Seneca

Seneca. Annæus Seneca (prænomen unknown), a Spaniard from Corduba (Cordova), was born about 54 B.C., and, having come to Rome as a youth, studied eloquence under Marillus. We next find him again in Spain, married to Helvia, by whom he had three sons—Novatus, Lucius Annæus, and Mela (father of Lucan the poet). About 3 A.D. he returned to the capital a second time to busy himself with rhetoric, till, under Tiberius, he sought his native country once more, and died there, 39 A.D. He was a great admirer of Cicero. With much of the antique Roman fibre, he had moral ballast enough to steer clear of the excesses on which contemporary rhetoricians made shipwreck. Besides a historical work, now lost, he wrote in later life Oratorum et Rhetorum Sententiæ; Divisiones; Colores; ten books of 'Controversiæ,' of which the first, second, seventh, ninth, and tenth are complete, the remainder surviving only in extracts; and one book of 'Suasoriæ'—the whole, fragmentary as they are, of high importance for the history of Roman rhetoric. The best edition is that of H. J. Müller (Prague, 1887), while Sander's Sprachgebrauch des Rhetors Annæus Seneca (1880) is of special value to the student of Latin style.