Feasting Centaurs and Destructive Consuls in Cicero’sIn Pisonem

Abstract

This paper argues that the comparison of a feast staged by Piso and Gabinius to a banquet of Centaurs and Lapiths in Pis. 22 is significant for the invective as a whole. It shows how Cicero builds up his characterization of Piso to suggest that his opponent is like a Centaur and examines the implications of this comparison for the orator’s treatment of Piso’s proconsulship and intellectual activities. The image of Piso as a Centaur shows that he is naturally disposed to be an enemy of civilization.

Expressing Contempt in Rome—Language, Rhetoric, and Critique

“… 6. On the use and function of comparisons in Ciceronian invective see, for example, May (1996) and Köster (2014). Koster (1980) 364 lists four categories of comparisons in invective: with similar people, with women, with animals, with things.…”