Discurso Dramatico en Historiadores Romanos

7/28/2019 Discurso Dramatico en Historiadores Romanos

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Dramatic Speech in the Roman Historians

Author(s): N. P. MillerSource: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Apr., 1975), pp. 45-57Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/642831

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DRAMATIC SPEECHIN THE ROMANHISTORIANSBy N. P. MILLER

IN spite of much sensible writing, by many scholars,' on the realimportance and significance of the literary convention, there remainsamong some students of the Classics a persistent folk-memory whichasserts that speeches in the ancient historians are rhetorically decorative,deliberately deceptive, and historically inessential. That a speech canbe one (or all) of these things is inarguable: but to assume that allspeech in historical writing can be so dismissed is dangerous, becausesuch assumption inhibits a full understanding of what a serious ancienthistorian may be trying to do with it. I should therefore like to lookagain at the convention, and at some of the ways in which it is used bythe major Roman historians.The origin and early development of the convention is fairly clear.Formal speech was a major fact of ancient life and therefore, reasonably,of its record: formal speech incorporated in narrative was familiar tothe Greeks of the fifth century B.C.,in the epic poems of Homer-andthe writing of history, properly so called, began in the fifth century B.C.,with the Homeric poems providing the nearest thing to a literary modelthen available; and the newly developed art of rhetoric was concurrentlydrawing men's attention to the possible uses of organized speech. Itsincorporation into historical narrative was almost inevitable, its formand style hardly less so. For verbal transcripts were not commonlyavailable at the fifth-century equivalent of a press conference, the GreekAssembly had no Hansard, and it is unlikely that Our Special Corre-spondent's shorthand account of a public speech by statesman or generalever existed, much less survived. Insertion of an original speech was,therefore, likely to be difficult. It would also be contrary to the ancientwriter's conception of the unity of style required for a literary work.But (especially for contemporary history) fairly reliable accounts of thepoints made by a speaker would be available or discoverable, and the?contentof some speeches might well be necessary material for the his-torian. Constant use of reported speech (especially extensive reportedspeech) makes for tedious listening; and history should not, if possible,be tedious. And so even the careful Thucydides adopted the practice

See, for example, R. Syme, Sallust (Cambridge, I964), I85-6, I96-201;F. E. Adcock, Caesar as a Man of Letters (Cambridge, I956), 65-7; P. G. Walsh, Livy~(Cambridge, I96I), 219-44; R. Syme, Tacitus (Oxford, I958), I91-3, 316-20, 700-8.


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46 DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANSintroduced by Herodotus, and wrote his own direct versions of impor-tant speeches.'The practice has dangers, especially for a people fascinated by rhe-torical skill and expertise; and the work of historians and critics of thefourth and third centuries did not always lessen these dangers. Toprovide variety of style, to depict character, to increase dramatic ten-sion, to demonstrate one's own rhetorical skill-for all of these, directspeech was useful, even if it had to be invented for the purpose. Excessin practice produced criticism, both from serious historians like Poly-bius2 and (on more purely stylistic grounds) from writers like Diodorusand Dionysius.3 But Polybius too has his direct speeches, and they arespeeches which he himself has written. The substance is KOcr'&?AieitavprieEvTabut he &nrayyEsEti t in his own words: which is preciselywhat Tacitus appears to mean by inuertere.4The Roman historians, therefore, inherited a convention with a verymixed tradition of theory and practice. There was (fairly summary)reported speech; there was 'writing up' of genuine content in one's ownversion of the current rhetorical style, adapted for use in historical nar-rative; there was the use-if necessary, the invention-of speeches toillustrate dramatically character, motive, or situation; and there was,inevitably, an awareness of a literary/historicaltool which might be used,by a skilful craftsman, to produce very interesting and complicatedeffects. Whatever effects its use produced, speech obviously appearedeven in the earliest examples of Roman historical writing. For example,both Livy and Aulus Gellius tell us that Cato included his speech Forthe Rhodians in Book v of his Origines;and Aulus Gellius quotes, fromClaudius Quadrigarius the annalist, a letter in oratio recta.5 And theprocess continued. For the purposes of this paper, I propose to dis-regard as 'Roman historians' Nepos and Suetonius, who as biographersuse speech more sparingly and more straightforwardly than the his-torians proper; Trogus, who had an interesting theory about the use ofspeech,6 but whose work exists only in epitome; Velleius Paterculus,whose use of speech is fairly simple and not very significant; ValeriusMaximus, who is not an historian proper; and Quintus Curtius, whosedramatic speech is largely rhetorical colouring in an adventure story.But Sallust, Caesar, Livy, and Tacitus are different; and interesting.

Thuc. i. 22. i. See also A. W. Gomme, Essays in Greek History and Literature(Oxford, 1937), 156-89.2 Polyb. xii. 25a-25b; xxxvi. I.3 Diod. Sic. xx. i; Dion. Hal., De Thuc. I6-I8, 34 f.4 Ann. xv. 63: 'pleraque tradidit, quae in uulgus edita eius uerbis inuertere super-sedeo.' 5 Livy xlv. 25. 3; Gell. vi. 3. 7; iii. 8. 8.6 Justin. xxxviii. 3. x : 'quam obliquam Pompeius Trogus exposuit, quoniam inLiuio et Sallustio reprehendit, quod contiones directas pro sua oratione operi suoinserendo historiae modum excesserint.'


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DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANS 47The greater part of what is left to us of Sallust's Histories is in facta collection of elaborate direct speeches. But they are speeches withouttheir context, and so potentially less informative about Sallust's his-torical use of speech than are the completely extant historical mono-graphs. The Jugurthine War, which is perhaps the closer to history,has about 23 per cent of its bulk in dramatic speech, and of that speech72 per cent is direct, 28 per cent indirect. The indirect speech is short(never more than ten lines, and more frequently between one and five)and fairly summary, while most of the direct speech is contained inlong, elaborate orations, constructed with obvious reference to therules of rhetoric. The speeches are found, regularly but not mono-

tonously, throughout the book (chs. 8- 12), and are delivered by indi-viduals like Scipio (9), Adherbal (14), Marius (85), and Sulla (I02), ormirror the statements of legati (I5), the conversations of Roman officers(Io6), or attempted negotiations between opposing armies (83). Theyserve a variety of historical purposes, with perhaps the overriding oneof presenting dramatically Sallust's interpretation of the state of thenation, and they accurately demonstrate the character of the work bytheir nature and distribution. The book is not a biography of Jugurtha:he is allotted only 9 per cent of the dramatic speech, none of it is directspeech, and his longest utterance is ten lines. The emphasis of thedramatic speech is on principles, not character.The Catilinarian Conspiracypresents some interesting variations. Itsproportion of dramatic speech to narrative is higher (just over 31 percent), and the importance of that dramatic speech may be greater eventhan the figures suggest: for the Jugurtha is twice as long as the Cati-line, but has only 50 per cent more speech. The Catiline's speech, too,is yet more predominantly direct (85 per cent, as against 15 per centindirect). These facts again reflect the nature of the material: the Cati-line is fundamentally about politics, not war; it records a movement ini-tiated by talk and debated by senators; it describes a conspiracy whosenatural lines of communication are conversations and messages; andit presents a crisis, with concomitant concentration and drama. Hencemore speech in bulk, and more direct speech in proportion.In the sixty-one chapters of the Catiline, dramatic speech occursfairly evenly from chs. 17 to 59. The book has a long preface, wherespeech has no part. Ch. 17 lays the conspiracy's keel, with a sum-mary account of Catiline's approaches and arguments, and ch. 20launches it firmly with an oration in direct form which, by expoundingcauses and policy, contrives to characterize both the conspirators andthe society from which they sprang. Catiline, as leader of the con-spiracy, is important: he makes the first (20) and the last (58) speechesin the book (both long, and both oratio recta), and from chs. 17 to 35


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48 DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANShe makes frequent, if brief, appearances as the author of words in theSenate or statements to his friends. Most of these utterances are short(and summary) oratio obliqua,but the more vivid recta is used for thestatement which closes ch. 31 ('quoniam quidem circumuentus ab ini-micis praeceps agor, incendium meum ruina restinguam'), and markshis exit from the city, and the end of the Conspiracy, Part I. Catilineis more important to his conspiracy than Jugurtha was to his war: heis allotted 31 per cent of the dramatic speech in the monograph, and80 per cent of his speech is direct. But the book is still not a biography,as is demonstrated by the dramatic speech in the twenty chapters separ-ating Catiline's letter to the Senate (35) and his final address to hisrebel army (58). These chapters contain conversations with the Allo-broges (40) and between conspirators left in Rome (43-4); accounts oforders from the consul (4I) and of senatorial interrogations (47); andthe great senatorial debate (50-3) which enshrines, in its two greatspeeches by Caesar and Cato, Sallust's analysis of the whole politicalsituation surrounding the conspiracy.Sallust may be 'ignoring words which were actually said' (3 . 6, 52. i),and inventing others; he may be recasting some documents,' and veryloosely reporting others (32. 3); he may be favouring Caesar (5I) oranachronistically dramatizing Catiline (20).2 But he is not pepperinghis narrative with dramatic speech for purely literary purposes, nor ishe merely demonstrating his own control of the current rhetorical form.The distribution and form of the dramatic speech, the persons chosento present it, and the topics chosen as its content, all show that Sallustis using an inherited tool of historical interpretation, and using it effec-tively. He is also using it traditionally: the proportion of speech tonarrative, the preponderance of direct speech, the summary nature ofthe indirect speech, and the general tendency to use speech to presentpolitical issues place him firmly in the Thucydidean line. The con-trast afforded by his contemporary, Caesar, is a startling one.Commentarii come somewhere between the raw material of history-the documents-and historical writing proper. They provided a pre-liminary factual account of events, from which an historian might beexpected to produce3 the analytical study of politics, personalities,causes, and effects, in a deliberately literary presentation, which theRomans called historia. They were, therefore, a literary form admirablysuited to a politician who wished to justify his activities and bolster hisprestige. There is an air of 'plain, unvarnished truth' about commentarii,and Caesar was well aware of it.

Speeches, as literary embellishment or interpretative tool, belong to1 Cf., for example, 44. 5 with Cic. Cat. iii. 5. x2.2 Cf. Syme, Sallust, 73. 3 Cf. Cic. Fam. v. I2.


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DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANS 49historia, and their absence from commentariiwould not surprise us. Thereis in fact no direct quotation in the Gallic War until the aquiliferof theTenth Legion dramatically leads his comrades on to British soil at iv. 25;while Books v-vii show only some nine examples of direct quotation,none more than seven lines long, and one long oration (vii. 77), givento a Gaul and quoted 'propter eius singularem etnefariam crudelitatem'.But these facts do not explain why the 'straightforward' commentariishould have speeches at all: nor do they explain why 32 per cent ofBook i should consist of dramatic obliqua, 43 per cent of which is spokenby Caesar.One can perhaps see how the speech gets into the commentarii. Thecontent of certain speeches, conversations, discussions, andorders wouldbe essential to any narrative of the Gallic War: if the gist is to be incor-porated in oratio obliqua,it is both easy and effective to make it dramaticobliqua,that is, to produce not simply a precis of points in the accusativeand infinitive construction, but a deliberately artistic statement which,though indirect, is yet rhetorical, and which has the impact and associa-tions of the speech form. The temptation, too, to diversify his narrativewith the occasional vivid, direct comment is one which anyman of letterswould find hard to resist; and Caesar was aman with much skill in letters.He was alsoanotable orator and, once directspeech was admitted, wouldenjoy writing the occasional oration. The presence of speech is not afterall so surprising: what is interesting is Caesar's use of it.There is never much direct speech, but it increases steadily both with-in the Gallic War, and from Gallic War to Civil War. There are twolines in BG iv, nine in v, ten in vi, seventy-three in vii (forty-seven ofthem in Critognatus' oration); BC ii has eighty-eight lines (eighty-oneof them in two speeches by Curio), and iii has forty-two lines, spokenon seven occasions scattered throughout the book and including (ch. 85)three lines which comprise the only piece of direct speech allowed toCaesar in either work: it is a remarkablyflat and non-rhetorical 'speechbefore action'. The Civil War thus has more direct speech than theGallic War (I30 lines as against 93) and, in relation to its much shorternarrative, a higher proportion of it (3'7 per cent against I-2 per cent).Perhaps Caesar, having cautiously tried out some recta in the laterbooks of the Gallic War, experimented further with its uses in the CivilWar. The quotations are used to mark an important occasion,' toemphasize by contrast Roman control and Roman strength,2 to charac-terize an energetic officer of Caesar's,3 or to bring opposing attitudesto a focal point before a major battle.4

e.g. the landing in Britain, BG iv. 25.2 Critognatus, BG vii. 77. 3 Curio, BC ii. 3I-2.4 Pompey and Labienus, BC iii. 86-7. Cf. Adcock, op. cit. 66-7.E


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50 DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANSOf indirect speech there is no shortage at all: and for the first time wemeet the extended obliquaspeech which Livy and Tacitus were to makeso much their own. To their complex and sophisticated use of this de-vice we shall return, but meantime it should be noted that Caesar'sindirect speeches are by no means as simple as they appear. The open-ing book of the Gallic War has a high proportion of dramatic speech,and it is all oblique: there are some short statements, but most of themare ten lines and upwards, and three of them are over fifty lines long.Indirect speech of this length must be either dramaticor intolerable, and(e.g.) Caesar'sspeech at ch. 40 shows extensive use of rhetorical questions,anaphora,antithesis,and climax. It also demonstrates ramatically is

handlingof a potentialrebellion,in a mannerfar more vivid and im-pressivethan a narrativedescriptionwould be. And it does this by adevice which, unlike the directoration, s not an immediatelyobviousrhetorical embellishment. By his developmentof the contioobliqua,Caesarcontrivesto presentcharacteror point with the rhetoricalem-phasiswhich he wantsto give them, and at the same time to preservethe impressionof a factual, restrained,and unembellishednarrative.The speeches,directand indirect,in the Commentariiresentto us,dramatically,Caesar and his friends, his enemies Gallic and Roman,envoys and officers,Gallic chiefs and Roman soldiers. They charac-terize persons, present a rationale of action, point situations, andemphasize Roman (or Caesar's) greatness. They vary in length and dis-tribution according to the material or Caesar's requirements: I stronglysuspect, for example, that the high proportion of speech in BG i' resultsnot only from the book's emphasis on diplomatic activity and the speechwhich is its medium, but from Caesar's desire to present forcefully andmemorably, at the outset, the issues and the people concerned withthem; and especially himself. In fact, within the limits prescribed byhis slightly different genre and his own specific aims, Caesar is usingdramatic speech as other historians do. But he does it so subtly, andwith such apparently obvious differences of technique, that we mighteasily miss it. The speech is there and the speech is dramatic, and itwould be a great mistake to underrate Caesar's skill in using it, or itseffect upon the reader. It makes a very interesting variation upon atheme.

Formal, elaborate speeches are one of the most striking elements inthe history of Livy, and they have impressed readers from Quintilian2on. They are impressive, but they are not the whole story. Analysis of

1 Its 32 per cent of dramatic speech contrasts markedly with, e.g., the 7-7 per centof BG vii or the I3 per cent of BC i.2 Quint. x. I. 101: 'Titum Liuium. . . tum in contionibus supra quam enarraripotest eloquentem.'


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DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANS 51Livy's use of dramatic speech' has shown that he uses not only con-tiones, but also short, dramatic statements in recta and in obliqua,and avery interesting development of Caesar'ssustained obliquaspeech. Livy,with a subject of greater scope and more literary source material, writingunder far less political pressure, and with a highly developed artistry ofhis own, made subtle use of stylized, rhetorical obliquato present thethoughts, feelings, or motives of individuals or groups, in a concentratedbut personal, and therefore memorable, form.2 His speeches, whosecontents cover politics, military matters, and personalities, are spoken bycharacters ranging from generals (xxi. io) to ordinary soldiers (xxii. 50),from envoys (xxii. 59) to the Pontifex Maximus (xxii. io); they are de-livered in Rome and Carthage, in the Senate, or on the battlefield; andthey are presented as public speeches, private feelings, or conversations.The type and frequency of all this speech is demonstrably3 regulatedby the content of any given book and by the intent of the writer. Livy'sspeeches certainly show his rhetorical skill, and he obviously enjoyedwriting them: but they are there primarily to distil and dramatize asituation's essence (xxii. 59-60), to demonstrate a character (xxx. 30)or contrasting characters (xxi. 40-4), or to mark and emphasize a criti-cal point in the narrative (ibid.).

There is less speech in the first decad (about 20 per cent, when theover-all average is 27 per cent), though whether from initial diffidenceor lack of material, it is difficult to say. The last books show a high pro-portion (35 per cent) of speech, but this is sometimes little more thana rewriting into Latin of a speech in Polybius. The high point for cre-ative and interpretative speech in Livy is in Books xxi-xxx, his accountof the Hannibalic war. It was a critical period in Rome's history, fromwhich she emerged triumphant; it abounded in exciting events andinteresting personalities; and it existed in admirable source material inthe history of Polybius. Fortunately for us, most of it still exists in thatform, so that we can see what Livy has done with his source. The ex-pansion or contraction, elaboration, and reorganization, is here notmerely a turning of Polybian Greek into Livian Latin, but an integralpart of Livy's presentation of the history of the period. Perhaps thiscan best be demonstrated by an examination of two characteristicallyLivian rhetorical occasions-the speeches delivered by Scipio the Elderand Hannibal before the Ticinus (xxi. 40-4), and by Hannibal and ScipioAfricanus before Zama (xxx. 30-I).Polybius' account of the Ticinus episode (iii. 63-4) is basically nar-rative, reporting Hannibal's speech before the battle in forty-five lines

I See Konrad Gries, 'Livy's Use of Dramatic Speech', AJP lxx (1949), 118-4I.2 There are hints of this use in Caesar (e.g. BC i. 72), but it is not fully developeduntil Livy. 3 See Gries, art. cit. I33, I37.


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52 DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANSof oratio obliqua,while Scipio's remarks are presented in a mixture ofdirect speech, dramatic and non-dramatic obliqua, and narrative sum-mary-thirty-eight lines in all. From this, among other sources, Livyproduces almost twice as much speech, in the form of almost exactlybalanced direct orations (eighty-five and eighty-three lines respectively);he reverses the Polybian order, leaving the soon-to-be-victorious Hanni-bal's speech ringing in our ears; and so he presents us with a dramaticpicture of two well-matched but different personalities, at a criticalpoint in their own and their countries' history. The importance of thesituation is pointed by the concentration, organization, and impact ofthe formal Roman rhetoric. Would a critical analysis be any more effec-tive?The speeches before Zama present an interesting contrast. Here, too,Polybius has speeches (Hannibal fifty-one lines, of which five are obliqua,forty-six recta: Scipio forty-two lines, seven obliquaand thirty-five recta);here Livy obviously bases his speeches on Polybius, but his treatmentis very different (see Table I). There is elaboration and formal rhetoric,certainly: but it goes mainly to Hannibal. Livy has more speech inbulk than Polybius, but his Scipio's speech is in fact considerablyshorter than the Greek one. This is Hannibal's last important entry onthe stage of the CarthaginianWar, and he is allowed an impressive anddignified speech to mark it. The points made by Polybius' Hannibalare reproduced, in order but with elaboration, by Livy's; the differencesand additions are significant. Polybius says (xv. 5. 8) that Hannibal,from admiration of Scipio's ,eyaNoyJuXia and r6oqia, desired tomeet him; according to the practical Roman, he wanted better terms(xxx. 29. 5). But Livy uses this recorded admiration of Hannibal'sto provide a graceful introduction to his Hannibal's speech. What isnotably added to the Latin speech is the acknowledgment of Carthagin-ian aggression and Carthaginiantreachery:' surely this is Roman inter-pretation of history ?Additional, too, are more elaborateRomanexempla.2This speech is a prelude to a famous victory, and Livy is empha-sizing that victory by association and detail. It was a victory, too, overno mean opponent, and Hannibal is given full rhetorical rein. A quietand dignified exordiumbegins to rise in emotional pitch and rhetoricalfigures (?? 6-9): balance (6 and 8), anaphora and climax (7), chiasmus(8), and an effective closing statement whose calm mirrors its meaning.This elaborate rhetorical presentation is sustained throughout. Thereis, too, an emphasis on the expedient.3 The speech ends with an

I xxx. 30. 3 (the opening statement); 30. 27-9; 30. 30 (the closing statement).2 Regulus (irresistible in the context), ? 23; Trasimene added, ? 12, and Carthage'spresent plight emphasized by repetition, ?? 2 and I7; references to the Elder Scipio,? 5, and to the glory and exploits of Africanus, ??4 and 12-I5.3 Magis necessaria quam honesta, ? 18; melior tutiorque, ? 19; utilem, utilitatem, ? 29.


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TABLE IPOLYBIUS, BOOK XV

Hannibal: 5 lines obliqua+46 recta=5I Scipio: 7 lines obliqua+35 recta-42 (93)ch. 5, 8 (narr.) H. admires S.'s character and desires to meet him

6, 4-5 (ob.) Carth. and Roman empires should have kept to ownspheres6 (r.) Sicily and Spain cause of warBoth Roman and Carth. soil endangered7 They should try to agree now8 H.'s own experience of fickle fortune7, x S. young and successful2-4 Exx. of fickle fortune-Cannae, Rome, Carthage5-6 Why risk defeat by fighting?7-9 Terms proposed-Sicily, Sardinia, Spain and islandsto Rome

8, i (ob.) Carth. responsible for the war, not Rome2 The righteous are winning3 S. quite aware of fickle fortune4-5 (r.) Conditions would have been acceptable in Italy, notnow6-9 Terms (more stringent ones) already agreed andviolated by C.10-13 Cannot reward or encourage treachery induced byH.'s returnCould add conditions14 Surrender or fight

Hannibal: oi lines rectaL

ch. 29. 5 (narr.) H. desiresrender30. 3 (r.) H. admitsH. admires4-5 Reference6 Carth. andspheres7 Sicily and8 Both Rom9 Could settlo1 Own exper1 S. young a12 Exx. of fic12-15 Details of16-17 Further exI8-23 Why risk24-26 Terms pislands t27-29 Admits Ca30 Admits ag3I. 4 (r.) Rome not5 The righte6 S. quite a7-8 Conditionsnow

2, I Terms (mviolated3-4 Cannot re9 Add to con


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54 DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANSelaborately balanced comparison, with elaborately interwoven p's andq's, and a simple association of Hannibal and the peace he desires.'After which, Scipio's speech falls like a shower of cold water. It iscold and factual, dealing in details and not generalities, giving an im-pression of facts and not rhetoric. It uses precisely the points madein the Polybian speech, but its rearrangement of them is radical. Ithas its rhetorical colour: balance in ??4-5, vivid legal imagery in ? 8,and a cynical echo of Hannibal's p's and q's in its closing sentence.2It employs (naturally) the language of principle, not expediency.3 Butits total impression is of briskness and brusqueness.Hannibal's speech as presented by Livy is rhetorical, elaborate, andemotional: it is low on the facts of the immediate situation, but a splen-did survey of the Second Punic War and Hannibal's part in it; it evokesa great general on the point of defeat by Rome. Scipio, on the otherhand, has a speech to fit the occasion: he is perhapes not so much hardas immediate and practical. He is obviously going to win this battle:but note that his really hard hitting is at Carthage and not at Hannibal(the plurals in ??4, 5, and 9 are significant). His speech is pared toessentials: the conditions first accepted and then violated by Carthage,which Polybius included in Scipio's speech, are presented by Livy inhis narrative at ch. 16. 9 f. The two speeches are not balanced, becausethe situation is no longer balanced: the rhetoric goes to Hannibal in alast dramatization of character, the weight and force to the workmanlikeScipio, whose success is assured. This, though not necessarily our way,seems a justifiable way to employ a convention. Livy is adapting it tohis needs and the needs of his material, and showing a range and subletywhich is new in Roman history. Further subtleties were yet to come.We are aware, as we read the historical works of Tacitus, of a gooddeal of speech, direct and indirect, long and short, conversational andformal, on a variety of topics and made by a variety of speakers. Thisproves to be not the mixture as before, but a very individual variationon the theme.4 The average Tacitean oration is notably shorter thanthose of Livy and Sallust, and the proportion of speech to narrative isnotably less: i6 per cent is the average and the norm, although the ex-tremes range from 7 per cent to 22 per cent, always in relation to thecontent. The 22 per cent of Ann. xiv, for example, presents Nero atthe turning-point of his reign, and presents him dramatically, through

I xxx. 30. 30: 'et quemadrnodum, quia a me bellum coeptum est, ne quem eiuspaeniteret, quoad id ipsi inuidere dei, praestiti, ita adnitar, ne quem pacis per me par-tae paeniteat.'2 XXX. 3I. 9: 'sin illa quoque grauia uidentur, bellum parate, quoniam pacem patinon potuistis.'3 indigni, pia, iusta, ? 4; iusfasque ? 5; uerecundia? 8.4 See my paper, 'Dramatic Speech in Tacitus', AJP Ixxxv (I964), 279-96.


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DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANS 55speeches by and conversations between interested persons; whereasHist. ii has a mere 7 per cent, and Ann. ii only i per cent, because theirinterest is primarily in military action. The connection between speechand content can also be seen in Ann. i-vi, where one-third of all thedramatic speech is spoken by Tiberius;I and in the fact that by farthe greater number of Tacitean speeches are made about the internalpolitics of Rome. So far, Tacitus' speeches could be considered to bea concentrated and intensified variation on a pattern established byLivy. But his use of oratio obliquais peculiarly his own: not only doeshe use a greater proportion of it (55 per cent against 45 per cent recta),but he has developed to a fine art its function of presenting drama-tically a man's thoughts or motives,2 and also its use to indicate groupfeeling or judgement. This last is more immediate and impressive thana critical analysis, because it is done through the medium of a highlyarticulate speech form, and so connected with people and not abstrac-tions. A good example of its use by Tacitus can be found in thereported 'verdicts' on Augustus at Ann. i. 9-Io.3I should like to end by considering briefly the dramatic speech ina single book of Tacitus, and some of the ways in which the speech canilluminate the book's contents, and Tacitus' presentation of them. Ann.xv has a lower-than-average (II 8 per cent) amount of speech, and ofthat amount just over 30 per cent is direct, just under 70 per cent in-direct. The proportions are interesting, and so is the way they are madeup. The direct speech appears (a) in ch. 2, where Vologeses' speech atthe coronation of Tiridates dramaticallyreviews the situation, articulatesthe Parthian war aims, helps to characterize Corbulo's opponents, andpoints the start of the section of narrative which is to end with Tiridates'surrender of his crown in ch. 29. It appears (b) in chs. 2o-I, whereThrasea's senatorial speech on a matter of political principle gives usa dramatic picture of the man who is soon to be one of Nero's victims,a striking exposition of qualities which Romans liked to consider tradi-tionally their own, and animplicit comment on a Senate which applaudedthe sentiment but could not act apon it. These two speeches (twelve andtwenty-five lines long respectively) make up most of the direct speechin the book; the rest consists of three short statements made duringthe unravelling of the Pisonian Conspiracy. In ch. 63, Seneca speaksbefore cutting his own and his wife's veins, thus heightening the dramaand the pathos, and rounding off the portrait; for it is fitting that theTacitean Seneca should, ut sic dixerim,die talking: his eloquence, Taci-tus tells us in the same chapter, persisted through a slow and painful

Cf. AJP lxxxix (I968), i-i9.2 Cf. Tiberius at Ann. i. 69; Otho at Hist. i. 2I.3 Cf. T. A. Dorey (ed.), Tacitus (London, I969), 99-107.


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56 DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANSdeath-agony, and at the last moment he was dictating material whichTacitus forbears to include, because it was alreadypublished and known(a comment which is illuminating for Tacitus' treatment of speech, anda technique reminiscent of Ciceronian occultatio; for it allows Tacitusto give information, make a somewhat snide comment, and still get thefull dramatic benefit of 'dying words'). In ch. 67, the tribune SubriusFlavus contributes a pithy sketch of Nero, a sentence which Tacitusspecifically assures us is genuine; this statement and its presentationcontribute to the picture of Nero, to the presentation of Flavus as a'sturdy soldier' very different from the effete senators and courtiers,and to a subtle insinuation about the value of Seneca's statements andstyle. Later in the same chapter, Flavus speaks again, showing himselfas a man of courage and humour, and (with the last piece of dramaticspeech in the book), leaving us with the alliterative 'ut tu tam fortiterferias' which is a not unreasonable comment on the whole debacleof the Conspiracy.The indirect speech of Ann. xv pervades the book from ch. I to ch. 65,ranges from military (I2) or political (I) exchanges and addresses,through Nero's explanation (36) of the abandoning of his Eastern tour,to the conversations and dicta (51-65) which mark the discovery of thePisonian Conspiracy. These passages, from one to nine lines long, andmostly in the region of five or six lines, help to highlight certain aspectsof the bookwithout interrupting its exciting narrative too obviously; theyshow a high proportion of private conversational speech (as opposed toformal oration), which accurately mirrors the manoeuvres in Parthia andthe interrogation of the Pisonian conspirators; and they are interest-ingly and completely absent from the whole account of the Fire and itsaftermath, where the splendid narrative style needs no rhetorical bush.The speech, direct and indirect, is attributed to fifteen' differentspeakers-generals, soldiers, politicians, Parthians, men famous andinfamous, noble and obscure. The speakers indicate, by their rangeand topics, the contents of the book, and what Tacitus considers im-portant in it.All speech (other than very summary obliqua) which a serious an-cient historian uses is important. At its lowest, it introduces varietyinto narrative, and so helps to keep the reader's interest and attentionon the text. More important, it can present vividly and memorably acharacter, a situation, or an opinion which the historian considers needsstressing, and it can present his own interpretation of these things. Ithas no more validity than the rest of the narrative, but it has certainlyno less. The Roman historians inherited and developed a convention,and their various contributions to it are interesting, and helpful in our

I The Tacitean average is eleven.


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DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANS 57assessment of them. A study of the types and content of an historian'sdramatic speech, of the range of his speakers, and the contexts in whichthey speak, of the form and amount and distribution of the speech, canprovide illumination both of his material and his attitude to it. Thespeeches are not an optional literarycondiment in the historical casserolebut an essential ingredient whose absence would alter the effect andflavour of the whole dish.

VERSIONMartial xiv. 224I

CA TINOCALDARIOLAGratummunus ero vacuo nec inutile ventrisi modo me cenaevis adhiberetuae.frigidanon derunt: ne desint caldapetenti,

en, tuta est gremio parva ucernameo.

A DISH-WARMERI hope I'll be a welcomegiftand useful to the innerman, if you will placeme byyour lunch or by your dinner.Chillymeals are easy, butwhen you arewatchingtellythe hot will cool, and so I keepa candle in my inside. L. A. MORITZ

DRAMATIC SPEECH IN THE ROMAN HISTORIANS 57assessment of them. A study of the types and content of an historian'sdramatic speech, of the range of his speakers, and the contexts in whichthey speak, of the form and amount and distribution of the speech, canprovide illumination both of his material and his attitude to it. Thespeeches are not an optional literarycondiment in the historical casserolebut an essential ingredient whose absence would alter the effect andflavour of the whole dish.

VERSIONMartial xiv. 224I

CA TINOCALDARIOLAGratummunus ero vacuo nec inutile ventrisi modo me cenaevis adhiberetuae.frigidanon derunt: ne desint caldapetenti,

en, tuta est gremio parva ucernameo.

A DISH-WARMERI hope I'll be a welcomegiftand useful to the innerman, if you will placeme byyour lunch or by your dinner.Chillymeals are easy, butwhen you arewatchingtellythe hot will cool, and so I keepa candle in my inside. L. A. MORITZ

I Epigramma nuper repertum (sive inventum).Epigramma nuper repertum (sive inventum).

Discurso Dramatico en Historiadores Romanos

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