SENECA, QUINTILIAN, AND PLINY THE YOUNGER, EXCEPTIONAL PERSONALITIES OF ROMAN CULTURE FROM THE 1ST CENTURY AD

Abstract

Seneca, Quintilian, and Pliny the Younger, Exceptional Personalities of Roman Culture from the 1st Century Ad. In the first century AD, the Roman culture managed to give the universal heritage exceptional personalities, who, through their writings influenced both contemporaries and those of the next generations. Thus, through his vast work, Seneca will remain one of the great personalities of his time. In his writings he pursued, with priority, the improvement of moral life and therefore he managed to be over time a source of inspiration for many cultural and philosophical personalities, but also for some of the Church Fathers and Christian moralists. Quintilian is a pedagog-practitioner, who shows the means of training a good speaker, but, at the same time, builds a pedagogy with rich nuances and pragmatic openings. Quintilian’s personality was appreciated not only by his contemporaries, but also by future generations. Saint Jerome (347-420 AD), Rufinus of Aquileia (345-410 AD), as well as Cassiodorus (490-580 AD), quoted from Quintilian’s work. In the correspondence between Pliny the Younger and Emperor Trajan are two letters, dated 112 AD, which are important for the history of Christianity, because here we have some information about the moral life of Christians, but also about Christian worship and the Eucharistic assembly practised on Sundays.