A Second Sicily: Nurture and Artifact in 'On the Restoration of the Schools'

This paper argues that the late Gallic orator Eumenius, speaking On the Restoration of the Schools (297/8 CE), extracts from Cicero’s Verrines a strategy that meets the demands of rhetorical theory, local circumstance, and the imperial brief for his appointment. Modern scholars, puzzled by features that differentiate the speech from others in the Panegyrici Latini, have typologized it as a basilikos logos (Rodgers and Nixon 1995) or have stressed its mimicry of Cicero’s laudationes of persons (e.g. the Pro Archia: Rodgers 1989; see also Götze 1892, Klotz 1911, Vereeke 1975, La Bua 2010). Praise of persons only enters the speech in relation to Eumenius’s primary thesis, however. Eumenius wishes to use part of his salary to repair the school buildings called Maenianae, damaged likely by Germanic troops of Postumus (Rodgers 1995, 154n12). His oration sketches a vision of this project and the contribution it will make to rehabilitating the public spaces of the city. These choices suggest that another type of encomium, praise of a country or city, motivates significant portions of the speech. This paper evaluates On the Restoration of the Schools in light of the rhetorical tradition that had accrued to this epideictic form by the late third century CE. This exercise reveals deep engagement with Cicero’s praise of Sicily and Syracuse in Verrine 2.2 (2.2.1-9), a finding that is commensurate with previous identifications of brief allusions to Verrines 2.4 and 5 (Klotz 1911, 541, 562).

A series of problems confronted Eumenius. Rhetorical precepts articulated by Quintilian suggest that as the subject of praise, a city lies somewhere between a geographic region and a person: the encomiast should praise its physical features, but also its origin, deeds, and descendants. Unfortunately a restored Augustodunum, if rebuilt from its present ruins, will lack the natural origin Quintilian recommends. Eumenius finds a solution in Cicero’s praise of Syracuse. In addition, Eumenius’s appointment signals the wish of Maximian and Constantius to make Augustodunum once again useful to the Empire. Eumenius sources from Cicero a perspective that brings certain opportunities for the city into finer definition. In his reading, Verrine 2.2 articulates a vision of the future desired for Sicily and other imperial provinces. Cicero’s metaphors suggest that the personhood of the city is artificial as well, with origins in an inventor and deeds constituted by mimicry of human functions. Eumenius, responding to this cue, invites his audience to consider the artifactual potential of Augustodunum. He proposes to instrumentalize the city to perform a target function: education of imperial subjects.