Attalus and the others: Diatribic morality, Cynicism and rhetoric in Seneca's teachers

In his Letters, Seneca gives us a representation of those who had been his teachers since his first philosophical education: Sotion and Papirius Fabianus, from the School of the Sextii, the Stoic Attalus, the Cynic Demetrius, who, even though he had never been one of Seneca’s official teachers, is portrayed with the traits of a real “moral master”. This article focuses on the representation of these teachers, according to common features that let issue a proper teaching theory. I will point out the description of the eloquence of these characters’ eloquence and I will show how they have held an essential role for Seneca’s approach to a philosophical model that, if not naturally Cynic, was based however on the preaching of austere morals in a programmatic way. I will also demonstrate how they have represented a fundamental mediation in Seneca’s exploitation of topoi, imagery, and language close to the so-called “diatribic tradition”.