This aspect of oratory raises two further questions. One, how accurate are ancient speeches as guides to what was actually said? And two, why did orators choose to prepare and disseminate written texts?
The accuracy of written versions has been much discussed. Ancient historians generally settle for a guarded trust in the accuracy of written versions, relying primarily on two arguments: ancient memory techniques were good enough to enable reasonably accurate transcriptions; and the overlap between the audiences of the spoken and written versions must have acted as a check on wholesale fabrication. In certain instances, these assumptions must be wrong: for example, Roman legal procedure in criminal cases could not have included speeches of precisely the form that Cicero’s take, because of scheduled adjournments and the inclusion of witness evidence. Indeed, some of Cicero’s speeches include the headings where evidence would have been presented, which he has left out of the version disseminated. Similarly, surviving texts of Athenian forensic oratory include headings where spoken and written evidence was produced. At these points, there is a tension between the demands of oral performance and the conventions of a written genre. Quintilian acknowledges the existence of differing standards in evaluating spoken and written speeches at Rome, even though he argues that the same standards can and should be applied to both types (12.10.49-57). Ancient orators were conscious that those reading their speeches, as opposed to hearing them, would be highly educated in exactly those techniques of rhetoric which the speeches relied on; and would have the opportunity to study a speech closely.
In general, then, we must allow for an orator’s tidying up of a speech in preparation for written dissemination and for its offering the very best words that its author could produce, given the opportunity to reflect at leisure. Moreover, a written text cannot convey the extra-textual elements in oratorical performance; yet delivery, comprising gesture and voice, was one of the five fundamental divisions of oratorical technique, and regarded by many practitioners as the most important of these. A story about Demosthenes is often repeated: when asked what the most important aspect of speaking was, he gave the answer “Delivery,” and said that delivery was also the second and third most important thing. And a text does not include the audience’s original response. Written speeches thus offer the pretence of being an accurate record of the words said, to the extent of removing everything but the orator’s words; and yet in the absence of what other people said on the same occasion, and the audience’s response to what it heard, a written speech is missing crucial elements which would have helped its readers to assess its impact. In particular, speeches do not give any indication of the outcome, i. e. the eventual verdict for a forensic speech, or the vote for a deliberative one. In many cases, that evidence is now lost, and with it an important means of assessing the situation dealt with in the speech. We would be in a somewhat stronger position to assess Ariston’s case, for example, if we knew how the jury responded to his speech. And we should not assume that ancient readers had better access to this kind of information than we do. Asconius’s set of notes on five of Cicero’s speeches, written about a century later, show that he thought it valuable to include the verdicts. Writing concentrates even further the single, dominant viewpoint of the orator which prevails while he speaks.
These observations apply to all written speeches. There are a number of occasions where the illusion generated by a written speech requires even greater scrutiny: occasions where no speech was actually delivered. Demosthenes may never have given Against Meidias, and two of Cicero’s most famous speeches, the Verrines and the Second Philippic, certainly come into this category; of similar interest is the text of the speech On behalf of Milo, which almost certainly bears little relationship to what Cicero may have said at the trial. It is worth considering the circumstances of each case, which throw some light on the reasons why an orator might write up a speech.
Cicero was denied his opportunity to complete his prosecution of Verres in 70 bc by the defendant’s decision to go into exile during the adjournment between the first and second hearing of the case. By disseminating the five parts of the second hearing, as though he had in fact delivered them, Cicero was able, through his display of all the material he had gathered in Sicily, to demonstrate his diligence and his brilliance. A further motive may have been the desire to show conclusively that Verres was guilty and thereby negate any unpopularity Cicero himself might have acquired through the fact of prosecution and the benefits he personally obtained by so doing. He could not use the excuse of being at the start of his career to justify undertaking a prosecution, and since Verres was a praetor and thus senior to Cicero, he probably acquired Verres’ status at the conclusion of the trial. The non-delivery of the Second Philippic has a different cause: fear. Given Marcus Antonius’s military dominance in Rome by the autumn of 44 bc, Cicero was unwilling to respond to Antonius’s attack on him in the Senate on September 19th in person. Writing gave him a safer means of response, and he did not speak again in the Senate until after Antonius had left Rome. In both these cases, writing allowed Cicero to reach an audience on occasions when it was not possible for him actually to speak. It is evidence of the authority which Cicero believed he possessed as an orator, and which inhered to the occasions of public speech, whether forensic or deliberative, that he maintained in every respect the conventions of a written speech on these occasions where he did not, in fact, speak.
The circumstances relating to the speech On behalf of Milo are different: Cicero did give a defense speech at Milo’s trial on charges arising from the murder of Clodius in 52 BC, but what we know of the speech’s transmission suggests that the version we have is substantially altered from what Cicero may have actually said. It is unusual among Cicero’s forensic speeches in recording a case where Cicero’s client lost: normally, defeats did not make the transition to written form. One could argue that the political circumstances of the time, and in particular Cicero’s own deep hostility to Clodius, might have led to Cicero’s wanting a permanent record of the case; but there is also some evidence to suggest that Cicero’s own performance at the trial was not very effective, and that an unauthorized version of what he said was taken down and circulated immediately afterwards. The speech we have could therefore mark an attempt to replace a text which records a poor performance by one which displays Cicero as a competent speaker; and, if so, this strategy has been largely successful, inasmuch as the On behalf of Milo is regarded as one of Cicero’s finest speeches, and nothing has survived of the other version.
These three cases support an expectation that what we read is a polished-up version: orators’ reputations are at stake in writing, and writing provides a chance of bolstering and maintaining reputations. Some orators never had any written versions disseminated, precisely because they feared the continuing existence of their speeches could do them harm. Marcus Antonius - the grandfather of the triumvir - was afraid that writing down his speeches would leave him vulnerable to charges of selfcontradiction (Cic. Clu. 140). Cicero was forced into denial when an attack on a rival entered the public domain: he asked Atticus to try to spread the word that the speech was a forgery (Cic. Att. 3.12.2). The motives of those who did disseminate can be analyzed under three headings: persuasion, reputation, and education.
Persuasion relates particularly to deliberative oratory, if the circumstances to which the speech is contributing may continue, and is less applicable to forensic cases, which conclude at the close of the trial. So, for example, the struggle against Marcus Antonius in 44-43 bc was spread over months, and over an extended geographical range: by sending out copies of the speeches he had delivered, Cicero was able to give a demonstration to commanders distant from Rome of the strength of the senatorial position. However, this is a relatively unusual situation: in most cases, including deliberative ones, directly influencing opinion was not needed once the vote had been taken. But dissemination could always be a means of promoting an orator’s reputation: either for simple competence as a speaker, or as a demonstration of an orator’s adherence to particular views which might increase his popularity. For Lysias, for example, a non-citizen working as a logographer in Athens, circulation of the written text of one of his speeches would act primarily as an advertisement of his skills and thereby a means to secure clients. For orators who were politically active, however, the implications could be wider. By the time Cicero spread the written version of his speech On the command of Gnaeus Pompeius the vote had already been taken and the command bestowed. But Cicero’s public support of Pompey was still potentially of value to him in helping him to secure the support of those who favored Pompey in the coming election for the consulship. As for the final possibility, education, Cicero claims that aspiring orators read his works, and theoretical writers on oratory such as Quintilian draw many of their examples from actual speeches. Becoming a model for subsequent generations was a pleasing achievement; but there is little evidence that ancient orators were primarily altruistic in their dissemination practices. The pedagogical value of speeches was a happy side-effect.
World History
