Laughter in Ancient Rome Read online

  CICERO ON THE (JOKING) ORATOR

  Cicero wrote On the Orator in the middle 50s BCE, shortly after his return from exile, when he was trying, with only limited success, to recover his power and influence in the city of Rome.34 Extending over three books, it is not primarily a rhetorical training manual with rules for budding speakers (though it includes plenty of nitty-gritty technical advice) but rather a more general consideration of the nature of the ideal orator and the skills (physical, intellectual, personal, moral, philosophical) that such a man requires. It was written against the background of long-standing debates, going back at least to fifth-century BCE Greece, on the morality of rhetoric (how far was effective persuasion necessarily deceptive?), its relations with philosophy and other forms of knowledge, whether rhetoric was a discipline that could be taught, and if so how.35

  Following the example of Plato—to whom there is a direct reference near the start of the first book—Cicero composed his treatise in the form of a discussion among a group of learned Roman “amateurs” in the art of oratory.36 Its dramatic date is 91 BCE, and its cast of characters is carefully chosen to match. The leading roles are taken by Lucius Licinius Crassus, at whose villa the discussion is set, and Marcus Antonius, both renowned orators of the period and mentors of the young Cicero. They are joined by other discussants, who are imagined to be present for all or part of the two days over which the debates take place. These include the much younger Gaius Aurelius Cotta (Cicero’s informant of the contents of the discussion, according to the dramatic fiction) and—to give him his full name—Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus (an indirect ancestor of Caesar the dictator), who takes the lead in the discussion of laughter.37

  Over the three books, the discussion covers a wide range of topics, from the power or harm of eloquence and the kind of knowledge a good orator needs (book 1) through the various means of oratorical persuasion (book 2) to issues of style and various forms of delivery (book 3). For the most part, the debate is fairly gentle. Although the Platonic literary and philosophical background is clear, this is not the kind of dialogue in which a Socrates-like figure uses his dazzling intellectual firepower and quick repartee to trounce the opposition and impose his own arguments on the assembled company, and readers. Here we find a much less aggressively antagonistic style of debate, with extended contributions by the main participants and less repartee (which may be what Cicero meant when he wrote in a letter that he had adopted the “Aristotelian mode” in On the Orator38). Where there are disagreements between the various characters (as on the question of the knowledge required by the ideal orator, in book 1), it is usually assumed, rightly or wrongly, that Cicero’s views are broadly those of the character of Crassus.39

  For a relatively hard-core work of ancient oratorical theory, On the Orator has recently attracted a surprising amount of attention from Roman historians and critics in general. There has been a lively interest in—among other things—its distinctively “Roman” character (notwithstanding its obvious and open debts to earlier Greek discussion), its relationship to the politics of the period (both that of its dramatic date and that of its composition), and its role in Cicero’s self-fashioning as a “new man,” as well as in the performative aspects of Roman oratory and masculinity. (It would, I suspect, come as a surprise to Cicero that his treatise has been discussed, at length, in the course of a chapter headed “Love.”)40 The discussion of the oratorical uses of laughter takes up more than seventy chapters (or around one-fifth) of book 2, toward the center of the whole work.41 Following an account of various other means of persuasion, largely fronted by Antonius, the words in this section are almost entirely given to the character of Julius Caesar Strabo—and are presented as light relief from what has been a rather lengthy exposition up to this point. As Antonius remarks, “I’m already worn out by the tough path my argument has taken and shall take a rest while Caesar is talking, as if I were in some convenient inn.”42 In tune with this, throughout the section we find laughter and a bit of banter among the participants.43

  Modern critics tend to mislead when they describe these chapters as a digression specifically on “humor” or “wit” or “Witz und Humor.” To be sure, those topics take a substantial part in the discussion, and they provide the link from the previous section, on how to appeal to the audience (“Attractive too, and often extremely effective, are jokes and witticisms”44). But when the character of Strabo (as I shall call him from now on) takes the floor in this debate, his principal subject is laughter, divided—as Strabo insists—into five subfields: (a) what laughter is, (b) where it comes from, (c) whether an orator should want to provoke (movere) laughter in his audience, (d) how far, and (e) what the different categories of “the laughable” (ridiculum) are.45 The first three subfields get only brief discussion. The final pair, especially the last one, are given much fuller treatment.

  As a piece of Ciceronian writing—which of course it is, despite some wild ideas that it was based on a treatise by Strabo—it is brave and innovative but occasionally, let’s be honest, can seem a bit muddled. Thanks to the careful analysis by Edwin Rabbie, no one any longer seriously imagines (as once they did) that it is little more than a scissors-and-paste job, merely regurgitating earlier discussions of laughter by Greek theorists, with a few Roman examples thrown in along the way.46 This is not, of course, to deny any engagement on Cicero’s part with the Greek rhetorical and philosophical tradition on laughter. Strabo explicitly refers to Greek books “on the laughable” (de ridiculis), which he claims to have read.47 And several observations, as well as some of the terminology used, appear to reflect an Aristotelian or at least a Peripatetic influence: from the first word of the section, where suavis (agreeable) is probably the equivalent of the Aristotelian hēdus, to the more general idea that the “locus . . . et regio quasi” (the field . . . and as it were the province) of the laughable lies in “what you might call the dishonorable or ugly,” which echoes what Aristotle says in the Poetics and was most likely one line that his followers took.48 The engagement is hardly surprising: almost anyone with any intellectual credentials who was trying to write about any ethical subject in the first century BCE would have been bound to think about what the Peripatetics had to say.49

  But more important, it is also an emphatically “Roman” work. Some of the crucial distinctions that Cicero draws (such as that between cavillatio and dicacitas—“wit spread throughout a speech” versus “individual barbs”) rely on characteristically Latin terminology and have, so far as we can tell, no direct precedent in Greek theorizing.50 All the examples that he gives of laughter and bons mots are drawn from Roman history and oratory (not just thrown in, they are integral to his argument and sometimes even seem to lead it51). Besides, when Strabo refers to earlier Greek works on “the laughable,” he does so not to follow their theories but to dismiss them: “I had rather hoped,” he says, “that I would be able to learn something from them . . . but those who tried to impart any systematic theory of the subject showed themselves so silly [insulsi, literally “lacking in salt”] that there was nothing else to laugh at in them but their silliness [insulsitas].”52

  In other words, what we have in this long discussion of oratorical laughter is a characteristically Roman cultural product: Roman practice and tradition, theorized by a Roman intellectual in dialogue with his Greek predecessors.

  THE ARGUMENT: STRUCTURE, SYSTEM, AND TERMINOLOGY

  The details of this lengthy argument on laughter are in places difficult to fathom, individual passages (and jokes) are opaque, and the text is frequently corrupt and inaccurate.53 All the same, the gist of the section is clear enough. After Antonius has handed over to Strabo to discuss the new topic (because he is so outstanding at iocus and facetiae), Strabo starts (218) by laying down a basic distinction: facetiae (wit) is divided between what the “ancients” (veteres54) called cavillatio (extended wit) and dicacitas (barbs). Neither of these forms of wit can be taught, he claims, as both depend on natural faci
lity, and he backs this up with a number of examples designed to show not only how useful such witticisms can be but also how impossible it would be to be trained in them. One of the most memorable (220) is a quick gibe (a case of dicacitas) made by Strabo’s half-brother, whose name, Catulus, literally means “Puppy.” He was challenged by his opponent in some courtroom, presumably in the course of a case of theft: “Why are you barking, Puppy Dog [Catule]?” “Because I see a thief” was Catulus’ instant retort.55

  Some general conversation among the participants follows (228)—including some banter about which of them is really best at joking. But they end up giving the floor back to Strabo and agreeing that even if laughter raising is not a discipline that can be taught as such, there are nevertheless some practical guidelines (observatio quaedam est) that he could discuss and explain. At this point (235), Strabo outlines his five questions about laughter (see p. 109). He briefly waves aside the first three. The problem of the nature of laughter itself he leaves to Democritus; even the supposed experts do not understand it, he claims. On the question of its origin, he pinpoints, without much explanation, “what you might call the dishonorable or ugly” (236). And third, yes, there are several reasons why an orator should try to raise a laugh: hilaritas brings goodwill, everyone is impressed by cleverness, it crushes or makes light of or deflects an opponent, it reveals the speaker as a refined and witty (urbanus) individual, and most of all, it relieves the austerity of a speech and gets rid of offensive suggestions that cannot easily be dealt with by reason.

  The next question—of how far an orator should use laughter—is treated at much greater length, over eleven chapters (237–47). Here Strabo issues a series of warnings about circumstances in which laughter is not appropriate (people do not laugh at serious wickedness or misery, for example) and about what kind of laughter raising is off limits for the orator. Particularly to be avoided is the laughter associated with the scurra or with the mime actor (mimus).56 And he gives a series of examples that point up the boundary between the acceptable and the unacceptable. Crassus, he explains (telling of an incident involving one of his fellow discussants), once raised a big laugh in a public gathering by a flagrant take-off of a very posh opponent—getting up and imitating his facial expression, his (presumably posh) accent, and even the pose he adopted in his statues (242).57 But Strabo stresses that this kind of display “has to be handled with the greatest of caution”: a hint of mimicry is perfectly allowable (so that a listener “may imagine more than he actually sees”), but too much is the mark of the mime actor. Crassus’ showmanship was dangerously marginal. Other golden rules include not to seize every opportunity that presents itself for raising a laugh, always to do so for a point (not simply for the sake of laughter itself), and not to seem to have prepared a joke in advance. He quotes a quip against a one-eyed man (“I’ll come and dine with you, because I see you’ve got space for one”). This was the joke of a scurra, because it was premeditated, it would have applied to all one-eyed men (not just its immediate target), and it was unprovoked (246).

  It is in the course of this section on how far an orator should exploit laughter that the character of Strabo first introduces the distinction between wit dicto (in verbal form: a joke that depends on the exact words in which it is told) and wit re (in substance: one that can be told differently and still prompt laughter). That contrast becomes the main organizing principle of the long final discussion (248–88), on the different categories of “the laughable.” Here Strabo reviews the main types of witticism under those two headings, including jokes from ambiguity, from the intrusion of the unexpected, from wordplay, from the inclusion of lines of verse (257–58—not a familiar modern category of the laughable), from words taken literally, from witty comparisons or images, from understatement, from irony, and so on. But throughout, warnings about the inappropriate use of laughter are again repeatedly voiced. In fact, near the start of this discussion on categories, there is a short digression (251–52) on the tactics for raising a laugh that, however effective they may be, the orator should avoid. These include clownish mimicry and silly walks, grimacing, and obscenity. The bottom line is that not everything that raises laughter (ridicula) is also witty (faceta), and it is wit that we look for in the ideal orator.

  This diversion on laughter comes to an end with Strabo running out of steam in his classification (“I feel I have rather overdone my division into categories”) and offering a perfunctory summing-up of what prompts laughter: disappointing expectations, ridiculing other people’s character, comparison with something more dishonorable, irony, saying rather silly things, or criticizing what is foolish. If you want to speak in a joking way (iocose), he finally insists, you must be naturally equipped for it and have a face to fit. Not a “funny” face, but quite the reverse. “The more severe and sterner a man’s expression, the more ‘salty’ [salsiora] his remarks are usually thought to be” (288–89). And on that cue, he hands back to Antonius to resume the tougher road of oratorical theory on more serious themes.

  There are all kinds of intriguing puzzles and problems in this discussion of laughter that go far beyond the precise sources for the arguments. As often in Cicero’s dialogues, the selection of characters has been one topic of interest. Why choose Strabo to front the discussion? There is no reason whatsoever to suppose that he had (as Arndt fondly fantasized) written a treatise on laughter, though Cicero does refer to him, here and elsewhere, as a noted wit.58 Maybe it was an attempt to offer a back-handed compliment to the increasingly powerful Julius Caesar, whose distant relative Strabo was.59 Or maybe the choice was rather less important than we might imagine. After all, just six years on from writing On the Orator, Cicero referred to this discussion in his letter to Volumnius Eutrapelus (see p. 105), mentioning the forms of wit “that I discussed through the character of Antonius in the second book of On the Orator.”60 Had he forgotten that this section was almost entirely voiced by Strabo? If so, maybe not much hung on this choice of character.61

  There has been even more debate about the overall structure of the argument and its precise terms. At the very start of Strabo’s intervention, he seems to be basing his argument on the division of facetiae into cavillatio and dicacitas, as the “ancients” called them—another nice instance, I would like to think, of the nostalgia characteristic of histories of laughter (see pp. 67–69). But shortly after that, when he restarts his exposition, the five basic questions about the orator’s use of laughter now become the structuring principle (with a subsidiary division of wit dicto and re). No amount of modern ingenuity has been able to make the first division compatible with the second, and most critics would now agree that the opposition between cavillatio and dicacitas simply gets shelved as the new fivefold structure of the argument takes its place. In fact, maybe part of Cicero’s (witty) point is to parade a shift in style over the course of Strabo’s intervention—from a classification that is explicitly said to be a something of a joke62 to a more intellectualizing, Hellenizing approach, never intended to be compatible with the other.

  It is not clear, either, how the division of facetiae into cavillatio and dicacitas in On the Orator relates to the ostensibly contradictory division laid out in Cicero’s later treatise The Orator (written in the mid-40s BCE), where he separates sales (witticisms) into facetiae and dicacitas.63 Did he change the words because (as Rabbie and others have guessed) cavillatio was beginning to take on its later sense (which cavil in English still retains), of “quibble”?64 Possibly, but the space of ten years seems a rather short time for any such linguistic shift to have been marked. In any case, that would still leave the problem of why the overarching term for wit (facetiae) in the earlier work was changed into one of its constituent parts in the later.65

  This raises the yet bigger question of the exact sense of the many and various terms for wit and joking that are found in On the Orator and elsewhere in Roman discussions of laughter. I confidently asserted in an earlier chapter (see p. 76) that it is imp
ossible to define precisely the differences between such words as sal, lepos, facetia, urbanitas, dictum, and so on—any more than we could explain the difference, if any, between a chuckle and a chortle. Was that being too pessimistic? After all, we could plausibly explain the difference between a chortle and a giggle. Does the discussion in On the Orator help us get closer to the differences and distinctions between these terms?

  Cicero certainly offers a range of semidefinitions and carefully stressed contrasts or parallels in this treatise: ridicula are not all faceta, for example, and frigida can be the opposite of salsa, while bona in the phrase bona dicta is more or less a synonym for salsa.66 This has raised the hopes of some scholars that a much more exact Roman typology of wit might be discerned, especially since it is clear that some of these terms (most notably urbanitas, with its whiff of urbanity in the modern sense) were becoming strongly ideologically loaded at the period Cicero when was writing—the catchwords or slogans of a particular style, whether of speech or of life.67 Articles and even whole books have been devoted to this question, but (revealing as they are) we still remain a long way from any authoritative framework of definitions. Of course we do. It is not that these words all meant exactly the same thing. But as the different usages (of facetiae, sal, dicacitas, and cavillatio) between On the Orator and The Orator have already suggested, the contrasts and collocations that gave them meaning were unstable, provisional, and heavily dependent on context—not to mention sometimes constructed with an eye to the contrasts and collocations of an equally unstable set of Greek terms.