Through the example of controuersiae 267 and 316, the article focuses on the reception of Seneca’s philosophical discourse in the Minor Declamations ascribed to Quintilian. Both texts pose the problem of the legitimacy of weeping; in the characterization of the weeping character interpreted by the declaimer, concepts and expressions used by Seneca in the representation of disturbed interiority come into play. Moreover, declamation, structurally conceived as a confrontation between two parts, allows, at least in some moments, to dramatize the contrast between the reasons of the tormented people and the voluntaristic and rationalistic perspective typical of Seneca’s philosophical discourse.