Studia Filologiczne UJK

Summary

The research material in this article is the selected fragments from De oratore (55 BC), an extensive treatise by Marcus Tullius Cicero on rhetorical theory and practice, composed in the form of a dialogue. Its participants, presented as the historical figures of Roman orators, strive in the discussion to determine the features, abilities and talents of the ideal orator and citizen. The author of the article analyses the characterization of the model orator, focusing on his aptitude for dialoguing as well as on the guidance on dialogical activity provided to young orators. The term “dialogicality”, introduced by the author into the research on the masterful prose of the Arpinate, has been used in the twenty-first-century narrative psychology to denote a trait of the mind and the way a person functions in social life.