Auctor Personae Meae. Cicero on Personhood and Self-Authorship

In De Oratore Cicero modifies the metaphor of the persona (theatrical mask), used by some early Stoics to explain their doctrine of indifference, arguing that one must be not the actor but the author (auctor) of one’s own persona. Understanding Cicero’s concept of auctoritas allows us to reread his famous doctrine of the four personaein De Officiis as a rejection of Stoic indifference and as suggestion of a new relation between the self and its personae. For Cicero, to be an auctor in the most profound sense is not to produce but rather to foster and give testimony. Thus, to be author of one’s own persona is not in the first place to construct and adopt a social role, but to accept and affirm both one’s rational human nature and the contingencies of exis-tence in the world.