Marcus tullIus Cicero’s works in the textbook on eloquence “The Mohyla Speaker” (1636)

Abstract

The article analyses which works of Marcus Tullius Cicero are mentioned and (or) quoted in the textbook on the rhetoric of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy “Orator Mohileanus” (1636) by Joseph Kononovich-Gorbatsky. The Ukrainian teacher prefers the speeches of the Roman orator. 49 speeches of Cicero are mentioned or quoted 228 times (16 legal speeches — 148 times, 33 political speeches — 80 times).There are three cases of special attention to Cicero’s speeches: their chronology is presented; the technique of confirmation is analysed on the example of “In Defense of Archias the Poet” and common places are collected for imitation. Among Cicero’s treatises on oratory, the most popular are “Rhetorica ad Herennium” (as Joseph Kononovich-Gorbatsky means, authored by Cicero) and “About the Subdivisions of Oratory”. In total, seven rhetorical treatises are mentioned or cited 101 times. A special role is given to “About the Subdivisions of Oratory”. The structure of the first treatise clearly repeats the composition of the work of the Roman classic, the titles of the sections are duplicated, parallels are constantly drawn. Unlike other rhetorical works, Cicero’s “About the Subdivisions of Oratory” are quoted in Ukrainian rhetoric in large fragments. Six Tullius’s philosophical works are sporadically (12 times) presented in Ukrainian rhetoric; Cicero’s letters — three times only.