Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic
Peter White
Abstract
This book is a guide to the first large letter collection that survives from the Greco‐Roman world. The correspondence of Cicero consists of nearly 950 letters and embraces almost every major political figure of the Late Republic. Chapters 1 through 3 of this study describe external constraints affecting the letters that have come down to us. Some were the result of Roman conventions regarding social interaction, while others reflect logistical difficulties of long‐distance communication. Another series of constraints on the way letters were written arose from generic expectations about episto ... More
This book is a guide to the first large letter collection that survives from the Greco‐Roman world. The correspondence of Cicero consists of nearly 950 letters and embraces almost every major political figure of the Late Republic. Chapters 1 through 3 of this study describe external constraints affecting the letters that have come down to us. Some were the result of Roman conventions regarding social interaction, while others reflect logistical difficulties of long‐distance communication. Another series of constraints on the way letters were written arose from generic expectations about epistolary form. In addition, an editor helped to shape the published collection by imposing criteria of selection and arrangement that favored certain categories of subject matter and correspondent over others. Chapters 4 through 6 turn from the context of the letters to their content, and discuss three of Cicero's most characteristic epistolary preoccupations. It shows how, in a time of deepening crisis, he and his correspondents drew on a common literary background, on the habit of exchanging advice, and on a rhetoric of leadership in an effort to improve cooperation and to maintain the political culture which they shared.
Keywords:
constraints,
distance,
epistolary form,
editor,
literary,
advice,
leadership,
cooperation
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195388510 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388510.001.0001 |
