Carol Manners Essays

Each year the CLTA holds an essay competition "for Year 12 students of Latin and Greek who may write an essay from a range of topics related to the HSC and IB Latin and Greek prescribed texts."

The winning essays for 2009 have been published online:

• Vice and Virtue in Cicero’s In Verrem V
• Cicero’s Rhetorical Method in In Verrem V
• Two major differences between the lyric verse of Horace and Catullus

The standard is of course exceptional, and all three essays are well-worth reading. Here is part of the introduction to the second essay, as a brief taste:

Cicero’s rhetorical method in Verrine V fulfils various functions, diverting from structured reasoning (probare), and becoming a “self expression of the orator”. It influences emotionally (flectere), entertains (delectare), and makes Verres a “human object of contempt”. The need to persuade a jury and audience had already been ccomplished in the Actio Prima, where the weight of evidence incriminated Verres. Considering the Actio Secunda was published but never delivered in court, the focus will be particularly on dispositio (arrangement of material), elocutio (style and power of words) and the context of the Verrines in Cicero’s career.