The Divinatio in Caecilium is usually circulated in modcrn editions, as it was in Cicero's time, along with the voluminous speeches against Gaius Verres. Ciccro's colourful caricatures of Rome's poster child for maladministration :md his depictions of provincial govcrnment often dominate the n:ader's view; the Divinatio itself is often skipped over. This is a pity. The speech is unlike any other from antiquity. It is our sole surviving example of the Roman legal procedure of Divinatio and in no other speech does Cicero caU such attention to his rhetorical methods of persuasion or seem so sel f-consciously literary in his publication. He delights in generic ambiguity of the Divinatio. And in the hands of such a master of persuasion, we should avoid the common pitfall of assuming this speech to be representative of its kind.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:606710 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Watson, Charles B. |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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