The chapter endeavours to extend the search for politeness rituals in non-literary sources where some dialogue interaction is represented. Significant dialogic interaction is preserved in Roman juridical texts, a source hitherto neglected in studies of ancient politeness. Transcripts of political meetings, of magistrates’ and emperors’ hearings and, above all, of court sessions have been preserved both in papyrus documents and in medieval manuscripts; they enable scholars to widen their knowledge of the forms of linguistic interaction in court debate beyond the little that is known anecdotically about Roman advocacy, and also to observe the evolution of politeness formulae across time.

The role of third-party politeness, in the sense of (im)politeness that pertains not (primarily) to the face of the addressee but is aimed at the face of a third party, has not received much attention in politeness studies, but plays an important role in public interaction in the Late Roman Republic. Both in private letters, which often circulated in a wider circle, and in speeches we find courtesies to or critical remarks about ‘others’ that were clearly meant to be heard or read by the persons involved. As such, third-party politeness appears to have been one of the complicated ways in which the Roman elite maintained and shaped their social relations. After a brief discussion of the various forms of third-party politeness, three case studies, concerning Cicero’s relations with Vatinius, Appius and Dolabella, serve as a first exploration of the phenomenon. It turns out that third-party politeness can be used to fulfil the same interpersonal functions which were discussed by Hall (2009) with regard to addressee-oriented politeness, viz. affiliative politeness, politeness of respect and compensation for FTAs.

This chapter examines Varro’s depictions of teasing and banter in his dialogue De Re Rustica, with particular reference to issues of im/politeness. In many cases, this banter involves some kind of provocation of the addressee, and so risks being construed as impolite. In most instances, however, the witty phrasing conveys a playful intent, which ensures that the remark does not cause offence. The end result is usually heightened rapport among the participants. In several cases Varro’s teasing involves ‘collaborative’ banter, in which both participants contribute to the construction of a playful conceit. In other instances, however, the teasing quips are one-sided, with no response reported. In such cases the emphasis seems to be on the display of quick-witted inventiveness for its own sake. This energetic interaction differs from the highly conventionalized language of social negotiation typically used by the Roman elite. Indeed, it is significant that Cicero’s real-life epistolary relationship with Varro was marked by a degree of formality that eschewed the use of banter. In this respect, the right to tease was one extended only to a privileged sub-set of personal acquaintances

This chapter has two core aims: first, it argues that a ‘discursive’ approach to im/politeness, which foregrounds interactants’ own (emic) evaluations of the (in)appropriateness of language as they arise in discourse, is needed to properly capture the nuances of social interaction in Greek and Roman literature. Second, it seeks to demonstrate the utility of Conversation Analysis in approaching this emic perspective. The chapter sets out from various passages in Greek tragedy in which speakers explicitly comment on the inappropriateness of their interlocutors’ language (metapragmatic comments), and shows that such comments regularly coincide with disruptions of regular conversational sequencing. The chapter then offers an extensive analysis of the herald scene in Euripides’ Supplices, a passage rich in metapragmatic commentary. Theseus’ principal concern in that scene, it is argued, is the correct procedural conduct of inter-polis diplomacy, rather than any putative personal face wants. Accordingly, expressions traditionally interpreted as politeness formulae should in this scene be seen as procedural rather than face-oriented devices.

This chapter investigates impoliteness in subliterary texts, namely in bilingual teaching material for learning languages. It takes the Colloquium Harleianum, one of the conversation manuals in the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana (second to third century CE) as a corpus. The chapter studies both impoliteness forms and their evaluations from culture-internal speakers. The impoliteness forms, the metalanguage and the metapragmatic comments on the quarrel represented in this corpus are compared with quarrels represented in literary texts, mainly Roman Comedy (second to third century BCE) and the novel (second cetury CE). It relies on metapragmatic comments as the main entry to the emic evaluations of impoliteness forms and of offences present in the corpus. In this way, the chapter provides a diachronic perspective on ancient impoliteness in Latin by taking into account both literary and subliterary evidence. By dealing with teaching manuals, it provides a unique contribution on pragmatic competence for non-native speakers, and it offers insights on the etiquette norms for the elite, which is the perspective that the evidences in the corpus reflect.

The chapter focuses on the pragmatic valence of the parenthetical clause ut mihi (quidem) uidetur, a formulation which, by underscoring the subjective value of a statement, often conveys important interactional functions. A close survey of the use of this expression in Latin authors from Cicero to Augustinus highlights the essentially redressive value of the formula, which mainly acts as a mitigating hedge in stance taking, aimed at avoiding the negative effects of potential face-threatening acts and at managing self-presentation. Special attention is paid to Cicero’s usage of the formula as a refined conversational marker, through which the speaker showing modesty and awareness of others’ value reveals his superior moral and social standing. Hence, the chapter explores the role of speaker-oriented strategies of politeness in Rome, as part of an interactional style aimed at indexing a precise social identity.

Metapragmatic comments, that is, comments that reflect the understandings of speakers or lay observers regarding the ways and aims for which the language is used, are one of the main means of access to native ideas on im/politeness in corpus languages. This chapter analyses the metapragmatic comments on im/politeness that can be identified in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, as a mean to understand the Roman conceptions of im/politeness (that is, the emic perspective of this phenomenon), and the social and moral order underlying those conceptions. This approach facilitates a more detailed and integrated analysis of the speaker’s intentions and/or the interpretation of a particular utterance as polite (or impolite or overpolite) by the addressee, whether or not there are linguistic markers to indicate this intention.