Oxford University Press, USA
Cicero, de Haruspicum Responsis: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary
Key Metrics
- Anthony Corbeill
- Oxford University Press, USA
- Hardcover
- 9780192868954
- -
- -
- History > Ancient - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
On this occasion the senators summon for assistance a group of Etruscan priests (haruspices). Herein lies an apparent paradox: the senate entrusts an elemental decision about divine attitudes to a group of foreign priests from the obscure culture of a long-conquered people. The haruspices duly produce from their books of Etruscan lore a cryptic response. This response--the only version of such a response surviving--became the subject of a speech delivered by Cicero's archnemesis Clodius, detailing how Cicero's return from exile prompted this disruption of the natural world. The next day, Cicero argues in De haruspicum responsis the opposite: in the presence of Clodius, he engages in a character assassination that corresponds with a close line-by-line reading of the response. Cicero teaches the senate how to read Clodius's guilt in the reaction of the natural world.
In addition to explicating rhetorical and syntactic features, this commentary details the interplay of Etruscan and Roman religious traditions. During a period of gang violence, arson, and murder, the haruspical response achieves what Cicero, Clodius, and the Roman senate could not have effected unaided: introduce into senatorial deliberations a seemingly objective assessment of divine intention. Through rational political debate, a peaceful natural world is restored, one that rests upon the logical analysis and rhetorical prowess of a Cicero.
Author Bio
Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics and Director of Undergraduate Studies. His research focuses in particular on Roman sexuality, education, and rhetoric. He is the author of Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic (Princeton, 1996); Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton, 2004); and Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome (Princeton, 2015), which received a 2016 Charles J.
Goodwin Award of Merit from the Society for Classical Studies. He is currently co-authoring a commentary on Cicero's De Haruspicum Responsis with Andrew Riggsby (University of Texas at Austin).
Research Interests
My research focuses on the cultural history of ancient Rome, a topic that I normally approach by beginning with a close examination of language and grammar. I
have published books on Roman humor and gesture, as well as on the significance of grammatical gender for ancient Latin grammarians and poets, and for an understanding of Roman religion.
I have also published on Roman literature and ancient sex / gender, and am currently writing a full-scale commentary on Cicero’s oration De haruspicum responsis with Andrew Riggsby (University of Texas, Austin).
Source: University of Virginia
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