{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.0372620494127177, 'fraction_numerical': 0.02713649250708789, 'mean_word_length': 4.894988066825776, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
A Review of: “The Roman World of Cicero's “De Oratore,” by Elaine Fantham”

Elaine Fantham’s The Roman World of Cicero’s ‘‘De Oratore’’ will be of much interest to those who research and teach the history of rhetoric because, even though De Oratore is no doubt a work often listed on history of rhetoric syllabi, Cicero’s perspective on rhetorical theory is most likely subordinated to the theories found in Plato’s Gorgias, Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric, and Isocrates’s rhetorical works, Against the Sophists and Antidosis. Fantham’s insights in her new text urge us to consider giving De Oratore more attention. In the preface, Fantham announces four main goals: 1) to provoke more interest in Cicero’s ideal orator; 2) to show how the social crisis of our 1990s parallels the crises during Cicero’s era; 3) to explain why Cicero failed in a failing form of government and 4) to suggest that De Oratore can help us communicate in new ways in the modern world. In this last goal, Fantham may mean something about using new media (such as cyberspace) or communicating effectively in a global society. Although Fantham leaves behind her second and fourth goals, she succeeds in promoting interest in De Oratore and in illuminating the disastrous breakdown of Roman society that occurred between the time of Lucius Lucinius Crassus and the time of Cicero himself. Fantham’s ultimate goal is enough for one book: to illuminate the political climate of the Roman world—from the fictionalized time of the dialogue (September 91 BC) to the time when Cicero finished the dialogue (55 BC). By exploring the political climate of this period, Fantham offers much needed background of De Oratore to readers. This background information is one of the book’s most valuable features, for most prefaces to De Oratore are limited to a few pages, most of which are found in E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham’s translation of De Oratore, a few more pages in J. S. Watson’s famous translation, and a newer and suppler introduction (but hardly adequate given the scope of De Oratore) in Jakob Wisse and James M. May’s 2003 translation. Fantham’s first four chapters provide background to Cicero’s own career, the careers of the two main characters (Crassus and Antonius), the construction of the dialogue and, finally, Cicero’s design of the Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 36:123–127, 2006 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0021-8464 print=1545-5823 online DOI: 10.1080/02773940500403678