ABSTRACT
This chapter examines frank speech toward monarchs, including Roman emperors, in the writings of Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Philostratus, and Cassius Dio. There emerge two main styles of addressing a ruler frankly: advisory and oppositional speech. Taking up the advisory role entails using pedagogical frankness and thus claiming intellectual and ethical authority over the ruler, while also emphasizing the speaker’s benevolence. At the same time, this relationship with the monarch allows the advisor to advertise connections to (and superiority over) worldly authority before other audiences. In turn, a ruler can benefit from the mere appearance of listening to philosophical advisors because such acceptance of parrhēsia proves him to be a true, good king instead of an illegitimate tyrant. Likewise, the oppositional style of frank speech tests a monarch’s character by revealing the limits of his tolerance. However, it seems just as often to aim primarily if not solely at articulating the freedom of the speaker.
