ABSTRACT
According to the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, the 'action of the body' expresses 'the sentiments and passions of the soul'. It was not just about nuance or about communication in noisy places, but an essential and integral part of all communication; indeed some might say as much a biological miracle as language itself. The body, according to Cicero, is like a musical instrument with the delivery or action being 'a sort of eloquence of the body, since it consists in gesticulation as well as speech'. In some ill-considered popularizations of interesting current research, it is virtually argued that higher apes have the capacity for language but have never put it to use-a remarkable biological miracle, given the enormous selectional advantage of even minimal linguistic skills, rather like discovering that some animal has wings but has never thought to fly.
