cicero's first speeches_a rhetoric analysis

American Philological Association

Cicero's First Speeches: A Rhetorical AnalysisAuthor(s): Friedrich SolmsenReviewed work(s):Source: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 69 (1938),pp. 542-556Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/283198 .Accessed: 13/04/2012 07:12

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Friedrich Solmsen

XXX.-Cicero's First Speeches: A Rhetorical Analysis FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN

OLIVET COLLEGE, MICH.

It would certainly be rash to assume that a Ciceronian oration if properly analyzed must resolve itself into a mosaic of rhetorical points and precepts faithfully observed by the orator. Much rather may it be said that the main object of a rhetorical analysis should be to reveal the extent to which Cicero follows the theory as well as the extent to which he goes beyond it. It would again be a mistake to think that wherever we do not find a technical precept covering Cicero's procedure he must be drawing on the resources of his own ingenium alone. For, besides the Greek technical tradition, Cicero is also indebted to the native tradition of Roman oratory which

already before his time had attained a high standard.' It is

hardly necessary to remind the reader of the deep admiration for Crassus and Antony expressed in works like the De Oratore and the Brutus, or to refer him to Cicero's own description of the early stages of his career as given in the latter work. The

justification of inquiring into Cicero's debt to previous Roman orators will hardly be disputed. How much then, we may ask, did he owe to these Roman precursors and how much to Greek theory? To this question a careful analysis of the Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino, the first great speech of Cicero, may provide an answer.

Fortunately the De Inventione, published probably in or about 86 (that is five years before he defended Sextus Roscius), enables us to form a notion of the type of rexvny and technical

precepts with which Cicero was familiar. In all probability Cicero knew more rhetorical precepts than he embodied in that work 2 and he is also likely to have added something to

1 See the last discussion by W. Kroll in his article on "Rhetoric," in Pauly- Wissowa, R.E., Supplementband vi.64, where further literature is cited.

2 See De Inv. 2.4.

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his knowledge of rhetorical theory in the years between 86 and 81. Considerations like these should indeed make us cautious in using the material available in the De Inventione, but I do not think that they will really affect the main results of our

investigation. For the rest, as inventio covers only a part of the rhetorical system, our investigation must of necessity con- fine itself to that very part which it includes.

To begin with, the disposition of the oration conforms to Greek theory. Every respectable oration must have a proem, a narration (giving the facts of the case), an argumentation (which is called confirmatio in the De Inventione), and an epilogue. In the De Inventione we find two more partes recom- mended; 3 of these the reprehensio seems to have no bearing on our purposes, whereas the partitio may deserve our attention. This part finds its place after the narration and in a way constitutes a transition from the narration to the argumentation: having set forth the relevant facts in the narration you may as well pause for a moment, look round and point out to your audience what you regard as the question at issue on which you are going to concentrate in your argumentation.4 In our speech Cicero states not so much the points which he is going to prove as the factors which damage his client (tres sunt res . . . quae obstent hoc tempore Sex. Roscio etc., 35). We may, then, with some right call the part to which ? 35 belongs the partitio-in fact I do not know any better term for it-and may extend it from 29 to 35 or 36. To be sure, it is not a very orthodox partitio, and it would, for instance, be difficult to find in the De Inventione a precept covering the outbursts of 29-32 or 33/34. Evidently Cicero felt that his narration had gone a long way towards stirring up those emotions which it was his intention to arouse and that it was as well, after finishing the narration, to make sure that the indig-

3 De Inv. 1.19. 4 Cf. the passage between narratio and confirmatio in Cicero's first speech,

Pro P. Quinctio 33-35. In the Pro Cluent., however, Cicero says right at the end of the proem (9) what he is going to prove.

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nation was kept alive and if possible increased. We shall have to come back to this point.

As regards the proem and epilogue, there is unquestionably a great deal to be found in both that will call to mind the traditional rhetorical precepts recorded as a matter of course also in the De Inventione. It need hardly be mentioned that Cicero is anxious in the proem (1-13) to secure the attention of his audience by pointing out the importance and peculiar nature of the case, to stir up odium against the adversaries, to avoid every appearance of arrogance, to introduce his client in the way most likely to arouse the jury's pity.5 Similarly in the epilogue (143-154) he aims at moving the iudices to

pity for Sextus Roscius and indignation at the adversaries' scheme.6 All these tactics are as I have said obvious and in

perfect agreement with the rhetorical system. Yet more im-

portant than the fact that Cicero does all these things is the

way in which he does them, and as soon as we give our attention to the manner in which he conforms to the technical

precepts we get outside the system and are free to infer that he himself is no longer guided by it. For the system confined itself to an enumeration of the subjects and devices which may effectively be used for miseratio, indignatio, and the like, and

included no suggestion for their arrangement and order. Nor

did it provide for those contrasts, amplifications, climaxes

which are typical features of Cicero's proems and epilogues.7 Moreover, Cicero's trump card (especially in the epilogue) is

the full exploitation of the emotional side of those subjects which in their contrast to one another and with their political

implications have been the dominating motif of the whole

s Cf. for the proem, De Inv. 1.20-26; see esp. 22f. 6 Cf. for the epilogue, De Inv. 1.98-109. In particular the first, fourth, and

seventh locus of the indignatio and the first and sixteenth of the miseratio

(100, 102, 106, 109) appear to be applicable. 7 I admit that the place for figures of speech is not in the inventio, but in the

elocutio (the author of ad Herennium in fact includes them in book IV which is

on elocutio). Yet, unless I am mistaken, the critical remarks of Plato in Phaedr.

268 would be valid against any Hellenistic reXvir.

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oration.8 Yet the De Inventione pays no attention to the co-

ordinating and the attuning to one another of effects produced in different parts of an oration, still less to the attuning to one another of emotions aroused in different sections of a speech.

Let us also note that the narration (14-28), as far as we can

judge, comes up to the standard requirements of clarity, plausi- bility, and, perhaps, also of brevity.9 I include the last quality because I think that Cicero would maintain that he had mentioned nothing that was irrelevant to the issue.

Most interesting from the technical point of view is the

argumentation (confirmatio), the fourth part of our oration. For this the rhetorical schools provided an extremely elaborate

system of proofs and arguments. The theory as set forth in the De Inventione reflects the influence of Aristotle and Her-

magoras. In particular, the latter's very involved and subtle

theory of oraraOEL (constitutiones) forms, however modified, the basis of both books. Cicero's Pro Sexto Roscio comes under the head of the constitutio coniecturalis, which in plain English means that Cicero denies the fact and seeks to prove that his client did not commit the crime of which he is accused (non fecit as distinct from iure fecit, etc.).l? Considering, however, that Cicero after clearing Sextus proceeds (in 83) to prove that the real culprits were the two elder Roscii we may as well say that Cicero proves (a) a non fecit and (b) a fecerunt. Both argumentations come under the head of the constitutio coniecturalis for which the De Inventione provides a wealth of arguments.l1 Thus we need not wonder if his arguments in this part correspond to precepts laid down in that work. We find him discussing the motives or alleged motives of the crime, the character, mode of life, occupation of his client as well as

8 See below p. 549. 9 Cf. De Inv. 1.28-30. See, however, Tac. Dial. 22 about the young Cicero

as longus in narrationibus. 10 In the Miloniana Cicero seeks to prove that Milo iure occidit Clodium;

yet even there the subject develops into a quaestio facti as soon as Cicero under- takes to show that it was Clodius who insidias paravit. If he succeeds in that he may claim that his client acted iure.

11 See esp. 2.14-51. but also 1.34-77.

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of the two T. Roscii, the place, the circumstances, the atmosphere of the time (tempus), the question who derived a benefit from it (cui bono?), the problem whether Sextus or rather the elder Roscii had an opportunity for committing the crime, the suspicious events that followed its perpetration. For all these points we find a theoretical basis in the De Inventione.l2 After

comparing Cicero's argumentation in this speech with that in others where he also strives to prove his client 'not guilty' of a charge of murder, I am inclined to agree with Preiswerk 13

that Cicero proceeds along the same lines everywhere: he be-

gins with the factors ante scelus, examining mainly the motives which may account for the crime, then proceeds to discuss the circumstances (locus, tempus, facultas) under which the crime was committed, and finally examines what happened after the scelus.'4 This scheme is not directly suggested in the De In- ventione, but it could easily grow out of the suggestions made there. The Rhetorica ad Herennium (2.8) appears to come even nearer. Nevertheless, it may with equal right be main- tained that the scheme is an obvious one that originated in the situation and would suggest itself to any patronus. If this is correct all that Cicero derived from Greek theory would be some inspiration as to how to proceed under each of these heads.

In 77-79 and 119-121 Cicero dwells on the fact that the adversaries have refused to surrender for torture the slaves whom they had taken over along with the rest of Sextus'

property. This refusal, he points out, besides being unfair to 12 Compare in particular 40, 52, 84f (motives) with De Inv. 2.17f; 39, 49, 74f,

86f, 88, 101f (character etc.) with 1.34-36, 2.29-32, 35-37, 45; 92, 94 (place) with 1.38f, 2.40; 73-76, 79 (circumstances) with 1.41; 80, 93 (time) with 1.38, 2.40; 84f, 99, 108 (cui bono?) with 2.18, 20; 92-94 (opportunity) with 1.41, 2.24; 96f, 105, 109-118 (post scelus) with 1.37, 2.43. Cf. Pro Milone 32 (motives, cui

bono?), 36 (character and consuetudo), 38 (opportunity), 53 (locus), 55 (circumstances), 61 (post scelus). See also note 14. On Pro Cael. 53f with Cicero's not

very enthusiastic reference to et ceterorum patronorum et mea consuetudo (of using these r7?rot in the argumentation), see Kroll, loc. cit. (see note 1), 63.

13 R. Preiswerk, De inventione orationum Ciceron. (Diss., Basel, 1905). 14 Preiswerk (op. cit., 36) compares Pro Cluent. 167-187, Pro Cael. 51-54,

Pro Mil. 32-64, Pro Rege Deiot. 15-22. Cf. Rhet. ad Herenn. 2.8.

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Sextus, suggests that they had a bad conscience. The De Inventione does no more than touch on the subject of quaes- tiones, testimonia, etc.,'5 but teachers of rhetoric had ever since the fifth or fourth century taught their pupils how to use for their best advantage anything that was in the least suspicious in the adversary's conduct in these matters (uterque . . .

torquere ad suae causae commodum debebit,'6 De Inv. 2.46). A subject closely connected with that just mentioned and

of equally old standing in the system is the 'commonplace' (locus communis). Teachers of rhetoric advised their students to use 'commonplaces' in order to heighten the importance of the topics with which they had or chose to deal. It happens that the Greek system which Cicero reproduces in the De Inventione instances the punishment of parricide as a suitable

subject for amplificatio through commonplaces.l7 Cicero, to be sure, seeks to clear his client of the charge of parricide, but he would certainly have considered himself a poor orator if he had not found a way of adorning his oration with some commonplaces on the extreme harshness of the punishment provided for this crime (66-68, 69-72). These 'commonplaces' gave him a unique chance to display his talent for amplifica- tion, his stylistic power and, last but not least, his 'philosophy.' We know that Cicero later, when his taste had matured, felt rather uncomfortable about the excessive display of rhetorical technique in this part of his youthful oration.18 We may note

15 De Inv. 2.46f. Cf. for Cicero's treatment of testes e.g. Pro Cluent. 176, Pro Cael. 19-22, 63, 66. See on the subject E. Linke in Commentationes Fleck- eisenianae (Leipzig, Teubner, 1890), 197.

16 See on the beginnings of this practice, Friedrich Solmsen, Antiphonstudien (Berlin, Weidmann, 1931).

17 De Inv. 2.48. See also 2.49, 51. Compare also as agreeing in the structure of the argument Pro Sexto Roscio 79 with De Inv. 1.45.

18 See Orator 107. I see no reason why Cicero should have taken his 'commonplaces' from rhetorum nescio cuius libellus, as Preiswerk suggests (op. cit. [see note 13], 65, 73). Nor can I agree that Cicero's 'commonplaces' do not fit the situation. In fact Preiswerk appears to me to have misunderstood the idea behind the use of 'commonplaces.' I have unfortunately not been able to read his paper on "Griechische Gemeinplaitze in Ciceros Reden," in Juvenes dum sumus (Basel, Univ. Druck., 1907), where he seems to have elaborated his point.

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as further instances of 'commonplaces' the passages on fides and amicitia (111-115, 116f) in the section dealing with the elder Roscii, and perhaps also the glorification of farming (50f). Whether or not the invective against professional accusers

(55-57) also comes under this head is a difficult question; nor does it really matter what label we attach to it. It is more

important for us to realize that in working out these 'common-

places' Cicero had to rely on the resources of his own culture and 'philosophy.'

In pointing out features in which the oratio pro Sexto Roscio

appears to conform to contemporary rhetorical theory it has not been my intention to maintain that Cicero must have derived them from the theory. He may even here, to a larger extent than we are in a position to realize, be following in the

footsteps of earlier Roman orators who in turn had learned

something, but not everything, from the Greeks. All I say (being anxious to be as fair as possible to Greek theory as an influence on Cicero's oratory) is that devices are used in this oration which Cicero may have learned from Greek theorists, and that there are others which he cannot possibly have learned from them. We may now turn to these latter.

I have already suggested (p. 543) that the partitio in 35 is from the point of view of the system rather unorthodox: Tres sunt res . . . quae obstent hoc tempore Sex. Roscio: crimen adversariorum et audacia et potentia. Criminis confictionem Erucius suscepit, audaciae partes Roscii sibi depoposcerunt, Chrysogonus autem, is qui plurimum potest, potentia pugnat. This is in all probability an excellent description of the situa-

tion, but one by which the technical writers accustomed to think in terms of their arao-Ls (constitutiones) would have been shocked.19 It would have been even more shocking to them to see that this partitio determines the structure of nearly two- thirds of the oration: from 37 to 82 Cicero clears Sextus of the charge of parricide; from 83 to 123 he attacks the elder

19 In the Pro Quinctio that precedes our speech Cicero refers to the gratia and auctoritas of the adversaries not in the partitio but in the proem (1). He

comes back to it in 59, 71-73, 84.

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Roscii, characterizing them as the real culprits; and in 124 he launches his invective against Chrysogonus. The second of these sections may be said to form what is technically called an &avTKaTrfyopla,20 a counter-accusation designed to fix the

guilt on a different person. But the motives of audacia and

potentia have no basis in rhetorical theory; nor have the attack on Chrysogonus or the references to the political background of the law suit.

In discussing proem and epilogue (p. 544), I have alluded to certain subjects to which Cicero again and again draws the attention of his audience and which may indeed be described as the thread running through the oration from the beginning to the end. The two subjects stand in sharp contrast to each other. The one is the greed, corruption, and unscrupulous wickedness of Sextus' adversaries; the other is Sextus' own modest and honest life, old-fashioned, but in keeping with the best Roman traditions. Even in the proem Cicero informs his audience of the character and motives not so much of the accuser as of those who use him as a tool, and shows his indignation at the fact that they misuse law courts and legal procedure for the promotion of their own selfish and criminal ends.21 In the narration, Cicero finds an opportunity, to de- scribe their conduct prior to their accusation, and shows how their present course of action has grown out of their previous policy, being designed to remove the last obstacle to it.22 Thus far nothing has been said in praise of Sextus Roscius' mores, though he has been described as an innocent victim of a wicked scheme. The partitio underlines this fact. The first opportunity for emphasizing Sextus' admirable qualities arises in the confirmatio, where it was appropriate to say something about his mores, since these if anything would furnish a clue to the motives of his alleged parricide. The accuser had actually had nothing discreditable to say about Sextus' character but had insisted that the father relegabat (this son) in agrum

20 See Quintil. 3.10.4, 7.2.9. 2 See 6, 8, 11-13. 22 See esp. 17, 20f, 23, 26, 28.

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(see 42, 46). But this is all to the good, declares Cicero, especially if a man is so admirably fitted for farming as was Sextus Roscius (44, 47, 49), and he forthwith launches into a glorification of the vita rustica as a breeding ground for the national Roman virtues (50f). He has an occasion for coming back to this subject, later, where the fact (emphasized with a different intention by the accuser) that Sextus hardly ever went to Rome furnishes him with an alibi.23 Thus, gradually, the contrast emerges between the unscrupulous sicarii for whom the elimination of Sextus is only the last item in the scheme in which the murder of his father was the first, and, on the other hand, the innocent, unsophisticated victim who in a time of

general moral degeneration clings to the occupations and virtues characteristic of Rome's better times. The second section of the confirmatio aims as we know at destroying the credit and gratia of the two elder Roscii. Naturally, Cicero would not let slip any opportunity of adding characteristic traits to the picture of them that he had drawn before. It was in

keeping with the re-xvr to use the mores as evidence for the crime (the fecit), to examine the actions post scelus of the man under suspicion, but it was not suggested in the system that the items under these heads should be used for a passionate indictment of the adversary as a violator of the sacred ties of

fides, amicitia, and the like. Not before so much incriminating material against Sextus' adversaries had been put before the

jury could Cicero dare to come forward with his life-size picture of the gangleader, Chrysogonus. It is this very contrast

-which, as we have seen, has gradually emerged and to which

every successive section of the oration has added new features-that provides the Leitmotif for the terrific crescendo of the epilogue where Cicero fans the indignation of the audience to a white heat. In particular, the exposure of Chrysogonus' and his friends' shameless misuse of the law courts prepares the ground for the emphatic appeals of the epilogue, in which Cicero entreats the judges to resist such attempts at misuse

23 See 74-76.

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of their authority and to restore the law courts to their former

position and dignity.24 To characterize Cicero's procedure, we may borrow his own

phrase: impellit iudices quocumque causa postulat.2 We have satisfied ourselves that a certain amount of technical knowl-

edge has or at least may have gone to the making of this oration. But what lifts the oration far above the technical level is Cicero's shrewd calculation of the judges' emotional reactions and the construction of the whole work on the basis of this calculation. Cicero had realized that the description of the elder Roscii's policy would have more force after every- body had been convinced that the man against whom this

policy was directed was a paragon of the old Roman virtues; that by characterizing these Roscii as enemies of human soci-

ety he could prepare the ground for his attack on Chrysogonus; that Chrysogonus in turn had to be utterly discredited before he could tell the jury that to frustrate Chrysogonus' designs was no act of opposition to Sulla. To realize how much the whole oration would have lost in power and effectiveness we need only for a moment imagine Cicero attacking these sub-

jects in the inverse order. In other words, the technical items have been made sub-

servient to the orator's art of swaying the feelings of his audience. Not only is there nothing in the De Inventione that would suggest such a course, but it is altogether unlikely that Hellenistic rhetoricians would have advocated it. The available evidence of Hellenistic systems rather leads us to assume that they confined their precepts for the arousing of emotions to proem and epilogue.26 On the other hand, there is evidence that the Roman orators who preceded Cicero were already masters in the art of controlling and directing the emotions of their audience. Antony in particular appears to have excelled

24 See esp. 151.154. Cf. 138. 25 See Brut. 322. Cf. ibid. 279 and De Orat. 1.30 (voluntates impellere quo

velit scil. orator) and many other passages in Cicero's theoretical works. 26 See my paper on "Aristotle and Cicero on the Orator's Playing upon the

Feelings," in Class. Phil. xxxIIi (1938), 390-404, esp. 394.

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in it, and the analysis of his famous speech Pro C. Norbano which we read in the De Oratore (2.197-201, 202f) is inspired by Cicero's admiration for the superlative skill which Antony there evidenced. For, Antony contrived to establish himself in control of the jury's feelings, and succeeded in winning their

sympathy for a man whom they had detested when he rose to speak, and he inspired them against the man to whom they had been friendly. It appears from that analysis that every part of Antony's speech had a definite function and contrib- uted in a definite way to the final and complete triumph; also that the parts were adjusted to one another in their subject matter as well as in their emotional coloring; and that through- out the oration Antony's tactics were determined by that same shrewd calculation of the audience's reactions that has struck us as characteristic of Cicero's procedure. I need not quote more than one or two sentences: . . . Tum omnem orationem traduxi et converti (Antony is speaking) in increpandam Cae-

pionis fugam, in deplorandum interitum exercitus. Sic et eorum dolorem qui lugebant suos oratione refricabam et animos equitum Romanorum apud quos tum iudices causa ageba- tur ad Q. Caepionis odium . . . renovabam. Quod ubi sensi me in possessionem iudicii ac defensionis meae constitisse quod et populi benevolentiam mihi conciliaram . . . et iudicum animos totos vel calamitate civitatis vel luctu ac desiderio

propinquorum vel odio proprio in Caepionem ad causam nos- tram converteram tum admiscere . . . genus illud alterum . .. lenitatis et mansuetudinis coepi etc. (De Orat. 2.199). There may have been moments in most of Cicero's speeches (at least in those which he actually delivered) in which he sensit se in possessionem iudicii ac defensionis suae constitisse. In the Pro Sexto Roscio he may have felt so either in 82 after

completing the actual defense, or in 117 after describing how T. Roscius Capito deceived and betrayed his fellows in the

legatio which tried to put the case before Sulla. We may doubt whether as early as 81 Cicero could have

given an adequate exposition of Antony's technique; but he

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had evidently by that time already grasped the secret of Antony's (and, as we may confidently add, other Roman orators') art, and was following in their tradition. The analysis of the oratio pro Norbano which he wrote 25 years later may be read as a tribute of gratitude. Having every merit of a con-

genial approach, it constitutes a model also for any modern attempt at analyzing Cicero's own great emotional orations. In fact, it comes to our aid at precisely the point where the De Inventione ceases to be useful.

By studying the precepts and rules embodied in the De Inventione (or in any other Hellenistic rTxv? of the type) an orator might learn how to prove a point but not how to turn a iudicium into an incendium.27 Whatever there is of plan, purpose, unity in Cicero's Pro Sexto Roscio can never be under- stood on the basis of the scholastic distinctions and the cas-

uistry of Hellenistic systems of rhetoric but only on the basis of the Roman tradition of political oratory.

The relation between arguments and emotions, the rational and the irrational element, is not exactly the same in the other orations belonging to the same period of Cicero's activity. The Pro Quinctio does not show Cicero's OvxaT'yia as trium-

phant and as fully developed as the Pro Sexto Roscio, though the emphasis which he lays again and again on Naevius' very ungenerous conduct towards Quinctius 28 aims of course at

estranging the jury from the adversary. In other orations the desire to prove the point at issue overshadows everything else. In the Pro Caecina Cicero makes ample use of the technical devices for the interpretation of a law, the repudiation of its literal and mechanical application, the reconstruction of the lawgiver's original intention. Yet here too earlier Roman

27 See for this phrase De Orat. 2.202. Cf. for Antony also Brut. 139, 144. For Crassus' achievements in 4fvxayoyia see De Orat. 2.188, 222-226, Brut. 197. In tracing the history of this tradition in Roman oratory we get as far back as Cato Maior; see H. Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Torino, Paravia, 1930), fragm. 66, 74, 76, 83, 87.

28 See esp. 46-56, 57f, 74, 80-83.

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orators, in particular Crassus, had shown the way.29 In the oratio pro Cluentio Cluentius' mother is the bete noire against whom Cicero hurls his thunderbolts at the beginning and the end; 0 yet the long middle part of the speech in which Cicero endeavors to whitewash his client is on the whole less emotional. The further we read in the Pro Fonteio the more

clearly we realize that Cicero considers the hatred and fear of the Gauls which he expects to arouse in the jury as his strong- est card, and is determined to use it as effectively as possible.

We have already several times referred to the political back-

ground of the oratio pro Sexto Roscio, and to analyze it without

taking this background into account would indeed be hope- less. It is hard to imagine that anyone could have defended Sextus Roscius without mentioning the political factors which were in play; but it may be doubted whether every patronus would have emphasized the political issue as frankly and

strongly as Cicero does. The invective against Chrysogonus forms as we know the third part of the confirmatio, and it is

easy to realize that this is the best place where Cicero could

put it. On the one hand, because the epilogue followed imme-

diately, Cicero could make it a point to keep alive the emotions stirred up by that invective and to exploit them again and

again while the speech draws to its end. On the other hand, he would have ample opportunity in the preceding sections to create a suitable atmosphere for the political phase of his oration. This was no easy task, as the jury would naturally be very reluctant to listen with sympathy or approval to anything that looked like an attack on the man and the party in

power. When, however, Cicero had exposed the machination behind the accusation of Sextus Roscius and shown how shame-

29 Cf. for Crassus' oratio pro M'. Curio, fragm. 29-32, Malcovati (see note 27). See also Pro Caec. 67-69. Cf. on the causa Curiana and Cicero's oration Pro

Caecina, Joh. Stroux, Summum ius summa iniuria (Leipzig-Berlin, Teubner,

1926), 29-33. 30'Beginning' does not mean 'proem', nor 'end' 'epilogue.' See for the

attacks against the mother, Pro Cluent. 14, 15, 18, 169, 176, 185, 188, 190, 193, 195, 199, 200. The epilogue begins 195.

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Vol. Ixix] Cicero's First Speeches 555

lessly the adversaries had violated the laws of decent behavior, he could feel that the jury would no longer misunderstand the

political points he was going to make. He could at that

juncture expect to convince them that the acquittal of Sextus Roscius would not be an act of opposition to the cause of Sulla and the nobility, but only a blow at those men who by their character and conduct were apt to discredit that other- wise excellent causa.31 Yet if he gauged his chance correctly he did so through his own ingenuity and again by the same

power of calculation that had guided Antony, for instance, in

defending Norbanus before an unsympathetic or even directly hostile jury.32 It seems useless to speculate whether any other Hellenistic rfxvq may have offered more help in this matter than the De Inventione. Technical precepts are necessarily Ka6oXov, not KaO' 'KaaCrov; thus none could possibly fit the peculiar situation that faced Cicero in the causa Rosciana. Moreover, it would be utterly inconsistent with the type of Hellenistic

systems and with their characteristic tendency to teach more and more about less and less, that they should have appre- ciated the political situation as a factor of primary importance affecting the structure and configuration of a whole oration.

In the De Oratore Cicero treats the technical tradition as a matter of secondary importance to the Roman orator: there is no harm in being acquainted with its precepts, but they will never make a great orator. They certainly do not arouse Cicero's enthusiasm to the same degree as his recollections of Crassus, Antony, and their pupils, friends, and contemporaries, whose achievements he records with the greatest admiration. He advises the orator to rely on his ingenium, his culture, his knowledge of Greek philosophy. I have written this analysis

31 See 135-142, especially 137, 139, 142. 32 Cf. De Orat. 2.197f, 202. T. Petersson, Cicero. A Biography (Berkeley,

University of California Press, 1920), refers to Antony's oratio pro C. Norbano as illustrating the technical precepts for inventio. I agree with his remarks about Antony's "adroitness" in presenting his case; but, to judge from Cicero's analysis, the oration is interesting because Antony went far beyond the technical precepts.

Friedrich Solmsen

of the Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino in the conviction that Cicero's first great oration gives us some clues for the understanding of his attitude in the De Oratore. I am aware that I have not shown what philosophy meant to the orator Cicero, but I feel that he would maintain that he had brought a good deal of

philosophy into his loci communes and that he drew on it also in his 4vxa'ycorya. I have also failed to account for the pref- erence which in the De Oratore he shows for the Aristotelian

(and Isocratean) system; but it would not in any case be wise to attack that problem before we have satisfied ourselves that he goes beyond the Hellenistic rexvrt. The presumption is that it was his own realization of the inadequacy and the limitations of the Hellenistic theory which led him back to the classics. I have suggested elsewhere 33 that Aristotle's

approach to the emotional factor in-rhetoric has much more in common with Cicero's practice (and, we may add, with that of Antony and other Roman orators) than Hellenistic theories; and I am confident that a similar affinity between Aristotle's

theory and Cicero's practice may be observed in other fields and phases of the rhetorical system.

33 See the paper cited in note 26, esp. 400f.

556 [1938

cicero's first speeches_a rhetoric analysis

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