 marcus annaeus seneca, known as seneca the elder and seneca the rhetorician (; 54 bc â c. 39 ad), was a roman rhetorician and writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of cordoba, hispania. seneca lived through the reigns of three significant emperors; augustus (ruled 27 bc â 14 ad), tiberius (ruled 14 ad â 37 ad) and caligula (ruled 37 ad â 41 ad). he was the father of the stoic philosopher seneca the younger (lucius) who was tutor of nero. ==background== seneca the elder is the first of the gens annaea of whom there is definite knowledge.dictionary of greek and roman biography and mythology, william smith, editor. his praenomen is uncertain, but in any case marcus is an arbitrary conjecture of raphael of volterra. during a lengthy stay on two occasions at rome, seneca attended the lectures of famous orators and rhetoricians, to prepare for an official career as an advocate. his 'ideal' orator was cicero, and seneca disapproved of the florid tendencies of the oratory of his time. a passage in controversiae expresses a critique of the asiatic style of arellius fuscus, calling "his ornament too contrived, his word arrangement more effeminate than could be tolerated by a mind in training for such chaste and rigorous precepts" (2 pr. 1).elaine fantham, in cambridge history of literary criticism, vol. 1, 1989, p. 279 yet seneca's own writing for fictitious speakers and situations aims above all at a striking effect on the audience and is characterized by "mannerism", "exaggerated use of the colores" and "use of a brilliant, precious style, one that has recourse to all the artifices of asianism, from the accumulation of the rhetorical figures to densely epigrammatic expression to care over the rhythm of the period."gian biagio conte, latin literature: a history, trans. sodolow, jhu press, 1994, p. 405 during the civil wars, his sympathies, like those of his native place, were probably with pompey, as were those of his son and his grandson (the poet lucan). by his wife helvia of corduba, he had three sons: lucius annaeus novatus who was adopted by his father's friend, the rhetorician lucius iunius gallio and was subsequently called lucius iunius gallio annaeanus; seneca the younger; and annaeus mela, the father of the poet lucan. as he died before his son seneca
1st-century_BC_Romans 1st-century_Romans 1st-century_historians 39_deaths Ancient_Roman_rhetoricians Annaei Latin_historians People_from_CA3rdoba,_Andalusia Romans_from_Hispania Silver_Age_Latin_writers