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Dramatic Speech in the Roman Historians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

N. P. Miller
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Extract

In spite of much sensible writing, by many scholars, on the real importance and significance of the literary convention, there remains among some students of the Classics a persistent folk-memory which asserts that speeches in the ancient historians are rhetorically decorative, deliberately deceptive, and historically inessential. That a speech can be one (or all) of these things is inarguable: but to assume that all speech in historical writing can be so dismissed is dangerous, because such assumption inhibits a full understanding of what a serious ancient historian may be trying to do with it. I should therefore like to look again at the convention, and at some of the ways in which it is used by the major Roman historians.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , April 1975, pp. 45 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1975

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References

page 45 note 1 See, for example, Syme, R., Sallust (Cambridge, 1964), 185–6, 196–201Google Scholar; Adcock, F. E., Caesar as a Man of Letters (Cambridge, 1956), 65–7Google Scholar; Walsh, P. G., Livy (Cambridge, 1961), 219–44Google Scholar; Syme, R., Tacitus (Oxford, 1958), 191–3, 316–20, 700–8.Google Scholar

page 46 note 1 Thuc. i. 22. 1.Google Scholar See also Gomme, A. W., Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford, 1937), 156–89.Google Scholar

page 46 note 2 Polyb. xii. 25a–25b; xxxvi. 1.Google Scholar

page 46 note 3 Diod. Sic. xx. 1Google Scholar; Dion. Hal., De Thuc. 16–18, 34f.Google Scholar

page 46 note 4 Ann. xv. 63Google Scholar: ‘pleraque tradidit, quae in uulgus edita eius uerbis inuertere super-sedeo.’

page 46 note 5 Livy, xlv. 25. 3Google Scholar; Gell, . vi. 3. 7; iii. 8. 8.Google Scholar

page 46 note 6 Justin, , xxxviii. 3. 11Google Scholar: ‘quam obliquam Pompeius Trogus exposuit, quoniam in Liuio et Sallustio reprehendit, quod contiones directas pro sua oratione operi suo inserendo historiae modum excesserint.’

page 48 note 1 Cf., for example, 44. 5 with Cic. Cat. iii. 5. 12.Google Scholar

page 48 note 2 Cf. Syme, , Sallust, 73.Google Scholar

page 48 note 3 Cf. Cic. Fam. v. 12.Google Scholar

page 49 note 1 e.g. the landing in Britain, BG iv. 25.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 Critognatus, , BG vii. 77.Google Scholar

page 49 note 3 Curio, , BC ii. 31–2.Google Scholar

page 49 note 4 Pompey, and Labienus, , BC iii 86–7.Google Scholar Cf. Adcock, , op. cit. 66–7.Google Scholar

page 50 note 1 Its 32 per cent of dramatic speech contrasts markedly with, e.g., the 7·7 per cent of BG vii or the 13 per cent of BC i.

page 50 note 2 Quint, x. I. 101Google Scholar: ‘Titum Liuium … tum in contionibus supra quam enarrari potest eloquentem.’

page 51 note 1 See Gries, Konrad, ‘Livy's Use of Dramatic Speech’, AFP lxx (1949), 118–41.Google Scholar

page 51 note 2 There are hints of this use in Caesar (e.g. BC i. 72)Google Scholar, but it is not fully developed until Livy.

page 51 note 3 See Gries, , art. cit. 133, 137.Google Scholar

page 52 note 1 xxx. 30. 3 (the opening statement); 30. 27–9; 30. 30 (the closing statement).

page 52 note 2 Regulus (irresistible in the context), § 23; Trasimene added, § 12, and Carthage's present plight emphasized by repetition, §§ 12 and 17; references to the Elder Scipio, § 5, and to the glory and exploits of Africanus, §§ 4 and 12–15.

page 52 note 3 Magis necessaria quam honesta, § 18; meliar tutiorque, § 19; utilem, utilitatem, § 29.

page 54 note 1 xxx. 30. 30: ‘et quemadmodum, quia a me bellum coeptum est, ne quern eiua paeniteret, quoad id ipsi inuidere dei, praestiti, ita adnitar, ne quem pacis per me partae paeniteat.’

page 54 note 2 xxx. 31. 9: ‘sin illa quoque grauia uidentur, bellum parate, quoniam pacem pati non potuistis.’

page 54 note 3 indigni, pia, iusta, § 4; ius fasque § 5; uerecundia § 8.

page 54 note 4 See my paper, ‘Dramatic Speech in Tacitus’, AFP lxxxv (1964), 879–96.Google Scholar

page 55 note 1 Cf. AFP lxxxix (1968), 1–19.Google Scholar

page 55 note 2 Cf. Tiberius, at Ann. i. 69Google Scholar; Otho at Hist. i. 21.Google Scholar

page 55 note 3 Cf. Dorey, T. A. (ed.), Tacitus (London, 1969), 99–107.Google Scholar

page 56 note 1 The Tacitean average is eleven.