Cicero, the causa Curiana, and the Origins of Competitive Oratory

A pioneering discussion of Cicero’s case of Curius and its impact on longstanding debates about the “politics” of the Roman republican courts.

In his De Oratore and Brutus, the orator and statesman Cicero introduces a trial involving a contested will, dating from his youth, that he calls the causa Curiana, or “case of Curius.” The orators advocating for the two litigants, Cicero says, employed contrasting approaches: one spoke plainly, focused on instructing the jury, and lost; the other spoke grandly, aimed at stirring the jury’s emotions, and won. In this new study Matthew Roller examines the case and its context, addressing how Cicero presents the contrasting approaches of the orators. Roller explores the parallels between the causa Curiana and Cicero's competition with contemporary rival orators, the ‘Atticists’. The book shows how the causa Curiana gives us the (mythic) origin story in which Cicero’s “copious” style emerged triumphant over a plainer alternative, implying that it will triumph again. Through this, Roller explores how this trial’s oratory supports Cicero’s position in his political struggle with Caesar, and the Romans in their cultural rivalry with the Greeks.