History contains many accounts of speeches given by civic and military leaders before large crowds prior to the invention of electronic amplification. Historians have debated the historical accuracy ...of these accounts, often making some reference to acoustics, either supporting or refuting the accounts, but without any numerical justification. The field of digital humanities, and more specifically archaeoacoustics, seeks to use computational techniques to provide empirical data to improve historical analysis. Julius Caesar recalled giving speeches to 14,000 men after the battle of Dyrrachium and another to 22,000 men before the battle of Pharsalus during the Roman Civil War. Caesar’s background and education are discussed, including his training in rhetoric and oratory, which would have affected his articulation and effective sound pressure level while addressing his troops. Based on subjective reports about Caesar’s oratorical abilities, his effective Sound Pressure Level (SPL) is assumed to be 80 dBA, about 6 dB above the average loud speaking voice but lower than that of the loudest trained actors and singers. Simulations show that for reasonable background noise conditions Caesar could have been heard intelligibly by 14,000 soldiers in a quiet, controlled environment as in the speech at Dyrrachium. In contrast, even granting generous acoustic and geometric conditions, Caesar could not have been heard by more than about 700 soldiers while his army was on the march before the battle of Pharsalus.
This paper offers some ruminations on the place of rhetoric in modern legal education and some reflections on the undergraduate module The Art of Advocacy: Mooting and Forensic Rhetoric which the ...author devised and taught for the first time in 2016. The 'art' of advocacy is one which in practice works best when it is, or appears to be, most natural; just as the most convincing acting tends to be the most naturalistic. The relation of art to nature is a puzzle that has exercised rhetoricians since at least as far back as Cicero. Perhaps one solution lies in an appreciation of the relationship between practice and habit - the ideal being technically expert practice that becomes the advocate's second nature.
This book is a thorough examination and fresh interpretation of Shakespeare's presentation of the final throes of republican Rome's decay and demise and the rise of Caesarism. Speech by speech and ...line by line, it brings out Shakespeare's understanding of the political substance and the historical significance of republican Rome's collapse.
Making Roman Subjects EBERLE, LISA PILAR
TAPA (Society for Classical Studies),
10/2017, Letnik:
147, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Beginning with a semantic history of the term negotiator, this essay reconsiders Augustus's role in the history of Roman citizenship. It restores negotiator as a byword for how Roman officials in the ...Late Republic understood Romans in the provinces and argues that the term's connotations, combined with several Late Republican institutions, reveal a vision of these Romans as partaking in Roman imperialism. Several of Augustus's actions, including the development of a new language for understanding these Romans, promoted a new vision of the place of citizens in the empire, making them subjects of an empire which had previously been theirs.
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