Expressing contempt in Rome : language, rhetoric and critique

Kurzfassung/Abstract

This article presents three brief case studies of the way Romans talked about and expressed contempt. It examines aspects of discourses about contempt that are characteristic both of Roman literature and of modern concepts. The focus is on the relationship of hierarchy, recognition, and (active and passive) contempt in the Latin vocabulary and in two literary motifs taken from invective and historiography, two genres in which expressions of contempt are particularly frequent and prominent.

I will start with the basic element of every discourse—language—and give an overview of the Latin vocabulary for contempt and disrespect. We will examine to what extent the idea of hierarchy and the distinction of active and passive contempt, which are central features of modern concepts of contempt, are also implied by the Latin language. Moving on to literary forms of expressing contempt, I will argue that hierarchy and (active and passive) contempt are closely intertwined in invective, the most prominent literary form of disrespect, and invective comparisons, which abound in the genre. Finally, I will discuss a literary motif that may be called “contempt for the contemptible”: Roman historiography sometimes presents contempt as a virtue when it is directed against someone who is to be disrespected.