Event Title
Orators and Empire: Aper's First Speech in Tacitus' Dialogus De Oratoribus
Presentation Type
Oral and/or Visual Presentation
Presenter Major(s)
Classics
Mentor Information
Charles Pazdernik
Department
Classics
Location
Kirkhof Center 2216
Start Date
10-4-2013 12:00 AM
End Date
10-4-2013 12:00 AM
Keywords
Culture, Freedom and Control, Historical Perspectives, Philosophy/ Literature
Abstract
Tacitus' Dialogus de oratoribus is a literary reflection upon the rewards and the perils of practicing high-profile forensic rhetoric under the gaze of the emperor at Rome during the second half of the first century CE. One of the interlocutors in the dialogue, Marcus Aper, delivers a speech (Dial. 5-10) espousing the conventional wisdom of his day, that to be an orator is to exercise power and to practice a discipline "richer in advantages" than any other (ad utilitatem fructuosius, 5.3). Yet in the larger context of the work and its dramatic setting, Tacitus undermines these sentiments. His Aper, in this speech especially, unwittingly and ironically exemplifies how political realities under an imperial autocracy have degraded oratory as a vocation and a profession. Far from setting up Aper as a straw man, however, Tacitus permits him to make a compelling case, and in so doing offers a demonstration of his own rhetorical skill and versatility.
Orators and Empire: Aper's First Speech in Tacitus' Dialogus De Oratoribus
Kirkhof Center 2216
Tacitus' Dialogus de oratoribus is a literary reflection upon the rewards and the perils of practicing high-profile forensic rhetoric under the gaze of the emperor at Rome during the second half of the first century CE. One of the interlocutors in the dialogue, Marcus Aper, delivers a speech (Dial. 5-10) espousing the conventional wisdom of his day, that to be an orator is to exercise power and to practice a discipline "richer in advantages" than any other (ad utilitatem fructuosius, 5.3). Yet in the larger context of the work and its dramatic setting, Tacitus undermines these sentiments. His Aper, in this speech especially, unwittingly and ironically exemplifies how political realities under an imperial autocracy have degraded oratory as a vocation and a profession. Far from setting up Aper as a straw man, however, Tacitus permits him to make a compelling case, and in so doing offers a demonstration of his own rhetorical skill and versatility.