Works
At an advanced age, at the request of his sons, he prepared, it is said from memory, a collection of various school themes and their treatment by Greek and Roman orators. These he arranged in ten books of Controversiae (imaginary legal cases) in which seventy-four themes were discussed, the opinions of the rhetoricians upon each case being given from different points of view, then their division of the case into different single questions (divisio), and, finally, the devices for making black appear white and extenuating injustice (colores).
Each book was introduced by a preface, in which the characteristics of individual rhetoricians were discussed in a 'lively' manner. The work is incomplete, but the gaps can be to a certain extent 'filled up', with the aid of an epitome made in the 4th or 5th century for the use of schools. The romantic elements were utilized in the collection of anecdotes and tales called Gesta Romanorum. For Books I, II, VII, IX, and X we possess both the original and the epitome; for the remainder, we have to rely upon the epitome alone. Even with the aid of the latter, only seven of the prefaces are available.
The Controversiae were supplemented by the Suasoriae (exercises in hortatory or deliberative oratory), in which the question is discussed whether certain things 'should, or should not be done'. The whole forms the most important authority for the history of contemporary oratory.
Seneca was also the author of a lost historical work, containing the history of Rome from the beginning of the civil wars almost down to his own death, after which it was published by his son. Of this we learn something from the younger Seneca's De vita patris (H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum fragmenta, 1883, pp. 292, 301), of which the beginning was discovered by Barthold Georg Niebuhr. The father's claim to the authorship of the rhetorical work, generally ascribed to the son during the Middle Ages, was vindicated by Raphael of Volterra and Justus Lipsius.
Read more about this topic: Seneca The Elder
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Men seem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the centuries, earnestly rebuilding the works behind them, as they are battered down by the encroachments of time; but while they loiter, they and their works both fall prey to the arch enemy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“His works are not to be studied, but read with a swift satisfaction. Their flavor and gust is like what poets tell of the froth of wine, which can only be tasted once and hastily.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)