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LAUER SERIES IN RHETORIC
AND COMPOSITION
Series Editors: Catherine Hobbs, Patricia Sullivan, Thomas Rickert, and Jennifer Bay
LAUER SERIES IN RHETORIC
AND COMPOSITION
Series Editors: Catherine Hobbs, Patricia Sullivan, Thomas Rickert, and Jennifer Bay The Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition honors the contributions Janice Lauer Hutton has made to the emergence of Rhetoric and Composition as a disciplinary study. It publishes scholarship that carries on Professor Lauer's varied work in the history of written rhetoric, disciplinarity in composition studies, contemporary pedagogical theory, and written literacy theory and research. Other Books in the Series
Storiesof Mentoring:Theoryand Praxis,edited by Michelle F. Eble and Lynee Lewis Gaillet (2008)
Writm Without Borders:Writingand Teachingin TroubledTimesby Lynn Z. Bloom (2008)
1977:A CulturalMoment in Composition,by Brent Henze, Jack Selzer, and Wendy Sharer (2008)
The Promiseand Perilsof WritingProgramAdministration,edited by Theresa Enos and Shane Borrowman (2008)
UntenuredFacultyas WritingProgramAdministrators:Institutional Practicesand Politics,edited by Debra Frank Dew and Alice Horning (2007)
NetworkedProcess: DissolvingBoundariesof Processand Post-Process, by Helen Foster (2007)
Composinga Community:A Historyof WritingAcrossthe Cu"iculum, edited by Susan H. McLeod and Margot Iris Soven (2006)
HistoricalStudiesof WritingProgramAdministration:Individuals, Communities,and the Formationof a Disdpline, edited by Barbara L'Eplattenier and Lisa Mastrangelo (2004). Winner of the WPA Best Book Award for 2004-2005.
Rhetorics,Poetics,and Cultures:Re.figuringCollegeEnglishStudies (Expanded Edition) by James A. Berlin (2003)
Roman Rhetoric Revolution and the Greek Influence Revised and Expanded Edition
Richard Leo Enos
Parlor Press WestLafayette,Indiana www.parlorpress.com
Parlor Press LLC, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
© 2008 by Parlor Press All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America SA N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Enos, Richard Leo. . Roman rhetoric : revolution and the Greek influence / Richard Leo Enos. -- Rev. and expanded ed. p. cm. -- (Lauer series in rhetoric and composition} Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60235-079-3 (pbk.: alk. paper} -- ISBN 978-1-60235-080-9 (hardcover: alk. paper} -- ISBN 978-1-60235-081-6 (adobe ebook} 1. Rhetoric, Ancient. 2. Latin language--Foreign elements--Greek. 3. Rome--Civilization--Greek influences. 4. Greek language--Influence on Latin. 5. Rome--lntellcctual life. I. Title. PA3265.E56 2008 808'.0471--dc22 2008041909 Cover image: "Cicero Denouncing Catalina Before the Senate" by Cesare Maccari (1840-1819). Wallpainting. Palazzo Madama, Rome, Italy. Scala/ Art Resource. Used by Permission. Title page image: marble bust of a young man of the Julio-Claudian Family. By permission of The Amecrican School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations Cover design by David Blakesley. Printed on acid-free paper.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper, hardcover, and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For submission information or to flnd out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail [email protected].
In memory of my Great Aunt Giovanna and my Grandmother Caterina
In spiritu humilitatis, et in animo contritosuscipiamur a te, Domine: et sicfiat sacrificiumnostrum in conspectutuo hodie, ut p/a,ceattibi, Domine Deus.
Contents Acknowledgments Preface xv
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1 Etruscan Influences on the Development of Roman Rhetoric and Literature 3 2 Forces Shaping the Transition from Greek to Roman Rhetoric 23 3 Kairosin the Roman Reception of Greek Rhetoric
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4 When Rhetoric Was Outlawed in Rome: The Censure of Greek Rhetoric and the Emergence of Roman Declamation 63 5 The "Latinization" of Greek Rhetoric: A Revolution of Attitude 79 6 The "Hellenization" of Marcus Tullius Cicero 7 Cicero "Latinizes" Hellenic Ethos
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8 The Effects of the Roman Revolution on the Rhetorical Tradition of Athens and the Second Sophistic 138 9 A Study of the Roman Patronage of Greek Oratorical and Literary Contests: The Amphiareion of Oropos 152 10 Rhetoric at Rhodes: Greek Rhetoric in a Roman World 164 vii
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11 Severance and Restraint: Rhetoric in the GreekSpeaking East and the Latin-Speaking West 180 12 Conclusion: The Symbiotic Relationship of Greek Rhetoric and Roman Culture 197 Works Consulted 201 Works Cited 205 Index 213 About the Author 221
Illustrations Figure 1. Ancient Italy.
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Figure 2. Ancient Etruscan Settlements in Northern Italy.
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Figure 3. Romanticized Victorian Rendering of Etruscan Warriors. Figure 4. Reproduction of Early Retrograde Etruscan Alphabet. Figure 5. Latin Cursive Alphabet. Figure 7. Southern Italy and Sicily.
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Figure 9. The Forum During the Time of the Roman Republic. Figure 10. The Roman Forum in the late Twentieth Century. Figure 11. Rome and Environs.
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Figure 12. Latinum and Campania. Figure 13. Ancient Sicily.
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Figure 6. Comparative Chirographic Alphabets. Figure 8. Southern Italy.
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Figure 14. The Dynamics of Ciceronian Ethos.
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Figure 15. Evidence of Roman Patronage in the Athenian Agora.
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Figure 16. Model of the Odeion, Phase I, seen from the NW, late 111 Century BCE. 145 Figure 17.North Fa~adeof the Odeion, mid-2nd Century CE, with addition of Giants and Titans. 146 Figure 18. Regulationsof the Libraryof Pantainosin the Athenian Agora. Figure 19. Greece, the Aegean, and Western Asia Minor.
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Acknowledgments My interest in ancient Rome and in rhetoric began (and re-began) at different times in my life. As a child, the stories of my ancestors' land and our heritage gave me pride and self-esteem. As a college student my flrst professor of classical rhetoric, Hal Barrett, inspired a love of rhetoric. In 1972 I was able to study in Italy through the programs offered by the Vergilian Society. That experience brought together and made real both the academic subjects of Roman Studies and rhetoric and also a personal heritage and history. The study of Roman rhetoric became, for me, a study of not only the subject I love but also the people I came to consider my own. Similarly, my experiences as a student of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens nunured my strong feelings for the study of Greek rhetoric. As I continued to study both Greek and Roman rhetoric-an inquiry which was then done in very clear and separate ways-I began to note similarities and relationships not emphasized in my education. Over the years I felt that emphasizing these social and cultural interactions between Greek and Roman rhetoric would provide a better understanding of classical rhetoric than currently exists. To be able to offer readers insights into Greek and Roman rhetoric is a synthesis of education, feelings, and desires that have been taking shape for many years. Of particular value in this project is the availability of recent epigraphical evidence that extends our knowledge beyond extant, conventional literary sources. This new archaeological material is valuable in almost every period examined in this work. The early efforts of Greek colonization in the West, the nature and extent of Roman patronage of Greek literary and rhetorical ans, and the impact of rhetorical deliberation arc all enhanced by our study of this new evidence. The research and analysis of these inscriptions was made possible through the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the coopera-
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Acknowlcdgments
tion of the Greek Ministry of Culture and The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The maps, photographs, and drawings that appear in this volume also are the result of the cooperation of many individuals and institutions. Although flgures are credited at each entry, I wish to thank individually the persons who helped to make it possible for these items to be included. Jan Jordan, Charles Watkinson, and Craig Mauzy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Agora Excavations) were of invaluable help in securing permission to reproduce archaeological illustrations. I also wish to thank Elizabeth Robinson of the Ancient World Mapping Center (The University of North Carolina), Marian Head of The Watts Publishing Group (London), and my colleagues of the American Classical League for seeing that I was given permission to use their illustrations and maps in this work. Only those who have done such tasks realize how valuable such cooperation and consideration can be in the preparation of a volume. Students are influenced by their professors in at least two ways. The flrst is direct and obvious: the imparting of the substance of the discipline. The second way is indirect and less obvious: the disposition, approach, and zeal by which that substance is imparted. After thirtyflve years of teaching I still have difficultly determining which is more important. I suppose that the answer is both, for I certainly beneflted from scholars who excelled in these two dimensions. For those personal experiences I wish to thank my colleagues at Texas Christian University. Ifby no other source than personal experience, I am convinced that the Romans were accurate in stressing the value of learning by studying excellent models. Lastly, I wish to thank the Banchio family for preserving and nurturing a love of heritage, as well as the four decades of my own students who unceasingly re-kindle enthusiasm with their eagerness to learn. I also wish to thank the Vergilian Society for the experience of studying in Italy that forever shaped my education and interest in Roman rhetoric. Several individuals and organizations helped to make primary and secondary sources available. I thank the librarians and custodians at the Biblioteca Reale Di Torino, as well as the Musco Archaeologico and Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence for allowing me to examine rare primary material on Roman rhetoric and Etruscan epigraphy and artifacts. I also wish to thank Sarah L. Yoder and Amy K. Hermanson for many valuable suggestions on grammar and style; their
Acknowledgments
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recommendations on correctness and clarity have shaped both my expression and my appreciation for writing well. I also wish to thank all the generous and supportive editors and publishers for allowing me to use material from my earlier work: Theresa Enos (RhetoricRtvkw); Michelle Ballif, Michael G. Moran, and Suzanne Paris (ClassicalRhttorics and Rhetoricians,Prcager/Greenwood); Carol S. Lipson and Robert A. Binkley (eds. Rhetoric&fort and Beyondthe Greeks),as well as Jennie Doling of SUNY Press. I especially thank my co-author, Karen Rossi Schnackerbergh, for allowing me to use material from our essay, "Cicero Latinizcs Hellenic Ethos"in Ethos:New Essaysin Rhetoricaland Critical Theory(eds. James S. Baumlin and Tita French Baumlin, Southern Methodist Univeristy Press), as well as the Director ofSMU University Press, KeithGregory. I wish to close this section by acknowledging the unfailing support of my friends at Waveland Press and Carol and Neil Rowe in particular, who kindly granted me full permission to develop my original work into this volume, as well as David Blakesley and Parlor Press for encouraging me in the process of this revision.
Preface Teachers of classical rhetoric too often succumb to the temptation of making a leap from flfth and fourth century BCE Athens into flrst century BCE Rome with only token references to Hellenistic and pre-Ciceronian Roman rhetorical theory. They make even fewer comments about the social and cultural forces that shaped their transmission and reception. This nearly nonexistent treatment of more than three hundred years of rhetorical history results less from the failure of the instructor to prepare the syllabus thoroughly than from the lack of comprehensive scholarship by researchers of classical rhetoric. Lacking adequate information about this transition, the introduction to Roman rhetoric offers little explanation about early Etruscan influences, the context and constraints for rhetoric to emerge at Rome, and the relationship between Greek and Roman rhetoric. Learning how Romans were exposed to Etruscan culture and Greek rhetoric-and their initial attitudes toward both Etruscan and Greek cultures-helps greatly to explain how Greek rhetoric was received and the impact it had on those Romans who fashioned their own rhetoric. Although we know somewhat more about how Romans later supported and sustained Greek rhetoric, our knowledge is limited to influential patrons. The purpose of this book is to erase the void between Greek and Roman rhetoric by providing a context so that rhetorical theory and practice in ancient Rome can be better understood. At the time when some of Rome's most important orations were being delivered, at the time when some of the most important treatises on Roman rhetoric were being composed, and at a time when some of her greatest literature was being written, Rome was in turmoil. Decades of civil war, violent political clashes, and proscription death lists were the result of opportunistic and ambitious dynasts attempting to seize power. Socially, the gains brought about by successful military campaigns extended Rome's Empire, increased its armies, and nurxv
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tured the rise of a merchant-oriented middle class intent on seizing commercial opportunities. Such sweeping changes cut across every aspect of Roman society. Captivated by the rise and fall of political institutions and the clash of mighty armies, we are tempted to overlook other, less evident forces at work. This volume is an effort to demonstrate the important role that rhetoric played in the transformations of Roman society from Republic to Empire. Through an examination of this important period, we will better understand rhetoric at work, a force we now understand only dimly. For students of the history of rhetoric, such an understanding is essential, for rhetorical theory devoid of context is not only incomplete but insensitive to the elements that shaped it. The study of Roman history during this tumultuous period and the study of Roman rhetoric have persisted in an estranged, mutually limiting autonomy. Social and political forces helped shape the unique features of Roman rhetoric, particularly the modification of the Greek rhetoric from which it so clearly drew. Conversely, rhetoric contributed to social and political change. A work that integrates the endemic relationship between Roman history and the history of rhetoric at Rome will provide a more complete and sensitive accounting than exclusively independent renderings. This volume thus serves the same function as its earlier companion volume, Greek Rhetoric Before Aristotk-situating rhetoric within its cultural context. In the final section of the preface, I would like to underscore the last point and, in doing so, the scope and intent of Roman Rhetoric: Revolution and the Greek Influence. 1 will first commit the cardinal sin of authorship and describe the nature of this book by explaining what it does not do. This is not a book about how Greek rhetoric grew and evolved as a discipline unto itself within the historical periods of the Roman Republic and Empire. That is, it is not a volume about the evolution of the later Greek enlightenment of classical rhetoric called the Second Sophistic, although the impact of that phenomenon on Roman rhetoric will be discussed. Similarly, the dominant strains of Greek rhetoric that existed in the East during the later Roman Republic and early Empire, such as Asianism and Atticism, are discussed when they bear directly on Roman views. Important rhetorical concepts, such as Greek stasis and its Latin equivalents constitutio and status, are discussed only by their limited use in Roman declamation and not by what Romans such as Cicero had to say in specific theoretical works.
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The same general approach is applied to prominent Greek thinkers of rhetoric and philosophy, who had much to say about theory and criticism but do not fit centrally with the explanation of rhetoric as a force in Roman society and culture beyond selected intellectual circles. What contribution, then, does Roman Rhetoric: Revolution and the Greek Influence hope to make to its readers? All of the important topics of Greek rhetoric mentioned in the preceding paragraph are normally, and rightly, discussed as topics within the history of rhetoric itself, that is, the scholarly accounting of theoretical and critical contributions that mark the discipline. This volume emphasizes the social and cultural environment within which those activities took place in order to provide a better understanding of their context. This volume's task is to help readers "situate" rhetoric within Roman society during a very important period in her history: a period of enormous transition. Rhetoric was recognized by Romans as a source of power and used in a variety of ways ranging from political control to intellectual refinement. Understanding the Roman interest in rhetoric as a source for oral argument, for example, helps to explain its role in legal training and the courts during the Republic. Rhetoric as a subject that supplied the training and intellectual material for wisdom and eloquence helps to explain the Roman patronage of Greek sophists that nurtured the Second Sophistic. Readers will find the bibliography a welcome source for further study of the specific concepts, issues, individuals, and theories of Greek rhetoric. The text of this book should help prepare them not only for that reading but, of course, to understand the particular characterizations, adaptations, and departures that Romans made in fashioning their own rhetoric. George Kennedy closed the final chapter of his 1963 volume, The Art of Persuasionin Greece,with the following remark: By the first century it was already evident that rhetorical studies were as much at home in Rome as in Athens and that conditions of Roman oratory, the attitudes of Roman students, and the problems of adapting Greek rhetoric to the Latin language were the most potent factors in contemporary rhetoric. Thus the limit of this book has been reached. (336) Kennedy's 1972 volume, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, does an excellent job of discussing later sophists and Greek rhetori-
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ciaos of the Empire. His 1983 volume, GreekRhetoricUnderChristian Emperors,does a masterful job of following the internal development of the subject in the later Empire. None of these volumes concentrates on the social and cultural "factors" that conditioned the acceptance of rhetorical concepts into the Roman world. This volume seeks to bridge Greek and Roman rhetoric by explaining those forces that influenced, and were influenced by, rhetoric in this period of social and intellectual revolution.
Roman Rhetoric
1 Etruscan
Influences on the Development of Roman Rhetoric and Literature
"/ have it on goodauthoritythat at that time Roman boyscommonly wereinstructedin Etruscanliteratureas theyare now in Greek. ... " -Livy 9.36.3 "Though they [the Etruscans] almost certainly had a literature of their own, it is now lost. The folded linen on which their books were first written fell to dust long ago, and more important, the works ceased to be copied when the language died. The lack of texts makes it all but impossible to hear the Etruscans' own voices; instead, historians must make do with the accounts of their contemporaries, the Greeks and Romans" (Brown 16-17).
INTRODUCTION
The two quotations that serve as the headnote to this study-one an ancient source the other a modern one-succinctly but poignantly capture the mystery and importance of the Etruscan people. The Roman historian Livy assumes that his Roman readers already realized their indebtedness to Etruscan culture and writing. The editor of our popular Time-Life Lost Civilizations Series, Etruscans:Italy'sLoversof Life, laments the "fact" that understanding the specifics of this literary and (we will claim here) rhetorical indebtedness is all but impossible to 3
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Richard Leo Enos
retrieve. Rather than despair at the remarks of our modern scholar, we should focus on Livy's remarks and see in his account a glimmer of hope in realizing Roman's indebtedness of her Etruscan predecessor. By reconstructing everything we know about the Etruscans from their Greek and Roman contemporaries-including the limited remains of their literature and their rhetoric-we may be able to better understand the Etruscans themselves and, eventually, understand them from their own (albeit indirect) voice. The route to understanding the impact of the Etruscan culture on the development of Roman rhetoric travels through their better-known Greek and Roman contemporaries. This chapter argues that we must begin to recognize the possibility of an unchronicled but nonetheless unmistakable non-Hellenic prehistory to Roman rhetoric. The influence of Etruscan civilization on Roman culture-pervasive and enduring in so many facets of Roman social life-contributed to the shaping of Roman literature and rhetoric. Making the case for this influence hopefully will induce others to continue to explore this line of research. OVERVIEW
Three cultures dominated ancient Italy: Roman, Greek, and Etruscan. Roman culture, the foremost and most well established of these three cultures, was greatly influenced by the last two. Greek colonization of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) established Hellenic culture in Italy well before Rome grew to prominence, and the Greek presence strongly impacted Roman education and the arts. Similarly-albeit in the northern and central regions of Italy, principally between the Arno and Tiber Rivers-the Etruscan civilization flourished as one of the most powerful in Italy (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, RA 12.14.1) long before Rome attained her power. In fact, archaeologist and classicist Paul MacKendrick argues in The Mute Stone Speaks:The Story of Archaeologyin Italy that the Etruscans were "the greatest people to dominate the Italian peninsula before the Romans" (37). Although, as MacKendrick asserts, "written Etruscan, with no known affinities, is still largely undeciphered," the monumental gains of modern, scientific archaeology in the last several decades provides a rich portrait of Etruscan culture's impact, particularly on Rome (36). For a period of over 300 years, the Etruscan civilization dominated central Italy, extending its presence to the Alps in the north and to the south only nine miles from Rome. Even early Rome came under Etruscan rule, a
Etruscan Influences on the Development of Roman Rhetoric and Literature
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Richard Leo Enos
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condition that lasted over one hundred years (616-509 BCE). In fact, it was with the overthrow of Rome's last Etruscan king, Tarquinius Superbus, that Rome marked the establishment of her Republic, vowing never again to be ruled by any king, Roman or otherwise. Yet, despite Rome's revolution from Etruscan rule, much of what we consider to be "Roman" today is derived directly from Rome's exposure to Etruscan civilization, including the development of Roman literature and rhetoric. We normally understand Roman rhetoric as evolving from Greek rhetoric and eventually developing her own Latin-based identity. Certainly the rhetorical treatises of both Cicero and Quintilian (e.g. De lnvmtione, De Oratore, and lnstitutio Oratoria) constantly refer to Greek antecedents. From this perspective, Athenian rhetoric is presented as the exclusive influence on the development of Roman rhetoric. Because of our knowledge of Greek and Latin, and because of their well-chronicled literate cultures, we know a substantial amount about the relationships and impact that Greek culture had on Rome, especially the direct influence that Greek rhetoric had on the developing and shaping of Roman rhetoric and her literary arts. While there is no doubt that Greek rhetoric influenced the development of Roman rhetoric, the Etruscans also influenced Roman rhetoric and literature, albeit in a less direct, but no lest influential route. Etruscan influence, moreover, did not end with the dawning of Rome's Republic, for Etruscan art, religion, and even language endured for centuries, eventually becoming absorbed and indistinguishable with Roman culture. Yet, despite the fact that we know that Etruscan influence shaped much of Roman culture, the depth of our knowledge about the impact of Etruscan civilization on Rome is limited. More specific to this study, the early impact of Etruscan literacy was an important factor in the reception of (Greek) rhetoric in Rome and the eventual development of a Latin rhetoric. THE CHALLENGES
OF THE ETRUSCAN LANGUAGE
As mentioned earlier, the constraints to understanding the influence of Etruscan culture on the reception and development of rhetoric in Rome are compounded by the fact that our knowledge of the Etruscan language is limited. Although we possess over 13,000 Etruscan inscriptions, the nature-and consequently the meaning-of the Etruscan language remains a mystery both to historians and philologists. Our
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limitations in the philology of Etruscan inhibit our knowledge of its rhetoric. Without an in-depth understanding of the nature and dynamics of the language, it is difficult not only to understand the meaning, but also the intentionality of composition; it is difficult, in other words, to grasp the rhetorical vectors of Etruscan. If we believe that it is only through this route that we can understand how Etruscan influenced Roman rhetoric and literature, then we seem to be at an impasse. Fortunately, that condition is not the case; in fact, by expanding our approach to Etruscan beyond philology, we can make advances in understanding Etruscan influences on Roman rhetoric and literature. In short, this effort is oriented toward a cultural-rather than linguistic-route toward understanding Etruscan influences on the origins of Roman rhetoric. Approaching the influences of languages through culture, particularly when linguistic features arc complex and obscure, is an established method in decipherment (e.g., Robinson 165). For the purposes of this work, such an orientation toward culture also provides a sensitive method for reconstruction evolving notions of rhetoric. While a comprehensive decipherment of Etruscan is still in our future, there is much about the general nature of the Etruscan language that contributes to a better understanding of their influence on Roman rhetoric and literature. The Etruscan language should be seen as one of the three dominant languages-next to Latin and Greek-in Italy's ancient history. Deciphering Etruscan is slow and difficult because its vocabulary is demonstrably different from Latin. Even when the Etruscan words arc transliterated they often do not have a Latin equivalent beyond the names of people and places. Of course, the mysterious Etruscan language both taunts and tantalizes us. Although we lack a thorough reading-knowledge of Etruscan, there is much that we can learn from other sources and other routes than philology. Romans and Greeks wrote about the Etruscans. The Emperor Claudius, for example, knew the Etruscan language as a scholar, took an Etruscan (Urgulanilla) as his first wife, and wrote volumes (Ty"tnika) about their history and culture (Suetonius Dt Vita Catsarum, Libtr V.Divus Claudius 42.2). Unfortunately, Claudius's works arc now lost, but there arc other scattered accounts from both Greek and Roman writers, and synthesizing these scattered sources will help us to re-construct the nature of Etruscan impact from these extant works. We will examine the evidence of Etruscan influence on Roman rhetoric and literature from two categories: indirect and direct sources of rhetoric.
Richard Leo Enos
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Etruscan alphabets by the appropriation of letters from the scripts of the Etruscan. We are fortunate because we have an invaluable Etruscan inscription that provides the listing and order of their alphabet. The "Rooster Vase" ofViterbo has a version of the Etruscan alphabet inscribed directly on the body of the pottery (Brown 23). Another invaluable inscription preserves a version of the schoolboy alphabet. From this unearthed evidence we can begin to interpret not only the meaning of Etruscan but also the impact that Etruscans had on the development of such later writing as Latin. Other forms of literacy more clearly reveal the impact ofErruscans on Roman literature and written rhetoric. There is reason to believe that Etruscans used their own alphabet to do mathematics, especially
Richard Leo Enos
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