RevMaking a New Man Ciceronian SelfFashioning in the Rhetorical Works . by John Dugan

Making a New Man: Ciceronian SelfFashioning in the Rhetorical Works . By John DuganMaking a New Man: Ciceronian SelfFashioning in the Rhetorical Works by John DuganReview by: James E. G. ZetzelClassical Philology, Vol. 101, No. 4 (October 2006), pp. 429-433Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/519189 .Accessed: 03/11/2014 23:14

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Book Reviews 429

It will be perilous for anyone writing on Cicero to neglect this book in checkingfacts and chronology, and it goes without saying that every university library oughtto own it. Of course, only time and frequent use can reveal the overall accuracy andthoroughness of a reference work of this type, but from the modest tests that I havebeen able to perform, I have been duly impressed. The occasional lapses that I havenoticed tend to occur when the authors aim at greater chronological precision than thesources permit. For instance, the statement on p. 54 that Cicero assumed the toga virilison 17 March 90 b.c.e. (citing Amic. 1) can be no more than an inference. The year90 b.c.e., it is true, can be deduced from Brut. 303 (not cited in the book or on the CD);the specic day (17 March, the Liberalia), however, is merely the traditional one forthis ceremony (Ov. Fast. 3.771; Att. 6.1.15). Likewise, the assertion on p. 89 thatCiceros Pro Archia was delivered poco dopo la precedente orazione [Pro Sulla]is, to the best of my knowledge, supported by no ancient evidence. Still, on thewhole, a balanced and sound presentation of chronological details concerningthe life and works of Cicero is everywhere in evidence. For this reason, I predict thatCiceronian scholars will come to depend upon this compendium of data, especiallyupon Malaspinas greatly expanded digital version, as they do upon Broughton forthe chronology of the magistrates of the Roman Republic. This publication is morethan worth its extremely modest purchase price.

John T. RamseyUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

Making a New Man: Ciceronian Self-Fashioning in the Rhetorical Works. By JohnDugan. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. [x] + 388.$120.00 (cloth).

Ciceros rhetorical works are among the most daunting productions of the lateRepublic: learned, complex, ranging in subject matter from rhetorical theory tophilosophy to history to the intricacies of prose rhythm, they demand a breadth ofknowledge and intellectual sympathy that can keep pace with Ciceros own. Theyare the work of a master of rhetoric, style, and wit at the top of his form; De oratoreis a formidable work, and Brutus and Orator, while slightly less ambitious, are notfar behind. It is a mark of John Dugans ability and ambitions in Making a New Manthat he understands the complexity of these works and goes a long way towards anew interpretation of what Cicero is doing in the rhetorica; even if it does not alwaysconvince, his book is essential reading for any student of Cicero and his time.

D.s subject (as indicated by his subtitle) is Ciceronian self-fashioning: the waysin which Cicero constructs versions of himself in part to justify, in part to establish,an image of his career and writings and above all to make the more unusual andoriginal elements of his style, as a politician and a speaker, seem natural. In fourchapters, D. deals rst with Pro Archia and In Pisonem as epideictic constructions,positively and negatively, of Cicero as statesman and writer, then, in chronologicalorder, De oratore, Brutus, and Orator, followed by a brief epilogue on the Philippics.His approach applies particularly to Ciceronian style, but in certain respects to politicsand Ciceros public persona as well: Cicero as novus homo is intimately related, in


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D.s interpretation, to what he calls Ciceros theatrical, transgressive oratory (p. 107).Thus, as he argues, the dramatic setting of De oratore is crucial to establishing a cul-tural ancestry for Cicero, connecting the novus homo with the upper strata of the tra-ditional aristocracy of the previous generation in the persons of Crassus, Antonius, andScaevolaand, in turn, the setting allows Cicero to portray his own most innovativerhetorical moves (essentially, and importantly, the use of epideictic techniques inforensic oratory) as in fact inherited from his aristocratic teachers. In De oratore,Cicero is present only in the prefaces and by implicationalthough D. seems toworry too much about whether Cicero actually meant readers to believe the ctionof the dialoguewhile in Brutus eight years later, Cicero much more explicitly con-structs the whole history of Roman oratory as leading teleologically to himself. InOrator, he constructs a theory of elocutio that gures Cicero himself as the consum-mate orator, the closest approach humanly possible to a Platonic ideal. In each case,moreover, Cicero is constructing a version of himself designed to x his image, asstatesman and as orator, textually and permanently, to transform Cicero into Cicero.

That Ciceros rhetorical works (and in fact, one could argue, many of his otherwritings, including De re publica and more of the orations than D. discusses) are atleast partially shaped by, and intended to counteract, the uncertainties of Cicerosself-image and reputationhis novitas, his political failures and exile, his stylisticinnovations and (according to some) excessesis shown very convincingly byD., and a great many of his analyses both of particular passages and of the works asa whole are compelling. His treatment of In Pisonem as a version of epideictic con-structing a portrait of Cicero through an attack on Piso is excellent; his analysis ofCaesar Strabos speech on humor in De oratore is superb; his discussion of Cicerosrelationship to Brutus, Calvus, and Caesar in Brutus should arouse renewed interestin a wonderful text that has largely been neglected except as a source for evidenceabout earlier oratory. His reading of Orator convincingly draws together much thathe writes earlier in the book about Ciceronian epideictic and is in itself a valuableanalysis of Ciceronian style. And what is most refreshing about D.s approach to this,as to the other rhetorica, is his recognition that rhetorical theory is not a static bodyof techniques and examples, but is constantly manipulated by Cicero in particularcontexts for particular ends.

But while D. does an admirable job of showing the relationships among Cicerosvarious preoccupationsthe link between setting and argument in De oratore, theinterweaving in Brutus of political and stylistic concerns and of Brutus as Atticistand Brutus as philosopher of virtushis own single-minded emphasis on the issueof self leads to serious distortions and at times comes close to trivializing Cicero.That Cicero was indeed concerned (and again, not just in these texts) with xing andtransmitting his own version of the story of his rise, consulate, exile, and return isabsolutely true; that the shape he gives rhetorical theory is closely connected to hisown stylistic peculiarities is one of D.s most important and convincing contributionsin this book. On the other hand, although Cicero was certainly not the least self-centered of mortals, he is not so exclusively self-absorbed as D.s account suggests.D. badly distorts Pro Archia, making a light, ironic, and in fact very funny speechinto a ponderous and urgent plea for auctoritas and the immortalization of his con-sular deeds. He overemphasizes the one or two sentences that refer to Ciceros desireto have Archias write an epic about Ciceros consulate, turns a joke about Sulla and


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a bad poet into a particularly grimy exchange (p. 37), and ignores the humor ofCiceros tongue-in-cheek explanation that many people in the world read Greekrather than Latin. In the same way, while D.s discussion of Caesar Strabo and thedigression on humor in De oratore 2 is in itself a ne piece of analysis, he becomesalmost Straussian in insisting that this small section of a vast and complicated workis somehow the key to interpreting the whole thing; in discussing Orator, similarly,he makes the account of prose rhythm far more important than it actually is. Theseare matters of emphasis; but as D. himself frequently makes clear, emphasis matters.

D.s single-minded reading of Cicero leads him on some strange and unconvincingpaths. He tends to fasten on particular words and import meaning from one contextinto another: because Cicero uses imago in Pro Archia about the effect of readingabout famous men, D. believes that he must be alluding to the imagines of ancestorsof which a new man felt the lack (pp. 4042). Because the language of the body isfrequently employed in metaphors for rhetorical criticismby Cicero as by everyonebefore him, for that matterCicero must be concerned about the corporeality ofhis orations. Because prose rhythm is a part of compositio, compositio becomes proserhythm. And texts are often seriously distorted to mean what D. wants them to mean.The reference to Ciceros being dissatised with Demosthenes at Orator 104 is nota criticism of Demosthenes (pp. 31011): it is in the context of the perfect, idealoratorand even the greatest of all orators, Demosthenes, is not a Platonic ideal.The story of Simonides, Scopas, and the invention of mnemonics does not showCicero presenting memory as born from trauma (p. 101).

Indeed, it does not help D.s case that his very rst quotation is misinterpreted. Hebegins from the statement at the opening of Quintus Ciceros (?) CommentariolumPetitionis, quicquid es ex hoc es (Comm. 2, speaking of Ciceros oratorical talentand experience). D. describes this (p. 2) as a blunt statement that Ciceros self ispredicated upon his oratory. But there is no self here; Quintus (if it is he) is ex-plaining the importance of Ciceros forensic career to his candidacy: Cicero hasdefended consulars, and is therefore to be thought worthy of becoming one himself.This is, Quintus rightly says, the basis of his career: what D. overliterally translates aswhatever you are you are from this emerges more accurately in Taylor and Murrellsserviceable translation as your position, whatever it is, is the result of this.1 Quintusis concerned about public appearances and practical politics; D. misreads him asspeaking the modern language of self and psychology. Mistranslation, not just mis-interpretation, follows on the next page, where D. describes Commentariolumsinsistence on the radical equivalence of Ciceros self and his oratory . . . within adialectic of nature and its deliberate manipulation, using as evidence the following:although nature has great power, still fabrication (simulatio) seems able to overcomenature in a matter of a few months (p. 3, quoting Comm. 1). Taylor and Murrell areagain more accurate: Although natural talent is most important, it seems that it canbe defeated by fraud in a matter that lasts only for a few months (quamquam plurimumnatura valet, tamen videtur in paucorum mensum negotio posse simulatio naturamvincere). Quintus point has nothing to do with self or even with oratory: it is one

1. D. W. Taylor and J. Murrell, A Short Guide to Electioneering: (?) Quintus Ciceros Commentario-lum Petitionis, London Association of Classical Teachers Original Records, no. 3 (1968; reprint, Harrow,England, 1977).


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that we know all too well to be true, that a fraudulent political candidate in a shortcampaign (paucorum mensum negotio) can trick the electorate into voting againstsomeone who is actually qualied. And when D. goes on to bolster his anachronisticpsychologizing of Cicero and his brother by dragging in the Stoic four-personatheory from De ofciis, he again psychologizes the fourth persona (Off. 1.11517).Cicero is talking about the choice of careers, not the inner self; like Quintus, andpresumably every other Roman, he views identity, to the extent that he thinksabout it at all, as the sum of ones public acts, not ones private neuroses. And in termsof the self, such as it is, against D.s completely unjustiable argument that Cicerobelieves in a self textually constituted and fabricated within literary discourse (p. 3)we have Ciceros own explicit statement about the self: mens cuiusque is est quisquespoken in the Somnium Scipionis by the soul of the elder Africanus (26.2), but echoedby Cicero himself at Tusculans 1.52 equating the animus with the self. WhetherCiceros arguments for an immortal soul/mind/self and a truly permanent identityare rhetorically motivated or genuine belief I do not know; but D.s unphilosophical,imprecise, and thoroughly (post-) modern notion of the self is something that Cicerowould have found both repellent and incomprehensible.

D.s argument about self and self-fashioning provides a structure for his argu-ment, but it is a perilously shaky one. When he says that Cicero constructed himselfas a politician whose claim on power rested solely on his intellectual and literaryachievements (p. 20; emphasis mine) he is simply wrong. In fact, Ciceros rise topower was based in equal parts on oratory and on real political skills; even his laterclaims to authority and greatness rely not just on his intellectual achievements, buton his more-than-verbal actions in dealing with the conspiracy of Catiline. Self-fashioning may be in fashion, and Cicero, as D. shows very well, indulged in itbuthe fashioned a great deal more than himself.

Cicero in the Brutus and Orator defended his elaborate, emotional, and often oridstyle of oratory against the criticism of the Atticists on the very simple (and true)grounds that it worked: people listened to him and juries acquitted his clients. WhetherCalvus was in fact as unsuccessful and boring as Cicero polemically suggests maybe doubted: it should come as no surprise to anyone that the kind of oratory Cicerobelieved in was the kind of oratory that he practiced. But to suggest that Cicerosprimary goal in the rhetorica was to promote and defend an image of Cicero himselfis both false and a trivialization of works, particularly De oratore, of far greater sig-nicance. D. has very little to say about Cicero and Plato (although he makes somegood observations); he notes only in passing Ciceros attack on Socrates and over-turning of the Platonic critique of rhetoric, which in fact ought to be central to anyinterpretation of the dialogue. Certainly there is an element of self-serving self-presentation here; but the ideal of the orator-statesman that Cicero develops in Deoratore and De re publica had a genuine public purpose that went far beyond thecanonization of Cicero himself. Cicero rightly believed that oratory was an essentialelement in a free republic: the lament for the death of oratory at the end of the Brutusis not a lament for Cicero himself, but for Rome.

The fashionable emphasis on self-fashioning betrays a modern narcissism andconcentration on the trivial that diminishes modern scholarship much more than itdiminishes Cicero. Like most public gures in the ancient world, Cicero had a healthyopinion of his own importance and merits; more than most, perhaps, he was capable


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of convincing himself that his own opinion in this regard was correct, and there canbe no doubt that many of his works are shaped in such a way as to justify Cicerosown version of himself. To that extent, D.s book is both right and important. But Cicerojustied his self-regard because of his genuine belief that his actions and his wordshad served his country, that he was part of something larger than himself to whichhe owed anything that he was and could become. D. ends his book, as do many others,by citing the end of Plutarchs life of Cicero, Augustus description of him as logioskai philopatris. For Cicero himself, those two words are in fact inseparable, and hiseloquence was an aspect of his public service, not of his self. We are not, Ciceromore than once says (borrowing from Platos Ninth Letter), born for ourselves, butfor others: non sibi se soli natum . . . sed patriae, sed suis (Fin. 2.45; cf. Off. 1.12,Mur. 83). We can still understand Cicero better from Plato than from Foucault.

James E. G. ZetzelColumbia University in the City of New York


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RevMaking a New Man Ciceronian SelfFashioning in the Rhetorical Works . by John Dugan