The rhetorical use of the concept of Gloria in Cicero's correspondence (50-43 BC)

• Grant number: 19/03541-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: April 11, 2019
• End date: July 09, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Adriano Scatolin
• Grantee: Adriano Scatolin
• Host Investigator: Ermanno Malaspina
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Università degli Studi di Torino (UNITO), Italy

Abstract

In his De officiis, Cicero reconfigures the concept of gloria in the Roman context, moving it from the traditional view transmitted by the mos maiorum to a more philosophical notion, according to which the utile must be connected to the honestum and iustitia. The treatise, appropriately called by Long “Cicero's political testament” and his true “Republic”, offers the conceptual key for the understanding of Cicero's political activity from the civil war until his death, as well as of his speeches and writings of the time. In my research, I have been dedicating myself to the analysis of such conceptual reconfiguration in Ciceronian oratory, particular in the Caesarian speeches and the Philippics. My aim, in this research project, is to investigate the consequences of such reconfiguration in the domain of Cicero's correspondence from the period 50-43 BC, a period which covers the political discord which preceded the outbreak of the conflict between Caesar and Pompey, the civil war itself, Caesar's dictatorship and the post Ides of March years.