THE LIFE OF THE ORATOR
Rhetorical training and practice shaped the lives of free male citizens throughout the long history of Greek and Roman antiquity. Rhetoric became the focus of anxieties concerning status, gender and identity, even as it provided a means of upward mobility for ambitious youth. The famous, if tragic, careers of Demosthenes at Athens and Cicero at Rome provided inspiration for generations of everyday students and practitioners. In the present section, we consider three stages of the life of the orator.
First is education in grammar school, that is, training preparatory to immersion in the system of rhetoric. In offering advice on the proper conduct of such education, Quintilian gives us precious insight into the workings of such schools, their intended outcomes and the expectations placed on children whose talents were varied.
Second is Cicero’s brief review of his own career as an advocate in the Roman courts, especially his rivalry with the slightly older (and recently deceased) orator Quintus Hortensius. Cicero’s discussion in his dialogue called Brutus comes near the end of a long review of the roster of Roman orators from early times to the end of the republic. It is both a eulogy and a call to action for the next generation to revive the Roman tradition of free, vigorous debate.
The third selection consists of three brief biographies of imperial-era sophists and rhetoricians. Although rhetoric maintained its function in the courtroom and civic debate, it also became a means for the display of brilliance and wit, often in the context of entertainment. The three speakers and intellectuals described here by the Greek biographer Philostratus illustrate the range of activities in which successful students of rhetoric might engage and the extraordinary financial, social and political rewards they occasionally reaped.