It originally contained ten books of _Controversiæ_ or arguments, and one book of _Suasoriæ_ or speeches advising some particular course of conduct. The most important parts of the work are the introductions, which contain much information on the history of oratory. The ten books of _Controversiæ_ treated of seventy-four subjects, the book of _Suasoriæ_ of seven. The beginning of the _Suasoriæ_ is now lost, and of the _Controversiæ_ only thirty-five are preserved. The subject-matter is throughout insipid and dull. Such things are discussed as this: “A man and his wife swore that if anything happened to one of them the other would die. The man went on a journey and sent a message to his wife that he was dead. The wife threw herself down from a high place. She was brought to herself again, and her father ordered her to leave her husband. She refused.” The utterances of the masters of rhetoric on such matters as this are given by Seneca, whose prodigious memory made him able to repeat them almost, if not quite, in the original words. The most interesting single theme is the sixth _Suasoria_, in which the question is answered whether Cicero should beg Antony to spare his life. The answers given contain several judgments on Cicero, among them those of Asinius Pollio and Livy. But the folly and emptiness of the sort of oratorical study with which Seneca makes us acquainted can not fail to impress every reader. Seneca himself expresses his disgust. His remarkable memory enabled him to hand down to later ages specimens of the oratorical teaching which, even in the Augustan age, began to corrupt Latin style. Seneca’s own style is not far removed from that of Cicero’s time, and Seneca, though he wrote under Caligula, probably acquired his style in the early part of the Augustan period. The specimens he has preserved show, however, that the influential teachers of his early days had far less taste than he.