Declamatori a lavoro: tra cultura divinatoria, poesia e polemiche letterarie nelle scuole di declamazione. Per un’interpretazione di Sen. suas. 3, 5-7

The suas. 3 of Seneca the Elder prospects from its thema an argument of some complexity, both rhetorically and in view of the political and religious environment between the 1st cent. B. C. and I A. D. The divinatio naturalis constitutes the heart of a reflection that animates a celebrated literary and rhetorical controversy, initiated by the declamator Arellius Fuscu’s use of the alleged Virgilian plena deo clause. The latter soon becomes the emblem of an articulate literary operation and consequently allows us to illuminate a significant feature of the declamatory culture of the imperial age in Rome.