Social Evasion and Aristocratic Manners in Cicero's De Oratore

The importance of Cicero’s De oratore as a source for Roman aristocratic manners has long been recognized. In particular, the participants in the dialogue have often been regarded as providing a model of the sophisticated ideal of humanitas and its associated qualities. ¹ The aim of the present paper is likewise to examine Cicero’s portrayal of Roman manners, but from a rather different point of view. The traditional emphasis on humanitas has one important shortcoming: it encourages us to view the characters as idealized, and consequently rather remote from the social realities of Cicero’s day. In what follows, I would like to suggest that De oratore, despite the element of idealization that is undeniably present, also depicts many of the practical problems of everyday aristocratic interaction with which Cicero himself was well acquainted. And, moreover, that in his depiction of these problems, Cicero successfully captures the real flavor of Roman manners. Such an approach to the work helps to shed light both on the intricacies of Roman behavior and on Cicero’s artistic achievement in the dialogue.

The method adopted in the following discussion is a simple but hopefully enlightening one. We shall begin with Cicero’s portrayal of social manners in several scenes from De oratore itself, and then move on to consider how these fictional episodes compare with certain real-life situations that come to light in his correspondence. The similarities that arise will demonstrate that his literary portrayal in the dialogue is much more than an idealized fiction.

The Theme of Evasion in De Oratore

The main focus of our discussion is the theme of evasion that runs throughout the first two books of De oratore. On repeated occasions L. Crassus is depicted as trying to sidestep the suggestion that he take part in a disputatio on the subject of oratory. The more his guests at Tusculum urge him to speak, the more determinedly, it seems, he tries to evade the obligation. Indeed, there are some nine conversational exchanges where such attempts at evasion arise. On several occasions in Book 1 Scaevola, Sulpicius and Cotta have to cajole him to make some contribution (1.96–107, 1.133–34, 1.160–65, 1.205–7), while in Book 2 Antonius and Catulus repeatedly attempt the same task (2.13–27, 2.121–28, 2.233–34, 2.350–51, 2.361–67). ²

This theme reveals much about Roman attitudes to the evasion and imposition of social obligations. The central place in Roman life of such obligations (or officia) has of course been much discussed, but surprisingly little has been said about how they were invoked or avoided. ³ The issue at stake in De oratore is hardly one of high ethical importance. Nevertheless, it involves complex social expectations. The great advantage of De oratore over non-dramatic treatises such as De officiis is that its depiction of Roman aristocrats in conversation offers direct evidence for the strategies that such men developed in order to ease the tensions that inevitably arise in social interaction.

Before we explore this aspect of the theme, however, it is important to note that Cicero has several reasons for portraying Crassus as reluctant to take part in the discussion. One aim, as the most recent commentators astutely note, is to counteract the conventional Roman suspicion of philosophical debate. ⁴ Since such discourses were regarded as typically Greek, Crassus’ reluctance is intended to distinguish him from the more loquacious, tongue-wagging Greekling. There is a certain sleight of hand in all this, of course. Cicero ultimately intends for Crassus to embark in Book 3 upon an extensive and sophisticated analysis of oratorical style, including an emphatic plea for a synthesis of oratory and philosophy. But the character’s initial resistance goes some way to disarming the cultural prejudices of the Roman reader. In what seems to have been the Latin language’s first literary dialogue, Cicero wants to suggest that Roman aristocrats do not engage in earnest theoretical discussion in the same way as the Greeks. ⁵

Crassus’ evasion also functions as...