What style did the orator employ in the post-Ciceronian world of imperial Rome? In the course of the Dialogus, Vipstanus and Aper, men with two somewhat different opinions concerning oratory and its contemporary state, find themselves in agreement on one central point: since Cicero’s day oratory had changed, and the two agree that one figure in particular, Cassius Severus who lived under Augustus, had contributed in no small part to that change. The words of Vipstanus are worth quoting in full:
Si [Cassius] iis comparetur, qui postea fuerunt, posse oratorem vocari, quamquam in magna parte librorum suorum plus bilis habeat quam sanguinis. primus enim contempto ordine rerum, omissa modestia ac pudore verborum, ipsis etiam quibus utitur armis incompositus et studio feriendi plerumque deiectus, non pugnat, sed rixatur.(Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus 26.4)
If [Cassius] were compared to those who were later, he can be called an orator, although the greater part of his books contains more bile than blood. For he was the first who, having despised good composition, with no sense of modesty or shame in his diction, and even disorderly and generally thrown off his feet by the very weapons he used due to his eagerness to strike, did not fight but bickered.
Now Winterbottom (1964) in an important article accepted Vipstanus’ assessment of Cassius Severus as instituting a new style that, he argued, came to be associated with delatores, imperial informants and prosecutors who worked on the emperor’s behalf in the courts and senate. He was not alone. Even before Winterbottom, Syme (1958: 100-2) had asserted that this style became popular especially with prosecutors; both scholars cited Tacitus and Pliny in particular for support. It is not hard to appreciate why. Tacitus, for one, characterizes delatoresin violent terms, remarking, for example, that the notorious Neronian prosecutor Eprius Marcellus was torvus ac minax (‘‘fierce and threatening,’’ Ann. 16.29), or that the Domitianic delator Baebius Massa was optimo cuique exitiosus (‘‘destructive for every man of the best class,’’ Hist. 4.50), while Pliny makes particular note of how vicious the oratory of Nero’s minister Marcus Aquilius Regulus could be (Ep. 1.5; cf. 1.20, which contains Regu-lus’ favorite aphorism: ego iugulum statim video, hunc premo, ‘‘at once I see the jugular and press home’’). But the assessment of the violent nature of Roman oratory is problematic (Rutledge 1999; cf. 2001: 13-15).
First, our sources that represent delatores are terribly hostile to them. Delatores, as our sources depict them, work in the interest of the emperor and against that of the senate. Since our main sources - Pliny, Cassius Dio, Suetonius and, above all, Tacitus - were themselves ofthat body, there is a natural hostility toward those representing the imperial court. Secondly, we have no speeches from the hand of a known delator, though works did circulate by figures such as Domitius Afer (see, e. g., Quint. Inst. 9.3.66), whom Tacitus (inter alios) considered a notorious prosecutor working under Tiberius and Caligula (Ann. 4.52,4.66; cf. 14.19). But for their style we are generally dependent on the likes of Pliny and Tacitus, and both are quite averse toward them (although Afer seems to have escaped total damnation: Tacitus balances Afer’s negative actions with grudging mention of his ingenium,4.52). The one exception is Quintilian who, in the case of Afer, actually speaks favorably of him, noting his use of humor and his work on rhetorical theory in this area (Inst. 6.3.42; cf. 6.3.54, 68, 81,84-5,92-4).
Two other considerations are in order when Pliny and Tacitus assert, and modern scholars accept, that delatores developed a particularly violent style during the principate. First, it is important to note that the very activity that delatores pursued, the act of prosecution, was something that Romans considered inherently violent. This was true not only in the time of Tacitus and Pliny, but of Cicero too (Rutledge 1999: 556-9). Moreover, this was recognized both in practice and in theory, as the rhetorical treatises of Cicero and Quintilian attest. Secondly, and perhaps most telling of all: one must seriously question just how much more violent oratory could have been in Tacitus’ day than it was some 150 years earlier as evidenced in Cicero’s own orations, such as the Verrines, Catilinarians, or Philippics. In the political rough and tumble of the late republic (as even Tacitus understood, Dial. 37), oratory was something that was exciting, by virtue of its violence and the emotion it could arouse.
The style that the delatores practiced is not our only difficulty. In addition, there is the problem of just what our sources meant by the term delator. Since this has been discussed elsewhere (Rutledge 2001: 9-16), a brief summary will suffice. The term is in fact a fluid one, and serves in our sources (from Livy through the time of Tacitus) to refer to a number of different activities: one who denounced a crime ( index), one who acted as a witness (testis), and the actual prosecutor (accusator) could all be considered a delator; so, too, could a courtier or freedman who played any one of these roles. Occasionally the term could be applied to one who partook in any number of these activities (e. g., one who served as both index and accusator). But the terms delator and accusator are often used interchangeably in our sources. The word accusator can be used either neutrally or negatively. The word delator, however, is decidedly polemical - and abstract. Scholars such as Walker (19602: 101), Martin (1981: 136), and Sinclair (1995: 118-19) note that the word is a schematic term of abuse used to construct a category and to typologize certain types of behavior that for Tacitus and his contemporaries were decidedly negative. Sinclair cites the following passage in Tacitus in his discussion of this phenomenon:
Nec multo post Granium Marcellum praetorem Bithyniae quaestor ipsius Caepio Crispi-nus maiestatis postulavit, subscribente Romano Hispone: qui formam vitae iniit quam postea celebrem miseriae temporum et audaciae hominum fecerunt. nam egens, ignotus, inquies, dum occultis libellis saevitiae principis adrepit, mox clarissimo cuique periculum facessit, potentiam apud unum, odium apud omnis adeptus dedit exemplum, quod secuti ex pauperibus divites, ex contemptis metuendi perniciem aliis ac postremum sibi inve-nere. (Tacitus, Annales 1.74)
Not much later Caepio Crispinus accused Granius Marcellus, the former praetor of Bithynia under whom Caepio had served as quaestor, of treason, with Romanus Hispo acting as supporting prosecutor: this man entered upon a form of life which the miseries of the times and the daring of men afterwards made famous. For without means, unknown, restless, while he wormed his way into the princeps' cruelty by secret letters, he soon endangered each man of most illustrious rank. Having obtained power with the princeps, he won hatred among all. He gave an example which made those who followed it rich men from poor, men to be feared instead of despised; they destroyed others and afterwards themselves.
Here we have Tacitus’ quintessential version of the delator, the low-born opportunist who seeks power and position, is regardless of others and himself, gains a foothold in the princeps" inner circle, and works with the emperor against the interests of the senate and the privileged elite. They therefore constitute a negative sociopolitical type and ultimately a historical construction based on class and political biases. The term is further exposed as a construct when one considers the following: in 22 ce Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, Bruttedius Niger, and Iunius Otho prosecuted Gaius Iunius Silanus, a former governor of Asia, for repetundae (‘‘maladministration’’) and maiestas (‘‘treason,’’ Tac. Ann. 3.67.2; see Rutledge 2001: 68 for discussion). Though clearly guilty, even by Tacitus’ admission, the historian’s portrayal of Silanus is sympathetic, and he does little to hide his distaste for the prosecutors. The case is intended to set Tiberius in a bad light, to throw into relief the ever increasing power of Sejanus, his praetorian praefect, and to construe the case as just another instance in the ever tightening chains of imperial tyranny. Yet it was a simple and necessary matter of justice for the provincials, and the princeps sensibly looked after those under his tutelage. The ‘‘crime’’ of the delatores here is that they had sided - rightly so - with the princeps in a case of provincial mismanagement. It stands as just one of numerous examples we could cite in which a perfectly legitimate act of law enforcement is set in a negative light. Tacitus’ presentation rings all the more hollow when we consider that he himself had undertaken a similar prosecution against Marius Priscusin 100 ce (Plin. Ep. 2.11). In Tacitus’ view it appears that who exactly was regarded as a legitimate accusator rather than a delator depended, in part, on who was the sitting princeps.
World History
