Civic Responsibility

At the conclusion of de Legibus 1 (58-62), Cicero, as a character in his own dialogue, delivers a lofty speech in praise of wisdom and the pursuit of self-knowledge. This passage has seen several studies on the Quellenforschung model which speculate about Cicero's philosophic sources (cf. e.g.

Aristotle on Community and Exchange

In Greco-Roman rhetorical instruction, artists appear in ethopoeia, ecphrasis, and declamation. Taken collectively, these advanced rhetorical exercises invited elite young men to consider the potential conflicts between the private pursuits of those who, like themselves, possess technical expertise and the public good of their local communities.

Though its authenticity has been convincingly defended (Smith 1940), Isocrates’ letter to Archidamus III of Sparta (Ep.9) has received scant attention, aside from Garnjobst 2006, for its rhetorical merits; it deserves a more important place within the study of fourth-century literature and of the early prose encomia especially.

This chapter discusses the afterlife of Demosthenes as a political model in Hellenistic times, and through his image the afterlife of Athenian democratic values in the Hellenistic world. Scholars have usually agreed that Demosthenes’ fortune was very limited and controversial during the Hellenistic period, due to changing stylistic predilections and the Peripatetics’ incisive criticism (e.g. Adams 1927; Mathieu 1948: 179-82; Carlier 1990: 277-86; Kennedy 1994: 96; Cooper 2000).

Gratianus Licinianus knew an opinion that Sallust should be read “not as a historian, but as an orator: he criticizes the times and chastises vice and inserts contiones" (32C). Modern scholarship, conversely, has fruitfully read the speeches in Sallust’s histories historiographically, as approaches to the past that are foils to Sallust’s own (e.g. Grethlein 2006, Feldherr 2012). Sallust, however, insists that his histories have a social function, claiming that his otium will be more useful to the state than others' political activity (BJ 4.4).