According to Cicero, Roman oratory effectively began when the Roman elite learned to write their speeches. This claim makes sense only within Cicero’s effort to canonize his oratory and to salvage oratory itself from the wreckage of the republic. But the fact that Cicero could indeed turn to texts of speeches produced by his predecessors and that, albeit in fragments, these texts have survived to our time raises at least two questions. Why did the Roman elite begin to write their speeches only at the turn of the third century bce? And, what is the place that writing occupied in second-century BCE oratorical practices?
The Romans were familiar with writing well before the late third century bce, but after her military successes abroad, Rome witnessed the burgeoning of a culture of professionals that made extensive use of writing (Habinek 1998a: 34-68). One of the outcomes of this new culture was poetry, but poets were not the only professionals who relied on writing. In fact, the Roman elite started to surround themselves with literary slaves and/or freedmen generally called litterati. Whereas these facts confirm that writing per se was a non-elite activity, it is clear that the Roman elite soon became interested in what professional writers could do for them.
As we have seen, in the De Oratore (3.225), Cicero introduces the anecdote about Gaius’ use of a flute player through the character of Crassus. In the same passage Crassus invites Catulus to find confirmation of the veracity of the anecdote from one of his clients, who had at a certain point served Gaius in the function of scribe. Moreover, in Brutus 87 Cicero mentions the presence of literary slaves while narrating another anecdote, this time about Galba, the governor of Spain whom Cato attacked in the final year of his life. In the first case Cicero does not specify the role fulfilled by the slave in Gaius’ oratorical activities, but in the second he makes clear that Galba mapped out his speech (commentari) by dictating different things to different scribes. A more compelling testimony to this phenomenon, however, comes from Cato’s De Sumptu Suo:
Iussi caudicem proferri ubi mea oratio scripta erat de ea re quod sponsionem faceram cum M. Cornelio. tabulae prolatae: maiorum benefacta perlecta: deinde quae ego pro re publica fecissem leguntur. ubi id utrumque perlectum est, deinde scriptum erat in oratione: ‘‘numquam ego pecuniam neque meam neque sociorum per ambitionem dilargitus sum.’’ attat noli, noli <s>cribere, inquam, istud: nolunt audire. deinde reci-tavit: ‘‘numquam <ego> praefectos per sociorum vestrorum oppida inposivi, qui eorum bona liberos diriperent.’’ istud quoque dele, nolunt audire; recita porro. ‘‘numquam ego praedam neque quod de hostibus captum esset neque manubias inter paucolos amicos meos divisi, ut illis eriperem qui cepissent.’’ istuc quoque dele: nihil <e>o minus volunt dici; non opus est recitato. ‘‘numquam ego evectionem datavi, quo amici mei per symbolos pecunias magnas caperent.’’ perge istuc quoque uti cum maxime delere. ‘‘num-quam ego argentum pro vino congiario inter apparitores atque amicos meos disdidi neque eos malo publico divites feci.’’ enimvero usque istuc ad lignum dele. vide sis quo loco re<s> publica siet, uti quod rei publicae bene fecissem, unde gratiam capiebam, nunc idem illud memorare non audeo ne invidiae siet. ita inductum est male facere inpoene, bene facere non inpoene licere. (Cato, De Sumptu Suo 51.169; Cugusi 1982: 110-11)
I ordered the tablets to be brought out on which my speech concerning the judicial wager with Marcus Cornelius had been written. The tablets were fetched: the services of my ancestors were read out; then those that I had done for the state were read. When the reading out of both of these was finished, the speech went on as follows: ‘‘Never have I lavished my money or that of the allies in order to win favors.’’ ‘‘Oh no!’’ I said ‘‘Don’t, don’t write that.’’ Then he read out, ‘‘Never have I imposed prefects on the towns of your allies, to plunder their property and their children.’’ ‘‘Delete that too; they don’t want to hear that. Read further.’’ ‘‘Never have I divided booty taken from the enemy or prize money among the small circle of my friends and therefore snatched it away from those who had captured it.’’ ‘‘Erase as far as that too: there is nothing they want said less than that. It is not needed; read on.’’ ‘‘Never have I granted travel passes so that my friends could gain large sums by means of the warrants.’’ ‘‘Go on and delete up to there too, immediately.’’ ‘‘The money intended for the wine distribution I have never shared out among my attendants and friends nor have I made them rich to the detriment of the state.’’ Most certainly erase that, right down to the wood. See, if you please, in what condition the state is, when for fear that it could cause anxieties I dare not recall the good services that I performed for the state, from which I used to gain gratitude. Thus it has become normal practice to do ill with impunity, but not to be allowed to do well without impunity.
Most critics agree that in this speech Cato represents himself in the act of planning the speech that we read today. In this scene he can be seen to tamper with the text of a previous speech through the mediation of a literary slave (Cavarzere 2000: 44; Kennedy 1994: 107-8; Astin 1978: 135-6; contra Courtney 1999: 89-90). As such the speech confirms that during Cato’s lifetime using literary slaves in the preparation of an oratorical performance was a growing practice. Yet the scene represented within it has also raised the possibility that Cato went as far as to elaborate an actual script for the performance to come rather than limiting himself to the preparation of a plan or a commentarius. In this view Cato would seem to be giving up the art of oral improvisation and moving toward the art of reenacting a prepared text (Astin 1978: 136; Cavarzere 2000: 46-7).
In Brutus 91-2, however, Cicero points to a quite different picture. While discussing the oratorical merits of Galba, Brutus asks Cicero why nothing of his performance skills can be detected in the written speeches that he left behind, something that cannot be tested in those who did not write at all. Cicero replies that some orators did not write anything because they were unwilling to add another task at home to their exertion in the Forum. With this, he also adds that most orations are written after and not before the delivery: pleraeque enim scribuntur orationes habitae iam, non ut habeantur (‘‘for, of course, most orations are written after, and not for, delivery,’’ Brut. 91). What Cicero’s assertion implies is that oratorical texts were not scripts, as we may tend to believe by relying on our own cultural practices; but rather transcripts produced after the oratorical performance. Accordingly the text of the De Sumptu Suo would indeed represent Cato modifying the transcript of a previous performance while preparing for a new performance, but it would also be the transcript of that very new performance. By the same token the De Sumptu Suo clearly suggests that an oratorical text was not socioculturally valuable simply because of its written nature, but because it memorialized a performance carried out within a socioculturally authoritative space by a socioculturally authoritative performer. Within this larger picture Cicero stands out as an odd case, for he did not limit himself to the transcription of actually delivered speeches; he also produced texts of speeches never delivered and treated them in the same way as if he had (Narducci 1997: 161-2). This fact demonstrates once again that Cicero had a particular stake in valorizing writing and in constructing Rome’s oratorical past as he did.
FURTHER READING
No translations of the fragmentary speeches of the early Roman orators are available in English. Cugusi and Cugusi (2001), in Italian, provides a convenient text of the entire Catonian corpus, including the so-called rhetorical precepts attributed to the Ad Filium, together with translation and notes. As for individual Catonian orations, Calboli (1978), in Italian, provides a thorough discussion of the political issues surrounding the Pro Rhodiensibus; for the De Sumptu Suo, see Suerbaum (1993), in German, in addition to the works mentioned in the discussion above. Suerbaum (2004), in German, offers a useful overview of Catonian scholarship.
Some of the fragments of Gaius Gracchus are discussed in Courtney (1999: 124-33), while Malcovati (19764) continues to be the canonic reference. On the category of eloquentia popularis (‘‘popular eloquence’’) often attributed to Gaius Gracchus, David (1980), in French, provides useful insights.
For a general discussion on the impact of Greek culture on Roman identity in this period, see Gruen (1992). On the relationship between early Roman oratory and Greek rhetoric, see the discussions in Clarke (19963); Kennedy (1994); and Cavarzere (2000), in Italian. On the reception of Greek rhetoric in particular, see Stroup in this volume (chapter 3). For a sociohistorical overview of republican oratory, see David (1992), in French.
For a helpful collection of archaic texts, see Palmer (19613: 74-147). A convenient guide to problems and theories relating to Latin prose rhythm is Oberhelman (2003); for the early orators see especially Oberhelman (2003: 239-47). On the relationship between oratory and poetry from the perspective of drama, see Barsby in this volume (chapter 4).
A Companion to Roman Rhetoric Edited by William Dominik, Jon Hall Copyright © 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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