Masculine Pity in Seneca's Controversiae
By James Uden, Boston University
It is easy to forget how radical Roman declamation was. As part of rhetorical training, elite young men dramatized moments of extreme crisis in domestic or political life, while impersonating people more socially vulnerable than themselves. Recent work on the genre has shifted away from a ‘norm-based approach’, according to which declamation taught men the values of patriarchal mastery and self-control, and has focused instead on the genre’s propensity for melodramatic excess (Connolly 2015), or its elements of class and gender transgression (Stoffel 2017).
Political Theater and Obstructionism in Republican Lawmaking
By Christopher Erdman, University of California, Santa Barbara
An influential interpretation of Roman assemblies holds that voters approved essentially any proposal put before them (Mouritsen; Flaig). This implies that voters’ decision-making role was illusory and largely predetermined. However, this view is contradicted by several considerations, including the role of political theater at the assembly itself.
Cognata Viscera: Cannibalism and Kinship in Pseudo-Quintilian’s Major Declamation 12
By Hannah Cochran, New York University
This paper argues that Pseudo-Quintilian’s Major Declamation 12 uses cannibalism to explore how disaster might destroy familial relations and permanently affect survivors. In this fictional oration, the speaker prosecutes a legate who failed to return to his famine-struck city with grain in time to prevent the inhabitants from resorting to survival cannibalism, which the speaker describes in gory detail.