From the end of the Roman Republic until late antiquity, Latin declamation was a defining element of Roman society in general and of school education in particular. By far the smallest of the surviving collections of declamations are the excerpts of Calpurnius Flaccus. The collection contains neither complete speeches nor longer passages of speech, but rather a few particularly concise or successful sentences on a total of 53 topics of declamation. Despite its brevity, the work offers an excellent impression of the nature, content and effect of ancient Latin declamation due to its thematic and rhetorical diversity. This edition is the first ever German translation of this collection.

Stefan Knoch, Bamberg State Library, Germany.