‘Torture her until she lies’: Torture, Testimony, and Social Status in Roman Rhetorical Education

Extract

Declamation was an essential component of elite male rhetorical education in the Roman imperial period. In the controversia, the most advanced exercise in the standard sequence of rhetorical pedagogy, students would deliver speeches on both sides of fictional law cases. Several of the controversiae involve scenarios of torture. Masters torture their slaves and then choose to report or withhold the testimony they extract thereby; or a tyrant who has usurped control of the community tortures free persons. In a small number of cases, an abusive father or the declamatory court itself subjects a free person to torture as part of punishment for a conviction. Not long after completing their training, some of the elite male students who practised declamation would present appeals before governors, courts, and public audiences. Others would become magistrates empowered to use torture as part of judicial quaestiones (investigations). By examining several controversiae that involve scenarios of torture, this article looks at how rhetorical education in the Roman imperial period guided elite male students to think critically about both the ethical and the pragmatic considerations involved in the employment of torture.