De Inventione Research Articles

Ciceros Beweisführung aus der Wahrscheinlichkeit im Geldstreit zwischen dem Schauspieler Roscius und Fannius Chaerea

The paper explores the argumentation from probability in Cicero’s speech Pro Roscio comoedo, concerning the financial litigation between a famous Roman actor Quintus Roscius and an unknown businessman Fannius Chaerea. The Roman rhetorician had analysed the question of probability in his earlier dissertation De inventione, which influenced his art of persuasion. Because of lack of the strong proofs the arguments from probability played a great role in the defence of Roscius. Cicero used different types of likelihood arguments: syllogistic argument from probability, credibilia, incredibilia, verisimilia, as well as the arguments from ethos and kedros. He seems to be here aware of the Greek theory of argumentation present in the writings of Aristotle and Rhetorica ad Alexandrum. The Roman orator recalled often the truth and juxtaposed it with the probability. Cicero employed likelihood proofs in his speech, both in argumentation and in refutation.

Loci as Subject of Derision: Between Cicero’s Rhetorical Theory and Practice

There is no doubt that commonplaces, so called topoi, or loci, played a very important role both in the ancient rhetorical theory and in practice. They conform to the main part of invention in the rhetorical treatises, such as Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero’s De Inventione, Topica etc., and they enable an orator to develop his argument in any desirable direction (in utramque partem), and sometimes become the main tool of rhetorical strategy. In his Orator, Cicero claims, that an accomplished speaker, whom he tries to delineate as an ideal, will be perfectly familiar with commonplaces and be able to treat them critically and manipulate according to his purposes. In this paper, on the ground Cicero’s Verrine speeches, I shall analyze how the orator predicts his opponents’ topoi and presents them in a different light, and by criticizing or even by mocking them, he diminishes them in order to strengthen his own arguments. In some cases, e.g. in the Fifth Book of the Actio secunda in Verrem (Verr. 2.5), this becomes the main strategy of speech, and corresponds to the methods delineated in the Orator 49.

Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages by Rita Copeland

Reviewed by: Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages by Rita Copeland Shea McCollough Rita Copeland, Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), xv + 432 pp. More than three decades have passed since Rita Copeland first published Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages (1991), a study that has become an indispensable resource for scholars thinking about the development of vernacular texts and interpretative models from late antiquity to the Middle Ages. That first book laid the foundation for a body of scholarly work from Copeland that, while dealing with the variously related topics of classical reception, pedagogy, and representation, is nonetheless bound together by the through-line of rhetoric, her most persistent and pervasive research interest. Her newest book, Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, is a delightful expression of that rhetorical preoccupation, demonstrating a sustained interest in the intertwined relationships between rhetoric, emotion, and ethics that developed and redeveloped from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages and offering a compelling and comprehensive narrative of the transformations of rhetorical thought and practice over nearly two millennia. Like the good rhetorician that she is, Copeland offers a map of the book's overarching scope in apophatic terms, outlining the contours of the study by simultaneously delineating what it is not: it does not endeavor to offer a comprehensive history of medieval emotions—à la Barbara Rosenwein's Generations of Feeling (2015), or any number of similar studies that Copeland mentions throughout her footnotes—nor is it an attempt to uncover and represent the emotional experiences of medieval readers per se, although readerly experience becomes a secondary interest in the book, particularly in chapter 2. Rather, what Copeland does embark upon is a twofold history of both rhetoric through emotion and emotion through rhetoric in the Middle Ages, a history predicated upon [End Page 240] a belief that rhetoric "represented the role of emotion in shaping persuasions" and that is ultimately "concerned more with production than with consumption of emotive content" (1). Copeland builds from these initial claims, describing the "double plot" of her book "as a reception history that commences with the Ciceronian rhetorics of antiquity, that develops on a long course, and that, at a later juncture, incorporates the Aristotelian perspective" (14). Following this robust outline, the rest of the text splits into two halves, emblematized by the figures of Cicero and Aristotle, respectively. Chapter 1 analyzes Cicero's theory of affectio as presented in De inventione, establishing emotion as a valid form of invention (the process of developing an argument), as opposed to an exclusive element of style, even though the stylistic understanding would eventually come to dominate the discourse of medieval rhetoric. Chapter 2 picks up on this thread and demonstrates how early Christian thinkers, primarily Augustine and Cassiodorus, expanded their understanding of style to accommodate an ethical dimension of rhetorical appeal invested in the cultivation of "textual affection" (59), whether for the scriptures or for Virgil. As this instilled love for texts grew commonplace, it became less imperative to explicitly outline the ethical valence of style in rhetorical texts, resulting in the paradoxical effacement of this notion from Christianized rhetorical treatises by the twelfth century. Chapter 3 narrates the rise of style to a place of preeminence in the "pragmatic rhetoric" of the eleventh through fourteenth centuries by close reading pedagogical treatises (112), love letters, Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale, Petrarch's Seniles, and Chaucer's (again) Clerk's Prologue. Chapter 4 (re)turns to Aristotle's Rhetoric, the second piece of the book's "double plot," in order to "chart the routes through which Aristotelian rhetoric found its place in later medieval thought" (158). Copeland sketches the transmission history of the Rhetoric, arguing that the text effectively disappeared until resuscitated by a group of Arabic scholars—Al-Farabi (ca. 870–950), Avicenna (980–1037), and Averroes (1126–98)—whose commentaries treated the emotions "as both cognitive and moral forces in persuasion" (175). Chapter 5 extends the discussion of the Rhetoric's medieval afterlife by focusing on a shift in thinking about the emotions evident in Giles of Rome...

The nature and origin of partes prudentiae in cic. Inv. 2.160

The concept of prudentia in Cicero has deservedly received a lot of scholarly attention lately. Fundamental insights have been offered into its different uses in Latin, its relation to Greek φρόνησις, its emphasis on the semantic field of sight and on providentia, its relation to divination, and its philosophical background. One of its most important aspects, though, the understanding, linking and combining of past, present and future events in order to establish causal relationships and thus substantiate one’s decision-making process, needs to be more deeply addressed than has been done so far. I believe that some important aspects of Ciceronian prudentia have until now eluded scholars because of an understandable methodological concern to stick to the occurrences of the word (and its cognate providentia) in Cicero’s corpus. Nevertheless, by following the numerous philosophical treatments of the intellectual ability to correlate past, present and future in Cicero’s work, we will be able to get a clearer picture of Ciceronian prudentia in general and of the enumeration of its partes in De inventione. Also, we will be able to expand on Malaspina’s recent conclusion that the presentation of the parts of prudentia in De inventione is compatible with Chrysippus’ doctrine: it will be shown that Panaetius is the most likely thinker to have adapted Chrysippus’ conceptions in his reworking of Stoic doctrine.

A misunderstood passage in St. Jerome (Epist.30,1)

The first sentence of Jerome’s first letter to Paula contains a passage which translators have hitherto misunderstood (Epist. 30, 1). The present note endeavours to clarify the problem by adducing a passage of Marius Victorinus’ commentary on Cicero’s De inventione (1, 34, 58-9). Comparison of these passages of Victorinus and Jerome illustrates some typical features of the latter’s compositional and self-imitatory technique

Paideutikos eros

This paper focuses on the figure and the role of Aspasia in Aeschines’ eponymous dialogue, with special regard to the Milesian’s ‘paideutic’ activity and the double bond connecting it to Socrates’ teaching, namely the elenctic method and a particular application of Σωκρατικὸς ἔρως. The study aims to highlight some crucial traits of Aeschines’ Aspasia by examining three key texts, all numbered among the testimonies on the Aspasia: Cicero’s account in De inventione 1.31.51-53 and two fundamental passages from Xenophon’s Memorabilia (2.3.36) and Oeconomicus (3.14). After analysing a set of ancient sources which repeatedly mention the close and personal association between Socrates and Aspasia (Plato, Maximus of Tyre, Plutarch, Theodoret of Cyrus), I will try to reconstruct the dialogical context of Xenophon’s testimonies and to combine them with Cicero’s account. My final aim is to clarify the role of Aspasia in Aeschines’ presentation of the Socratic theory of ἔρως. In pursuing this main objective, in the concluding section I will address two further issues: (1) Aspasia’s connection with the figure of Diotima, as depicted in the same ancient sources and (2) the relationship between Aspasias’ pedagogical use of ἔρως and that made by Socrates in the Alcibiades.

Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 Ce by John O. Ward

Reviewed by: Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 Ce by John O. Ward Stephen Joyce Ward, John O., Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and their Art 400–1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 ce (International Studies in the History of Rhetoric, 10), Leiden, Brill, 2019; hardback; pp. xvii, 706; 1 colour illustration; R.R.P. €199.00, US$239.00; ISBN 9789004368071. Almost fifty years after it was examined, John O. Ward finally publishes his influential dissertation on Western medieval attitudes toward the Graeco-Roman art of rhetoric. His ground-breaking work, targeting neglect of a significant aspect of the medieval imagination, has been ‘refreshed’ for a contemporary academic audience. Ward follows the reception of two key Roman rhetorical texts from the year 400 to 1300, namely De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium, attributed to the Roman rhetor, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 bce), though his authorship of the latter is no longer accepted. Ward begins with the commentary on De inventione by the fourth-century rhetor, Victorinus, and ends at the point where the rhetorical texts of Aristotle become widely influential in the West. Noting that these Ciceronian texts are, in the modern era, regarded as lesser works, Ward establishes these ‘juvenilia’ as fundamental to medieval approaches to rhetoric. His analysis of the surviving manuscript corpus demonstrates the importance of these works on the intellectual culture of the medieval period. In a Christian tradition, it was, perhaps, Augustine of Hippo who first endorsed the select influence of Cicero’s juvenilia on the medieval West, cementing subsequent suspicions of Cicero’s more mature works as ‘showy’. It is only in the Renaissance, Ward argues, that the ‘true’ figure of Cicero is revived. Ward subsequently moves to examining medieval attitudes to classical rhetorical theory through an investigation of the impact of the juvenilia. The Ad Herennium represents a more systematic teaching tool, and Ward details its utility in the learning and practising of the art of rhetoric, especially as an authority on style and memory and their impact on persuasive speech and writing. The De inventione, on the other hand, concentrates, as per its title, on an aspect of rhetoric, [End Page 253] invention, and is less tightly organized. However, the De inventione still had utility, particularly in its rhetorical classification systems and its discussions of practical applications of rhetoric. Moving to a teleology of Ciceronian textbooks, Ward charts the influence of Cicero (and the ‘Ciceronian’ first-century rhetor, Quintilian) on the period 400– 1100. The decline in the classical Ciceronian rhetorical tradition in the late Roman period sees Victorinus’s new take on Cicero. His commentary on De inventione, inspired by the Platonic philosophies of Quintilian, shifts rhetoric from a high art to an art dependent on the character and motivations of the person using it, thus attaining, in the new Christian landscape, a theological aspect. The fifth-century rhetor, Grillius, subsequently shifts the debate further to more Hellenistic ideas of rhetoric as an acquired art and not an innate talent, though not without some resistance from sixth-century rhetors such as Boethius and Cassiodorus. Seventh-and eighth-century figures such as Isidore and Alcuin pick up on the classical, now Christian, ideal of the rhetor as the vir bonus. Alcuin, in particular, relates rhetoric to a doctrine of persuasion, perhaps in a context of increasing religious compulsion in secular politics. Increasingly, as Ward shows, rhetoric is displaced by grammar in this period, with rhetoric regarded as an abstraction. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries are the hey-day of the De inventione and the Ad Herennium. The scholastic revolution sees an increasing interest in defining art and the relationship between the arts. Rhetoric becomes increasingly embedded in theological debates over whether it is a tool for reason, an innate truth, or a simple art. These fierce debates involved notable medieval intellectuals such as Abelard, Hugh of St Victor, and Bernard of Chartres, and produced a group that spurned both rhetoric and Cicero, the so-called Cornificians. In a climate increasingly charged with accusations of heresy, the De inventione became preferred because of its...

Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca: Introduction

Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca: Introduction

Ibn Rushd (Averroes). On the Methods of Proof for the Principles of Creed. Part One

The article offers for the first time a translation from Arabic into Russian of a treatise by Ibn Rushd (Averroes 1126–1198 AD), which deals with the islamic belief system (aqida). The treatise is of exceptional interest for both the students of theology and philosophy: it was authored by a philosopher who used the language of a theologian – a phenomenon that does not have a precedent in Muslim culture. Ibn Rushd here shapes his understanding of aqida by polemically using as a background the Asharite theology. In the translation is offered the first chapter of the treatise, which deals with proofs of the God’s existence. The arguments used by the representatives of the Kalam, such as dalil al-huduth (“de novitiate mundi”), the dalil al-jawaz (or dalil al-imkan, argument of “contingent mundi”)are critically assessed. They are juxtaposed to such Qur’anic arguments dalil al-`inaya argument “from design” or “de providentia” or the dalil al-ikhtira` “de inventione” or “de creatione”.

Arguing Over Texts: The Rhetoric of Interpretation

Arguing Over Texts: The Rhetoric of Interpretation

Cicerone, de Inventione, 1.18: Iudicatio est, quae ex infirmatione et confirmatione rationis nascitur controversia

Cicero, in the early work de Inventione (1.18), defines what is the hermagorean doctrine of κρινόμενον: “the point for the judge's decision is the issue which arises from the denial (ex infirmatione) and tight assertion of the excuse (et confirmatione rationis)”. The doubts on the authenticity of the text are old, and modern editors delete the reference to the confirmatio. However, most of manuscripts attest the necessity of the confirmation of the defense. Also, confirmatio is that by means of which our speech proceeding in argument adds belief, and authority, and corroboration to our cause (de Inv., 1.34). Moreover Cicero, in Partitiones oratoriae (104), explains that only by continuous refutations between the parties to the proceedings it arises the κρινόμενον: this is the rhetorical counterpart of dialectic antilogy. Finally, the early medieval commentaries of the de Inventione give reason to the firmamentum after the κρινόμενον.

Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric by Jeffrey Maciejewski

Reviewed by: Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric by Jeffrey Maciejewski Giuseppe Butera Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric. By Jeffrey Maciejewski. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2014. Pp. vii + 111. $70.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-7391-7128-8. Aristotle defined man as a rational and political animal. In this creative appropriation of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, Jeffrey Maciejewski argues that man is also a rhetorical animal. There is in each one of us a natural inclination to use persuasive modes of thought and speech, and this moves us [End Page 154] to reason about ends and to act in pursuit of them. More pointedly (and radically), Maciejewski argues that all discursive reasoning is, by its very nature, rhetorical. To understand how radical this thesis is, it is important to understand that ancient thinkers limited rhetoric to the social dimension of human discourse. On this view, "if our nature, as social animals, is defined by a coming together to form cities, to establish laws, and to discover arts, it is a coming together made possible by a rhetorically motivated faculty of discourse, a seemingly innate power of persuading each other, a power that is necessary to bring about social cohesion" (1-2). Maciejewski has no objection to this view as far as it goes. But this standard perspective is problematic: it does not go far enough. For on Maciejewski's view, the very essence of discursive thought is teleological, directed towards action. This by itself is enough to make all discursive thought (practical and speculative: see chap. 2) rhetorical, since as Maciejewski puts it, "the proximate end of rhetoric is to precipitate action" (16). From ancient times, thinkers such as the Greek Isocrates and the Roman Cicero have noted the necessity of rhetoric for the maintenance and flourishing of human society. As Cicero put it, "many cities have been established, many wars extinguished, many most enduring alliances and most holy friendships have been cemented by deliberate wisdom much assisted and facilitated by eloquence" (2, quoting De inventione). Nature, it seems, has outfitted us with the ability to engage in persuasive discourse. If asked how nature has done this, Maciejewski claims that none of the ancients has an answer. It is in attempting to answer this question himself , through creative appropriation of Aquinas's views, that he arrives at the conclusion that "the discourse Aquinas refers to [in his discussion of the discursive movement of the intellect] … is persuasive; that is, it is rhetorical insofar as it is a form of discourse that precipitates movement" (8). Underlining its essential rootedness in human nature, Maciejewski gives this "discursive action of the intellect" the name "natural rhetoric" (ibid.). At the risk of oversimplification, Maciejewski seems to be saying that the social use of rhetoric is an end (the end) that determines the nature of human discourse at every level. All of our thinking is social in this respect because all of it is directed toward persuading ourselves or others to act: "So it is that the good for man—as it is constituted individually and as it is apprehended socially—what enables us to live with one other [sic] well, is dependent on a form of naturally occurring rhetorical abilities, a form of persuasion that is characteristically human, that is natural in the richest sense, that is natural rhetoric" (106-7). Maciejewski's argument spans four chapters. In the first, he develops the notion of a natural rhetoric, making use of Aristotelian essentialism and Thomistic action theory to conclude that we have, by nature, the ability to develop "the basic goods of prudence, justice, and sociability" thanks to "a [End Page 155] mechanism [i.e., natural rhetoric] by which action is constituted" and directed to these goods as to their natural ends (28). In the remaining chapters, Maciejewski elaborates the notion of natural rhetoric by applying it to the study of the act of understanding, defective action, and the formation of the moral virtues, all with a view to explaining "why it is we have been given [the] uniquely human capacity" of persuasion (104). In attempting to assess the success of Maciejewski's...

As virtudes da narratio no De oratore de Cícero

Este breve trabalho tem por objetivo analisar o tratamento das virtudes da narratio – a clareza, a brevidade e a verossimilhança – no diálogo De oratore, de Cícero, verificando quais as semelhanças e diferenças com relação à preceituação sobre esta parte do discurso nos manuais de retórica Da inventione, obra anterior do próprio Cícero, e Retórica a Herênio, de autor desconhecido. Através desta comparação, será possível contrastar a proposta retórica de Cícero do De Oratore com a retórica escolar e tecnicista dos manuais, tão criticada pelas personagens do diálogo. Cícero parece colocar a brevidade e a clareza em tensão, e recomendar uma clareza mais próxima da illustratio, que, além de deleitar, comove ao dispor diante dos olhos o acontecido, sendo aliada, assim, da terceira virtude, a do provável e verossímil.

Managing Knowledge: Diagrammatic Glosses to Medieval Copies of the Rhetorica ad Herennium

This article aims to demonstrate the relationship between diagrammatic glossing and the interpretation of the text of the Rhetorica ad Herennium in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Using four manuscripts containing marginal diagrammatic notations to the text, the article shows how the pseudo-Ciceronian manual was first read through the lens of De inventione, with cross-referencing between the two texts common, while in the later period the diagrams tended to summarise the text as given, using mnemonic techniques such as division and enumeration to prompt and formulate the diagrams. In so doing, the article shows how diagrammatic glossing is a valuable alternative to textual glossing, and an important knowledge management device.

Recent Books

Manuscripts of the Latin Classics 800–1200. Ed. by Eric Kwakkel. Leiden: Leiden University Press. 2015. 224 pp. €39.50. isbn 978 90 8728 226 4. Another compact title in the series Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Book Culture from Leiden, this collection of essays explores the production and use of medieval manuscripts containing classical Latin texts. Includes: E. Kwakkel, ‘Manuscripts of the Latin Classics 800–1200: An Introduction’; M. Teeuwen, ‘Carolingian Scholarship on Classical Authors: Practices of Reading and Writing’; R. G. Babcock, ‘The Transmission of Tibullus in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’; I. O'Daly, ‘Diagrams of Knowledge and Rhetoric in Manuscripts of Cicero's De Inventione’; E. Kwakkel, ‘Classics on Scraps: Classical Manuscripts Made from Parchment Waste’; D. T. Gura, ‘Living with Ovid: The Founding of Arnulf of Orléans' Thebes’. Reading and the Victorians. Ed. by Matthew Bradley and Juliet John. Farnham: Ashgate. 2015. 180 pp. £60. isbn 978 1 4094 4080 2.

Barbarianism and Its Discontents

Barbarianism and Its Discontents

The Governance of Friendship. Law and Gender in the Decameron by Michael Sherberg (review)

Reviewed by: The Governance of Friendship. Law and Gender in the Decameron by Michael Sherberg Francesco Ciabattoni Michael Sherberg. The Governance of Friendship. Law and Gender in the Decameron. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2011. 250 pages. The Governance of Friendship investigates the relationship between friendship and governance in Boccaccio’s masterpiece against the backdrop of political and religious theories of friendship. These include Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Aquinas’ Summa theologiae, Cicero’s De inventione as well as Hans Kelsen’s Introduction to the Problems of Legal Theory and Richard Posner’s Law and Literature. Sherberg’s thorough research testifies to the rising critical interest in the theme of friendship in medieval Italian writers, adding to such publications by Anna Fontes-Baratto, Emilio Pasquini, Franco Masciandaro, and others. Sherberg begins by contrasting Boccaccio’s reference to the friend whose ministrations saved his life (“li piacevoli ragionamenti d’alcuno amico e le sue laudevoli consolazioni” Proem, 4) with Aristotle’s three types of friendship: utilitarian, pleasurable and virtuous, which, according to the Greek Philosopher, inform all human relationships. Sherberg then analyzes the dynamics of political governance in the brigata against the backdrop of the Aristotelian constitutions of monarchy, aristocracy and timocracy, whose perversions (oligarchy, democracy and tyranny) are always lurking behind bad leadership. Sherberg also extends his analysis to sensibly selected tales to show how law and legal theories regulating human relationships bind together the various narrative layers of the Decameron. Chapter One, “The Order of Outsiders,” reveals the rhetorical strategy at play among the women of the brigata: exclusion of male rule and revenge on men for having been marginalized in the textual space. Such instances occur particularly in the Proem, the Introductions to Days One and Four and tales 4.1, 4.5, 5.8 and 7.8. Chapter Two, “Lessons in Legal Theory,” demonstrates how Boccaccio questions the validity of the link between divine law and natural law by questioning the connection between things that are unseen and things that are empirically perceivable. Focusing on 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 6.7, 6.9 and 6.10, this section also shows how the world of the frame narrative is entirely free from teleological concerns, which shifts the balance in favor of natural rather than divine law. Thus the return of the repressed male hierarchy hinges on the autonomy of a natural law that provides men with “the rhetorical props to rationalize violence—real and metaphorical—that they perpetrate against women” (106) and so leaves women to navigate the fine line between rhetoric and coercion. [End Page 145] This narrow space is explored in Chapter Three, “Strategies of Coercion: Filostrato,” in which Sherberg shows how Pampinea challenges Filostrato by telling the tale of Frate Alberto (4.2), which flouts and parodies the king’s theme of tragic loves. Filostrato attempts to impose a narrative world in which women must obey men because the latter are “physically stronger and as such may coerce obedience” (115), but his attempt fails because female storytellers create a free literary space for themselves and their fictional characters in which women rhetorically subvert male dominance. Chapter Four, “Dioneo and the Politics of Marriage,” draws on Albert R. Ascoli in analyzing the apparent contradiction in electing a king who has joined the brigata only to be an outlaw. From outsider to insider, Dioneo proposes for Day Seven the theme of wives’ beffe upon their husbands, thus allowing for the creation of a narrative space in which the violence of authority is counterbalanced by fiction. Elissa and Pampinea leading the women to the valle delle donne is a fitting example of this sexual and political subversion, though, Sherberg affirms, the valle is a place not of unbridled, but of disciplined pleasure, since male members of the brigata will penetrate and survey that space. Chapter Five, “The Rule of Panfilo: Fables of Reconciliation,” explores the role of women in a world ruled by male bonds of friendship. In the author’s words, this day represents “the triumph of the homosocial” in marginalizing female agency. Courtesy and giving are the centerpieces of this day that embodies Aristotle’s noblest type of friendship, that based on goodness. Such...

Cicero’s Lists of Topics From Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages

Beginning with the Ciceronian divisions of rhetorical and dialectical topics as found, respectively, in the De inventione (84 BC), the De oratore (55 BC), the Partitiones oratoriae (54 BC) and the Topica (44 BC), the purpose of this study is to collect all the lists that have been transmitted from Antiquity to the early Middle Ages in order to observe — mainly through the help of several diagrams put in the appendix — their alteration, as well as their preservation.

Facere enim maluerunt quam promittere: Quintilian’S answer on the discidium linguae atque cordis

This paper seeks to shed light on Quintilian’s conception of the orator who combines moral integrity, political wisdom and rhetorical expertise. A key for understanding this concept lies in Quintilian’s polemically distorted depiction of the rude and insolent crowd of contemporary self-appointed philosophers, who serve as counterparts to the orators. While Cicero’s famous word of the discidium linguae atque cordis has enjoyed much attention among scholars, the interpretation of the discidium by one of Cicero’s most fervent admirers has been widely neglected: Quintilian carries out a distinct revaluation of the two parties — philosophers and orators — by constructing a diametrically opposed scenario to the one Cicero had drawn of the origins of the discidium in De inventione and De oratore. In the proem, Quintilian says that men of little intelligence (infirmiora ingenia) had insolently laid claim on the word ‘philosophy’, but in fact never bothered about philosophical truth. The other party, the orators, consisted of men of profound erudition and active political engagement, and were far superior to the so-called studiosi sapientiae. This led Quintilian to the pointed statement decidedly in favour of the orators: facere enim optima quam promittere maluerunt. Quintilian’s polemic against the self-appointed philosophers of his age, who form a considerable part of the Roman aristocracy, is in fact an apologetic construction to save the reputation of the rhetorician and orator from common contemporary accusations.

Rhetorical Expectations and Self-Fashioning in Cicero's Speech for P. Sulla, §§18–19

Pro Sulla §§18–19 demonstrates a tactic of self-depiction unique in Cicero's speeches; the orator represents an internal dialogue in which his natural kindness towards the Catilinarian Autronius is overcome by arguments that his audience can recognize as the prosecutor's stock tactics of emotional amplification prescribed in De Inventione. By ostentatiously persuading himself to sternness with the stock appeals designed to persuade a normative audience, the orator can justify his actions against the Catilinarians while asserting that his essential nature is kind and compassionate. This tactic is both essential for Cicero's persuasive strategy and useful for his broader self-depiction for the reading audience of the speech.