Creative Eloquence. The Construction of Reality in Cicero’s Speeches

Autore: Gildenhard, Ingo
Titolo: Creative Eloquence. The Construction of Reality in Cicero’s Speeches
Luogo edizione: Oxford & New York
Editore: Oxford University Press
Anno edizione: 2011
Pagine: 450
Parole chiave: Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence
Recensione:

James Zetzel, BMCR, 8/7/2011.

Van der Blom, Henriette, "The Journal of Roman Studies", 102, 2012, 375-376.

Descrizione: [Abstract] The statesman Cicero (106-43 BC) left behind a corpus of about 50 orations, all designed as interventions in the legal and political struggles that marked the final decades of the Roman republic. Ever since their publication during his lifetime they have functioned as models of eloquence. However, they also contain profound philosophical thoughts on the question of being human, on politics, society, and culture, and on the sphere of the divine. Now, for the first time, Ingo Gildenhard systematically analyses this dimension of Cicero’s oratory and, in so doing, touches upon many key issues and concepts that still preoccupy us today, such as the ethics of happiness or the notion of conscience, the distinction between civilization and barbarity, or the problem of divine justice.
Table of Contents .
Introduction: Cicero’s philosophical oratory.
I. Anthropology.
Introduction: Ethopoiea and anthropopoiesis.
1. Being human.
2. Human beings.
3. The good, the bad, and the in-between.
4. Mental states.
II. Sociology.
Introduction: Imagining community.
5. Definition and the politics of truth.
6. Laws and justice.
7. Civilization and its discontents.
8. Coping with Caesar.
III. Theology.
Introduction: Rome’s civic religion.
9. Ontological elevation and divine favouritism.
10. Cicero’s theodicy.
11. Tyranny and the divine.
12. Life after death.
Conclusion
Sigla autore: Gildenhard 2011