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Virtus Et Oratio: Masculinity And Rhetoric In Early Imperial Rome, Bethany Nicole Good

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

In ancient Rome, an elite man had to have virtus, or manliness, to be considered a true man, a vir. Many factors determined whether a man was seen as having proper virtus or not. Rhetorical skill seems to have played a role in the construction of gender for men in early imperial Rome. My project explores the relationship between rhetoric and gender in this period of time. Textual analyses of works from the early Roman Empire provide evidence for how descriptions of speech were used to suggest whether a man had virtus or not. Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria offers …