Preface

This Companion aims to provide a contemporary, accessible introduction to Roman rhetoric that will find a broad readership principally within an academic context. It is intended in the first place for the advanced Classics student confronting rhetoric for the first time and for scholars in adjacent disciplines such as comparative literature, English, rhetoric, communication studies, and critical theory. At the same time we hope that scholars working specifically in the field of Roman rhetoric will find the volume useful and stimulating, not only because it constitutes the first attempt in a generation of scholarship at a wide-ranging treatment of the discipline but also because some of the contributions raise new questions or suggest new paths of scholarly investigation. Our focus is on the cultural and practical significance of rhetoric within Roman society; therefore our approach is not primarily historical or biographical. Some chapters (e. g., chapters 4-5, 12-13, 16) are more specialized or technical than others (a number are particularly relevant for students of Latin), but this is perhaps inevitable given the highly technical nature of the various topics discussed. Nevertheless, we have tried to ensure that the basic information expected of a Companion is included in these chapters as well.

The scale of the volume reflects the vast scope and complexity of rhetoric’s influence on Roman society. This very complexity, however, poses organizational problems. It is not easy to divide such a multifaceted topic into tidy and discrete sections, and some overlap in content between chapters is inevitable. The point is illustrated best by the fact that the decree of 92 bce, in which the censors expressed disapproval of Latin teachers of rhetoric, is referred to in no fewer than eight of the following chapters. As we hope will become clear, this repetition reflects not the redundancy of the various chapters but the impact of the decree on numerous different aspects of Roman social and political life such as the response to Greek learning, educational methods at Rome, the political advantages of oratorical training, and the emergence in Rome of the professions of grammarian and rhetorician. To minimize repetition, however, we have incorporated a text and detailed discussion of the decree in chapter 3, and retained in later chapters only the information on its background and content necessary to provide some context for the discussion at hand. Overall we hope the result is a clear and user-friendly approach to Roman rhetoric, although we acknowledge that there are no doubt other ways in which we could have organized the material with no less cogency. Even in a volume of this size there remains much that could have been discussed; hence the inclusion of‘‘further reading’’ sections at the end of each chapter providing guidance on the most useful scholarship on the particular topic covered. Naturally the length of these sections depends upon whether the chapter has a broad or narrow focus and how much bibliography is actually cited in the discussion. Other key features of this volume, which are designed to optimize its usefulness for the general reader and scholar alike, include translations of all Greek and Latin passages, a glossary of technical terms, a comprehensive bibliography, an index locorum, and a general index of important figures and concepts. This volume is also designed to provide a complement to A Companion to Greek Rhetoric edited by Ian Worthington in the Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World series.

The usual acknowledgement of debts in the case of this Companion is a necessity. We wish especially to acknowledge the assistance of Sean McConnell, who was involved not only in the editing of the chapters but also in the revision of the material submitted; the translations of some of the Latin passages; the compilation of the glossary, bibliography, and indices; and the checking of the proofs. are due to Beatrice Hudson, who was involved in the initial formatting and editing of the chapters, and Karen Pickford, who helped with the graphic design of the figures in chapter 17. We also wish to express our appreciation to Al Bertrand, Sophie Gibson, Ben Thatcher, Angela Cohen, Ann Bone, and Sue Leigh for seeing this book through from the original proposal to its publication. To all our contributors we express our sincere gratitude not only for contributing chapters on specially designated topics but also for their patience and support in the production of this volume. The University of Otago awarded various research grants that enabled us to complete much of the editing of this volume.