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Performing Oratory in Early Imperial Rome: Courtroom, Schoolroom, Stage

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Performing Oratory in Early Imperial Rome: Courtroom, Schoolroom, Stage PERFORMING ORATORY IN EARLY IMPERIAL ROME: COURTROOM, SCHOOLROOM, STAGE A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Erica Melanie Bexley January 2013 © 2013 Erica Melanie Bexley PERFORMING ORATORY IN EARLY IMPERIAL ROME: COURTROOM, SCHOOLROOM, STAGE Erica Melanie Bexley, Ph.D. Cornell University 2013 This dissertation analyzes Roman oratory of the early empire (c. 31 B.C.E. – c. 100 C.E.) in its dual status as a literal performance and a public expression of elite identity. Drawing on the orator/actor dichotomy employed by Roman rhetorical theory, I argue that notions of performance were as problematic for the orator’s self-definition as they were fundamental. Usually invoked as a negative example, the figure of the actor was also a crucial reference point for both the orator’s physical delivery and his professional identity. Ideas of performance even shaped his selfhood, because early imperial concepts of individual identity equated people with personae and public role play. Against this largely conceptual background, I investigate how orators responded to the specific governmental and cultural changes that occurred c. 31 B.C.E – 100 C.E. I contend that many of the developments in this era challenged the basic tenets of the orator’s self-definition. At the level of literal performance, theatre’s newfound interest in staging real acts instead of simulated ones upset advocates’ self-declared status as “performers of real life” (actores veritatis, Cic. De Or. 3.214), while the recently introduced genre of pantomime dance encroached upon the orator’s territory of ‘gestural eloquence’. At the more figurative level of performed identity, Rome’s change to autocratic rule curtailed orators’ traditional means of self-display. Since public presentation was a crucial criterion of elite Roman selfhood, orators of the early empire resorted to declamation and recitation when they no longer had sufficient opportunity to perform their roles in an actual court. Under such circumstances, oratory’s pre-existing links to drama grew even more pronounced, and declamation’s quasi-theatrical material became a source of theatre proper in the form of Seneca’s highly rhetorical tragedies. For methodology, my study uses the persona theory of performed identity, which originated in Stoic philosophy and had permeated Roman culture more generally by the first century C.E. This theory is directly relevant to my topic for two reasons: first, it equates life with drama; second, it was popularized in the time period under discussion. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Erica Bexley commenced her study of classical literature at the University of Melbourne, where she earned her B.A. (Hons, 2004) and M.A. (2006). During five years as a graduate student at Cornell University (2007-2012), Erica published two articles on Lucan (2009 and 2010), and one on Senecan drama (2011). She has presented her research at numerous international conferences and is the recipient of several prestigious scholarly awards, both in Australia and the U.S. Currently, Erica holds a visiting research position at the Australian National University in Canberra. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my advisory committee – Frederick Ahl, Michael Fontaine, Jeffrey Rusten, and Charles Brittain – for their unflagging support over the past three years of this dissertation’s difficult genesis. I owe a lot to their advice, knowledge, critical insight, and care. I would also like to thank the Classics Department and the Graduate School at Cornell for for giving me the marvelous opportunity to undertake my doctoral studies in such a conducive, inspiring, and at times challenging environment. Thanks are likewise due to the Department administrators, Katrina Neff and Linda Brown, and to all of my fellow graduate students. This dissertation has travelled with me to three different continents in as many years. I am grateful to the Classics Department at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for allowing me access to its library, and to the Classics Program at the Australian National University for granting me both the time and the resources to complete this project with relative ease. Last, but never least, are the thanks I owe to Ioannis Ziogas, kindred classicist and fellow traveller, who has encouraged this project at every step, and supplied me with everything from ideas and good conversation, to love and cups of tea. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Actores Veritatis Introduction: Orators as Actors 18 Real Mimesis 22 Performing Oratory 29 Public Roles 41 Conclusion 56 Chapter 2: Vir Bonus Saltandi Peritus? Introduction: Body Language 60 Silent Speech 64 The Orator’s Equal? 70 Conclusion 83 Chapter 3: Scaenica Ostentatio Introduction: Declamation as Theatre 86 Development 90 Oratorical Selves 96 Dramatis Personae 103 Pleading in Persona 117 Thyestes 123 Conclusion 127 Chapter 4: Seneca Declamans Introduction: Tragoedia Rhetorica 129 Stock Characters? 132 Color and Type 145 Debate 153 Conclusion 166 Conclusion 169 Bibliography 172 v INTRODUCTION Modern appreciation of ancient oratory is strictly and necessarily textual. We read Cicero’s speeches, while many of his contemporaries would have seen them. Ours is a quiet, private, reflective activity to which the atmosphere of the Roman courts – noisy and crowded, rippling with tension and excitement – presents an almost unimaginable antithesis.1 In this original context, an orator’s physical and vocal talent was just as crucial as his ability to compose an elegant sentence. Delivery, Cicero’s Crassus declares, was an orator’s dominant skill: without it, even the greatest pleader would be of no account; with it, a man of mediocre rhetorical talent could surpass even the best (actio, inquam, in dicendo una dominatur. sine hac summus orator esse in numero nullo potest, mediocris hac instructus summos saepe superare, De. Or. 3.213).2 Admittedly, famous pleaders did circulate their speeches in written form. But it was their skill in public display that earned them that fame and texts, though perused by friends and studied by schoolboys, were secondary to an orator’s live performance.3 No wonder, then, that Roman rhetorical theory strove continually to differentiate the advocate from the actor. Both were performers, but actors embodied everything that orators wished to avoid. Or, more precisely, Roman orators fashioned their social personae by 1 Gleason 1995, xx, remarks on this discrepancy, calling our experience of ancient rhetoric “an armchair affair” that makes it easy for us to “forget its physical aspects”. Bablitz 2007, 51-70, does a marvelous job of reconstructing the probable layouts of Roman courts and, at 120-40, of assessing average audience numbers and participation. 2 Romans writing on rhetoric are also fond of repeating Demosthenes’ dictum about delivery being the first, second, and third most important of the orator’s tasks: see Cic. Or. 56, and Quint. I.O. 11.3.6-8. 3 Quintilian lists the writers whom he would have students read and imitate: I.O. 10.1.76-80 (Greek orators) and 105-22 (Roman orators). Texts of speeches were in fact studied by students and adult orators alike: see Clark 1957, 144-76; Bonner 1977, 304-305; Bloomer 2011, 84. On texts circulated among friends for the purposes of critique, see Gurd 2012, 49-70. Steel 2006, 25-43, is a general treatment of how and why orators published their speeches. 1 systematically excluding stage artists from their self-definition.4 In order to maintain their public image as elite Roman citizens who conducted serious business in the courts and the Curia, orators made sure to cast actors as the lower class ‘other’, people who delivered speeches for ludic rather than civic reasons.5 Orators wrote their own roles and spoke as themselves; actors made a living from impersonation, and their voice was a medium for other people’s thoughts.6 An orator’s performance was fundamentally real; an actor’s fundamentally fictive. And, beyond the realms of pure prejudice, there were genuine legal differences separating the two professions in ancient Rome. Unlike classical Athenian society, where citizens participated in theatrical shows and the same individual could appear as both a pleader and a thespian, Rome branded its actors infames, a status that deprived them of basic civic and legal rights.7 Significantly, Roman performers could not represent themselves, that is, they could not speak, in court.8 They were not citizens and could aspire to higher social rank only by giving up their profession.9 Their activity was in a very real sense restricted to the sphere of entertainment and illusion, while the orator claimed political, intellectual, and legal dominance. 4 A point brought out by Gunderson 2000, 111-48. 5 A phenomenon analyzed most thoroughly by Gunderson 2000, 111-48, and to a lesser extent by Edwards 1993, 117-19; Desbordes 1994, 56; and Aldrete 1999, 67-73. 6 Desbordes 1994, 69-70, and Fantham 2002, 363. Cicero has Antonius summarize the difference at De Or. 2.194: neque actor sim alienae personae, sed auctor meae. 7 Nepos Praef. 5. On the legal status of Roman actors, Leppin 1992, 71-83, is the best and most thorough authority. See also Dupont 1977, 64-65, and 1985, 95-98; and Edwards 1993, 123-26, and 1997, 66-95. Csapo and Slater 1994, 275-79, is a valuable collection of primary sources. 8 Which makes them truly antithetical to orators: see Dupont 1997, 62-77, and Edwards 1993, 118. 9 Roscius is, in many ways, the exception that proves this rule: when Sulla granted him the status of eques, he continued to perform, but no longer received any payment since doing so would have rendered him infamis (Cic.
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