Lo sguardo lungo dei maiores. Cicerone, Pro Caelio 33-34

· The “gaze” of the maiores. Cicerone, Pro Caelio 33-34 · The contribution aims to identify literary and anthropological models (laudatio; aristocratic funeral; divi parentes) in the invective pronounced by Appius Claudius Caecus against Clodia in Cicero’s Pro Caelio 33-34. In particular, the topic of the blindness that protects the illustrious member of the gens Claudia from the indeco rous spectacle of his degenerate descendant alludes to a literary precedent of undisputed authority (the oration pronounced in the senate by Appius Claudius Caecus against peace with Pyrrhus) and activates the anthropological model attributing a censorial power to the “gaze” of the maiores. At tention is also payed to Cicero’s memory of Plautus’ Persa in the enumeratio of ancestors, in order to degrade through parody the illustrious genealogy of the corrupt sister of Clodius.