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Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic

Online ISBN:
9780199866717
Print ISBN:
9780195388510
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic

Peter White
Peter White

Herman C. Bernick Family Professor in Classics and the College

University of Chicago
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Published online:
1 September 2010
Published in print:
18 May 2010
Online ISBN:
9780199866717
Print ISBN:
9780195388510
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

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 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.

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