Expert: Maria - 4/17/2006

Question
why were speaches so important in ancient rome?, I'm looking for any speeches from any emperors in the ancient times, could you please help, so that i can find its significant of the speaches in ancient rome.

Answer
Hello,

Formal speeches, also called orations, were so important in ancient Rome not only because the art of speaking ("Ars dicendi" in Latin) was needed to achieve a good education  in the years of boyhood, but also because great value was set on the fluent and polished use of the mother tongue, since oratory was greatly esteemed and moreover helped to acquire and have a certain prestige in the field of politics as well as in the civil society.

Oratory in fact, also named rhetoric, i.e. the art of public speaking, included both  technical instructions and  ethic authority as it had to be the art of composing as well as delivering a speech, in short  'the art of swaying an audience by eloquent speech'.

As for famous speeches, I can quote the one pronounced by Julius Caesar in 49 BC during the civil war against Pompey (see Caesar's Civil War, book 1, chapter 85).
Latin text at:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0075&lay...

English translation at:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0076;que...

Also there is a speech pronounced in 48 AD by the emperor Claudius, the third successor of Augustus.
This speech is reported by the historian Tacitus in his Annals, book 11, chapter 24, as you can see at : http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0077&lay...

English translation at:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=11...
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/tacitus-ann11a.html

Hope these few examples can be helpful to you.
Best,
Maria