Author: Čulík-Baird, Hannah
Title: Erasing the Aethiopian in Cicero’s Post Reditum in Senatu
Review/Collection: Ramus / Volume 51 / Issue 2 / December 2022
Year edition: 2022
Pages: 182-202
Keywords: Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence, Stylistique et genres littéraires - Stilistica e generi letterari - Stylistics and literary genre
Description: The Roman attitude toward the Ethiopian as expressed in scattered passages is far less kindly than the Greek. The usage in Terence and the Auctor ad Herennium which imply a vogue for Ethiopians is probably in imitation of Greek usage. How early the Roman attitude crystalized into racial feeling it is hard to say, and as those who express it are chiefly satirists one must be careful in drawing conclusions. Nevertheless in the absence of an expressed good will and in the face of references which have a superior or contemptuous tone it is evident that the Romans had no special affection for Ethiopians at Rome, however romantically they may have spoken of the races of distant India. The earliest passage in which they are spoken of slightingly seems to be in Cicero—cum hoc homine an cum stipite Aethiope, Cicero, De Sen., 6. The word does not occur in all the manuscripts and the Oxford and Teubner texts omit it entirely. In notes it is translated ‘blockhead’ and the statement made that in antiquity the Ethiopians were synonymous with stupidity, a conclusion obviously drawn from the passage and the modern attitude toward them. Even if the word was actually used by Cicero, this passage alone is basis for such a theory. [Author]
Works:
Author initials: Čulík-Baird 2022
Title: Erasing the Aethiopian in Cicero’s Post Reditum in Senatu
Review/Collection: Ramus / Volume 51 / Issue 2 / December 2022
Year edition: 2022
Pages: 182-202
Keywords: Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence, Stylistique et genres littéraires - Stilistica e generi letterari - Stylistics and literary genre
Description: The Roman attitude toward the Ethiopian as expressed in scattered passages is far less kindly than the Greek. The usage in Terence and the Auctor ad Herennium which imply a vogue for Ethiopians is probably in imitation of Greek usage. How early the Roman attitude crystalized into racial feeling it is hard to say, and as those who express it are chiefly satirists one must be careful in drawing conclusions. Nevertheless in the absence of an expressed good will and in the face of references which have a superior or contemptuous tone it is evident that the Romans had no special affection for Ethiopians at Rome, however romantically they may have spoken of the races of distant India. The earliest passage in which they are spoken of slightingly seems to be in Cicero—cum hoc homine an cum stipite Aethiope, Cicero, De Sen., 6. The word does not occur in all the manuscripts and the Oxford and Teubner texts omit it entirely. In notes it is translated ‘blockhead’ and the statement made that in antiquity the Ethiopians were synonymous with stupidity, a conclusion obviously drawn from the passage and the modern attitude toward them. Even if the word was actually used by Cicero, this passage alone is basis for such a theory. [Author]
Works:
- [Ciceronis] Rhetorica ad Herennium
- Cato Maior de senectute
- Cum senatui gratias egit - Post reditum ad senatum
Author initials: Čulík-Baird 2022
