Volu m e I - Purdue University Calumet

comes across stronger in the Sutton and Rackham translation. This is due to the fact that Crassus is given a
significant portion of the embellished taglines, while the other speakers are relegated to less embellished or
more connotatively inferior taglines.
By looking at the ways in which the translators decided to translate the tagline phrases, the effect
that these seemingly minor decisions have on the understanding of the rhetoric found within Book I of De
Oratore becomes clearer. Without even looking at the differences in the actual words that are spoken, one
can see how the translators seemingly harmless decisions on which words to use can affect the entire
understanding of a text. While there is no way to escape this fact when reading translation, being aware of
the ways in which the translators have changed the text, even minutely, can allow the reader to gain a better
understanding of the original author’s meaning.
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