The Death Penalty, the “Marriage Penalty” and Some Remarks on the Utility of Senecan Research in the Study of Roman Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Joanna Kulawiak-Cyrankowska
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Strong Argument ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Law ◽  
Seneca The Elder ◽  
Lucius Annaeus Seneca ◽  
The Right ◽  
Intellectual Challenge

The problem in the 5th controversia from the work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder, entitled Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae divisiones colores, is presented as follows: one man seduced two women during the same night. According to the law, which in the literature is referred to as lex raptarum, a woman who was kidnapped may choose between the death penalty for the ravisher or marrying him, but without giving him a dowry. Here, two women were granted the right of option and one of them demanded the death of the man, but the other wanted to marry him. The declaimers were trying to find an answer to the question: which solution is worthier to prevail? Since, in fact, the main problem raised in the controversia is the interpretation of law, it constituted quite a significant intellectual challenge. The declaimers employed very impressive legal reasoning techniques. This controversia constitutes then not only an interesting starting point to conduct the research on the borderline of law and declamation, but also might be a strong argument that the law and rhetoric, at least in some aspects, could have been complementary to each other.

Seneca the Elder

1981 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Fairweather
Keyword(s):  
Seneca The Elder

Reading Roman Declamation

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman History ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
International Group ◽  
Seneca The Elder ◽  
First Time ◽  
Literary Phenomenon

Situated at the crossroads of rhetoric and fiction, the genre of declamatio offers its practitioners the freedom to experiment with new forms of discourse. This volume places the literariness of Roman declamation into the spotlight by showcasing its theoretical influences, stylistic devices, and generic conventions as related by Seneca the Elder, the author of the Controversiae and Suasoriae, which jointly make up the largest surviving collection of declamatory speeches from antiquity. In so doing, it draws attention to the complexity of these texts, and maps out, for the first time, the sociocultural context for their composition, delivery, and reception. The volume’s chapters have been authored by an international group of leading scholars in Latin literature and rhetoric, and explore not only the historical roles of individual declaimers but also the physical and linguistic techniques upon which they collectively drew. In addition, the ‘dark side of declamation’ is illuminated by contributions on the competitiveness of the arena and the manipulative potential of declamatory skill. In keeping with the volume’s overall treatment of declamation as a literary phenomenon, a section has also been dedicated to intertextuality. This comprehensive, innovative, and up-to-date treatment provides thought-provoking analyses of Roman declamation, and therefore constitutes an essential volume for both students and scholars in the fields of Latin literature, Republican Roman history, and rhetoric.

Metaphors of war and travel in seneca's prose works

1980 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard B. Lavery
Keyword(s):  
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The purpose of this paper is an examination of the metaphors of life as warfare and life as a journey in the prose writings of the philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca. The discussion will centre on the essays and letters; the tragedies will not be directly considered. The philosopher's use of these metaphors will be related to a review of the teachings of Seneca and of the Stoic school on death and on certain other central Stoic concepts.

Seneca the Elder, the Controuersia Figurata, and the Political Discourse of the Early Empire

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-150
Author(s):  
Matthew Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Specific Event ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Seneca The Elder

This paper studies examples of how exponents of Roman declamation could insert into arguments on the trivial, even fantastic, cases known as controuersiae statements of striking relevance to the political culture of the triumviral and early imperial period. This is particularly apparent in the Controuersiae of Seneca the Elder but some traces remain in the Minor Declamations attributed to Quintilian. The boundaries separating Rome itself from the declamatory city referred to by modern scholars as Sophistopolis are significantly blurred even in those instances where the exercise does not turn on a specific event from Roman history, and there is much to be gained from how the declaimers deploy Roman historical examples. Some of the most sophisticated instances of mediated political comment exploit the employment of universalizing sententiae, which have considerable bite when they are related to contemporary Roman discourse and experience. The declamation schools are a forum for thinking through the implications of the transformation of the Roman state and deserve a place within any history of Roman political thought.

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