Appendix I: The Political Theory of Cultural Decline

Early expressions of the political theory of decline are referred to by Tacitus. In the Dialogus (written after 80 ce; the fictive date of the mis-en-scène is under Vespasian, ca. 75 ce), Messala, who maintains that there has been a cultural decline in general, and especially in oratory, says that it began in the late middle years of Augustus’ reign (Dialogus 38). In the Annals (1.4), Tacitus says that, as Augustus’ death approached, “a few began in vain to discuss at length the advantages of liberty (bona libertatis).” It is probable that the subject was not yet a topos, for, as Tacitus says, only a few discussed it, and—though at length—in vain.

Seneca the Elder uses veiled language in listing his political explanation for oratorical decline. In the Controversiae (1, Preface 7), written probably about 30 ce, he seems to imply that the kind of fame attainable by the orators of the Ciceronian period was no longer attainable by the orators of his day. In remembering what was, appar­ ently, the first recorded case of book-burning (Controversiae 10, Preface 7), of the books belonging to Labienus, a man “who had not yet put aside his Pompeian attitude in the great peace,” he expostulates in an outburst continuing for several pages. Furthermore, two of the Suasoriae are devoted to Cicero, who is always admired and praised.

Presumably the works of those orators who praised Brutus and Cassius might have expressed a political theory of cultural decline; we have, however, lost these, and the men who uttered such sentiments were systematically censured, exiled, and killed throughout the century, or they died off Cassius Severus was banished by Augustus in either 8 or 12 ce (Annals 4o2l); Asinius Saloninus, Ateius Capito, and Junia, the niece of Cato—three persons all associated with “that previous generation” of great orators praised by Seneca the Elder-­ receive obituaries by Tacitus (Annals 3.75) as he closes his account of the year 22 ce; and in 25 ce, Cremutius Cordus, impeached for praising Brutus and Cassius, had his books burned (Annals 4.34).

Petronius, writing in the time of Nero, veils his political ex­ planation of cultural decline. He writes that orators of the day con­ fine the “practice” of libertas to declamations. The charge is itself made in a declamation (1), as the speaker parodies the declaimers who extol libertas in unrealistic conceits. He cites examples of unre­ alistic topics assigned to students—pirates in chains, tyrants order­ ing sons to cut off their fathers’ heads, oracles requiring the sacri­ fice of three or more virgins to avert a plague—but only the topic of libertas is stressed and parodied. From this fact, and perhaps from the oblique allusion to Nero’s slaying of his mother, a political theory may be inferred.^[1]

Pliny the Elder, writing under Vespasian, mentions no political theory. Vespasian’s notorious tolerance presumably lessened the need for any such theory.

Tacitus, writing at the end of the century, develops fully a theory that political repressiveness destroyed the kind of oratorical greatness to be found in Cicero and his contemporaries (Dialogus 38; Annals 1.4).

From 96-117 A.D., in addition to the mature Tacitus, we have as sources, Quintilian, Pliny the Younger, and Dio Chrysostom. The unan­ imity of opinion is striking: all agree that a cultural renaissance is taking place.