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II. The Speeches—Matter and Manner
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Extract
As visualizing the Roman orator and his role in their context the contributions of R. G. M. Nisbet and Christoff Neumeister are in different ways outstanding. Nisbet writes mainly from the political standpoint, and concludes that ‘Cicero could not or would not talk seriously about politics in public’. Neumeister is concerned with Cicero’s oratory as the art of persuasion, explicitly rejecting any views, such as Aristotle’s and Cicero’s own, that oratory is ever more than this (for Aristotle it is one avenue to truth, for Cicero it is a form of literature). His main contribution is to emphasize that a speech takes place in time: persuasion is a process. The bald section-by-section analyses of speeches common in commentaries, and some of the structural analyses, with their tendency (e.g. in Pro Caelio) to uncover repetitions of material, usually fail to take account of this fact, which is indeed not easy to set out on the printed page.
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References
page no 14 note 1 R. G. M. Nisbet, ‘The Speeches’ in Dorey, pp. 47 ff.; Neumeister, Chr., Grundsätze der forensischen Rhetorik, (Munich, 1964)Google Scholar.
page no 14 note 2 S. F. Bonner’s ‘Roman Oratory’ in Fifty Years of Classical Scholarship, ed. M. Platnauer (Oxford, 1954), is admirable for the period covered. It deals fully with the present question (pp. 340 ff.). As it affects Pro Caelio, see now J. Cousin in his introduction to his Budé edition (Paris, 1962), 47-51.
page no 14 note 3 Humbert, J., Les Plaidoyers écrits et les plaidoiries réelles de Cicéron (Paris, 1925)Google Scholar.
page no 14 note 4 Except in antiquity when a man’s reputation as orator was not borne out by his written speeches: see Cic. Brut. 91-4. That a verbatim record was not expected is shown by the explicit reference to one produced by Hortensius (Brut. 328), and he had a remarkable memory.
page no 14 note 5 Laurand, L., Études sur le style des discours de Cicéron (Paris, 1907, 4th edn. 1938-40)Google Scholar.
page no 15 note 1 CQ N.S. x (1960), 43 ff.
page no 15 note 2 CQ N.S. xii (1962), 67 ff.
page no 15 note 3 Cic. Sull. 59.
page no 15 note 4 Cf.Frederiksen, M. W., JRS lvi (1966), 128 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 15 note 5 Even Clodius soon after his death: Plancus is the new living enemy (Fam. vii. 2. 3).
page no 16 note 1 JRS xliv (1954), 1 ff. Cousin’s Budé edition of the speech (Paris, 1965), 67, has a bibliography of the question.
page no 16 note 2 e.g. Heinze, R. on auctoritas, Hermes lx (1925), 348 ff.Google Scholar, and on fides, Hermes lxiv (1929), 140 ff. (Vom Geist, 43 ff., 59 ff.); Wirszubski, C., Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome (Cambridge, 1950)Google Scholar, and on audacia, JRS li (1961), 12 ff.; Earl, D. C. on virtus, The Political Thought of Sallust (Cambridge, 1961), ch. iii Google Scholar; and the big book by Hellegouarc’h, J., Le Vocabulaire latin des relations et partis politiques sous la République (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar.
page no 16 note 3 Nisbet in Dorey, p. 78.
page no 17 note 1 (i) Class. et Med. viii (1946), 209 ff. (ii) RÉL xvi (1938), 275 ff.; TAPA xciii (1962), 109 ff. (iii) Some Problems in Roman History (Oxford, 1924), 68 ff. (iv) Greece & Rome N.s. v (1958), 175 ff. (v) TAPA xciv (1963), 268 ff. Important commentaries include Donnelly, F. P. Pro Milone (New York, 1935)Google Scholar; Nisbet, R. G., De Domo sua, (Oxford, 1939)Google Scholar; Austin, R. G., Pro Caelio (3rd edn., Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar; Nisbet, R. G. M., In Pisonem (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar.
page no 17 note 2 I suspect that, say, Burke has been read by few, except in the search for passages for Greek and Latin prose composition, which, if true, proves my point.
page no 17 note 3 e.g. Brut. 276; Or. 99.
page no 18 note 1 See R. G. M. Nisbet’s edition of In Pisonem, Appendix vi.
page no 18 note 2 According to Plut. Cic. 26. 3, Vatinius was seeking a reconciliation before the end of 55, the In Vatinium belonging to 56. He also wrote a very jolly letter to Cicero a few years later (Fam. v. 10), but by then Cicero had defended him in the courts (54).
page no 18 note 3 See Bonner, pp. 343-6.
page no 18 note 4 Ingenium was always distinguished from, and sometimes contrasted with, ars or doctrina as a source of ability: from the critic’s point of view, there could be no systematic or general theory (ars) of what is by definition individual.
page no 18 note 5 ‘Cicero und die Rhetorik’, Ciceroniana i (1959), 158 ff.
page no 18 note 6 Oratorum Romanorum fragmenta (2nd. edn., Turin, 1955).
page no 19 note 1 Études, vol. iii. Hubbell, H. M., Yale Classical Studies xix (1966), 171 ffGoogle Scholar. is less convinced than Laurand that Cicero’s distinctions really apply.
page no 19 note 2 Golden Latin Artistry (Cambridge, 1963).
page no 19 note 3 Wilkinson regards the close association as an historical accident, but the weight of ancient evidence to the contrary cannot safely be ignored.
page no 19 note 4 For a clear brief statement cf. W. H. Shewring in OCD, art. ‘Prose-rhythm, Latin’.
page no 19 note 5 Zieliński, T., Das Clauselgeseta in Ciceros Reden (Leipzig, 1904)Google Scholar.
page no 20 note 1 Schmid, W., lieber die klassische Theorie und Praxis des Prosarhythmus (Hermes, Einzelschriften 12, Wiesbaden, 1959)Google Scholar.
page no 20 note 2 See my review in CR N.S. x (1960), 131 ff. One does not show undue disrespect for the ancients in pointing out that we moderns with printed texts and conventional symbols for scansion are in a better position to undertake some kinds of analysis.