a celebrated Roman rhetorician in the reign of Augustus, was a Spaniard by birth, and a
friend and contemporary of the elder Seneca, with whom he studied under Marillius, and by whom
he is frequently mentioned. He flourished about the year Controv.
2.12. p. 177, ed. Bipont. Comp. Clinton, F. H. ad ann.) His school was
one of the most frequented at Rome, and he numbered among his pupils the poet Ovid. He
possessed an astonishing memory, and displayed the greatest energy and vehemence, not only in
declamation, but also in his studies and other pursuits. In his school he was accustomed to
declaim himself, and seldom set his pupils to declaim, whence they received the name of auditores, which word came gradually into use as synonymous with discipuli. But great as was the reputation of Latro, he did not escape
severe criticism on the part of his contemporaries: his language was censured by Messalla, and
the arrangement of his orations by other rhetoricians. Though eminent as a rhetorician, he did
not excel as a practical orator; and it is related of him that, when he had on one occasion in
Spain to plead in the forum the cause of a relation, he felt so embarrassed by the novelty of
speaking in the open air, that he could not proceed till he had induced the judges to remove
from the forum into the basilica. Latro died in Controv. i. Praef. p. 63, &c., 2.10, p. 157, 2.13. p. 175, 4.25, p. 291, iv. Praef.
p. 273, ed. Bipont.; comp. in Euseb.
Chron. Olymp. 194, 1; Westermann, Gesch. d. Römischen
Beredtsamkeit, § 86; Meyer, Oratorum Roman. Fragmenta, p. 539,
&c., 2d ed.)