L. Annaeus Seneca, the elder (his son was the philosopher) lived C. 55BC-AD 40. His history of his own times from the outbreak of the civul war is sadly lost. What does survive are parts of his Oratorum sententiae, divisiones, colores - a collection of extracts from declaimers whom he heard during his own lifetime, interspersed with his own digressions and comments. There were ten books of Controversiae, five surviving, and at least two Suasoriae, of which one remains.

This edition, first published in 1928, remains the only annotated edition in English and the only one (since 1909) in any European language. It has long been unavailable and never appeared before in paperback. It provides both text and facing translation, full annotation and a useful introductory essay, which offers trenchant correction of earlier suggestions that Seneca was no more than a professional hack teacher of rhetoric, and that his Latinity is inferior and unclassical. This edition will be most useful to scholars and students concerned with ancient rhetoric and with Augustan developments in classical Latin.