Old Boys: Teacher–Student Bonding in Roman Oratory

Scholars have explored the ways in which Roman oratorical training worked to construct masculinity, and vice versa. This essay historicizes Roman oratorical discourse by examining the letters of Cicero, Pliny, Fronto, and Sidonius Apollinaris. A number of Cicero’s correspondents are identified as his possible apprentices, with particular attention to a group of letters exhibiting the language of sentimental friendship, and the vocabulary of bonded master/apprentice pairs is compared with the vocabulary of oratorical invective against youthful corruption. At the end of the Republic, I argue, the violence inherent in these eroticized power relations bursts out.