That Tyrant, Persuasion: How Rhetoric Shaped the Roman World

by J. E. Lendon

Overview

How rhetorical training influenced deeds as well as words in the Roman Empire

The assassins of Julius Caesar cried out that they had killed a tyrant, and days later their colleagues in the Senate proposed rewards for this act of tyrannicide. The killers and their supporters spoke as if they were following a well-known script. They were. Their education was chiefly in rhetoric and as boys they would all have heard and given speeches on a ubiquitous set of themes—including one asserting that “he who kills a tyrant shall receive a reward from the city.” In That Tyrant, Persuasion, J. E. Lendon explores how rhetorical education in the Roman world influenced not only the words of literature but also momentous deeds: the killing of Julius Caesar, what civic buildings and monuments were built, what laws were made, and, ultimately, how the empire itself should be run.

Presenting a new account of Roman rhetorical education and its surprising practical consequences, That Tyrant, Persuasion shows how rhetoric created a grandiose imaginary world for the Roman ruling elite—and how they struggled to force the real world to conform to it. Without rhetorical education, the Roman world would have been unimaginably different.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691221007
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2022
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

J. E. Lendon is Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Song of Wrath: The Peloponnesian War Begins; Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity; and Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvii

Section I The Strange World of Education in the Roman Empire 1

1 Education in the Roman Empire 3

2 The Social and Historical Significance of Rhetorical Education 14

Section II Killing Julius Caesar as the Tyrant of Rhetoric 27

3 The Carrion Men 29

4 Puzzles about the Conspiracy 37

5 Who Was Thinking Rhetorically? 51

Section III Rhetoric's Curious Children: Building in the Cities of the Roman Empire 65

6 Monumental Nymphaea 67

7 City Walls, Colonnaded Streets, and the Rhetorical Calculus of Civic Merit 88

Section IV Lizarding, and Other Adventures in Declamation and Roman Law 107

8 Rhetoric and Roman Law 111

9 The Attractions of Declamatory Law 119

10 Legal Puzzles, Familiar Laws, and Laws of Rhetoric Rejected by Roman Law 132

Conclusion: Rhetoric, Maker of Worlds 148

Notes 157

Abbreviations of Some Modern Works 229

Works Cited 231

Index 287

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This is an original and significant book with a seemingly effortless combination of knowledge and readability. Arguing that the rhetorical education of the ancient Roman elite had a pervasive influence on their actions, That Tyrant, Persuasion treats readers to thought-provoking accounts of Roman monuments, Roman law, and even the murder of Julius Caesar.”—Henriette van der Blom, University of Birmingham

“Lendon guides us once again into the deepest recesses of the Roman elite mind, revealing a set of springs and gears that caused the real world to tick; but this was a movement that had been flawlessly regulated by the professor of rhetoric. No wonder, then, that a flesh-and-blood dictator, Julius Caesar, was handled just like all the fantastical tyrants whom Brutus and his companions had spent their school days dutifully and heroically eliminating. This book is a must-read for all who want to understand why a Roman aristocrat thought, said, and, ultimately, did what he did.”—Michael Peachin, New York University

Editorial Reviews

"A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year"

From the Publisher