A City of Marble: The Rhetoric of Augustan Rome

2. Seeing Rhetorical Theory

2 sEEIng RhETORICAL ThEORY Certainly the transition from republic to principate led to changes in the practice of rhetoric in Rome, which, for at least to some scholars, indicate a broadening in the practice of rhetoric.1 For example, for Laurent Pernot, who defines rhetoric rather narrowly as “persuasive speech,” the early empire is a time when rhetoric expands beyond the traditional genres to include many other literary genres.2 While Pernot is thinking of things like poetry, literary criticism, history, and philosophy, genres other scholars might argue had been considered rhetoric all along, for Pernot there is something specific about “eloquence” and rhetorical education,“particularly . . . forms of expression drawn from the preparatory exercises, on speeches inserted into narrative, arguments, stylistic effects, and the resources of memory techniques and delivery” that seeps across genres in the early empire.3 Rhetorical theory and practice in the late republic and early empire demonstrate a certain broadening of rhetoric in classical thought. This broadening, I would argue, funnels more traditional rhetorical practices not only into many literary genres, but also into a variety of media like monuments, coins, and city planning.4 Such changes in rhetorical theory and practice are evidence toward the inclusion of such nontraditional rhetorical media within the standard of classical rhetorical theory without anachronistically imposing contemporary practice on the past. Seeing Rhetorical Theory 25 RhETORICAL ThEORY In ROME Definitions of Rhetoric One means of understanding how rhetoric was theorized in the early empire comes from probing classical definitions of rhetoric. Recently, some scholars, seeking to understand the role of the visual in Greek rhetoric, have closely examined Aristotle’s definition: “Let rhetoric be [defined as] an ability, in each [particular] case to see the available means of persuasion.”5 Though this is potentially a fruitful place to start, at least for making the case that the visual was understood by the Greeks to be a rhetorical element, the definition is less applicable to Roman rhetorical practices. After all, Aristotle gives this definition after a long passage on the power of words. The acceptance of nontraditional rhetorical media in classical rhetorical theory based on this definition depends on the persistence of Aristotle’s psychological model of the “mind’s eye” in Roman thought. It is slight reach to suggest that the “mind’s eye” concept is carried forward into Roman thought. Quintilian, on the other hand, gives a definition of rhetoric useful for conceptualizing the role of the visual in Roman rhetorical theory when he refutes “the common definition of rhetoric as the power of persuading.”6 He notes that a number of rhetoricians such as Isocrates, Plato’s Gorgias, and at times even Cicero7 have described persuasion as the aim of rhetoric.8 Quintilian’s main objection to definitions that focus on rhetoric as persuasion is as follows: But many other things have the power of persuasion, such as money, influence , the authority and rank of the speaker, or even some sight unsupported by language, when for instance the place of words is supplied by the memory of some individual’s great deeds, by his lamentable appearance or the beauty of his person. Thus when Antonius in the course of his defence of Manius Aquillius tore open his client’s robe and revealed the honorable scars which he had acquired while facing his country’s foes, he relied no longer on the power of speech, but appealed directly to the eyes of the Roman people. And it is believed that they were so profoundly moved by the sight as to acquit the accused.Againthereisthespeechof Cato,tomentionnootherrecords,which informs us that Servius Galba escaped condemnation solely by the pity he aroused not only by producing his own young children before the assembly, but by carrying round in his arms the son of Sulpius Gallus. So also according to general opinion Phryne was not saved by the eloquence of Hyperides , admirable as it was, but by the sight of her exquisite body, which she 26 A City of Marble further revealed by drawing aside her tunic. And if all these have the power to persuade, the end of oratory, which we are discussing cannot adequately be defined as persuasion.9 In addition to noting in the course of recounting and refuting these several instances of persuasion as rhetoric, Quintilian clearly describes the power that the sense of sight has to move the emotions of an audience. He suggests that...