The time that Roman declamation was ostracised from scholarship is thankfully over, as the author of this slim but strikingly rich volume in the Exeter Language and Lexicography series rightly observes, adding, equally rightly, that the genre is still mainly studied by a comparatively small circle of specialists. Over the past few decades these specialists have worked hard to provide the groundwork, making Roman declamation more accessible by producing commentaries and specialised book chapters on the four collections of Roman declamations left to us: the Minor Declamations and the Major Declamations attributed to Quintilian, the Controversiae and Suasoriae collected by Seneca the Elder, and the ultra-short Declamations of Calpurnius Flaccus. Perhaps none of these specialists is better placed to write a general introduction than L., who has already published numerous edited volumes, journal articles, books and book chapters, and a bibliography, which cover the entire declamatory spectrum from meticulous philological contributions to broader-sweeping studies of declamation’s socio-cultural traits.
The work under review contains seven chapters densely packed with information. It addresses the majority of current debates on declamatory matters, the fourteen-page up-to-date bibliography covering those and many others (the only major omission are the contributions of S. Knoch, whose general survey Die lateinische Deklamation [2021] just preceded the work under review). The volume offers an enticingly broad introduction, yet manages to avoid too much overlap with existing literature, and contains plenty of hooks for readers already familiar with Roman declamation and looking for ways to make further explorations. Chapter 1 deals with the history of Roman declamation, a subject that partly equals the history of Roman education. L. touches upon the indispensable main points of the rhetor’s curriculum, ingredients of a controversia, origins and character of the four extant collections, ancient and modern criticism of declamation. He offers a fresh and convincing perspective on the explosive growth of declamation: until the early first century bce the expensive and protracted educational programme took place in the capitals of the Hellenistic East. It was accessible mainly to the elite for whom it was, along with the tirocinium fori, a convenient instrument for selecting their successors. This began to change with the advent of the rhetores Latini, who, by lowering the threshold to education, promoted a degree of democracy (hence the censors’ virulent condemnation in 92 bce), and developed further with Julius Caesar’s granting Roman citizenship to anyone moving to the city as a teacher, and the Augustans’ enlargement of the administrative and governing class.
But L. does not confine himself to outlining the historical circumstances; he also delves into the subject matter by offering as a sample the argumenta (‘themes’) of the eight controversiae comprising the first book of Seneca the Elder’s collection. Being entirely representative of the genre, they offer a good introduction for novices, while connoisseurs rightly surmise that the texts will recur for topical discussion in later chapters. Chapter 2, ‘The Practice of Declamation and Rhetorical Education’, is not so much about declamatory practice as it deals with educational value. After a brief survey of the intricate status system, used to determine the central question of a given case and to furnish an accompanying argumentation, L. tries to assess why it does not function in a systematic way as the organising principle of the four extant collections, which are to a certain extent meant to illustrate and exemplify status theory. A status-driven structure may have been superfluous for advanced students, he thinks, or on the contrary too complicated for beginners; or, more satisfactorily, declamation outgrew the rigidity of rhetorical theory.
The next four chapters are most strongly connected to L.’s own expertise, the socio-cultural make-up of the declamatory universe (often jokingly called ‘Sophistopolis’) and its implications for our views on contemporary Roman reality. Chapter 3, ‘Themes and Characters’, deals with Sophistopolis proper. Instead of summing up the many main (e.g. Father and Son, Husband and Wife, Rich Man and Poor Man) and subsidiary characters (pirates, tyrants, astrologers etc.) who confront each other in the Sophistopolitan courts, and listing all the declamatory actiones, L. helpfully distinguishes, and discusses at length, two ‘hyperthemes’ under which their court cases resort: conflict in the nuclear family and – so far relatively neglected by scholars – the distribution of wealth. Both must have appealed to declamation’s target group of young apprentices: the first category consists overwhelmingly of conflicts between fathers and sons, and the second generally takes the side of the underdog, Poor Man. Especially enlightening is L.’s discussion of the declamatory abdicatio, which is often reductively translated as disinheritance, but in Sophistopolitan reality boils down to repudiation for a perceived breach of officium. L. rightly remarks that ‘the dozens of controversies on the subject of abdicatio can be read as a continuous reflection on the forms, limits and substance of that “adaptation to role” to which terms such as oportet and officium [refer]’ (p. 28). The title of Chapter 4, ‘Culture in Declamation’, is somewhat broader than its contents would merit: it deals with the influence of other genres, such as philosophy, historiography, the novel and drama, on declamation. Notable is the importance L. accords these for producing loci communes and exempla, and even more so for bolstering a speaker’s ethos, reflecting as they do the audience’s language, cultural codes and cultural baggage. His pertinent statement is indicative of a link between Sophistopolis and the real world, further explored in the remaining chapters. Chapter 5, ‘The Politics of Declamation’, largely deals with freedom of speech and with ideology. The former is a complicated matter, ranging from the many declamations on wicked tyrants, regarded by some scholars as hidden criticism of the principate, and by L., sensibly, as at least ‘an opportunity to reflect on the nature and limits of this very power’ (p. 62). The theme of ideology prompts L.’s answer to scholars who have in his view ‘reduced declamation to an education in conformity and to passive recapitulation of existing thought’. Objections to reductionism are germane: it is true that traditional values are put up for debate and tested to their limits in controversiae, and declamation often provides a platform to the powerless, having ‘advocates’ represent filiifamiliae, mothers and wives, poor men. However, the traditions and values themselves – for example officium, chastity, patria potestas – are never called into question. Dispute merely arises over who best represents them and what constitutes transgression or excess.
Chapter 6, ‘Declamation and Law’, successfully avoids the propensity of so many predecessors to get stuck in a comparison of Sophistopolitan and attested law. Instead, L. focuses on the fact that, in contrast to the real world, every aspect of Sophistopolitan life was regulated by law (hence, e.g., the actio ingrati against the ungrateful or the law liberi parentes alant aut vinciantur, obliging children to sustain their parents in need). The omnipresence and omnipotence of law prompts L. to do what he had earlier judged unnecessary: argue that declamation provided a good preparation for the courts – and he does so convincingly.
The seventh and final chapter, ‘Greeks and Romans’, initiates a comparison between Roman and Greek declamation, introduced with the remark that this is as yet sorely lacking. It offers various interesting and well-founded observations: that Greek declaimers, unlike their Roman colleagues, sometimes disputed declamatory law; that Greek declamation was generally more geared towards politics and more receptive to philosophy; that Roman fathers are more powerful than their Greek counterparts. These are valuable findings that achieve much more than signalling a desideratum. We should hope that L. will undertake the job or else consider the chapter an invitation.
