A key aspect of the project was reading theoretical and methodlogical studies of silence in other scientific disciplines and determining which aspects and approaches would be applicable to the Roman context and the evidence we have for it. Important insights were gathered from sound studies, feminist theory, and comparative history, which allowed the researcher to develop a theory of silence which focused on the cultural situatedness of specific gestures, practices, and ideas. The understanding of silence as a means of resistance as well as a means of suppression was informed by recent feminist research.
The project collected, categorised, and analysed the primary evidence for silence in Roman political culture. The majority of the evidence studied came from the texts of Cicero, and these were analysed with close reading techniques applied to the Latin texts.
Through presentations at three conferences and three research seminars, the preliminary findings of the research were communicated to other specialists in Ancient World studies, and the project's questions and interpretations were further developed in detail and nuance. Several new collaborative research partnerships were initiated, with a focus on future work we can do in this area.
The main achievement of the research was demonstrating just how much evidence there was for silence(s) in Roman political culture, and how important these were for interpreting key texts and episodes in Roman history. Focusing on this aspect allowed for a new reading of Cicero's views on speech, silence, freedom, tyranny, and the Republic. His views were complex, and they were developed according to the requirements of particular situations, rather than as a general theory. Nevertheless, after his death, his ideas on silence were further developed by others as a generalised critique of the power structures of the Principate. Moreover, an important finding of the research was that even during Cicero's lifetime, he was not the only politician using these techniques and ideas; his contemporaries were adept at using and interpreting them too. Therefore, while Cicero emerges from the research as the most important figure in the development of a Roman rhetoric of silence, his contribution unfolded in dialogue with his peers.