CULTURAL DELAY AND DECADENCE OF STUDIES: AN OLD TOPIC IN THE PEDAGOGICAL CONTROVERSIES

Abstract

In his De oratore (1.2.7-1.6.20) Cicero points out some reasons why excellent orators are so rare. Under different circumstances, in his Dialogus de oratoribus (1.1) Tacitus states the reasons for the decadence of oratory. But it may well have been Quintilian, who set the ground for a new form of argumentation: in his De causis corruptae eloquentiae he argued for a critical work based on the decadence, rather than the incipience of rhetorical studies.  From Renaissance onwards such syncrisis will get still more complex with the antiqui/ moderni and the oratores/causidici quarrels, boosted by old topoi like taceat superata uetustas or the translatio imperii/translatio studii analogy. Such framework is key to understanding the reception of Tacitus' dialogue in the late XVI century and the early XVII century, a time in which educational institutions appear to have regained some stability. The screening of Tacitus’ themes and motifs ends with the harsh criticism aimed by the ‘enlightened’ José Agostinho de Macedo and António Sérgio at the 17th century trends (‘Seiscentismo’), ‘cadaverous realm’, 'reign of stupidity’.