And yet advice on exploiting the audience’s emotions does not in fact seem to have featured prominently in the standard handbook tradition; when the emotions are mentioned, it is usually with reference only to the opening or conclusion of a speech (Solmsen 1938: 392). It was Aristotle who made the exploitation of the emotions a central feature of his rhetorical system, possibly following the lead of Plato’s Phaedrus 271a-b (Solmsen 1938: 393-4; Wisse 1989: 41 with n. 153). For him emotional manipulation was not restricted to just a few parts of a speech; it was one of the main persuasive devices available to the orator (Arist. Rh. 1.2.4-7). He identifies two dimensions to an audience’s emotional response. One is based on its reaction to the speaker’s character or ethos; the orator has much to gain if his projected persona can win the audience’s trust and respect. (See Gill 1984: 153; Wisse 1989: 32; May 1988.) The second dimension involves the arousal of strong emotion (pathos) within the audience (Arist. Rh. 2.1.5-2.11.7); through the use ofvarious tropes, the orator can stir those listening to pity, anger, indignation and the like, often to great persuasive effect. (On the definitions of ethos and pathos and their difficulties, see Quint. Inst. 6.2; Gill 1984: 158-9; Wisse 1989: 34, 236.) Nevertheless, while Aristotle systematically outlines the ways in which the orator can exploit ethos and pathos, he has little to say about the role of delivery in this respect.
Cicero too was keenly aware of the part played by the emotions in the process of persuasion. But while he presents an important and insightful discussion of the subject at De Oratore 2.188-214 (see Wisse 1989: 250-300), he keeps this quite separate from his treatment of actio. Only Quintilian explicitly acknowledges the close relationship between these two features of rhetorical theory. As he notes toward the end of his extensive treatment of actio: possunt videri alia quoque huius partis atque officii: reos excitare, pueros attollere, propinquos producere, vestes laniare, sed suo loco dicta sunt (‘‘it may be thought that there are other matters that belong to this part and this function of an orator: calling forward the defendant, lifting up his children, leading forward his relatives, tearing one’s clothes; but these have been discussed in their proper place,’’ Inst. 11.3.174). Their ‘‘proper place’’ for Quintilian is his discussion in book 6 of the role of the emotions in oratory (6.1.30-5).
We have already mentioned some of the ways in which Cicero in his perorations attempted to appeal to the jurors’ pity and compassion. But in certain circumstances the orator also strove to stir up anger and indignation (De Or. 2.185-90; cf. Lussky 1928: 22-3, 97). This tactic would be employed most regularly in a prosecution, and good examples can be found in Cicero’s speeches against Verres (e. g., 2.1.40-54, 6470; 2.4.26-54; 2.5.160-3). But in a few cases this technique is also applied in defense speeches. In the peroration in Pro Roscio Amerino, for example, Cicero, as well as trying to gain sympathy for the defendant, rails angrily at Chrysogonus, the man (he claims) who is behind this unjust prosecution (Rosc. Am. 145-6). Similarly, at Pro Cluentio 199 he harshly criticizes Cluentius’ mother for engineering the present attack in the law courts on her son (cf. Quint. Inst. 6.1.9-10). This basic technique also finds ready application in the bitter rivalries of Roman politics, especially in the use of invective (see chapter 12).
The exploitation of the emotions, however, was something of a morally contentious issue for the writers of rhetorical treatises. Quintilian, for example, states that certain philosophers permit only one type of peroration, namely the factual summary of main points; they reject the more theatrical appeal to the emotions (Inst. 6.2.6-7). Indeed, the Stoic senator Publius Rutilius Rufus notoriously refused to indulge in such antics when brought to trial (probably in 92 bce) on charges of provincial extortion. He was promptly convicted (De Or. 1.230; Quint. Inst. 11.1.12; Hendrickson 1933; Leigh 2004). The ambitious orator of course had little room for this kind of scruple. Quintilian in fact candidly admits that appeals to the emotions often involve moving the audience’s attention away from the truth (ab ipsa veri contemplatione abducenda mens, Inst. 6.2.25). In De Oratore, however, Cicero’s Antonius goes out of his way to argue that extravagant appeals to the emotions are not always cynically exploitative, an argument probably designed to counter criticisms that contemporaries had launched against Cicero himself. Some critics, for example, seem to have expressed incredulity that the orator can be genuinely moved so often and to such an extent by the plight of those he is defending. To this Cicero makes Antonius reply that the commonplaces used in such appeals (for example, the parent’s sorrow at a child’s potential exile) have an innate power (vis) that readily stirs the orator’s emotions (De Or. 2.191-2).
The argument is not entirely self-serving, perhaps. Cicero, like any good actor, was probably able to empathize with his client’s position so strongly that he was in some way emotionally moved as he delivered his speeches. But even if this is true, the element of cynical manipulation behind these strategies still remains. We should be skeptical, for example, when Cicero makes Antonius claim (De Or. 2.194-6) that his ripping open of his client’s tunic to reveal battle scars was the result of his genuine sorrow at the man’s plight and not carefully planned beforehand. As we have seen, the careful stage-management of such effects was a regular feature of Cicero’s own oratory. Cicero tries to claim a higher moral ground with the assertion that this emotional engagement arises also from the orator’s sense of loyalty and responsibility to his clients (fides, officium, diligentia, De Or. 2.192-3). This worthy end, then, justifies the means. Certainly we should not underestimate the importance to the Roman of notions such as fides and officium; but an orator’s fides to his friend strictly speaking has no relevance to the rights and wrongs of the trial at hand. And in the rather different context of the Tusculan Disputations Cicero acknowledges that the orator’s exploitation of the emotions is calculatingly manipulative (4.55; see the good comments ofNarducci 1997: 87-94).
In these discussions, however, Cicero and Quintilian are not solely concerned with justifying ethically dubious practices; they are also trying to impart useful practical advice. From this point of view, it is simply bad technique for an orator to feign emotional involvement (Cic. De Or. 2.189-90, Orat. 132; Quint. Inst. 11.3.61-3). So, once such appeals to the emotions are accepted as a valid tool of the orator’s trade, the issue then becomes how the speaker can best generate the necessary emotions, both in himself (so as to make his appeal convincing) and in the audience. For Quintilian, it is a matter of employing one’s powers of imagination: by forming vivid images in his mind of the situation he is speaking about, the orator will be able to evoke in himself real emotions appropriate to the subject (Inst. 6.2.29-32, 11.3.61-3; cf. Cic. De Or. 2.195). And from these will arise in turn the appropriate vocal tones and gestures. If the orator is then able to convey these images effectively to the audience, he will succeed in rousing the same powerful emotions in them too. (On this topic, see Schryvers 1982; Webb 1997.)
For the Romans, then, oratory was closer to what we would call today a performing art than a literary genre. When Cicero in his Brutus surveys Rome’s most important orators, his remarks most commonly focus on their styles of delivery. Certainly his fellow connoisseurs could appreciate the finer points of linguistic style and rhetorical strategy through the study of written texts. But for most Romans, the speaker’s impact was tied primarily to the occasion of delivery, and it was on this that they judged his success. The challenge for the modern reader is to take the surviving texts of these speeches and try to construct an accurate picture of the oratorical event in its totality.
FURTHER READING
Standard commentaries on Cicero’s speeches tend to focus on textual, historical, and linguistic matters; only in the last two decades or so have the issues concerning delivery been studied in a concerted manner. Good starting points in English are Fantham (1982), Gotoff (1993b), and Aldrete (1999). For recent studies in German and Italian, see Wcihrle (1990), Cavarzere (2002), and Petrone (2004). There are few detailed studies of the orator’s use of the voice; Pflaum (1924) provides a relatively convenient (but flawed) English translation of the analysis by Krumbacher (1920); see also Sonkowsky (1959) and Fantham (2002). Useful discussions of oratorical gesture can be found in Graf (1991), Corbeill (2004), and Hall (2004), together with the German commentary of Maier-Eichhorn (1989). On the relationship between oratorical performance and issues of masculinity, see Gleason (1995), Richlin (1997), Enders (1997), and Gunderson (2000). The topic of the emotions in rhetorical theory is treated in detail by Wisse (1989); further useful studies include Schryvers (1982), Gill (1984), Webb (1997), and Winterbottom (1998). For an experimental attempt to reconstruct the performative elements of Cicero’s speeches, see Hall and Bond (2002, 2003).
A Companion to Roman Rhetoric Edited by William Dominik, Jon Hall Copyright © 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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