Lectiones Bonnenses IX: Georgia Tsouni, Cicero's De Legibus and the Symbolic Value of locus
Wir laden herzlich zum Vortrag unserer Gastwissenschaftlerin Frau Ass. Prof. Dr. Georgia Tsouni (University of Crete) ein!
Mittwoch, 05. Juli 2023
18 Uhr c. t.
HS IV (Hauptgebäude der Universität)
„The prologues to the first and second books of Cicero’s De Legibus uniquely represent a rural environment as the setting of the discussion. I shall discuss how Cicero’s depiction of rural environment, while bearing Platonic influences, goes beyond its Greek model. This is visible both in the way the surrounding environment provides the context for authorial remarks on the genre and dialogical style of the text but, furthermore, in the way the rural landscape bears symbolic value which links it directly to Roman ancestral values and exempla. As such it may also be read as a counterpart to the city landscape of Athens, another locus related to theoretical virtue and exempla, which is depicted in the De Finibus 5. The symbolic investment of the rural environment in De Legibus aims at underlining the superiority of Rome’s traditional constitution and legal practices but also Cicero’s own role as a defender of the res publica.“