Suasoria

The Latin poet Ovid enjoyed his suasoria.

Suasoria is an exercise in rhetoric; a form of declamation in which the student makes a speech which is the soliloquy of an historical figure debating how to proceed at a critical junction in their life.

Origin

The exercise was used in ancient Rome, where it was, with the controversia, the final stage of a course in rhetoric at an academy. One famous instance was recalled by Juvenal in the first of his Satires:^[1]

Et nos ergo manum ferulae subduximus: et nos
Consilium dedimus Syllae privatus ut altum
Dormiret. Stulta est clementia cum tot ubique
Vatibus occurras periturae parcere chartae.
I too have felt the master's cane upon my hand. I too
have given Sulla advice to retire into a deep
sleep. No point in sparing paper which is doomed to
destruction as you meet all those 'bards' everywhere.

Here Juvenal recalls his speech advising the dictator Sulla to retire. Another Roman poet who recalled enjoying his suasoria was Ovid.^[2]

References