The Roman World of Cicero's De Oratore
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THE ROMAN WORLD OF CICERO’S DE ORATORE This page intentionally left blank The Roman World of Cicero’s De Oratore ELAINE FANTHAM 1 3 Great Clarendon Street. Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc. New York ß E. Fantham 2004 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0-19-926315-9 13579108642 Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn. Preface This book is largely the result of my years of offering the study of De Oratore in graduate courses on Ciceronian rhetoric. I have been blessed in some extraordinarily good students, who are already established teachers, and I could probably have learned more from them than I actually did. But those years reinforced my conviction than De Oratore was a brilliant and beneficial work and a marvellous key to Roman life and values in the late republic. In recent years it has been enriched with the distinguished multi- volume philological commentary of Anton Leeman and Harm Pinkster, which most individuals and hardly any libraries can afford. It should be noted that the fifth volume, now approaching completion, will appear in English with the same publishers. Jakob Wisse, the editor of this volume, has already combined with James May to produce a fine new translation Cicero: On the Ideal Orator (Oxford, 2001) equipped with first-class introduction and annota- tion. But there is a wider audience out there who may not be able to benefit fully from either work: besides the graduate students in classics who were my inspiration, there are scholars of Roman history or Latin literature without a background in classical rhet- oric, just as many scholars of rhetoric have areas of expertise far from the culture of the Roman republic. I would also hope that I can encourage students of Cicero’s work by supplementing Cicero’s idealized picture of the older generation with an account of his own career, techniques, and practice: in some respects his experiences in the decade after the apogee of his consulship in 63 offer a striking, even depressing contrast with the conduct of political life in the 1990s: I would like modern readers of this book to come away with a picture of that world as close to Cicero’s own as possible. If Cicero’s perspective was limited by his own privileged cir- cumstances as well as his times, he is still manifestly an honest observer who also tries to maintain some standards of integrity in his actions, as much in his misguided attempt to hold back Caesar’s land policies as in his fiscal correctness as a reluctant provincial governor and his efforts to reconcile Caesar and Pompey as they duelled for supreme power at Rome. There is such universal vi Preface disillusionment about present-day political life that any study which exposes the constraints under which a statesman must op- erate can only improve understanding and sympathy. Politically, Cicero failed in a failing form of government, but through the quality of his writings, his ideals, and hopes for educating future leaders remained available to Quintilian and Tacitus, the educator and historian at the beginning of the ‘golden age’ of the Antonines: the full form of De Oratore seems to have been all but lost until the early fifteenth century, when its rediscovery opened up the hu- manist values of the Renaissance and later enlightenment. In an anti-rhetorical age, in which many of the finest minds and person- alities pursue a very different education, I believe this work still has an ideal to offer that will enhance much of our reading and our power to communicate in whatever new medium our society de- vises now and in future. While I hope to provoke increased interest in Cicero’s work on the Ideal Orator, I am not attempting to match the scholarship of the great Dutch commentary. It will be reward enough if I succeed in helping this work to be enjoyed in its historical and cultural context. I have also aimed to shape this monograph as a companion to the work: hence the chapters single out major topics in the order in which they are introduced by Cicero himself. As Anton Leeman wisely observed (in Form und Sinn: Studien zur ro¨mischen Literatur (Frankfurt, 1985), 39–40) the sheer scale of De Oratore has de- terred even classicists from reading it, or at least reading it with the care it was written. I have aimed to apply his method as a reader: to ask what Cicero has written (its content), how he has written it, and for what purpose. Like Cicero himself in this dialogue I have not focused on the history and theories of the philosophical schools, except where philosophers and rhetoricians are disputing the same topics as their territory. There are a number of excellent recent discussions that set Cicero’s later philosophical works in their Greek context and analyse his originality of structure and argument: these I have thankfully consulted and listed in the bibliography. Inevitably there are many debts to acknowledge: to Cambridge University and its Faculty of Classics for the enjoyment of their libraries, to Newnham College for its warm welcome, and to Clare Hall for the Fellowship I enjoyed in 2000 and its continued hospi- tality; to the University of Toronto for readmitting me to its bosom Preface vii after fifteen years away from Canada; to the warmth and kindness of my former colleagues at Princeton, especially to Bob Kaster from whom I have learnt so much; and to a number of scholars of rhetoric, especially Doreen Innes, Donald Russell, Gualtiero Calboli, and Lucia Calboli Montefusco for precious offprints and kindly encouragement. In particular Jaap (Jakob) Wisse has pro- vided me with vigorous challenges, and a precious copy of the concordance which he created to De Oratore: It has been a constant aid to me. He has also read and annotated with the utmost patience and care texts of several chapters, at various stages when I sought his help. But I can be obstinate, and he should be not blamed for any errors or misjudgements persisting in the text. I would like to think the book will be useful to my fellow members of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric and to a generation of students and teachers on both sides of the Atlantic. Toronto 2003 E.F. This page intentionally left blank Contents Abbreviations x 1. Cicero at 50 1 2. The Public Careers of L. Licinius Crassus and M. Antonius 26 3. Constructing the Dialogue: The Challenge of Plato 49 4. The Future Orator: Talent, Training, and the Choice of Model 78 5. The Orator and the Law 102 6. Oratory and Literature: The Spoken and the Written Word 131 7. Rediscovering Aristotelian Invention 161 8. Wit and Humour as the Orator’s Combat Weapons 186 9. Political Persuasion: Senate and Contio 209 10. Style and Substance: Cicero’s Rethinking of Elocutio 237 11. Res Pervolgatae: Words and their Manipulation in Standard Rhetorical Theory 267 12. Into Action: The Orator as Public Figure 287 13. Epilogue: The Statesman and the State in De Oratore and After 305 Bibliography 329 Index I: Authors, Works, and Passages Cited 339 Index II: Persons 345 Index III: Legal, Political, and Rhetorical Terms 350 Abbreviations AJP American Journal of Philology BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies (London) CA Classical Antiquity CAH Cambridge Ancient History CP Classical Philology CQ Classical Quarterly CW Classical World HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Philology JRS Journal of Roman Studies LCL Loeb Classical Library MH Museum Helveticum MRR Magistrates of the Roman Republic OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary ORF Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta PBSR Papers of the British School at Rome PCPS Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society RE Real Encyclopa¨die (Pauly Wissowa) REL Revue des E´tudes Latines Rh. M. Rheinisches Museum TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association TLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae W. St. Wiener Studien 1 Cicero at 50 Often as I reflect and return in memory to the old days, my dear brother, I think that those great men were immensely blessed who flourished in their tenure of office and glorious achievements in the best period of our political life: for they could hold to a course in life that let them choose between political engagement without personal risk or leisure with public respect.