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Thus the declamatory exercises called suasoriae, which are confined to rational considerations, are fittest for young students whose reasoning powers are acute, but who have not the knowledge of law necessary for enabling them to treat controversiae which hinge on legal questions.
His ten books of Controversiae are only extant in a mutilated form, which comprises thirty-five out of seventy-four themes; to these is prefixed a single book of Suasoriae, which is also imperfect. The work is a mine of information for the history of rhetoric under Augustus and Tiberius, and incidentally includes many interesting quotations, anecdotes, and criticisms.
Of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of our philosopher, we know few personal particulars, except that he was a professional rhetorician, who drew up for the use of his sons and pupils a number of oratorical exercises, which have come down to us under the names of Suasoriae and Controversiae.
We have remains of two sets of compositions by him; Controversiae, or legal questions discussed by way of practice for actual cases, divided into ten books, of which about half are preserved; and Suasoriae, or imaginary themes, such as those ridiculed by Juvenal: "Consilium dedimus Sullae, privatus ut altum Dormiret."
I have not done much in Latin. I have been employed in turning over several third-rate and fourth-rate writers. After finishing Cicero, I read through the works of both the Senecas, father and son. There is a great deal in the Controversiae both of curious information, and of judicious criticism. As to the son, I cannot bear him. His style affects me in something the same way with that of Gibbon.
LA DEMOCRATIE CHEZ LES PREDICATEURS DE LA LIGUE. HISTORIA AFFECTUUM SE IMMISCENTIUM CONTROVERSIAE DE GYNAECOCRATIA. It is in his collected prefaces, Leipsic, 1683.
Petrinus Bellus affirmat se, cum esset Bruxellis in curia Hispaniarum Regis de hac quaestione consultum, et censuisse, pro Praefecto facere aequitatem quae praecipue respicitur inter milites, quorum controversiae ex aequo et bono dirimendae sunt; unde ultra conventa quis obligatur ad id quod alterum alteri prasstare oportet. The case, it appears, ultimately went against the horse-lending praefect.
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