Author: Guérin, Charles
Title: L’orateur, le témoin et le recours à l’auctoritas: la cas du Pro Sulla
Review/Collection: in Jean-Michel David, Frédéric Hurlet (ed.), L’auctoritas à Rome. Une notion constitutive de la culture politique. Actes du colloque de Nanterre (10-12 septembre 2018)
Year edition: 2020
Pages: 219-236
Keywords: Droit - Diritto - Law, Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence, Politique - Politica - Politics, Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics
Description: Appeals to authority (argumenta ad uerecundiam) are not well suited to the Roman forensic stage. The legal procedure and the public’s expectations are a powerful constraint: the orator has to develop a cogent argument to defend his case. In his Pro Sulla (62 BCE) though, Cicero clearly did use such an appeal, and eventually had Sulla acquitted. This paper explains how Cicero managed to shape his appeal to authority into an acceptable argument for his public. It argues that by presenting himself as witness, Cicero managed to rely on an epistemic authority rather than a social one, and thus made his strategy palatable to the jury and the general public.[Author]
Works:
Link: https://books.openedition.org/ausonius/17040?nomobile=1
Author initials: Guérin 2020
Title: L’orateur, le témoin et le recours à l’auctoritas: la cas du Pro Sulla
Review/Collection: in Jean-Michel David, Frédéric Hurlet (ed.), L’auctoritas à Rome. Une notion constitutive de la culture politique. Actes du colloque de Nanterre (10-12 septembre 2018)
Year edition: 2020
Pages: 219-236
Keywords: Droit - Diritto - Law, Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence, Politique - Politica - Politics, Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics
Description: Appeals to authority (argumenta ad uerecundiam) are not well suited to the Roman forensic stage. The legal procedure and the public’s expectations are a powerful constraint: the orator has to develop a cogent argument to defend his case. In his Pro Sulla (62 BCE) though, Cicero clearly did use such an appeal, and eventually had Sulla acquitted. This paper explains how Cicero managed to shape his appeal to authority into an acceptable argument for his public. It argues that by presenting himself as witness, Cicero managed to rely on an epistemic authority rather than a social one, and thus made his strategy palatable to the jury and the general public.[Author]
Works:
Link: https://books.openedition.org/ausonius/17040?nomobile=1
Author initials: Guérin 2020
