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Ingo Gildenhard. Creative Eloquence: The Construction of Reality in Cicero's Speeches. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. viii. 454. $135.00. ISBN 978-0-19-929155-7.
Ingo Gildenhard is a scholar who does not shy away from tackling large, compli- cated questions. Already the author of an innovative study of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations,1 in Creative Eloquence he formulates a new way to read Cicero's oratorical corpus. Gildenhard's thesis is that what is distinctive about Cicero's speeches is how they advance constructions of the world that are, as he puts it (7), "highly idiosyncratic and frequently at variance with routine views, ap- proaches, and convictions in Roman public discourse." His project is one that distills philosophical positions from Cicero's oratory, using the whole of that corpus to explore how Cicero creates distinctive views on the human condi- tion, politics, even theology. This novel approach pivots away from conventional treatments of the speeches. Instead of culling from Cicero historical realities, Gildenhard highlights Cicero's own, often peculiar, constructions. Nor does he present us with Cicero as the pragmatic lawyer working within the legal proce- dures of the late republican courts to defend his clients. Instead, Gildenhard's rich, erudite, and detailed analysis scrutinizes Cicero as...