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The Use of Exempla from Cicero to Pliny the Younger University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2011 The Use of Exempla from Cicero to Pliny the Younger David C. Urban University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons Recommended Citation Urban, David C., "The Use of Exempla from Cicero to Pliny the Younger" (2011). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 591. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/591 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/591 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Use of Exempla from Cicero to Pliny the Younger Abstract This dissertation expands our picture of Roman exemplarity by focusing on exempla as they are used to construct arguments. In contrast to recent studies of the practice, instead of focusing on repeatedly cited instances in a series of different texts, my argument centers on repeated patterns in which authors deploy exempla. I suggest that Roman exemplarity constructs a mode of moral and practical reasoning that conditions its users to repeat a pattern of imbuing and responding to meaning in the exempla they select for themselves. I focus on texts that present themselves as dealing directly with contemporary society: in particular forensic oratory, epistolography and satire. Cicero and Pliny the Younger provide the central anchors for my discussion. The chapters of this dissertation frame and supplement the current discussion by exploring several of the most prominent uses of exempla. The first chapter builds on Quintilian's discussion of exemplary comparison to demonstrate the malleable nature of moral arguments based in comparisons between narratives. The second chapter focuses on exempla featuring nameless figures which consequently emphasize patterns of action rather than the authority of the actor. Such exempla display close connections with declamations and fables, creating a triangle of relationships through which factual and fictional narratives influence one another. In my third chapter, I demonstrate that exempla which claim to illustrate how things are provide a powerful means to forestall judgment or obscure status distinctions. The final chapter explores the frequently superficial deployment of exempla as emblems: where anonymous exempla emphasize actions as opposed to actors, exempla deployed as emblems foreground the status and authority of the actor while downplaying the narrative details of the action. Exemplarity provides a useful window onto the patterns of Roman moralism. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Classical Studies First Advisor Joseph Farrell Subject Categories Classical Literature and Philology | Classics This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/591 THE USE OF EXEMPLA FROM CICERO TO PLINY THE YOUNGER David C. Urban A DISSERTATION in Classical Studies Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2011 Supervisor of Dissertation Signature ________________________ Joseph Farrell, Professor, Classical Studies Graduate Group Chairperson Signature ________________________ Emily Wilson, Associate Professor, Classical Studies Dissertation Committee Cynthia Damon, Professor, Classical Studies Joseph Farrell, Professor, Classical Studies James Ker, Associate Professor, Classical Studies Emily Wilson, Associate Professor, Classical Studies ABSTRACT THE USE OF EXEMPLA FROM CICERO TO PLINY THE YOUNGER David C. Urban Joseph Farrell This dissertation expands our picture of Roman exemplarity by focusing on exempla as they are used to construct arguments. In contrast to recent studies of the practice, instead of focusing on repeatedly cited instances in a series of different texts, my argument centers on repeated patterns in which authors deploy exempla. I suggest that Roman exemplarity constructs a mode of moral and practical reasoning that conditions its users to repeat a pattern of imbuing and responding to meaning in the exempla they select for themselves. I focus on texts that present themselves as dealing directly with contemporary society: in particular forensic oratory, epistolography and satire. Cicero and Pliny the Younger provide the central anchors for my discussion. The chapters of this dissertation frame and supplement the current discussion byexploring several of the most prominent uses of exempla. The first chapter builds on Quintilian’s discussion of exemplary comparison to demonstrate the malleable nature of moral arguments based in comparisons between narratives. The second chapter focuses on exempla featuring nameless figures which consequently emphasize patterns of action rather than the authority of the actor. Such exempla display close connections with declamations and fables, creating a triangle of relationships through which factual and fictional narratives influence one another. In my third chapter, I demonstrate that exempla which claim to illustrate how things are provide a powerful means to forestall judgment or obscure status distinctions. The final chapter explores the frequently superficial deployment of exempla as emblems: where anonymous exempla emphasize actions as opposed to actors, exempla deployed as emblems foreground the status and authority of the actor while downplaying the narrative details of the action. Exemplarity provides a useful window onto the patterns of Roman moralism. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT . ii INTRODUCTION . 1 0.1: The Foundation of Exemplary Knowledge: Personal Observation . 5 0.2: Exemplary Theory and Cultural Memory in Theories of Roman Exemplarity. 11 0.3: Exempla as Local Knowledge . 20 0.4: Outline of Chapters . 28 EXEMPLA AS ARGUMENTS FROM COMPARISON . 32 1.1: Comparison as a Source of Flexibility in Arguments from Exempla . 33 1.2: The Standard of Credibility Enables the Manipulation of Narrative . 48 1.3: Manipulating Tradition to Fit Current Arguments . 58 1.4: Conclusion . 72 ANONYMOUS EXEMPLA . 74 2.1: The Indefinite Actor, or Someone Did Something . 76 2.2: Exempla, Declamation and the Mythologization of Narrative Models . 91 2.3: The Cross-Pollination of Exemplum and Fable in Phaedrus’ Fables . 102 2.4: Conclusion . 115 ILLUSTRATING MODERATION, TOLERANCE AND SOCIAL AUTHORITY . 117 3.1: Average vs. Extraordinary: Moral Decline or Moderation? . 118 3.2: Exemplum Hominis: Describing Human Fallibility through Exempla . 132 3.3: Equestrian Exempla. Illustrating Tolerance within the Roman Elite . 149 3.4: Conclusion . 166 iii EXEMPLA AS EMBLEMS . 167 4.1: You Are What You Own . 169 4.2: You Are What You Publish . 183 4.3: Collecting the Mos Maiorum . 195 4.4: Conclusion . 208 CONCLUSION . 209 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 216 iv Introduction Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Oscar Wilde, De profundis Most Romans were other Romans. By tradition and education, they were acculturated to adapt and adopt for themselves the behaviors, attitudes and opinions they approved in others. As a central element of this practice, Romans used exempla — examples of particular acts or attitudes they identified as models for emulation, illustrations, or symbolic emblems. Roman exemplarity constitutes a form of cultural modeling that unites both moral and practical decision-making under the belief that individual behavior should reflect and emulate that of other members of society. To explain the particularity of Roman exemplarity, we must examine how they used exempla. In this dissertation, I primarily discuss exempla of human actions, because such instances form the basis for moral reflection and argument. Central to the function of exempla is the process of analogy. Such comparisons may be direct, implied or merely potential. An exemplum may provide an example that serves as a model for emulation, or as an illustration. It mayalso serve in a more symbolic mode as an emblem that carries cultural authority. Virtually everyone, of course, uses examples as a method of argument. But the Romans are exceptional in the degree to which they promoted examples themselves as the core of their understanding of morality. Contrast this focus on examples as the basis for ethics with other methods used elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean such as the proverbs of wisdom literature or the abstract definitions of philosophy. Romans often contrasted themselves with the Greeks, describing themselves as men of action, the Greeks as men of words. 1 They consequently formed their ethics through the analysis and comparison of particular actions, typically expressed in narrative form. The Roman attitude toward these models of behavior is primarily 1 E.g. Vergil, Aen. 6.847-53; Hor. Ars 323-330; Quintilian, IO 12.2.27-30. 1 practical; categorization or systemization only occur at a secondary level, removed from the day-to-day arguments and decisions in which exempla found their primary use. This emphasis on action paradoxically produces a more malleable value system than the supposedly slippery emphasis on the word. The Roman focus on actions — and consequentlyon narratives of those actions — in effect allows storytelling devices such as framing and editing to shape the ethical content of such acts. Cicero’s discussion of friendship in his dialogue De amicitia provides a cogent demonstration
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