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N.S.Gill's Ancient History Blog

By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide to Ancient History since 1997

Obama as the New Cicero

Wednesday November 26, 2008
Cicero
Cicero Photo © Clipart.com
We in the U.S. hear little from the current president, but see the president-elect on television almost daily, not because people are tired of 8-years of Bush, or enamored of Obama's fresh, young face, or intrigued with the latest cabinet appointment, but because Obama is another Cicero. Can you name at least one rhetorical technique I used in that long first sentence? One is the praeteritio, an oratorical flourish of Cicero and Obama. Charlotte Higgins (author of author of It's All Greek To Me: From Homer to the Hippocratic Oath, How Ancient Greece Has Shaped Our World) says it works by "drawing attention to a subject by not discussing it." The article in which Higgins compares Obama and points out their shared rhetorical flourishes is called, simply, The New Cicero. Higgins also looks at the role of oratory in a participatory democracy.

More on Cicero

Comments

November 27, 2008 at 3:58 pm
(1) Brandon Bowers says:

For you to write this while most Americans do not have a job that they have had for a good many years, or cannot get a career due to there are not to get is way out of line. You have your freedom of the press, but the President Elect will be in Office on January 20, 2009 because the voters voted for him. He has not shown any tyranny whatsoever. If I was your boss, I would either fire you, or pull you out of your job and put you in a far dark corner where you cannot embarrass the company again. Very bad form and very, very ignorant.

November 27, 2008 at 5:38 pm
(2) NS Gill says:

I was trying to write a praeteritio, as described in the article cited, not to say that people are happy with the way things are. Assuming I failed miserably, I still don’t have any idea where you think I said anything about tyranny in this blog. Are you implying that Cicero was a tyrant? Your stats sound a bit off, too.

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