Author: Stroup, Sarah Culpepper
Title: Greek Rhetoric Meets Rome: Expansion, Resistance, and Acculturation
Review/Collection: In : Dominik, William & Hall, Jon (ed.), A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, Oxford/Malden/Carlton, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007, 528 p. [Dominik & Hall 2007]
Year edition: 2007
Pages: 23-37
Keywords: Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics, Sources - Fonti - Sources
Description: Although a more or less refined sense of effective public speech must have existed in Rome significantly prior to the introduction of Greek rhetores into the city, the birth of an established system of Roman rhetoric might best be described as the end result of a somewhat unlikely coupling of refined Greek professionalism and proud Roman amateurism. As the story is alluded to in our Roman sources, we are invited to imagine this coupling (and subsequent gestation) in one of two ways. First, and following an ‘‘influence’’ model, we might suppose that although a certain rudimentary ‘‘excellence of speech’’ may have existed in Rome prior to the introduction of the Greek professionals, it was only under the influence (and name) of formal Greek teaching that Roman public and political speech making developed into an identifiable system (so Cic. De Or. 1.14). Secondly, and following what I would term the ‘‘appropriation’’ model, it was precisely the virile Latinitas of early Roman intellectualism that was able first to impose itself upon (and in no small sense to correct) the abstract theoretical musings of the Hellenistic theoreticians, and eventually to transform these musings into the concrete and utilitarian practice of the late republic and beyond (De Or. 1.23). (…) This chapter is divided into three distinct parts, each of which will examine one element in the overlap through which the established Greek rhetorical tradition entered Rome, met with alternating eagerness and resistance, and was finally transformed – or made anew – in the image of a purely Roman school of rhetorical thought, practice, and literary topos. [Author]
Works:
Author initials: Stroup 2007
Title: Greek Rhetoric Meets Rome: Expansion, Resistance, and Acculturation
Review/Collection: In : Dominik, William & Hall, Jon (ed.), A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, Oxford/Malden/Carlton, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007, 528 p. [Dominik & Hall 2007]
Year edition: 2007
Pages: 23-37
Keywords: Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics, Sources - Fonti - Sources
Description: Although a more or less refined sense of effective public speech must have existed in Rome significantly prior to the introduction of Greek rhetores into the city, the birth of an established system of Roman rhetoric might best be described as the end result of a somewhat unlikely coupling of refined Greek professionalism and proud Roman amateurism. As the story is alluded to in our Roman sources, we are invited to imagine this coupling (and subsequent gestation) in one of two ways. First, and following an ‘‘influence’’ model, we might suppose that although a certain rudimentary ‘‘excellence of speech’’ may have existed in Rome prior to the introduction of the Greek professionals, it was only under the influence (and name) of formal Greek teaching that Roman public and political speech making developed into an identifiable system (so Cic. De Or. 1.14). Secondly, and following what I would term the ‘‘appropriation’’ model, it was precisely the virile Latinitas of early Roman intellectualism that was able first to impose itself upon (and in no small sense to correct) the abstract theoretical musings of the Hellenistic theoreticians, and eventually to transform these musings into the concrete and utilitarian practice of the late republic and beyond (De Or. 1.23). (…) This chapter is divided into three distinct parts, each of which will examine one element in the overlap through which the established Greek rhetorical tradition entered Rome, met with alternating eagerness and resistance, and was finally transformed – or made anew – in the image of a purely Roman school of rhetorical thought, practice, and literary topos. [Author]
Works:
Author initials: Stroup 2007
