He does so primarily through an examination of methods, contexts, and stated intentions of speeches, many of which are embedded within other reported discourses. He seeks not only to discern those physical and visual aspects of performance that meant triumph or defeat in rhetorical competitions but also to use an analysis of rhetorical performances “to improve our understanding of the issues relating to cultural and religious debates in that time period” (2). In The Dynamics of Rhetorical Performance in Late Antiquity, Quiroga Puertas examines orators’ accounts of oratorical performance with an eye toward drawing out those elements of delivery and performative techniques that persuaded audiences, or failed to do so.
The elements that distinguished great performances from mediocre presentations, those which determined who emerged as a victor in a contest, and the features that marked one as an inferior, defy recording on the page. The reliance on written records, or recollections, of public speeches remains one of the primary challenges confronting those who work on declamation in antiquity. In recent decades, scholars working in the field of rhetoric, informed by new understandings of performance, ritual studies, and theater in antiquity and more generally, have focused renewed attention on the mechanics and constructive potential of public speech. Speech reflects power, and, in the competition for power, oratory is an essential component of an arsenal.
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