Community and Communication

Community and Communication: Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome brings together nineteen international contributions which rethink the role of public speech in the Roman Republic. Speech was an integral part of decision-making in Republican Rome, and oratory was part of the education of every member of the elite. Yet no complete speech from the period by anyone other than Cicero survives, and as a result the debate on oratory, and political practice more widely, is liable to be distorted by the distinctive features of Cicero's oratorical practice. With careful attention to a wide range of ancient evidence, this volume shines a light on orators other than Cicero, and considers the oratory of diplomatic exchanges and impromptu heckling and repartee alongside the more familiar genres of forensic and political speech. In doing so, it challenges the idea that Cicero was a normative figure, and highlights the variety of career choices and speech strategies open to Roman politicians. The essays in the volume also demonstrate how unpredictable the outcomes of oratory were: politicians could try to control events by cherry-picking their audience and using tried methods of persuasion, but incompetence, bad luck, or hostile listeners were constant threats.ACKNOWLEDGEMNETS ; LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS ; LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ; INTRODUCTION ; PART I: CITIZENS, SPEECH AND THE ROMAN RES PUBLICA ; 1. Friends, Romans, Countrymen: addressing the Roman people and the rhetoric of inclusion ; 2. Cultural hegemony and the communicative power of the Roman elite ; 3. Feeding the plebs with words: the significance of senatorial public oratory in the small word of Roman politics ; 4. From meeting to text: the contio in the late Republic ; PART II: STRATEGY AND TACTICS IN PUBLIC SPEECH ; 5. Beyond the contio: political communication in the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus ; 6. Speech, competition, and collaboration: tribunician politics and the development of popular ideology ; 7. Publius Clodius and the boundaries of the contio ; 8. Campaign rhetoric ; 9. Pompeius, Helvius Mancia and the politics of popular debate ; PART III: JUDGMENTS AND CRITICISMS ; 10. The bad orator: between clumsy delivery and political danger ; 11. The orator and his audience: the rhetorical perspective ; 12. Cicero and the politics of ambiguity ; PART IV: ROMANS AND NON-ROMANS ; 13. The Roman ambassador s speech: public oratory on the diplomatic stage ; 14. Foreign eloquence in the Roman senate ; 15. The provincial perspective on the politics of repetundae trials ; PART V: CICERO S RIVALS ; 16. The common (mediocris) orator: the Scribonii Curiones ; 17. Fragmentary Speeches: the oratory and political career of Piso Caesoninus ; 18. Marcus Junius Brutus the orator: between philosophy and rhetoric ; 19. Antonius, triumvir and orator: career, style and effectiveness ; BIBLIOGRAPHY ; INDICES