Trends in Imperial dialogue

Points of origin in classical long-form dialogue

For the authors of the later dialogues in which I am interested here, the works of Plato seem to constitute a common point of reference and ancestry. The dialogue form is inseparable from Plato’s project: the narrative structure of a conversation enacts the key Platonic principle of elenchus, the scrutiny of claims to authority (and so the ideas those claims are based on) for their true nature by way of a dialectic process.9 _Plato

uses the dialogue to great effect in various ways; in the widely popularSymposium, for example, the venue of a sympotic gathering provides a democratising but also compet- itive narrative context in which rival theories and ideas can be aired and articulated, each by a suitable character.10 Narrative events affect the course of the dialectic: the intrusion of Alcibiades, disrupting the flow of conversation and prompting a new ap- proach to the topic, later becomes a hallmark of the dialogue form, leading readers and critics to see, in any subsequent sympotic literature, a disruptive intruder as a kind of Alcibiades. Plato’s lengthy prose style — many dialogues consist of long passages of speech only briefly punctuated by agreement or questions — befits the seriousness of the subjects and the thoroughness with which Plato seeks to explore them. In some dialogues, such as thePhaedrus (a popular locus for assessing Plato’s own attitude to- ward the dialogue form), the narrative premise of a conversation illustrates the concept being examined. The layers of persuasive role-play as the interlocutors swap speeches force an inquiry into the sincerity and legitimacy of each persuasive approach; narrative elements in which characters recant their opinions or engage in dramatic flourishes add an essential focus to their speech.11 _{The flow of the conversation shifts unexpectedly}

9_{Frede 1992.}

10_{For a full accounting of how the dialogue form advances the arguments and ideas of the works in}

which it is used, McCabe 2006.

but aptly to a discussion of writing and the merits, for communication, of text and orality.12 _{The use of a conversation, which may change its focus organically, offers a}

different approach to exploring a concept than would a linear, structured treatise. As originator of the genre, then, Plato contributes to dialogue an approach in which form is integral to function. It is a form of especial self-awareness about its fictionality; on the one hand, it resembles closely a realistic activity — interpersonal conversation — often explicitly cast as emerging naturally from daily encounters, while on the other, its speech tends toward unrealistic length, and is carefully composed, involving the reader in dialogue with text as much as the characters within the text are in dialogue with each other.13 The dialogue form invites the reader with the accessible appearance of discourse, but its fundamental concepts require effort to extract.

In his philosophical dialogues, Cicero offers a clear example of an author self- consciously adapting the genre to his own purposes as he not only continues to make use of its dialectic function, but also fine-tunes the use of narrative elements to accentuate the dialogue’s argument. Setting becomes more precise and significant, yet all the more closely integrated into the discussion. In his De Oratore and De Republica, setting — both time and place — and characters are carefully chosen to lend weight to the discus- sion.14 The former work, on the question of what qualities an orator needs to contribute effectively to civic society, is set in 91 BCE on the eve of impending crisis (the Social War), inviting obvious connection to the crisis in which the state was at the time of the work’s publication. The historical figures who take part — L. Licinius Crassus, Q. Mucius Scaevola, M. Antonius, etc. — are carefully chosen for the ideas to which they give voice, and the dialogue form allows for reactions of either agreement, to underline points, or consternation, to offer sympathy with the reader’s possible reaction.15 _The

12_{Long 2008.} 13_{Gill 2002.}

14_{“The dramatic setting is not the frame — it is part of the picture.” (Zetzel 1995: 6)} 15_{May and Wisse 2001: 13-16.}

ideas the work aims generally to advance are staged, in the narrative, as the product of different disciplines in dialogue, through the use of experts in different fields. The course of the conversation also illustrates key values: so Antonius’s surprising reactions at the end of the Book One are revealed, in Book Two, as an example of controver- sial exercise, an important element of the Ciceronian programme.16 _{The De Republica}

shares many of these elements, also set at a crisis point, and indeed also on the eve of a character’s death (P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilius Africanus). Such dramatically loaded specificity emphasises not only the significance of the conversation’s contents, but loc- ates its ideas in a tradition of knowledge that connects their fictional past exploration directly to the present context in which Cicero wished to see them applied.17

Cicero’s sophisticated attitude toward dialogue is further illustrated by some dis- cussions in his correspondence of his authorial process, from which it emerges that although he sees his dialogic characters sometimes as vessels for his own ideas, he is primarily concerned that the part they play in the conversation be suitable and credible to the reader: that the fictional illusion, by which ideas are conveyed, not be broken. Plato is identified clearly as his touchstone here, offering an antecedent for the decorous departure of Scaevola from theDe Oratore.18 The dramatic setting of theDe Republica was a matter of uncertainty throughout its composition, with a friend arguing that setting it too far in the past would, by appearing too fictional, blunt Cicero’s inherent authority on the subject at hand.19 _{A tension thus exists, to which Cicero is closely}

attuned, between the conceptually productive dialectic form (and the added value of a carefully chosen setting), and the overt fictionality of the form. On other occasions he seems to allude to his characters as mere ciphers, which should remind us of the

16_{De Or. 1.262, 2.40; discussed May and Wisse 2001: 16-7.} 17_{Zetzel 1995: 5-6.}

18_{ad Att. 4.16.3: . . . sed feci idem quod in}

πολιτείᾳdeus ille noster Plato.

sophisticated attitude his readers would also have had toward dialogue:20 _{“But you}

know how it is with dialogues,” he tells Varro.21 _{One moment in the De Republica ac-}

centuates this self-awareness, looking back to Plato as well as forward to more playful imperial approaches: Cicero makes Scipio, at the beginning of the conversation, explain to Tubero that Plato, in his dialogues, blended Socratic style and wit with Pythagorean wisdom, effectively using the character of Socrates as a medium for his (Plato’s) own ideas (De Republica 1.16).22 _{In other words, the dialogic character is made to articulate}

the way in which authors of dialogues create and use their characters. The moment is existentially peculiar, highlighting the fictionality of the whole account and reminding the reader that an authorial argument lies behind the text.23 The point is underlined by the immediately subsequent arrival of Rutilius (1.17), whom Cicero credits with report- ing the rest of the dialogue to him. That Rutilius, the source of the conversation, was absent for the first few paragraphs of speech that Cicero reports is left as an amusing reminder to the reader of the fictional nature of the text.

Varro, did, of course, know how it was with dialogues, having composed not only his own satirical works, but also a tripartite antiquarian dialogue that set abstruse discussions of agricultural practice in heated moments of Roman civic and military life.24 Later, Tacitus would likewise set his own dialogic exploration of oratorical theory as an aside from the very tensions of social and political life with which the work grapples.25 But this phenomenon by which the narrative paraphernalia of a dialogue — its setting, cast, and plot — contribute more closely to the course of its dialectic exploration begins, at Rome, with Cicero. As narratives become more significant, intellectual process comes

20_{ad Fam. 7.32.2.}

21_{ad Fam. 9.8.1: Sed nosti morem dialogorum.} 22_{Cf Noctes 17.5.1.}

23_{Cf Plato Phaedo 59B10, discussed McCabe 2006: 41.}

24_{De Re Rustica the interlocutors of Book 1 await a companion who, it is revealed at the Book’s}

end, has been killed (1.69). See Green 1997 for a full political reading of the interplay between Book 3’s setting, characters and content.

more strongly to the fore.

Imperial innovation: Plutarch and Lucian

One of the most likely points of reference for Gellius’s own use of dialogic literature is the Quaestiones Conviviales (QC) of Plutarch, an author himself part of a major revival in Greek dialogue in the Imperial period.26 _{Gellius makes reference to the}

QC, and both by making him the first word of the Noctes and by way of his teacher Taurus puts Plutarch at the head of his own Greek intellectual lineage.27 _{The QC}

contributes much to Gellius’s own dialogic strategy: each of its nine books contains a series of miniaturised sympotic dialogues that flow organically from one topic to another, featuring named interlocutors who each represent a discipline or intellectual lifestyle as they explore various lines of inquiry. The narrative emphasises the ad-hoc nature of it all: the point is how the characters engage in discourse off the cuff.28 _{Each topic is dealt}

with swiftly, but firm conclusions are rarely reached. The narration is strongly veristic in its depiction of a friendly sympotic gathering: transitions between speakers and topics are carefully narrated, with characters laughing, pausing, or growing angry; this carefully described flow to the conversations directs the reader’s attention to the way in which each answer offered might be evaluated. The flow and tone of the conversation — along with the persistently democratic tone of the sympotic context — offer frequent opportunities for the reader to participate, either by evaluating an answer for himself or herself, or by adding one to the debate.29 _{Several brief examples from Book 9 of theQC}

will show the different ways that Plutarch’s miniaturised, carefully narrated dialogues emphasise an evaluative process; we will also see the tendency toward reflexiveness

26_{On theQC, inter al. K¨onig 2007, Klotz 2007, Klotz and Oikonomopoulou forthcoming.}

27_{1.1.1: Plutarchus. . . (Whiteley 1978: 101). 1.26.3: “. . . Plutarchus noster . . . ”. Rust 2009: 65-8}

and Klotz and Oikonomopoulou forthcoming: Conclusion. Cf 2.8, 2.9.

28_{K¨onig 2008: 88.} 29_{K¨onig 2008: 88-90.}

and a concern with authority figures that become important to Gellius’s own dialogic scenes.30

Book 9’s interest in disciplinary authority is signalled by the kind of symposium it relates: a party hosted by Plutarch’s teacher Ammonius, where the guests of honour are other teachers whose students have just competed at the festival of the Muses (736c). Ammonius has to keep close control on the conversation, given as teachers are to quarrelling (736e). The first topic of discussion is the apt use of quotation, followed by the inopportune use of quotation (736e-737c). The first gives the experts a chance to show off their knowledge by recalling stories about times other people showed off their knowledge; the second raises the spectre of showing off at the wrong time and so offending the powerful. The game they play is one the reader can infinitely add to: imagine any situation and any quotation which would be apt or not to it. And the flow of the conversation is humorously ironic, as the teachers first revel in and then encounter the risks of their particular kind of expertise: in the first story of inopportune quotation, it is a teacher who inappropriately displays his erudition.31

Ammonius takes a strong hand in guiding the conversation, enforcing interdiscip- linary exchanges that show off the tendencies of experts. So, when he has ordered the geometers and grammarians to interrogate one another (737D-E), a grammarian is asked why alpha is the first letter in the alphabet, and provides what is identified as a stock response (737E).32 _{Ammonius then puts Plutarch on the spot, and the ex-}

change between the two shows not only how an amateur might engage in such dialogue, but also how an individual negotiates his intellectual allegiances: Ammonius suggests Plutarch respond in one way, appealing to his place of origin, but Plutarch prefers to

30_{Oikonomopoulou forthcoming on the significance of Plutarch’s use of dialogic form.} 31 οἷον Πομπηίῳ Μάγνῳ φασὶν ἀπὸ τῆς μεγάλης ἐπανήκοντι στρατείας τὸν διδάσκαλον τῆς θυγατρὸς ἀπόδειξιν διδόντα βιβλίου κομισθέντος ἐνδοῦναι τῇ παιδὶ τοιαύτην ‘ἤλυθες ἐκ πολέμου· ὡς ὤφελες αὐτόθ΄ ὀλέσθαι.’ (737B) 32 ὁ δὲ τὴν ἐν ταῖς σχολαῖςλεγομένην ἀπέδωκε.

cite his own grandfather (738A-B).33 _{A similar pattern occurs later: when the question}

arises of why there are nine Muses, Herodes the rhetor offers some basic numerology, and Ammonius pokes fun at their conventional quality (744B).34 Herodes laughs, but has nothing to add: after a silence that invites the reader to do better, Herodes invites his other guests to do the same. Plutarch’s brother steps in, unbidden, and makes his own attempt (744C-F). The course of this conversation underscores the nature of the activity pursued in theQC and thus modelled for its reader: the interlocutors are not out to identify a correct explanation, but rather to sort through a large corpus of possible answers — some of them known to all participants — and, having identified a good one, to present it well, and so contribute something to the conversation.

Not only do the social dimensions of the symposium provide a formally balanced competitive space for such pursuits, in which the reader is invited to participate, but the role of the host as close controller of the course of conversation begins to reflect that of the work’s author. So Ammonius explores a possible answer to a question, and then demands immediate response from everyone (746B). And the narrative, scene-setting trappings of the dialogue provide guidance and reflection to its interlocutors. When the dancing begins, the learned guests speak at length on the topic of dance (747B f). The Book concludes with Ammonius lamenting that the learned no longer watch dance as they used to: although of course that is exactly what is happening (748B).

The speech of Plutarch’s interlocutors is rich in quotation, but the value of any given interlocutor’s response is equal parts what he says and how he says it (with what authority, in what context, etc.). The richness of quotation looks ahead perhaps to the form of Athenaeus, who pursues a similar form but far more densely, with far longer quotation and thus far more slippage from the dialogic mode into the bibliographical

33_{K¨onig forthcoming on Plutarch’s self-presentation in theQC.} 34

ἀνδρικῶς ταυτὶ διεμνημόνευσας· καὶ πρόσθες αὐτοῖς ἔτι τοσοῦτον . . .. Note the nod to the civilised- combat of the symposium. On thisquaestio (9.14), Klotz 2007: 660-666.

one.35 _{We might then understand Gellius — who breaks up his own rapid-fire dialogic}

scenes with specifically un-dialogic scenes of different bibliographical character — as pursuing an alternate path to that followed by Athenaeus.

More roughly contemporaneous with Gellius, Lucian was exploring the potential of a short dialogue to satirise an individual or mindset through the way that person’s character is revealed or changes over the course of the dialogue, often playfully engaging with the piece’s own fictionality.36 _{His short dialogue The Lie-lover is a satire on the}

desire to hear fabulous tales. It is a telescoping series of embedded narratives, over the course of which Tychiades, the author’s alter ego, witnesses but also becomes corrupted by the infectious nature of a fondness for fantasy which is the piece’s ultimate defining image (40). Lucian uses the dialogue form to illustrate this creeping infectiousness, as characters encourage each other in their storytelling. The satire is brought to its full effect by Tychiades and his friend Philocles being no less subject to the infection than the others — and the reader realising that he or she has also been exposed. Tychiades begins the piece by complaining to Philocles about “those men who put sheer useless lying far ahead of truth, liking the thing and whiling away their time at it without any valid excuse” (1).37 He explains, disgustedly, that he heard a respected man spinning many tall tales, at which Philocles eagerly demands to hear the tales himself (5). The eagerness of his response — “What were they, Tychiades, in the name of Hestia?” — reveals that he is not free of the fondness for lies.

This opens a new narrative frame; Tychiades’s account of his visit to the liar Eu- crates forms the bulk of the dialogue (6-29). The other guests at Eucrates’s house are philosophers and doctors, sharpening Lucian’s critique of their gullibility. The conver- 35_{See on this K¨onig 2008: 90-92’s discussion of Bakhtinian heteroglossia in this context. Cf Gunder-}

son 2009: 169: “All the scholars who have ever lived become characters who are available for walk-on roles in theNoctes.”

36_{On Lucian as an heir to Plato, Branham 1989: 67, and on Lucianic dialogue generally pp 61-123.} 37_{All trans Harmon 1936.}

sation circles around a pattern: someone tells a tall tale, Tychiades mocks it, and then another guest supports it with his own corroborating account of a similar experience. At the height of Eucrates’s story about a pit opened up into Hades by a monstrous Gorgon-woman, all save Tychiades are enraptured (23). The philosopher Ion goads Eucrates on by asking what he saw in the pit, supplying his own details: “. . . But did you not see Socrates himself and Plato among the dead?” Eucrates replies that he saw the former, but admits he did not see the latter — he wouldn’t lie to his friends about that (24)!38 _{Even one of his servants corroborates the tale. Tychiades is relieved by}

the arrival of a Pythagorean, thinking this man will stand up for reason, but the new arrival immediately reveals that he is enticed by the subject at hand: “As I came in, I overheard you, and it seemed to me that you were on the point of giving a fine turn to the conversation!” He, too, spins tall tales, and quickly offers verifying details to Eucrates’s version of the tale of the sorceror’s apprentice (34).

Tychiades is exhausted. Finally fleeing, he seems to have escaped, unconvinced by the various lie-lovers. But, like the final, ominous shot in a horror film, the brief