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Civic knowledge 71
deal of civic knowledge.15 It is possible, too, that Roman historical dramas
(fabulae praetextae) played a significant role in the creation of historical
knowledge among the general public.16 And we might speculate about the
broadly educational consequences of lower-class participation in, or direct
observation of, great civic rituals such as elections, the census, triumphs,
sacrifices, processions, and spectacles. Note, for example, that mere voting
in elections, exclusive of the preceding months of campaigning, has been
estimated to have occupied a minimum of about fifteen days a year.17
It would seem that at least the potential existed for the crowd of the contio
to gain a considerable level of political knowledge, that is, “the range of fac-
tual information about politics that is stored in long-term memory,” which
is the only basis on which a voting citizen can make informed choices, or
for that matter even demand choices, about the matters that concern his
individual and collective interests.18 Deprived of an appropriate measure of
political knowledge and information, the citizen who casts his vote in rela-
tive ignorance is destined to be the plaything of a manipulative élite which
mediates and controls communication.19 On the other hand, we must be
careful not to set our standards of civic knowledge for ancient societies
at a level unrealistically high even for modern, functioning “democracies”
with independent, pervasive mass media. Opinion surveys showing that less
than half of the American public could name their member of Congress,
only 1.9 percent could name half of the Supreme Court justices, or that in
1986, halfway through the elder George Bush’s second term as Vice Presi-
dent, 24 percent either failed to recognize his name or were uncertain of the

15 On the corona, see chap. 6, n. 10. In the decade of the 50s an average of nearly ten criminal trials
a year are documented: see Alexander 1990: nos. 241–351, minus a handful of cases that were either
civil or did not actually come to trial. The corona is regularly identified with a popular audience
like that of the contio: Cic. Flac. 66, 69; Fin. 2.74; 4.74; cf. the Clodiana multitudo circumstans who
repeatedly disrupted the trial of Milo (Asc. 40–41 C).
16 Wiseman 1994: esp. 1–22, and 1998: esp. 1–16, 52–59, 60–63. Unfortunately, since so little is known
about the actual content of praetextae, and about the frequency of their performance in the late
Republic (especially whether praetextae were performed on a significant portion of the annual fifty
days or so of ludi scaenici), speculation along these lines tends to be uncontrolled: see Flower 1995.
Perhaps one should distinguish between “classics” set in the distant past, such as Accius’ Brutus,
still being revived in the 40s (Flower, pp. 175–76), and ephemeral plays on contemporary themes,
which might indeed be of “little long-term relevance” (p. 190). Horsfall 1996: 48, notes the absence
of any clear allusion in contiones to knowledge drawn from praetextae; nor does the subject matter of
known praetextae (listed in Wiseman 1998: 2–3) overlap notably with the range of historical allusions
in Cicero’s contiones.
17 Nicolet 1980: 235. For the intense publicity of Republican politics, see chap. 1, n. 39; on the “politics”
of electoral campaigns, see now Morstein-Marx 1998: esp. 263–74, and Yakobson 1999: esp. 148–83
and 211–25.
18 Quotation from Delli Carpini and Keeter 1989: 10.
19 Delli Carpini and Keeter 1989: 1ff.; Zaller 1992: esp. 6–16, 268ff.

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