Development and Decline: Perspectives on Oratory in Early Imperial Rome

John Falter

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Rohrbacher, David

Keywords

Oratory, Rhetoric, Imperial Rome

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

This thesis uses Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory, Tacitus' Dialogue about Orators, and Petronius' Satyrica to explore the topic of oratorical decline in early imperial Rome. Two opposing opinions on the topic recur throughout these texts, a traditionalist one that believes that the socio-political conditions of the empire have caused oratory to stagnate, and a modernist one that favors the oratory of the empire. This thesis attempts to demonstrate that the debate between the modernist and traditionalist opinions is entrenched in the broader social and cultural context of the early imperial period, correlating with issues of education, social class, and more.

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