Aspetti letterari della rappresentazione del passato in Seneca prosatore

The dissertaton aims at analyzing the passages in Seneca prose works where past time is more or less expressly considered as antiquum and often set against the present. So the work chiefly sets to put in evidence from the literary point of view in which way the philosopher recognizes the autority of maiores and praises their exemplar ethical exellence in front of the contemporary corruption. In some cases, however, Seneca seems to reduce the difference between past and present when he trusts philosphy could contain the moral decay; therefore a large section of the thesis illustrates the stilistic-rhetoric strategies used by Seneca (not without ambiguity) in representing the proportional development both of vices and of the remedies philosophy can find to face them. The last chapter deals with nova exempla, or the people that, thought living in contemporary times, can set a good example of behaviour expecially as regard the way of dying, a very topical theme in Imperial Age.