Declamation offers insights into the Roman unconscious. That is, this genre reveals lines of thought otherwise hidden, it speaks words otherwise left unsaid, and the mask of legitimate culture briefly slips revealing a churning confusion of suppressed themes. Such, I believe, is an important and accurate characterization of one of the most engaging aspects of declamation. However, the declamatory cases that deal with madness are by no means a ready inroad into the problem of the unconscious. Rather, the question of insanity as it is formally treated in declamation furnishes an example of the sort of social dramas in which the genre revels. One is little tempted to see here “real” insanity. The topic of insanity within declamation embraces a more worldly and practical set of problems. And the elaboration of these problems offers us insights into the logic of Roman social practice. Yet this practice is itself ultimately one experienced as part of Roman psychic life. Thus insanity in declamation offers us indirect views of the construction of the social order as well as the healthy, normal self.

Once again declamation offers the paternal role as the site where the salutary either does or should reside. Where the question of madness comes explicitly to the fore the often turbulent waters of declamation suddenly take on an unwonted calm.