Cicero vs. Cicero or Training Wheels vs. A 10-Speed

            De Inventione was written when Cicero was 20.  Just emerging past a student of rhetoric into a true rhetorician, De Inventione seems to become less of a new and exciting treatise into the heart and art of rhetoric than a recitation of his learning.  Not that it is not well-written, informative, and, yes, persuasive enough to make me think that De Inventione could easily be the Bible of rhetoric, but it fails as a true treatise compared to his De Oratore.  De Oratore is rife with experience and knowledge of true rhetoric, not just theory.  De Inventione can thus be seen as a bike with the training wheels on.  It will still get you where you need to go, certainly, but it just isn’t as mature looking.  De Inventione contains all the correct principles of rhetoric, just not as fully fleshed out.  De Oratore is the full bike, containing all the more subtle nuances of rhetoric.

This is De Inventione.  It's still a bike, but less
mature and functional.

De Inventione mentions most of the rudimentary, necessary parts of rhetoric.  It cites the importance of eloquence and proper arrangement.  It defines and elaborates on stasis, especially conjectural stasis.  It speaks of the branches of oratory (epideictic, judicial, deliberative).  It lists all 5 parts of arrangement and expands on them.  Yet all of the ideas he discusses seem extremely textbook-like.  He moves simply from idea to idea with analysis, but weak analysis.  For example, the idea that “a person's name can be used as an indication of his temperament” is intriguing but he does not truly delve into it.  Furthermore, he does not truly understand yet the deep need for learning, wisdom, decorum, or cultural understanding.  He mentions none of these extremely vital, but perhaps less “textbook” ideas in De Inventione, but does in De Oratore.

            

This is De Oratore.  It's pretty formidable.

De Oratore, though another treatise on rhetoric by the same man, could hardly be any more different from De Inventione.  For one thing, it is a fictional dialogue.  Having it in dialogue format allows Cicero, now an extremely important statesman, to take the focus of the paper off of himself and firmly onto rhetoric.  Furthermore, having characters like Crassus and Antonius discuss different ideas of rhetoric allows Cicero to address both sides of the rhetoric argument and flesh out both.  Although I would argue that because Cicero thinks that knowledge of law and culture is needed for oratory as well as eloquence, Cicero agrees more with Crassus than Antonius, Cicero allows his readers to think about rhetoric for themselves.  Furthermore, Oratore delves far deeper than Inventione into the nature of rhetoric rather than just the technical aspects.  He discusses the type of people needed to become rhetoricians (natural ability vs. practice is theme throughout), the education needed for orators, style, decorum, rhythm, and delivery.  Thus, Cicero casts off his textbook knowledge, his training wheels, and understands truly the human and cultural aspects of rhetoric, not just the technical aspects.

The Bald Truth: The Link Between Rome and my Balding Family

My grandparents and me on graduation night.  Look at
their glistening noggins!

My dad with his lovely baldness, again on graduation night.

My family has an unfortunate history of baldness.  Both my grandpas are bald, as are all of my uncles except one.  My dad shaved his head when he was 27 because he was balding far too much.  My brother (age 16) with his flowing locks estimates that his hair is far "over the hill" as it were.  Here is some lovely proof that my family are just a bunch of baldies.


Julius Caesar, the man himself, was also a baldy. In 1991, a team of tonsorial (which means of or relating to hair-dressing) anthropologists, using the handy methods of isotopes and electronic microscopy, created a computer-enhanced picture of Caesar's hairline.  Dr. Emmeline Granger, the project head at U.C Twentynine Palms said that she was shocked that Julius Caesar was so bald that "the total absence of follicle apertures...seemed more consistent with granite than with human scalp structure."  In fact, Julius might have worn his famous Laurel wreaths to cover his baldness.  Rather than use Rogaine, he also concocted a mixture of mice, horse teeth, bear grease, and deer to put on his head.  He also is credited to the pioneering of the ever-beautiful comb-over.  Who knew my family had so much in common with this great figure of Roman history?

Roman Mosaics and I

The ancient Romans, as they did with many things, took the skill of creating mosaics and made it their own. As far as we know mosaic has been around as a skill for about 4000 years, but the Greeks transformed the skill into an art form, and the Romans expanded upon it.

See a brief history of mosaic here: http://www.thejoyofshards.co.uk/history/

 

This is an ancient Roman mosaic.

Today many people do mosaic as a hobby, I will be one of them. I have done a lot of tile work with my family whenever we do tile in construction, and I've always enjoyed the process of examining a surface, smoothing out the adhesive evenly, and then carefully laying down the tiles in the most perfect way possible. When I have the time, the resources, and a house of my own that I can experiment on, I'm going to start creating mosaics. I think that they are so entrancing to look at, but when I get to the point where I can do mosaics as a hobby, I think I'll enjoy the process of creating them just as much as the final result. Perhaps one reason that the ancient Romans did and expanded upon so many things such with art, architecture, engineering, and so forth, because they too found some enjoyment in the process of refining and creating itself. Doesn't it just feel good to create stuff?

Sorry it's so huge, just wanted you to get the full effect. This is a contemporary mosaic at the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport.

R&R: Romans and Racing

2006 Lamborghini Diablo ~ 500+ Horsepower

For as long as I can remember I have been way into cars, especially fast cars. I had an amazing experience driving a 2006 Lamborghini Diablo on a closed course over this last summer. The thrill of the race itself is a very unique and exhilarating experience. Did the romans ever experience or seek after thrills similar to these?

           Although they didn't have "500 horses" pushing them around a track, the Romans had a passion for horse and chariot racing. Although most of these races were borrowed from the Greek institutions of them, the Romans really perfected and advanced chariot racing into what is seen in most modern movies today. 

Depiction of a very eventful chariot race