A brief Summary of the Dialogus de Oratoribus

A Brief Summary of the Dialogus de Oratoribus

The Dialogus de Oratoribus begins as a response to the repeated inquiries upon the state of modern oratory made by Lucius Fabius Iustus, the friend of Tacitus and Pliny typically identified as a consul suffectus for 102. The dialogue is divided into three pairs of speeches:

Aper I (oratory) – Maternus I (poetry)

Aper II (defense of modern orators) – Messalla I (attack on modern orators)

Messalla II (education and training) – Maternus II (lack of oratorical opportunities)
Tacitus describes to Fabius Iustus his arrival at the home of Curiatius Maternus, accompanied by his role models Iulius Secundus and Marcus Aper. Maternus has become the talk of the town after (it is rumored) offending the susceptibilities of the powerful (animos potentium offendisse) with the previous day’s recitation of his drama, the Cato. After Aper, Secundus, and Tacitus arrive, Secundus urges Maternus to revise his play to make it less offensive.

This interaction leads to the first pair of speeches (5.3-13.6), which offers a debate in favor of oratory, argued by Aper, and in favor of poetry, argued by Maternus. After discussing the practical benefits of oratory, Aper urges Maternus not to offend with his poetry, but rather to aid his friends and associates at the bar. Maternus in turn sings the praises of poetry while denigrating oratory. At this point, Vipstanus Messalla, the young Roman aristocrat of (exaggeratedly) conservative tastes, arrives upon the scene. His presence triggers the second set of speeches, on the question of modern (Aper) versus ancient oratory (Messalla). Aper refuses to believe the hackneyed argument that the ancients undoubtedly excel the moderns, and questions the meaning of the terms ‘new’ (novus) and ‘old’ (antiquus). Borrowing arguments from Cicero and Horace, Aper claims that Cicero is practically a contemporary and that rhetoric has undergone a continued process of refinement and improvement. After Aper’s speech, Maternus urges Messalla not to defend the ancients, but rather to discuss the causes for the difference between them and the moderns. Messalla agrees, but in his first speech (25.1-26.8), still responds briefly to Aper’s arguments. Messalla decries the effeminate and histrionic ways of the present day and chastises Aper for mentioning no moderns who compare with great figures of the past. Maternus interrupts Messalla and asks him to discuss the causes of oratory’s degeneration. Messalla, in his second speech (28-35) names the pedagogical and social causes: poor upbringing, education, and training. An unfortunate lacuna (gap in the text) at section 35 breaks off his speech, and section 36 resumes with Maternus’ second speech: the current political situation cannot produce great orators. The tranquility and order of the principate offer no opportunities for the practice of meaningful oratory. Great fame and tranquility are impossible bed-fellows. The work concludes as the interlocutors embrace each other and part ways, with a promise to continue the unresolved debate at a later time.