Introduction

Although some scholars have written of an end of dialogue coinciding with the rise of Christianity, the composition of prose dialogues was far from moribund during late antiquity. During this period, Christian authors exploited and transformed the ancient dialogue form in the composition of new, culturally contingent forms of dialogue, which were designed as tools of opinion formation within the religious controversies of the time. The burgeoning production of these prose dialogues sheds light on the cultural toolbox of late antique writers and readers, and, by extension, on their education and culture, but it also shows that the prose dialogue was a form of choice for many Christian authors. The extraordinary success of the prose dialogue in late antiquity indicates the endurance and the evolution of ancient rhetorical instruction and traditions; in addition, it helped propagate the idea that orthodoxy would be recognized as the correct and rational doctrine in the context of a public debate.

Aristotle

This chapter examines Cicero’s adaptation of Aristotle in his rhetorical works. Cicero considered Aristotle a somewhat remote figure, and associated him with times of political withdrawal and intense study. Yet he also held Aristotle in high esteem as a classic, especially for his contributions to rhetoric: Cicero was taught by his instructor Philo of Larissa that Aristotle invented the debate on both sides of a general rhetorical or philosophical question that for Cicero represented the tangible union of philosophy and rhetoric necessary for the ideal orator. When Cicero faced the prospect of further political inactivity after Caesar’s assassination, he decided to fully embrace Aristotle’s didacticism by composing his Topica, a how-to manual for this sort of debate that would make his ideal orator (who, of course, resembled Cicero himself) into a classic model in Roman rhetorical instruction.

Rhetoric and Pedagogy

Classical rhetoric depends on the assumption that speaking well is a teachable skill. Roman rhetorical instruction adapted technical material derived from Greek rhetoric to specific demands arising from Rome’s political system, in which oral communication was an unavoidable obligation on the political elite. The variety of Cicero’s works on rhetoric makes them excellent guides to the complexity of rhetoric at the end of the Roman Republic. They range from instructional manuals, such as De inventione and De partitione oratoria, to discussions of oratory and civil society (De oratore), a history of Roman oratory (Brutus), and analysis of oratory’s technical aspects (Orator). All, however, demonstrate a commitment to rhetorical pedagogy and a belief that oratory is essential to civil society and that rhetoric’s potential amorality can be averted by proper instruction. But they also reveal the stress of political transformation in Cicero’s move from orality to written record and from ideal orator to historical example.

“She Must Be a Rare One”: Aspasia, Corinne, and the Improvisatrice Tradition

Improvisation was long the apex of the arts of eloquence, yet modern scholars ignore its importance as a rhetorical and literary genre, thereby severing a long-enduring connection between rhetorical and literary history. This essay reads Plato's Menexenus to formulate a theory of improvisational rhetoric around the cultural position of Aspasia, a foreign woman renowned for eloquence in Periclean Athens. It then places this construction of improvisation alongside Germaine de Staël's early-nineteenth-century novel Corinne to demonstrate the endurance and evolution of improvisational rhetoric. Doing so not only illustrates the long-standing—and long-neglected—influence of improvisation on both rhetorical theory and literary production but also challenges present-day disciplinary prejudice by revealing the permeable boundary between imaginative works and those that provide rhetorical instruction.