Telling the truth: Parrhesia and Ferocia

In our thesis, we examine three forms of truth-telling through criticism with their different qualities: in Ancient Greece parrhesia and unlicensed-uncontractual parrhesia, and ferocia in the Roman period. In Ancient Greece, parrhesia, which is found in written sources dating back to the 5th century BC, meant speaking one's own or one's interlocutor's truth with a sense of duty, criticism, risk-taking, and directly, provided that it was directed among equals or from the bottom up within a certain hierarchy of power. Those who did so were called parrhesiastes, and to be considered a parrhesiastes, one had to be a citizen, among other qualifications. In ancient Greek society, however, the status of citizen did not extend to women, children, the elderly, foreigners and slaves. What happened when non-citizens applied to perform parrhesia? This is the central question of our thesis, and we argue that non-citizens could indeed practice parrhesia, but they did so in a different way than citizens with a different kind of parrhesia. We named this mode of truth-telling as unlicensed-uncontractual parrhesia and suggested that its practitioner subject be called parrhesiasti in the neuter and feminine inflexional suffix. We then examined the word ferocia, which was used in the Roman period with negative connotations but included a kind of parrhesia meaning. In order to determine the qualities of these three modes of truth-telling, which differ due to the social positioning of their subjects, which we discuss through examples dating between the 5th BC and the 1st AD, we open our question as: When non-citizens practice truth-telling through criticism, under what conditions and with what qualities do they construct and practice this act? What modes of being would these qualities suggest to their subjects and interlocutors, what would the act aim for, and with what reactions would it be met?