How to Live Up to Sallust: Metaleptic Rhetoric in the Bellum Catilinae

Abstract: This study explores similarities in themes, motifs, and diction within the preface and speeches of Sallust's Bellum Catilinae using the Genettean concept of metalepsis. While previous scholarship on the "metaleptic echoes" between preface and speeches has focused on metaliterary aspects, this article draws greater attention to the echo's impact on the rhetorical strategy of the speaker and its effect on the internal audience. Analyzing selected "metaleptic echoes" in the speeches of Caesar, Cato, and Catiline, it argues that the characters in the BC and their audience demonstrate an awareness of the views expressed in Sallust's preface and engage in interpreting them.