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Tacitus and Pliny were fellow orators of distinction with apparently close connections between their communities. Tacitus’s Dialogus purports to show us the inner workings and debates of a tight literary community, set dramatically in AD 75 but reflecting at least in part the community in which Pliny and Tacitus engaged. This chapter explores the ways in which, in the Dialogus, Tacitus explores the question of the connection between literary culture, elite society, and politics, particularly as it relates to the traditional Roman pursuit of gloria.

This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to examine Pseudo-Odo's statement, in his Dialogus de musica (ca. 1000 ad), regarding the effect that the placement of tones and semitones in a chant has on the determination of its mode. An overview of the subsequent chapters is then presented.

This chapter begins with a review of the discussion in the preceding chapters. It then considers Cicero's expectations at the time of De Oratore by comparing his views on the statesman's individual role in the dialogue with his second treatise, the De Re Publica, circulated in 51. It presents another reflection on the dialogue provided by Tacitus' Dialogus De Oratoribus.

This chapter interprets the first Satire of Juvenal in light of what it labels the “crisis of criticism,” a nervousness about criticizing contemporaries for fear of being labeled an informer (delator). The chapter begins by examining elements of aggression in the famous opening recitation scene. The desire to punish wrongdoers has there been transferred to the world of the poetic recitation. It then examines the connections in the Roman satiric tradition between the informer and the satirist. A third section shows how the poem’s often indeterminate targets in fact suggest that it is an “open text” in Umberto Eco’s sense of that phrase. Individual readers link generalized charges to specific individuals, so they become the informers, not the poet. Finally, the chapter turns to the Dialogus of Tacitus, demonstrating a similar dynamic in that text.

Can one attribute to Catherine the writings that go under her name, and can therefore one speak of an authentic concept of discretion attributable to Catherine? As there are no autographs by Catherine, the first question is to ascertain which writings are attributable to her. After briefly examining the uncertain attribution of the Dialogus brevis (“Devout revelation”), the chapter addresses the question whether Catherine knew how to write. The available sources do not allow any definitive answer to this question. What is certain, though, is that between Catherine and her readers there is invariably the interposing presence of the amanuenses to whom she used to dictate. Hence the ensuing chapters analyze the role played by these amanuenses, who were her disciples and secretaries, in the composition of the writings attributed to Catherine.

Manilius, the Aetna poet, Persius, Statius, and Juvenal all attest literature presented orally, for the People, from the stage. Tacitus’ Dialogus is evidence, not for the phantom genre of ‘recitation drama’, but for real drama that could be selected for the ludi scaenici; the pseudo-Senecan Octavia shows that the People’s ideology still mattered for the theatre in AD 68–9. Prose fiction and history were assumed to be heard by an audience, like the sophists’ epideictic oratory; all authors were expected to write ‘what the many can understand and the educated applaud’. Several of Lucian’s works presuppose performance in the theatre with actors and dancers. Sarcophagus reliefs provide evidence for the stage in the second and third centuries, as do Christian attacks on it, especially in Arnobius. A sermon by Augustine makes the point explicitly that pagan literature, and Virgil in particular, was something one heard in the theatre.

This chapter sets the scene with a history of the origins of public sector audit from the Exchequer in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For centuries there was a complex framework of accountability whereby officials were held to be accountable to the sovereign for the efficient and effective collection of their revenues. However, the sovereign was not in turn held accountable for subsequent expenditures. The detailed accountability that was imposed on officers and officials at lower levels was not accompanied by what would today be regarded as basic features of wider parliamentary and public scrutiny. The operations of the Upper and Lower Exchequers were woven into the fabric of the medieval economy. The procedures and controls over revenues and expenditures were established in the early twelfth century and are described in the Dialogus de Scaccario written around 1180.

The chapter outlines what is known of first-century AD praetextae, stressing the aspects suggesting generic continuity, even under radically altered political circumstances. After examining the evidence concerning the dramas of Persius and Pomponius Secundus, the main focus is on the enigmatic but clearly impressive dramatist, Curiatius Maternus, who is known from Tacitus and the epitomes of Dio. In a reassessment of this latter evidence, it is argued that the soubriquet ‘sophist’ and the distance in time between Maternus reciting his Cato and his execution in 91, under Domitian, are no obstacle to identifying Tacitus’ Maternus with Dio’s. The chapter further argues that Maternus wrote a Nero, a praetexta recited to great effect soon after Nero’s fall, during the reign of Galba.