Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

6 SENECAsomething of the eloquence of the past generation— in the first place, because the more numerousand various the models before them the less arethey likely to become mere imitators ; and, inthe second place, because the age is degenerate,and because the art of rhetoric having reachedits height about the time of Cicero had, accordingto the universal law of change, been decliningever since. In the days of freedom, sohe continues, rhetorical exercises had a seriousobject, since by eloquence a man might reachthe highest offices of the State ; but, since theoverthrow of the republic, this spur to efforthad largely been withdrawn. He had heard allthe great orators except Cicero, and the taskof satisfying the praiseworthy curiosity of hissons by returningas it were to school in his oldage, and bringing to light out of the caverns ofhis memory all that they contained of the declamationsmade in the schools by the celebratedrhetoricians of the past, would be to him a delightfullabour. The publication of their wittysayings and ingenious subtleties would also incidentallyhave the useful effect of checking theunacknowledged plagiarisms of their degeneratesuccessors.The elder Seneca was a Roman of the oldschool, of equestrian rank, a lover of the past—orderly, austere, and methodical. His wife, Helvia ,belonged to an influential provincial family,in which a severe simplicity was a tradition.^* 'Helv. xvi.).Bene in antiqua et severa institutam domo ' {Cons, ad