Customer Reviews

Controlling Laughter

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This is the best work in English for humor in the late Roman republic, and Corbeill writes with insight, sensitivity, and excellent handling of the sources. My only complaint (and it is a small one) would be that Corbeill makes no attempt to distinguish between humor, invective, the laughable, the ridiculous, and so on. The conflation of these terms is a weakness, because I think there is a genuine difference between humor and invective, the latter of which Corbeill discusses at length. The book is still very good, and I would recommend it to those interested in Roman history and literature, or to anyone researching humor and theories of the laughable.

The people of the Roman Republic prized their freedom and were very active in the civic life that revolved around the Forum. Particularly during the Late Republic, rhetorical training was of great importance and civic participation was taken as a duty. Although significantly less so in during the imperial period, political speeches were frequent in both assemblies and trials that always involved large crowds of free citizens performing their civic duty.

Corbeil's book focuses on the function of invective in persuasive speeches during the Roman Republic. His primary reference materials are Cicero's trials and speeches. Corbeil shows that such invectives reinforced social norms and preconceptions Romans had about traits and behaviors. Corbeil demonstrates how humorous references to a person's name, appearance, or traits were used to support a conclusion about whether such a person was inclined to be dishonest, foolish, careless, etc. and thus disbelieved or shunned.

This is altogether innovative look into the cultural and political dynamics of ancient Rome studying rhetorical practices in the use of invectives as exemplified through Cicero's speeches and trials. A good companion to this book would be Gregory Aldrete's 'Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome' that covers the nonverbal aspects of rhetorical practice in both the Late Republic and Principate.