Teaching Cicero through the Scholia. The Active Reader in Late Antique Commentaries on Cicero's Speeches

The use of commentaries in support of reading is a well-established practice in late antiquity, as may be suggested by Jerome’s discussion of the art of commentary in his reply to Rufinus’ indictment for plagiarism (Against Rufinus 1.16). This paper points to the didactic function of the ancient commentaries and scholia on Cicero’s speeches, intended as auxiliary texts in the interpretation and clarification of rhetorical, linguistic, and textual issues arising during the reading and learning process. Starting from a brief re-examination of the modalities by which an oration was being read and commented upon in the classrooms (as explained in Quintilian’s pedagogical encyclopaedia), it tries to shed further light on the figure of the scholiast as schoolteacher, engaged in assisting his students in their path towards intellectual maturation. ‘Becoming Cicero’ required critical intelligence and outstanding abilities in exploiting rhetorical topics. It was also an act of creative imitation, by which the student was encouraged to emulate and revitalize themes and language of his model. The scholia provide a telling test-case for illustrating the impact exercised by the persona of Cicero, icon of eloquence, on the moral and cultural growth of would-be Ciceros, stimulated to the replication of those features that made the new man from Arpinum the most brilliant orator of antiquity, with an eye to modus and a controlled redeployment of urbane, sophisticated Ciceronian language.