Ancient Roman Metaphors for Communication

Abstract

Everyday Roman beliefs about how communication occurred are founded on the process of breathing. Speaking is breathing, and hence words are breath. Words are formed in the chest, specifically the animus. In speaking they are “ejected” or “emitted” from the animus. Speech is either “breathed” or “poured” into an audience, or else listeners “grasp” or “catch” what is said. Increasing familiarity with writing seems to have suggested that words might have an existence independent of human beings but, for most purposes, the Roman model has only two parts: speaker and hearer. An analysis of Cicero's private correspondence suggests that this model was the dominant way the Romans had for describing communication—easily dwarfing the use of either classical rhetoric or other ancient metaphors for speech based on spinning.