Cicero's Use of Judicial Theater by Jon Hall

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 207 One cannot help but feel that this book is a missed opportunity. If, on the one hand, Feeney encourages readers to appreciate the exceptionality of Latin literature at every step of the way, on the other he fails to stress the importance of engaging with all the sources available, even when they are fragmentary and elusive. University of Canterbury Enrica Sciarrino Cicero's Use of Judicial Theater. By Jon Hall. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 190. Jon Hall's Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater provides a lucidly written, well-argued, and highly interesting study of Cicero’s use of “theatrics” (or, as Hall calls it, “showmanship,” 2) in his forensic speeches. As such, the book focuses on all the non-verbal forms of communication used by Cicero to persuade his audience, and sets Cicero’s practice into its oratorical, rhetorical, historical, and political context as far as the evidence (mainly Ciceronian) allows. Hall’s expertise in the material is evident in his many publications on Cicero, oratorical delivery, and gesture, along with his long-standing interest in performing Cicero’s orations in pedagogical context.1 Hall’s familiarity with the questions around delivery and gestures show in this book, which is full of excellent analysis based on well-chosen examples and provides a strong overview of the topic. The book is cleverly focused on the aspect of Cicero’s oratory for which he was most famous in his own time: his emotional appeal and the techniques by which he elicited passionate responses in the judge or jury. This focus not only ensures rich material , but also allows for connections with several popular strands in current classical scholarship, such as Ciceronian studies, the study of emotions and their expressions in Greek and Roman contexts, and the interplay between rhetoric and drama and performance . In his brief introduction, Hall sets the scene for his study by highlighting the historical and oratorical contexts of forensic speech in the Roman republic, as well as the enduring relevance of studying and understanding the power of non-verbal oratorical devices in public speeches. Hall’s modern example of an American congressman in the US House of Representatives using a child as a prop to support his argument on healthcare reform (3) is not judicial but political, and he rightly emphasises that these devices can be found outside the forensic context too. The first chapter provides the historical, rhetorical, judicial, and dramatic (i.e., related to Roman theatre) contexts for the “showmanship ” in Roman forensic speeches before the introduction of two early examples of Cicero’s use of showmanship (Pro Roscio Amerino and In Verrem 2.1). In the following chapters, Hall focuses on specific types of theatrics in, mainly, the Roman courts to explore the range of such showmanship and the ways in which these theatrics were employed. The second chapter focuses on the use of sordes, black and often filthy clothes donned to indicate a form of mourning (personal, political, or both). Hall must, of course, deal with Cicero’s and his supporters’ ill-advised use of sordes in early 58 b.c. to protest Clodius’ machinations against Cicero. In this analysis, Hall pushes the interpretation much further 1 Notably, Politeness and Politics in Cicero’s Letters (Oxford 2009) and A Companion to Roman Rhetoric (co-edited with W. Dominik, Malden, MA 2007). 208 PHOENIX than current scholarship has hitherto been able to do because of his contextualisation of and close familiarity with the social etiquette in elite republican circles. Moreover, he identifies a distinction between the formal rhetorical theory which focused on verbal communication and Roman cultural and dramatic practices in public: there was only so much the rhetorical handbooks could teach the aspiring orator. Chapter Three considers the ways in which appeals and supplications were used in the courts. As in the other chapters, Hall’s main focus is Ciceronian usage, but he rightly contextualises this usage by discussing non-Ciceronian instances (often ones recorded by Cicero) in the courts and outside of the courts. For example, the theme of appeals and supplications to judge and jurors was socially related to...