La declamazione perduta

Our direct knowledge of Roman declamation rests almost entirely on a few late-antique editorial initiatives, which have handed down to us but a tiny sample of this thriving domain: the vast majority of ancient Latin controversiae and suasoriae have been lost, mostly without a trace. The main reason for this was the very nature of that kind of production: declamations were widespread in schools and very popular in circles of amateurs, but they were ultimately perceived as ephemeral texts, not benefitting – as a norm – from the processes of reproduction and preservation usually reserved for ‘canonical’ literary genres. This paper concentrates on how declamations were ‘launched’, on how and why they would perish, and on a number of lost pieces and traditions – with a focus on the imperial age – that can be at least partly reconstructed, thanks to a handful of testimonies. These slight but important vestiges can still tell us much not only about ‘wrecked’ Latin declamations, but also about the broader cultural and social conditions that led to that wreck.