moving on to other forms of divine testimony found in ancient speeches and treatises, it is appropriate to mention one other aspect which relates to oracles as forms of proof. Very often in ancient writings poets and other famous figures are cited and their words given the significance of oracles. For example, the Elder Seneca writes to his sons, who are aspiring orators, and urges them not to use their contemporaries as role models. He describes the younger generation thusly: “they are lazy, their intellects asleep; no-one can stay awake to take pains over a single honest pursuit. Sleep, torpor and a perseverance in evil that is more shameful than either have seized hold of their minds” (Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 1. pref. 8). He then cites Marcus Cato’s statement that “an orator, son Marcus, is a good man skilled in speaking” (Controversiae 1. pref. 9). But he prefaces this remark by stating:
That well-known saying of Cato was really an oracle . . . for surely an oracle is the divine will given human expression; and what high priest could the gods have found more holy than Marcus Cato, not so much to teach mankind as to scold it. (Controversiae 1. pref. 9)
In this passage, one notices that the Elder Seneca is citing a human authority (a widespread topos among the ancient rhetoricians), but also seeks to add significance to that authority through the claim that the source of the speaker’s words is the gods themselves. This is a common methodology that was often practiced in antiquity.170
Divine Testimony through Deeds and Other Means
Other forms of divine testimony (as described by Cicero in Top. 20.76–77) are found in ancient speeches and treatises as well. Quintilian, in mentioning divine testimony as a form of proof, cites Cicero’s speech against Catiline as an example.171 In this speech, which Cicero delivers to the people of Rome and not the Senate,172 Cicero describes to the people how he was able to thwart Catiline’s plot to take over the Republic. Cicero explains his ability to do so by attributing his success to the gods:
If I were to say that I foiled them [Catiline and his co-conspirators], I should be taking too much credit for myself—an intolerable presumption. It was Jupiter, the mighty Jupiter, who foiled them; it was Jupiter who secured the salvation of the Capitol. . . . The immortal gods have been my guides in my purpose and determination and have led me to this vital evidence. (Cat. 3.22)173
Even before action was taken, Cicero claims to have had foreknowledge from the gods of the situation. He emphatically states:
Even so, citizens, my conduct of this whole matter may be thought to display both foresight and action that depended upon the wisdom and the will of the immortal gods. We can make this assumption . . . because so closely have the gods stood by us at this time to bring us their help and assistance that we can almost see them with our eyes. Even if I do not mention those portents, the meteors that were seen in the west at night and lit up the sky, even if I leave out the thunderbolts and the earthquakes, even if I omit the other portents which have occurred so frequently in my consulship that the immortal gods seemed to be foretelling these events which are now coming to pass. (Cat. 3.18)174
Cicero, through this passage, builds up to the ultimate evidence of the involvement of the gods.
This evidence is described in the next passage. Cicero relates to the people how, in view of many portents similar to those described in the previous passage,175 the seers ordered that a more prominent statue of Jupiter be erected; the new statue, however, was to face east, rather than west (as was the case of the previous, smaller statue), in order that the portended plot to overthrow the Republic would become visible to the senate and the people. According to Cicero, there were many delays in actually erecting the statue, resulting in the statue being put in place that very morning, concurrent with the plot being made known and subsequently foiled (Cat. 3.20–21). Cicero considers this undeniable evidence of the gods’ favor and intercession.176
Another example of thunder and/or lightning being used as divine testimony is found in a discourse by Dio Chrysostom. The context of the discourse is that Dio is chiding the Alexandrians for their frivolity and lack of seriousness. Part of the issue, he explains, is that the Alexandrians welcome orators who “declaim speeches for display, and stupid ones to boot” (32.9). Dio himself, however, feels that he is addressing them “by the will of some deity [ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ δαιμονίον τινὸς γνώμης]” (32.12). He strengthens this statement by adding,
For when divine providence is at work for men, the gods provide, not only good counselors who need no urging, but also words that are appropriate and profitable to the listener. And this statement of mine should be questioned least of all by you, since here in Alexandria the deity is most in honour, and to you especially does he display his power through almost daily oracles and dreams. (32.12)
Dio thus establishes his authority through divine testimony. First, he tells his leaders that if he is indeed speaking on the behest of the god, his words will be “appropriate and profitable” for his hearers. Second, he reminds his readers that the god who has commanded him to speak is the same one who speaks to the Alexandrians on a regular basis through oracles and dreams.
Later, in the speech, Dio is rebuking his auditors for their conduct at the chariot races in the stadium. According to Dio, the crowds’ excitement and subsequent behavior is completely inappropriate. As proof of the inappropriateness of their behavior, Dio first quotes a passage from the Iliad, which describes a race during which the crowds stood by and watched in silence (32.79–80; cf. Il. 23.368–72, 448). He then reminds the auditors that Ajax “behaved in rather unseemly fashion as a spectator by abusing Idomeneus with reference to the horses of Eumelus” (32.80). Dio goes on to say that Ajax “also was guilty of impiety toward Athena at the capture of Troy and on that account was himself smitten with a thunderbolt [κεραυνωθεὶς] and thereby caused the storm and shipwreck that befell them all” (32.80). Through the citation of Homer, which is used as an example of divine testimony, Dio provides supporting evidence of the people’s need to change their behavior.177
An example of divine testimony through dreams is found in Cicero’s philosophical treatise Laelius de Amicitia, directly following a passage to which I have already referred. The immediate context of the reference is the death of Laelius’s friend Scipio and his subsequent argument that the soul does not perish along with the body. Laelius maintains that Scipio himself was convinced of this, “making use of arguments which he had heard, he said, from Africanus the Elder through a vision in his sleep” (Amic. 4.14).178 Laelius therefore uses Scipio’s arguments that he received in a dream to bolster his own view that the soul lives on after the death of a human being.
A second example of dreams being used as divine testimony is found in Artistides’s treatise In Defense of Oratory, a treatise in which, as has already been seen, one finds divine testimony through oracles used as a source of proof. In the same section referenced above, Aristides cites the dreams that Asclepius provided as a means of healing (see In Defense of Oratory 58–65). Aristides’s argument is that human doctors are practitioners of an art. There are those patients, however, who receive healing through means such as the cult of Asclepius;179 this healing through dreams is not performed in connection with art. Therefore, just as healing can come through dreams and not through art, oratory can be useful even if it is not an art, as Plato argues. Oratory can be useful in that it can also be inspired
