cicero on decorum and the morality of rhetoric

European Journal of Political Theory

10(1) 92–112

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DOI: 10.1177/1474885110386007

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E J P TArticle

Cicero on decorum andthe morality of rhetoric

Daniel KapustUniversity of Georgia, USA

Abstract

This paper explores an important problem in political theory and a central issue in the

study of Cicero’s thought: the tension between philosophy and rhetoric. Through an

exploration of the virtue of decorum in Cicero’s rhetorical thought (chiefly On the Ideal

Orator and Orator) and in his moral philosophy (On Duties), I argue that the virtue of

decorum provides an external check on both speech and action rooted in humans’

rational nature. Given the roots of decorum in humans’ rational nature and the natural

law, the desire to meet our audience’s approval does not involve Cicero in a sophistic

approach to rhetoric. Rather, the desire to observe decorum provides the orator

and his audience with standards of judgement that transcend mere taste and reflect

underlying moral knowledge.

Keywords

Cicero, judgement, persuasion, rhetoric, Roman political thought

Introduction

The tension between philosophy and rhetoric is a common and deeply rootedtheme in political philosophy. Philosophy seeks truth, relies on reason and saysthe same thing to different people; rhetoric seeks persuasion, relies on emotion andsays different things to different people. The battle lines were drawn in Plato’sGorgias, where we encounter the contrast between Callicles’ love of the Atheniandemos and his inconstancy in speech due to his desire to please his fickle audience,and Socrates’ love of philosophy, which he suggests leads him to say the samething.1 In the Apology, Socrates contrasts his own style of speech with the stylefamiliar to the Athenian jurors, emphasizing that he is not an ‘accomplishedspeaker’, as his accusers suggest, unless by this they mean ‘the man who speaksthe truth’.2

Corresoponding author:

Daniel Kapust, Department of Political Science, 104 Baldwin Hall, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA

30602 USA

Email: [email protected]

at UNIV OF WISCONSIN-MADISON on June 11, 2015ept.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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Thomas Hobbes echoes Plato’s critique of rhetoric in On the Citizen, writingthat the eloquent do not proceed by true principles, but ‘from vulgar receivedopinions, which for the most part are erroneous’; in doing so, they do not fittheir speech to their topics, per se, but ‘to the passions of their minds to whomthey speak’.3 The orator seeks ‘not truth (except by chance), but victory’, anddesires ‘not to inform, but to allure’.4 For Rousseau, eloquence was born of ‘ambi-tion, hatred, flattery, lying’, and it flowered in Athens, not Sparta, ‘that Republic ofdemi-Gods’.5 It was the eloquent and wealthy who succeeded in tricking the unwiseand poor into forming illegitimate political association in the Discourse on theOrigins of Inequality; indeed, the legitimacy of political deliberation in On theSocial Contract is intimately related to the absence of eloquence.6

Some modern political theorists, such as Madison, have looked to representa-tion to remedy the dangers of rhetoric; others, such as Kant – who characterizes thears oratoria as ‘the art of deluding by means of a fair semblance’ – prioritize therole of reason over affect in public deliberation.7 Contemporary scholarship hasengaged this tension as well. Danielle Allen, for example, has described rhetoric‘as the art of talking to strangers’, emphasizing its role in creating trust amongdemocratic citizens and in fostering agreement.8 Bryan Garsten, in SavingPersuasion, vindicates Aristotelian and Ciceronian rhetoric against Hobbes,Rousseau and Kant, who sought to displace or to silence it. Garsten takes fromAristotle what he terms the ‘concepts of situated judgment and deliberative partial-ity’, which foster judgement and deliberation, and takes from Cicero ‘the impor-tance of certain forms of firm moral conviction’ and ‘the importance of preservinginstitutional spaces for controversy’.9

Cicero is of particular interest in thinking about the tensions between rhetoricand philosophy, and the role of rhetoric in politics. Indeed, one of the problemsthat any interpreter of Cicero must face is the tension between Cicero the orator,‘who seems to favor action over inquiry, success over truth’, and Cicero the phi-losopher.10 The problem is evident, for instance, in comparing two passages ofCicero’s writings. In On the Ideal Orator, Crassus – typically held to speak forCicero – suggests that the choice of philosophical allegiance for the orator is not afunction of ‘which philosophy is the truest, but which has the most affinity with theorator’.11 By contrast, in Tusculan Disputations, Cicero writes of ‘philosophy, themother of all arts . . . the discovery of the gods’, which he describes as ‘whollydivine’.12 The tensions, then, are between philosophy and rhetoric, the active andthe contemplative life, ratio and oratio.13

One tactic in dealing with this tension, as well as the tension between Cicero’sdual adherence to Stoicism and Academic scepticism, is to charge Cicero withrhetoricizing philosophy, as does Finley, who suggests of Cicero’s political writingsthat ‘there is only rhetoric’.14 Nederman, by contrast, suggests that Cicero’sthought involves two different poles. On the one hand, Cicero’s political thoughtis based on the ‘discursive foundations of public life’, which links eloquent states-men ‘to a clear notion of citizenship and civic intercourse’.15 On the other hand, inhis Stoic-influenced political works Cicero ‘emphasizes the centrality of reason

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alone as the source of public welfare, and concomitantly diminishes the active anddiscursive dimensions of citizenship’.16

Other scholars have explored these tensions as well. Nicgorski seeks to resolvethis tension by attending to Cicero’s notion of utility, arguing that Cicero bridgesthe division between philosophy and rhetoric through ‘his insistence on the primacyof the work of the statesman and on important roles for the art of rhetoric andphilosophy in the education of the model statesman (perfectus orator)’.17 Garsten,by contrast, suggests that Cicero’s commitment to a ‘politics of persuasion’ issupported by his Stoicism, which ‘reflected his understanding of what was neces-sary to protect the influence and sustainability of the practice of persuasion’. Thispractice, in turn, was thus ‘closely tied to his own success and indeed to his sur-vival’.18 At stake, then, is the tension between rhetoric and philosophy and Cicero’sapproach to the problem, which is not just a central issue in interpreting Cicero,but involves the broader problems of what role rhetoric ought to play in theories ofpolitical legitimacy and deliberation.

Like Finley, Nicgorski and Garsten, I am concerned with the tension betweenCicero the philosopher and Cicero the orator, and in particular with how he tries toreconcile the tension between a potentially sophistic rhetoric with a philosophicallygrounded conception of human goodness. Unlike Finley, however, and likeNicgorski and Garsten, I try to resolve this tension not by rhetoricizing Cicero’sphilosophy but by investigating the relationship between Cicero’s simultaneouscommitment to rhetoric and philosophy – rhetoric informed by the knowledge ofthe philosopher, and philosophy enriched by the language of the orator. Cicero’stactic in resolving the tension between philosophy and rhetoric was not simply toarm the orator with virtue; nor was it to rely on the claim that a philosophicallyinformed orator would only use oratory morally.19 Instead, I focus on how Ciceroconceives of the interactions between speaker and audience, on the one hand, andmoral actors and observers, on the other hand. In doing so, I explore how humanrationality – and the concomitant awareness of order and beauty – lead us to moveoutward from our own concerns and desires and towards the broader concerns anddesires of those who observe us. In doing so, however, Cicero drew on the value ofdecorum, ‘apperceived by vision and hearing’, which features in both his ethicaltheory and in his writings on oratory.20 Decorum, which encourages speakersand actors to meet the expectations and standards of those observing them,draws on a common sense rooted in human rationality, thus grounding the obser-ver-imposed constraint on the orator and moral actor in something more than mereopinion.

I begin in the following section with a brief overview of the quarrel betweenrhetoric and philosophy and Plato’s Gorgias, followed by a discussion of Cicero’srhetorical theory and the rhetorical virtue of decorum. I then turn to Cicero’s OnDuties and his analysis of decorum as a moral virtue.21 Drawing on this discussion,I turn in the following section to the question of how rhetorical and ethicaldecorum relate to each other. In the same section, I argue that moral and rhetor-ical decorum are rooted in Cicero’s understanding of human reason and the

94 European Journal of Political Theory 10(1)



general reliability of moral beliefs. Cicero’s faith in human rationality, anda reason-perceived natural law, serves as the cognitive foundation for decorum,enabling rhetoric to produce agreement without simply accepting conventionalopinion and preventing mere sophistry without holding that knowledge andvirtue are identical in oratory.

Oratory, opinion, emotion, and decorum

Prior to addressing the role of decorum in Cicero’s thought, it is worthwhile tobriefly explore the quarrel between rhetoric and philosophy, or, more properly,the quarrels between rhetoricians and philosophers.22 As May and Wisse note,this quarrel – whose terms were largely set by Plato – seems to have begun in the4th century BCE (its earliest participants being Plato and Isocrates), and centredon three broad issues: rhetoric’s status as an art, rhetoric’s (im)morality and thekinds of knowledge that oratory required.23 Plato’s role in laying the foundationsof the quarrel is important, and this role is especially evident in Plato’s Gorgias.For Plato, the risk of conventional oratory was the dangerous effect it had onaudiences through emotional appeals - for Socrates, such oratory was flattery.Polus and Gorgias, by contrast, viewed rhetoric as an art that could bring onepolitical power, and make other arts its slaves as a result of its persuasive power,vanquishing them despite its lack of particular knowledge. Socrates did not seeconventional rhetoric as an art, but instead a knack ‘for producing a certaingratification and pleasure,’ using emotional appeals based on the orator’s beliefsabout his audience’s opinions.24 The orator does not aim at what’s best, but whatis ‘most pleasant at the moment,’ and he achieves his ends by emotionally manip-ulating those who lack expert knowledge.25 The rhetorician, even if not a manip-ulator, is a flatterer, producing conviction not because he has knowledge butbecause he ‘guesses at what’s pleasant with no consideration for what’s best’.26

Thus he stands in relation to the true statesman as does the maker of confectionsto the physician: both may win their cases if competing against experts beforeaudiences of non-experts, but only because they utilize pleasures that appeal tothe opinions of those without knowledge. Without knowledge, the rhetorician notonly lacks power – in the sense of being able to get what he wants – but may bepositively harmful. By contrast, the true practitioner of oratory, in Gorgias,would aim at ‘getting the souls of the citizens to be as good as possible and ofstriving valiantly to say what is best, whether the audience will find it morepleasant or more unpleasant’.27 Moreover, Socrates thinks that the orator whopossesses knowledge – especially of the just and unjust – would not commitinjustice in the first place.28 True rhetoric, then, would be moral, and theorator would be a good man.

This tension and the problem of the morality of the orator loom large in Cicero’sthought. In his early On Invention, for example, Cicero emphasizes – as he would inthe later On the Ideal Orator – that the very foundation of civilization was accom-plished ‘not only by the use of the reason but also more easily by the help

Kapust 95



of eloquence’.29 Yet in the same work, Cicero writes ‘that eloquence (eloquentiam)without wisdom (sapientia) is generally highly disadvantageous and is never help-ful’.30 In On Invention, Cicero’s solution to this tension appears to be requiring thatthe orator be wise, though he grants that a ‘certain agreeableness of manner’(commoditas quaedam) had been able to take on ‘the power of eloquence unaccom-panied by any consideration of moral duty’ (sine ratione offici, dicendi copiamconsecuta est).31

On the Ideal Orator echoes, as noted, On Invention in asserting the role of elo-quence in the formation and maintenance of civilization; the work also draws onthe Gorgias, with Cicero thrice invoking it (1. 47, 3. 122 and 3. 129). In this work,and against the backdrop of the quarrel between rhetoric and philosophy, Cicerosynthesizes philosophy and rhetoric in his conception of oratory, adopting a middleposition between those rhetoricians who foreswore philosophy and those philoso-phers who denigrated rhetoric.32 What is striking in On the Ideal Orator, however,is how little attention is given to defending the ideal orator from moral criticismsakin to those featured in Gorgias, despite the argument of Scaevola in Book 1. Inaddition to suggesting that eloquence was secondary to wisdom in the formation ofcivilizations, Scaevola there argues that ‘men of supreme eloquence have moreoften damaged their states than they have supported them’, noting Tiberius andGaius Gracchus as examples.33

As May and Wisse point out in their recent translation, Cicero, throughCrassus, ‘does not say that supreme eloquence, which is based on knowledge,will automatically be morally upright’.34 Indeed, at 3. 55 Crassus specifically sep-arates the power of eloquence from ‘integrity (probitate) and the highest measure ofgood sense (summaque prudentia)’, which must be added (est iugenda) to the ora-tor’s power to prevent oratory’s misuse. Thus, it is perfectly possible to ‘put the fullresources of speech at the disposal of those who lack these virtues’, though it isclearly undesirable to do so, as ‘we will certainly not make orators of them, but willput weapons’ – that is, eloquence – ‘into the hands of madmen’.35 Knowledge –especially the knowledge of ethics, which provided insight into the emotions – isnecessary for the orator to be persuasive and for any individual to be good, but thekind of knowledge required to be persuasive is necessary for, but not sufficient to,the orator being moral; if it were, there would be no need to add probitas andsumma prudentia. Cicero’s ideal orator ‘is a good man, in the sense that he will usehis eloquence for good purposes’, but the ideal orator’s ‘high moral qualities . . . arepart of the prerequisites for becoming a speaker worthy of the high name of‘‘orator’’’.36 It is for this reason that I look to decorum to pursue the relationshipbetween oratory and morality.

What is striking about Cicero’s theorizing about oratory, however, is just howpowerful the ideal orator’s abilities are when it comes to persuasion, and that thisability depends precisely on expert knowledge that is not widely held – indeed, it isbecause the ideal orator requires so much knowledge that there have been so fewgreat orators, in Cicero’s mind. In this regard, his position is different from thatascribed, for instance, by Plato to the early rhetorician Tisias, who held that the




orator need only appeal to the likely, by which he meant ‘what is thought to be soby the crowd’.37 As Cicero puts it, ‘eloquence depends on the combination of allthese accomplishments, any one of which alone would be a tremendous task toperfect’, including the knowledge of law, history and ethics, among other fields.38

Such an orator is clearly in a superior position to his audience, given his knowl-edge, and would presumably not be like Plato’s peddler of confections, more pleas-ing than the expert because of his tasty wares, but not his knowledge.39

Yet despite the knowledge-rooted persuasive power of the ideal orator, we willsee that Cicero’s orator finds himself constrained by his non-expert audience. AsConnolly remarks, the citizens observing Cicero’s orator ‘are not mere passiveadmirers of elite power; they are invited to judge, like trained listeners ofmusic . . . and their role as judges implies the orator’s willingness to hold himselfaccountable before them’.40 And while Cicero is less concerned with answering themoral objection to oratory in On the Ideal Orator than Plato is in the Gorgias, thisis not to say that Cicero is unconcerned with the dangers of oratory, its play on theemotions, and its attention to opinion. Cicero recognizes the danger of eloquence,especially in the persons of the Gracchi through the figure of Scaevola in On theIdeal Orator, as he recognized eloquence’s danger in propria persona in OnInvention. The problem is that for Cicero oratory cannot be effective – or ideal –without playing upon the emotions and taking the audience’s opinion into consid-eration. This has to do with Cicero’s conception of oratory, centring on the activityof the orator, rather than a rule-based approach focusing on the parts of the speechand the order in which they were to be arranged.41 These activities are seen in Onthe Ideal Orator, in which Cicero’s ideal orator ‘is he who will speak on any subjectthat occurs and requires verbal exposition in a thoughtful, well-disposed, and dis-tinguished manner, having accurately memorized his speech, while also displayinga certain dignity of delivery’.42

In the same work, Cicero (following Theophrastus) distinguishes four virtues ofstyle that are involved in delivery: correct Latin, clarity, speaking with distinction,and speaking ‘in a way that is suitable and fitting (decore) . . . to the relative impor-tance of our subject matter’.43 The Latin adverb decore comes from the adjectivedecorus, rooted in the noun decor and the verb decet. According to the OxfordLatin Dictionary, the verb decere, only used in the third person, meant ‘To accordwith approved standards of taste or behavior, be proper, be right’. In this context,the decorous is the precondition of successful persuasion, measured by the approv-ing response of one’s audience. It is rooted in a communis sensus that ‘operates onseveral levels – the rational, the linguistic, the emotional, and the aesthetic, all ofwhich rest on communal observation of the orator’s body and the passions itexpresses’.44 Crassus emphasizes ‘that no single style is fitting for every case orevery audience or every person involved or every occasion’; a mild style was usefulfor cultivating ethos, and a vehement style was appropriate for arousing pathos.45

Thus, the genre and case at stake matter in selecting a style, as does one’s audience,as well as the age, prestige and authority of the speaker. No rule exists to governwhat is appropriate; rather Crassus suggests that ‘we should see to it that

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[the speech] is adapted to the problem at hand’; and while ‘the capacity to do whatis appropriate is a matter of art and natural ability’, it is nevertheless the case that‘to know what is appropriate at each time is a matter of intelligence (prudentiae)’.46

Speaking appropriately – that is, in keeping with decorum – is thus a matter ofjudgement, not rules, and is intimately involved with meeting the expectations anddesires of one’s audience.

Cicero’s Orator, written in 46 BCE and dedicated to Marcus Junius Brutus, takesup themes present in the earlier On the Ideal Orator, though focusing largely onaddressing the criticisms of Cicero’s Atticist detractors (as had the earlier Brutus,also written to M. Brutus).47 Responding to requests from Brutus to explain hisunderstanding of oratory, Cicero delineates ‘the perfect orator’, noting that the‘ideal cannot be perceived by the eye or ear, nor by any of the senses, but we cannevertheless grasp it by the mind and the imagination’.48 Taking for granted theneed for his orator to study philosophy, Cicero identifies the ideal orator thus: ‘Theman of eloquence whom we seek . . .will be one who is able to speak in court or indeliberative bodies so as to prove, to please and to sway or persuade.’49 The oratormust prove his argument, please his auditors and sway his audience – probare,delectare, flectere – as did the ideal orator in On the Ideal Orator, 2. 115.

Each task corresponds to a means of persuasion: probare to criteria of truth orfalsehood in argument, that is, logos; delectare to the perceived character of theorator, that is, ethos; and flectere to the emotional arousal of the audience, that is,pathos.50 Though drawing on this Aristotelian schema, Cicero’s innovation inOrator is to link each required task to a style of speaking.51 Probare correspondsto the plain style; delectare to the middle style; and flectere to the grand style. Eachstyle entailed considerations of word choice, inflection, gesture and posture, amongother factors. Just as the ideal orator is able to achieve all three tasks, the idealorator is also able to speak in each corresponding style, and thus to utilize the threemeans of persuasion. Being able to utilize all three styles in speech, let alone under-standing when a particular style is (or is not) appropriate, is no easy task; itrequires ‘rare judgment and great endowment’.52

Linked to this ability is the rhetorical virtue of decorum; encountered already inour discussion of On the Ideal Orator, it enables the orator to determine what styleis appropriate to delivery in particular situations. What is appropriate in one sit-uation – say, in speaking before the senate – may not be appropriate in anothersituation – say, speaking before a contio.53 Thus, Cicero states that ‘In an oration,as in life, nothing is harder than to determine what is appropriate. The Greeks callit prepon; let us call it decorum or ‘‘propriety’’.’54 Those who best achieve proprietyin speaking must understand the subject of their speech, along with their owncharacter and the character of their audience. Given these considerations,‘ ‘‘propriety’’ is what is fitting and agreeable to an occasion or person’: aptumesse consentaneumque tempori et personae.55 Understanding decorum, then,involved understanding that an audience constrained even the ideal orator; theorator was in a situation requiring balance ‘between assertion and deference,virtue and virtuosity, or similar elements of the art of persuasion’.56




The role of propriety is evident in Cicero’s criticism of those who can only speakin the grand style, a style in which Cicero himself greatly excelled – he notes his ownperformance in his speeches against Catiline.57 It was precisely the grand style,powerfully impacting its audience’s emotions, which appears to have been thetarget of Atticists. Being able to speak in only such a style is dangerous; surelysuch an individual ‘seems to be a raving madman among the sane, like a drunkenreveler in the midst of sober men’.58 Yet the inability to speak in such a style whenappropriate is a sign of deficiency, as it is precisely the orator who can speak in thisstyle who is able ‘to sway or persuade’. Whether or not he sways or persuades hisaudience, however, is evident in his audience’s judgement and reaction, and notonly expert evaluations:

The eloquence of orators has always been controlled by the good sense (prudentia)

of the audience, since all who desire to win approval (probari volunt) have regard

to the goodwill (voluntatem) of their auditors, and shape and adapt themselves com-

pletely according to this and to their opinion and approval (ad eorum arbitrium

et nutum).59

Hubbell translates prudentia as good sense, and Cicero’s use of the term heremay be compared to his use of the term later in Orator, where he contrastsprudentia with eloquentia in the following passage: ‘For to discover (invenire) anddecide (iudicare) what to say is important, to be sure, and is to eloquence what themind is to the body; but it is a matter of ordinary intelligence (prudentiae) ratherthan of eloquence (eloquentiae).’60 In using prudentia in these instances, Cicerosurely does not have in mind the prudentia he ascribes to Rome’s leaders – the‘political wisdom (civilis prudentiae)’ of On the Commonwealth or ‘the virtuewhich is called prudence (prudentia) because it foresees’ of On the Laws – butsomething much more basic, what the Oxford Latin Dictionary terms ‘a practicalgrasp’.61

Audiences have a certain capacity (prudentia) that lets them judge oratory effec-tively. And one must be able to participate in the ‘battles of public life’, which oftenrequires great rhetorical power and the ability to arouse one’s audience.62 By wayof illustration, we may turn to the slightly earlier Brutus on this point, where Ciceronotes that, although he hopes that discussion of oratory to please experts, hopesthat his practice of oratory will ‘win the approval of the public’ (populo probari).63

Cicero writes that

. . . there are three things in my opinion which the orator should effect: instruct his

listener, give him pleasure, stir his emotions. By what virtues in the orator each one of

these is effected, or from what faults the orator fails to attain the desired effect, or in

trying even slips and falls, a master of the art will be able to judge (artifex aliquis

iudicabit). But whether or not the orator succeeds in conveying to his listeners the emo-

tions which he wishes to convey, can only be judged by the assent of the multitude and

the approbation of the people (vulgi assensu et populari approbatione iudicari solet).

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For that reason, as to the question whether an orator is good or bad, there has never

been disagreement between experts (doctis hominibus) and the common people

(populo).64

He then suggests that ‘this is the very mark of supreme oratory, that the supremeorator is recognized by the people’.65

In On the Ideal Orator, Crassus makes a similar series of claims about the role ofnon-expert judgement in evaluating oratory:

No one should be surprised that the inexperienced crowd (vulgus imperitorum) notices

these things [matters of style] when it is listening, since in this area as in all others the

power of nature is great and incredible. Everyone (omnes) distinguishes what is good

and bad in the systematic arts by means of a kind of inarticulate feeling (tacito quodam

sensu), without the help of any art or system. People do so in the case of paintings,

statues, and other works of art, for the understanding of which they are less well

equipped by nature; and they display this capacity to a much greater degree when

judging words, rhythms, and sounds, because these are deeply rooted in our normal

instincts (in communibus sensibus), and nature has wanted no one to be entirely devoid

of a feeling for such matters . . .Considering the great difference between the expert

(doctum) and the unschooled (rudem) in terms of performance, it is remarkable how

little they differ when it comes to making a judgment (in iudicando).66

That is, despite the expert knowledge of the orator, including ethics, history, andlaw, non-experts were capable of recognizing him, and their common-sense-rootedjudgement – despite their non-expert status – mattered a good deal. For this reason,Cicero held that the Atticists, who looked to expert judgement and classicizingexternal standards, simply lacked the ability to engage in the stuff of politics,that is, persuasion, as fully and effectively as orators ought to be able to do ifthey are to measure up to the ideal.

Decorum in On Duties

We have thus far focused on decorum in Cicero’s rhetorical theory, and saw thatthe orator was constrained insofar as he needed to please his audience, an audiencethat judged him with resources rooted in a kind of common sense, and henceindicated how truly decorous he was. At the same time, the desire simply toplease one’s audience opens up the room for flattery, pandering or manipulation;worse still, an ignorant audience might constrain an orator by its ignorance, anddrive the orator to reinforce their pre-existing opinions. Yet Cicero’s ideal orator iscontrolled not just by his audience, but specifically by the prudentia of his audience.But what was this prudentia or, more particularly, on what kind of knowledge did itdraw? Plato, for instance, was quite suspicious of the knowledge of the orator’saudience; so, too, was Hobbes, for whom the number of those who possess theknowledge required to deliberate effectively was small, his suspicion of larger




assemblies due to the fact that they necessarily incorporated more who were ‘forthe most part unskillful’.67

To explore this issue, let us now turn to decorum’s role in Cicero’s On Duties.In this work, the term takes on an ethical content as opposed to its primarilyaesthetic content in his rhetorical writings; it again serves as Cicero’s translationof the Greek to prepon, which moved into ethics (at least decisively) in the StoicPanaetius’ Peri tou Kathekontos (On Appropriate Actions). Indeed, this discussionof to prepon is ‘regarded as one of Panaetius’ chief innovations in ethics’.68 Asopposed to earlier Stoic philosophers who ‘saw consistency and stability as being,like apatheia, natural by-products of the wise man’s state of mind and his adoptionof virtue as an absolute priority’, Panaetius gives more attention to ‘the concerns ofimperfect, if well-intentioned, people’ – the middle virtues of Book 3 of OnDuties.69 Panaetius’ Stoicism thus ‘laid stress not on the unattainable ideal of thewise and virtuous man, but on the nearest approach that was possible to it in reallife’.70 To prepon, for Panaetius, was the external manifestation of internal har-mony, just as for Cicero (in On Duties) it was the ‘outward aspect of moral excel-lence . . . a kind of moral beauty which ‘‘shines out’’ (elucet) in the life of thevirtuous person’.71

In Cicero’s On Duties, decorum is one of the four cardinal virtues (along withwisdom, justice and greatness of spirit); it concerns itself with ‘order and limit ineverything that is said and done’. Its particular origin in our rational nature is ourperception of ‘what order there is, what seemliness, what limit to words and deeds’.As rational animals, we naturally perceive beauty and order via reason, the facultywhich distinguishes humans from other animals and by which we perceive thenatural law, and because of this we believe ‘beauty, constancy and order shouldbe preserved . . . in one’s decisions and in one’s deeds’, shunning what is unseemly,or indecorous.72

Seemliness entails ‘a sense of shame (verecundia) and what one might call theordered beauty of a life, restraint and modesty, a calming of agitations of thespirit, and due measure in all things’.73 Verecundia, as Kaster notes, is mutual, a‘wariness [that] looks both to the self and the other’, which ‘is the essence of theemotion as a force of social cohesion’.74 Related to the honourable as a whole,seemliness is manifested in the display of other virtues, each of which it is seemlyto possess; it, like the virtue of the orator in Cicero’s Brutus, ‘is not seen by esotericreasoning, but springs ready to view’.75 The point is important – ethical decorum, likerhetorical decorum, is evident to non-experts. Cicero goes on to divide seemlinessinto two categories: general seemliness, which has to do with the nature of humansqua humans (and not other creatures), and special seemliness, which ‘agrees withnature in such a way that moderation and restraint appear in it, along with theappearance of a gentleman’.76 Both aspects of this virtue involve appropriateness,though the latter is especially concernedwith appearance andwith not giving offense.

Cicero uses poetry to illustrates his claim: poets speak in a seemly fashion ‘whenwhat is said and done is worthy of the role’, though with respect to poetry, what isworthy of a role is dependent on individual character, while for humans in general,

Kapust 101



our role has to do with our departure from other creatures qua rational beings.77

Seemliness, in the general sense, is like physical beauty, which is itself a function ofthe body’s parts being ‘in graceful harmony’; particular seemliness, by contrast,‘arouses the approval of one’s fellows, because of the order and constancy andmoderation of every word and action’. This entails that we respect other humans,as neglecting ‘what others think about oneself is the mark not only of arrogance,but also of utter laxity’.78 Seemliness corresponds to justice, in that our sense ofshame prevents us from offending others, just as justice prevents us from harmingothers. Verecundia, like iustitia, thus involves giving others their due.79

We must, then, avoid ‘rashness and carelessness’, and it is of the utmost impor-tance that we not act such that we ‘cannot give a persuasive justification’ for ouractions – indeed, this is the essence of duty: we ought to act such that we can answerto others. Seemliness involves two specific duties: first, we must follow nature(1. 102–25); second, we must subject our passions to reason (1. 126–51).80

Following nature is initially a twofold matter of adhering to our personae. Onthe one hand, we each partake of a universal nature ‘arising from the fact thatwe all have a share in reason and in the superiority by which we surpass the brutecreatures’. On the other hand, we each possess a particular nature; it is ‘assignedspecifically to individuals’ due to ‘differences in men’s spirits’.81 As already noted, itis from the prior – our share in reason and surpassing other animals – that generalseemliness derives.

Yet our individual characteristics matter a good deal, for Cicero: the variety ofdifferent spirits may be as great as the variety of different bodies, and Cicero gives anumber of examples to illustrate his claim. For instance, some ‘think that nothingshould be done through secrecy or trickery’; these ‘cultivate the truth and they arehostile to deceit’. However, there are also those who, like Sulla, ‘would endureanything you like, devote themselves to anyone you like, provided they acquirewhat they want’. Given the difference in individual constitutions, we should retainwhat is ours ‘as far as it is not vicious, but peculiar to [us], so that the seemlinessthat we are seeking might more easily be maintained’. While we should do nothingopposed to human nature writ large, we should follow ‘our own nature’, since ‘it isappropriate neither to fight against nature nor to pursue anything that you cannotattain’. Because of the importance of harmony, nothing is as seemly as ‘an evennessboth of one’s whole life and of one’s individual actions’, an evenness quite difficultto attain if we ‘copy someone else’s nature’.82 Ethical decorum, as opposed torhetorical decorum, which stresses flexibility and adaptation, seems very much amatter of constancy in spirit and action; the link between the concepts – ethical andrhetorical decorum – seems to be weakening.

In illustrating this claim, however, Cicero refers to speaking: in strivingtowards harmony, ‘we ought to use the language that is familiar to us so thatwe do not draw well justified ridicule upon ourselves’.83 Achieving this harmonyrequires that we give special attention to the differences that exist in our individ-ual natures. So distinct are our individual natures that, on occasion, what isseemly for one man is not for another. It was seemly for Marcus Cato to




commit suicide in Africa, though it would have been unseemly for others to doso. Those who were captured and did not commit suicide ‘had been more gentlein their lives, and more easy-going in their behavior’ than Cato, who was knownfor his severity and austerity. Cato, by contrast, had been endowed by naturewith ‘an extraordinary seriousness, which he himself had consolidated by hisunfailing constancy’. Because Cato always abided ‘by his adopted purpose andpolicy’, he could not submit to Caesar and surrender; thus, he ‘had to die ratherthan to look upon the face of a tyrant’.84

At this point in his argument, Cicero advances a general principle: ‘everyoneought to weigh the characteristics that are his own, and to regulate them, notwanting to see how someone else’s might become him; for what is most seemlyfor a man is the thing that is his own’. One must, then, learn one’s own talentsand attributes – good and bad – and be a good judge of them, lest ‘it will seemthat actors have more good sense than us’. Actors choose the roles that fitthemselves best; they do not, however, ‘choose the best plays’. Thus, if we findourselves thrust into situations ‘beyond our natural talents’, we should strive atleast to minimize unseemliness, if not to act in a seemly fashion; similarly,we should avoid faults rather than try to ‘acquire good qualities that have notbeen granted us’.85 One should not emulate Cato, then, if one was not of thesame calibre.

Cicero adds two more personae which we must take account of: what is broughtby chance and what we attain by our decisions. Those things brought by chance are‘governed by circumstances’; by contrast, when we undertake a role we choose, it‘proceeds from our own will’; he gives as examples the practice of philosophy, lawand oratory.86 These last two personae, when combined with the first two personae(our rational natures and particular attributes), provide both the possible rolesfrom which we can choose and constrain us in our choice through the aim ofachieving constancy and approval. As Gill writes, ‘these four personae can andmust be made to cohere and coalesce by the self-directing moral agent, through thekind of choices that give his life the unity and consistency (aequabilitis) that is anintegral component of decorum’.87

Choosing our role given our particular natures is difficult, not the least becausewe do not, like Hercules, emerge ‘sprung from the seed of Jupiter’, fully able tochoose whatever course of life we wish; rather, we are the products of socialization,and we become ‘engaged upon a fixed manner and course of life’ before we are evenable to judge which manner and course best fits our capacities. So, when deliber-ating about achieving consistency and harmony, Cicero suggests that ‘all counselought to be referred to the individual’s own nature’. This is especially the case sincewe wish to ‘be constant to ourselves for the whole length of our life, not wavering inany of our duties’.88 In these deliberations, the most important factor is ourparticular natures, and after that we should consider fortune. If, perchance, oneshould pick a life ‘entirely in accordance with his nature (if it is not a viciousone) let him then maintain constancy’ – again, constancy is the most seemlything. Such seemliness – the harmony between inward disposition and external

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appearance – ‘can be seen in every deed and word, and indeed in every bodilymovement or state’; the latter is a function of ‘beauty, order and embellishmentthat is suited to action’. Linked to beauty, order and embellishment is the ‘concernto win the approval of those with and among whom we live’ – again, the moralactor, like the orator, seeks approval.89 But On Duties takes this somewhatfurther: seemliness harmonizes our inward dispositions, and their externalmanifestations in words and behavior, with the perceived judgements of otherswho are equipped to judge us. The judgements of others when it comes to theseemliness or unseemliness of our character – a non-esoteric virtue – constrainagents, as we have seen that orators are also constrained by the judgements ofthe non-expert many.

Thus, an aesthetic component has worked into Cicero’s ethical discussion, andour evaluation of certain ways of speaking and behaving comes to have a signif-icant element of our own and others’ aesthetic judgements – for instance, avoidingthe display or discussion of certain unpleasant bodily parts and functions, as in1. 126–8. These judgements apply to what seem fairly minor details: ‘our standing,our walking, our sitting and our reclining, our countenances, our eyes and themovements of our hands’. Cicero also recommends that in ‘the movements ofour spirit’ we should avoid showing signs of disturbance, approaching with caution‘becoming excited or . . . falling into dispiritedness’.90

Cicero transitions to related topics which still fall under the rubric of ‘a sense ofshame and the approval of those with whom we live’. Thus orderliness is essential,so that the different parts of our lives ‘are fitted to one another and in agreement’,as if it were – again deploying an example from oratory – ‘a speech that hasconstancy’. Within this category, certain behaviours are clearly inappropriate –they are what Cicero terms ‘strongly discordant with civilized behavior’ – and hegives as an example singing in the forum. Such discordant behaviour is clearlyevident to most people, while other faults ‘cannot be recognized by manypeople’. Just as only someone with knowledge of music will be able to tell if amusical instrument is out of tune by a small degree, we ought to be sure that‘nothing in our lives happens to be discordant’. The way to achieve this harmony,Cicero suggests, is to look to ‘small indications’ – ‘a glance of the eyes . . . therelaxation or contraction of an eyebrow . . . sadness, cheerfulness or laughter,from speech or from silence, from a raising or lowering of the voice’. It is possible‘to judge by looking at others the nature of each of these things’. They may be moreevident in others, and in fact good teachers will often mimic the faults of theirstudents ‘to remove them’.91 The individual, in striving to act morally – and tocultivate seemliness – is thus provided with a resource that leads him towards thecommon good: the reactions of others. Why should this reaction matter? BecauseCicero is treating ‘middle’ duties in On Duties, which is to say that they are avail-able not just to the Stoic sage, but ‘are shared, and widely accessible’. Non-expertobservers are thus equipped to judge others, and while he says quite clearly that‘the honorableness that is properly and truly so called is found in wise men only’,he is not primarily concerned with sages in this work.92




Decorum and Natural Law

What does this constraining notion of ethical decorum bring to bear on an eval-uation of decorum in oratory? In our behaviour and our dealings with others, weought to be concerned with their perceptions of us; as Dyck writes, ‘The poet andthe moral agent . . . have two points in common: both judge decorum ex persona andboth strive for approval.’93 As we saw in Brutus, while Cicero wishes his discussionof oratory to satisfy experts, he also wishes his practice of oratory to ‘win theapproval of the public’.94 When it comes to evaluating decorum, moral and rhe-torical, inexpert judgement is valuable. Just such a mechanism was in place inCicero’s understanding of what makes for effective oratory: whether or not hesucceeds as an orator is evident in inexpert responses, not just the external stan-dards of the expert. The ideal orator, like the educated moral agent, possessesexpert knowledge – especially the knowledge of how to bring about emotionalreactions in his audiences – but is nonetheless constrained by the attitudes andresponses of those who provide the audience for his activity precisely because he is,and ought to be, concerned to meet their judgements by Cicero’s account. Whilethe educated orator and moral agent may understand why a speech is persuasive oran action is decorous, those observing their actions are able to perceive whether thespeech or action is decorous given their common sense. This might lead to a situ-ation of pandering, in which the orator simply echoed his audience’s opinions; yetCicero views opinion as having more epistemic value than Sophists might, andarms his orator with knowledge and his audience with common sense.95 Withrespect to human goodness, what is admirable and what is shameful is widelyshared knowledge – Cicero is not talking about Stoic paradoxes or Cynic non-conformity. Indeed, as he puts it in On Duties, he is talking about duties that ‘areshared, and widely accessible. Many achieve them by the goodness of their intel-lectual talent, and by their progress in learning.’96

For Cicero to maintain this position, for the decorum of the moral actor to belinked to the decorum of the orator, and the common sense of their respectiveobservers to provide them with a foundation for their constraining judgements,common sense must be a fairly reliable guide to political and moral reasoning.Cicero, as is frequently noted, places a good deal of faith in opinion. As Nicgorskiwrites, ‘Men in general, he thinks, are readily aware of the good and bad things oflife.’97 Audiences may not have had the expert knowledge of the orator, and mayhave fallen short of the Stoic sage, but they had at least some common sense.

Widespread experience and practical sense go a long way, in this regard; by wayof illustration, we may note, for instance, Scipio’s description of the developmentof Rome in On the Republic. Cicero has Scipio argue, echoing Cato the Elder, that

the organization of our state surpassed all others for this reason: in others there

were generally single individuals who had set up the laws and institutions of their

commonwealths – Minos in Crete, Lycurgus in Sparta, and in Athens which

frequently changed its government, first Theseus, then Draco, then Solon, then

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Clisthenes, then many others . . .Our commonwealth, in contrast, was not shaped by

one man’s talent but by that of many; and not in one person’s lifetime, but over many

generations. He said that there never was a genius so great that he could miss nothing,

nor could all the geniuses in the world brought together in one place at one time

foresee all contingencies without the practical experience afforded by the passage

of time.98

As Zetzel notes in his edition of On the Commonwealth, ‘Scipio/Cato here makesa virtue of the haphazard growth of the Roman constitution, in contrast to thesystematic but imperfect work of single lawgivers’; in doing so, Cicero departs fromPolybius who, while praising Rome’s constitution, did not place it above Lycurgus’constitution of Sparta, formed by the superior wisdom of a single lawgiver.99 Theindividuals who contributed to the growth of the Roman constitution over timemay have fallen short of the wisdom of Lycurgus as individuals, but togetherachieved good results through experience and common sense. Human nature hascertain requisites, for Cicero, and ‘Men are not dependent on high learning orphilosophy to recognize some of those requisites and possibly even to have someunderstanding of all of them.’100

This common sense of non-expert observers of oratory and moral action helpsto constrain the orator and the moral actor through the virtue of decorum.101

Non-expert audiences possess enough common sense both to constrain theorator who seeks to address their rationally (though imperfectly) grounded opin-ions, and to encourage moral behaviour in the person seeking not to offend hisrational, though inexpert, observers. Common sense, in turn, is rooted in Cicero’sunderstanding of the rational foundations of natural law – a conception that isprimarily rationalistic, but partly rooted in sentiment. Perhaps Cicero’s best-knownaccount of the natural law is to be found in On the Commonwealth:

True law is right reason, consonant with nature, spread through all people. It is

constant and eternal; it summons to duty by its orders, it deters from crime by

its prohibitions . . .We cannot be released from this law by the senate or the people,

and it needs no exegete or interpreter like Sextus Aelius. There will not be one law at

Rome and another at Athens, one now and another later, but all nations at all times

will be bound by this one eternal and unchangeable law, and the god will be the one

common master and general (so to speak) of all people. He is the author, expounder,

and mover of this law; and the person who does not obey it will be in exile from

himself.102

The account from On the Laws is similar: ‘law is the highest reason, rooted innature, which commands things that must be done and prohibits the opposite’.103

Both accounts rely on nature being ‘ruled by the force or nature or reason or poweror mind or will . . .of the immortal gods’.104 Because humans share ‘reason andthought’, and because ‘those who share reason also share right reason’, humansthus have a share in the natural law.105




A striking feature of Cicero’s account of the natural law is the power he grantsto human nature:

Now, since god produced and equipped the human being in this way, desiring humans

to have the first place among all other things, it is clear (to be selective in my discus-

sion) that human nature itself has gone further: with no instruction, and taking as a

starting point the knowledge of those things whose characteristics she knew from the

first inchoate conceptions, she herself has strengthened reason and perfected it.106

We see in this passage that human nature – beginning with human rationality – hasperfected and strengthened the capacity by which humans are set apart from othercreatures. This capacity is widespread: it ‘is shared by all, and though it differs inthe particulars of knowledge, it is the same in the capacity to learn’.107 Hecontinues:

All the same things are grasped by the senses; and the things that are impressed upon

the mind, the rudiments of understanding . . . are impressed similarly on all humans,

and language, the interpreter of the mind, may differ in words but is identical in

ideas.108

Natural law, then, is widely dispersed among all humans; though we may differ inour capacity to understand and perceive it, ‘There is no person of any nation whocannot reach virtue with the aid of a guide.’109 Indeed, ‘we have been made bynature to receive the knowledge of justice one from another and share it among allpeople’.110

A conception of natural law, founded on the faculty of reason, thus providesCicero with resources to inform and enrich the judgement of non-expert audiencessuch that it could constrain the orator just as it could lead the moral actor towardsvirtue. It is this widespread faculty, and our ability to learn and share the naturallaw through our rational natures, that provides the knowledge which enables indi-viduals – even non-experts – to critically evaluate the speech and behaviour ofothers, and hence to push Romans – whether in their action or speech – towardsthe honourable and away from selfish aims and motives. Just as we have a natural‘impulse towards pre-eminence’, rooted in our nature as human beings, our ratio-nal capacity enables man alone to perceive ‘what order there is, what seemliness,what limit to words and deeds’, an awareness which gives rise to the perception ofbeauty.111 This sentiment – the attraction to and admiration of the beautiful – joinswith our rational nature: both our impulse to pre-eminence and our perception ofseemliness are rooted in our nature qua humans, the prior leading us to pre-emi-nence, the latter providing us with an external check on our behavior rooted in ourawareness of order and beauty and others’ perceptions of us.

Oratory and philosophy, then, are not enemies but different and complementaryways – relying on similar capacities – for bringing humans to agreement and virtue.In this regard, Cicero, unlike Plato and Hobbes, does not view the interactions

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between speaker and audience as rife with danger due to the desire to please theaudience and address their opinions. Nor does he, like Rousseau, view the practiceof eloquence as symptomatic of decline and corruptive of virtue. Rather, the natureof speaker–audience interactions provides a resource that allows oratory to main-tain its place in political association without descending into flattery or demagogu-ery. Common sense and common judgements – emotional and aesthetic – are notsimply necessary evils, then, but positive features of political deliberation andjudgement.

Notes

I wish to thank Steven Kelts, David Williams, John Lombardini, Eric MacGilvray, JohnZumbrunnen, and John McCormick for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

This paper is based on a paper delivered at the 2008 meeting of the Midwest Political ScienceAssociation.1. Plato (1987) Gorgias, 481d–482c, tr. Donald J. Zeyl. Indianapolis: Hackett.

2. Plato, Apology, 17a–b, in (1997) Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, tr. G. M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett.

3. Thomas Hobbes (1991) The Citizen, ed. Bernard Gert,Man and Citizen (De Homine and

De Cive), pp. 230–1. Indianapolis: Hackett.4. Ibid. p. 231.5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997) Discourse on the Sciences and Arts or the First Discourse,

ed. Victor Gourevitch, The Discourses and Other Political Writings, pp. 13, 11.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997a) Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequalityamong Men or Second Discourse, ed. Victor Gourevitch, The Discourses and Other Early

Political Writings, p. 173. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jean-JacquesRousseau (1997b) Of the Social Contract, ed. Victor Gourevitch, The Social Contractand Other Later Political Writings, p. 60. New York: Cambridge University Press.

7. Immanuel Kant (1952) The Critique of Judgement, tr. James Creed Meredith, p. 192.Oxford: Clarendon Press. On Madison and representation, see Bryan Garsten (2006)Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment, pp. 200–7. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.8. Danielle Allen (2006) Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board

of Education, p. 156. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.9. Garsten (n. 7), pp. 13, 14.

10. Walter Nicgorski (1984) ‘Cicero’s Paradoxes and his Idea of Utility’, Political Theory12(4): 557.

11. Cicero (2001) On the Ideal Orator, 3. 64, tr. James M. May and Jakob Wisse. Oxford:

Oxford University Press. The Latin text of De Oratore consulted throughout is Cicero(1987) De Oratore, tr. E. W. Sutton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

12. Cicero (1945) Tusculan Disputations, tr. J. E. King, 1.64–5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.13. On the tension between the active and the contemplative, and the development of

Cicero’s self-presentation in this regard, see Ingo Gildenhard (2007) Paideia Romana:

Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, p. 62. Cambridge: Cambridge Philosophical Society. Onratio and oratio, see Paul Rahe (2000) ‘Situating Machiavelli’, in James Hankins (ed.),




Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.14. M. I. Finley (1983) Politics in the Ancient World, p. 128. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

15. Cary J. Nederman (2000) ‘Rhetoric, Reason, and Republic: Republicanisms -Ancient,Medieval, and Modern’, in James Hankins (n. 13), p. 253.

16. Ibid. pp. 253–4.17. Nicgorski (n. 10), p. 568.

18. Garsten (n. 7), pp. 142, 143.19. On this point (to which I will return in detail), see May and Wisse’s discussion in their

introduction to On the Ideal Orator. They argue that ‘Cicero had no illusions that

philosophical knowledge could turn bad people into good ones’ (n. 11), p. 12.20. Joy Connolly (2007) The State of Speech, p. 170. Princeton: Princeton University Press.21. For the sake of clarity in citation, I refer to De Officiis as On Duties, as do Griffin and

Atkins in their translation. However, De Officiis could also be translated as OnAppropriate Actions, the title of Panaetius’s work.

22. On the quarrel, see James M. May (2007) ‘Cicero as Rhetorician’, in William J Dominikand Jon Hall (eds.) A Companion to Roman Rhetoric. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

23. May and Wisse (n. 11), p. 23.24. Plato (n. 1), 462c.25. Ibid. 464d.

26. Ibid. 465a.27. Ibid. 503a.28. Ibid. 460c.

29. Cicero (1960) De inventione, 1. 1. 1, tr. H. M. Hubbell, Cicero: De Inventione, De OptimoGenere Oratorum, Topica. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cf. Cicero, Onthe Ideal Orator, 1. 30–4.

30. Cicero, De inventione, 1. 1. 2.31. Ibid. 1. 2. 3.32. This engagement with the quarrel is evident in his discussion of Crassus and Antonius’

visit to Athens in 1. 45–7 and 1. 82–93, Crassus’ discussion of the split between philos-

ophy and rhetoric in book 3, and Crassus’ invocation of Socrates’ activity as the finalstep in this split; Cicero’s middle position is evident in Crassus’ argument for rejoiningthe two.

33. Cicero (n. 11), 1. 38.34. See May and Wisse’s note (n. 11), p. 239.35. Cicero (n. 11), 3. 55. Conley, by contrast, argues that in On the Ideal Orator ‘oratory,

philosophy, and statesmanship are bound together as a single whole and . . . the truedimensions of the notion of the ‘‘good man skilled in speaking’’ (vir bonus dicendiperitus) are, as it were, mapped and measured.’ Thomas M. Conley (1990) Rhetoric in

the European Tradition, p. 37. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.36. Cicero (n. 11), p. 12. In his commentary on De Oratore, Wisse argues that, insofar as

Crassus argues that probitas and summa prudentia need to be joined with knowledge,they are independent qualities. Wisse points to 3. 139 in support, where Crassus argues

of Critias and Alcibiades that ‘Though they did not benefit their fellow citizens,they were certainly learned as well as eloquent’: civitatibus quidem suis non boni,sed certe docti atque eloquentes. Anton D. Leeman, Harm Pinkster, and Jakob Wisse

Kapust 109



(1981) M. Tullius Cicero, De Oratore Libri III: Kommentar, vol. 4, pp. 200–1.

Heidelberg: Winter. Wisse, in turn, is building on the discussion of C. J. Classen(1986) ‘Ciceros Orator Perfectus: Ein Vir Bonus Dicendi Peritus?’, in S. Prete (ed.)Commemoratio: Studia di Filologia in Ricordo di Riccardo Ribuoli. Sassoferrato.

37. Plato (1986) Phaedrus, tr. Christopher Rowe, 273b1. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.38. Cicero (n. 11), 1. 19.39. See Plato (n. 1), 465a.40. Connolly (n. 20), p. 127.

41. On this point, see Jakob Wisse (2002) ‘De Oratore: Rhetoric, Philosophy, and theMaking of the Ideal Orator’, in James M. May (ed.) Brill’s Companion to Cicero:Oratory and Rhetoric. Leiden: Brill.

42. Cicero (n. 11), 1. 64.43. Ibid. 1. 144. On the Theophrastan influence, see Wisse (n. 41), p. 389.44. Connolly (n. 20), p. 126.

45. Cicero (n. 11), 3. 210.46. Ibid. 3. 212.47. See Jakob Wisse (2002) ‘The Intellectual Background of Cicero’s Rhetorical Works’, in

May (n. 41), p. 364. On Atticism, see May (n. 22), pp. 256–7.

48. Cicero (1952) Orator, tr. H. M. Hubbell, in Cicero: Brutus and Orator, 7, 8. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

49. Ibid. 69.

50. On these tasks and their relationship to logos, ethos and pathos, see Elaine Fantham(2004) The Roman World of Cicero’s De Oratore, p. 385. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. Cf. Aristotle (1984) Rhetoric, 2.1356a1–14, ed. Jonathan Barnes, tr.

W. Rhys Roberts, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity.

51. See Emanuele Narducci (2002) ‘Orator and the Definition of the Ideal Orator’, in May

(n. 41), p. 434.52. Cicero (n. 48), 70.53. The contio was a public meeting at which no legislation was enacted, but which featured

‘public pronouncements . . . arguments in speeches . . . the examination of an alleged

criminal or even . . . his execution’. Andrew Lintott (1999) The Constitution of theRoman Republic, p. 42. Oxford: Oxford University Press. On the distinction betweenthe oratory appropriate for public meetings as opposed to the Senate, see Gary Remer

(1999) ‘Political Oratory and Conversation: Cicero versus Deliberative Democracy’,Political Theory 27(1).

54. Cicero (n. 48), 70. The passage is worth noting, as we see Cicero referring to activities

outside the domain of oratory, and we will see Cicero use the same terminology in OnDuties.

55. Ibid. 74.

56. Robert Hariman (1995) Political Style: The Artistry of Power, p. 106. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

57. Cicero (n. 48), 129. On this point, see Jonathan Powell and Jeremy Paterson (2004)‘Introduction’, in Jonathan Powell and Jeremy Paterson (eds.), Cicero the Advocate,

p. 50. Oxford: Oxford University Press.58. Cicero (n. 48), 99.59. Ibid. 24.




60. Ibid. 44.

61. Cicero, De Republica, 2. 45, and De Legibus, 1. 60, both tr. Clinton Walker Keyes, in(2000) Cicero: De Republica and De Legibus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress. This interpretation of prudentia as a kind of widespread practical knowledge in

the domain of oratory is supported by evidence from Cicero’s work On Friendship,where he also affirms the value of non-expert judgement in evaluating oratory. Ciceroremarks that those attending a contio – ‘though composed of very ignorant (imperitis-simis) men’ – are typically able to judge (iudicare) the difference between a demagogue

(popularem) – i.e.is, a smooth-tongued, shallow citizen – and one who has stability,sincerity, and weight. Cicero (1923) De Amicitia, tr. W.A. Falconer, Cicero: DeSenectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione, p. 95. London: William Heinemann.

62. Cicero (n. 48), 11.37.63. Cicero (1952) Brutus, tr. G. L. Hendrickson, Cicero: Brutus and Orator, 184. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press.

64. Ibid. 185.65. Ibid. 186.66. Cicero (n. 11), 3. 195–7.67. Plato (n. 1), 459b. Hobbes (n. 30), p. 230.

68. Andrew R. Dyck (1996) A Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis, p. 238. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press.

69. Christopher Gill (1993) ‘Panaetius on the Virtue of Being Yourself’, in Anthony

Bulloch, Erich S. Gruen, A.A. Long, and Andrew Stewart. (eds.), Images andIdeologies: Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World, pp. 335–9. Berkeley, CA:University of California Press.

70. J. G. F. Powell (1995) ‘Cicero’s Philosophical Works and their Background’, in J. G. F.Powell (ed.), Cicero the Philosopher: Twelve Papers, p. 24. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

71. Christopher Gill (1988) ‘Personhood and Personality: The Four-Personae Theory in

Cicero, De Officiis I’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 6: 173. On the complexrelationship between the two works, see the introduction of Dyck (n. 68).

72. Cicero (1991) On Duties, 1. 14–15, ed. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

73. Ibid. 1. 93. Nicgorski suggests that verecundia refers to ‘moral sensibility or a naturalsense of right and wrong’ – i.e. the shaping of our natural inclinations into ‘an overallmoral framework’ without the aid of philosophy. Nicgorski (n. 10), p. 562.

74. Robert A. Kaster (2005) Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome, p. 19.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

75. Cicero (n. 72), 1. 95.

76. Ibid. 1. 96.77. Ibid. 1. 97.78. Ibid. 1. 98–99.

79. See Kaster (n. 74), p. 18.80. In this outline of the divisions of Cicero’s discussion, I follow the very helpful discussion

of Paul MacKendrick and Karen Lee Singh (1989) The Philosophical Books of Cicero,p. 236. London: Duckworth.

81. Cicero (n. 72), 1. 101, 107.82. Ibid. 1. 109–11.83. Ibid. 1. 111.

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84. Ibid. 1. 112.

85. Ibid. 1. 113–14.86. Ibid. 1. 115.87. Gill (n. 71), p. 177.

88. Cicero (n. 72), 1. 117–19.89. Ibid. 1. 126.90. Ibid. 1. 128, 131.91. Ibid. 1. 144–6.

92. Ibid. 3. 14.; cf. 3. 15–16.93. Dyck (n. 68), p. 248.94. Cicero (n. 63), 184.

95. On the prior point, see Garsten (n. 7), pp. 152–3.96. Cicero (n. 72), 3. 14.97. Nicgorski (n. 10), p. 565.

98. Cicero (1999) On the Commonwealth, 2. 2, ed. James E. G. Zetzel, On theCommonwealth and on the Laws. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

99. Cicero (1995) De Re Publica: Selections, ed. James E. G. Zetzel, p. 159. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. See Polybius (1929) The Histories, 6.10.12–14, tr. W. R.

Paton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.100. Nicgorski (n. 10), p. 565.101. As Connolly remarks, ‘Without decorum . . . the acts of rational communication neces-

sary for the survival of the res publica cannot occur, which means that constitutionsand laws cannot be invented in the first place. To reverse the point, what makes eachone of us human is the possession of a rational sensorium governed by a dual law:

decorum in speech and behavior, which itself is underwritten by the natural law of civilsentiment.’ Connolly (n. 20), pp. 170–1.

102. Cicero (n. 98), 3. 33.

103. Cicero (1999) On the Laws, 1. 18, ed. James E. G. Zetzel, On the Commonwealth and onthe Laws. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

104. Ibid. 1. 21.105. Ibid. 1. 23.

106. Ibid. 1. 27.107. For a similar account of human rationality, cf. Cicero (n. 72), 1. 11–15.108. Cicero (n. 103), 1. 30.

109. Ibid. 1. 30.110. Ibid. 1. 33.111. Cicero (n. 72), 1. 13–14.




cicero on decorum and the morality of rhetoric

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