Observations on the rhetorical device of feminisation in Ciceronian invective

Authors

  • María Emilia Cairo University of La Plata

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/2532-5353/10904

Abstract

In Cicero’s invective speeches, his adversaries are usually represented as “non-Romans” — that is, as individuals not belonging to the community—through the deployment of different rhetorical devices that isolate them and exclude them from the res publica. One such device is feminization. The attribution of traits, behaviours, and ways of dressing and speaking identified as typical of women contribute to the negative characterization of Verres, Catiline, Clodius, Mark Antony and Gabinius, and to their exclusion from the Roman prototype postulated by Cicero, i.e., that of the civis, a male citizen, competent, and of legal age who participates in public life.

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Author Biography

María Emilia Cairo, University of La Plata

María Emilia Cairo (emiliacairo@conicet.gov.ar) holds a PhD from National University of La Plata, Argentina. She is an associate professor at the same university, and she works as an associate researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet). She has published Dioses y hombres en la Eneida de Virgilio. Un estudio del discurso profético (2021) and several articles and book chapters on both Vergil’s and Cicero’s works.

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Published

2024-06-30

How to Cite

Cairo, M. E. (2024). Observations on the rhetorical device of feminisation in Ciceronian invective. Ciceroniana On Line, 8(1), 139–154. https://doi.org/10.13135/2532-5353/10904

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 1 (2024): CICERONIANA ON LINE 2023 VIII, 1

Section

Papers

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