Lisa Tarasyuk
Rhetoric 103A
Tax
Avoidance: Hortensia’s Efficacious Diversions
Hortensia’s speech
aims to convince the triumvirs that women should not pay taxes. The tropes and
schemes employed by Hortensia help her conduct a political project limited by her
illegitimacy as a woman. Hortensia compels by directing the audience’s
attention away from women and towards the triumvirs, by creating a space for
critique, and finally by delivering her view. She succeeds through her use of
figurative language. Aware of her status, she uses figures to disrupt her
prescribed illegitimacy, enabling her communication with those that may dismiss
her at any moment.
Hortensia
controls the attention of her audience by dexterously using tropes and schemes.
She distracts when discussing women and exaggerates when talking about the
triumvirs. Using litotes, she says, “If you claim that you have in any way been
wronged by us, as you were by our husbands, proscribe us as you did them.” The
husbands were proscribed with death; to replace “kill us” or any other explicit
term with “proscribe us” reduces the severity of the punishment Hortensia asks
for as a bluff. Likewise, Hortensia uses ellipses when discussing the donation
made by the mothers at the time of the Carthaginian threat: “They gave
willingly…” The omitted direct object here disables the triumvirs from
projecting what the women should rightfully give. Such understatements allow
Hortensia to shift the audience’s attention from the topic of women as
potential taxpayers, to a critique of the triumvirs themselves.
Hortensia
uses figurative language to exaggerate the qualities of the Republic to initiate
critique of the triumvirs. Hortensia magnifies the failure of the triumvirs
using hyperbole: “Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in public office
or honours or commands or government in general, an evil you have fought over
with such disastrous results?” Such explicit negative qualities communicate
Hortensia’s opinion that the government is failing. Hortensia also uses the
scheme of polysyndeton, not only in the previous quote, with the use of “or”
emphasizing all the areas of government women are absent from, but earlier as
well: “…you will set us into a state unworthy of our family and manners and our
female gender.” She also uses it later: “They gave willingly, not from their
land or their fields or their dowry or their households…” Hortensia overuses
conjugations to emphasize the many rights women do not have. The final form of
exaggeration appears in Hortensia’s use of climax: “We did not pay taxes to
Caesar or to Pompey, nor did Marius ask us for contributions, nor Cinna nor
Sulla, even though he was a tyrant over this country.” The final apposition is
the peak of the climax Hortensia aims for; the scheme emphasizes the fact that
not even tyrants asked women to pay taxes. Directing the public’s attention to
the mistakes and faults of the government allows her to transform the dialogue
from a defense of women to critique of the triumvirs. Her
statement begs the triumvirs the rhetorical question, do you wish to act as
tyrants? She answers this in her final, concluding statement, “And you say that
you are reestablishing the Republic!” Her answer is that if the triumvirs act
as tyrants, they at once demolish the very Republic they aim to establish with their
taxation. Hortensia’s diversion and critique create the opportunity for her to
offer her own opinion on the triumvirs and the Republic.
Hortensia
uses rhetorical questions to move her speech from qualifying the triumvirs to
one directly challenging them. Her use of erotema from the first paragraph to
the second paragraph signifies the transition where Hortensia asserts women
will abstain from paying taxes to a failing Republic. She enters the political
apolitically through the implementation of paradox: “But if there should a war
against the Celts or Parthians, we will not be less eager for our country’s
welfare than our mothers. But we will never pay taxes for civil wars, and we
will not cooperate with you against each other.” Hortensia claims women are not
political and hence do not pay taxes: “Why should we pay taxes when we have no
part in public office or honours or commands or government?” Then she says that
women will also not pay taxes for civil wars, but this is an explicit political
action – a boycott. If Hortensia wants to be political by boycotting then by
her own definition, she should pay taxes, since the right to be political
requires paying taxes. Hortensia uses paradox to assert that women will avoid
taxes as a boycott against the project of a failing Republic. This final figure completes her process of
diverting attention, centering the triumvirs as subjects of critique, and
asserting her political stance of boycotting taxation.
The
reasons to dismiss Hortensia are many: she is a woman, she is demanding women
do not pay taxes, she calls the triumvirs tyrants, and humiliates their attempt
at establishing the Republic. The implicit nature of figurative language allows
Hortensia’s inappropriate speech to be effectively communicated rather than
dismissed. Although the triumvirs try to drive her out of the forum, they fail
to do so because the public legitimizes her as a speaker, “the lictors were
stopped by the shouts of the crowd outside and the triumvirs postponed the proceedings
till the next day.” Hortensia’s subversion comes to fruition and her critique is
legitimized by the public because she effectively implemented figures to
conceal the disruptive nature of her speech.
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