Chapter 4 - Gods, Change and Civic Space in Late Republican Oratory

Summary

This chapter explores some of the claims that were made about divinities in public oratory in Rome in the late-second and first centuries BCE in the context of broader responses to change in those years. It focusses principally on Mars and Venus, deities whose place in the civic fabric grew denser in these years, contending that they featured in public oratory in ways that allowed speakers to make a stand against perceived changes. The argument is not that such a capacity was limited to gods, but rather that their connections to other entities (Rome, myths, legions, temples, statues) made them particularly resonant, given that Roman oratory and ‘religion’ both connect words, objects and actions to a significance that lies beyond themselves, by triggering ideas and associations. Oratory explored in the chapter includes Metellus Numicidus’ address about marriage, the claim about Venus Palatina by M. Iunius Brutus that was possibly deployed in the trial of a Planc(i)us in the early 1st century BCE, Cicero’s allegations about Clodia’s statue of Venus in the pro Caelio, and about Mars in the pro Marcello and in particular his claims about the legio Martia in the Philippicae.