So much then for the rhetorical theory of delivery. These discussions, however, do not present us with the whole story. It is clear from Cicero’s orations that a good deal more was involved in the performance of a speech. In particular, the emotional appeals that he employs toward the end of numerous speeches (in the so-called peroration) involve aspects of careful stage-management. In Pro Flacco, for example, Cicero evidently brought the defendant’s son before the jurors to try to evoke their sympathy (106). And, unless this is a detail included only in the written version of the speech, he had apparently coached the boy beforehand to supplicate the jurors and look tearfully toward him on cue: huic misero puero... supplici; qui etiam me intuetur, me vultu appellat (‘‘this poor suppliant boy... who even turns his eyes towards me, and whose face makes an appeal to me,’’ 106). Similarly, in Pro Fonteio he arranges for mother and sister to embrace the defendant toward the conclusion of the speech, and Fonteius himself is depicted as suddenly bursting into tears (46). His sister, whose status as Vestal Virgin Cicero unashamedly exploits, even stretches out her arms to the jurors in supplication (48). In Pro Plancio, by contrast, it is the defendant’s father who is paraded for emotional effect, while Plancius himself goes down on his knees to the jury and Cicero tearfully helps him up and embraces him: te tamen - exsurge quaeso - retinebo et complectar (‘‘stand up, I beg you. You I shall hold close in my embrace,’’ 102). Here too action and word would have needed careful choreographing: quid me adspectas? quid meamfidem imploras? (‘‘why do you look at me like this? Why beg me to be true to my word?’’, 102). (For other speeches in which the defendant’s relatives are presented to the jury, see Sull. 88, Sest. 144-6, Verr. 2.1.151; in general see Winterbottom 2004.)
Cicero seems to have exploited a rather different cliche in his defense of Rabirius Postumus, dramatically revealing the defendant’s scars in the course of his speech: qui hasce ore adverso pro republica cicatrices ac notas virtutis accepit (‘‘he who, facing the enemy, has received these scars, these marks of valor, in his country’s cause,’’ Rab. Post. 36). This was a ploy that Marcus Antonius (consul in 99 bce) had likewise used about half a century earlier to great effect (see Leigh 1995: 200-7). Appeals to the emotions could also include a more or less ritualized formal supplication of the judges. Asconius (28; Clark 1907) tells us that at the trial of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus on charges of corruption (54 bce) some ten prestigious supporters of the defendant engaged in a collective supplication of the jury. Again this action must have been stage-managed in advance. (See Cic. Fam. 4.4.3, Att. 4.2.4, QFr. 2.6.2 for other examples of this device.) These dramatic supplications continued in Quintilian’s time (Inst. 6.1.34).
There is evidence too of orators using rather more complex props during their speeches in attempts to exploit the emotions. At Pro Rabirio 24, Cicero criticizes the prosecution for their production in court of a portrait of the murdered tribune Saturninus, which had evidently been displayed earlier too at a public assembly (in rostra atque in contionem). And Quintilian refers to Cicero in the now lost Pro Vareno addressing sarcastic comments to a youth whose wound had been unbound by the prosecutor during the course of the trial, presumably for heightened visual impact (Inst. 6.1.49). As this example shows, orators had to develop strategies to try to foil their opponents’ exploitation of these manipulative techniques. Thus we hear of Hortensius denouncing Cicero’s production in court of a certain lunius, dressed in his toga praetexta, while his father gave evidence against Verres (Verr. 2.1.151). Similarly Laterensis scoffingly disparaged the lacrimula (‘‘[feigned] little tear’’) that Cicero had shed in the earlier trial of Marcus Cispius (plebeian tribune in 57 bce; see Planc. 75-6), presumably in an attempt to undermine Cicero’s use of such tactics in the present dispute (tactics that he did in fact go on to employ). And Quintilian suggests that the following quip be used to undercut the opponent’s production in court of a crying child: date puero panem neploret (‘‘give the child some bread to stop him crying!’’, Inst. 6.1.46-7).
It is clear from Quintilian’s discussion of this issue that such stage-managed effects were widely employed in the imperial courts as well. In fact, in a revealing autobiographical remark, Quintilian observes that much of his own oratorical reputation was based on his convincing exploitation of tearful appeals to the emotions (6.2.36). Other props and tricks that he mentions include the production in court of specially drawn pictures of the crime scene (6.1.32), blood-stained weapons claimed to be those used to commit the crime under investigation, and even bits of bone supposedly taken from victims’ wounds (6.1.30; cf. also 6.1.39, 6.1.47-8 for various defenses against such tricks as these).
Naturally such techniques had to be matched appropriately to the oratorical context. Cicero at Orator 102-3 stresses that he applies different persuasive approaches to different types of case. Pro Caecina, for example, revolves largely around interpretive issues of civil law and concludes with a sober review of the facts of the case. Cicero’s delivery in this instance was presumably relatively understated. Similarly, he does not indulge in histrionic pleas for mercy in Pro Quinctio, which was delivered before a single judge. Instead he presents Quinctius’ request for compassion in a restrained and succinct manner (91). Overall, the type of delivery employed in a legal case seems to have been shaped by various factors: the importance of the case at hand, that is, whether it had wider political implications or was essentially a private dispute; the status of the defendant; the character of the jury or judge; and the character of the defendant and his relationship with Cicero. Thus while the trials of Aulus Licinius Archias and Lucius Cornelius Balbus (consul in 40 bce) had political dimensions, especially with regard to Pompey and Caesar, the matters of citizenship that they addressed were not issues of high state (see Cicero’s Pro Archia and Pro Balbo); and the individuals on trial were not Romans of grand aristocratic standing. So in these rather technical cases Cicero again adopts a relatively muted style in the closing sections. It is a different matter, however, when Roman senators are brought to trial in connection with their behavior as provincial governors or in important elections. It is in these highly charged contexts that we find Cicero exploiting to the full the tricks of emotional manipulation. (Cf. also Cic. De Or. 2.205; Quint. Inst. 6.1.36; Lussky 1928: 95-6.)
World History
