Delatores and the Tradition of Violence in Roman Oratory

Two very prominent scholars have asserted that oratory became more violent and aggressive during the early Principate, as delatores (professional accusers and informants) came to dominate the genre.1 This assumption has a place in a number of studies on Roman history, culture, and literature which accept their premise.2 However, such an assumption, before it is accepted, needs to be set in the larger context of Roman oratory over the period from the Republic to the Empire. It is my object here to do just that, for I propose that the new style?one which is generally perceived as more violent?represents not so much a change as a continuity in Roman rhetorical practice, and that the per? ceived transformation is more a product of how our sources represent orators in the first century CE. rather than oratory's metamorphosis into something with a perceptibly more violent style. To that end my ar? gument has two parts. First, we need to put professional accusers into their republican as well as imperial context. Professional accusers in