210 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
contributed to this development and to the transformation that oratory
underwent, which in the view of critics from the elder Seneca to Quintilian
amounted to a qualitative decline.
The promotion of rhetoric by emperors was an aspect of their support for
education in general, which in turn signalled their commitment to the
Graeco-Roman literary culture: rhetoric was the keystone of the educational
system.^3 Education, traditionally a private matter for those families who
could afford it, became increasingly a concern of the government. Augustus
set up public libraries in Rome, Vespasian fi nanced chairs in Greek and
Latin rhetoric again in Rome, Marcus Aurelius chairs in philosophy in
Athens, and Vespasian began a policy of exempting teachers from local,
civic services. Oratory fl ourished, but was conventionally held to have
changed for the worse. The trend away from rhetorical theory toward
declamation in the form of suasoriae (speeches of advice to some historical
or mythological fi gure) and controversiae (speeches in imaginary court
cases) accelerated under the emperors. Public declamations were designed to
entertain, not persuade; themes were remote from real life, their treatment
was over- ornate and sententious. Students imitated this style in their
exercises and went on to use it in public life. But public life had changed in
character, and for a number of writers this was a fundamental cause of
decline in oratory. Important political issues were no longer debated in
public. The fi erce competitiveness among politicians that had produced the
great oratorical efforts of the last century of the Republic in senate house,
assembly and law- court was eliminated under the Principate. The ‘free
oratory’ of men like T. Labienus and Cassius Severus, which had contributed
materially to their downfall at the hands of Augustus, came to an end. More
degenerate forms of public oratory took their place, as a direct result of the
operation of imperial patronage: the denunciation of a defendant in a
political trial by an accuser seeking personal advancement and material
reward, or the fl attering speech addressed to the emperor by a newly elected
consul (Pliny’s Panegyricus is a surviving exemplar).
So much for the contemporary critique of rhetoric. It is useful for its
documentation of change and the way change is accounted for. In particular,
the political explanation seems to be in general valid (not uniquely so) and
relevant to our theme, though we need not accept all the details. For example,
political rhetoric under the Principate was not uniquely self- serving or
destructive in intent.
Moreover, ‘modern’ oratory had its supporters, such as M. Aper in
Tacitus’ Dialogus , as well as its detractors. The most authoritative of the
critics, Quintilian, is measured in his criticism, conceding the usefulness of
controversiae and suasoriae , and distancing himself from the Ciceronian
view that rhetoric should be based on academic philosophy. The gaps that
opened up between Cicero and the elder Seneca or Quintilian, or between
Quintilian and the fashionable orators of his day, are to be analysed in terms
not of decline, but of differences of taste.