Concessum est rhetoribus ementiri. Quattro esempi di come nasce un tema declamatorio

Abstract

Where do themes come from in Roman declamation? In most cases this is a question with no answer; sometimes, however, we are able to find out the origin of the argumenta treated by Latin rhetoricians. That is what happens about Seneca the Elder’s Controversiae 6, 7 and 7, 2 and pseudo-Quintilian’s Major Declamations 1 and 2. The contribution aims to investigate the relation between these themes and their (literary as well as rhetoric) sources, in order to understand how Roman rhetores worked on their “raw materials”, modified them and made them fit declamatory conventions.