Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

MARCUS ANNAEUS SENECA 5heard the living voice of Cicero— an epithetcommonly used, he adds, but to the voice ofCicero really applicable.*His collection of Controversiae was made atthe request of his sons who, anxious to knowsomething of the character and style of thefamous rhetors of the preceding generation,begged their father to tell them all he couldremember on the subject. His memory hadbeen famous in the days of his youth; and wecannot wonder that it was esteemed a prodigyif we may believe his assurance that he wasthen able to repeat without an error two thousandnames in the right order after a single hearing.But in his old age, he adds, it had becomecapricious he could no longer count on its ready;and immediate obedience to his will, but wasobliged to wait its pleasure. For the events ofhis youth it was as strong as ever, but it couldnot retain what was in later yearsentrusted tofilled toits keeping just as in a vessel already ;which more water is added what is on the surfaceoverflows and is lost, but what is below remains.He applauds the desire of his sons to learn1 Cicero, after Julius Caesar's final victories had silenced hislessons in declama-voice in the forum, amused himself by givingtion to Hirtius and Dolabella— two of the most distinguished ofCaesar's officers— on their return from the war. These greatgrandes praetextatos ' he calls them— were at—pupils of his 'that time compensating themselves for the fatigues of theircampaigns by a life of pleasure at Rome. ' They were mymasters,' said Cicero, 'in the art of dining, as I was theirs in theart of speaking ' (Cicero, Ep. ix. i6 ;Suet, de clans Rhet.). Thiswas in the year 46 B.C. If Marcus Seneca was fifteen or sixteenyears of age at the time, he would have been born about the year61 B.C. (Sen. Controv. i. Pref.).