Figurative Analysis: Re-Visioning Cicero as Rome’s Silent Speech

Adam

GSI: Kuan

Figurative Analysis: Re-Visioning Cicero as Rome’s Silent Speech

          

 Cicero’s “First Oration Against Catalline,”[i] a calculated categoria[ii] delivered to the Roman senate in 63 B.C., figures Cicero as a prescient, omniscient leader and Catalline as a villainous traitor to his former compatriots. Through a violent epiplexis,[iii] Cicero depicts Catalline not only as the wellspring of a rising conspiracy, but also as the mainspring of destruction already wrought against the republic. This depiction relies on the employment of visual metaphors and synecdochic re-figurations, which are respectively instantiated, and even materialized, in the audience’s imagination and apparent physical comportment. Cicero engages these purportedly corporal materializations as uncontroversial proof for his eventual argument: the nation’s continued survival depends on Catalline’s willful departure from Rome.

           

This categoria is not merely an argumentum ad hominem[iv]; Cicero does not attack Catalline’s character so much as Catalline’s actions, or at least actions that he successfully attributes to Catalline. Instead, Cicero begins with epiplexis—his questions are formulated as an attack, and he is not interested in Catalline’s response. Through the very utterance of these questions—which take the form of an anaphora[v] that, through careful repetition, constructs them as pointed allegations instead of interested inquiries, Cicero begins to re-figure his audience’s imagined perceptions of Rome. He evokes an image of “destruction”[vi] —“fire,”[vii] “slaughter,”[viii] and “frenzied attacks”[ix]—that has already been carried out against the state. Cicero claims that the “alarm of the people,” and the according “precautions” taken against Catalline, including the presence of “watches” and the “nightly guard,” are evidence that “[Catalline’s] conspiracy is already[x] arrested.”[xi]

           

Cicero’s re-figuration of Rome (in his audience’s imaginations) relies on their inability to challenge it: an argumentum ad ignorantiam, which holds true until it is proven false. Although Cicero speaks in monologue, his use of epiplexis creates the semblance of dialogue that reinforces the effect of visual his re-figuration. Catalline is asked if he is an omnatio[xii], and if seeks to “destroy the whole world with fire and slaughter?,”[xiii] yet he is not permitted a verbal response. His audience never speaks, yet their “silence” —in a moment that, for Cicero, stands as evidence for the force of his argumentum ad populum[xiv]—is figured as “condemnation.”[xv] “Their wishes” [xvi] and “approv[al]”[xvii] are said to be metonymous with “their silence.”[xviii] This semblance of dialogue “permit[s]” Cicero the apparent authority “to speak” for the senate’s “vote.” In this synecdochic re-figuration, Cicero models himself as his audience, the Roman senate. In doing so, he invests his speech with legitimacy only conferrable by the audience that he subsumes through this re-figuration.

The audience’s physical bodies function not only to bestow Cicero with authority, but also as further evidence for the speaker’s eventual argument. While Catalline eventually flees Rome as a result of Cicero’s apodioxis or bdelygmia[xix] against him, he is simultaneously forced into exile as a result of the senate’s unspoken words and actions. Just as the senate’s silence is synecdochically re-figured as Catalline’s speech, the senate’s actions are similarly re-figured as the actions of Rome. Upon Catalline’s “arrival” to the senate, all the seats around him “were vacated.”[xx] At the “very moment [Catalline] sat down,” all the men of consult ranks left the benches “bare and vacant.”[xxi] Catalline speaks for the senate, and the senate’s bodies speak for the bodies of the republic to which Catalline apparently has already begun to destroy. Their bodies say, in silence, what Cicero has already spoken: there is “no one who does not hate you [Catalline]
,”[xxii] so “leave the city,”[xxiii] Catalline; “the gates are open; depart.”[xxiv]                                    

The senate’s bodies, much like their imagination of the city itself, take on a new valence as Cicero speaks. Irrespective of the reality outside the senate chambers, the city is destroyed and the people are outraged. Rome—embodied first through the senate’s bodies and later metaphorically personified as “common parent,” who, like the senate, “silently speaks”[xxv] to Catalline via Cicero—is said to deliver the final cataplexis.[xxvi]It is, therefore, not Cicero who says to Catalline, “you alone unpunished and unquestioned have murdered the citizens,”[xxvii] but Rome speaking for itself. “[Rome]”, as Cicero, “pleads with [Catalline]”[xxviii] to depart. This plea is weightier than any Cicero could ever make since “her authority,” “judgment” and “power” evokes a feeling of “awe”[xxix] uncommon to moral men.                                                         

Cicero’s speech captures the attention and outrage of the Roman senate through a violent epiplexis directed toward Catalline, which grants him a subtle authority essential to his eventual place speaking as the nation he seeks to defend. His subsequent re-figuration of Rome in senate’s imagination allows him to ultimately re-vision their silent bodies as an eloquent bdelygmia against Catalline. Catalline’s self-imposed exile serves as evidence for the efficacy of Cicero’s re-vision.

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[i] All citations are from the Charles Duke Yonge translation, accessed November 26, 2016, available, http://www.bartleby.com/268/2/11.html.

[ii] The reproach of Catalline to his face.

[iii] Questioning in order to reproach rather Catalline, rather than elicit new information; imbued with an expression of hatred.

[iv] Abuse of a Catalline’s character.

[v] “Do not...does not...do you not...do you not” (1.1); My emphasis.

[vi] 1.3

[vii] 1.4

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] 1.2

[x] My emphasis.

[xi] 1.1

[xii] Catalline is a prophecy of evil.

[xiii] 1.4

[xiv] An argument appealing to the crowd. Whether or not the argument appeals to the crowd, or if Cicero simply re-visions their silence as an appeal

[xv] 1.15

[xvi] 1.18

[xvii] 1.18

[xviii] 1.19

[xix] An expression of hatred for Catalline and his actions through a series of criticism that, for the most part, Cicero brings to bear through epiplexis.

[xx] 1.15

[xxi] Ibid. Please see attached image, which visually depicts this passage. 

[xxii] 1.12

[xxiii] 1.10

[xxiv] Ibid.

[xxv] 1.15

[xxvi] Catalline is threatened for “destruction” doing already wrought against the nation.

[xxvii] 1.16; My emphasis.

[xxviii] 1.16

[xxix] 1.15

Author's Note: My apologies for the formatting. Blogger wouldn't let me indent any of the paragraphs. Word Count: 919

Just as the senate’s silence is synecdochically re-figured as Catalline’s speech, the senate’s actions are similarly re-figured as the actions of Rome. Upon Catalline’s “arrival” to the senate, all the seats around him “were vacated.”[xx] At the “very moment [Catalline] sat down,” all the men of consult ranks left the benches “bare and vacant.”[xxi] Catalline speaks for the senate, and the senate’s bodies speak for the bodies of the republic to which Catalline apparently has already begun to destroy.