Parola, visualità e pittura: intorno alla Pro Milone

The first section of the paper examines the figure of the idolopeia – namely, a fictional speech attributed to a deceased person. The most famous example of it is the speech of Appius Claudius Caecus in the Pro Caelio, where his words are set in sharp contrast to the ethopoeia of Clodius. In the Pro Milone, the evocation from the Underworld is this time that of Clodius himself: it constitutes an unusual case of a “silent” idolopeia, since no words are attributed to the revenant Clodius; it is solely the conjuring of his ghost that looms large in Cicero’s narrative. Nevertheless, it is clear that Cicero intends this unusual idolopeia to complete the rhetorical arc he had begun in the Pro Caelio. The second part of the paper explores the pervasive parallel Cicero establishes between speech and painting across various levels and domains. After showing how the rhetorical language of ekphrasis is often borrowed from the technical vocabulary of the visual arts, it focuses on Pro Milone 53-54, where Cicero imagines a painting of Milo’s procession – an image that seems closely akin to the tabulae or siparia described by Quintilian as having been specifically prepared for courtroom display.