COLLOQUIUM: Cathy Keane, Washington U in St. Louis, "Conversations about Sermo"

This talk will examine the fragments of Lucilius' first collection of Satires (later numbered Books 26-30) with special attention to the remnants of the poet's apologia in the last book. I will argue that throughout the collection, Lucilius aimed to build up a context for his readers' processing of the apologia. The lost poems represented a world of constant social performance, exchange, and debate, in which no one can speak up or speak out without that speech attracting attention to itself. Both satire and the defense of satire appear as extensions of that practice.