Oratory, Free Speech and the Emperor

1
Oratory, Free Speech and the Emperor

• Tacitus on the Principate and the Orator

2
You often ask me, Fabius Justus, how it is that
while the genius and the fame of so many
distinguished orators have shed a luster on the
past, our age is so forlorn and so destitute of
glory of eloquence that it scarce retains the
very name of orator.Tacitus, Dialogus 1
3
Dialogus de oratoribus (Dialogue on Orators,
102 CE)

• Dialogue form taken over from Plato by Cicero
  (d. 43 BCE) for oratorical treatises
• Conspicuous absence in Tacitus work Greek vs.
  Roman orators as a major issue (compare Ciceros
  Brutus)
• Tacitus reputation as an orator funeral oration
  for Verginius Rufus (97 CE) prosecution of
  Marius Priscus (100 CE)

4
Modern Interpretations of the Dialogus

• Falsely attributed to Tacitus (Ciceronian style)
• Immature work of youth
• Todays Consensus
• Written in late 90s or as late as 102 CE
• Style dictated by the genre (oratorical treatise)

5
Structure of Dialogus Three Pairs of Speeches

• Maternus vs. Aper on Oratory and Poetry
• Arguments of self-interest (safety, personal
  dignity, reputation) a commentary on
  contemporary morality?
• Messala vs. Aper on Ancients and Moderns
• Themes of decline from pristine virtues and
  cultural relativity
• Messala vs. Maternus on Causes of Decline
• Messala falling away from good old days
  (education)
• Maternus changed political system

6
Maternus on the Changed Political SystemWhat
need is there of long speeches in the Senate,
when the best men soon are of one mind, or of
endless harangues before the people, when
political questions are decided not by an
ignorant multitude, but by one man of preeminent
wisdom? What need is there of voluntary
prosecutions, when crimes are so rare and
slight?Dialogus 41
7
The Problem of Aper A Straw Man?

• Tacitus close association with Aper
• A Cultural Boor?
• Eloquence of his speeches praised by Secundus
• Apers individualistic preoccupations are shared
  by Maternus

8
Tacitus and AperOf both (Secundus and Aper) I
was a studious hearer in court, and I also would
follow them to their homes and when they appeared
in public, from a singular zeal for my
profession, and a youthful enthusiasm which urged
me to listen diligently to their trivial talk,
their more serious debates, and their private and
esoteric discourse.Dialogus 2
9
Secundus on AperYou would have been delighted
with the very elaborate arguments of our friend
Aper, in which he urged Maternus to apply all his
ability and industry to the pleading of court
cases.Dialogus 14
10
A Rhetorical Society?Tacitus sententiae are
not so much practical precepts as they are
rhetorical devices which he uses in giving
literary shape to his depiction.Patrick
Sinclair, Tacitus the Sententious Historian
11
A Rhetorical Society?Style Before Content.
Rhetorical presentation and verbal virtuosity are
what contemporary audiences/reading publics were
seeking, more than thematic consistency and
substantive issues.See T.J. Luce, Reading and
Response in the Dialogus. In Tacitus and the
Tacitean Tradition (Princeton, 1993) 11-38.
12
Free Speech and the Emperors?

• Tacitus on Nerva and Trajan

13
Tacitus and the Current DispensationI have
reserved as an employment for my old age, should
my life be long enough, a subject at once more
fruitful and less anxious in the reign of the
divine Nerva and the empire of Trajan, enjoying
the rare happiness of times, when we may think
what we please, and express what we
think.Histories 1.1
14
Tacitus and the Current DispensationWe
witnessed the extreme of servitude, when the
informer robbed us of the interchange of speech
and hearing. We should have lost memory as well
as voice, had it been as easy to forget as to
keep silence. Now at last our spirit is
returningat the dawn of a most happy age Nerva
Caesar blended things once irreconcilable,
sovereignty and freedomNerva Trajan is now daily
augmenting the prosperity of the timethe public
safety has not only our good hopes and good
wishes, but has also the certain pledge of their
fulfillment.Agricola 2-3
15
Tacitean Irony?

• Maternus Closing Thoughts

16
Great Oratory in Turbulent TimesGreat
eloquence, like fire, grows with its material it
becomes fiercer with movement, and brighter as it
burns. On this same principle was developed in
our state too the eloquence of antiquity.
Although even the modern orator has attained all
that the circumstances of a settled, quiet, and
prosperous community allow, still in the disorder
and license of the past more seemed to be within
the reach of the speaker, when, amid a universal
confusion that needed one guiding hand, he
exactly adapted his wisdom to the bewildered
peoples capacity of conviction.Dialogus 36
(Maternus)