L'etopea perfetta. I declamatori e il prestito della voce

Mario Lentano

Abstract:

In the Greek and Roman world, school declamation can be considered as an exercise in role playing and voice lending: as Quintilian argues in his Institutio oratoria, a declamation is similar to a theatrical performance and declaimers have to put on as many masks as actors do. The second part of the article focuses on Ps.-Quintilian's Minor Declamation 270, in which a father compels her daughter, whose twin sister was raped and soon after hanged herself, to "lend" her voice to the dead rapta and to opt for the rapist's death.