The Rhetorical Analysis Of Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was both an attorney and politician in the Roman Empire, eventually achieving such positions as a consulship and membership in the Roman Senate. During his lifetime, Cicero wrote many speeches and books, with most of them surviving antiquity. Much of his writing encompass the basics and rules of rhetoric, a type of speech. Rhetoric was and is a form of art wherein a speaker uses many different methods in order to both inform and persuade the reader or listener to his or her point of view. Rhetoric was an important stylistic form, and much of the time it was used in forms that we have records of, for example, speeches in the courts of law. The persuasive speech of rhetoric includes five parts, with one of these parts being …show more content…
Further in this section of the speech, Cicero uses that in sown doubt in order to give the plaintiff a “chance” to prove that he is indeed correct in the issue by telling the court that he would agree with a decision made in the favor of Caius Fannius, if only he were to produce that evidence that would prove him right . From the wording of his statement, one can assume that Cicero may have even used his tone or inflection to sow more doubt into the crowd so that even they would believe that Fannius did not have any evidence that would validate his …show more content…
One such use of this, “Oh, in the name of good faith, of gods, and men!” may have been in both an act of supplication and an expression of dismay and frustration, similar to the modern use of “oh my God. ” This phrase would have made the crowd think that Cicero was serious about what he was talking of, in this case, why would a rich man want to steal and keep money he could easily make, along with using, “dishonesty, and wickedness and treachery.” Further use of this supplicant dismay is farther in the speech, near the end. Cicero wonders whether Roscius would have used treachery on a trial and would use Cluvius as an accessory in the crime even if more money were involved, and opens this statement with, “Oh, the faith of gods and men! ” As mentioned, this phrase issues in a sense of religion with the case, and Cicero’s use of the phrase—as well as, perhaps, a pleading voice—would have caught the attention of the people of the court because his use of the conceivably blasphemous phrase would have told the listeners that Cicero thought the subject he was talking on was in no doubt very