 323 In Quintilian the substance of the theme is given in a shorter form. 72 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Seneca, vi, 5 Quintilian, 386. He who uses violence in court should suffer capital punish- ment. Iphicrates having been sent against the king of the Thracians and conquered twice in battle, concluded a treaty with him and married his daughter. When he had returned to Athens and was brought before a court, some Thracians were seen about armed with knives, and the defendant himself drew a sword. When the judges were called upon to pronounce judgment they openly acquitted him. He is accused of using violence in court. 324 Seneca, vi, 6 Quintilian, 354 Calpurnius Flaccus, 39. Action for poisoning. A man who had a wife and by her a marriageable daughter? informed his wife to whom he intended to give the daughter in marriage. The wife said : " She shall die sooner than marry that man." The daughter died before the wedding day with suspicious signs of cruel treatment and poisoning. The father put a maid- servant to the torture : she said that she knew nothing about poison but she did know about the adultery of her mistress with that man to whom he was intending to give his daughter in mar- riage. The father accused his wife of poisoning and adultery. 325 Seneca, vii, 3 Quintilian, 17. A son who had been three times disinherited and forgiven was surprised by his father in a retired part of the house pre- paring a potion. When asked what it was he said it was poison, and that he wished to die ; he poured it out. He is accused of parricide. 326 324 Quintilian limits himself to the brief statement that Iphicrates came into court girded with a sword and brought with him Cotys king of the Thracians. 325 In Quintilian the episode of the torture and confession of the maid-ser- vent is wanting ; suspicion against the wife arises from her saying : " She shall die before she marries," and from the fact that the husband had seen her secretly conversing with the handsome young man to whom he betrothes his daughter ; cf. also Hermogenes, irepl TUV ardceuv, Spengel, Rhet. Grace. "> 143- 326 In Quintilian the dramatic touch is added that the father ordered the son to drink the mixture. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 73 Seneca, vii, 8 Quintilian, 309. A ravished woman may request either the death of the ravisher, or that he shall marry her without dowry. 327 A woman who had been ravished when produced in court chose marriage. The young man who was defendant denied that he was the ravisher. He was condemned, and the woman then chose his death although he was then willing to marry her. The man protests. 328 Seneca, viii, i Calpurnius Flaccus, 41. A magistrate may inflict punishment upon one who has con- fessed. A woman who had lost her husband and two sons hanged her- self. Her third son cut the rope. She, when a sacrilege had been committed and the perpetrator was being sought for, told the magistrate that she was the guilty party. The magistrate wishes to inflict punishment on her on the ground of her confes- sion. The son objects. 329 Seneca, ix, 6 Quintilian, 381 Calpurnius Flaccus, 12. A poisoner may be tortured until she discloses her accomplices. A man after the death of his wife, by whom he had a son, mar- ried another wife and by her had a daughter. The young man died, and the husband accused the step-mother of poisoning him. Having been condemned, she said under torture that her daughter was her accomplice. The daughter is demanded for punishment. The father defends her. 330 2. Subjects more or less cognate. Seneca, i, 4 Quintilian, 330. He who surprises an adulterer with an adulteress and kills them shall be without guilt. It shall be permissible even for a son to punish adultery in his mother. 327 Cf. Seneca, i, 5 ; iii, 5 ; vii, 8 ; viii, 6. 328 In Quintilian it is stated that she wished freedom of choice after the conviction. 329 In Calpurnius Flaccus she has lost her husband and three sons out of four. 330 In Quintilian this theme is given briefly with the addition that the son died " ambiguis signis." Calpurnius Flaccus uses the same phrase. 74 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. A valiant man who had lost his hands in war surprised an adulterer with his wife by whom he had a son now a young man. He ordered his son to kill but he did not. The adulterer escaped, and he disinherited his son. 331 In Quintilian the filial piety of the son towards his mother, at the expense of his injured father, is in a different form. A man repudiated his wife on a charge of adultery ; his son by her came to him and told him that he was in love with a courtesan. His father gave him money, and with it he supported his mother, who was in want, without the knowledge of his father. When his father found it out he disinherited his son. Seneca, i, 5 Quintilian, 270 Calpurnius Flaccus, 49. A ravished woman may require either the death of the ravisher, or that he shall marry her without a dowry. 332 A man ravished two women the same night ; one requires his death, the other marriage. In Quintilian the act was perpetrated on one of twin sisters. The victim hanged herself, but the father produced the other in court and instructed her to require the death of the ravisher. The young man, supposing that this was the woman whom he had ravished, was condemned. When the deceit was found out the father was accused of-murder. In Calpurnius Flaccus the case is the same as in Seneca, but the point at issue is different. The court decided for the more humane demand; after the marriage the other woman bore a child (by the ravisher). The latter exposed it, but the husband of this other woman took it up and began to rear it; whereupon he is accused by his wife of malae tractationis. Seneca, i, 6 Quintilian, 376. A man captured by pirates wrote to his father in regard to a ransom, but was not ransomed. The daughter of the pirate-chief compelled the man to swear that he would marry her if he were set free ; he swore to do so. She left her father and followed the young man. After returning to his father he married her. An orphan appears on the scene whom the young man's father com- 331 From the context it would seem that the father's command to the son was to kill both the guilty parties. 332 Cf. Seneca, iii, 8 ; vii, 8 ; viii, 6. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 75 rnands him to marry after dismissing the daughter of the pirate- chief. Upon his refusal he is disinherited. In Quintilian it is the daughter of a benefactor who is in the case. A man when dying offers to reveal to a young man, whom he has brought up as his own son, his true parentage if he will take an oath that he will marry the daughter whom the dying man is leaving. The young man swore to do so. Being received by his real father after the death of his benefactor, upon his refusal to marry a rich orphan, he is disinherited. Seneca, i, 7 Quintilian, 5. Let children care for their parents or suffer punishment. A man killed one brother who was a tyrant, and another whom he had caught in adultery, although his father entreated him not to do so. Being captured by pirates he wrote to his father in regard to a ransom. The father wrote to the pirates offering them a double sum if they would cut off his son's hands. The pirates released the son who, afterward, when his father was in want, did not support him. In Quintilian the same point is at issue, but the circumstances are different. A man had two sons, one respectable, the other dissipated. Both went abroad and were captured by pirates, whereupon the profligate became ill. Both wrote home in regard to a ransom. The father turned all his property into money and came to them. The pirates told him that he brought only enough to redeem one, and that he might choose whichever he wished. He ransomed the one who was ill, who died while on his way home. The other made his escape and when his father demanded support, refused. Seneca, ii, 2 Quintilian, 357. A husband and wife took a mutual oath that if one died the other would not survive. The husband went abroad and sent a messenger to inform his wife that he was dead. Thereupon she threw herself from a height, but survived. She is commanded by her father to leave her husband, and on her refusal is disinherited. In Quintilian it is a wife who complains about her husband to her father and is commanded by the latter to keep the peace. But afterward when her husband had been blinded on account of adultery and she refused to desert him, she is disinherited. 76 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Seneca, ii, 5 Quintilian, 251. A wife, who was tortured by a tyrant to force her to declare whether she knew anything of a plot formed by her husband for the murder of the tyrant, persevered in denying. Afterward her husband killed the tyrant. As she bore no children for five years her husband divorced her under the pretext of barrenness. An action is brought for ingratitude. In Quintilian it is a case oiiniusti repudii, the union having taken place after a rape, when the woman had her choice between the death of the ravisher and marriage, which marriage the husband now tries to dissolve on the charge of barrenness. Seneca, ii, 7 Quintilian, 325 and 363. A man who had a beautiful wife went abroad. A merchant from foreign parts settled in the neighborhood, and three times made proposals to the woman, offering her gifts. She, however, refused. The merchant died, and by his will made the beautiful woman heir of all his property, adding the eulogy : " I found her chaste." She entered upon the inheritance. Her husband returned and accused her of adultery on suspicion. In Quintilian 325 a rich man and a poor man are neighbors. There was a rumor that the poor man's pretty wife was unduly intimate with the rich man, with the connivance of her husband. The latter was accused of procuring (lenocinii), but was acquitted. The rich man died leaving the poor man heir to all his property, adding : " I ask you to restore this legacy to that person of whom I made a request." The poor man's wife demands the legacy as " fidei commissam." In Quintilian 363 the poor man with the beautiful wife is solicited three times, with an offer of gifts by the foreign merchant, that he may let him his wife for an immoral purpose. The hus- band sends a wardrobe-maid in the garb of a matron. An action is brought for mala tractatio. Seneca, vi, 7 Quintilian, 291 Calpurnius Flaccus, 46. There may be an action for insanity. A man who had two sons married again. When one of the young men fell ill, and was at the point of death, the physicians declared that the trouble was a mental one. The father forced the son at the sword's point to disclose the cause. He said that THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 77 he was in love with his step-mother. The father gave up his wife to him, and was thereupon charged by his other son with insanity. In Quintilian and Calpurnius Flaccus it is one of the sons who, at the instance of his father, gives up his wife to his lovesick brother. The latter afterwards finds his wife in adultery with her former husband and kills them. For this he is disinherited by his father. In Calpurnius Flaccus it is distinctly stated that the second husband kills both; in Quintilian only the woman is mentioned as being killed. Seneca, vii, 3 Quintilian, 377. A son who had been three times disinherited and forgiven was surprised by his father in a retired part of the house preparing a potion. When asked what it was he said it was poison and that he wished to die ; he poured it out. He is accused of par- ricide. 333 In Quintilian 377 the son is driven to this desperate deed because his father was about to send him for the third time to military service. Seneca vii, 4 Quintilian 6 and 16. Let children care for their parents or suffer punishment. A man who had a wife and a son by her went abroad ; being captured by pirates he wrote to his wife and son in regard to a ransom. The wife lost her eyesight through weeping 1 . She demanded support of her son as he was setting out to ransom his father. When he refuses to remain she wishes him to be sustained by force. In Quintilian 6 the son set out to free his father by becoming captive in his place (yicariis manibus). He died in captivity and his corpse having been thrown into the sea was cast up on the shore of his native land. The father wishes to give it burial, the mother forbids. In Quintilian 16 the case concerns two friends of whom one has a mother, who, while travelling abroad, fell into the hands of a tyrant. The mother lost her eyesight through weeping. The tyrant offered to allow the son to go and see his mother on condi- tion that if he did not return by a specified day the other young 333 Identical with Quintilian 17. 78 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. man should suffer punishment. The son having bound himself by oath to return came to his own country. His mother prevents him from returning by the law which forbids children to desert their parents in distress. Seneca, vii, 5 Quintilian, i and 2. A man after the death of his wife, by whom he had a son, married again and had a son of this marriage also. There was in the house a handsome steward. When there were frequent quarrels between the step-mother and the step-son, the latter was ordered by his father to move. He hired the dwelling next door. Rumor charged the steward and the step-mother with adultery. Finally the father of the family was found murdered in his bed- chamber, the wife wounded, and the partition wall between the houses of the father and the son broken through. The relations determined to ask the five-year old son, who slept with his father and mother, whom he recognized as the murderer. He pointed at the steward. The son accuses the steward of murder, the steward the son of parricide. In Quintilian i there is no steward in the case ; the dramatis personae are a father, his second wife and a blind son by his first wife. The father is found murdered in bed beside his wife with the son's sword sticking in the wound. On the wall separating the father's room from that of the son are the bloody marks of a hand. Step-son and step-mother accuse each other. In Quintilian 2 there are also a blind son and a step-mother but the relations are more complicated. The son had formerly rescued his father from a burning house, and had lost his eyesight while trying vainly to rescue his mother. A time came when the step-mother asserted to the father that his son had prepared poison for him and had offered her half of the property if she would administer the poison. The son being questioned denied this, but when his father searched he found the poison about his person. When asked for whom he had prepared it the son was silent. The father altered his will making the step-mother his heir. On the same night a noise was heard in the house, and when the household entered the chamber of their master they found him murdered and the step-mother apparently asleep beside the corpse, while the blind son was standing at the door of his chamber, his bloody sword being under his pillow. Step-son and step-mother accuse each other. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 79 Seneca, viii, 3 Calpurnius Flaccus, 47. The father of two sons gave a wife to one. The latter went abroad, and rumor began to allege improper relations between the father-in-law and the daughter-in-law. When the husband returned he subjected his wife's maid to the torture so severely that she died under it ; whereupon in his uncertainty as to what he wished to know he hanged himself. The father commanded the other son to marry the widow, and upon his refusal disin- herited him. In Calpurnius Flaccus the husband who suspected his father of improper relations with his wife surprised the latter in adultery with a man whose features were concealed. He killed only his wife, and is charged with murder. He demands that his father shall defend him, and his father objects. Seneca, viii, 6 Quintilian, 257. A ravished woman may require either the death of the ravisher, or that he shall marry her without dowry. 334 A rich man three times addressed a poor man in regard to giving him his daughter in marriage, and three times the poor man refused. Having started on a voyage with his daughter the poor man was shipwrecked upon the estate of the rich man who again appealed to him in regard to marriage with his daughter. The poor man wept but kept silent. Nevertheless the rich man consummated the nuptials. Upon their return to the city the poor man wishes to bring his daughter before the court (that she may demand the death of the rich man). The rich man protests. In Quintilian a man who had a son and a rich enemy was cap- tured by pirates. He wrote to his son in regard to a ransom. The son had no money but when the rich man offered him his daughter in marriage he accepted her and thus obtained means to ransom his father. The latter on his return commands his son to put away his wife, and upon refusal disinherits him. Seneca, ix, 4 Quintilian, 362. Whosoever strikes his father let his hands be cut off. A tyrant who held captive a father and his two sons com- manded the young men to strike their father. One of them threw himself headlong to death, the other obeyed and was afterward 334 Cf. Seneca, i, 5 ; iii, 5 ; vii, 8. 8O THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. received into the tyrant's favor. The young man killed the tyrant, and received a reward. A demand is made that his hands be cut off. His father defends him. In Qaintilian the crime is much aggravated by the fact that there is no compulsion : two youths taking an oath each to strike the other's father; on the other hand there is no actual striking of one's own father. A demand is made that their hands be cut off; their fathers defend them. Seneca, ix, 5 Calpurnius Flaccus, 34. Let there be an action on a charge of force unlawfully applied. A man, having a wife, lost two sons by a former wife with sus- picious signs of cruel treatment and poisoning. The third son was abducted by his maternal grandfather who had not been admitted to see the others when ill. When the father sought to find his son by means of a public crier the grandfather acknowl- edged that the son was with him, and was charged with force unlawfully applied. In Calpurnius Flaccus a repudiated wife, who had a son, after repeated attempts without success to obtain a reconciliation with her husband, uttered a threat that she would avenge herself. The husband gave the boy a step-mother, and the boy died with suspi- cious signs of cruel treatment and poisoning. The two women accuse each other. The circumstances in the two declamations are much the same, but the judicial point at issue is in one case vis, in the other homi- cide. 335 Seneca, x, 2 Quintilian, 258. Let a valiant man choose what reward he will ; if there be more than one claimant let the matter be settled by a judicial decision. A father and son have both fought valiantly. The father asks the son to give up to him the reward of bravery. The son refuses ; the matter is carried into court and the son wins. There- upon he asks as a reward that statues be erected to his father who, however, disinherits him. In Quintilian after the son has refused to give up the reward to his father the latter yields and disinherits him. J35 Cf. also Seneca, vi, 6; Quintilian, 354; Calpurnius Flaccus, 39. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 8l Synoptic table of the parallels of the subjects of the Controversiae of Seneca, the Declamations of the pseudo- Quintilian and Calpurnius Flaccus i. Subjects identical. Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ix, 2, 90. Pseudo- Calpurnius Seneca. Quintilian. Flaccus. ii, 3 349 | ii, 4 30 iii, 5 33 iii, 9 380 iv, 4 369 vi, 5 386 vi, 6 354 39 vii, 3 vii, 8 viii, i ix, 6 17 309 381 Cf. Hermogenes, n (Spengel, Rhet. Grace, ii. 143.) 41 12 2. Subjects more or less cognate. Pseudo- Calpurnius Seneca. Quintilian. Flaccus. i 4 330 i> 5 270 49 1,6 376 i>7 5 ii, 2 357 ii, 5 251 ii, 7 325 and 363 vi, 7 291 46 vii, 3 377 vii, 4 6 and 16 vii, 5 i and 2 viii, 3 47 viii, 6 257 ix, 4 362 ix, 5 34- X, 2 258 82 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. IV. THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE CONTROVERSIAE OF SENECA. Contr. i, 3. Law : Let the incestuous priestess be hurled from a rock. A priestess accused of incest before she was hurled from the rock invoked Vesta. She remained alive, and was demanded again for a repetition of the penalty. 336 The Vestals vowed chastity for thirty years, and severe penal- ties were appointed for the violation of this vow, as it was believed to provoke the wrath of the gods upon the country. The ponti- fices later the emperors sat in judgment on the offending Vestals. In the earliest times they were scourged to death, but from the time of Tarquinius Priscus 337 they were buried alive, although according to Orosius 338 in 273 B. C. a Vestal was hanged. Those convicted were carried on a bier in silence through the streets and, after being scourged, 339 were immured alive with some food and a candle in a small subterranean vault in the Campus Sceleratus at the Colline gate 340 The male accomplice was scourged to death in the market place. 346 According to Dio Cassius 342 he was after the scourging 336 That this is a reference to a fictitious law of the schools was stated above, p. 63. 337 Cf. Dion. Hal., Antiq. Rom. i, 78. 338 iv, 5, 9. 339 Cf. Dion. Hal., Antiq. Rom. ix, 40. 340 Cf. ibid, ii, 67 ; viii, 89 ; Livy, viii, 15, 7 sq.: " Eo anno Minucia Vestalis suspecta primo propter mundiorem iusto cultum, insimulata deinde apud pontifices ab indice servo cum decreto eorum iussa esset sacris abstinere familiamque itrpotestate habere, facto iudicio viva sub terram ad portam Collinam dextra viam stratam defossa Scelerato Campo ; credo incesto id ei loco nomen factum"; ibid, xxii, 57, 2 : " Quae Vestales eo anno Epimia atque Floronia, stupri conpertae, et altera sub terra, uti mos est, ad portam Collinam necata f uerat, altera sibimet ipsa mortem consciverat "; ibid. Epit. xiv:" Sextilia, virgoVestalis,damnataincesti,viva defossa est" (but the pas- sage contains nothing about the punishment of the male accomplice to which Rein refers). Servius ad Verg., Aen. xi, 206 ; Plutarch, Num. 10 ; Fab. Max. 18 ; Juvenal, Sat. iv, 8 sq. " Incestus, cum quo nuper vittata iacebat san- guine adhuc vivo terram subitura sacerdos"; Pliny, Epist. iv, n ; St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei\\\, 5; Zonaeus, viii, p. 326, ed. Dind. 341 Cf. Dion. Hal., Antiq. Rom. viii, 89; ix, 40; Livy, xxii, 57, 3: "L. Cantilius scriba pontificis, quos nunc minores pontifices adpellant, qui cum Floronia stuprum fecerat, a pontifice maximo eo usque virgis in comitio caesus erat, ut inter verbera exspiraret." 342 Ixxix, 9. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 83 strangled in prison. But this was not the original punishment. The punishment of the criminals was followed by great expiatory sacrifices to avert diseases and other visitations of the gods. 343 This penalty remained in force as long as the institution of the Vestals was in existence, even under the Christian emperors. 344 Contr. i, 4. Law : Let the man who surprises a man and woman in adultery be without blame if he kills both. Law : Let it be lawful even for a son to punish adultery in his mother. A valiant man who had lost both hands in war, caught his wife and her paramour inflagrante and ordered his son to kill them. The young man refused and the adulterer escaped, thereupon the son is disinherited. 345 In the earliest times the husband who apprehended his wife in flagrante was allowed to kill her 340 and to avenge himself on the adulterer according to his pleasure. The same right was accorded to the wife's father. They were, however, obliged to kill both parties or neither. 347 The Lex Julia of Augustus allowed only the father to kill both or neither under certain conditions, while the husband could not kill his wife under any condition, and the adulterer only when he waspersona in/amis, inhonesta, 343 Dion Hal., Antiq. Rom. viii, 89 ; ix, 40; Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 83; Livy, xxii, 57, 4 sq.: " Hoc nefas cum inter tot, ut fit, clades in prodigium versum esset, decemviri libros adire iussi sunt, et O. Fabius Pictor Delphos ad oraculum missus est sciscitatum, quibus precibus suppliciisque deos possent placare, et quaenam futura finis tantis cladibus foret. Interim ex fatalibus libris sacrificia aliquot extraordinaria facta." 344 Cf. Eusebuis, Chron. a. 2107. Cf. on this subject Rein, Criminalrecht^ pp. 876-8. Rein, ibid., p. 877, foot note, quotes Dion. Hal., Antiq. Rom. ii, 69; Val. Max. viii, i, 5; St. August., De Civitatc Dei x, 16 ; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii, 2, for the story that the Vestal Fuccia was acquitted of the charge through a miracle, and her accuser disappeared in an inexplicable way. For another such case Rein refers to Herod, i, 10. 345 For the possible mythological source of and the parallels to this theme compare above, p. 64. 346 Cf. Aul. Gell. x, 23; Seneca, De ira i, end. 347 Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat. v, 10, 104 ; vii, i, 6 sq. ; Decl. 277. 279. 284. 2 9 : - 335' 347- 379 > Calpurnius Flaccus, 46; Seneca, Contr. ix, i. 348 Cf. Paullus, ii, 26, i sq. ; Rein, Criminalr., pp. 835-44. 84 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Contr. i, 5. Law : A ravished woman may choose either the death of the ravisher or marriage without a dowry. A man ravished two maidens in the same night : one demanded his death, the other marriage. 3 * 9 In the Lex Julia de vi rape is considered as vis, and was at first punished with aquae et ignis interdictio> afterward with exile. Later capital punishment was inflicted, but this was unusual. 350 Contr. iii, 2. Parricida aequis sententiis absolutus. A certain man accused his son of an attempt at parricide. When the judges were equally divided in opinion, the young man was acquitted. Whereupon his father disinherited him. In ancient times a special commission (guaestores) was ap- pointed, at first by the kings, in the republican epoch by the people, to judge cases of parricide. 361 The penalty was drowning in a sack. 352 The Lex Cornelia de sicariis mentions parricide. The Lex Pompeia treats especially de parricidis ; it defines as parricide " Qui patrem, matrem, avum, aviam, fratrem, sororem, patronum, patronam occiderit." 368 The punishment of the culeus* was retained for the murder of parents and grandparents ; for the murder of other relations aquae et ignis interdictio was decreed. The Lex Pompeia threatened attempted parricide (e. g. the preparation of poison) in the same manner as if it were accomplished. The crime must be absolute and manifest. The Lex Pompeia remained in force under the emperors. For the culeus there was sometimes substituted burn- ing, or throwing to wild beasts. 355 349 Cf. above, p. 64. 350 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 868 sq. 351 Cf. Pomp., 2, 32 ; D. de orig. iur. i. 2. 352 Cf. Ad Heren. i, 13; Livy, Epit. Ixviii ; Orosius, v, 16. 353 Cf. Paullus, v, 25. 354 Cf. Modestinus, 1. q. pr. D. h. t. : " Poena parr, more maiorum haec instituti est, ut parricida virgis sanguineis (*. e. red) verberatus, deinde culeo (of leather, cf. Juvenal, xiii, 155) insuatur cum cane, gallo, gallina et vipera et simia, deinde in mare prof undum culeus iactetur"; Cicero, Rose. Amtr. 25.26, 69-72; Quint., Decl. 299; Ad Heren. i, 13; Cicero, De invent, ii, 50, 149. 365 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 449-63. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. ~rr^\ Contr. in, 8. | UNIVERSITY Olynthius pater reus concursus. Law: Let it be a capital offence to make a meeting and assembly. After the conquest of Olynthus an aged Olynthian came to Athens with his youthful son. The Athenians decreed citizen- ship to all the Olynthians. Having been invited to dinner by a voluptuous young man the old man came with his son. When a suggestion was made of debauching the son, the father fled while the young man was forcibly retained. The father began to lament before the house ; the house was burned ; ten young men perished, among them the son of the Olynthian. The father is charged with holding an assembly. For the import and the legal aspects of the coetus ', compare Livy, ii, 28, i : " Turn vero plebs incerta, quales habitura consules esset, coetus nocturnes, pars Esquiliis, pars in Aventino, facere, ne in foro subitis trepidaret consiliis, et omnia temere ac fortuito ageret "; 32, i : " Timor inde patres incessit, ne si dimissus exer- citus foret, rursus coetus occulti coniurationesque fierent "; cf. also xxx, 15; xxxix, 15. The Declamation against Catiline, which is ascribed to M. Porcius Latro, mentions the alleged ordinance of the Twelve Tables : " Ne quis in urbe coetus nocturnos agitaret," and the Lex Gabinia declares : "Qui conciones ullas clandestinas in urbe conflavisset, more maiorum capitali supplicio multaretur." Compare also Cicero, Pro Sulla, 5, 15 : " Ille ambitus iudicium tollere ac disturbare primum conflato voluit gladiatorum ac fugi- tivorum tumultu, deinde id quod vidimus omnes, lapidatione atque concursu." Rein, Criminalr., pp. 473. 520 sq. Contr. iv, i. Pater a sepulchris a luxurioso raptus. While a certain man who had lost three children was sitting by their tomb, he was carried away forcibly by his wanton son to some near-by garden where, having been shaven and his clothing changed, he was compelled to take part in a banquet. When released he brings an action for iniuria. The action of this controversia comes under the heading of iniuria status libertatis. 356 Cf. Rein, Romisches Privatrecht, p. 348. 86 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Contr. iv, 4. Armis sepulchri victor. Law : Let there be an action at law for the violation of a tomb. During a war in a certain state a valiant man, having lost his arms in battle, took other arms from the tomb of a hero. He fought bravely and replaced the arms. After receiving a reward he is charged with violation of a tomb. For the legal aspects of this theme, compare Amm. Marc, xvi, 8; Cass. Var. iv, 18. Under the emperors sepulchri violatio was a crimen extraor dinar ium and was severely punished ; despoiling corpses, if done manu armata, capite ; if sine armis, condem- natione ad metalla? Contr. iv, 8. Patronus operas remissas repetens. Law : Let what is effected by violence and intimidation be invalid. A patron defeated in a civil war and proscribed, threw himself on the protection of a freedman. He was received by him, and asked to give up all claim to his services. The patron gave up his claims with a signed renunciation. When he was restored to his position he demanded the services. The freedman protests. In this theme may be a suggestion of the faithful Tyndarus in the Captivi of Plautus. The libertus was obliged to assume the name of his former master {patronus) and if he died without issue the patronus became his heir. The patronus could also, like a father, claim obedience and respect from the libertus, and the latter was compelled to fulfil what he had promised at his manumission dona, munera, bona, operae. He was even obliged to confirm these promises by oath after the manumission. 358 Contr. v, i. Laqueus incisus. Law : Let there be an action at law on a charge of malicious injury not in the code. 357 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 899 sq. 338 Cf. Rein, Romisches Privatr., pp. 285 sq. On the insolence of the freedmen and on the two kinds of manumission (one by the praetor which conferred all the rights of a Roman citizen, the other by the writing or declaration of the master, which conveyed a degree of liberty, but did not give the freed rank among the citizens), cf. Tacitus, Ann. xiii, 26, 27. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 8/ A certain man, having suffered shipwreck and having lost his wife and three children by the burning of his house, hanged him- self. A certain one of the passers-by cut him down, and was brought to trial by the man he had saved on a charge of malicious injury. Suicide was not considered by the Romans as a crime. On the contrary it is commended by Roman writers. 359 Nevertheless hanging one's self seems to have been at all times considered as an ignominious mode of death and to have entailed the loss of honorable burial. 360 Contr. v, 4. Damnatus parricidi alligans fratrem. Law: Let the man who has given false testimony be bound under the control of him against whom he has testified. A father went away with one of his two sons ; the young man returned alone. He was accused of parricide by his brother and condemned. On account of an intervening festival the punish- ment, in accordance with the law, was postponed, and the father returned. The one convicted accused his brother of giving false witness and seized and confined him. His father commanded him to release his brother and upon his refusal disinherited him. Falsum testimonium according to the Twelve Tables was pun- ished by hurling from the Tarpeian rock. 861 Contr. v, 5. Domus cum arbore exusta. Law: Let the man who has knowingly inflicted an injury pay fourfold, the man who did so without knowing, the simple amount. A rich man asked his poor neighbor to sell him a tree which he said was in his way. The poor man refused. The rich man set fire to the plane-tree, with which the house also burned. For the tree he promises fourfold, for the house the simple value. 359 Cf. Seneca, De providentia 2, 3; Consol. ad Marc. 22; Tacitus, Ann. vi, 29, 30 ; xii, 59 ; xiii, 30 ; Hist, ii, 49 ; Pliny, Epist. i, 12, 22 ; iii, 7, 16; Cicero, De fin. iii, 18. 360 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 883-6 ; Servius ad Verg., Aen. xii, 603 ; Orelli, Inscr. 4404. 361 Cf. Rein, Criminals, pp. 767. 788 sq- ; Gellius, Noct. Att. xx, i. Cases of action for this crime, Livy, iii, 24 sq., 29 ; iv, 21. 88 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. A law of the Twelve Tables provides that the illegal destruction of other people's fruit trees or vines shall be paid for at the rate of twenty-five asses for each tree. 362 Contr. vi, 2. Exul pater fundo prohibitus. Laws : Let it be unlawful to aid an exile with shelter and food. Let the man condemned for accidental manslaughter be exiled for five years. A certain man who had a son and a daughter, being condemned for accidental manslaughter and having gone into exile, was in the habit of coming to an estate near the boundary. His son discov- ering this punished the bailif. The bailif shut out the father who thereupon began to visit his daughter. She was accused of having harbored an exile but was acquitted by the advocacy of her brother. After the five years the father disinherits the son. Exilium was the prohibition of residence in a certain country or city, with a command to live in a certain place. During the epoch of the kings and in the republican period it comprised voluntary banishment as well as the penal aquae et ignis interdictio. In the times of the emperors this latter passed over into the deportatio. Deportatio was for life, and entailed the loss of civitas and confiscation of property. Alongside of this severe form of banishment there was -inflicted a milder degree, the relegatio, which was not followed by loss of civitas and confiscation. The five grades of banishment were: in insulam deportatio; depor- tatio ; in insulam relegatio ; in perpetuum relegatio ; in tempus relegatio Contr. vi, 3. Mater nothi lecta pro patre. Laws : Let the elder brother divide the patrimony, the younger take his choice. Let it be lawful to acknowledge a son by a bondwoman. A certain man having a legitimate son, acknowledged another by a bondwoman and died. The elder brother made such a division that the whole patrimony was placed on one side and on the other the mother of the illegitimate son. The younger brother chose his mother, and accused his brother of defrauding him. 362 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., p. 333; Pliny, Nat. Hist, xviii, I ; Gaius, Com- mentary to the Twelve Tables iv, 1 1. 363 Cf. Rein, Criminals, p. 915. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 89 The " circumscriptio " of this case might come under stelliona- tus, which implied the taking of advantage in regard to property without necessarily coming under dolum Contr. vi, 5. Iphicrates reus. Law : Let whosoever offers violence in a court of justice be liable to capital punishment. Iphicrates having been sent against the King of the Thracians after being thrice defeated in battle concluded a treaty with him and married his daughter. When he had returned to Athens and was on his trial certain Thracians armed with knives appeared about the court, and the defendant himself drew his sword. When the judges were summoned to give their decision they publicly voted for an acquittal. Iphicrates is accused of offering violence in a court of justice. 365 Appearance in the court or in the contio with arms for an evil purpose came under the Lex Julia, 366 under vis pub lie a (in distinc- tion from vis privata) which was punished by aquae et ignis interdiction Contr. vi, 6. Adultera venefica. Law : Let there be an action at law for poisoning. A certain man who had a wife and a marriageable daughter by her informed his wife to whom he was intending to betroth the daughter. The wife said : " She shall die sooner than marry that man." The girl died before the marriage day with suspicious signs of cruelty and poison. The father put a maid-servant to the torture. She said she knew nothing about poison but she did know of the adultery of her mistress with him to whom the father intended to betroth his daughter. The man charges his wife with poisoning and adultery. The earliest punishment for murder by poisoning as related by Livy, 368 took place 332 B. C. The most prominent men died 3W Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 331 sq. Rein says that the Roman defi- nition of stellionatus was quite indefinite. 365 jr or tne historical basis of this Controversia^see above, p. 66 sq. 366 Mentioned in Cicero, Phil, i, 9 sq. 367 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 745. 750. 368 viii, 18, 2 sqq., where it is, however given as a tradition. QO THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. mysteriously 369 until a maid -servant revealed to the aedile Q. Fabius Maximus the fact that women of high position were pre- paring and distributing poison. With the consent of the senate the matter was followed up, and a number of women were found engaged in the preparation of poison. When they were com- pelled to drink their own preparations twenty of them died, and in the pursuance of the investigation about one hundred and seventy were condemned. (The manner of punishment is not recorded.) The affair was also considered as a prodigium requiring expiation, and a dictator was chosen clavi figendi causa In 184 B. C. the praetor Q. Naevius sat in judgment on murders by poison which often occurred in the country towns about Rome, and according to Valerius Antias two thousand people were found guilty. 371 Two years later on the sudden death of C. Cal- purnius Piso and other prominent men a suspicion of poisoning arose, and by a senatus consultum the praetor C. Claudius was given charge of the quaestio concerning murders by poison in the city and vicinity, and the praetor C. Maenius the quaestio outside. Of those condemned in the city only Quarta Hostilia, the wife of the murdered consul, is mentioned. Her guilt was proved by numerous witnesses. 372 C. Maenius found so much to do outside the city that he wrote to the senate that he had already condemned three thousand persons and that the number of the suspects was constantly growing in consequence of new informations. In the following year the praetor urbanus P. Mucius Scaevola held an investigation of cases of murder by poison in the city and vicinity. 373 Investigations were again held at the time of the third Punic war, and two prominent matrons, Publia the wife of Postumius Albinus, and Licinia the wife of Claudius Asellus, were accused of having poisoned their husbands, and put to death by the sentence of a family court (iudicium domesticum) The last accusation for poisoning recorded prior to the Lex Cornelia is that of Q. Varius Hybrida, known through the Lex Varia. He was executed " summo cruciatu supplicioque." 3 ' 369 "Cum primores civitatis similibus morbis eodemque ferme omnes eventu morerentur." 370 Cf. Valer. Max., ii, 5, 3; Orosius, iii, 10. 371 Cf. Livy, xxxix, 41. 312 Cf. ibid, xl, 37. 373 Cf. ibid, xl, 43 sq. 374 l< Cognatorum decreto nectae sunt." Cf. Livy, Epit. xlviii ; Valer. Max., vi, 3, 8. 375 Cf. Cicero, De nat. dear, iii, 33, 81. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 9 1 During the civil war between Marius and Sulla with other evils and crimes, poisoning also increased. 376 Sulla endeavored to check these evils by his Lex (hence called Cornelia) de sicariis et veneficis. 377 The fifth division treats of murder by poisoning, and declares that the praetor or iudex quaestionis shall judge " qui- cumque fecerit, vendiderit, emerit, dederit (sc. venenum)." 378 The penalty, as also for other kinds of murder and arson, was aquae et ignis inter dictio for freemen and death for slaves. 379 In the imperial period the punishment for murder was more severe : deportaiio in insulam for altiores, execution for honestiores, while humiliores were thrown to the wild beasts or put on the cross. A senatus consultum extended the compass of " venenum," and punished all those who used a medicamentum through which the life or health of the person taking it was endangered (i. e. medicines to bring about conception or abortion). Under Augustus three accusations of murder by poison are recorded: against Moschus a rhetor of Pergamus, who was defended by Asinius Pollio and C. Manlius ; 880 against Apollo- dorus, also a rhetor of Pergamus, who was defended by the same Asinius Pollio. Apollodorus was condemned, and went into exile at Massilia ; 381 against Nonius Asprenas, a friend of Augustus, who was accused by Cassius Severus of poisoning one hundred and thirty guests. He was likewise defended by Asinius Pollio. 382 Under Tiberius occurred the poisoning of Germanicus in 19 A. D. by Cn. Piso and his wife Plancina perhaps not without the connivance of the emperor who was jealous of Germanicus. Before his death Germanicus demanded that his friends should become the accusers of Piso. The senate conducted the investi- gation and Cn. Piso, despairing of the result, committed suicide. Plancina was at first pardoned at the intercession of the Empress Agrippina, but after the death of the latter in 33 A. D. she was 376 Cf. Cicero, Pro Cluentio 54. 377 Commonly abbreviated : Lex Cornelia de Sicariis. 378 Cf. Cicero, Pro Cluent. 54. 379 Cf. ibid. 71. 380 Cf. Horace, Epist. \ 5, 9, and Porphyrion ad loc. 381 Cf. Seneca, Contr. ii, 5, 13. 382 Cf. Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxv, 12 ; Suetonius, Octav. 56; Quintilian, Inst. Orat. x, i, 22; xi, i, 57. 92 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. again accused and likewise committed suicide. 383 The poisoning of Drusus the son of Tiberius took place at the instigation of Sejanus by the eunuch Lygdus, with the knowledge of Drusus's wife Livia or Livilla. The affair remained for a time doubtful and obscure until Apicata, the wife of Sejanus, after the execution of her husband, betrayed all in a letter to Tiberius. An action fol- lowed : Eudemus and Lygdus when tortured confessed everything, and all the participants in the crime were executed in 31 A D. 384 The Emperor Claudius, who committed many murders, was at last himself poisoned by his wife Agrippina. The poison was pre- pared by the notorious Locusta, and the physician Xenophon completed the deed. 385 Agrippina also caused the poisoning of Junius Silanus, proconsul in Asia, by P. Celer and Hetius ; another of her victims was Narcissus the freedman of Claudius. 386 Locusta also assisted in the poisoning of Brittanicus by Nero in 55 B. C. She had been condemned long before, but on account of her great skill was kept in custody and forced to be the tool of prominent persons. 387 Nero also caused the freedmen Doryphorus and Pallas to be poisoned. 388 It may be noted that under Domitian poisoning was very fre- quent, especially by means of poisoned needles. 389 Contr. vi, 7. Demehs qui filio cessit uxorem. Law : Let there be an action at law for madness. A man having two sons married a second wife. When one of 385 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. ii, 69-82; iii, 10-18 ; vi, 26; Dio Cassius, Ivii, 18 ; Suetonius, Tiber. 52; Vitell. 2; Calig. 1.2; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xi, 37 ; Zon- aeus, xi, 2. In Tacitus Ann. iii, 22 sq. it is related that Emilia Lepida, who was charged with feigning that she had given birth to a child by Pub- lius Quirinus her husband, and was further charged with adulteries, poison- ings, and treasonable dealings with the Chaldeans about the fate and continuance of the imperial house, was interdicted from fire and water ; ibid, iv, 22 it is stated that Numantina was accused of having, by charms and potions, disordered the brain of her husband. 384 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. iv, 8-n ; Dio Cassius Ivii, 22 ; Iviii, n. 385 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. xii, 66 sq; Dio Cassius, Ix, 34; Suetonius, Claud. 44 sq. 386 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. xiii, i ; Dio Cassius, Ixi, 6. 387 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. xiii, 15 sq.; Dio Cassius, Ixi, 7 ; Suetonius, Nero 33 388 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. xiv, 65. 389 Cf. Dio Cassius, Ixvii, u. On this whole subject compare Rein, Criminalr., pp. 406-8. 410. 414. 419. 426 sq. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 93 the young men was ill nigh unto death the physicians said that the cause of his illness was a mental trouble. When the father compelled the son at the sword's point to tell him the truth the young man confessed that he loved his step-mother. The father gave up his wife to him, and thereupon was charged with insanity by his other son. 390 The Twelve Tables place a mature person of unsound mind under the care of his kinsmen (agnail} or where he has none under that of his gens (gentiles)* Contr. vii, 7. Law : Let there be an action at law for treason. A father and son desired military command ; the son was pre- ferred over the father, and having engaged in battle with the enemy was captured. An embassy of ten was sent to ransom the commander. While they were on their way the father met them with gold, and informed them that his son had been crucified, and that he himself had carried the gold for his ransom too late. When they reached the crucified commander he said to them : " Beware of treason." The father is accused of treason. Proditio consists in i. Treacherous or cowardly surrender of territory or people to the enemy. 2. Desertion. 3. Going over to the enemy. 4. Inciting a foreign enemy to war against Rome. 5. Probably any support of the enemy (with arms, money, release of hostages, etc.). The punishment was death, including hanging on the arbor infelix, hurling from the Tarpeian rock 392 and exe- tion with the axe. 393 In the time of the emperors the damnatio memoriae?'* consisting of tearing down the house of the con- 390 jr or tne historical suggestion in this theme, and the parallels to it, see above, p. 67. 391 Cf. Rein, Privatr.> pp. 259 sq.; Ad Heren. i, 13; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii, 5 ; De inv. ii, 50 : " Si furiosus est agnatorum gentiliumque in eo pecu- niaque eius potestas esto ; " Varro, De re rust, i, 2 : " Mente est captus atque ad agnatos et gentiles est deducendum." Rein remarks that no great stress is to be laid on the various expressions, as they have no legal import- ance, as every person of unsound mind, whether furiosus or demens, was placed under curatio. 392 Cf. Livy, vii, 20, 12 ; Dion. Hal., Rom. Antiq. viii, 78 ; Seneca, De ira i, 16. 393 Cf. Livy, ii, 5, 8 ; 41,9; viii, 20, 8 ; x, i ; Dion Hal., Rom. Antiq. v, 8. 394 Cf. Quintilian, Insl. Orat. iii, 7, 20 : " post mortem adiecta quibusdam ignominia est." 94 THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. victed, 395 was a not uncommon occurrence. Sometimes also com- mand was given that no member of the family should bear the name of the criminal, 396 nor were his relations allowed to mourn for him. His property also was confiscated. 397 The Lex Julia de maiestate, issued by Caesar, prescribed the same penalty of aquae et ignis inter didio for all kinds of treason. 398 Contr. viii, i. Orbata post laqueum sacrilega. Law : Let a magistrate inflict punishment on one who has confessed guilt. A woman having lost her husband and two sons hanged her- self, but a third son cut her down. She, when a sacrilege had been committed, and the perpetrator was being sought for, told the magistrate that she was the guilty party. The magistrate wishes to inflict punishment on her on the ground of her confes- sion. The son protests. Sacrilegium was a term at first applied to the despoiling of a temple, the theft of sacred objects. In the imperial period the term was given a wider scope, embracing any outrage on religion, any wicked deed which implied a violation of the sacred and moral order, especially lack of respect toward the emperor, heresy, disturbance of worship, etc. Even in the earlier period, however, sacrilegium in the wider sense was prohibited and regarded as an act deserving the severest punishment. Of great importance in regard to this crime was the Lex Julia peculatus (i. e. the unlawful appropriation of public property). It read : " Ne quis ex pecunia sacra religiosa publicave auferat, neve inter- cipiat neve in rem suam vestat." Compare also the definition of 395 Cf. ibid. : "utMaelio, cuius domus solo aequata " ; Livy, viii, 20, 8; Cicero, Pro domo 38. 396 Cf. Quintilian, /. c. : " Marcoque Manlio, cuius praenomen a familia in posteriorem exemptum est " ; Tacitus, Ann. ii, 32. 397 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 475-7. 398 Cf. ibid., pp. 518 sq. A specialization of the law on treason under the emperors is illustrated by the actions at law described in Tacitus, Ann. i, 72-4. For action for treason under Tiberius, cf . Tacitus, Ann. iii, 70 (Lucius Ennius, for converting a silver effigy of the prince to the ordinary purposes to which silver is applied); iv, 18 sq. (Caius Silius. A case where a son accused his father, both named Vibius Serenus, of plotting against Tiberius is found ibid. 28 sq.) THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 95 Seneca in De beneficiis vii, 7 : " Quisquis id, quod deorum est, susmlit et consumpsit atque in usum suum vertit, sacrilegus est." The law also prohibited the violation of the walls which belonged to the res sanctae ; 399 also to scale and cross over the city wall by means of a ladder, which was considered a hostile action and unworthy of a Roman citizen. On the other hand the plundering of temples in an enemy's land was considered lawful. 400 The penalty in the Lex Julia for sacrilege was aquae et ignis inter- dictio which however was soon replaced by deportatio. Under imperial rule there was introduced a variety of punishments. The damnatio ad bestias and less often burning alive were inflicted on those " qui manu facta templum effregerunt et dona dei noctu tulerunt." " Si quis interdiu modicum aliquid de templo tulit," the guilty one was condemned ad metalla, and when honestiore loco natus to deportatio, although in this case also the death penalty might be inflicted. 401 Contr. ix, 2. Law : Let there be an action at law for injuring the dignity of the state. The proconsul Flaminius being requested at dinner by a cour- tesan who said that she had never seen a man decapitated, put to death one of those condemned. He is accused of injuring the dignity of the state. 402 In the Lex Cornelia de maiestate (i. e. actions for crimes which tended to affect and diminish the majesty and dignity of the state} was included the conduct of a magistrate when unmindful of his dignity he compromised the Roman majesty. 403 The penalty was as for perduellio, aquae et ignis interdiction 399 Cf. Cicero, De nat, deor. iii, 40, 94 : " Est enim mihi tecum pro aris et focis certamen, et pro deorum templis atque delubris proque Urbis muris, quos vos, pontifices, sanctos esse dicitis. ..." Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. c. 27 : " Trav reZ^of afiifirfkov K.O! lepbv vopi^ovcL "; Dion. Hal., Antiq. Rom. i, 88 ; Isidorus, xv, 4. 400 Cf. Seneca, Epist. 87. 401 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 691-4. 402 For the historical basis of this Controversia see above, p. 68. 403 Cf. Seneca, Contr. ix, 2, 14 : " in eo autem, quod sub praetexto publicae maiestatis agitur, quidquid peccatur, maiestatis actione vindicandum est;" ibid. 15: "Is laedit populi Romani maiestatem, qui aliquid publico nomine facit " 404 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 512. 525. 527 ; Tacitus, Ann. iii, 38, 50 end; " bonis amissis aqua at igni arceatur, quod perinde censeo ac si lege maies- tatis teneretur." g THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Contr. ix, 3. Laws : Let acts effected by violence and intimidation be invalid. Let agreements according to law be valid. Let him who has recognized a child who has been exposed take it back after paying for its nurture. A man took up two sons who had been exposed, and educated them. When their natural father sought for them he promised that he would show where they were if he would give him one of them. The agreement is made whereupon he restores the two sons asking for one. By the Roman law the father originally had the right to kill or expose the newborn child. This right arose from the custom, common in antiquity, of destroying deformed infants. But this right was accorded not without certain limitations. According to the decision ascribed to Romulus, 405 the father was obliged before exposing the child to show it to five neighbors who were to examine whether the child was deformed or to be exposed on account of its sickliness. Dionysius Halicarnassus adds that the father was obliged to bring up male children and the first-born daughter. This latter statement of Dion. Hal. does not fully accord with the first, according to which all children before being exposed had to be shown to neighbors. The Twelve Tables also command that sickly and deformed children be exposed. The exposure and killing of the deformed (" foedum ac turpe pro- digium ") was even regarded as a sacred duty, lest the state might suffer some calamity. 406 But fathers acted quite arbitrarily on this matter, and exposed their offspring for other reasons than defor- mity and weakness, as for instance on account of poverty, suspicion that they were children of another man, etc., without being inter- fered with by the state. An instance of exposure in the come- dians is Terence, Hecy. iii, 3, 40. Dio Cassius, xlv, i, relates that Octaviamus was intended for exposure by his father because it had been announced to him that the child would become the ruler of Rome, and Suetonius, Octav. 65, relates that the child of Julia, grandchild of Augustus, was exposed by command of the emperor because born in adultery. The frequent occurrence of exposure in the provinces is attested by Pliny, Epist. x, 71 sq. 407 405 By Dion. Hal., Antiq. Rom. ii, 15. 406 Cf. Livy, xxvii, 37 ; Seneca, De ira i, 15: " portentosos foetus extin- guimus, liberos quoqne si debiles monstrosve editi sunt mergimus." 407 Cf. Seneca, Contr. x, 4, 15 sq. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 97 In the imperial period the custom grew so that the state felt con- strained to declare it a crime. The penaltieswere made more and more severe until it became a capital offence. 408 As regards gesta per vim metumque, L. Octavius, an older con- temporary of Cicero, proclaimed an edict called after him formula Octaviana : " quod vi metusve causa gestum erit, ratum non habeto." 409 Contr. ix, 4. Law : Let the hands be cut off of the man who has struck his father. A tyrant summoned to his citadel a father with his two sons, and commanded the young men to strike their father. One of them threw himself headlong, the other carried out the command of the tyrant and being received into his friendship killed him and received a reward. His hands are demanded and his father defends him. Iniuriae done to parents were regarded as atroces 410 and were in the imperial epoch referred for punishment to the praefectus urbis, in the provinces to the governor: "si filius matrem aut patrum (i. e. parentes in infinitum, grandparents, etc.), quos vene- rari oportet, contumeliis (this iniuria is more specifically detailed as convicium and pulsare) afficit, vel impias manus eis infert ; praefectus urbis delictum ad publicam pietatem pro modo eius vindicabit." 411 Contr. x, i. Let there be an action at law for injury. A man who had a son and a rich enemy was found slain but despoiled of nothing which he had. The young man persisted in following the rich man in shabby garments. The rich man brought him to a court of justice and demanded that he should accuse him if he had any suspicions. The poor man said : "I will accuse you when I can." When the rich man became a can- didate for public office and was rejected he accused the poor man of injury. 408 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., pp. 441-4. 409 Cf. Rein, Privatr., pp. 503 sq. ; Cicero, In Verr. i, 50 ; iii, 65 ; Ad Quint, fratr. i, i, 21 ; Seneca, Contr ix, 3. 410 Cf. Ulpiun. vii., 8. 411 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., p. 382. 7 98 THE THEMES TREATED BY 1HE ELDER SENECA. The definitions of iniuria in the successive edicts of the prae- tors, reaching down to the imperial period, contained the decision that an iniuria was committed : " si ad invidiam alicuius veste lugubri utatur aut squalida aut si barbam demittat, etc.," 412 since mourning garb was worn to indicate that a criminal action was pending over some one.* 13 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Books. Bernhardy, Grundriss der romischen Litteratur. Braun- schweig. 1865. Blass, Die griechische Beredsamkeit in dem Zeitalter von Alexander bis auf Augustus. Berlin. 1865. , Geschichte der attischen Beredsamkeit. Leipzig. 1887. Bursian, Edition of Seneca. Leipzig. 1857. Cucheval, Histoire de 1'eloquence romaine depuis la mort de Cice"ron jusqu' a" 1'av^nement de 1'empereur Hadrien. 1893. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici. 1851. Freeman, History of Federal Government. 1863. Friedlander, Darstellung der Sittengeschichte Roms. 1890. Hulsebos, De educatione et institutione apud Romanos. 1875. Jebb, The Attic Orators. 1876. Mayor, Edition of Juvenal. 1880. Mommsen, Romische Geschichte. Monceaux, Les Africains, 6tude sur la litte*rature Latine d'Afrique. 1894. Miiller, H. J., Edition of Seneca. Vienna, Prague, and Leipzig. 1887. Niebuhr, M. Tullii Ciceronis orationum pro M. Fonteio et pro Rabirio fragmenta, T. Livii Lib. xci fragmentum plenius et emen- datius, L. Senecae fragmenta ex membranis Bibliothecae Vati- canae. Rome. 1820. Rohde, Der griechische Roman. 1876. Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur. Schott, Edition of Seneca. 1627. 412 Cf. Digest. (Pandectae] L. 15 27, de iniuria. 413 Cf. Rein, Criminalr., p. 365. THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. 99 Simcox, A History of Latin Literature from Ennius to Boethius. 1883. Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alex- andrinerzeit. Leipzig. 1892. Teuffel, History of Roman Literature. 1891. Thiele, Hermagoras, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Rhetorik. Strassburg. 1893. Westermann, Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom. Leipzig. 1833. Periodicals. Dirksen, Abhandlungen der Koniglichen Akademie der Wis- senschaften. Berlin. 1847. i, pp. 48-79. Spengel, Gelehrte Anzeigen der bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Munich. 1858. Vol. xlvii, pp. 1-30. Kiessling, Rheinisches Museum. 1861. Vol. xvi, pp. 50-61. Spengel, Rheinisches Museum. 1863. Vol. xviii, pp. 481-526. Morawski, Zeitschrift fiir die osterreichischen Gymnasien. 1881. Vol. xliv, pp. 1-12. Rhode, Rheinisches Museum. 1886. Vol. xli, pp. 170-190. Monographs. Bonnell, De mutata sub primis Caesaribus eloquentiae Romanae condicione, imprimis de Rhetorum scholis, commen- tatio historica. Berlin. 1836. Spengel, Ueber das Studium der Rhetorik bei den Alten. Munich. 1842. Hofig, De Senecae rhetoris quattuor codicibus mss. Schottianis ad Friedericum Haasium professorem Vratislaviensem epistula. Gorlitz. 1858. Koerber, Ueber den Rhetor Seneca und die romische Rhetorik seiner Zeit. Marburg. 1864. Konitzer, Quaestiones in Senecam patrem criticae. Breslau. 1864. Kiessling, Beitrage zur Texteskritik des Rhetor Seneca. Breslau. 1864. Hoffmann, Ueber eine Admonter Pergament-Handschrift der Excerpte des alteren Seneca. Posen. 1867. Friedlander, De Senecae controversiis in Gestis Romanorum adhibitis. Regimonti. 1871. IOO THE THEMES TREATED BY THE ELDER SENECA. Sander, Quaestiones in Senecam rhetorem syntacticae. Greifswald. 1872. Gruppe, Quaestiones Annaeanae. Sedini. 1873. Sander, Der Sprachgebrauch des Rhetors Annaeus Seneca. No. i. Berlin. 1877. Buschmann, Charakteristik der griechischen Rhetorik. Parchim. 1878. Leo, De Senecae tragoediis observationes criticae. Berlin. 1878. Karsten, De elocutione rhetorica qualis invenitur in Annaei Senecae suasoriis et controversiis. Rotterdam. 1881. Buschmann, Die "' enfants terribles " unter den Rhetoren des Seneca. 1883. Baumm, De rhetoribus graecis a Seneca in suasoriis et controversiis adhibitis. Kreuzburg. 1885. Morawski, De rhetoribus latinis. Cracow. 1892. Hainmer, Beitrage zu den 19 grosseren Quintilianischen Dec- lamationen. Munich. 1893. Marx, Chauvinismus und Schulreform im Alterthum. Breslau. 1894. VITA. Natus sum anno MDCCCLXII in pago Massachusetts, in oppido Beverly. Litterarum elementis domi imbutus in numerum discipulorum Universitatis Harvard receptus sum, quae anno MDCCCLXXXIV testimonio A. B. (magna cum laude) me donavit. Postea per sexennium litteras Latinas Graecasque in scholis in Massachusetts etin Baltimore docebam,nonnullis quoque discipulis singulis mecum adscriptis. Cum iam in docendo versa- rer, sodalis creatus sum seminarii philologici in Universitate Johns Hopkins cuius exercitationibus magna cum utilitate mea per quat- tuor annos interfui. Anno MDCCCXCIV ad Universitatem Oxford me contuli ubi litteris antiquis per unum annum operam dedi, ill. profs. Ellis et Macdonell optimis consiliis me adiuvanti- bus. Deinde in Germaniam profectus in Universitate Bonn ill. profs. Bucheler et Usener exercitationibus adfui aestate anni MDCCCLXCV. Ill profs. Gildersleeve, Bloomfield, Warren bene de me meritis gratias ago singulares autem Warren qui semper fautor exstitit studiorum meorum benignissimus. 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