Author: Steel, Catherine
Title: Lost Orators of Rome
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: 237-249
Keywords: Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence, Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics
Description: The record of Roman oratory is dominated by the figure of Cicero. No complete speeches survive from the republican period from any other speaker; in the imperial period, up to the end of the second century CE, we have only the younger Pliny’s Panegyricus, from 100 CE, and Apuleius’ Apology (158–9 CE). This overwhelming dominance by a single individual is particularly problematic for a literary genre which represents an intensely social activity. Orators need audiences, and in forensic cases they have opponents; and in as intensely competitive an environment as the late republic, oratory too becomes an arena for necessary rivalry and emulation. When Cicero wished in 46 BCE to commiserate with Brutus on the overthrow of his political career due to the civil war, one of the saddest aspects of the situation, he thought, was Brutus’ lack of rivals with whom to sharpen his talents (Brut. 331–3). Our reading of surviving Latin oratorical texts is very partial. [Author]
Author initials: Steel 2007
Title: Lost Orators of Rome
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: 237-249
Keywords: Éloquence - Eloquenza - Eloquence, Rhétorique - Retorica - Rhetorics
Description: The record of Roman oratory is dominated by the figure of Cicero. No complete speeches survive from the republican period from any other speaker; in the imperial period, up to the end of the second century CE, we have only the younger Pliny’s Panegyricus, from 100 CE, and Apuleius’ Apology (158–9 CE). This overwhelming dominance by a single individual is particularly problematic for a literary genre which represents an intensely social activity. Orators need audiences, and in forensic cases they have opponents; and in as intensely competitive an environment as the late republic, oratory too becomes an arena for necessary rivalry and emulation. When Cicero wished in 46 BCE to commiserate with Brutus on the overthrow of his political career due to the civil war, one of the saddest aspects of the situation, he thought, was Brutus’ lack of rivals with whom to sharpen his talents (Brut. 331–3). Our reading of surviving Latin oratorical texts is very partial. [Author]
Author initials: Steel 2007
