If we are to believe Cicero’s reports in his Brutus, sentimental discourses were a staple of Roman legal and legislative proceedings. For example, he praised Servius Sulpicius Galba as an orator “who inflames the court, ” thus accomplishing “far more than the one who merely instructs it. ” When charged with massacring Lusitanians, “with tears in his eyes [Galba] commended to [the Roman people’s] protection his own children as well as the young son of Gaius Gallus. The presence of this orphan and his childish weeping excited great compassion ” (xxii, 89-90), and of course Galba was acquitted. Even casual readers of the Iliad discover speeches full of invective (Achilles ’ rage), patriotic encomium (Hector’s battle cry), and sententious disquisitions on the nature of life, love, death, and sociality (Achilles ’ vision of Patroclus). These can unify a people around sentiments of duty, patriotism, fidelity, and amity (books 1, 12, and