A DOUBLE SERMOCINATIO AND A RESOLVED DILEMMA IN CICERO'S PRO PLANCIO

In the litigious world of ancient Rome patroni were often torn between conflicting bonds of loyalty, and this is the dilemma that Cicero laments in the exordium of the Pro Plancio (5). Both the prosecutor, Laterensis, and the accused, Plancius, were personal friends, and Cicero bemoans the quandary: either upsetting Laterensis by comparing him unfavourably with Plancius, or letting down his client. A second problem for Cicero was that the prosecution also took the opportunity to impugn him as the creature of Pompey and Caesar, so that Cicero had to defend himself as much as his client. Two examples of sermocinatio (an imaginary dialogue with a personified entity) helped him to face these challenges: these sermocinationes are Cicero's main strategy for getting out of the conundrum but, in spite of their relevance to his line of argument, they have received very little attention. In this article, after a brief historical contextualization, I analyse each sermocinatio, arguing that Cicero cunningly sets aside the dilemma of comparing two friends by constructing an alternative comparison between Laterensis and himself, and that such a comparison, which is highly selective, re-establishes his own positive public image. The two sermocinationes, moreover, also display some meaningful textual references which have remained unnoticed: in the final part of this paper I set them against the backdrop of Plato's Crito and of Cicero's letter to Lentulus (Fam. 1.9), arguing that the reference to the Crito supports Cicero's strategy of contrasting himself with Laterensis and that comparison with Fam. 1.9 illuminates the connection between the Pro Plancio and Cicero's broader post reditum self-defence.

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ZBRODNICZE ZAMIARY A ISTNIENIE OBRONY KONIECZNEJ W PRAWIE RZYMSKIM

Zeszyty Prawnicze ◽

10.21697/zp.2005.5.1.03 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 69

Author(s):

Elżbieta Loska

Keyword(s):

The Self ◽

Ancient Rome ◽

Abnormal State ◽

Subjective Element ◽

Self Defence

C r i m i n a l In t e n t a n d t h e Ex i s t e n c e o f Se l f D e f e n c e i n t h e Ro m a n La wSummaryIn ancient Rome, initially the sanctions for a m urder applied to its perpetrator regardless his motives. The liability resulting from lex Cornelia was also based rather on the result, viz., the objective element of the act. This was true when the perpetrator’s act led to the victim’s death. In other situations provided for in the act, the perpetrator was punished only when the intent of com m itting a crime was shown. Carrying weapons was allowed only to defend oneself.In the Hadrian’s rescript issued in order to regulate a murder com m itted during an affray, the emperor ordered the judges to carefully examine the circumstances and severely punish the perpetrator but only when he acted w ith an intent of a murder. It resulted from the content of the rescript that a person who killed a man, could be released if he had not acted with an intent of committing a crime whereas a person who wounded in order to kill was to be punished as a murderer. The result of a crime was less significant than the intent.Caesar Hadrian, however, did not go into the processes undergoing in the perpetrator’ psyche that drove him to commit a crime. Therefore a new element was taken into account, namely impetus. It related to the crimes com m itted under emotions. A crime committed under impetus resulted from an uncontrolled impulse caused by an abnormal state of the perpetrator’s psyche. It seems possible to ascribe the actions taken as a self-defence to this group.The constitutions of the subsequent emperors also ordered the judges to take into account the attitude of the perpetrator in examining cases of a m urder. The releases from liability are usually connected with an objective element of a crime. In the ancient sources a different approach, which stresses the existence of the subjective element, may be also traced. Relating the self-defence release with the existence of the animus occidendi seems therefore justified.

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Strategic functions of linguistic impoliteness in US primary election debates

Journal of Language and Politics ◽

10.1075/jlp.20041.sch ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christoph Schubert

Keyword(s):

Verbal Aggression ◽

Public Image ◽

Election Campaigns ◽

The Public ◽

Primary Election ◽

Presidential Primary ◽

Political Discourse Analysis ◽

Negative Face ◽

Political Persuasion ◽

Self Defence

Abstract Since presidential primary debates in US election campaigns serve the function of identifying the most promising nominee for the subsequent presidency, they constitute a highly adversarial multilogue. Debaters do not only exchange factual arguments but also use diverse forms of impoliteness geared towards damaging the public image of political opponents and persuading audiences to vote accordingly. Combining political discourse analysis with pragmatic approaches to impoliteness, this paper examines the ways in which verbal aggression in debates inflicts damage on the addressee’s positive and negative face. On the basis of five Democratic and five Republican debates from 2016, it is shown that impolite utterances fulfil the four central strategic functions of (a) delegitimization, (b) coercion, (c) entertainment, and (d) (self-)defence, all of which support the macro-function of political persuasion through the construction of personal preferability.

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Napoleonic Legacies and the Reform Act of 1832

Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198833031.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 57-82

Author(s):

Laura Eastlake

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Political Discourse ◽

Public Image ◽

The Political ◽

Ancient Rome ◽

The Public ◽

Political Sphere ◽

National Values ◽

Outright Rejection ◽

Radical Republicanism

This chapter examines the use of ancient Rome for articulating national values, synthesizing the public image of statesmen, and constructing partisan ideologies in the nineteenth-century political sphere. If the schoolroom was a space in which boys were taught to wield the language and literatures of ancient Rome like weapons in defence of the boundaries of elite male culture, uses of Rome in the political sphere should fluctuate so dramatically between enthusiastic adoption and outright rejection over the course of the nineteenth century. It accounts for such uneasy receptions of ancient Rome in Victorian political discourse by setting them in the wider context of Anglo-French tensions. It suggests that French revolutionary and Napoleonic uses of Rome are crucial for explaining both the very direct engagement of British political commentators with the Roman past immediately after Waterloo, as they sought to detach Rome from associations of revolution, radical republicanism, and violent popular protest; and secondly, the abandonment of such strategies in the period leading up to the Reform Act of 1832, as the Roman parallel became contested and unstable.

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Restoration

Architectural Restoration and Heritage in Imperial Rome ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198848578.003.0002 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 39-81

Author(s):

Christopher Siwicki

Keyword(s):

Final Part ◽

Ancient Rome ◽

Public Buildings

This chapter opens by considering the functional and ideological reasons behind the rebuilding of structures in ancient Rome. It then moves into a discussion of agency in restoration, examining the extent to which it was the patrons, architects, or other individuals who were responsible for decisions regarding the designs of buildings. The final part of the chapter aims to show the prevailing Roman approach to the restoration of public buildings and sets out a key premise which informs the rest of the study. Briefly, this is that restoration was consistently carried out in an innovative manner, which involved designs being made grander, updated in line with contemporary architectural practices, and with no overt attempt made to purposefully preserve the former appearance of a building for historical reasons.

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Corporate Colonization of Blackness – The Representation of Blackness in the National Basketball Association from 1984 to 2005

New Horizons in English Studies ◽

10.17951/nh.2021.6.175-189 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

pp. 175-189

Author(s):

Till Neuhaus ◽

Niklas Thomas

Keyword(s):

Marketing Strategies ◽

Public Image ◽

Basketball Player ◽

Black Athletes ◽

Predominantly Black ◽

Black And White ◽

Black Bodies ◽

Historical Contextualization ◽

Racial Lines ◽

Corporate Colonization

In light of current social justice dynamics, this article examines marketing strategies employed by the NBA (and associated companies) to sell predominantly Black athletes to a chiefly White audience. Through historical contextualization and critical analysis, the NBA’s development from a non-profitable and scorned circus to a multi-faceted and multi-billion-dollar global attraction is explored. From the earliest league structures until the 1980s, a dichotomy between Black and White players (and the values/stigma they embodied) dominated the sport of Basketball. This however changed with the rise of Michael Jordan to fame. Jordan became the first basketball player who transcended these racial lines in terms of associated values and/or stigmas. Simultaneously, His Airness’ rise to global fame let the NBA’s popularity soared into astronomical spheres. A shiny Black Superhero was born, yet his public image is predominantly inspired by corporate considerations – a case of corporate colonization of Black bodies. Black players’ transgressions and the NBA’s reactions to those – as happened in the Malice in the Palace (2005) incident – highlight the conflicting lines along which the NBA constructs and presents its players with a clear tendency towards corporate colonization, a concept which will be outlined in the paper. Through critical historical reading of past corporate efforts, this article re- and deconstructs the strategic illustration of Black athletes.

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