Gaius Albucius Silus was an ancient Roman

orator An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled. Etymology Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14th ...

and teacher of

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...

under emperor

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...

. He was born and died in Novaria (today

Novara Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is ...

), but made his career in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...

gives a sketch of his life, while

Seneca the Elder Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder (; c. 54 BC – c. 39 AD), also known as Seneca the Rhetorician, was a Roman writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Corduba, Hispania. He wrote a collection of reminiscences about the Roman schools of rheto ...

describes him as an outstanding declaimer. In the novel ''Albucius'' (1990),

Pascal Quignard Pascal Quignard (; born 23 April 1948) is a French writer born in Verneuil-sur-Avre, Eure. In 2002 his novel ''Les Ombres errantes'' won the Prix Goncourt, France's top literary prize. ''Terrasse à Rome'' (Terrasse in Rome), received the Fren ...

invents fifty-three '' controversiae'' (fictitious lawsuits) by Albucius and alternates them with historical and fictional scenes from his life.John Hamilton
''Philology and Music in the Work of Pascal Quignard''
p. 143, Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, v. 33, issue 1, article 9

References

Primary sources

Suetonius on Albucius Silus
(in English)

(in Latin) 1st-century BC Romans 1st-century Romans Ancient Roman rhetoricians Albucii {{AncientRome-bio-stub