Elementi della fabula plautina nelle descrizioni di supplizi dell'oratoria ciceroniana

The purpose of this paper is to show certain similarities between theatrical expedients from the Latin palliata and rhetorical solutions from Ciceronian oratory in the field of the death penalty, torture and corporal punishment, such as the climax achieved by the sequential treatment of tools of torture that are increasingly terrifying; the listing of evils inflicted through supplicia ; the description of instruments of death and torture; and the use of references to the personae of cruel executioners at work (carnifices, lictores, inductores). It is argued in particular that Cicero, in denouncing his opponents for the application of supplicia in servilem modum against cives Romani or provincials of high social rank, takes into consideration a literary model that makes substantial use of the metaphor of the physical punishment and torture of the slave, namely the comedy of Plautus.