To Seneca the Elder, the time of Cicero seemed the golden age of Roman eloquence; its glory had lingered on for perhaps one more generation – he was grateful for the illumination shed on his studies by the brilliant minds ‘born at that time’ (Contr. I pr. 7) – but since then rhetoric, in his view, had shown a rapid decline. The causes of this decline were to be the topic of much discussion throughout the first century A.D., just as the decay of Greek eloquence after the downfall of the democracies appears to have been the subject of earlier scholarly debate. Seneca's is one of the earliest of the Roman discussions, and it is interesting to consider which of the explanations for the decline that were to become more or less standard, he does, or does not, give.

In Contr. I pr. 7 he offers us three alternative explanations:

He then proceeds to give a highly coloured description of contemporary decadence, which owes much to the clichés of declamatory convicium saeculi (Contr. I.pr. 8–10).