Table of Contents

1: Cicero at Fifty
2: The Public Careers of L. Licinius Crassus and M. Antonius
3: Constructing the Dialogue: The Challenge of Plato
4: The Future Orator: Talent, Training, and the Choice of Model
5: The Orator and the Law
6: Oratory and Literature: The Spoken and the Written Word
7: Rediscovering Aristotelian Invention
8: Wit and Humour as the Orator's Combat Weapons
9: Political Persuasion: Senate and Contio
10: Style and Substance
11: Res Pervolgatae: Words and their Manipulation in Standard Rhetorical Theory
12: Into Action: The Orator as Public Figure
13: Epilogue: The Statesman and the State in De Oratore and After

About the Author

Elaine Fantham is Giger Professor of Latin Emerita, Princeton University.

Reviews

With her usual astute scholarship, Fantham has presented a cogent, illuminating analysis of the dialogue within the context of the failing senatorial government of the late republic. Her analysis is as important for understanding Cicero and his era as it is for understanding the practice of oratory, rhetoric in Rome, and the training of the orator/statesman.... This is a significant contribution to the understanding of Cicero, his dialogue, and his world. Highly recommended.
*Choice*