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January 19, 2009 7:45 PM

Historyfilter: Marcus Tullius Cicero is often cited as being one of the greatest orators, lawyers and public speakers of Roman and indeed Western history. Why?

For bonus points, which of his many works show his rhetorical talents at their finest? And for eternal gratitude, is there any application for classical rhetoric in the modern courtroom?

posted by tim_in_oz to writing & language (26 comments total)

One of the reasons was that he wrote down a lot of his speeches, and they were preserved. We have no idea how many other great orators there were in the Roman Senate whose speeches were not preserved.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:06 PM on January 19

I think Cicero's greatness as a writer has a lot to do with the fact that he produced a tremendous volume of work and a lot of his works survived. Cicero was certainly one of the better men of his time - it isn't widely known that Cicero was a great general, and a respected Roman official prior to the years where he is known as a Senator and speaker. He is a good source of history because he provided first-person accounts of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, and Augustus. Cicero is the first-person source for a good amount of what we know about these people; so you are familar with his work whether you realize it or not.

The other notable thing about Cicero is that he was a new man, and his letters to friends etc, are not as strictly formal as most other old, written word - he gives a lot of insight into day-to-day life that is lacking from other sources which stick more closely to elite social conventions. Cicero was also a bit of smartass and some of his writing is quite funny. I'd probably read his letters, but I don't know of a collection. "On the Nature of the Gods" is a pretty good piece of pagan philosophy too.
posted by Deep Dish at 8:15 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]

Perhaps I should clarify the question. What was it about his particular command of oratory and rhetoric that elevated it above the masses? Was it his use of invective? Metaphor? Was it his diction? Presence? All of the above?
posted by tim_in_oz at 8:53 PM on January 19

Every written language has somebody who sits down and writes in such a way that they define their language. Some would say that they even create it. Although Latin had been a written language for hundreds of years, it was still very much a "vernacular" before Cicero and his highfalutin' writing came along and more or less created Latin as we understand it.* And as Latin is the written language upon the style of which that of most other modern European, and hence global, written languages are based, his influence has been unoverstatably vast.

*This has been partially corroborated by a person who has a Ph.D. in Classics and a teaching position, although it is also my personal opinion.
posted by Electrius at 9:12 PM on January 19

Would it be considered unhelpful to point out that you're essentially asking us to specifically quantify something that is far more than the sum of its parts?

In other words, was it the words, the chords, or the drums that made Stairway To Heaven so awesome?
posted by Aquaman at 9:14 PM on January 19

All of the above?

I remember when we read the Orations Against Catiline in high school, every section seemed to have an attached lesson about another figure of speech in the text. Metonymy? Chiasmus? Cicero had it all.
posted by gimonca at 9:16 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]

I'd have to second Deep Dish's point that he is so famous because, in part, so much of his writing survived. That's more than you can say for many famous figures of his day, and so for that reason he stands out. From his own accounts, you can get a very good sense of Cicero as a human being, not just Cicero the public figure.
The times in which he lived and the role he played in the major events of his day, too, were quite remarkable. I'd suggest Anthony Everitt's Cicero as an accessible biography that gives ample consideration to the historical context of his life.

As for your point about his oratory: perhaps one problem is that we (at least, perhaps, Americans?) are somewhat suspicious of highly rhetorical speech today. We don't find such language as captivating or persuasive or, indeed, as meaningful as it was regarded in the past. From my own experience translating some of his orations as schoolwork, if his tropes and devices are fully played up in English, he can sound almost farcical, Johnny Cochranesque. I really wish I could recommend a translation that captures the musicality and grandeur of his oratory, but I'm sadly not knowledgeable enough in the field.
posted by Bromius at 9:18 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]

Ad Herennium (De Ratione Dicendi) is practically a manual for the application of oratory to law, but it's so much more, too - like very few manuals (Musashi's Go Rin no Sho is the only other that comes to mind) it is practically independent of scale. Once read, courtroom tricks appear to be nothing more than special cases of the principles in it.
posted by jet_silver at 9:40 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]

I was rather obsessed with the subject of classical rhetoric for a while. I have had absolutely no academic exposure, only a middling interest in the source texts (translations, rather). I have read some Cicero, some Demosthenes, some Aristotle, and a whole lot of historians. In my absolutely unlearned opinion, Aristotle's treatment on the art of rhetoric is quite accessible in that it provides an anatomical and mechanical view of arguments and their structures, and the reasons you would use construction X or reason Y. Cicero's treatment of the subject (1, 2, 3) is conducted in a series of imagined dialogues, and geared towards lawyers. I found it tedious, but that is just me. The In Catalinam speeches are probably the more momentous of corpus of his works, and more than likely a good reason for the fame of Cicero, given their historical context. Demosthenes' Phillippics are horrendously entertaining, and I do enjoy them for their all-around firebrandedness. Both sets of speeches really only show their true impact if you place them in their historical/political contexts, which can be a metric crapload of reading.

A chance encounter with a professor in an airport lead me to classical rhetoric for the modern student, which has been on my amazon wishlist for ages (it's out of print).
posted by rye bread at 10:08 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]

In my rather lackadaisical studies of Latin, I always preferred the style of Julius Caesar to Cicero. Caesar had a common touch, a military type precision of getting to the point that Cicero avoided. But they're both great. Anyway...

As others have said, Cicero might be famous because he was preserved. But I think you could just as easily claim that he was preserved because he was famous. The late Republic has some of the largest characters that human history has even known: Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, Pompey, Cato, Brutus, Augustus, etc, etc. And Cicero was right in the middle of all of it. There's a reason Marc Antony had him assassinated. There's a reason his head and hands were nailed to the Rostrum. There's a reason Antony's wife jabbed his dead tongue with a needle.

I think that despite the plain content of his speeches, we can trace what effect they had on his contemporaries. He was a rabble rouser; someone who vocally opposed the new order. And he was so damn effective because his oratory was that damn good.
posted by sbutler at 10:46 PM on January 19

Rhetorica ad Herennium

"Derivative of Greek rhetorical theory, this treatise was broadly influential in Roman antiquity, throughout the middle ages, and particularly in Renaissance rhetorical theory. Its fourth book, in particular, contained a detailed dictionary of rhetorical figures to which countless future authorities turned."

Quintilian-Institutio Oratoria

"Quintilian was the celebrated orator and rhetorician from the first century who brought forward rhetorical theory from ancient Greece and from the heyday of Roman rhetoric in the prior century. This theory he compiled in his Institutio Oratoria, an exhaustive and pedagogically oriented treatment of rhetoric in twelve books."

Speaking of treasure troves, check this out:

The Perseus Project: 489 Greek and Roman Texts Online
posted by aquafortis at 11:02 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]

Qui bono?
posted by Mephisto at 4:42 AM on January 20

one problem is that we (at least, perhaps, Americans?) are somewhat suspicious of highly rhetorical speech today.

You don't think Obama is bringing it back? Or do you not find him highly rhetorical?

FInancial TImes had a piece this week on his wordsmithery, worth reading.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:56 AM on January 20

Although Latin had been a written language for hundreds of years, it was still very much a "vernacular" before Cicero and his highfalutin' writing came along and more or less created Latin as we understand it.

I don't care what your friend said, that's ridiculous. Plautus, Terence, and Cato, to name only a few, were classics before Cicero was born. Cicero was a good writer; there's no need to make exaggerated claims.

I think Cicero's greatness as a writer has a lot to do with the fact that he produced a tremendous volume of work and a lot of his works survived.

This is also ridiculous. Have you ever read Cicero? His writing is tremendously powerful; there's a reason why so many people can still recite chunks of in Catilinam ("Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?"). Like Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (the only Greek tragedians who remain out of a slew of contenders), he survives because he was great, he's not considered great because he happened to survive.
posted by languagehat at 6:51 AM on January 20 [1 favorite]

Qui bono?

It's actually cui bono lit. to whom for a benefit

It's an example of the double dative.
posted by I_pity_the_fool at 7:13 AM on January 20

You don't think Obama is bringing it back? Or do you not find him highly rhetorical?

Oh, he's certainly bringing it back, although there have always been a few American politicians who kept up the tradition (Mario Cuomo springs to mind). Still, Obama's is a style drawn from the African-American pastoral tradition, not the classical rhetorical tradition, no? In the end the former may be an offshoot of the latter, I really can't say.

Still, it would be a fascinating (if tedious) project to comb through every inaugural address and track the usage of classical rhetorical figures. Thanks for the article, BTW.
posted by Bromius at 10:26 AM on January 20

This is also ridiculous. Have you ever read Cicero?

I don't read latin, but I've read some translations. His dialogues struck me as a means of delivering good one-liners. When this happens on sunday talk shows we call it hitting softballs, not great rhetoric.

Yes, Cicero was a great intellectual - I didn't intend to downplay that but Cicero's political influence has something to do with the volumes of his work that survived. Cicero was a powerful man - you don't think that Augustus, one of the most powerful men and maybe the best politician who ever lived - didn't have reasons to make sure that the works of Cicero (fellow rival of the still-beloved Mark Antony) carried great influence in his empire?

Being a man of letters was important to Cicero, but the Senate shaped his life, death and probably a good chuck of his legacy. I'd rather have the lost works of say Strabo than Cicero.
posted by Deep Dish at 11:20 AM on January 20

I don't care what your friend said, that's ridiculous. Plautus, Terence, and Cato, to name only a few, were classics before Cicero was born. Cicero was a good writer; there's no need to make exaggerated claims.

I'm probably misrepresenting what was said. It was not a "high literary" language before Cicero, so to speak, i.e., nobody put it on the same level as Greek. I'm half-remembering this and translating it so I don't claim to speak from authority.
posted by Electrius at 1:13 PM on January 20

I don't read latin, but I've read some translations.

Then you haven't read Cicero. Have some humility; you have no business pronouncing on an author you've experienced only through a glass darkly.

It was not a "high literary" language before Cicero, so to speak, i.e., nobody put it on the same level as Greek.

It was never put on the same level as Greek, except by Greek-hating nationalists. The Romans had a permanent cultural inferiority complex with respect to the Greeks. There was a long slow development towards a "high literary" language, as with any other language; it makes no sense to say a single author made the difference. And if you were going to pick one, it should be Vergil.
posted by languagehat at 1:50 PM on January 20

You might enjoy Mary Beard's reflections on Cicero's life and reputation. As she points out, Cicero has had a mixed press over the centuries, but one of the reasons why his oratory survives -- and why, as languagehat points out above, many people can still recite chunks of 'Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?' even if they never studied Latin at school -- is that it is so adaptable to circumstances:

From Africa to America, political frustration can still conveniently be framed in Cicero's terms -- just put the name of your own enemy in place of 'Catilina'. 'Jusqu'a quand Kabila abuserez-vous de notre patience?' demanded one member of the Congolese opposition of the new President earlier this year. 'How long, José Maria Aznar, will you abuse our patience?' asked an editorial in El Pais in August 1999, criticising the Spanish Prime Minister for his unwillingness to bring Pinochet to trial .. The irony in all this is that the political dynamics of the slogan's original context have been consistenly subverted. Cicero may have succeeded in writing himself into the political language of the modern world. But words which started life as a threat uttered by the spokesman of the established order against the dissident are now almost universally deployed the other way round: as a challenge from the dissident to the established order.

And if that whets your appetite, Beard has a more recent article on Cicero, in which she asks how far we should believe Cicero's own account of himself (answer: not very far). Cicero's published speeches, it seems, bear little relation to what was actually delivered, and often pick on soft targets instead of the real villains. 'The vehemence of his attacks on the unfortunate Piso and Gabinius does not indicate, as an innocent reader might suppose, that they were particularly responsible for his exile, but rather that they were not around to reply.'
posted by verstegan at 2:24 PM on January 20

Still, Obama's is a style drawn from the African-American pastoral tradition, not the classical rhetorical tradition, no? In the end the former may be an offshoot of the latter, I really can't say.

No doubt, my only point was that the higher rhetoric is far from unwelcome in American discourse- good call on Cuomo, I'd forgotten him, of course.
posted by IndigoJones at 4:54 PM on January 20

It was never put on the same level as Greek, except by Greek-hating nationalists. The Romans had a permanent cultural inferiority complex with respect to the Greeks. There was a long slow development towards a "high literary" language, as with any other language; it makes no sense to say a single author made the difference. And if you were going to pick one, it should be Vergil.

Well, as I understand it, English as we understand it did not exist until Shakespeare and the King James Bible invented it. Yes, yes, Chaucer, etc, but the literary English as it has existed for several hundred years is more or less a creation of the Elizabethan period— in one breath, Modern English was born. Written languages are a type of constructed language. I would pin the the "construction" of Classical Latin, the literary language, on Cicero, although I would concede that this point is arguable.

Very roughly the same level as Greek. You do have to admit that Cicero and the Late Republican period added a certain shine, polish, and loftiness to the language was not there before.
posted by Electrius at 10:29 PM on January 20

Well, as I understand it, English as we understand it did not exist until Shakespeare and the King James Bible invented it. Yes, yes, Chaucer, etc, but the literary English as it has existed for several hundred years is more or less a creation of the Elizabethan period— in one breath, Modern English was born.

You understand it wrong, and it's a particularly pernicious misunderstandiing because it perpetuates the myth that language is the creation and property of Great Men rather than the entire body of speakers. No language was ever "born in one breath"; languages and literatures develop slowly, like people. What do you mean, "Yes, yes, Chaucer, etc"? Was Chaucer not a great writer? Was he not using English? Sure, you have a harder time reading Chaucer than Shakespeare, but you have a harder time reading Shakespeare than Keats and a harder time reading Keats than Hemingway. Language changes, literature changes. I am the last person to try to knock great writers off their pedestals and pretend it's just a matter of publicity or some such bullshit; Shakespeare was unquestionably one of the greatest writers who ever lived. But he didn't created the language (or thousands of words, despite what you read on credulous websites), he worked with the linguistic material he found at hand, and the same is true of Cicero.
posted by languagehat at 6:49 AM on January 21

misunderstandiing ... he didn't created the language ...

I too worked with the linguistic material I found at hand, but I didn't was as gooder at it.
posted by languagehat at 8:24 AM on January 21

Languagehat is right. Cicero isn't considered great just because his works survived. He rose through the ranks of the Senate by being voted into the next highest office as soon as laws and decorum allowed. The populi Romani loved him and senatus loved him. This is especially remarkable because he was a novus homo (a man who was the first in his family to serve in the Senate) who through the merits of his own work eventually came to hold the office of consul. That alone is rare, but throw in the facts that his family was from Arpinum (not technically considered Roman), not noble, and not members of the patrician class, and it becomes legendary.

So, clearly the people who lived with Cicero thought very highly of him, and rightly so. His oration is incredible! There isn't an easy way to try to translate his speeches into English if you haven't studied Roman history and law, as well as Greek and Roman mythology. His orations are richly laden with references to all of these. Plus, as someone mentioned above, he makes ingenious use of every rhetorical device you can think of: simile, asyndeton, hyperbaton, homoioteleuton, hendiadys, ascending and descending bicolon, tricolon, and tetracolon, you name it.

If you get a chance I encourage you to read some of his works, they're incredible.
posted by Demogorgon at 6:48 PM on January 23

I'm majoring in Classics and took a seminar on Cicero a couple of years ago, so I will try and answer this question a little; I don't have my notes with me, though, so I will be lacking in details.

Beyond just knowing how to say things (not to downplay his skill with rhetorical devices; I nth all those who mention that he used them in plenty, variety, and with delicacy), Cicero was an incredible lawyer because he had a keen eye for what to say in a trial, for how to drive the court into a position where they would have to agree with him.

For instance: One of his earliest trials was prosecuting Verres, a governor, on the charge of corruption (which was, in those days, something that was practically expected of a governor, although maybe not quite to Verres' extent). As Demogorgon says, Cicero was a novus homo while Verres was an extremely wealthy man with a well-established family. Considering their respective levels of influence and connections - among other things, the jury was composed of Verres' friends and other governors who had gotten away with corruption in the past, all of them were used to being bribed, and on top of that, Verres' defense lawyer was at the time the most famous lawyer in Rome - it was pretty much a David and Goliath scenario.

Cicero was so successful with his oratory alone, though, that Verres actually fled the country partway through the trial. Cicero managed it in many ways, but the biggest is probably that he convinced the court that their reputation had been so soiled by the constant bribery and corruption that the Roman people were liable to depose the senators serving as jurors and set up a jury composed of the equites ("knights") instead, if Verres should go unpunished.

A representative bit: In hoc homine statuetur, possitne, senatoribus iudicantibus, homo nocentissimus pecuniosissimusque damnari. Deinde est eius modi reus, in quo homine nihil sit, praeter summa peccata maximamque pecuniam; ut, si liberatus sit, nulla alia suspicio, nisi ea quae turpissima est, residere possit.
(My very very rough translation: "In this case it will be decided whether, with senators judging, a most wicked and most wealthy man can be convicted. For the defendant is such a man that in him there is nothing but the deepest sin and the greatest wealth; so that, if he is freed, no other suspicion, but that which is the most foul, can persist.")

Anyways, I'm sorry to ramble; I find Cicero's oratory fascinating, although I must confess that, personally, I think he's a bit full of himself. For his trials, the best known are probably the Catilinarians and the Philippics, and you won't go wrong with reading either. I like In Verrem because he's not famous yet and so rather more modest than in his later orations (not that that is saying much), but it's probably not the best example of his rhetorical skill. If you'd like to talk about him a bit more feel free to MeMail me, my Classical education gets so rarely put to use!
posted by daelin at 2:39 AM on January 26