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The Rhetoric of Decline and the Rhetoric for Declamatio

As an expert observer Seneca avows the decline of declamation, and we are all too ready to believe him. Many imperial practitioners and theorists of eloquentia (‘skilled speech’) appeal to decline as they engage in projects of considerable sophistication. Yet why resort to a proposition that seems to undermine the authority and value of their literary creations? This chapter examines the topos of decline in discussions of Roman imperial rhetoric, with a specific emphasis on Seneca’s first preface, proposing that, despite its paradoxical surface, decline is of a piece with the programmatic introduction to the collection. This chapter begins by briefly surveying how first- and second-century authors rework this theme as part of a larger literary project to justify the continued role of rhetoric in Roman culture. Discussion of decline is a rhetorical strategy that situates an author in relation to contemporaries and to the Roman past, creating a sense of cultural identity and continuity. If Seneca did not invent the topos, he is our first full witness of its workings in the rhetorical tradition, to which the chapter then turns. Seneca’s encyclopedic emphasis naturally falls on memoria, one of the canonical rhetorical departments, which is contrasted with biological metaphors describing cultural growth and decay. By drawing these parallels, Seneca compares memoria—a product of natura—with senectus, thus both recalling his youth and giving new life to the world of declamation.