Haec Templa: Religion in Cicero's Orations

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes a number of Cicero’s speeches to trace the development and the construction of Roman identity through reference to religious actions and institutions. It primarily focuses on the Verrine Orations, his Consular Speeches (including the Catilinarians), his return speeches (the Post Reditum in Senatu and Post Reditum ad Populum, and the De Domo Sua and De Haruspicum Responsis), and his Philippics. The project attempts to analyze the rhetorical salience of religious language in the speeches and how such language was used to praise allies or vilify rivals. Within the speeches, I argue, Cicero participated in a kind of religious negotiation with his audiences, presenting certain religious actions that should be rejected while others were to be praised. This kind of language unites his audiences around a coalescing Roman identity and against perceived violators of Roman religious tradition. My focus is on the ways in which Cicero used and also proposed religious notions in his speeches, no matter the social status of his audience, and considers how Cicero framed what it meant to be Roman, both for individuals and for new religious practices