The importance of Lucius, or Marius Annaeus Seneca (called Seneca the Elder to distinguish him from his son, Seneca the Younger), for literary criticism is largely historical. He represents his age in taste and opinions, and he has preserved for posterity records of many passages of oratorical works that would otherwise be lost. He gives the reader an idea of what was appreciated by a connoisseur shortly after Cicero's time and an anthology of texts embodying those values, but he also represents a particular attitude toward literature that is not limited historically. For Seneca the word is characterized by its potential categories that passed so naturally through St. Augustine into the Christian Middle Ages and that continue to be taken seriously by many twentieth-century critics: it may delight and also instruct.

The elder Seneca--sometimes called Seneca Rhetor (though he was not a professional orator) to distinguish him from...