The Stoicism of the Ideal Orator: Cicero's Hellenistic Ideal

Abstract

This reading of De Oratore uses Stoic philosophy and rhetoric to trace out a complex Ciceronian theory of rhetoric. Cicero rejected Stoic style, labeling it as meager and unpersuasive. However, he coalesced Stoic philosophy with Greek rhetoric to produce his ideal orator. Cicero described eloquentia as natural public speech that was distinctive to every person, yet he also explained how eloquence, like wisdom, unified aspects of the entire universe. Through these connections, Stoic influences enabled Cicero to negotiate major questions concerning rhetoric, such as the emotional control of the orator, the virtue of eloquence, and the status of rhetoric as an art. Cicero's negotiation is productive of a theory of rhetoric that is useful today, especially as it holds speech and public action as important and fundamental acts of human individuality.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Martha Nussbaum, Ned O'Gorman, and Sean O'Rourke for their thoughtful suggestions on this article.

Notes

1. Cicero's Latin term for “eloquence” is developed in his writing, especially De Oratore, and will remain in the original language for this essay. The term parallels Greek rhetoric, focusing on artful public oratory and controversial speech amidst conditions of uncertainty. As this essay argues, the term also negotiates Stoic ethics and rhetoric to denote robust emotional, embodied speech.

2. Quintilian's synthesis results in the problematic ethical status of rhetoric in Institutio Oratoria, pointed out by Richard Lanham as “The ‘Q’ Question” (Lanham 1993).

3. Stoic fragments claim that the emotions were not to be simply eliminated (Strange 2004). Instead, individuals could replace false belief with true belief, that is, the weaker emotions of reasonable wishing (βουλησις), caution (ϵuλάβϵια), and joy (χαρά). Stoics were to be godlike in their emotion, not stone cold (Graver 2007).

4. Whether or not Cicero achieved this full removal during his leisure time or exile is debatable. Famously, Cicero grieved for the loss of his daughter (see Fam. 4.6). Robert Hariman interprets Cicero's letters on the republic as melodramatic “mood swings,” followed by his “compensatory fantasy” of self-control (Hariman 1998, 109). It is doubtful that Cicero lived up to any perfect model of domestic tranquility, as his letters show. Still, the theory is clear that a masterful rhetor recomposes himself in his moments of private leisure and reflection.

5. Cicero explains the contradiction of isolated philosophies like Epicureanism, that “if they convince us as well as all the best people of the truth of this, then they themselves will not be able to do what they desire most—that is, to live in undisturbed peace” (De Or. 3.63–64). Cicero saw philosophy as persuasive wisdom shared between individuals; an apolitical philosophy was a dead philosophy.

6. Cato the Elder's (234 BCE–149 BCE) original formulation of the vir bonus dicendi peritus (good man speaking well) probably reflects the early influence of Stoicism from these lectures, despite his hostilities to Greek philosophy (Walzer 2003).

7. Indeed, Stoics worked along a fairly technical system of refinement to achieve this naturalness (Long and Sedley 1987a; Long and Sedley 1987b). The value of a given thing (αξια) was to be perceived according to nature (with some things judged good, others bad, and others indifferent [αδιάορα]). These choices of acceptance and rejection were steered by Stoic guidelines but should also have been based upon one's particular life situation; to do this well was a duty (also translated as “appropriate action,” L. officiis, Gr. καθήκουτα). To become the sapiens, the pinnacle of Stoic life, the Stoic philosopher had to discover a method of accepting and rejecting these natural virtues that was never-ending. Once this lifestyle was most fully developed, one could become absolutely perfect and in accordance with nature (όμολογουμϵνος). Duties performed naturally and rightly (L. recte factum, Gr. κατορθώματα), according to this trained wise man, served as the means to the ultimate good life of the sapiens (Fin. 3.17, 20–2).

8. Kennedy discusses a “lack of precision in the treatise,” and notes that the dialogue “begins as a work intended to counteract superficiality in rhetoric; it takes a broader view of the subject, but not a very much deeper one” (Kennedy 1972, 229).