Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theatre by Jon Hall (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theatre by Jon Hall Andrew R. Dyck Jon Hall. Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theatre. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014. Pp. xii, 190. $30.00 (pb.). ISBN 978–0-472–05220–2. This book explores an aspect of Cicero’s oratory Anglophone readers often find difficult to appreciate, namely his exploitation of the actions surrounding judicial [End Page 447] proceedings that have their origins in social practice. An expert on Roman society of the late Republic, Hall shows that the wearing of sordid clothing (sordes) was borrowed from funerary custom to exert pressure in political and judicial contexts. If sordes are one “prop” stage-managed by defense counsel, gestures constitute another. These include supplication, which was elaborated in Scaurus’ trial for electoral bribery to the point where no fewer than twelve aristocrats supplicated the jurors before they voted (Asc. Scaur. 28C, 71–72). There could be complex choreography, as when Cicero staged a tableau of the embrace- cum-supplication of Fonteius, his mother, and his sister, a Vestal Virgin (Font. 46, 75–76). The topic of weeping in public raises questions about a society’s definition of masculinity. After a careful examination of the available evidence, Hall concludes that while one could be criticized for showing excessive grief at the expense of one’s public duties, shedding tears of sympathy for the plight of a friend was regarded as admirable. Cicero engaged in this behavior so often in speeches of the 50s that it was mocked as a cliché by Plancius’ prosecutor, M. Laterensis. Far from being deterred, at that trial Cicero produced yet another tearful peroration! In fact, Cicero was so convinced of the efficacy of this tactic that he occasionally substituted his own tears for those of an unwilling defendant, as in Milo’s defense. Since our evidence is heavily weighted toward Cicero’s speeches, it is hard to say whether his practice was typical. Hall elicits, however, some indications from Quintilian’s handbook in the next century that the run-of-the-mill advocate probably did not risk many courtroom theatrics, and some anecdotes contemporary with Cicero seem to confirm that picture. A few points may be noted. In view of the function of sordes, it seems doubtful that Piso put on sordes as governor of Macedonia when his recall was voted by the senate (as claimed by Hall, 49), since the show would not have exerted pressure on senators at Rome; more probably this is one of Cicero’s fabrications in the speech (see Nisbet on Pis. 89). Again, Hall points to the fact that the high emotion in Cael. comes, unusually, a bit past the middle, rather than at the end (119), but he fails to explain the reason, namely that Cicero thus diverts attention from the prosecution’s damaging allegation that Caelius tested on a slave the poison he had obtained for use on Clodia. When Cicero has Antonius claim in De oratore that he really felt the emotions that he “performed” in court, Hall thinks this is disingenuous and that as a practicing advocate Cicero is concealing the wellsprings of his art (142, 152). Perhaps, but the matter may be more complex. Some evidence points to the fact that Cicero was of the mollis personality type (“soft, impressionable”) and could be easily carried away by emotion (e.g., Tusc. 5.4). He was also aware of Plato’s criticisms of rhetorical manipulation and did not want to give a handle to such gibes. Hall says that Cicero could have learned of Antonius’ techniques from their conversations (127); he might have mentioned that Cicero witnessed Antonius’ self-defense before the Varian tribunal (Tusc. 2.57). One would have welcomed more detailed exploration of the Atticists’ criticisms of Cicero (touched on briefly at 141). A topic one might have expected to find here is the orator’s delivery, for which the speeches offer some evidence: there is, for instance, the sotto voce affected at Flac. 66 so that only the jurors may hear (see the criticism of Torquatus’ alternation between loud and soft as he panders to the audience: Sul. 30–31). [End Page 448] But...