Chapter 4 - Identity Parade

Summary

This chapter shows how declaimers (and sometimes audiences too) made use of declamation’s parade of characters with great creativity to claim and negotiate status and identity. The following examples are considered: Aristides' return to oratory after illness figured as Demosthenes returning to political life; the hesistant Heliodorus before Caracalla as Demosthenes before Philip; Megistias and Hippodromus sparring for status like warring magicians; the itinerant Alexander Clay-Plato as a nomadic Scythian; Polemo as Cynegirus and Callimachus at the Battle of Marathon, with the sophist's spectacular illness of the joints matching the grisly fates of the two heroes; and numerous other smaller examples. Finally, the ancient rhetorical concept of 'figured speech' is considered as a model for this sort of role-playing: it is argued that the major advantages are not so much literal safety as deniablity and greater impact.