Handbuch Antike Rhetorik

Thomas Riesenweber

14Rhetorische Theorie in Rom: Von den rhetores Latini bis zu Seneca d.Ä.

Abstract: The Roman expansion over the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd century BC was accompanied by an increasing intensity of the reception of Greek culture in Rome, and Greek rhetorical teaching begins to supplement and concur with the traditional practical training in oratory. While in this early period the Romans learned Greek rhetoric only from Greek private teachers and in Greek, at the beginning of the 1st century BC Latin teachers of rhetoric make their appearance, who are popular with the young but resisted by the senatorial aristocracy. The earliest rhetorical handbooks in Latin, which are written at the same time, still bear the mark of strong ...