Inimicissimi atque immanissimi: the Gauls in Cicero’s Pro Fonteio

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira Almeida, Priscilla Adriane
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Codex : Revista de Estudos Clássicos
• Texto Completo: https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/CODEX/article/view/20894
• topic: Cicero; Pro Fonteio; Gauls; rhetoric; alterity; Letras Clássicas; Latim; Literatura Antiga; Cícero; Pro Fonteio; gauleses; retórica; alteridade

In his speech Pro Fonteio, of 69 BCE, Cicero has defended Fonteius, who was the propretor in Gaul and was accused by the local inhabitants (the allobroges) of bad administrating the province. It is important to keep in mind that, in a legal context, Cicero had a clear purpose in his speaking to the court, which was to accuse or to defend someone. With this objective, the argumentation that Cicero presented to his audience was, essentially, a verbal construction that he was free to manipulate in the best way he would like, so he could persuade and convince his public of his statements. This paper aims to discuss how Cicero has defended Fonteius by constructing his argumentation on the Gauls’ characterization as the biggest and most cruel enemies of Rome. Therefore, there is an analysis of some parts of the speech, concerning the argumentative pictures and the vocabulary applied by the Latin orator to make that unfavorable portrait of the Gaul nation of the allobroges.