Letters and Communities: Studies in the Socio-Political Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography 0198804202, 9780198804208

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Letters and Communities Studies in the Socio-Political Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography

Edited by

P A O L A CE C C A R E L L I , LU T Z D O E R I N G , T H O R S T E N F Ö G E N , A N D I N G O GI L D E N H A R D

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2018 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2018 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 0000000000 ISBN 978–0–19–880420–8 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Contents List of Contributors

Introduction Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard

ix 1

PART A: THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EPISTOLARY COMMUNICATION 1. Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Thorsten Fögen 2. Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network Bianca-Jeanette Schröder

43 81

PART B: CONFIGURATIONS OF POWER AND EPISTOLARY COMMUNICATION: FROM GREECE TO ROME 3. Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy Sian Lewis

103

4. Powers in Dialogue: The Letters and diagrammata of Macedonian Kings to Local Communities Manuela Mari

121

5. Letters and Decrees: Diplomatic Protocols in the Hellenistic Period Paola Ceccarelli

147

6. Letters, Diplomacy, and the Roman Conquest of Greece Robin Osborne 7. A Republic in Letters: Epistolary Communities in Cicero’s Correspondence, 49–44 BCE Ingo Gildenhard

185

205

PART C: LETTERS AND COMMUNITIES IN ANCIENT JUDAISM AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY 8. The Literary and Ideological Character of the Letters in Ezra 4–7 Sebastian Grätz

239

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Contents

9. ‘From Me, Jerusalem, the Holy City, to You Alexandria in Egypt, my Sister. . . . ’ (Bavli Sanhedrin 107b): The Role of Letters in Power Relations between ‘Centre’ and ‘Periphery’ in Judaism in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Islamic Periods Philip Alexander

253

10. Configuring Addressee Communities in Ancient Jewish Letters: The Case of the Epistle of Baruch (2 Baruch 78–86) Lutz Doering

271

11. The Letters of Paul and the Construction of Early Christian Networks John M. G. Barclay

289

12. The Communities Configured in the Letter of James Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr

303

PART D: ENVOI 13. Conversing with the Absent, Corresponding with the Dead: Friendship and Philosophical Community in Seneca’s Letters Catharine Edwards General Index Index locorum Index of Authors

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353 000 000

Acknowledgements

Letters and Communities: Studies in the SocioPolitical Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard

Print publication date: 2018 Print ISBN-13: 9780198804208 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804208.001.0001

(p.v) Acknowledgements Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, Ingo Gildenhard

The core of the volume has its origins in the conference ‘Configuring Communities: The Socio-Political Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography’ organized by the editors, in the summer of 2011, under the auspices of the Durham Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East. The editors would like to thank the Department of Classics and Ancient History and the Department of Theology and Religion of Durham University for their support, financial and otherwise. For Paola Ceccarelli, this venture constitutes part of a programme of research on the Seleukid Royal Correspondence, which she has been conducting with the help of the mid-career fellowship scheme of the British Academy (BARDA), whose support she gratefully acknowledges. For various reasons, it took longer than initially anticipated for this book to materialize. We are all the more grateful for the seemingly limitless patience extended to us along the way by our contributors as well as Oxford University Press, in particular Georgina Leighton and Charlotte Loveridge. We were fortunate in having Timothy Beck as our copy-editor for the press, who worked through a difficult manuscript with exemplary care, and Lisa Eaton as our project manager, who shepherded our volume through the production process with great efficiency. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to Yannick Golchert and Andreas Knöll for their help with the indices. The Editors (p.vi)

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List of Contributors

Letters and Communities: Studies in the SocioPolitical Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard

Print publication date: 2018 Print ISBN-13: 9780198804208 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804208.001.0001

(p.ix) List of Contributors Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, Ingo Gildenhard

Philip Alexander FBA, Emeritus Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Literature, University of Manchester. John M. G. Barclay, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity, Durham University. Paola Ceccarelli, Lecturer in Classical Greek History, University College London. Lutz Doering, Professor of New Testament and Ancient Judaism, Director of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum, Westfälische WilhelmsUniversität Münster. Catharine Edwards, Professor of Classics and Ancient History, Birkbeck, University of London. Thorsten Fögen, Associate Professor (Reader) in Classics, Durham University. Ingo Gildenhard, Reader in Classics and the Classical Tradition, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. Sebastian Grätz, Professor of Old Testament, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. Sian Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, University of St Andrews. Manuela Mari, Associate Professor of Greek History, Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, Page 1 of 2

 

List of Contributors Professor of New Testament, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. Robin Osborne FBA, Professor of Ancient History, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. Bianca-Jeanette Schröder, Senior Lecturer in Latin Literature, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. (p.x)

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Introduction

Letters and Communities: Studies in the SocioPolitical Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard

Print publication date: 2018 Print ISBN-13: 9780198804208 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804208.001.0001

Introduction Paola Ceccarelli Lutz Doering Thorsten Fögen Ingo Gildenhard

DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198804208.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords The Introduction surveys scholarly work on letter-writing in the ancient world. While generally of a high standard and often interdisciplinary in nature, bridging such fields as Near Eastern and Jewish Studies, Biblical Studies, Patristics, and Classics, research on ancient epistolography often marginalizes the role of letters in constituting and sustaining communities of various stripes (political, social, ethnic, religious, philosophical). The introduction explores various reasons for this oversight (the overriding importance given to face-to-face communication in public settings, the apparently ‘private’ nature of corresponding via letters, its low rank in the hierarchy of genres, and the marginal status this aspect of letter-writing has in ancient epistolary theory) before outlining why letters played such a vital role in ancient communitybuilding, with an emphasis on long-distance communication, permanence, and the genre’s ideological flexibility and strong pro-social outlook. The second half offers a narrative of the volume, with summaries of its thirteen case studies. Keywords:   ancient letters, epistolography, communal aspects, communities, history of research

1. Letter-Writing and Communities: General Considerations Ancient letter-writing has seen a welcome increase in scholarly attention in recent years. A range of editions, edited collections, and individual case studies have done much to enhance our understanding of the formal characteristics, literary qualities, and ideological protocols of the genre.1 A noteworthy feature Page 1 of 46

 

Introduction of this upsurge in interest is its cross-disciplinary contour, which is very much in line with the multifarious nature of our primary data. In terms of diversity of evidence, arguably no other literary form practised in antiquity rivals epistolography. Letters from the ancient Mediterranean have survived in a wide variety of media across an extraordinarily broad chronological and geographical span. Virtually any material suited to the preservation of writing—such as clay (either soft or hard-burnt), hide, lead, wood tablets, papyrus, stone, or parchment—has been employed as a surface on which to transmit a missive. Epistolary (p.2) endeavours to which we still have access come in all shapes and sizes, from the tablets of third millennium Ebla in Syria to the letters of the Roman garrison at Vindolanda in the North of England (dating to the Roman imperial period), from the lead letters found across the Mediterranean world (and beyond), the earliest of which date to the late sixth century BCE, to Jewish and Greek, Christian and Roman letters and letter collections preserved down the ages by scribes and scholars in charge of manuscript traditions, from Near Eastern archives of missives written on clay to letters preserved through their inscription on stone or the epistolary papyri that have surfaced from the sands of Egypt.2 Given the scope of this material, it is hardly surprising that scholars of diverse disciplinary stripes have been invested in exploring ancient epistolary writing and, equally important, its practitioners. In fact, if dialogue between the disciplines of Theology (broadly speaking) and Classics has had its undeniable ups and downs over the centuries, ‘the letter’ has always constituted a shared common ground of investigation—unsurprisingly (again), given its prominent status not least in the Christian Bible. New Testament scholars, for instance, have routinely employed information about epistolary practices gathered from classical sources, in particular Cicero’s correspondence, to advance arguments about the factors involved in the emergence of the significant parts of Christian Scripture comprised of letters.3 And Patristic scholars share an interest with Classicists in studying Christian letters in the context of late antique epistolography—a period that has bequeathed a particularly rich set of epistolary dossiers.4 (p.3) The strong interest by biblical scholars in Graeco-Roman epistolary practice in part accounts for the fact that letter-writing has been one of the fields where the flow of information between the disciplines (at least in one direction) has been most intense in the past, and the present volume wishes to continue and advance this tradition. It offers a range of case studies on letterwriting in biblical and classical settings, covering Judaism and Christianity, ancient Greece and Rome—though the approach we advocate here is of course equally valid for other cultural configurations of the Near Eastern and ancient Mediterranean worlds. Aiming to build on the available body of crossdisciplinary work, and joining in with other recent developments in the area, it foregrounds an aspect of epistolary communication that arguably has yet to Page 2 of 46

 

Introduction receive the sustained and systematic attention it deserves, in particular within Classics: the fact that correspondence via letters frequently presupposes—and is designed to reinforce or reshape—the outlook and identity of a specific group or community. There are various reasons why the ‘socio-political dimensions of ancient epistolography’ have not registered more powerfully on the scholarly radar screen so far. To begin with, scholarship on the political cultures of pre-modern societies likes to insist, emphatically, on the overriding importance of face-to-face communication in public settings.5 This is understandable. Modes of interaction facilitated by the joint presence of participants in a shared topography appeal through a high degree of immediacy, urgency, and vividness—and not just from our point of view. In Republican Rome, it would have been considered rude to rely on letters for important matters unless absolutely necessary: ‘when two powerful men were in the same city, there remained a strong expectation that they would conduct their business face-to-face.’6 Encounters, more or less fraught, between members of ruling elites and the larger populace, the wide range of public rituals and ceremonies practised by pre-modern (p.4) communities to rehearse their collective identities, complemented by unpredictable, but equally important clashes and bust-ups, or the different types of performances bringing together—or opposing—different cultural groups (and outsiders) in a joint experience fascinate not just as sites of community-building (or destruction) but also as vibrant feasts for the senses. Public oratory, for instance, involves sweaty, shoving crowds, speakers holding forth at the top of their lungs in eye contact with their (packed) audience, and a wide range of visual stimuli that support the aural soundtrack—gestures, facial expressions, or body language more generally.7 Against the synaesthetic intensity of touch, smell, sound, and sight, as well as the various forms of verbal and non-verbal interactions that unfold in the crammed civic spaces of an ancient city-state, the writing and perusal of letters for those who are unable to be present cannot help, it seems, but pale in significance and appeal. From this point of view, the exchange of written missives might well look like an anaemic mode of discourse, a deracinated surrogate to the sensory thrills that constitute the drama of life.8 It is, at any rate, a deferred and deferring medium of communication that struggles to compensate for the benefits of modes of interaction in which all participants are co-present.9 Secondly, precisely because epistolary communication tends to unfold outside the public limelight, already in antiquity it acquired, in certain quarters, a shady reputation as an anti-popular mode of discourse. Its seemingly secretive nature makes it the perfect medium for crooked power brokers such as tyrants, keen to wield influence by backstage operations, inaccessible to prying eyes and the wider public. If some formats, like the city-decree, can be said to embody a communal will and, in their collective authorship, to enact democratic values and procedures, the letter is either issued by a single author or, if corporate, by Page 3 of 46

 

Introduction a group of people whose precise power relations often remain obscure. Similarly, the modes of transmission of a letter enable—even though they by no means require—exchanges that bypass the scrutiny of the citizen body or other forms of community from which it claims to have arisen. Unsurprisingly, letters, early on in their history, attracted disagreeable connotations as ‘the tyrant’s writ’.10 Thirdly, compared with other forms of literary expression, letters seem a rather unpromising medium for the constitution and celebration of communal identities —in comparison and contrast to epic or tragedy in verse or various forms of historiography in prose (including, in the case of Christianity, (p.5) biography, or, in the case of Rome’s Republican aristocracy, autobiography), which have long been recognized as important media for the ways in which civic or religious communities (or distinct individuals within them) defined themselves, negotiated their place in the world, and moulded or manufactured memories of their past.11 In addition to the social dynamics that inform canon formation or, more generally, transmission, the commemorative power and longevity of these forms of historical writing resided not just in their (imaginary) documentary value but also to a significant degree in the artistic quality of the verbal artefacts, including the prestige of the genre and the talent of the authors. Within the hierarchies of discursive forms, letters, in their quotidian preoccupations and apparent occasionality, tend to rank rather low in terms of aesthetic value and factual import, even when they aspire to literary distinction and treat matters of public significance: witness, for instance, Pliny the Younger’s self-derogatory—if notoriously disingenuous—advertisement of his edited epistolary output as seemingly requiring less diligence and effort than the composition of historiography.12 And finally, ‘community-building’ is a function of letters that barely registers in ancient epistolary theory. Ancient definitions of letter-writing tend to conceive of the activity as a dialogue between a (single) author and a (single) addressee, who are often imagined as sharing in the exchange of intimate sentiments across distances of space and time.13 Letters are perceived to be for individuals corresponding with one another, for pairs rather than groups, even if a wider audience is of course often part of the picture. This model underwrites iconic notions evoked in discussions of epistolography, such as the letter representing an ‘image of the soul of the author’ in intimate long-distance conversation with a close friend or acquaintance and as such constituting ‘one half of a dialogue’. Many of the ‘contextual and formal characteristics’ that make ‘the letter’ a recognizable genre thus also ensure that, from certain perspectives, its cultural rank and standing tends to be relatively modest—both among ancient practitioners and modern scholars of various disciplinary backgrounds.14 (p.6) Yet however justified such views on letter-writing may be in particular instances, they tend to marginalize a range of issues that were central to epistolary communication in the ancient world. Letters frequently presuppose or Page 4 of 46

 

Introduction were explicitly designed to reinforce communal identities—or, indeed, to constitute them in the first place. Three characteristics in particular made it possible for the genre to make distinctive contributions to the mechanisms that held specific groups or entire cultures together. Most obviously, letters benefit from the inbuilt permanence of written discourse (in contrast to the ephemeral nature of the spoken word). This permanence in turn enabled letters to help facilitate the extension of communities beyond those who are present—both in terms of space, via long-distance communication, and time, by rendering the community constituted in a historical moment accessible to future generations— or, indeed, enabling retrospective ‘dialogue’ with the dead.15 A third, perhaps less obvious, factor is the letter’s flexible ‘generic ideology’. All three of these features are worth a more detailed look. (i) Permanence

To begin with, compared with written communication, face-to-face encounters tend to be ephemeral. Shrewd operators knew how to tap into the potential of the written word for greater permanence, which also ensured continuous resonance—even in a genre often concerned with matters of merely quotidian significance such as letters.16 Late Republican Rome (as well as the current state of debate over the nature of its political system) illustrates the point at issue very well. In line with the preference for the immediate and the oral outlined above, recent scholarship has tended to privilege interactive scenarios and institutions in discussing the degree of popular participation in Republican politics, such as the constitutional place and function of different types of citizen-assemblies, public oratory as a medium of communication between the (ruling) elite and the (sovereign) people, voting rights, and election platforms.17 But the ‘written word’ seems poised for a comeback, even where the contio is concerned—a type of non-voting assembly during which speakers canvassed the opinion of the populace on matters of concern to the wider community, which Cicero hailed as the (p.7) maxima scaena (‘the greatest stage’) of the orator, and hence the quintessential form of face-to-face politics.18 As Henrik Mouritsen has now suggested, the dissemination of speeches delivered at contiones in written form after the actual performance made a significant contribution to the backstage operations of power—over and above the occasion of the actual speech, albeit of course to a smaller circle of recipients.19 A similar case can be made for letters, especially if one considers the semi-public status of what are prima facie ‘private’ pieces of correspondence. While the letter of course often is ‘a personal medium that might become an accidentally public one’, it is frequently advisable to invert the emphasis—treating the letters as a personal medium that could be knowingly used as a public one.20 Cicero, for instance, blasts Marc Antony for broadcasting a sensitive piece of correspondence meant for private consumption (such nefarious disrespect for civilized values, he argues, cannot help but destroy long-distance conversation among friends and thereby entail a lapse back into barbarism); but he would presumably have been Page 5 of 46

 

Introduction rather aggrieved if his lengthy apologia for his political conduct after his return from exile, when he got his arm twisted into supporting Caesar and various of his (more loathsome) creatures, sent in the form of a letter to Lentulus, had reached no one else beside the explicit addressee.21 The letter advocates Cicero’s past, present, and future vision of Rome’s civic community, holding not least those to account who self-identify as ‘the good’ (boni), many of whom (he feels) shamelessly betrayed him in the wake of his consulship over his ill-advised execution of the Catilinarian conspirators—and thus providing a commentary, in equal measures auto-apologetic and accusatory, on his pro-Caesarian oratory during this period. In this particular case, the benefits of outlining his position in a letter turned out to be twofold. We may assume wider dissemination of copies close to the time of writing; and the archived version then also found its ways into the post mortem publication of Cicero’s correspondence, where the smart choices of the (unknown) editor enhance its impact within the first volume of the Ad familiares (or indeed the collection as a whole).22 (p.8) Likewise, the practice of monumentalizing official letters in stone endowed specific instances of long-distance communication relevant for communal life with a special permanence: they became public sites of memory, for the purpose of symbolic display and future reference. A ready example from the Hellenistic period is the epigraphical recording and publication of royal pieces of correspondence that granted special privileges to a given city-state, broadcasting the dynamics of civic life and international diplomacy to both members of the community and visitors from abroad.23 In all this, it is furthermore important to stress the fluidity between ‘spoken’ and ‘written’. Just as speeches intended initially for oral delivery could end up circulating in written form, so a letter could easily form the basis for an oral performance by means of a public reading—with the letter-writer almost ‘speaking’ vicariously to a specific group or community across distances of time and space. Ancient authors record many telling instances of public readings of letters as communal events. Thucydides, for instance, speculates that the general Nicias, off on his ill-fated campaign in Sicily that helped doom the Athenians in their war against Sparta, hoped to be able to speak directly to his fellow-citizens via a letter, to be read out in a public assembly.24 The political culture of Republican Rome (with pro-magistrates sending detailed accounts of their provincial administration to the capital in the form of official letters to be read out in the senate) offers further examples of this phenomenon—as does ancient Judaism and especially early Christianity, where letters initially dispatched to communities for communal reading and sharing with other communities eventually turned into major parts of Christian Scripture. Indeed, one of the reasons for the success of the Christian (and perhaps already Jewish) letter was that it was read in front of the community gathered, which allowed for some of the sensory aspects mentioned above, a predominantly ‘aural’ mode of reception, and interaction among members of the community.25 The holy kiss, Page 6 of 46

 

Introduction for instance, seems to have been extended during such meetings, and the letters of Paul and others encourage the recipients to perform it.26 Generally speaking, the public rendition of a letter, especially, but not only, if it was addressed not to a specific individual but a wider community, could provide the focal point of a collective experience. All this is not to diminish in any way the importance of non-literary (and hence non-epistolary) modes of interaction or the power of conversation, gossip, (p.9) hearsay, and rumour for communal experiences and the formation of group identities.27 Rather, we would like to suggest that it is attention to the symbiotic relation of spoken—whether formal (oratory) or informal (conversation)—and written modes of communication (such as letters) and their inbuilt potential for both oral activation (including the possibility that those writing letters may well have composed them with their eventual performance in mind) and longevity that best captures the rhetorical dynamics underwriting socio-political or communal life in the ancient world. (ii) Long-Distance Communication

Secondly, the apparent primacy of the ‘face-to-face’ should not obfuscate the crucial role played by long-distance communication in the far-flung cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, quite irrespective of what kind of regime was in charge. The writing of letters was not just the preserve of autocrats; aristocracies and democracies, too, had to avail themselves of missives in the exercise of power. More generally, in any scenario in which a group or community relied on the flow of information between a centre and a periphery the genre takes on a special importance. Ancient Rome again offers a case in point. Once the Roman res publica started to assert itself as an imperial presence in Italy and beyond, (pro-)magistrates entertained a busy dialogue with the capital by means of official and personal correspondence, addressed to the magistrates and the senate as well as networks of friends and acquaintances. Dispatches from the margins constituted a crucial (if frequently neglected) dimension of the political culture of Republican Rome, helping absent power brokers to retain a foothold—or, as was the case with Caesar, a stranglehold—on political proceedings in the capital. As John Henderson and Josiah Osgood have shown, the exercise of power in the capital during the 50s BCE happened to a significant degree through the exchange of letters that travelled between Gaul and Rome.28 As we have just had occasion to note, scholars debating the nature of the political system of the Roman Republic focus primarily (at times even exclusively) on public oratory in live performance, in particular the contio. Yet during the years of the first triumvirate, Caesar’s penmanship, and the (utilitarian) alliances and (coercive) loyalties it helped to sustain, arguably held as much importance for the future of the commonwealth as the figures delivering public speeches from Cicero’s maxima scaena. Letters (p.10) were an important part and indispensable medium for the flow of goods, services, and oral and written speech-acts (instructions and orders, promises, and threats) that enabled Caesar to dominate political proceedings from afar. Mutatis Page 7 of 46

 

Introduction mutandis, the letter retained its vital importance in imperial times. Fergus Millar portrayed the emperor in the Roman world as a keen correspondent, who supplemented the holding of audience in the capital with strategic travel and the busy exchange of letters that helped to ensure that all parts of the empire were able to acquire a sense of participation in the whole.29 What is the case in large-scale territorial configurations of power is equally true of communities that lived, moved, and proliferated within the ancient empires. Jews from Jerusalem reached out to various areas of the Jewish Diaspora by means of letters.30 And the explosion of geopolitical horizons in the wake of Alexander the Great opened up much-increased opportunities for communitybuilding beyond the confines of the individual city-state—just as much as the ecumenical reach of Roman power in the imperial period and its complex infrastructure aided in the cultivation of supra-regional networks held together by long-distance communication. Two communities, one philosophical, the other religious, that thrived in these conditions not least by relying on the letter as a privileged mode of communication, were Epicurus (and his school) and Christianity. While earlier philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, wrote letters, Epicurus’ (surviving?) letters ‘are more numerous than the letters of any other ancient philosopher save Seneca’.31 Indeed, the Epicureans can be thought of as being, in a special sense, ‘epistolary’.32 In part, of course, the prominence of letters in Epicureanism owes itself to accidents of transmission. While Epicurus’ large number of treatises have all but vanished, three of his doctrinal letters, addressed to, respectively, Herodotus (covering physics), Pythocles (dealing with astronomy and meteorology), and Menoeceus (discussing ethics), have come down to us as part of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers.33 But, as Klauck notes, we are here only dealing with the (p.11) tip of the iceberg: ‘The three main doctrinal letters of Epicurus preserved by Diogenes Laertius are part of a larger correspondence with individuals and groups…. After the death of their master, Epicurus’s pupils continued this practice of lively correspondence.’34 Indeed, further passages in Diogenes and other sources, such as the inscription set up by Diogenes’ namesake in Oenoanda, portray an Epicurus merrily corresponding with all and sundry, including the odd (particularly obedient) child, about matters ranging from the personal and autobiographical to the philosophical.35 Other members of his school followed suit.36 In antiquity, reactions to Epicurus’ correspondence took on different forms: some, like Diogenes of Oenoanda, immortalized bits and pieces thereof in stone; others cited supposedly incriminating passages as evidence for Epicurus’ depraved character.37 The significant amount of correspondence, both mundane and philosophical, that underwrote the daily operations of Epicurean communities across the Mediterranean resembles the role of letters in early Christianity: the apostle Paul in particular initiated a network with and between communities, in which long-distance communication between Asia, Greece, and Page 8 of 46

 

Introduction finally Rome helped to foster a shared identity, and which subsequent generations of Christian writers extended and made use of for their purposes.38 The epistolary aspects of Epicurus’ philosophy and his fellowship constitute an intriguing precedent and parallel from the classical world for the status and function of letter-writing in early Christian communities, and scholars have increasingly started to explore the ‘medial’ aspects of Epicureanism as part of the religious context of early Christianity.39 (p.12) Generally speaking, then, religious, philosophical, and other communities that flourished across the ancient Mediterranean relied on epistolary writing as a medium of communication in addition to the ‘simultaneous interactions’ among co-present individuals and groups. There is of course no need to play off written missives against face-to-face encounters: the two modes of interactions clearly complemented one another, not least in the fashioning and cultivation of shared identities. The challenge rather consists in calibrating their relative (and varying) importance, giving each its due. (iii) Generic Ideology

A third—and related—point is the extraordinary ideological flexibility of the genre, which derives at least in part from its rather undemanding formal requirements. In the most basic sense, a letter is a written message from an author (singular or collective) to an addressee (again singular or collective), marked by opening and closing greeting formulae. Indeed, whether the letter constitutes a genre in the narrow sense of (German) ‘Gattung’ or ‘Textsorte’ is a matter of debate. In German textual linguistics, for instance, an influential position holds that it should be thought of as something further up the classificatory scale: not a ‘Gattung’ but a ‘form of communication’ (Kommunikationsform) or a ‘basic text type’ (Grundtextsorte), akin, for example, to the (face-to-face) dialogue or the (oral or written) monologue.40 Conversely, according to Jacques Derrida, the letter ‘is not a genre but all genres, literature itself’.41 For our purposes, it makes sense to continue to think of the letter as a ‘genre’ in the suitably wide sense this term has in English, with due recognition of ambiguous cases or a ‘spectrum’ with grey zones.42 Arguably, it is precisely the absence of demanding formal requirements, combined with a potentially attractive set of ideological connotations, that has turned the genre into such (p.13) an appealing matrix for literary experimentation and community-building: the absence of strong formal prerequisites makes it easy to package pretty much anything in the form of a letter through the simple convenience of adding formulaic greetings and signoffs, enabling imaginative authors to claim epistolary affiliations for works that otherwise do not look like epistles at all. The Apocalypse of John, for instance, which styles itself as a ‘revelation of Jesus Christ’ and as containing ‘words of prophecy’ (Rev 1:1–3), nevertheless presents itself as a letter due to its epistolary frame at Rev 1:4–5; 22:21.43 The same is true of a number of early martyrdom texts, such as the Martyrdom of Polycarp and the Martyrium Page 9 of 46

 

Introduction Lugdunense, which are cast in the form of letters.44 Indeed, one could argue that there is more generally a close connection between epistolary writing and narrative, whether fictional or historical.45 And Cicero’s De officiis is, in generic terms, a massive ‘philosophical-treatise-turned-letter-to-his-son’ on account of the epistolary formulae at the beginning and the end. Instead of rejecting such works from the epistolary fold, it rather behoves us to enquire into the benefits that the respective authors thought would accrue from opting for these particular generic affiliations.46 In the case of Cicero’s De officiis, the epistolary format helps to endow the treatise with a venerable pedigree, invoking Cato the Elder’s practice of instructing his senatorial peers in matters of public morality in the guise of letters addressed to his son and thereby producing a fitting generic matrix for Cicero’s rhetorical agenda in the work, namely to induct the next generation of Rome’s political elite into his unorthodox approach to civic ethics.47 The inherently pro-social nature of epistolary discourse expects author and addressee to find common ground and hence arguably softens the didactic strictures that make other genres employed in pedagogic settings, such as straightforward lecturing or probing cross-examination, less socially palatable; letters thus form an ideal medium for teaching and preaching, while reaching out to a wider community. Other features further enhance the letter’s remarkable ideological fluidity. As a substitute for oral discourse, it tends towards the informal and ephemeral; but as written discourse, it benefits from the archival potential inherent in all writing, offering one form of what Niklas Luhmann has called ‘compact communication’: unlike an oral statement, a visual or verbal artefact can (p.14) undergo repeated (in principle countless) instances of engagement.48 This tension (or coincidence) between the accidental and the permanent, or, put slightly differently, the informal and the formal, opens up a spectrum of possibilities that authors could exploit for their rhetorical and wider sociopolitical agendas. Epistolary postures range from studied casualness to a tactical investment in the (seemingly accidental) permanence of the ephemeral to the deliberate monumentalization of letters as literature—and many more besides, including diverse variants of strategic disingenuity, such as emphasizing the reputation of epistolary discourse as easy-going and uninhibited to articulate issues of monumental import. The conceit that a letter offers a (more or less authentic) record of the sender’s thoughts and actions also generates significant affinities with other genres focused on (historical) lives, such as biography and autobiography.49 And, as Robin Osborne argues in this volume (Chapter 6), letters tend to contain discursive explanations of, or background to, the requests or decisions that they convey and, in doing so, make an effort to persuade— rather than simply state what is the case or issue a command to be obeyed and not to be questioned. They are therefore, in Philip Alexander’s formulation, a ‘soft medium’ when compared to a ‘blunt decree’ or a ‘curt order’. Any instructions, requests, or pieces of advice sent through a letter thus tend to be Page 10 of 46

 

Introduction embedded within a rhetorical-persuasive matrix, which renders the letter a mode of discourse well suited for exercising influence in a winning way, either because the sender does not have any coercive force or because he wishes to project civic or diplomatic virtues. Given the emphasis on interactivity, the letter also proves to be an ideal medium for engaging pedagogy, even—or especially— in those contexts where the contents of the instruction consisted of dogma, not to be questioned. The status of epistolary writing in Epicureanism is again a case in point of how the features that distinguish epistolary communication more generally can be employed to advance a specific agenda, in this case sectarian communitybuilding. Beyond the utilitarian value of the letter as a means of keeping in touch with fellow practitioners and proselytizing among the non-initiate, there are a number of suggestive affinities between the doctrinal content of Epicureanism and epistolary ideology that make the letter a genre seemingly tailor-made for Epicurus’ philosophy, such as the emphasis on the social interaction between the like-minded, the cultivation of friendship grounded in shared intellectual commitments (both through communal (p.15) living and philosophical dialogue by means of conversation and the exchange of letters), and membership in a wider community of ‘initiates’, also across spatial and temporal distances.50 The ability to combine exclusivity (the letter as a privileged mode of correspondence between select individuals) with demotic appeal (in terms of stylistic registers both epistolary and Epicurean discourse show frequent affinities with everyday speech) and intimacy with doctrinal rigour made letters an ideal tool for teaching, long before the Open University perfected flexible distance learning: ‘En effet, parmi les types d’écrits les mieux adaptés aux besoins philosophiques d’Épicure, la lettre apparaît comme un lieu privilégié, sans doute en vertu de ses extraordinaires pouvoirs de communiquer à distance, tant parce qu’elle favorise l’intimité des échanges que parce qu’elle permet de rappeler les exigences doctrinales rigoureuses propres à l’enseignement d’Épicure.’51 These features (again) render the comparison between Epicurean and early Christian epistolary practices an illuminating exercise, both because of telling differences and striking similarities—not least the fact that pieces of seemingly quotidian correspondence over time acquired the status of ‘scripture’.52 Another complex and arresting illustration of how a gifted correspondent could employ epistolography and its various ideological registers to define and immortalize both himself and the political community of which he was a part comes in the form of the letters of Pliny the Younger. No one today succumbs anymore to the ‘temptation to treat the Letters as the more or less artless reportage of a plain man, an ordinary senator’s lightly polished testimony to the social and moral, literary and political preoccupations of his age’.53 His high degree of literary sophistication is nowadays a given—from intratextual architectures to allusive dialogue not just with epistolary predecessors (Cicero, Horace, Seneca) but a wide range of other authors as (p.16) well (Catullus, Page 11 of 46

 

Introduction Quintilian, Tacitus), from thematic patterns that criss-cross the collection and endow it with unity and coherence to ‘the whole apparatus of self-commentary that impels’ the letters.54 But Pliny put his literary artistry also at the service of a socio-political agenda tailor-made for the Rome of Nerva and Trajan.55 Appearances to the contrary, he turned the letter into a rival of such grand public genres as epic, oratory, and historiography.56 The choice of epistolography as his preferred medium of literary (and socio-political) selfpromotion has everything to do with the wider socio-political context. In Roy Gibson’s words: Pliny, in his own eyes above all, is operating in an ethical world ‘in which the most legitimate measure of his worth is whether he fills an appropriate place in the order of the community’. Unlike some of his forerunners and contemporaries, Pliny displays a decided preference for cultivating his standing over the cultivation of his inner self. Rather than ‘turning inwards’ to interrogate and improve his character, Pliny adheres to a more old-fashioned community-based system of ethics, where all actions, even ‘private’ ones, are given value by their public reception.57 More specifically, his epistolary habit allowed him to refashion the senatorial elite (and his own place within it) under changed political circumstances. As Johannes Geisthardt has shown, Pliny uses the informality of the genre and its setting in the sphere of otium (frequently conceived by writers of the Trajanic age as a site for the articulation of honest feelings and (literary) truth-telling, removed as it was from the exigencies of ritual occasions such as public thanksgiving) to chronicle his revisions of the Panegyricus delivered in praise of Trajan —thereby endowing the edited, written version of the speech with an epistolary commentary that enhances the oration’s authenticity as well as the author’s personal integrity, an effect not unlike the one Cicero was trying to achieve with his letter to Lentulus (Fam. 1.9), which we discussed above.58 In turn, the deceptive contingency of epistolary conversation facilitates moments (p.17) of striking self-promotion. In one reading of the opening letter of Book 2, which is devoted to an appreciation of the recently deceased Verginius Rufus, Pliny broadcasts his support for the current regime of Nerva and Trajan, grounded as it is in the meritocratic succession principle of ‘adoption of the best’—while subtly implying that, in such a world, he too would qualify for the top job. He does so very subtly, by self-identifying as the quasi-adoptive son of Verginius Rufus, whose greatest distinctions included refusal to pursue the emperorship back in 68 (he remained loyal to Galba after putting down the insurrection of Vindex).59 This kind of counterfactual megalomania (if Rufus had accepted the emperorship, his ‘adoptive’ son Pliny would now be on the throne…) seems to require epistolary modesty for its oblique articulation. Pliny also dedicates many letters in his collection to commentary on recent political events, including trials that targeted senators supportive of Domitian’s regime, thereby using his medium for the ethical vetting of the aristocratic elite after a regime change that Page 12 of 46

 

Introduction required painful shifts and reconfigurations in senatorial loyalties and alliances.60 The example of Pliny shows a correspondent playing with the—often contrapuntal—ideological registers of the genre, using its potential as a privileged site of personal truths to authenticate sentiments designed for consumption by a wider public seemingly invited to ‘eavesdrop’ on privileged or exclusive information and thereby intervening into and helping to shape the moral discourse of Rome’s ruling elite that we need to imagine as part of the wider audience.61 The inbuilt permanence, the ability to bridge spatial and temporal distance, and the pro-social outlook of its generic ideology ensured that epistolary discourse thrived within the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world. To unlock the ‘communal’ dimension of letter-writing in antiquity, the following heuristic angles call out for investigation (and will receive discussion in one or more of our case studies): The identity-politics of ethopoeia and prosopopoeia: how does the authorial selffashioning of letter-writers interact with their communities of readers, which may be real or imagined, and situated in the past, present, or future? This question flags up the complex socio-political dimensions that are implied by such categories as ‘real’, ‘explicit’, or ‘implied’ author and (especially) (p.18) addressee—in other words, the ways in which the formal aspects of the genre interlock with processes of group formation and identity construction, to which the letter contributes by imagining and connecting communities, above and beyond its function as a medium of communication between alter and ego. Corporate authorship and collective addressees: as a rule of thumb, in classical and Hellenistic Greece, individuals (such as kings or tyrants) write letters, whereas communities opt for a different type of genre to articulate their collective view (such as the decree), even when responding to a letter. But there are notable exceptions, especially in the Jewish and Christian traditions. Likewise, letters often have one explicit addressee, but he or she is often just singled out for strategic reasons against the background of a larger community of (frequently more important) implied recipients. And the paradox of the ‘offene Brief’, a letter addressed to all and sundry, is a phenomenon with a history from antiquity to the present.62 Letters as means of connecting members of a community that are geographically dispersed or separated in time: how are (circular) letters used to exercise territorial control by imperial powers? What is their role in sustaining lines of communication between a centre and a periphery (such as the land of Israel and Jews in the Diaspora)? How do philosophical treatises in epistolary form engage future generations as part of a trans-historical community of (like-minded) readers?

Page 13 of 46

 

Introduction Letters and other modes of (long-distance) communication: do letters construct communities differently (and different kinds of communities) from other genres (such as the city-decree)? And what kind of difference in terms of communityconstruction does it make if one sends a messenger with an oral message and one who (also) carries a letter? What is the relative importance of letters in building and sustaining a given community—vis-à-vis other (oral) modes of communication? Community and confidentiality: how do ‘communal’ letters position themselves vis-à-vis epistolary communication that emphasizes the exclusive and confidential nature of letter-writing? How do authors deal with the fact of different audiences, some intended, others clearly undesirable, as is the case if a letter gets intercepted and receives wider circulation than planned? How do issues of confidentiality (and the possibility of a breach thereof) affect the sociopolitical dimension of the text? The presence of a ‘community-focus’ in ancient epistolary theory: how do handbooks, and reflections in letters, address the ‘communal’ aspects of epistolary communication, i.e. to what extent do the handbooks cover letterwriting beyond the private letter? (p.19) In the following chapters, the communities that come into view are varied: political, of course, but also more broadly cultural or religious, as well as philosophical. As this variety suggests, the notion (or notions) of ‘community’ presupposed in this volume is rather broad—and thus very much in line with the definitions that the term has attracted over the years: they are legion, and impossible to survey here. At its core, a community refers to a unit of people who have something in common, and the volume explores the widest possible range, from tight-knit groups tied together by shared commitments to a set of beliefs or cultural practices to large political communities and ‘virtual communities’, a concept that has risen to prominence in recent years in the context of the internet, but is equally applicable to the trans-historical communities arguably formed by readers or students of the same texts or philosophical masters. Some may object to the deracination of a term that could be taken to imply a high degree of cohesion and shared values;63 but the ability of the noun to attract attributes of significant abstraction—yielding such entities as civic community, national community, digital communities, or a wide range of other notional or ‘imagined’ communities—encourages an un- or under-theorized use of the term in the present volume.64 In line with the ecumenical outlook of the letter as a genre, the volume contains case studies from four key cultural configurations in the ancient world: Judaism, Christianity, Greece, and Rome. For the sake of coherence (and other reasons), it proved impracticable to extend the range of the volume geographically and chronologically beyond Judaea into the Near East and beyond the Roman Page 14 of 46

 

Introduction imperial period into late antiquity. But as goes without saying, our self-imposed remits are to some extent arbitrary, and we note interesting affinities between our project and current research on older, further-away, and later texts and cultural configurations, including those of ancient Mesopotamia, late antiquity, Byzantium, and the early Middle Ages.65

(p.20) 2. The Narrative of the Volume The two chapters of our opening Section A, ‘Theory and Practice of Epistolary Communication’, set the stage by exploring some of the wider parameters that defined the exchange of letters in antiquity, with particular attention to how ideological protocols and contextual exigencies impacted on the ability of the genre to establish and sustain interpersonal relationships and group identities. While it would be unwise to suppose that ancient theorizing on any phenomenon captures ancient practice (or, indeed, ought to delimit modern research), the reflective engagement with letters as a medium of communication or literary genre that have come down to us from antiquity yield important insights into the body of shared cultural knowledge that senders and recipients of letters intuitively relied upon in epistolary dialogue.66 As Thorsten Fögen points out in Chapter 1, ‘Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles’, ancient reflections on epistolography include both treatments of the genre in instructional handbooks and the meta-generic statements that letter-writers routinely embed in their correspondence. Despite certain differences of emphasis and comprehensiveness, there is a significant degree of overlap between the characteristics of their chosen medium that practitioners of the genre such as Seneca or Pliny the Younger enact or single out and the theoretical reflections on letter-writing that we find in rhetorical treatises and letter-writing manuals. In both types of sources, what one might call the social dimension of style tends to register as a primary concern: in order for the letter to fulfil its purpose, namely to generate a special bond between sender and recipient, the chosen idiolect has to be ‘appropriate’ (πρέπον/aptum) to the interpersonal relationship and its specific circumstances and exigencies. In an attempt to enact or encourage at least a semblance of ‘togetherness’, both practitioners and manuals repeatedly compare letters to oral conversations (dialogues), although often in combination with the caveat that the letter as a written form requires a higher degree of stylization. (Pointedly speaking, the ideal letter is characterized by its ‘artistic artlessness’.)67 A shared commitment to the genre’s stylistic values establishes a communion between sender and addressee that is further enhanced through the quasi-dramatic elements that form part of epistolary communication—not least the expectation that the letterwriter adjust the rhetorical projection of his character to his recipient. In other words, it is essential for the sender to take into consideration how he comes across as a person, ideally aligning himself with the outlook of his addressee. Moreover, epistolographers are (p.21) expected to compensate for the lack of synchronic immediacy by means of a vivid and coherent portrayal of their Page 15 of 46

 

Introduction character, including a convincing account of their actions and thoughts. This usually means for the writer to present an ‘image of his soul’, and to do so in such a way that the addressee will get the impression of being the writer’s soulmate. Both fictional and non-fictional letters from the ancient world thus suggest that the genre serves to establish and document special relationships, as writers tend to emphasize their close links with their addressees and to indicate that both belong to the same or at least a rather similar group of individuals who share certain values and beliefs. From this point of view, the norms and expectations of the genre encourage practitioners to assert a higher degree of personal affinity, sociability, and intellectual kinship between correspondents than may actually often have been the case, yet thereby perhaps further the realization (or at least approximation) in practice of what epistolary discourse frequently recommends to construct—or presupposes—in theory. In Chapter 2, ‘Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network’, BiancaJeanette Schröder shifts the focus from composition to delivery—or, rather, how the special exigencies of sending letters in the ancient world impacted on their composition and, more generally, the overall dynamics of epistolary networking. The risks involved in communicating via letters—delays or irregularities in delivery, damage in the process of transmission, loss of letters owing to accident or interception, breaches in confidentiality by nosy third parties getting unauthorized access to the correspondence—have stayed the same throughout the centuries, but the absence of a centrally organized postal service compounded the problems across the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. Letter-writers had a range of precautionary measures at their disposal, to which they could resort to manage risk, including self-censorship, the use of multiple copies and couriers, coded discourse, or retention of an archived master-copy,68 yet as a rule of thumb many correspondents will have adopted the same approach as Cicero seems to have done: ‘if something needs to be kept secret, best to wait for a reliable messenger; if the matter is too delicate, best not to entrust the subject matter to a letter at all.’69 Reflection on the vagaries of transmission forms part of the thematic economy of epistolary discourse: it is a distinctive feature of the genre and has been well documented and discussed in the secondary literature. Schröder’s chapter builds on this work, but takes it a significant step further. Using Cicero’s letters as case study, she shows that key aspects ancient letter-writers (p.22) had to bear in mind to achieve efficacious communication were not limited to proper ethopoeia, social and stylistic decorum, and cultivation of the addressee, but also included consideration of how the letter would reach the intended recipient—which inevitably involved a person who carried the letter.70 Without the benefit of a postal service that guarantees secure and confidential delivery, this intermediary figure takes on paramount importance, as an ineluctable variable that all writers needed to reckon with when composing their missives. As persons in their own right, the carriers presented a risk as well as a chance. Handing over potentially sensitive Page 16 of 46

 

Introduction information required judgement calls on the character of the carriers—their curiosity, their reliability, their degree of loyalty. If curious, they might read the letters entrusted to them and become partial to confidential data; if negligent, they might lose the dispatches in their care before delivery; if loyal, they could be instructed to supply the recipient orally with additional information, in support of the message contained within the letter (adding comments that the author may not have wished to commit to writing); if disloyal, such comments could of course also compromise the persuasive purpose of the missive. Cicero’s letters illustrate the extent to which at least one epistolary corpus that has survived from antiquity was profoundly influenced by the mode of transmission. Generalizing, Schröder argues that the impact of the carrier was pervasive, adding an extra, if often overlooked, social dimension to ancient correspondence that went quite unrecognized in the ‘dyadic focus’ of ancient theorizing on letters, but affected the contents of dispatches and hence also the genre’s potential for networking and community-building, from the moment of composition to the moment of delivery. If epistolary discourse likes to cultivate the conceit that dialogue by means of letters may aspire to something akin to an intimate conversation between friends who just happen to be apart, this generic ideal thus threatens (or, perhaps, is designed) to obfuscate a more complex reality. This ‘systemic deficiency’, however, albeit problematic, also ensures that ancient letter-writing is almost by definition communal in outlook: a third party is inevitably written into the fabric of the text, and at the very least as an absent presence that defines the terms of the sayable. The same potential of letters to link individuals and communities in more or less open dialogue also defines the place and function of letters within the political cultures of the ancient world. The chapters in Section B, ‘Configurations of Power and Epistolary Communication: From Greece to Rome’, consider the role of letters in political communities and intercultural communication, with a range of case studies from the Greek and Roman worlds, in a chronological sweep that takes us from the fifth century BCE down to the end of the Hellenistic age (conventionally dated to 31 BCE). (p.23) In Chapter 3, ‘Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy’, Sian Lewis explores the part played by letters in how tyrants in fifth- and fourth-century Greece exercised power, with a specific emphasis on processes of decision-making and the role of state institutions that embedded the ruler within the wider political community, in an effort to go beyond such bland statements that Person X ‘made himself a tyrant’ or ‘established himself in power’. The focus on tyrants in the fifth and fourth century targets an interesting intermediary period in the relationship between power and writing in the ancient Greek world. For the earlier centuries, Herodotus, in his Histories, draws a clear distinction between the ways in which tyrannical rulers on the one hand and city-states on the other employ writing in their politics. As Deborah Steiner’s The Tyrant’s Writ or Leslie Kurke’s Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold have shown, whereas rulers use diverse Page 17 of 46

 

Introduction forms of writing to distance themselves from their subjects and conceal themselves behind signs, the quintessential mode of communication cultivated in the city-state is public and transparent debate in the context of the citizen assembly—though it remains an open and controversially debated question to what extent Herodotus himself was invested in this distinction, generated it subliminally through the way in which he selected and told his stories, or, indeed, captured a distinctive difference in the political cultures of Greece and the Near East.71 Conversely, in Hellenistic times, a similar contrast between ‘autocratic’ and ‘democratic’ modes of discourse dominates interstate diplomacy: John Muir and others have drawn attention to the fact that Hellenistic kings preferred to exercise their (personal) power by writings letters, whereas in ‘the world of the city state’ civic business was transacted by resolutions and decrees in the name of the entire polis.72 Lewis’s point of departure is the observation that the ‘classical’ tyrants who ruled in Sicily and elsewhere and their use of (letter-)writing sit rather awkwardly in this schema: on the one hand, they belong to the Greek oikoumene and therefore complicate the association of tyranny with rulers in the East and of democracy, freedom and transparency with the polis, which was a key organizing principle for Herodotus; on the other, their frequent association with letters in our historiographical record confounds the idea that ‘rule by letter’ did not really come into its own until the Hellenistic period. In her analysis of how the tyrants of Sicily employed letters in their reign, Lewis sketches a nuanced picture that challenges various orthodoxies: while their use of letters was sporadic and tentative, such letters constituted one (problematic) form among others through which tyrants of the classical period conducted business, promoted themselves, and tried to legitimize their regimes. In the subsequent Chapter 4, ‘Powers in Dialogue: The Letters and diagrammata of Macedonian Kings to Local Communities’, Manuela Mari, building (p.24) on a slate of recent discoveries and publications, investigates how the Macedonian kings employed written missives (letters and so-called diagrammata, which might be glossed with ‘circular letters’) to interact with and to rule over cities within their reign and regions under their control, bringing to life the diplomatic activity between court and constituencies that defined the political culture of fourth-century Macedonia. Our surviving letters and diagrammata address both fiscal and military matters of special relevance to the royal court and more local issues, such as boundary disputes involving two or more communities, the territorial extension of a specific city, or the administration of sacred properties (within Macedonia proper or in areas under the kings’ control). In addition to the matters of substance that emerge from the correspondence, the different types of missives used by the kings also yield important insights into the administrative hierarchies and institutional procedures (as well as the ‘styles’ of exercising power) that sustained royal rule. Within this diplomatic activity, the controversially debated epistatai (the local administrators who received the Page 18 of 46

 

Introduction letters and were in charge of distributing the royal message) emerge as playing a key role. Whereas some consider them members of the court elite who responded only to the king and were dispatched by him to each town of the kingdom in order to oversee the execution of his orders, others regard them as truly civic magistrates, who were elected by their fellow-citizens and acted in some cases as eponymous officers. Reconsidering the evidence, Mari argues that both approaches capture something important: in her view, the epistatai occupied a Janus-faced position between the royal court and the local communities: as initial addressees of the royal correspondence but frequently nominated by the local community, they mediated between centre and periphery and thus functioned as vital nodes in imperial administration. Mari’s exploration of the role of letter-writing in the political culture of fourthcentury BCE Macedonia segues naturally into Chapter 5, ‘Letters and Decrees: Diplomatic Protocols in the Hellenistic Period’, by Paola Ceccarelli. Hellenistic kings spent much of their time in maintaining an extensive correspondence, with the help of a large court bureaucracy, which can be traced back to Macedonian institutions and traditions, but which now faced the task of sustaining far-flung reigns and a sense of cohesion among diverse and widely dispersed constituencies. The intense and active royal correspondence constituted a particularly testing mode of diplomacy for the polis communities that tried to cling to a semblance of their former independence, while needing to accommodate the ineluctable existence (and ubiquitous if often subliminal presence) of powers above the level of the individual city-state. The chapter offers a case study of how one such community, Magnesia on the Maeander, responded to the challenge. The dossier in question concerns the request of acceptance of a new contest for Artemis Leukophryene, first celebrated in 208 BCE, which the citizens of Magnesia on the Maeander addressed to all the (p. 25) Greek world; answers came from kings, leagues, and cities, which makes it possible to compare the different ‘styles’ of these documents, in particular the contrastive ideologies of power instantiated in the royal letter and the citydecree. In addition, Ceccarelli can show how the way in which they were set up, in the agora of Magnesia, affords insights into the Magnesians’ own perception of these acts of international diplomacy here publicly immortalized on stone— and how they used the responses, not least the royal letters, to project an image of a political community that was both internally cohesive and well-connected with the outside world. Even though the various political agents in Ceccarelli’s case study spoke different languages of power, both kings and polis communities at least hailed from the same (Greek) culture and thus can be assumed to share an understanding of the implicit protocols in play in diplomatic correspondence, irrespective of differing preferences in terms of idiom, genre, or performativity. In cross-cultural communication this kind of intuitive uptake is much more difficult to achieve and the dynamics of (epistolary) interactions can go Page 19 of 46

 

Introduction disastrously wrong—as Robin Osborne demonstrates in Chapter 6, ‘Letters, Diplomacy, and the Roman Conquest of Greece’. Like Ceccarelli, his point of departure is the difference between the letter and the decree as political media, each coming with its own distinct set of generic expectations. For Osborne, a key distinguishing hallmark is the dialogicity inherent in epistolary communication. Whereas decrees state decisions reached by a political community and are thus discursively constituted facts to be reckoned with, rather than invitations to dialogue, a letter, by contrast, includes a specific sender who conveys information to a specific addressee in order to persuade the recipient to give a particular response or, more generally, act in a certain way, without being able to enforce compliance: as such letters are ‘dialogic’ overtures, both on the part of the sender, who has to render the desired response appealing to the addressee, and on the part of the addressee, who can decide for themselves whether they consider the sender’s rhetorical efforts compelling. Osborne stresses that royal letters too conformed to type by ‘reasoning’ with their audience, even though kings of course had the potential to back up their epistolary argument through (the more or less implicit threat of) physical violence. When the Romans started to extend their imperial reach to the Greek East, the officials in charge adopted the convention, established by Hellenistic kings, of replying to the embassies of cities by writings letters for compelling pragmatic reasons. At the same time, this habit had unintended consequences: not least, it assimilated Roman magistrates, which changed on an annual basis, to Greek monarchs—and, so Osborne argues, turned out to be an important factor in shaping the Roman intervention in the Greek world in the early second century BCE. For the ideological protocols of letter-writing, the authority attached to the genre in a culture where letters were the medium of choice for kings, and the tendency to preserve important letters by means of public (p.26) inscriptions all served to transform the ad hoc decisions of individual magistrates into a quasi-official ‘foreign policy’ of Rome—helping to compound erroneous assumptions the Greeks made about the nature of Rome’s political arrangements. Chapter 7, ‘A Republic in Letters: Epistolary Communities in Cicero’s Correspondence, 49–44 BCE’, by Ingo Gildenhard, centres squarely on Rome itself, more specifically the five-year period after Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BCE and his assassination on the Ides of March 44 BCE. During this period Cicero wrote about three hundred letters, about a third of the total correspondence that has survived to and from him. Among much else, this corpus demands attention as a special medium of political commentary, intervention, and reflection—as well as community-building. In a commonwealth shattered by civil war and in the process of being transformed in an autocratic key through Caesar’s victory and dictatorship, the letter offers Cicero a medium for various forms of political activism: in and through his correspondence, he tries to come to terms with Caesar, stake out a position for himself in Caesar’s Page 20 of 46

 

Introduction world, and mediate between the centre of power and high-profile Republicans still languishing in exile in various places across the Mediterranean. These efforts are all designed to sustain a community of peers committed to a Republican commonwealth that found itself on the losing side of history. The following Section C of the volume comprises five chapters dealing with various aspects of ‘Letters and Communities in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity’. In both Judaism and Christianity, communities and the politics of engaging them play an important role. Membership is defined communally, orientated on the macro-level towards notions of ‘the people of God’, of ‘Israel’, or of the universal ekklesia, while instantiated at the local level in communities, synagogues, or ekklesiai, respectively. In their interactions, these groups adopt various formats of communication from the spheres of polity, administration, and civic organization.73 In bringing case studies from ancient Judaism and early Christianity into conversation with examples from classical antiquity, this volume hopes to stimulate further comparative and collaborative work in these areas. In Chapter 8, Sebastian Grätz reopens the question of ‘The Literary and Ideological Character of the Letters in Ezra 4–7’. At first glance, the Aramaic letters embedded in the biblical book of Ezra look like authentic documents issued in favour of the Judaeans by the Achaemenid chanceries. Therefore, they might corroborate the view, expressed by some ancient historians and biblical scholars, that the Judaean Torah (‘the Law of God’) was authorized by (p.27) the Achaemenid kings as ‘the law of the king’ (cf. Ezra 7:26), a process for which the Swiss ancient historian Peter Frei has coined the term ‘Persian imperial authorization’.74 Grätz however draws on recent studies of Aramaic epistolographic formulae to show that the letters display formulaic and stylistic features differing from authentic imperial Persian royal correspondence. In addition, he suggests that the contents of these letters are influenced by other biblical texts, chiefly Deutero-Isaiah and the books of Chronicles. Finally, he shows that the image of the king in these letters comprises aspects of the euergetism characteristic of Hellenistic monarchs. Grätz therefore suggests that the letters in Ezra 4–7 are fictitious and serve certain literary and ideological purposes. They present the Persian period as a time of divinely monitored reconstruction after the exile, and they emphasize God’s lasting election of Judah and the Jerusalem temple. The deployment of letters for such purposes can be compared with similar practices in Hellenistic historiography. In Chapter 9, ‘“From me, Jerusalem, the Holy City, to You Alexandria in Egypt, my Sister.…” (Bavli Sanhedrin 107b): The Role of Letters in Power Relations between “Centre” and “Periphery” in Judaism in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Islamic Periods’, Philip Alexander investigates the role of ancient Jewish letters in promoting a shared identity. Jerusalem as the centre had to assert its leading role for the Jewish Diaspora before 70 CE. This could not be done, Alexander argues, by coercion: it required diplomacy and persuasion. One Page 21 of 46

 

Introduction means of asserting the leadership of Jerusalem was by letters, which was a form of communication ‘softer’ than the decree or the order. The first examples Alexander discusses are the two festal letters at the beginning of 2 Maccabees that invite the Jews in Egypt to adopt the festival of Hanukkah celebrating the rededication of the Jerusalem temple and thus to acknowledge Jerusalem’s primacy. Alexander also finds reflections of Jewish letter-writing in three passages of the book of Acts: they concern (the ‘Pre-Christian’) Paul’s request of letters from the high priest to the synagogues in Damascus for the purpose of extraditing Jewish believers in Jesus (Acts 9:1–2); the letter conveying the socalled Apostolic Decree, by which the Jerusalem church adopts the role of Jewish authorities in Jerusalem (15:22–35); and, in their encounter with Paul, the reference by the Jews of Rome to letters specifically from Judaea (28:17–22). Finally, Alexander reviews the use of letters as transmitted in rabbinic literature. He argues that the letter ascribed to Rabban Gamliel about tithing and intercalation (Tosefta Sanhedrin 2.6 and parallels) is credible in general but that the claim of Gamliel’s authorship has replaced an initial reference to the high priest as the author. Thus, the Toseftan text claims that the rabbis took over high priestly functions. After Jerusalem had finally lost its central role (again) in the aftermath of the Jewish revolts, Judaism of the (p.28) Talmudic period became a diffuse society with multiple centres and local leaderships. Alexander suggests that the genre of responsa, which began to flourish in the Islamic period, developed from exchanges of letters and participated in their ‘soft’ power structures. A specific example of a Jewish literary letter, though transmitted chiefly in Syriac manuscripts copied by Christians, is discussed by Lutz Doering in Chapter 10, ‘Configuring Addressee Communities in Ancient Jewish Letters: The Case of the Epistle of Baruch (2 Baruch 78–86)’. This letter is extant in two textual forms: one attached to the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, which it concludes, the other one as a stand-alone text that displays also a somewhat different textual form. Drawing on a text-linguistic model for the ‘author’ and ‘reader’ of letters, Doering investigates how the Epistle of Baruch offers real first readers in the first or second century CE a particular reading attitude (the implied reader) with reference to the explicit addressees of the text, which are given as the ‘nine and a half tribes who were beyond the river’, that is, the northern tribes of Israel exiled by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE. In this text, Baruch is asked to write also to the remaining tribes in the Babylonian exile; however, this letter is not produced verbatim in 2 Baruch. Instead, the Epistle of Baruch functions pars pro toto as a written address to ‘all’ of Israel. By illuminating their situation after the catastrophe of the destruction of the second temple through the lens of the destruction of the first, the text allows ‘Baruch’, Jeremiah’s scribe and witness of the first destruction, to speak to readers in the decades before and after 100 CE. Importantly, Baruch emphasizes the unity and common lot of the twelve tribes. All of them have left their land; all they can rely Page 22 of 46

 

Introduction on now is God and his Torah. Baruch thus shifts the focus from a this-worldly national expectation to an other-worldly hope. As letter-writer, he summarizes the foundational visions he was granted according to the body of the Apocalypse of Baruch for his addressees. This works best in the textual form of the Epistle as attached to the Apocalypse. By requesting recurrent rereading of the Epistle and mutual commemoration, the Epistle (and with it the Apocalypse) specifies the preferred mode of its own reception. It is unclear whether it was successful with real communities of readers around 100 CE, though the stand-alone form of the Epistle shows that it achieved its aim at least with later Syriac Christian readers. In Chapter 11, ‘The Letters of Paul and the Construction of Early Christian Networks’, John M. G. Barclay suggests that, contrary to what might be expected, letters were relegated to a managerial role in Paul’s network of early Christian communities, being subsidiary to non-literary, and thus non-epistolary, forms of face-to-face communication during meetings, by messengers, and through conversation and gossip. Seen this way, Paul’s letters have been more powerful in their reception than in their original role for building and maintaining early Christian networks. As Barclay shows in a close reading of 2 Cor 8:16–24, there was a lot going on orally before, behind, and in the (p.29) wake of Paul’s letter(s) to the Corinthians: names are not provided because everyone is in the know, and in his writing Paul merely hints at the rumour-mill that found its expression in forms of communication other than epistolography. Nevertheless, Barclay suggests that Paul’s letters had a threefold managerial import: they managed perceptions as well as reputations, and they fulfilled a controlling function in that they affirmed his authority over his churches. Barclay claims that practice and physical presence were ultimately deemed superior to words and letters, and that Paul’s letters acquired the dominant role that we assign to them only in the subsequent rereading by different Christian communities. However, this process of ‘reading other communities’ letters’ began very early on, as shown by Col 4:6, the reference to a mutual exchange of letters received by the Colossian and Laodicean church. In Chapter 12, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr considers ‘The Communities Configured in the Letter of James’. This text, in the Greek New Testament heading the Catholic Epistles, purports to be, not unlike the Epistle of Baruch, a letter ‘to the twelve tribes in the Diaspora’, written by ‘James, a slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ’, though providing no further self-identification. Distinguishing between the real (or historical) readers, the implied readers and the subsequent reception of the letter, Niebuhr deals with these levels in reverse order. The manuscript tradition from late antiquity and the Middle Ages shows that the letter was perceived as a foundational instruction from James, the brother of the Lord, one of the leading figures of the Jerusalem church. At the same time, it was read in conjunction with the apostolic testimony, particularly that in the book of Acts, with which the Catholic Epistles were joined in the manuscripts (in Page 23 of 46

 

Introduction the section called Praxapostolos). At the level of the implied readers, the text makes use of the genre of Diaspora letter, which allows for the creation of a sense of common values and shared faith with the addressees. In addition, the author, imagined as writing from Jerusalem, has the authority to instruct the addressees with a form of Torah paraenesis similar to what we find in Jewish Diaspora letters. Finally, at the level of historical communities, the Letter of James appears to address a community of Jewish origins searching for a specifically ‘Christian’ identity in the midst of a dominant Mediterranean culture; the letter, whether orthonymous or not, may have attempted to guide this process. Niebuhr argues that the figure of James was particularly apt to create the desired community ethos, and that the specific theological outlook of the letter should not be hastily set off against Paul; rather, both Paul’s epistles and the Letter of James have contributed to configuring a plurality of Christian communities. The elevation of select pieces of correspondence to the status of (inspired) Scripture and their inclusion in the Christian Bible has ensured that letters written in antiquity have informed the Western cultural imaginary ever since, with generation after generation of new readers joining the religious community that first took shape (not least in and through letters) in the first century CE. (p. 30) Indeed, we do not need to limit the power of ancient letters to sustain transhistorical and trans-cultural dialogue among like-minded readers to the religious sphere. Arguably, ancient philosophers, too, configured enduring intellectual communities in and through their correspondence—and intended for it to resonate down the ages, continuing to issue an invitation to engage and join in. As we already had occasion to note with reference to Epicureanism, philosophical schools could benefit much from the sociable elements naturally embedded in epistolary practice, in addition to the utilitarian benefits afforded by long-distance communication to bridge distances of space and time and thus reinforce group cohesion even without the quotidian reinforcement of face-toface interactions. Another philosopher who understood the potential of the letter as a medium for philosophical thought, outreach, and community-building (across distances of time as well as space) was Seneca; and it is perhaps not a coincidence that he has appeared to some as another pagan thinker who has various affinities with Christianity, not least Paul.75 If earlier generations of scholars ignored the epistolary qualities of his Letters to Lucilius, the Epistulae morales, altogether (treating them as essays embedded within a greeting and a farewell), the spotlight nowadays is firmly on how Seneca’s choice of genre interlocks closely with his philosophical project—not least as a compelling and vivid framework for the delivery of a philosophical education. In Chapter 13, ‘Conversing with the Absent, Corresponding with the Dead: Friendship and Philosophical Community in Seneca’s Letters’, which doubles as the envoi to the volume, Catharine Edwards focuses on the genre’s potential, widely recognized by ancient practitioners and theorists alike, to cultivate friendship among Page 24 of 46

 

Introduction individuals who for one reason or other are prevented from interacting face-toface. In a Stoic, such pronounced investment in interpersonal relationship might surprise, given the premium this particular philosophical school placed on personal autonomy; but Edwards can show how Seneca co-opts this particular aspect of the genre’s ideology, not least to further his educational programme and his self-conscious aspiration to a broad and enduring readership. Specifically, she argues that Seneca posits important parallels between the relationship amongst absent friends on the one hand and the relationship of philosophically minded students to earlier thinkers and practitioners of philosophy on the other, as both invite (indeed require) dialogic interactions mediated by writing and reading. The proper reading of a letter in the context of a philosophical education thus becomes an analogue and ‘practice session’ for how best to engage with the literary legacy of philosophical masters. This conversation with the dead in turn anticipates the mode of interaction between Seneca and (p.31) future generations (including contemporary audiences). As Edwards shows, in Seneca’s hands, the letter enables the exploration of presence and absence not only in relation to author and addressee but also in relation to past and future generations of those aspiring to virtue. The Letters to Lucilius, then, far from enabling us to eavesdrop on privileged communication, invite us to engage actively in an epistolary conversation (and its philosophical mission) that stretches across the millennia and continues today. Bibliography Bibliography references: Altman, Janet G. (1982), Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form, Columbus. Anderson, Benedict (1983), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London. Antenhofer, Christina, and Mario Müller (eds) (2008), Briefe in politischer Kommunikation vom Alten Orient bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen. Arrighetti, Graziano (1973), Epicuro: Opere, 2nd edn, Turin. Ash, Rhiannon (2003), ‘“Aliud est enim epistulam, aliud historiam… scribere” (Epistles 6.16.22): Pliny the Historian?’, Arethusa 36, 211–25. Bagnall, Roger S., and Raffaella Cribiore (2006), Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt: 300 B.C.–A.D. 800. With contributions by Evie Ahtaridis, Ann Arbor. Barlow, Claude W. (1938), Epistolae Senecae ad Paulum et Pauli ad Senecam quae vocantur, Rome. Barton, David, and Nigel Hall (eds) (2000), Letter Writing as a Social Practice, Amsterdam and Philadelphia. Page 25 of 46

 

Introduction Bassi, Karen (2001), Acting Like Men: Gender, Drama and Nostalgia in Ancient Greece, Ann Arbor. Beard, Mary (2002), ‘Ciceronian Correspondences: Making a Book out of Letters’, in Timothy P. Wiseman (ed.), Classics in Progress, Oxford, 103–44. Bencivenni, Alice (2014), ‘The King’s Words: Hellenistic Royal Letters in Inscriptions’, in Karen Radner (ed.), State Correspondence in the Ancient World: From New Kingdom Egypt to the Roman Empire, Oxford, 141–71. Betz, Hans Dieter (1985), 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul, Philadelphia. Blumell, Lincoln H. (2012), Lettered Christians: Christians, Letters, and Ancient Oxyrhynchus, Leiden. Bocciolini Palagi, Laura (ed.) (1985), Epistolario apocrifo di Seneca ad Paulum et Pauli ad Senecam, Bologna. Brinker, Klaus (2005), Linguistische Textanalyse: Eine Einführung in Grundbegriffe und Methoden, 6th, rev. edn, Berlin. Bruhn, John G. (2011), The Sociology of Community Connections, 2nd edn, Dordrecht. Buzón, Rodolfo (1984), Die Briefe der Ptolemäerzeit: Ihre Struktur und ihre Formeln, Diss. Heidelberg. Campos Daroca, Francisco Javier, and María de la Paz López Martínez (2010), ‘Communauté épicurienne et communication épistolaire: lettres de femmes selon (p.32) le PHerc. 176: la correspondance de Batis’, in Agathe Antoni, Graziano Arrighetti, M. Isabella Bertagna, and Daniel Delattre (eds), Miscellanea Papyrologica Herculanensia, vol. 1, Pisa and Rome, 21–36. Carlon, Jacqueline M. (2009), Pliny’s Women: Constructing Virtue and Creating Identity in the Roman World, Cambridge. Castagna, Luigi, and Eckard Lefèvre (eds) (2003), Plinius der Jüngere und seine Zeit, Munich. Ceccarelli, Paola (2013), Ancient Greek Letter Writing: A Cultural History (600 BC–150 BC), Oxford. Ceccarelli, Paola (2017), ‘Image and Communication in the Seleucid Kingdom: The King, the Court, and the Cities’, in Andrew Erskine, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, and Shane Wallace (eds), The Hellenistic Court: Monarchic Power and Elite Society from Alexander to Cleopatra, Swansea, 231–55.

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Introduction Ceccarelli, Paola (2018), ‘Review of Stephan Procházka, Lucian Reinfandt, Sven Tost (eds), Official Epistolography and the Language(s) of Power: Proceedings of the First International Conference of the Research Network Imperium & Officium, Vienna 2015’, Sehepunkte 18, Nr. 2 [15.02.2018], URL: http:// www.sehepunkte.de/2018/02/29125.html. Clay, Diskin (1982), ‘Epicurus in the Archives of Athens’, in Studies in Attic Epigraphy, History, and Topography presented to Eugene Vanderpool, Athens and Princeton, 17–26. Clay, Diskin (1998), ‘The Cults of Epicurus’, in Diskin Clay, Paradosis and Survival: Three Chapters in the History of Epicurean Philosophy, Ann Arbor, 75– 102. Clay, Diskin (2009), ‘The Athenian Garden’, in James Warren (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, Cambridge, 9–28. Corcoran, Simon (2014), ‘State Correspondence in the Roman Empire: Imperial Communication from Augustus to Justinian’, in Karen Radner (ed.), State Correspondence in the Ancient World: From New Kingdom Egypt to the Roman Empire, Oxford, 172–209. Cugusi, Paolo (1983), Evoluzione e forme della epistolografìa latina nella tarda repubblica e nei primi due secoli dell’impero: con cenni sull’epistolografìa preciceroniana, Rome. Cugusi, Paolo (1991), Corpus epistolarum latinarum papyris, tabulis, ostracis seruatarum, Florence. Dana, Madalina (2015), ‘Connecting People: Mobility and Networks in the Corpus of Greek Private Letters’, Center for Hellenic Studies Research Bulletin 3.2, . Dana, Madalina (2016a), ‘Les lettres grecques sur plomb et sur tesson: pratiques épigraphiques et savoirs de l’écriture’, in Alessandra Inglese (ed.), Epigrammata 3. Saper scrivere nel Mediterraneo antico. Esiti di scrittura fra VI e IV sec. a.C., Rome, 111–33. Dana, Madalina (2016b), ‘Réseaux épistolaires et commerce antique: la circulation des lettres grecques sur plomb et sur tesson’, in Anne-Florence Baroni, Gwladys Bernard, Béatrice Le Teuff, and Coline Ruiz Darasse (eds), Échanger en Méditerranée: pratiques, normes, acteurs dans le monde antique, Rennes, 93–106. De Benedictis, Angela, Gustavo Corni, Brigitte Mazohl, and Luise SchornSchütte (eds) (2009), Die Sprache des Politischen in actu: Zum Verhältnis von

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Introduction politischem Handeln und politischer Sprache von der Antike bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen. (p.33) de Witt, Norman W. (1954), St. Paul and Epicurus, Minneapolis. Decker, William M. (1998), Epistolary Practices, Chapel Hill. Deissmann, Gustav Adolf (1903), ‘Prolegomena to the Biblical Letters and Epistles’, in Bible Studies (trans. A. Grieve), Edinburgh, 1–59 (German original: ‘Prolegomena zu den biblischen Briefen und Episteln’, in Bibelstudien, Marburg, 1895, 187–252). Derrida, Jacques (1987), The Post Card, trans. A. Bass, Chicago. Dewar, Michael (2015), Leisured Resistance: Villas, Literature and Politics in the Roman World, London. Diewald, Gabriele M. (1991), Deixis und Textsorten im Deutschen, Tübingen. Doering, Lutz (2012), Ancient Jewish Letters and the Beginnings of Christian Epistolography, Tübingen. Doty, William G. (1966), The Epistle in Late Hellenism and Early Christianity: Developments, Influences, and Literary Form, Madison. Ebbeler, Jennifer V. (2009), ‘Tradition, Innovation, and Epistolary Mores in Late Antiquity’, in Philip Rousseau and Jutta Raithel (eds), Blackwell’s Companion to Late Antiquity, Oxford, 270–84. Eckstein, Peter (2004), Gemeinde, Brief und Heilsbotschaft: Ein phänomenologischer Vergleich zwischen Paulus und Epikur, Freiburg im Breisgau. Eickhoff, Franziska C. (ed.) (2016), Muße und Rekursivität in der antiken Briefliteratur, Tübingen. Eidinow, Esther, and Claire Taylor (2010), ‘Lead-Letter Days: Writing, Communication and Crisis in the Ancient Greek World’, Classical Quarterly 60, 30–62. Erler, Michael (1994), ‘Epikur, die Schule Epikurs, Lukrez’, in Hellmut Flashar (ed.), Die Philosophie der Antike, vol. 4, Basel, 29–490. Erler, Michael (2009), ‘Epicureanism in the Roman Empire’, in James Warren (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, Cambridge, 46–64. Ermert, Karl (1979), Briefsorten: Untersuchungen zu Theorie und Empirie der Textklassifikation, Tübingen. Page 28 of 46

 

Introduction Essig, Rolf-Bernhard (2000), Der offene Brief: Geschichte und Funktion einer publizistischen Form von Isokrates bis Günter Grass, Würzburg. Etzioni, Amitai (2003), ‘Are Virtual and Democratic Communities Feasible?’, in Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn (eds), Democracy and New Media, Cambridge, MA, and London, 85–100. Exler, Francis X. J. (1923), The Form of the Ancient Greek Letter: A Study in Greek Epistolography, Washington, DC. Fögen, Thorsten (2009), ‘Sermo corporis: Ancient Reflections on gestus, vultus and vox’, in Thorsten Fögen and Mireille M. Lee (eds), Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Berlin and New York, 15–43. Fögen, Thorsten (2015), ‘Ars moriendi: Literarische Portraits von Selbsttötung bei Plinius dem Jüngeren und Tacitus’, Antike & Abendland 61, 21–56. Fögen, Thorsten (2017), ‘Gattungsvielfalt in den Briefen des Jüngeren Plinius: Episteln im Spannungsfeld von ethischer Unterweisung und literarischer Pluridimensionalität’, Gymnasium 124, 21–60. Frei, Peter (2001), ‘Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary’, in J. W. Watts (ed.), Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch, Atlanta, 5–40. (p.34) Frischer, Bernard (1982), The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London. Fürst, Alfons et al. (2006), Der apokryphe Briefwechsel zwischen Seneca und Paulus: Zusammen mit dem Brief des Mordechai an Alexander und dem Brief des Annaeus Seneca über Hochmut und Götterbilder, Tübingen. Galinsky, Karl (ed.) (2014), Memoria Romana: Memory in Rome and Rome in Memory, Ann Arbor. Galinsky, Karl (ed.) (2016), Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity, Oxford and New York. Garcea, Alessandro (2002), ‘L’interaction épistolaire entre dialogue in absentia et in praesentia chez Cicéron’, in A. M. Bolkestein et al. (eds), Theory and Description in Latin Linguistics: Selected Papers from the XIth International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Amsterdam, June 24–29, 2001, Amsterdam, 123–38. Gavoille, Élisabeth, and François Guillaumont (eds) (2015), Conflits et polémiques dans l’épistolaire (Epistulae antiquae VIII), Tours. Page 29 of 46

 

Introduction Gavoille, Élisabeth, and François Guillaumont (eds) (2017), Conseiller, diriger par lettre (Epistulae antiquae IX), Tours. Geisthardt, Johannes (2015), Zwischen Princeps und Res Publica: Tacitus, Plinius und die senatorische Selbstdarstellung in der Hohen Kaiserzeit, Stuttgart. Gibson, Roy K. (2003), ‘Pliny and the Art of (In)offensive Self-Praise’, Arethusa 36.2 (= Ruth Morello and Roy K. Gibson [eds], Re-Imagining Pliny the Younger), 235–54. Gibson, Roy K. (2012), ‘On the Nature of Ancient Letter Collections’, Journal of Roman Studies 102, 56–78. Gibson, Roy K. (2013a), ‘Starting with the Index in Pliny’, in Laura Jansen (ed.), The Roman Paratext: Frames, Texts, Readers, Cambridge, 33–55. Gibson, Roy K. (2013b), ‘Letters into Autobiography: The Generic Mobility of the Ancient Letter Collection’, in Theodore D. Papanghelis, Stephen J. Harrison, and Stavros Frangoulidis (eds), Generic Interfaces in Latin Literature, Berlin, 387– 416. Gibson, Roy K., and Ruth Morello (2012), Reading the ‘Letters’ of Pliny the Younger, Cambridge. Gibson, Roy K., and Andrew D. Morrison (2007), ‘What is a Letter?’, in Ruth Morello and Andrew D. Morrison (eds), Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography, Oxford, 1–16. Gibson, Roy K., and Christopher Whitton (eds) (2016), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: The Epistles of Pliny, Oxford. Glad, Clarence E. (1995), Paul and Philodemus: Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy, Leiden, New York, and Cologne. Gomperz, Theodore (1871), ‘Ein Brief Epikurs an ein Kind’, Hermes 5, 386–95. Gordon, Pamela (2013), ‘Epistolary Epicureans’, in Owen Hodkinson, Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, and Evelien Bracke (eds), Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, Leiden, 133–51. Gotter, Ulrich (2001), Griechenland in Rom? Die römische Rede über Hellas und ihre Kontexte (3.–1. Jhdt. v. Chr.), Habilitationsschrift Freiburg. Grillo, Luca (2015), ‘Reading Cicero’s ad Familiares 1 as a Collection’, Classical Quarterly 65, 655–68.

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Introduction (p.35) Grünbart, Michael (ed.) (2011), Geschenke erhalten die Freundschaft: Gabentausch und Netzwerkpflege im europäischen Mittelalter. Akten des internationalen Kolloquiums Münster, 19.–20. November 2009, Münster. Guillaumont, François, and Patrick Laurence (eds) (2012), La présence de l’histoire dans l’épistolaire (Epistulae antiquae VII), Tours. Gunderson, Erik (1997), ‘Catullus, Pliny, and Love-Letters’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 127, 201–31. Hahn, Alois (2000), Konstruktion des Selbst, der Welt und der Geschichte, Frankfurt am Main. Hall, Jon (2009), Politeness and Politics in Cicero’s Letters, Oxford. Head, Peter M. (2009a), ‘Letter Carriers in the Ancient Jewish Epistolary Material’, in Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias (eds), Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon, London, 203–19. Head, Peter M. (2009b), ‘Named Letter-Carriers among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31, 279–99. Head, Peter M. (2015), ‘“Witnesses between You and Us”: The Role of the LetterCarriers in 1 Clement’, in Daniel M. Gurtner, Juan Hernández Jr, and Paul Foster (eds), Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity in Honor of Michael W. Holmes, Leiden, 477–93. Henderson, John (2002), Pliny’s Statue: The Letters, Self-Portraiture and Classical Art, Exeter. Henderson, John (2003), ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Figure of Style: P.L.I.N.Y’S Letters’, Arethusa 36.2 (= Ruth Morello and Roy K. Gibson [eds], Re-Imagining Pliny the Younger), 115–25. Henderson, John (2007), ‘“…When Who Should Walk into the Room but…”: Epistoliterarity in Cicero, Ad Qfr. 3.1’, in Ruth Morello and Andrew D. Morrison (eds), Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography, Oxford, 37–85. Hercher, Rudolf (ed.) (1873), Epistolographi Graeci, Paris. Hodkinson, Owen, and Patricia A. Rosenmeyer (2013), ‘Introduction’, in Owen Hodkinson, Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, and Evelien Bracke (eds) (2013), Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, Leiden and Boston, 1–36. Hodkinson, Owen, Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, and Evelien Bracke (eds) (2013), Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, Leiden and Boston. Hoffer, Stanley E. (1999), The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger, Atlanta. Page 31 of 46

 

Introduction Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim (1995), ‘Oratoris maxima scaena: Reden vor dem Volk in der politischen Kultur der Republik’, in Martin Jehne (ed.), Demokratie in Rom? Zur Rolle des Volkes in der Politik der römischen Republik, Stuttgart, 11– 49. How, James (2003), Epistolary Spaces, Aldershot. Hunt, Arthur S., and Campbell C. Edgar (eds) (1932), Selecti Papyri, Vol. 1: Private Documents, Cambridge, MA (also available online at ). Hurlet, Frédéric (2010), ‘Pouvoirs et autoreprésentation du prince à travers la correspondance impériale d’Auguste à Trajan (27 av. J.-C.–117 ap. J.-C.)’, in Isabelle Cogitore and Ivana Savalli-Lestrade (eds), Des rois au prince, Grenoble, 123–45. Hutchinson, Gregory O. (2007), ‘Down among the Documents: Criticism and Papyrus Letters’, in Ruth Morello and Andrew D. Morrison (eds), Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography, Oxford, 17–36. (p.36) Jehne, Martin (ed.) (1995), Demokratie in Rom? Die Rolle des Volkes in der Politik der römischen Republik, Stuttgart. Jenkins, Thomas E. (2006), Intercepted Letters: Epistolarity and Narrative in Greek and Roman Literature, Lanham, MD. Jolly, Margaretta, and Liz Stanley (2005), ‘Letters As/Not a Genre’, Life Writing 2, 91–118. Karrer, Martin (1986), Die Johannesoffenbarung als Brief: Studien zu ihrem literarischen, historischen und theologischen Ort, Göttingen. Klauck, Hans-Josef (1998), Die antike Briefliteratur und das Neue Testament: Ein Lehr- und Arbeitsbuch, Paderborn. Klauck, Hans-Josef (2003), Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions, London and New York. Klauck, Hans-Josef (2006), Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis, with the collaboration of Daniel W. Bailey, Waco, TX. Koskenniemi, Heikki (1956), Studien zur Idee und Phraseologie des griechischen Briefes, Helsinki. Kuhn, Christina (ed.) (2012), Politische Kommunikation und öffentliche Meinung in der antiken Welt, Stuttgart.

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Introduction Kuhn, Christina (2012a), ‘Politische Kommunikation und öffentliche Meinung in der antiken Welt: Einleitende Bemerkungen’, in Christina Kuhn (ed.), Politische Kommunikation und öffentliche Meinung in der antiken Welt, Stuttgart, 11–30. Kurke, Leslie (1999), Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece, Princeton. Laurence, Patrick, and François Guillaumont (eds) (2006), Epistulae antiquae IV: actes du IVe colloque international ‘L’épistolaire antique et ses prolongements européens’ (Université François-Rabelais, Tours, 1-2-3 décembre 2004), Louvain. Laurence, Patrick, and François Guillaumont (eds) (2008), Epistulae antiquae V: actes du Ve colloque international ‘L’épistolaire antique et ses prolongements européens’ (Université François-Rabelais, Tours, 6-7-8 septembre 2006), Louvain. Laurence, Patrick, and François Guillaumont (eds) (2010), Les écritures de la douleur dans l’épistolaire, de l’antiquité à nos jours (Epistulae antiquae VI), Tours. Lewis, Sian (1996), News and Society in the Greek Polis, Chapel Hill. Lieu, Judith M. (2016), ‘Letters and the Topography of Early Christianity’, New Testament Studies 62, 167–82. Lossmann, Friedrich (1962), Cicero und Caesar im Jahre 54: Studien zur Theorie und Praxis der römischen Freundschaft, Wiesbaden. Ludolph, Matthias (1997), Epistolographie und Selbstdarstellung: Untersuchungen zu den ‘Paradebriefen’ Plinius des Jüngeren, Tübingen. Luhmann, Niklas (1995), Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main. Luijendijk, AnneMarie (2009), Greetings in the Lord: Early Christians in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Cambridge, MA. Ma, John (1999), Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor, Oxford. Malherbe, Abraham J. (1988), Ancient Epistolary Theorists, Atlanta. Marchesi, Ilaria (2008), The Art of Pliny’s Letters: A Poetics of Allusion in Private Correspondence, Cambridge. Martelli, Francesca (2017), ‘The Triumph of Letters: Rewriting Cicero in ad Fam. 15’, Journal of Roman Studies 107, 1–26. (p.37) McCutcheon, Robert W. (2016), ‘A Revisionist History of Cicero’s Letters’, Mouseion 13, 35–63. Page 33 of 46

 

Introduction McLarty, Jane (2013), ‘The Function of the Letter Form in Christian Martyrdom Accounts: “I Would Like my Community, my Church, my Family, to Remember”’, in Owen Hodkinson, Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, and Evelien Bracke (eds), Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, Leiden, 371–85. Meier, Samuel A. (1988), The Messenger in the Ancient Semitic World, Atlanta. Michalowski, Piotr (1993), Letters from Early Mesopotamia, Atlanta. Millar, Fergus (1977), The Emperor in the Roman World, 31 BC–AD 337, London. Millar, Fergus (1984), ‘The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic’, Journal of Roman Studies 79, 1–19. Millar, Fergus (1986), ‘Politics, Persuasion, and the People before the Social War (150–90 B.C.)’, Journal of Roman Studies 76, 1–11. Millar, Fergus (1989), ‘Political Power in Mid-Republican Rome: Curia or Comitium’, Journal of Roman Studies 79, 138–50. Millar, Fergus (1998), The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic, Ann Arbor. Miller, Marvin L. (2015), Performances of Ancient Jewish Letters: From Elephantine to MMT, Göttingen. Milne, Esther (2010), Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence, New York. Morello, Ruth, and Andrew D. Morrison (eds) (2007), Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography, Oxford. Morstein-Marx, Robert (2004), Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, Cambridge. Mouritsen, Henrik (2001), Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, Cambridge and New York. Mouritsen, Henrik (2013), ‘From Meeting to Text: The Contio in the Late Republic’, in Catherine Steel and Henriette van der Blom (eds), Community and Communication: Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome, Oxford, 63–82. Muir, John (2009), Life and Letters in the Ancient Greek World, London and New York. Nadjo, Léon, and Élisabeth Gavoille (eds) (2000), Epistulae antiquae I: actes du Ier colloque ‘Le genre épistolaire antique et ses prolongements’ (Université François-Rabelais, Tours, 18–19 septembre 1998), Louvain.

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Introduction Nadjo, Léon, and Élisabeth Gavoille (eds) (2002), Epistulae antiquae II: actes du IIe Colloque international ‘Le genre épistolaire antique et ses prolongements européens’ (Université François-Rabelais, Tours, 28–30 septembre 2000), Louvain. Nadjo, Léon, and Élisabeth Gavoille (eds) (2004), Epistulae antiquae III: actes du IIIe Colloque international ‘L’épistolaire antique et ses prolongements européens’ (Université François-Rabelais, Tours, 25–27 septembre 2002), Louvain. Nakanishi, Wendy J. (1990), ‘Classical and “Augustan” Notions of the Literary Letter’, English Studies 71, 341–52. Neil, Bronwen, and Pauline Allen (eds) (2015), Collecting Early Christian Letters: From the Apostle Paul to Late Antiquity, Cambridge. Olson, Ryan S. (2010), Tragedy, Authority, and Trickery: The Poetics of Embedded Letters in Josephus, Cambridge, MA. Osgood, Josiah (2009), ‘The Pen and the Sword: Writing and Conquest in Caesar’s Gaul’, Classical Antiquity 28, 328–58. (p.38) Page, Sven (2015), Der ideale Aristokrat: Plinius der Jüngere und das Sozialprofil der Senatoren in der Kaiserzeit, Darmstadt. Pardee, Dennis (1982), Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Letters: A Study Edition, with a chapter on Tannaitic letter fragments by S. David Sperling, with the collaboration of J. David Whitehead and Paul E. Dion, Chico, CA. Peter, Hermann (1901), Der Brief in der römischen Litteratur: Litterargeschichtliche Untersuchungen und Zusammenfassungen (Abhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften. Philologisch-historische Klasse 20.3), Leipzig. Plezia, Marian (ed.) (1977), Aristoteles: Privatorum Scriptorum Fragmenta, Leipzig. Porter, Stanley E. (2011), ‘Paul and the Pauline Letter Collection’, in Michael F. Bird and Joseph R. Dodson (eds), Paul and the Second Century, London, 19–36. Procházka, Stephan, Lucian Reinfandt, and Sven Tost (eds) (2015), Official Epistolography and the Language(s) of Power, Vienna. Radner, Karen (ed.) (2014), State Correspondence in the Ancient World: From New Kingdom Egypt to the Roman Empire, Oxford.

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Introduction Ramelli, Ilaria L. E. (2013), ‘The Pseudepigraphical Correspondence between Seneca and Paul: A Reassessment’, in Stanley E. Porter and Gregory P. Fewster (eds), Paul and Pseudepigraphy, Leiden, 319–36. Richards, E. Randolph (2013), ‘Pauline Prescripts and Greco-Roman Epistolary Conventions’, in Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts (eds), Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament, Leiden, 497–514. Riepl, Wolfgang (1913), Das Nachrichtenwesen des Altertums: Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Römer, Leipzig and Berlin. Riggsby, Andrew M. (1995), ‘Pliny on Cicero and Oratory: Self-Fashioning in the Public Eye’, American Journal of Philology 116, 123–35. Riggsby, Andrew M. (1998), ‘Self and Community in the Younger Pliny’, Arethusa 31, 75–98. Rosenmeyer, Patricia (2001), Ancient Epistolary Fictions: The Letter in Greek Literature, Cambridge. Rosenmeyer, Patricia (2006), Ancient Greek Literary Letters: Selections in Translation, London. Rosillo-López, Cristina (ed.) (2017), Political Communication in the Roman World, Leiden and Boston. Schlegelmilch, Sabine (2009), Bürger, Gott und Götterschützling: Kinderbilder der hellenistischen Kunst und Literatur, Berlin. Schlögl, Rudolf (2004), ‘Vergesellschaftung unter Anwesenden: Zur kommunikativen Form des Politischen in der vormodernen Stadt’, in Rudolf Schlögl (ed.), Interaktion und Herrschaft: Die Politik der frühneuzeitlichen Stadt, Konstanz, 9–60. Schretter, Manfred (2008), ‘Die Anfänge der Briefkultur im Alten Orient’, in Christina Antenhofer and Mario Müller (eds), Briefe in politischer Kommunikation vom Alten Orient bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen, 53–65. Schwiderski, Dirk (2000), Handbuch des nordwestsemitischen Briefformulars: Ein Beitrag zur Echtheitsfrage der aramäischen Briefe des Esrabuches, Berlin. Scott, Dominic (ed.) (2015), The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter: A Seminar by Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede, Oxford. (p.39) Shackleton Bailey, David R. (ed.) (1977), Epistulae ad Familiares, vol. 1, Cambridge.

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Introduction Sherk, Robert K. (1969), Roman Documents from the Greek East, Baltimore. Sogno, Cristiana, Bradley K. Storin, and Edward J. Watts (eds) (2016), Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide, Berkeley. Städele, Alfons (1980), Die Briefe des Pythagoras und der Pythagoreer (Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie, vol. 115), Meisenheim am Glan. Steckel, Sita, Niels Gaul, and Michael Grünbart (eds) (2014), Networks of Learning: Perspectives on Scholars in Byzantine East and Latin West, c.1000– 1200, Berlin. Steel, Catherine (2005), Reading Cicero: Genre and Performance in Late Republican Rome, London. Steiner, Deborah T. (1994), The Tyrant’s Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient Greece, Princeton. Stirewalt, M. Luther (2003), Paul, the Letter Writer, Grand Rapids, MI. Stowers, Stanley K. (1986), Letter Writing in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Philadelphia. Sykutris, Johannes (1931), s.v. ‘Epistolographie’, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Supplementum 5, 185–220. Taatz, Irene (1991), Frühjüdische Briefe: Die paulinischen Briefe im Rahmen der offiziellen religiösen Briefe des Frühjudentums, Fribourg and Göttingen. Tepedino Guerra, Adele (2010), ‘Le lettere private del Κῆπος: Metrodoro, i maestri e gli amici epicurei (PHerc. 176 e PHerc. 1418)’, in Agathe Antoni, Graziano Arrighetti, M. Isabella Bertagna, and Daniel Delattre (eds), Miscellanea Papyrologica Herculanensia, vol. 1, Pisa and Rome, 37–62. Thraede, Klaus (1968/9), ‘Ursprünge und Formen des “Heiligen Kusses” im frühen Christentum’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 11/12, 124–80. Thraede, Klaus (1970), Grundzüge griechisch-römischer Brieftopik, München. Trapp, Michael B. (2003), Greek and Latin Letters: An Anthology with Translation, Cambridge. Trapp, Michael B. (2006), ‘Biography in Letters; Biography and Letters’, in Brian McGing and Judith Mossman (eds), The Limits of Ancient Biography, Swansea, 335–50. Usener, Hermann (1887), Epicurea, Leipzig (reprinted Stuttgart 1966). Page 37 of 46

 

Introduction Welles, Charles B. (ed.) (1934), Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period, New Haven. White, John L. (1981), ‘The Ancient Epistolography Group in Retrospect’, Semeia 22, 1–14. White, John L. (1984), ‘New Testament Epistolary Literature in the Framework of Ancient Epistolography’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.25.2, 1730–56. White, John L. (1986), Light from Ancient Letters, Philadelphia. Whitton, Christopher (2013), Pliny the Younger: ‘Epistles’ Book II, Cambridge. Wilson, Stephen G. (2002), ‘Dissidents and Defectors: The Limits of Pluralism’, in Ismo Dunderberg, Christopher Tuckett, and Kari Syreeni (eds), Fair Play: Diversity and Conflicts in Early Christianity. Essays in Honour of Heikki Räisänen, Boston, Leiden, and Cologne, 441–56. Woolf, Greg (2015), ‘Pliny/Trajan and the Poetics of Empire’, Classical Philology 110, 132–51. (p.40) Notes:

(1) Recent landmarks from within the discipline of classics include Rosenmeyer (2001), (2006); Trapp (2003); Jenkins (2006); Morello and Morrison (2007); Ceccarelli (2013); Hodkinson, Rosenmeyer, and Bracke (2013); as well as several chapters in Radner (2014); and Procházka, Reinfandt, and Tost (2015), building on the earlier work of (for instance) Hercher (1873); Peter (1901); Exler (1923); Sykutris (1931); Koskenniemi (1956); Doty (1966); Thraede (1970); Stowers (1986); Cugusi (1983), (1991); and White (1986). The network Epistulae Antiquae: l’épistolaire antique et ses prolongements européens based at Tours held its first conference in 1998. See Nadjo and Gavoille (2000), (2002), (2004); Laurence and Guillaumont (2006), (2008), (2010); Guillaumont and Laurence (2012); Gavoille and Guillaumont (2015), (2017). New Testament scholars in particular have been active in the field: for a brief survey of scholarship from the 1960s onwards see Richards (2013) 497–9, culminating in Klauck (1998), thoroughly revised and updated in the English version, which appeared in 2006. Already in the early 1980s, the Ancient Epistolography Group of the Society of Biblical Literature received a ‘retrospect’ (see White 1981). For ancient Jewish letters (long a marginal concern in biblical scholarship), see Pardee (1982); Taatz (1991); Klauck (1998) 181–226; and now Doering (2012). (2) Letters from Ebla: Michalowski (1993). Vindolanda: see Vindolanda Tablets Online . Lead letters: Eidinow and Taylor (2010); Ceccarelli (2013) 335–56; Dana (2015), (2016a), (2016b). The formal elements of North-West Semitic letters on potsherd, hide, and papyrus (with Page 38 of 46

 

Introduction references to their respective editions) are catalogued in Schwiderski (2000). Collection of literary letters: Hercher (1873); Gibson (2012), (2013a); and the (currently running) AHRC project ‘Ancient Letter Collections’ by Roy Gibson and Andrew Morrison at the University of Manchester (), which promises, among other things, ‘a critical review of each of the c.70 surviving Greco-Roman letter collections before 500 A.D.’; for collections of Christian letters from the New Testament to late antiquity, see Neil and Allen (2015). Letters on stone: Welles (1934); Sherk (1969); Ceccarelli (2013) 297–334 and 365–83; Bencivenni (2014). For papyrus letters, see for instance Hunt and Edgar (eds) (1932) 268–395 for a selection of eighty-two letters (but cf. also the two memoranda, 396–9), also available online at ; important studies include Deissmann (1903); Exler (1923); Buzón (1984); Bagnall and Cribiore (2006); Hutchinson (2007); and the comparative work of New Testament scholars (see previous note). For Christian papyrus letters, see Luijendijk (2009); Blumell (2012). For the various forms and media in which Jewish letters were transmitted, see Doering (2012). (3) See e.g. White (1984); or, for a more recent example, Porter (2011) 33, who, in his study of Paul, draws on Cicero for arguments about the habit of the sender to retain a copy of the letter in his own archives or authorial efforts to gather a selection of letters into a collection for publication. For further bibliography, see Doering (2012) 2 n. 4. (4) Examples are Trapp (2003); Morello and Morrison (2007); Neil and Allen (2015). (5) See programmatically Schlögl (2004); and, for antiquity, Kuhn (2012), (2012a), in whose wide-ranging discussion of ‘political communication and public opinion in the ancient world’ letters do not (or only implicitly) register—in contrast to studies ‘zu den Trägerschichten und Rahmenbedingungen des politischen Diskurses, zur Kommunikation in Diplomatie und Gesandtschaftswesen, der Tätigkeit und Wirkung politischer Redner, den Kommunikationsmedien sowie den Formen und rhetorischen Mitteln der politischen Rede’ and the increased attention given to ‘non-verbale bzw. symbolische Kommunikation…, etwa der Rolle von Ritual, Gesten, Theatralik und Emotionen in den politischen Arenen sowie der politischen Kommunikation in Gestalt materiell-bildhafter Herrschaftsmanifestation in Architektur, Monumenten oder auf Münzen’ (13, with much further bibliography). A good example from the ancient world is the recent debate over the democratic elements in the constitutional arrangements of the Roman Republic and the importance of public oratory: see further below, pp. 6–7. But the importance of letters as a key medium of political communication is being increasingly recognized, from pre-modern periods to the present day: see the papers in Page 39 of 46

 

Introduction Antenhofer and Müller (2008); De Benedictis, Corni, Mazohl, and SchornSchütte (2009); and Rosillo-López (2017), part 2: ‘Political Communication at a Distance’. (6) Hall (2009) 17. (7) See further Fögen (2009). (8) Cf. Jenkins (2006) 45–6 (in a discussion of Cic. Fam. 11.16.1): ‘the epistle is a tricky medium in the ancient world precisely because one cannot see or scrutinize the recipient. In an oral conversation, one can gauge reactions, and tailor the argument or the request to the perceived agitation or receptiveness of the interlocutor. A letter cannot do this, and one must fall back on the only slightly less hazardous medium of the messenger.’ (9) As Hall (2009) 17–18 points out. (10) Steiner (1994); Bassi (2001) 55–63. (11) See most recently the papers collected in Galinsky (ed.) (2014), (2016). (12) Plin. Ep. 1.1: Frequenter hortatus es, ut epistulas, si quas paulo curatius scripsissem, colligerem publicaremque. collegi non servato temporis ordine— neque enim historiam componebam—, sed ut quaeque in manus venerat. (13) For an edition, translation, and basic interpretation of the most important ancient sources (Demetrius, De elocutione; Cicero; Seneca; Pseudo-Demetrius, Τύποι ἐπιστολικοί; Philostratus of Lemnos; Bologna Papyrus 5; Gregory of Nazianzus; Julius Victor; and Pseudo-Libanius, Ἐπιστολιμαῖοι χαρακτῆρες), see Malherbe (1988). For modern theorizing about letters, see e.g. Altman (1982); Decker (1998); the papers in Barton and Hall (2000); How (2003); Milne (2010); and the articles in the special issue of Life Writing 8.2 (2011), (‘To the Letter’). (14) Quotations are from Trapp (2003) 1, who also draws attention to the fact that in any particular instance it may well be difficult to decide whether a specific piece of writing ought to qualify as ‘a letter’. On matters of definition, see further below, pp. 12–13. (15) For this conceit, see, for instance, Petrarch’s correspondence with classical authors and authorities in De rebus familiaribus xxiv; if Dante went on a trip to Hell to insert himself within a community of classical greats, as he does in Inferno 4, Petrarch chose the epistolary mode to achieve a similar effect. (16) For the paradox of the letter as a format for the preservation of the ephemeral, see further below, pp. 13–14.

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Introduction (17) See e.g. Millar (1984), (1986), (1989), (1998); the papers in Jehne (ed.) (1995); Mouritsen (2001); and Morstein-Marx (2004). (18) Cic. De orat. 2.338 (maxima…oratoris scaena), with Hölkeskamp (1995). (19) Mouritsen (2013). (20) Jenkins (2006) 43, our italics. (21) See Cic. Phil. 2.7 and Fam. 1.9, which is by far the longest letter in the collection. (At 3,500+ words it resembles a small speech—it is, for instance, significantly longer than the Pro Marcello.) On the ‘official’ character of §§ 4–22, see Lossmann (1962) 149–51 (with discussion of previous literature). For the wider dissemination of his correspondence, see Steel (2005) 101–2 on Fam. 7.3. The potentially explosive nature of epistolary communication is a standard theme throughout the genre’s history. See already Riepl (1913) 295–9. (22) Grillo (2015); similarly Martelli (2017) on Fam. 15. On the (post mortem) edition and publication of Cicero’s correspondence, see the different views and practices of Shackleton Bailey (1977), with his preference for chronological sequence; Beard (2002), who emphasizes the design of the individual letter-book and collection as a whole (at least as preserved in some of our MSS); and McCutcheon (2016), who claims that the notion of a relatively fluid ‘database’ best captures the earliest period in the history of the letters’ publication and transmission. (23) Welles (1934); Ma (1999); Ceccarelli (2017). (24) Thuc. 7.11–15. That the endeavour resulted in failure may have been due to the particular nature of the Athenian assembly: see Ceccarelli (2013) 142–6. For further examples, see Plut. Dion 31.2–32.1 = Timonides BNJ 561 F 1 = Timaeus BNJ 556 F 114; cf. Ceccarelli (2013) 163–4. (25) For performances of ancient Jewish letters, see Miller (2015). (26) Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26; 1 Pet 5:14; and cf. Thraede (1968/9), esp. 132. (27) Barclay’s Chapter 11 in this volume issues an important reminder not to over-estimate the significance of letters for the constitution of communities simply because they often constitute the only material records that have survived from a historical context in which non-literary forms of group formation might have been of paramount importance but are now all but lost to us. (28) Henderson (2007); Osgood (2009). (29) See Millar (1977); and more recently Hurlet (2010); Corcoran (2014). Page 41 of 46

 

Introduction (30) See Doering (2012) 154–8, 160–5, 241–62, 343–66, 430–4; and Alexander (Chapter 9 in this volume). (31) Clay (2009) 19. For Plato’s (mostly or even entirely apocryphal) corpus, see most recently Scott (2015); for fragments of Aristotle’s correspondence, see Plezia (1977); for the (late antique) letters of Pythagoras, Städele (1980). (32) Gordon (2013). (33) D.L. 10.35–83 (Her.), 84–116 (Pyth.), 122–35 (Men.). See also the letter he wrote to Hermarchus: Cic. Fin. 2.96; M. Aur. Med. 9.41. As Gordon (2013) 138 points out, in Diogenes Laertius, who draws mainly on sources hostile to Epicureanism in his discussion of the school, Epicurus’ appetite for correspondence features together with other notorious predilections ascribed to Epicureans, such as ‘food, sex, women, womanizing and idiosyncratic language’. It is worth noting that Diogenes considers most of the epistolary material he draws on fictional: Gordon (2013) 142–3. (34) Klauck (2006) 153, citing, for correspondence with groups, the letter ‘To the Friends of Lampsakos’, frr. 108–9 Usener, and the letter ‘To the Philosophers in Mytilene’, frr. 101–4 Arrighetti. The evidence is fragmentary: see frr. 95–216 Usener and frr. 40–133 Arrighetti with Erler (1994) 103–19. (35) For the child-addressee (perhaps the little daughter of Menoeceus), see fr. 176 Usener = 216 Arrighetti with Gomperz (1871) (somewhat old-fashioned) and Schlegelmilch (2009) 21–2; in the context of a more general assessment of Epicurean attitudes to childhood, see further Erler (1994) 68. (36) See most recently the studies by Campos Daroca and López Martínez (2010), with a welcome emphasis on the letter as a medium for the maintenance of a philosophical community and female letter-writers within the school; and Tepedino Guerra (2010) on private Epicurean correspondence, with particular reference to PHerc. 176 and 1418. (37) For examples, see D.L. 10.4–8. (38) See Lieu (2016). (39) For the religious aspects of Epicureanism and affinities with Christianity, see e.g. de Witt (1954) and the more recent (and more nuanced) studies by Glad (1995); Clay (1998); Eckstein (2004); Erler (2009), esp. 60–4 (‘Convergences and Divergences with the Christians’); and Doering (2012) 389–90. For further bibliography, see also Klauck (2003) 385–400, who notes ‘that Epicurean schools had a well-developed group charisma…that made them especially attractive’ (390); and (2006) 149–55, with special attention to the epistolary aspects. For Epicurean recruitment efforts, see Frischer (1982). Whether (and if so which) Christian letters were of missionary appeal remains controversial (the Page 42 of 46

 

Introduction most likely candidate would be Romans). But letters were not normally in reach for non-members. Instead, these will have been won over by miracles and martyrdom, by witnessing the lives of Christians, or by similar means. But once gathered into the community they will have been exposed to letters as well. As ‘philosophical literature’, Epicurean letters circulated more widely and therefore reached further circles, stimulating (not least) polemical refutations from philosophers of different persuasion. (40) For the letter as a ‘form of communication’, see Ermert (1979); Brinker (2005) 138–56. Ermert distinguishes the broad category of the letter as a form of communication from distinct generic instantiations (Briefsorten) within the broader rubric, not least to enable the more precise classification of various ‘letter-types’ according to form, material, situation, aim, content, or various other criteria—continuing the time-honoured tradition of ancient handbooks on letter-writings, with their various typologies. For the letter as ‘basic text type’, see Diewald (1991) 278–81, 292–304, 330. (41) Derrida (1987) 48, cited and discussed by Gibson and Morrison (2007) 3. See also Jolly and Stanley (2005). (42) See Gibson and Morrison (2007). They explore the ‘phenomenology’ of the letter with reference to the extreme cases of Greek verse epistles and Cicero’s De officiis (for which see below). (43) See Karrer (1986). (44) See McLarty (2013); Lieu (2016) 179–80. (45) See Hodkinson and Rosenmeyer (2013), esp. 5–10, with much further bibliography. (46) For a clear articulation of this research agenda, which implies a shift from ontology (‘what are letters?’) to purpose (‘why letters?’), see the editors’ preface to Morello and Morrison (2007) vi: ‘What purpose is served by casting any text in epistolary form and what epistolary features make the letter form especially attractive wherever another form might be available to the writer?’ (47) Gibson and Morrison (2007) 9–10; for Cato the Elder’s literary endeavours, see Gotter (2001). (48) See Luhmann (1995) 62–3 with reference to works of art, with the gloss by Hahn (2000) 247: ‘Die Schrift und das Kunstwerk können, ohne daß sich das Mitteilungsereignis als Materialität wiederholt (es gibt nur den einen Text, freilich in vervielfältigter Form, nur die eine Mona Lisa etc.), beliebig oft gelesen werden, betrachtet werden, kritisiert werden usw.’ For a study of the relationship between epistolary communication and face-to-face dialogue (using

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Introduction Cicero’s correspondence as data) from a linguistic point of view, see Garcea (2002). (49) Trapp (2006); Gibson (2013b). (50) For the (polemic) view of Epicurus’ community as a ‘confraternity of initiates’ resembling a cult see D.L. 10.6, referring to a passage in a book by Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, to whom Epicurus addressed one of his surviving doctrinal letters. As Wilson (2002) 454 n. 34 puts it: ‘The Epicureans… in addition to sharing an emphasis on tradition and transmission, were more communally and religiously minded than other schools. They lived together in well-ordered communities that resembled miniature states. The “religious” element included commemorative festivals, common meals, honouring the founder (the “sole saviour” Epicurus), and the extensive use of statues of their masters. The broad similarity between Epicureans and Christians was observed as early as the second century (Lucian Alex.).’ (51) Campos Daroca and López Martínez (2010) 23. More generally, they flag up ‘l’importance de la production épistolaire dans l’épicurisme, qui pourtant, assez curieusement, n’a pas encore été étudiée en profondeur’. We look forward to a study by Anna Dolganov to help address this oversight. (52) See Trapp (2003) 12 on Epicurus’ letters as the earliest pieces of epistolary writing to be preserved as philosophical scripture. In this context, it is noteworthy that Epicurus’ writings, including his letters, seem to have been dated with reference to Athenian archons and were possibly deposited by himself in the archive located in the Metroon at Athens: see Clay (1982). (53) Woolf (2015) 132. (54) The citation is from Henderson (2003) 115. See also Riggsby (1995), (1998); Gunderson (1997); Ludolph (1997); Hoffer (1999); Henderson (2002); Castagna and Lefèvre (2003); Marchesi (2008); Gibson and Morello (2012); Whitton (2013); the introduction to Gibson and Whitton (2016); and Fögen (2017). (55) Pliny’s use of letter-writing as a congenial (and gendered: Carlon 2009) medium for aristocratic self-promotion (and the futility of trying to differentiate between ‘public’ and ‘private’ letters, especially in the portion of his correspondence published in book-form) has by now been well established. See most recently Geisthardt (2015); Page (2015), esp. 57–62 (‘Die Bedeutung des Briefeschreibens für Plinius’). (56) As Ash (2003) 225 puts it: ‘We should acknowledge the artful way in which Pliny has elegantly inscribed “history” within his letter collection, whilst apparently rejecting the constraints of historiography as a genre.’ See further Fögen (2015). Page 44 of 46

 

Introduction (57) Gibson (2003) 252, citing Riggsby (1998) 89. (58) Geisthardt (2015). On the politics of otium, see more generally Dewar (2015) and, with a special focus on letters, some of the contributions in Eickhoff (2016). (59) Plin. Ep. 2.1.8: ille mihi tutor relictus affectum parentis exhibuit; and 9:…me huius aetatis per quem excusaretur elegit, his quidem verbis: ‘etiam si filium haberem, tibi mandarem.’ (60) See e.g. Plin. Ep. 2.11 and 12 with the commentary by Whitton (2013). (61) This phenomenon ought to be kept distinct from (but is of course parasitic on) the very real possibility that letters could reach unintended (or not explicitly mentioned) recipients either by accident or because of deliberate interception. Josephus, for instance, claims that he outsmarted his opponents by intercepting their letters, making them available to those for whom they are not intended, presenting himself as a master in letter-writing: see Olson (2010); Doering (2012) 324–36, 341. For (Greek) epistolarity, eavesdropping, and epistolary decorum (should you or should you not read someone else’s letters?), see Rosenmeyer (2001) 1–2. (62) Essig (2000). (63) See e.g. Etzioni (2003) 85: ‘Communities are social entities that have two elements: one, a web of affect-laden relationships among a group of individuals, relationships that often criss-cross and reinforce one another (rather than merely one-on-one or chainlike individual relationships); the other, a measure of commitment to a set of shared values, norms, and meanings, and a shared history and identity—in short, to a particular culture’ or, though more loosely, Bruhn (2011) 12: ‘There is no single agreed-upon definition of community, but generally community implies that there are relationships between a group of people, in a certain geographical locale or in cyberspace, that go beyond causal acknowledgement. These relationships are closer than casual relationships because the group shares some common goals, values, and, perhaps a way of life that reinforce each other, creates positive feelings, and results in a degree of mutual commitment and responsibility.’ (64) On imagined communities, see the classic study by Anderson (1983). (65) See e.g. Schretter (2008); Radner (2014); Procházka, Reinfandt, and Tost (2015), with the review by Ceccarelli (2018), and the website ‘Assyrian Empire Builders’ (), which features the correspondence between Sargon II, king of Assyria (721–705 BCE), and his governors and magnates as well as the correspondence of his predecessor, Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 BCE), together with further resources and materials; Ebbeler (2009);

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Introduction Sogno, Storin, and Watts (2016); and some of the contributions in Grünbart (2011); Steckel, Gaul, and Grünbart (2014). (66) For letters and genre see our discussion above, pp. 12–13. (67) See also Fögen (2017) esp. 27–31, with regard to Pliny the Younger’s letters. (68) For the last ploy, see Nakanishi (1990) 342–3: ‘The lack of a proper postal system and the chance that his messenger might be intercepted and the letters damaged or stolen led Tiro, Cicero’s favorite freedman, who served as his amanuensis, to adopt the habit of making two fair copies of the letters which had been dictated to him, sending one and keeping the other for reference.’ (69) Jenkins (2006) 38–9. (70) For messengers and letter-carriers in Jewish and Christian communities, see Meier (1988); and Head (2009a), (2009b), (2015). (71) Steiner (1994); Kurke (1999); see also Lewis (1996). (72) See Muir (2009). (73) Cf. Doering (2012) 142–5, 160–5, 383–93. Stirewalt (2003) has strongly (perhaps too strongly) argued for Paul’s indebtedness to official letters. Betz (1985) has suggested that 2 Cor 8 and 9 were two administrative letters by Paul. (74) Frei (2001); the German term originally proposed by Frei is persische Reichsautorisation. (75) See e.g. the apocryphal exchange of letters between Seneca and Paul. For editions, see Barlow (1938) and Bocciolini Palagi (1985). According to Fürst et al. (2006) 6–10, the collection dates from the late fourth century CE; but note the ‘reassessment’ by Ramelli (2013).

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles

Letters and Communities: Studies in the SocioPolitical Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard

Print publication date: 2018 Print ISBN-13: 9780198804208 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804208.001.0001

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Thorsten Fögen

DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198804208.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords The chapter explores reflections on the practice of letter-writing, with equal attention to instructional handbooks (esp. Demetrius’ Περὶ ἑρμηνείας, Iulius Victor’s Rhetorica, Pseudo-Demetrius’ Τύποι ἐπιστολικοί, Pseudo-Libanius’ Ἐπιστολιμαῖοι χαρακτῆρες, and Erasmus of Rotterdam’s De conscribendis epistolis) and the meta-generic statements that letter-writers routinely embed in their correspondence (with a special focus on Cicero, Ovid, Seneca, and Pliny the Younger). In both types of sources, what one might call the social dimension of style registers as a primary concern: in order for the letter to fulfil its purpose, namely to generate a special bond between sender and recipient, the chosen idiolect has to be ‘appropriate’ (πρέπον/aptum) to the interpersonal relationship and its specific circumstances and exigencies. Shared stylistic values and the willingness of the letter-writer to adjust his character to that of the recipient generate a sense of community between the correspondents. Keywords:   epistolary theory, rhetorical handbooks, Latin epistolography, epistolary style, ancient letter-writing and the classical tradition

‘Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; For thus, friends absent speak.’ John Donne: To Sir Henry Wotton1

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles ‘Letters have the power to grant us a larger life. They reveal motivation and deepen understanding.…They change lives, and they rewire history.’ Garfield (2013) 19

1. Introduction For many people in the twenty-first century, letters have become a rather obsolete form of communication. Instead, e-mails, short messages sent from mobile telephones (SMS) or through WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter have become increasingly popular.2 This decline of traditional epistolographic culture has sometimes been lamented. For example, with his recently published history of correspondence entitled To the Letter, Simon Garfield wants (p.44) to show ‘what we have lost by replacing letters with email—the post, the envelope, a pen, a slower cerebral whirring, the use of the whole of our hands and not the tips of our fingers’. He also asks whether nowadays anyone would even want to communicate through epistles:3 Something that has been crucial to our economic and emotional well-being since ancient Greece has been slowly evaporating for two decades, and in two more the licking of a stamp will seem as antiquated to a future generation as the paddle steamer. You can still travel by paddle steamer, and you can still send a letter, but why would you want to when the alternatives are so much faster and more convenient?4 It is therefore interesting to note that there is still no shortage of letter-writing manuals which give advice as to how to compose the right letter for a variety of occasions such as job applications, offering one’s condolences, or expressing gratitude for an invitation. In most cases, such manuals even contain model letters which may be modified for one’s own purposes. They also provide more or less detailed stylistic guidelines. To single out a random example, which is to some extent representative of similar publications, one may consider what Betty Kirkpatrick in her Guide to Letter Writing, published in 1996, has to say with regard to the structure and style of epistles.5 She advocates a ‘natural’ style, in particular for personal letters to close friends and family, because it best reflects the character of the letter-writer.6 However, for formal business letters an informal or even colloquial style is not to be recommended, since a conversational tone does not suit their purpose. Nevertheless, even more official letters should not be excessively formal, as they come across as too ‘stuffy’, ‘stiff’, or ‘stilted’. This includes the rejection of technical or specialized terms which should be limited to an epistolary exchange between small groups of experts.7 As the general principles of good letter-writing she proposes simplicity and clarity, often achieved through brevity. A sharp or abrupt ‘staccato style’ should be avoided in favour of ‘a

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles middle way with some short sentences and some rather long ones’ as well as some variety with regard to the beginning of each sentence.8 While one may question how useful such general recommendations are, it is difficult to discount the fact that such modern handbooks or guides have a long history going back to Graeco-Roman antiquity and that they are often inspired by ancient approaches to letter-writing, occurring in different forms. (p.45) This chapter discusses some ancient reflections on the elements of letter-writing and the configuration of communities through epistles. The first group of texts that will be looked at consists of treatises which have a direct or indirect connection with rhetorical theory. To this category belongs a section from Demetrius’ stylistic work Περὶ ἑρμηνείας (§§ 223–35), which may be attributed to the later third or the second century BCE,9 further, some later testimonies such as Pseudo-Demetrius’ Τύποι ἐπιστολικοί, a passage from Iulius Victor’s Ars rhetorica (§ 27), and Pseudo-Libanius’ Ἐπιστολιμαῖοι χαρακτῆρες. In addition to these ancient sources, a much later text, first published in 1522, will be considered: Erasmus of Rotterdam’s De conscribendis epistolis, which is one of the most comprehensive letter-writing manuals that has ever been produced. The second group comprises considerations by authors such as Cicero, the philosopher Seneca, and Pliny the Younger which are themselves embedded in letters and thus stem directly from epistolographic practice. While these writers describe for the most part the features of their own letters, they also talk about the characteristics of epistolary writing more generally; some of their remarks can thus be linked to the treatises dealt with in the first part of the chapter. For both groups of testimonies, it will be asked to what extent these ancient approaches to letter-writing take into account how communities are constituted and shaped through epistles. The term ‘communities’ is here understood in a rather broad sense and may refer to smaller groups of people as well as larger entities.

2. Demetrius’ ΠΕΡΙ ΕΡΜΗΝΕΙΑΣ (§§ 223–35) Although the date of Demetrius’ work Περὶ ἑρμηνείας has been hotly debated by modern scholars, it can be safely assumed that it comprises the first more extensive theoretical reflection on letter-writing. After an introduction on sentence structure (§§ 1–35), the author discusses four different styles, which are called χαρακτῆρες in Greek (‘stamps’ or ‘imprints’, i.e. ‘special characteristics’): the elevated or solemn (μεγαλοπρεπής), the elegant (γλαφυρός), the simple (ἰσχνός), and the powerful (δεινός) style, each of which is characterized by a (p.46) specific vocabulary, the arrangement of words in the sentence, its syntactic rhythm, and certain topics.10 Demetrius’ remarks on letter-writing (§§ 223–35) are part of the section on the simple style (§§ 190–222). This indicates that letters are viewed as a type of text which in general should not aim at stylistic grandeur. At the same time, Demetrius makes it quite clear that letters are not the same as conversations. Page 3 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles While he does not deny that one may define a letter as part of a dialogue, whose other half is missing, he nonetheless emphasizes that letter-writing is a form of written communication, which obliges epistolographers to carefully consider their words before setting them down. This has a number of consequences for the composition of a letter: sentence-breaks (λύσεις), which are typical of oral communication, ought to be avoided, since they tend to lead to obscurity (§ 226: ἀσαφὲς γὰρ ἐν γράφῃ ἡ λύσις). Excessive length and stylistic pretentiousness (§ 228) or extensive syntactical periods (§ 229), which may be suitable in technical texts or court speeches, should not be used in letters either. According to Demetrius, the reason for the thematic and stylistic limits of the letter is to be located in its very nature (§ 231; trans. Michael Trapp): Εἰ γάρ τις ἐν ἐπιστολῇ σοφίσματα γράφοι καὶ φυσιολογίας, γράφει μέν, οὐ μὴν ἐπιστολὴν γράφει. φιλοφρόνησις γάρ τις βούλεται εἶναι ἡ ἐπιστολὴ σύντομος, καὶ περὶ ἁπλοῦ πράγματος ἔκθεσις καὶ ἐν ὀνόμασιν ἁπλοῖς. If someone were to write about logical problems or questions of natural science, he might indeed write, but it would not be a letter that he was writing. The aim of a letter is to convey friendly feelings succinctly, and to express a simple subject in simple terms. The letter is thus defined as a sign of a friendly disposition of the sender towards the addressee,11 which not only precludes certain topics from being dealt with, but also requires an unelevated stylistic level. This postulate is illustrated by the example of proverbs (§ 232: παροιμίαι), which are considered a particularly suitable element for letters because they are widely known (δημοτικόν τι…καὶ κοινόν). By contrast, sententious maxims and exhortations belong to the realm of philosophy, since the accumulation of doctrines and formal arguments (§ 233: ἀποδείξεις) are not normally dealt with in letters. For (p.47) Demetrius, the prototypical function of the letter is to serve as a symbol of friendship between sender and addressee. A letter-writer needs to be aware of the fact that no other written form of communication provides a similarly transparent image of his soul (§ 227: εἰκόνα…τῆς ἑαυτοῦ ψυχῆς).12 For the most part, this section from Περὶ ἑρμηνείας exhibits a rather rigid idea of the form and function of letters. It is only in the last two paragraphs of the section on letter-writing that Demetrius seems to take into account certain situational criteria. Certain addressees such as cities and kings, he says, require a more elevated stylistic level, although elaborateness should never be exaggerated, as it would turn the letter into a treatise (σύγγραμμα). More or less in parenthesis, he also points out that the person of the addressee has a crucial impact on the shape of a letter.13 Thus, on the one hand the letter is differentiated from the dialogue, and on the other from epideictic speeches, court speeches, drama, and technical writings Page 4 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles such as scientific and philosophical treatises. To illustrate these differences, two out of Demetrius’ altogether four quotations from other authors are taken from Plato’s dialogue Euthydemus and from a letter written by Aristotle to Antipater (fr. 665 Rose = fr. 8 Plezia). In both cases, these two passages serve as examples of what is unsuitable for a good letter. On the whole, however, there is rather little in Demetrius’ thirteen paragraphs that goes beyond a few very basic rules; the reader does not get any more specific advice as to how to compose a proper letter.14 Demetrius has a rather one-dimensional concept of the text type of the letter, and apart from some basic remarks, he does not distinguish between the numerous different occasions which necessitate a letter. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that he views the letter as a very suitable medium to create and sustain communities among people—be it on the level of friendship between individuals, or be it with regard to the relationship between letter-writers and certain socio-political entities or powerful figures.

(p.48) 3. Iulius Victor’s Rhetorica (§ 27) Iulius Victor’s rhetorical treatise, which belongs to the fourth century CE, contains a relatively short passage on the art of letter-writing, which, together with two sections on rhetorical exercises (exercitatio) and conversation (sermocinatio), forms the final part of the work.15 He differentiates between official (negotiales) and personal letters (familiares), which can also be found much earlier in Cicero, who speaks of ‘public’ and ‘private’ letters.16 This is a distinction that Demetrius only hinted at in his paragraph on the appropriate form of letters which are addressed to kings and cities (§ 234). For both types of letters Iulius Victor postulates similar basic features, in particular the careful consideration of the addressee’s personality, to which the tone and style of the letter need to be adjusted in an appropriate fashion.17 Another more general compositional principle, which ought to be taken into account for both official and private letters, is transparency, which is absolutely crucial, since the person who receives the letter will not have the chance to ask for clarification, as would be possible in an oral conversation. The need for clarity also implies that less well-known historical events and proverbs should not be referred to in letters; a similar claim is made for the use of remote terms or artificial rhetorical figures.18 Despite a number of similar requirements for official and personal letters, Iulius Victor also identifies quite a few differences. Official letters tend to have weightier themes, which demand a higher degree of rhetorization, although the use of stylistic devices should never be exaggerated.19 For private letters, (p. 49) however, brevity is of utmost importance, both with regard to their length as a whole and their individual sentences.20 A personal epistle may be embellished through Greek elements, proverbs, or even verses. Furthermore, it is acceptable to address recipients informally, as if they were present, since a private letter does not require the seriousness (severitas) of an official letter. For

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles all these techniques Iulius Victor invokes Cicero’s correspondence as a suitable model.21

4. Pseudo-Demetrius’ ΤΥποι ΕπιστολικοΙ and Pseudo-Libanius’ ΕπιστολιμαΙῖοι χαρακτΗῆρες More complex than what is to be found in Demetrius and Iulius Victor are the systems presented by two proper letter-writing manuals (or Briefsteller, to use the slightly archaic German term): first, the Τύποι ἐπιστολικοί by PseudoDemetrius, a text that is likely to have been repeatedly revised, which makes its date very difficult to determine,22 and second, the later Ἐπιστολιμαῖοι χαρακτῆρες by Pseudo-Libanius, which seem to belong to the fifth century CE.23 Designed as practical guides for letter-writing, both texts offer definitions of and models for a variety of types of epistles; Pseudo-Demetrius lists twenty-one different categories, Pseudo-Libanius forty-one. In his introduction, Pseudo-Demetrius admits that further types may develop in the future,24 but for the time being, he lists the following: a letter can be (p.50) friendly (φιλικός), commendatory (συστατικός), blaming (μεμπτικός), reproachful (ὀνειδιστικός), consoling (παραμυθητικός), censorious (ἐπιτιμητικός), admonishing (νουθετητικός), threatening (ἀπειλητικός), vituperative (ψεκτικός), praising (ἐπαινετικός), advisory (συμβουλευτικός), supplicatory (ἀξιωματικός), inquiring (ἐρωτηματικός), responding (ἀποφαντικός), allegorical (ἀλληγορικός), accounting (αἰτιολογικός), accusing (κατηγορικός), apologetic (ἀπολογητικός), congratulatory (συγχαρητικός), ironic (εἰρωνικός), or thankful (ἀπευχαριστικός). It is telling that the list is spearheaded by the ‘friendly’ type (φιλικός). As has been observed by several scholars, this confirms the importance of a friendly disposition (φιλοφρόνησις) of the letter-writer towards the recipient that had already been underscored by Demetrius in his De elocutione (§ 231; see section 2, above).25 Pseudo-Demetrius specifies that pleasant and affable behaviour is not only suitable for the communication among friends, but also in more formal settings, including situations where the sender does not know the addressee personally. The reason for a friendly tone in letters is very simple and pragmatic: it makes the text more persuasive and helps the sender achieve his goals much more easily.26 That friendliness and politeness were commonly regarded as crucial in epistolary exchanges can also be gathered from other sources. For example, in his Characters Theophrastus says about the arrogant man (ὑπερήφανος) that, instead of courteous phrases, he employs a brusque commanding tone in his letters.27 A similar case is mentioned by the thirdcentury Peripatetic writer Aristo of Ceos who characterizes the self-willed man as disrespectful and bad-mannered. This also pertains to the way in which he writes his letters: he never uses any greeting formulae at the end, which were normally expected in epistles.28 That such anti-social behaviour is

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles counterproductive is already implied in Pseudo-Demetrius’ aforementioned remarks on the friendly letter. (p.51) Every single type in Pseudo-Demetrius’ list is first described with regard to its nature and then illustrated with a concrete example in the form of a model letter. This method is supposed to cover the situations or settings that may occur in the context of letter-writing. Pseudo-Demetrius’ categorization is based upon the assumption that a letter is in principle monothematic or that it has at least one core topic. This is also reflected in his model letters that accompany each type. They are all rather short and comprise no more than a few sentences. Pseudo-Demetrius does not formulate any explicit rules—neither for letterwriting in general nor for the individual types. Apparently, the user of his manual is expected to develop the right feeling for his own epistolographic activities by imitation or at least derive some inspiration from them. More helpful in this respect is the later work by Pseudo-Libanius, who offers several guidelines for the composition of letters tailored to different occasions. Towards the beginning of his short treatise, he provides a general definition of what a letter is (§ 2; trans. Abraham Malherbe): Ἐπιστολὴ μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ὁμιλία τις ἐγγράμματος ἀπόντος πρὸς ἀπόντα γινομένη καὶ χρειώδη σκοπὸν ἐκπληροῦσα, ἐρεῖ δέ τις ἐν αὐτῇ ὥσπερ παρών τις πρὸς παρόντα. A letter, then, is a kind of written conversation with someone from whom one is separated, and it fulfils a definite need. One will speak in it as though one were in the company of the absent person. It goes without saying that this is not exactly a very innovative approach, as it takes up what other testimonies already pointed out before. Before PseudoLibanius deals with individual categories of letters, for which he also supplies model letters, he devotes five paragraphs (§§ 46–50) to an outline of the general principles of letter-writing. These are strongly reminiscent of what earlier authors recommended: on the one hand the avoidance of loftiness (ἡ ὑπὲρ τὸ δέον ὑψηγορία) and verbosity (τὸ…ὑπέρογκον), on the other a certain distance from colloquial language and the avoidance of extreme brevity which is likely to lead to misunderstandings on the part of the recipient. This plea for a golden mean is explicitly borrowed from Philostratus of Lemnos (see Malherbe 1988: 42–3), who also suggested clarity (σαφήνεια) as the most essential stylistic principle.29 At the same time, Pseudo-Libanius underscores that the length of a letter needs to be determined by its topic. In some cases, it (p.52) is without doubt advisable to choose a slightly longer exposition in order to guarantee full intelligibility.30

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles The number of the types of letters which Pseudo-Libanius has identified goes well beyond the list presented by Pseudo-Demetrius. For example, one category with which Pseudo-Demetrius does not deal is that of the love letter (ἐρωτική), figuring as the penultimate type in Pseudo-Libanius’ list. It is defined as a text that transmits loving words to beloved addressees,31 and briefly illustrated as follows in the second part of the treatise (§ 91; trans. Abraham Malherbe): Ἐρωτική. Ἐρῶ, ἐρῶ, νὴ τοὺς θεούς, τῆς σῆς εὐπρεποῦς τε καὶ ἐρωτικῆς μορφῆς καὶ ἐρῶν οὐκ αἰσχύνομαι. τὸ γὰρ εὐπρεποῦς ἐρᾶν οὐκ αἰσχρόν. εἰ δέ γε καὶ ψέξειέ τις ὅλως ὡς ἐρῶντα, πάλιν ὡς καλῆς ἐφιέμενον ἐπαινέσειεν. I love, by the gods, I love your beautiful and loving form, and am not ashamed for loving. For the love of beauty is not shameful. Indeed, would someone actually blame me for loving, let him rather praise me for longing for beauty. The extreme brevity and the very general character of this model letter, which resembles an aphorism rather than a letter, make it almost universally usable. At the same time, it is possible to get an idea of what a suitable love letter may look like. Instead of explicitly prescribing that a love letter needs to be enthusiastic, that it may make use of sentence-like phrases (τὸ γὰρ εὐπρεποῦς ἐρᾶν οὐκ αἰσχρόν) as well as repetition and emphasis (Ἐρῶ, ἐρῶ, further εὐπρεποῦς τε καὶ ἐρωτικῆς μορφῆς), Pseudo-Libanius leaves it to the user of his manual to develop such rules intuitively from the miniature paradigm that he offers. Therefore, if the readers are to profit from this work, they need to make some effort themselves and have a sufficiently creative imagination to use the model letters as the basis for their own purposes. In comparison to Pseudo-Libanius Ovid’s advice on the writing of love letters, given in the first book of his Ars amatoria (1.437–86), is much more detailed. The words of the letter-writer should contain flattering words and have the gesture of a lover.32 Through prayers and promises the sender is likely to achieve his goal, as is endorsed by several mythological examples (Ars am. 1.440–6). More importantly, Ovid draws attention to the right use of rhetoric which in a love letter should not be applied in the same way as in court or in the forum (Ars am. 1.459–68; trans. George P. Goold, Loeb Classical Library): (p.53) Disce bonas artes, moneo, Romana iuventus,              non tantum trepidos ut tueare reos: quam populus iudexque gravis lectusque senatus,              tam dabit eloquio victa puella manus. Sed lateant vires, nec sis in fronte disertus;              effugiant voces verba molesta tuae. Page 8 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Quis, nisi mentis inops, tenerae declamat amicae?              Saepe valens odii littera causa fuit. Sit tibi credibilis sermo consuetaque verba,              blanda tamen, praesens ut videare loqui. Learn noble arts, I counsel you, young men of Rome, not only that you may defend trembling clients: a woman, no less than populace, grave judge or chosen senate, will surrender, defeated, to eloquence. But hide your powers, nor put on a learned brow; let your pleading avoid troublesome words. Who, save an idiot, would declaim to his tender sweetheart? Often has a letter been a potent cause of hate. Your language should inspire trust and your words be familiar, yet coaxing too, so that you seem to be speaking in her presence.

Moderation is thus key. The excessive use of rhetorical elements or even a declamatory tone is out of place in this type of communication. Instead of technical terms everyday words should be used.33 The ideal love letter should overcome the spatial distance between sender and addressee, and give the beloved the impression that her lover is directly talking to her. What further distinguishes Ovid from Pseudo-Libanius is the fact that his advice on the writing of love letters is gender-specific. In Book 3 of the Ars amatoria, there is a complementary passage for female writers (3.469–98)—which is perhaps not surprising, given that Ovid is also the author of the Heroides, a collection of letters for the most part written by female heroines. Among other things, Ovid recommends that the beloved should not write back too soon, but instead insert a brief delay to spur her lover on.34 The words used in her responses ought to be customary and in common use; ‘barbaric’ elements should be eschewed, as they would stand in sharp contrast to the beauty of the beloved.35 Although some of these suggestions, like much else in the Ars amatoria, are ironic or at least somewhat exaggerated, they are nonetheless reminiscent of some central doctrines of the normative tradition (p.54) represented by authors such as Demetrius and others. The two passages in Ovid’s didactic poem illustrate that there was a general consensus on the basic principles of successful letter-writing.36 To get back to Pseudo-Libanius: on the whole, it is noteworthy that despite its even more subtle differentiation between individual types of letters, the general tendency of his letter-writing manual is rather similar to that of PseudoDemetrius. Both authors want to provide their readers with a practical tool that helps them to compose their own letters. They both start from the assumption that a letter must always have a main purpose which determines its form and style. Their categorizations tend to be rather rigid and perhaps even artificial, and this impression can be applied to their definitions as well as their model letters.37 To give just one example, how is it possible to fully and convincingly distinguish between the types of the blaming (μεμπτικός), reproachful Page 9 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles (ὀνειδιστικός), censorious (ἐπιτιμητικός), vituperative (ψεκτικός), and accusing (κατηγορικός) letter? Such a typology may have sprung from a pronounced desire for systematicity, but one may dispute that this classification is fully consistent. Nonetheless, as Stowers has pointed out, ‘the “descriptions” and sample letters are chiefly occupied with depicting social situations…such as those of role, role expectation, social structure, status, action, and motivationlegitimation.’38 In other words, ‘[t]he handbooks specify genre by describing a characteristic action performed in a typical social situation. Thus they contain a sort of implicit sociology of letter writing.’39 The two treatises by Pseudo-Demetrius and Pseudo-Libanius may have been designed for the training of advanced pupils or even for professional scribes and secretaries who needed a representative sample of model letters as an orientation for their own daily work, at least in the initial stages of their career.40 However, that this was by no means the only target readership can be gathered from the introductory passages of Pseudo-Demetrius’ Τύποι ἐπιστολικοί and Pseudo-Libanius’ Ἐπιστολιμαῖοι χαρακτῆρες. Pseudo-Demetrius addresses his work to Heraclides whom he describes as eager to dedicate his life to (p.55) professional skills which also includes an interest in language and style.41 That a solid knowledge in those areas is indeed vital for someone wishing to write letters is also emphasized by Pseudo-Libanius.42 Albeit in slightly different ways, both authors ultimately address a group of like-minded readers who care about a proper diction. Through the use of these treatises their readers become members of a community of conscious, ‘initiated’ letter-writers who have developed an appreciation for artfully composed epistles. That handbooks containing model letters for emulation must have enjoyed a certain degree of popularity is also attested by the bilingual Bologna Papyrus, dating from the third or fourth century CE.43 As has been argued, ‘[r]ather than being a handbook itself, it appears to be the exercises of a student writing different types of letters, probably following a handbook. An added significance of the papyrus is thus that it witnesses to the modest literary culture of persons who used some of the handbooks.’44

5. Cicero’s Letters Together with Seneca and Pliny the Younger, Cicero was one of the most prolific epistolographers in the ancient world.45 His two most extensive corpora are the letters to Atticus (Ad Atticum) and Ad familiares. The letter collections Ad Quintum fratrem and Ad Brutum are significantly shorter. Altogether, these four collections comprise over nine hundred letters, the majority of which were written by Cicero himself, while the rest was addressed to him by others.46 These texts are not only important historical documents, (p.56) but also contain reflections on the nature of letters more generally and of Cicero’s own epistles more specifically.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Apart from his basic distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ letters (Flac. 23 and 37; see above, n. 16), there are two key passages in which Cicero categorizes different types of letters. In Fam. 2.4, written to Curio in 53 BCE, he identifies the transmission of information to absent individuals as the general or even prototypic function of a letter.47 Two other types are the intimate and humorous letter (familiare et iocosum) and the austere and serious epistle (severum et grave). However, given the political situation in Rome, Cicero finds none of these three types suitable enough for his correspondence with Curio.48 Although this categorization offers rather little in terms of a more precise definition of the three groups of letters, it does use tone, character, and content as criteria to draw attention to their different functions. In Fam. 4.13, addressed to the exiled P. Nigidius Figulus in 46 BCE, Cicero contrasts letters written under favourable conditions with those composed in hard and gloomy times. The current state of public affairs would only leave room for lament; but given his own situation, he finds himself unable to use letters to provide comfort or even assistance for others.49 As in the previous case, this is no more than a very broad distinction, but it is nonetheless an interesting one, as it starts from the assumption that politics has a direct impact on the style and temperament of letters. Epistolary correspondence can thus be interpreted as a mirror not only of political circumstances, but also of the state of mind of certain groups or communities affected by them. Similar to Fam. 4.13 is another letter from the same collection. In Fam. 6.10, written to Trebianus in the same year (46 BCE), the background situation is more or less the same and requires friends to use epistles for two things: either (p.57) to offer comfort (consolari) or to make promises (polliceri).50 Towards the end of this letter, Cicero uses the expression ‘type of letter’ (genus litterarum) which seems to presuppose the idea of a relatively fixed general classification of epistles, primarily motivated by the service that their senders deliver to their addressees as members of a particular social group.51 At the same time, it is difficult to detect a more elaborate epistolary ‘theory’ in these statements.52 A number of other types, for example letters of recommendation or congratulation, as they occur in Cicero’s letter collections themselves, are not mentioned at all. Slightly more specific is Cicero’s statement on the style of his own letters at the beginning of Fam. 9.21. As he explains, different communicative settings require the use of different linguistic and stylistic resources; this applies to both written and oral communication. But even within one and the same situation or literary genre, there is plenty of room for variation. While this also pertains to letters, they are commonly characterized by the use of everyday words (cottidiana verba). To underscore their distance from highly rhetorical forms of interaction, he characterizes the style of his own epistles as ‘ordinary language’ (plebeius sermo).53 This is perhaps a rather hyperbolic or humorous self-assessment, but it Page 11 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles does capture their remoteness from more elevated text types—a feature that is also recognized by Ovid when he recommends consueta verba for a successful love letter (Ars am. 1.467; see section 4, above). In addition to everyday language, the tone used in letters to friends may exhibit a high degree of closeness and intimacy. Accordingly, Cicero refers to the familiaris sermo of his epistolary exchange with Atticus which is not supposed to be for others (Att. 1.9.1). This is an expression that implies not only a desire for privacy, but also a certain exclusivity: Cicero and Atticus are (p.58) members of a closed group of two like-minded individuals, not to be invaded by anyone else. However, there are also examples of letters which deliberately do not follow such a stylistic ideal. For instance, when Cicero writes to Plancus in 43 BCE (Fam. 10.16), he praises the style of one of his letters which was read to the senate and greeted with applause. This was not just because the senators appreciated its content, but also because of its dignified words.54 Therefore Plancus’ letter must have been written in anything but a colloquial style which would not have suited his purpose of addressing a specific type of community. One may feel reminded of Demetrius’ passage on letters written to cities and kings which should be composed in a loftier tone (De eloc. 234; quoted above, n. 13). In other words, whenever letters are aimed at larger groups, especially in an official context, ordinary language would be inappropriate, and this is a principle to which Cicero fully subscribes. It is nicely summed up in a letter to Trebonius, presumably from late 46 BCE (Fam. 15.21.4; trans. David R. Shackleton Bailey): aliter enim scribimus, quod eos solos, quibus mittimus, aliter, quod multos lecturos putamus. Now our way of writing when we think we shall be read only by our addressee is not the same as when we write for a multitude of eyes. To Cicero it thus matters a great deal for whom a letter is written. An individual requires a different kind of epistle than a whole group of people. For the communication with friends the letter is the perfect medium to create the impression of closeness despite spatial distance between sender and addressee—in particular when missives are sufficiently long and sent frequently.55 When frequency goes along with diligent craftsmanship, it is even more laudable.56 Since letters evoke the presence of the addressee, they (p.59) are apt to replace personal conversations.57 If well written, they can draw a vivid picture of the sender’s whereabouts and fire the recipient’s imagination.58 They may even give the addressee a good impression of the sender’s emotions. However, what letters cannot convey is the non-verbal element of

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles communication,59 as Cicero regrets in the following epistle sent to the consul Antonius in April 44 BCE (Att. 14.13B; trans. David R. Shackleton Bailey): Quod mecum per litteras agis unam ob causam mallem coram egisses; non enim solum ex oratione, sed etiam ex vultu et oculis et fronte, ut aiunt, meum erga te amorem perspicere potuisses. nam cum te semper amavi, primum tuo studio, post etiam beneficio provocatus, tum his temporibus res publica te mihi ita commendavit ut cariorem habeam neminem. litterae vero tuae cum amantissime tum honorificentissime scriptae sic me adfecerunt ut non dare tibi beneficium viderer sed accipere a te ita petente ut inimicum meum, necessarium tuum, me invito servare nolles, cum id nullo negotio facere posses. For one reason and one only I would rather you had raised this matter with me in person than by letter. You could then have seen my affection for you not only in my words but in my eyes, written as the saying goes all over my face. That affection I have always felt, prompted by your own friendly disposition in the first instance and later by obligation actually conferred; and at the present time the national interest has commended you to my regard, so much so that no one is dearer to me. And now your affectionate and flattering letter has made me feel that I am not conferring a favour upon you but receiving one at your hands, when you put your request in the form that you do not wish to rescue my enemy and your friend against my will, although you would have no difficulty in doing so. (p.60) At the same time, it may be an advantage in certain situations that the epistolographer’s body language, facial expressions, or physical reactions are not visible to the recipient—in particular when sensitive or potentially embarrassing topics are raised.60 Furthermore, there are certain topics, as Cicero says, which do not lend themselves to letters, in particular when it comes to delicate political issues. The idea behind such a comment is that letters might be intercepted by people who are not intended to read them and that fatal consequences may result from this.61 These are clear instances of the closeness between sender and addressee who form a closely knit in-group sharing the same political and ethical convictions.

6. Seneca’s Letters Apart from his tragedies, Seneca has transmitted his philosophical views in three different literary genres: natural science is dealt with in the form of a technical treatise (Naturales quaestiones), ethics as well as other philosophical issues are discussed in essays partly reminiscent of dialogues (Dialogi) and in letters (Epistulae morales), both of which are influenced by the Cynic and Stoic diatribe.62 But why letters? Did he write them as a tribute to Epicurus as his Page 13 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles model for philosophical epistolography?63 Or did he also have other reasons for choosing this text type? (p.61) In Seneca’s view, the letter has a clear advantage over other genres: with its immediacy and directness, it resembles an oral conversation rather closely and even overcomes the absence of the addressee (if only in a metaphorical way).64 Consequently, he believes that it is necessary for his letters to refrain from stylistic elaboration and to concentrate completely on his subject matter (Ep. 75.1; trans. Richard M. Gummere, Loeb Classical Library): Minus tibi accuratas a me epistulas mitti quereris. Quis enim accurate loquitur nisi qui vult putide loqui? Qualis sermo meus esset si una desideremus aut ambularemus, inlabo ratus et facilis, tales esse epistulas meas volo, quae nihil habent accersitum nec fictum. You have been complaining that my letters to you are rather carelessly written. Now who talks carefully unless he also desires to talk affectedly? I prefer that my letters should be just what my conversation would be if you and I were sitting in one another’s company or taking walks together, spontaneous and easy; for my letters have nothing strained or artificial about them. The supposed lack of art, for which Lucilius has apparently criticized his letters, is thus turned into a virtue. With this view, Seneca goes back to definitions of the letter as a literary form that to a certain extent resembles a dialogue. While he specifies that extreme stylistic dryness is not appropriate for the discussion of important philosophical topics,65 he emphasizes that preference needs to be given to subject matter (res), not to style (verba)—a principle that is often accentuated by ancient technical writers.66 This attitude has a certain basis in the postulate of the harmony of lifestyle and verbal expression, but also in the conviction that the focus on thematic rather than stylistic aspects is in the interest of the reader whose attention should not be distracted by rhetorical bombast.67 In other words, letters of a philosophical nature need to be useful (prodesse) rather than entertaining (delectare). If (p.62) rhetoric plays a certain part in philosophical epistles, its function must be restricted to a strictly auxiliary one: it may highlight certain points, but must not dominate or become an end in itself.68 Seneca illustrates his view with the example of a medical doctor who is busy enough with the actual therapy of an illness and does not have room to extend his competence to any irrelevant areas such as the pleasing use of words.69 This critique of rhetoric, which stipulates appropriate action instead of beautiful phrases, is comparable to the vituperation of the sophists as expressed by Plato’s Socrates. To add emphasis to his position, Seneca puts his arguments into the mouth of a sick man who prefers a competent doctor over an eloquent one. For Seneca, the ideal for this type of philosophical prose is represented not only by his own letters, but also by the works of Papirius Page 14 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Fabianus, an older contemporary (c.35 BCE–35 CE), whose works he praises for their straightforward, unpretentious style, with which he seeks to reach the reader’s soul rather than his ears (Ep. 100).70 The relationship between philosophical discourse and style is also discussed in Seneca’s fortieth Letter, although in this piece he is primarily concerned with oral forms of philosophical debates (i.e. lectures). He argues that the importance of the subject to be discussed must be equalled by the form of its linguistic presentation. The speed of delivery of a philosophical lecture should be neither too fast nor too slow.71 In philosophy the first and foremost aim ought to be to present the truth. Therefore, sophisticated rhetorical ornaments or sound effects are by no means suited to this genre, as they are normally (p.63) employed to cover up the triviality of a message and make it look more serious than it really is.72 On the other hand, Seneca does not want to suggest that elements of a more elaborate style are completely inappropriate in philosophical discourse; they should, however, be used in moderation (Ep. 40.8). A philosopher is well advised to concentrate on the content rather than the form of his remarks, since exaggerated rhetorization of philosophical doctrines is likely to corrupt his character (Ep. 40.13–14).73 It is hard to overlook that these arguments are for the most part reminiscent of the principles presented in Ep. 75. It is thus clear that Seneca has chosen letters as a literary form because of their accessibility for the recipient; they are perfect for the configuration of a philosophical community (however small), which closely resembles a dialogic situation and suggests an active involvement of the reader.74 However, it cannot be overlooked that his remarks concerning the style of letters are rather prescriptive. One may also ask to what extent Seneca really followed his own recommendations in his letters, since even a cursory reading demonstrates that rhetoric plays a considerable role in them.75 Furthermore, some of his letters, in particular the later ones among the Epistulae morales, are quite long and thematically complex; they resemble small treatises which Demetrius would not have been inclined to classify as genuine letters (Eloc. 231 and 234; see section 2, above).76

(p.64) 7. Pliny the Younger’s Letters Pliny the Younger’s corpus comprises altogether 368 letters. In addition to the first nine books (247 letters) which he edited himself, there is the correspondence between Pliny and the emperor Trajan in Book 10 (121 letters).77 He is an author who takes a serious interest in literary and cultural issues; repeatedly, he presents himself as part of a network of like-minded litterati. It is therefore unsurprising that he also reflects on the nature of letterwriting, both his own and that of others. Right at the beginning of the first book, Pliny refers to the fact that the editing of his letters was his own accomplishment, following the request of his friend Page 15 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Septicius Clarus. However, he also points out that the collection only contains those pieces which are ‘more carefully written’. He thus makes it clear that the high literary quality of his products mattered a great deal to him because they were no longer to be read by the original addressees only, but also by a much wider audience.78 What his stylistic ideal for epistles looks like can be gathered not only from a passage in Ep. 3.20 where he pleads for missives that go far beyond an accumulation of common, stereotypical phrases of epistolary exchange,79 but also from Ep. 7.13 to Ferox whose letter-writing he views as the epitome of seemingly effortless, unobtrusive elegance.80 Such masterpieces stand in stark contrast to ‘scholastic’ letters, written as somewhat pedantic, lifeless rhetorical exercises removed from the real world.81 Similarly revealing is a remark in Ep. 7.9 where he recommends the writing of speeches, poems, historiographical accounts, and epistles for stylistic exercises serving (p.65) the improvement of one’s personal rhetorical skills. In this context, letters are suggested as the perfect medium for the training of a short and natural diction (pressus sermo purusque).82 However, writing stylistically pleasing letters may not always be possible when one is under a lot of pressure, occupying a public office, as Pliny himself did.83 In other words, because of the sheer frequency with which they have to be produced, business letters are not bound up with the expectation that they have to fulfil the highest standards of rhetorical refinement. Furthermore, with regard to the non-chronological arrangement of his epistles, he uses his aforementioned introductory epistle to distinguish letter-writing from historiography, although it can be said that some of his letters do have the character of short historiographical narratives.84 History and letter-writing are also contrasted at the end of the famous first Vesuvius letter to Tacitus (Ep. 6.16) where Pliny says that historical accounts are for a broad readership, whereas epistles are reserved for friends, i.e. for a narrowly defined target group.85 This is, of course, a pose because his report on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is presented to Tacitus at the beginning of the same letter so as to provide him with material for his historical works which allow him to praise the exemplary deeds of famous individuals (such as Pliny the Elder, the uncle of Pliny the Younger who is the subject of Ep. 6.16).86 Like Cicero, Pliny is aware of the limits of letters as channels of communication. Summing up different people’s views and opinions on a certain topic or even visualizing them as they speak is a challenging task in an epistle, but it certainly is an endeavour that Pliny feels sufficiently competent to master.87 Nevertheless, as Cicero already indicated (see section 5, above), the letter lacks non-verbal elements such as facial expressions, gestures, and voice, and this deficit exposes the letter to potential misinterpretations, especially in the (p.66) context of legal concerns which usually necessitate a longer and more detailed exposition.88 Page 16 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Pliny still finds it possible to convey feelings through a letter. Between friends it is absolutely crucial to share emotions with each other, either in a personal conversation or in a letter.89 Between lovers and spouses, letters can assume the function of a source of consolation for the partner’s absence; with their material presence, they may even replace the spouse to some extent, since the written words are a mirror of their spoken counterpart and thus somehow let the absent partner come to life.90 It is such instances that enable the epistolographer to show an ‘image of his soul’—in Pliny’s case not just to his wife, but also to a much wider readership for whom his corpus was published. These readers are presented with an impression of Pliny’s emotional disposition which is one component of a larger picture covering various aspects of his life.91 The length of letters is an issue that Pliny frequently considers in his corpus.92 In general, he strives to make sure not to exceed a certain limit with his epistles.93 However, more than once he apologizes to the addressee for going beyond the convention of brevity, also because he is afraid of abusing the recipient’s limited amount of time. Yet, as he also explains, it is not the case that he does not have good reasons for dwelling upon a specific topic from time to time; he claims to have done this in the interest of the addressee—in particular when the subject matter required it, for example the meticulous (p.67) description of a court case or of one of his villas.94 Moreover, longer letters can be interpreted as a sign of high estimation and friendship and should therefore be warmly appreciated.95 In particular after prolonged intervals between missives a longer epistle is most welcome, as it can reconcile the addressee with the sender’s protracted silence.96 To conclude this section, one may bring to mind Hermann Peter (1901: 120) who was certainly right to say: ‘Über sein Verhältnis zur Theorie des Briefes hat sich Plinius nirgends im Zusammenhang geäußert; nur hier und da finden sich leise Andeutungen darüber.’97 However, while he does not offer a full-fledged systematic account of the characteristics of letter-writing, it is indisputable that his reflections often converge with those of other ‘theorists’ and epistolographers. This is particularly noticeable in the case of letters as a paradigmatically brief type of text. But as has been demonstrated above, he plays with this norm of brevitas and often subverts it whenever it suits his (p. 68) purposes. It is fully in line with his desire for thematic and stylistic variation; his letters are far from a homogeneous collection in which one element resembles all others.98 Regardless of whether one categorizes them as Kunstbriefe or not, they are artfully designed pieces of literature written for contemporaries who not only shared the same literary values, but also subscribed to similar ethical and civic norms as Pliny the Younger himself did.99

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles 8. Erasmus of Rotterdam’s De conscribendis epistolis The final section of this chapter will return to epistolary ‘theory’ in the context of specific treatises and focus on Erasmus of Rotterdam’s De conscribendis epistolis, which was first published in 1522 and then as a revised edition in 1534.100 The work saw eighty editions until 1600, thirty of which appeared before Erasmus’ death in 1536. In addition, there were several epitomized versions produced by other writers. Given its immense popularity, it had a considerable impact on epistolary treatises of the sixteenth century and later periods.101 In the first section of De conscribendis epistolis, Erasmus discusses the general character of letters. He focuses in particular on the relationship between the addressee and the style of a letter. When he recommends that the addressee ought to determine the form and style of a letter, he advocates the ancient rhetorical theory of the ‘appropriate’ (πρέπον or aptum), as can be seen from the following excerpt (p. 22 Smolak; my translation here and below): Effervescet igitur vel in tragicam usque vociferationem epistola, si quando res ita postulabit, sumetque ampullas, et sesquipedalia verba. Neque de bello paceque similo stilo loquetur eruditis magnatibus, quo de macerandis salsamentis, aut coquendis holeribus mandaret famulo. A letter will thus rise up even to tragic shouting, if circumstances require it, and it will reach out for the perfumes of rhetoric and rather long words. And it will not speak to learned rulers about war and peace in a similar style as it would to a (p.69) servant giving him instructions about the soaking of salted fish or the cooking of vegetables. This implies that there is no monolithic set of rules that can be drawn upon for the successful composition of a letter. Different addressees require different approaches.102 Furthermore, epistolographers need to bear in mind the topic of their letter as well as their own personality (p. 40 Smolak): Sed interim et illud spectabit, unde veniat, non solum ad quem veniat, aut quibus de rebus legata. Proinde Mercurium quendam aget, semet pro re praesenti in omnem transfigurans habitum; sed ita tamen, ut in tanta varietate unum quendam tenorem obtineat, videlicet ut semper munda sit, semper erudita, semper sana. But besides it will also pay attention to its origin, not just its addressee or the reasons why it has been sent. It will therefore play the role of Mercury and, with regard to each case, transform itself into any shape (that is suitable); but this should nevertheless be done in such a way that despite all variety it sticks to one particular course, namely that it always be pure, learned, and sound.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles In this passage Erasmus refers to the triangle of sender, addressee, and topic, which allow for a considerable stylistic variety in the epistolary genre. Establishing a community with someone through a letter implies the adjustment of the writer’s stylistic repertoire to the persona of the addressee and the theme that is put forward. However, while Erasmus criticizes any tendency towards stylistic uniformity in letters and prefers a much more nuanced methodology that depends on a number of different parameters, he also makes it clear that there are a few basic rules which are crucial for any given letter. What he means by ‘purity’, ‘learnedness’, and ‘soundness’ can be gathered from his introductory paragraphs, in which he praises in particular Cicero’s letters as one of his stylistic ideals, because they combine simplicity and elegance (pp. 18–20 Smolak).103 What makes his treatise particularly intriguing is the fact that Erasmus frequently modifies and complicates established rules of letter-writing. For example, while he subscribes to the principle of clarity and intelligibility (perspicuitas), he points out that, depending on the addressee, there are situations when a certain lack of lucidity (obscuritas) heightens the stylistic qualities of a letter—in particular in circumstances where litterati intentionally (p.70) use a more cryptic style which is not supposed to be understood by people who are not members of this rather exclusive circle of the initiated.104 This method, which Erasmus professes to have employed himself in a letter to Thomas Linacre, is reminiscent of a technique used by Cicero, who sometimes inserts Greek elements in his letters or expresses himself in an enigmatic way (Att. 6.4.3: μυστικώτερον; 6.7.1: ἐν αἰνιγμοῖς; 2.19.5: obscure scribam, ἐν αἰνιγμοῖς; 2.20.3: ἀλληγορίαις obscurabo) when he wants to prevent other people, who might get hold of his texts, from understanding what they are in fact about (Att. 6.4.3, 6.5.1–2, 6.7.1). Unlike his ancient predecessors, Erasmus specifies his target readership very precisely. He has written his treatise for learned teachers who provide instruction in rhetoric.105 Part of their curriculum is the teaching of letterwriting, which presupposes a certain familiarity with the principles of rhetoric and involves regular exercises, the so-called progymnasmata, of which Erasmus gives a whole series of examples (pp. 58–82 Smolak). When it comes to the selection of suitable themes for this kind of training, Erasmus recommends socially relevant topics that have a practical value. Ultimately, it is the purpose of these exercises of letter-writing to prepare pupils for their future careers as clergy and politicians, for which not only excellent rhetorical skills, but also high moral standards are indispensable (see esp. pp. 108–10 Smolak). One feels reminded of Quintilian’s ideal of the vir bonus dicendi peritus which he outlines in his Institutio oratoria, and like Quintilian, Erasmus also repeatedly stresses the significance of a first-class education and learning, which lead to renown and a good reputation (p. 94 Smolak: fama honesta; dignitates), to material gain (opes) and to moral authority (p. 94 Smolak: ad perfectam virtutem). The writing Page 19 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles of letters thus contributes to the functioning of society, as it produces a community of citizens who appreciate the meaning of learning and verbal skills and who know how to apply them. On a narrower level, epistles are the perfect medium for commending oneself to others; they are the starting point for new friendships. This is particularly important among scholars who bridge the gap between themselves and other colleagues through the exchange of letters. They thus create a ‘scholarly brotherhood’ (sodalitas literaria) and ‘alliances in the spirit of the Muses’ (foedera Musarum).106

(p.71) 9. Conclusions Despite certain differences of emphasis, comprehensiveness, and context, the reflections on letter-writing discussed here have several things in common. The exchange of letters was part of complex social performances which followed specific conventions and expectations; it required the correct epistolary ‘conduct’. Similarly to ancient rhetorical treatises, letter-writing manuals as well as practising epistolographers such as Cicero, Seneca, or Pliny the Younger107 put the main emphasis on the aspect of the ‘appropriate’ (πρέπον or aptum). If the interaction with the addressee is supposed to be successful, a variety of factors must be borne in mind such as the characters of the addressee and sender (i.e. their age, sex, social status, mental disposition, etc.) as well as the communicative situation (place, time, reason for writing). Repeatedly, letters are compared to oral conversations (dialogues) as enactments of ‘togetherness’, although such statements are often combined with the caveat that the letter as a written form requires a higher degree of stylization. Pointedly speaking, the ideal letter is characterized by its ‘artistic artlessness’. The community between sender and addressee is established through shared stylistic values and through the fact that the letter-writer adjusts his character to that of the recipient.108 In other words, it is essential for the sender to take into consideration how he comes across as a person and what the addressee’s expectations are. The construction of ethos, which is vital for these purposes,109 proves once more how closely epistolography and rhetoric are related. The crucial difference is, of course, that, unlike a speech, epistolary communication is never synchronic.110 This lack of immediacy needs to be (p.72) compensated for with a vivid and consistent portrayal of the sender’s character; his actions and thoughts must become sufficiently convincing and coherent. Presenting an ‘image of one’s soul’ is to create a special bond between letter-writer and addressee. As could be seen from the case of Erasmus of Rotterdam, ancient reflections on letter-writing have had an enormous impact on later periods. One could easily add numerous other examples such as the medieval ars dictandi or ars dictaminis, connected to the names of Alberic of Montecassino, Henricus Page 20 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Francigena, Hugo of Bologna, and Adalbert of Samaria, among others.111 In many instances, it can be demonstrated that contemplations on good and accomplished epistolography are directly inspired by Graeco-Roman predecessors. A particularly intriguing case from the eighteenth century is the Praktische Abhandlung von dem guten Geschmacke in Briefen by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715–69), published in 1751.112 The Enlightenment poet and philosopher was a prolific writer of fables, dramas, novellas, speeches, treatises, and letters. His deep familiarity with the ancient tradition is apparent from the following statement: So groß die Menge der deutschen Anweisungen zu Briefen ist: so groß, ja noch viel größer ist die Anzahl der lateinischen, die zum Theil von großen Gelehrten aufgesetzt worden, und doch nur zu beweisen scheinen, daß es eine vergebne Mühe ist, das Briefschreiben in die Form einer Kunst zu bringen.113 This may sound like a pessimistic diagnosis, but his actual treatise on letterwriting proves that he is by no means reluctant to provide an overview of the principles of this art, as he understands it. For Gellert, an excellent example of an ancient epistolographer who offers a concise summary of what constitutes a commendable letter is Gregory of Nazianzus, the archbishop of Constantinople (c.329–390 CE). Among his more than 240 epistles, it is the fifty-first to his nephew Nicobulus in which he outlines a short epistolary ‘theory’—not just (p. 73) through rules, but through the letter itself.114 Brevity (συντομία) is not seen as an absolute ideal, but defined by the theme and purpose of a letter. In the spirit of Demetrius, Gregory pleads for a conversational tone (τὸ λαλικόν) which needs to be chosen in the interest of clarity and intelligibility (σαφήνεια), but like Demetrius, he also recognizes that the style of a letter is not fully identical with a conversation. It does not range on the same level as a complex speech, but may nonetheless be sprinkled with rhetorical ornaments to generate a certain charm (χάρις).115 What makes Gregory’s approach so attractive for Gellert is his characterization of the letter as a ‘natural’ product which refrains from any artificial elements.116 Letter 51 is the best proof that Gregory is able to turn his theory into practice: it is sufficiently short and clear, it chooses the golden mean between an elevated and an artless style, and thus almost resembles an orally presented recommendation. As Gellert puts it: Der kurze Brief des Gregorius von Nazianz an den Nicobulus, von der Kürze, der Deutlichkeit, und der Anmuth eines Briefs ist vielleicht mehr werth, als manche dicke Anweisung.117 It is the principle of naturalness that Gellert also applies to his own theory of letter-writing with which he reacts to the bombast and pomposity of many Page 21 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles German epistolographers of his time.118 For the closeness of the letter to the (p. 74) dialogue, he not only invokes Gregory, but also Seneca’s Ep. 75 (see section 6, above).119 He is strongly opposed to the formulaic, rigid character of most letter-writing manuals (Briefsteller) and finds a systematization of rules for individual types of letters superfluous—a position, however, that was soon abandoned again after Gellert.120 Like Ovid, Gellert is also interested in feminine letter-writing. He argues that epistles can also be composed by people who are neither very learned nor familiar with the technicalities of letter-writing manuals. A good example are female epistolographers who often write in a more natural way than men, although some of them may not even be well versed in orthography. It is to their advantage that they have not acquired the formal stylistic rules, as it makes them less anxious about how they write.121 (p.75) Gellert is one of the modern theorists who is fully aware of the ancient tradition and does not present his ideas in a historical vacuum. However, this has not always been the case with modern handbooks or guides on letterwriting, as could be seen in the introductory section of this chapter. It goes without saying that any history of epistolography is not complete without taking into account ancient approaches to and ‘theories’ of letter-writing which do not simply assemble a number of stylistic principles, but also exhibit a wide range of cultural and social practices vital for the understanding of the ancient world as a whole.122 Bibliography Bibliography references: Abram, Suzanne L. (1994), Latin Letters and their Commonplaces in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Diss. Bloomington (Indiana University). Altman, Janet G. (1982), Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form, Columbus, OH. Amato, Eugenio, and Jacques Schamp (eds) (2005), Ethopoiia: la représentation de caractères entre fiction scolaire et réalité vivante à l’époque impériale et tardive, Salerno. Artés Hernández, José Antonio (2005), Pseudo-Demetrio: Tipos de cartas— Pseudo-Libanio: Clases de cartas, Amsterdam. Arto-Haumacher, Rafael (1995), Gellerts Briefpraxis und Brieflehre: Der Anfang einer neuen Briefkultur, Wiesbaden. Bernard, Jacques-Emmanuel (2013), La sociabilité épistolaire chez Cicéron, Paris.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Beutner, Yvonne (2002), E-Mail-Kommunikation: Eine Analyse, Stuttgart. Brinkmann, August (1909), ‘Der älteste Briefsteller’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 64, 310–17. Brüggemann, Diethelm (1971), ‘Gellert, der gute Geschmack und die üblen Briefsteller: Zur Geschichte der Rhetorik in der Moderne’, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 45, 117–49. Bürgel, Peter (1983), Literarische Kleinprosa: Eine Einführung, Tübingen. Bütow, Adolf (1908), Die Entwicklung der mittelalterlichen Briefsteller bis zur Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts: Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Theorien der ars dictandi, Greifswald. Ceccarelli, Paola (2013), Ancient Greek Letter Writing: A Cultural History (600 BC–150 BC), Oxford. Celentano, Maria Silvana (1994), ‘La codificazione retorica della comunicazione epistolare nell’Ars rhetorica di Giulio Vittore’, Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica 122, 422–35. (p.76) Crystal, David (22007), Language and the Internet, Cambridge. Crystal, David (2011), Internet Linguistics: A Student Guide, London and New York. Cugusi, Paolo (1983), Evoluzione e forme dell’epistolografia Latina nella tarda repubblica e nei primi due secoli dell’impero. Con cenni sull’epistolografia preciceroniana, Rome. Den Hengst, Daan (1991), ‘Plinius’ literaire ambities’, Lampas 24, 19–29. Dihle, Albrecht (2007), ‘Zur Datierung der Schrift des Demetrios Über den Stil’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 150, 298–313. Dürscheid, Christa, and Karina Frick (2016), Schreiben digital: Wie das Internet unsere Alltagskommunikation verändert, Stuttgart. Ebrecht, Angelika, Regina Nörtemann, and Herta Schwarz (eds) (1990), Brieftheorie des 18. Jahrhunderts: Texte, Kommentare, Essays, Stuttgart. Fitzgerald, William (2016), Variety: The Life of a Roman Concept, Chicago and London. Fögen, Thorsten (2007), ‘Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes: Zur Charakterzeichnung in den Hetärenbriefen Alkiphrons’, Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft N.F. 31, 181–205. Page 23 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Fögen, Thorsten (2009a), Wissen, Kommunikation und Selbstdarstellung: Zur Struktur und Charakteristik römischer Fachtexte der frühen Kaiserzeit, Munich. Fögen, Thorsten (2009b), ‘Sermo corporis: Ancient Reflections on gestus, vultus and vox’, in Thorsten Fögen and Mireille M. Lee (eds), Bodies and Boundaries in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Berlin and New York, 15–43. Fögen, Thorsten (2015), ‘Ars moriendi: Literarische Portraits von Selbsttötung bei Plinius dem Jüngeren und Tacitus’, Antike & Abendland 61, 21–56. Fögen, Thorsten (2017), ‘Gattungsvielfalt in den Briefen des Jüngeren Plinius: Episteln im Spannungsfeld von ethischer Unterweisung und literarischer Pluridimensionalität’, Gymnasium 124, 21–60. Fögen, Thorsten (2018), ‘Vom Epigramm zur Ekphrasis: Zum Topos der brevitas in den Briefen des Jüngeren Plinius’, in Gernot Michael Müller, Sabine Retsch, and Johanna Schenk (eds), Adressat und Adressant: Kommunikationsstrategien im antiken Brief, Berlin and Boston (in press). Gamberini, Federico (1983), Stylistic Theory and Practice in the Younger Pliny, Hildesheim. Garfield, Simon (2013), To the Letter: A Curious History of Correspondence, Edinburgh and London. Gavoille, Élisabeth (2000), ‘La relation à l’absent dans les lettres de Cicéron à Atticus’, in Léon Nadjo and Élisabeth Gavoille (eds), Epistulae antiquae: Actes du Ier Colloque ‘Le genre épistolaire antique et ses prolongements’ (Université François-Rabelais, Tours, 18–19 septembre 1998), Louvain, 153–76. Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott (1989), Gesammelte Schriften. Kritische, kommentierte Ausgabe. Hrsg. von Bernd Witte (vol. 4), Berlin and New York. Gemeinhardt, Peter (2007), Das lateinische Christentum und die antike pagane Bildung, Tübingen. Gerlo, Aloïs (1971), ‘The Opus de conscribendis epistolis of Erasmus and the Tradition of the Ars epistolica’, in Robert R. Bolgar (ed.), Classical Influences on European Culture A.D. 500–1500, Cambridge, 103–14. (p.77) Gibson, Roy K., and Ruth Morello (2012), Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction, Cambridge. Goes, Albrecht (1949), ‘Über das Briefschreiben’, in Albrecht Goes, Von Mensch zu Mensch: Bemühungen, Berlin, 38–75.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Grévin, Benoît, and Anne-Marie Turcan-Verkerk (eds) (2015), Le dictamen dans tous ses états: perspectives de recherche sur la théorie et la pratique de l’ars dictaminis (XIe–XVe siècles), Turnhout. Grube, George M. A. (1965), The Greek and Roman Critics, London. Grünbart, Michael (2007), ‘Byzantinische Briefkultur’, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 47, 117–38. Guignet, Marcel (1911), Les procédés épistolaires de Saint Grégoire de Nazianze, Paris. Häger, Hans-Joachim (2015), ‘Das Briefcorpus des jüngeren Plinius: Neuere Tendenzen in Altertumswissenschaft und Didaktik’, Gymnasium 122, 559–96. Halla-aho, Hilla (2011), ‘Epistolary Latin’, in James Clackson (ed.), A Companion to the Latin Language, Malden, MA and Oxford, 426–44. Henderson, Judith Rice (1983), ‘Erasmus on the Art of Letter-Writing’, in James J. Murphy (ed.), Renaissance Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Renaissance Rhetoric, Berkeley, 331–55. Henderson, Judith Rice (2007), ‘Humanism and the Humanities: Erasmus’s Opus de conscribendis epistolis in Sixteenth-Century Schools’, in Carol Poster and Linda C. Mitchell (eds), Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present: Historical and Bibliographic Studies, Columbia, SC, 141–77. Hutchinson, Gregory O. (1998), Cicero’s Correspondence: A Literary Study, Oxford. Inwood, Brad (2007), ‘The Importance of Form in Seneca’s Philosophical Letters’, in Ruth Morello and Andrew D. Morrison (eds), Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography, Oxford, 133–48. Kaiser, Claudia (1996), ‘Geschmack’ als Basis der Verständigung: Chr. F. Gellerts Brieftheorie, Frankfurt am Main. Keyes, Clinton W. (1935), ‘The Greek Letter of Introduction’, American Journal of Philology 56, 28–44. Kirkpatrick, Betty (1996), Guide to Letter Writing, London. Klauck, Hans-Josef (1998), Die antike Briefliteratur und das Neue Testament: Ein Lehr- und Arbeitsbuch, Paderborn. Koskenniemi, Heikki (1954), ‘Cicero über die Briefarten (genera epistularum)’, Arctos n.s. 1, 97–102.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Koskenniemi, Heikki (1956), Studien zur Idee und Phraseologie des griechischen Briefes bis 400 n. Chr., Helsinki. Lausberg, Marion (1991), ‘Cicero—Seneca—Plinius: Zur Geschichte des römischen Prosabriefes’, Anregung 37, 82–100. Lefèvre, Eckard (2009), Vom Römertum zum Ästhetizismus: Studien zu den Briefen des jüngeren Plinius, Berlin and New York. Lilja, Saara (1970), ‘On the Nature of Pliny’s Letters’, Arctos 6, 61–79. Malherbe, Abraham J. (1988), Ancient Epistolary Theorists, Atlanta. Morello, Ruth (2013), ‘Writer and Addressee in Cicero’s Letters’, in Catherine Steel (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Cicero, Cambridge, 196–214. (p.78) Müller, Wolfgang G. (1980), ‘Der Brief als Spiegel der Seele: Zur Geschichte eines Topos der Epistolartheorie von der Antike bis zu Samuel Richardson’, Antike & Abendland 26, 138–57. Muir, John (2009), Life and Letters in the Ancient Greek World, London and New York. Muñoz Martin, Maria Nieves (1985), Teoría epistolar y concepción de la carta en Roma, Granada. Nickisch, Reinhold M. G. (1969), Die Stilprinzipien in den deutschen Briefstellern des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen. Obioha, Raphael I. M. (1960), Our Modern Love Letters and How to Write Them, Onitsha (Nigeria). Peter, Hermann (1901), Der Brief in der römischen Litteratur: Litterargeschichtliche Untersuchungen und Zusammenfassungen (Abhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften. Philologisch-historische Klasse 20.3), Leipzig. Poster, Carol (2007), ‘A Conversation Halved: Epistolary Theory in GraecoRoman Antiquity’, in Carol Poster and Linda C. Mitchell (eds), Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present. Historical and Bibliographic Studies, Columbia, SC, 21–51. Ramírez de Verger, Antonio (1997/8), ‘Erotic Language in Pliny, Ep. VII 5’, Glotta 74, 114–16. Reed, Jeffrey T. (1997), ‘The Epistle’, in Stanley Porter (ed.), Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 B.C.–A.D. 400, Leiden, 171–93.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Reinlein, Tanja (2003), Der Brief als Medium der Empfindsamkeit: Erschriebene Identitäten und Inszenierungspotentiale, Würzburg. Richardson, Malcolm (2007), ‘The Ars dictaminis, the Formulary, and Medieval Epistolary Practice’, in Carol Poster and Linda C. Mitchell (eds), Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present: Historical and Bibliographic Studies, Columbia, SC, 52–66. Rummel, Erika (1989), ‘Erasmus’ Manual of Letter-Writing: Tradition and Innovation’, Renaissance and Reformation 25, 299–312. Russell, Donald A. (1974), ‘Letters to Lucilius’, in Charles D. N. Costa (ed.), Seneca, London and Boston, 70–95. Schenkeveld, Dirk M. (2000), ‘The Intended Public of Demetrius’s On Style: The Place of the Treatise in the Hellenistic Educational System’, Rhetorica 18, 29–48. Schöttker, Detlev, and Renate Stauf (2010), ‘Bedeuten E-Mail und Co. das Ende der Briefkultur?’, Forschung & Lehre 17, 638–9. Schröder, Bianca-Jeanette (2004/5), ‘Ciceros Briefe als Briefe’, Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 40/41, 193–214. Schröder, Bianca-Jeanette (2007), Bildung und Briefe im 6. Jahrhundert: Studien zum Mailänder Diakon Magnus Felix Ennodius, Berlin and New York. Schwaiger, Sophie (32015), Briefe und E-Mails gut und richtig schreiben: Geschäfts- und Privatkorrespondenz verständlich und korrekt formulieren, Berlin. Smolak, Kurt (ed.) (1980), Erasmus von Rotterdam: De conscribendis epistolis— Anleitung zum Briefeschreiben (Auswahl). Übersetzt, eingeleitet und mit Anmerkungen versehen (Ausgewählte Schriften 8), Darmstadt. (p.79) Stowers, Stanley K. (1988), ‘Social Typification and the Classification of Ancient Letters’, in Jacob Neusner et al. (eds), The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism, Philadelphia, 78–90. Suárez de la Torre, Emilio (1987), ‘Ars epistolica: La preceptiva epistolográfica griega y sus relaciones con la retórica’, in Gaspar Morocho Gayo (ed.), Estudios de drama y retórica en Grecia y Roma, León, 177–204. Sykutris, Johannes (1931), s.v. ‘Epistolographie’, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft Supplementum 5, 185–220. Thraede, Klaus (1970), Grundzüge griechisch-römischer Brieftopik, Munich.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles Trapp, Michael (ed.) (2003), Greek and Latin Letters: An Anthology with Translation, Cambridge. Trapp, Michael (2006), ‘Biography in Letters. Biography and Letters’, in Brian McGing and Judith Mossman (eds), The Limits of Ancient Biography, Swansea, 335–50. Traub, Henry W. (1955), ‘Pliny’s Treatment of History in Epistolary Form’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 86, 213– 32. Ueding, Gert, and Bernd Steinbrink (31994), Grundriß der Rhetorik: Geschichte —Technik—Methode, Stuttgart and Weimar. von Albrecht, Michael (2003), Cicero’s Style: A Synopsis, Leiden and Boston. White, Peter (2010), Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic, Oxford. Williams, Gareth (2015), ‘Style and Form in Seneca’s Writings’, in Shadi Bartsch and Alessandro Schiesaro (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Seneca, Cambridge, 135–49. Witt, Ronald G. (2005), ‘The Arts of Letter-Writing’, in Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Vol. 2: The Middle Ages, Cambridge, 68–83. Wolff, Étienne (2003), Pline le Jeune ou le refus du pessimisme: essai sur sa correspondance, Rennes. Worstbrock, Franz Josef (1981), ‘Die Antikerezeption in der mittelalterlichen und der humanistischen Ars dictandi’, in August Buck (ed.), Die Rezeption der Antike: Zum Problem der Kontinuität zwischen Mittelalter and Renaissance, Hamburg, 187–207. Ziegler, Arne, and Christa Dürscheid (eds) (2002), Kommunikationsform E-Mail, Tübingen. (p.80) Notes:

(1) Quoted from the following edition: John Donne, The Satires, Epigrams and Verse Letters. Edited with introduction and commentary by Wesley Milgate, Oxford 1967, 71. (2) These forms of communication have recently been analysed by modern linguists. They exhibit a number of specific features such as short forms (e.g. ‘LOL’ for ‘laughing out loud’ or ‘MfG’ for ‘Mit freundlichen Grüßen’) or symbols (e.g. smart icons), which may be interpreted as signs of informality. Secondary Page 28 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles literature on the influence of the internet on how people communicate is vast. It may suffice to refer to Crystal (22007); Crystal (2011); and Dürscheid and Frick (2016), with further literature; see also the earlier publications by Ziegler and Dürscheid (2002) and Beutner (2002). (3) Garfield (2013) 19. Although Garfield’s book contains a great deal of interesting material, it should be pointed out that it is mainly intended for a lay audience. Classicists will not always agree with what he has to say on the Graeco-Roman world. (4) On the advantages and disadvantages of traditional letter-writing as opposed to electronic communication, see also Schöttker and Stauf (2010). (5) For an authoritative guide designed for the German-speaking world, see e.g. Schwaiger (32015). (6) Kirkpatrick (1996) 59. (7) Kirkpatrick (1996) 83. (8) Kirkpatrick (1996) 60–1. (9) See e.g. Grube (1965) 110: ‘At the beginning of this century most scholars were inclined to bring it down to Roman times, somewhere in the first century B.C. or A.D. or even later. Recent scholarship, however, tends to revert to an earlier date, late third or second century B.C. I have argued elsewhere for a date about 270 B.C. or not much later.…That the treatise is Hellenistic seems certain.’ Further Trapp (2003) 317: ‘it may date from as early as the 2nd century B.C.’ Schenkeveld (2000) esp. 35 assumes that the work might be from the first century BCE; see also Thraede (1970) 19–20 and Dihle (2007). (10) On the quadripartite classification of the χαρακτῆρες, see esp. Dihle (2007) 299–304, 307. (11) On the aspect of friendship in ancient epistolography, see Trapp (2003) 40– 1: ‘Letters have an important role to play in creating and sustaining friendships, whether between private individuals, or in contexts in which friendship has some larger public or organizational importance. Moreover, they have friendliness built into their standard, defining formulae at beginning and end. For… correspondents are compelled by convention to begin by wishing each other joy, courage, or well-being, and to end by wishing each other health and strength. In the light of this, a letter with hostile contents risks appearing an abuse of the medium. It is therefore not surprising that the letter is often conceptualized, and spoken of by practising letter writers, as an essentially friendly form, whether in its basic, utilitarian manifestations, or in such extensions as its use for moral advice and exhortation.’

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles (12) On the notion of the letter as an image of the writer’s soul, see Müller (1980). (13) Demetr. Eloc. 234: Ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ πόλεσίν ποτε καὶ βασιλεῦσιν γράφομεν, ἔστωσαν τοιαῦται αἱ ἐπιστολαὶ μικρὸν ἐξηρμέναι πως. στοχαστέον γὰρ καὶ τοῦ προσώπου ᾧ γράφεται· ἐξηρμένη μέντοι οὐχ ὥστε σύγγραμμα εἶναι ἀντ᾽ ἐπιστολῆς, ὥσπερ αἱ Ἀριστοτέλους πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον καὶ πρὸς τοὺς Δίωνος οἰκείους ἡ Πλάτωνος. One may compare a paragraph in Quint. Inst. 9.4.19: Est igitur ante omnia oratio alia vincta atque contexta, soluta alia, qualis in sermone epistulis, nisi cum aliquid supra naturam suam tractant, ut de philosophia, de re publica similibusque. On this passage, see Lilja (1970) 63: ‘The important conception here is natura sua. While the plain style, oratio soluta, naturally belongs to normal letters, a more developed style, oratio vincta atque contexta, is required when the letter deals with something supra naturam suam.’ See also Halla-aho (2011) 429–30. (14) On the addressees of this work, see Schenkeveld (2000) 40: ‘Demetrius is writing his book for readers who have already completed courses in grammar…. His readers have also passed the initial courses in rhetoric, where they studied and practised the progymnasmata. There they read, or rather, learnt by heart, many passages from famous prose writers.’ This view can be supported by the fact that the composition of letters played an important role in writings on progymnasmata, in particular in the context of ethopoiia (Schenkeveld (2000) 44–5). (15) On this concluding section of the work, see Celentano (1994) 428: ‘Si potrebbe dire che Giulio Vittore ha voluto rendere la sua opera più adeguata ai tempi, inserendo qualche elemento d’innovazione in margine ad un impianto tradizionale di compilazione tecnica ad uso scolastico.’ (16) Cic. Flac. 37: Haec quae est a nobis prolata laudatio obsignata erat creta illa Asiatica quae fere est omnibus nota nobis, qua utuntur omnes non modo in publicis sed etiam in privatis litteris quas cotidie videmus mitti a publicanis, saepe uni cuique nostrum. See also Flac. 23: privatae litterae nullae proferuntur, publicae retentae sunt in accusatorum potestate. (17) Iul. Vict. Ars rhet. 27: epistola, si superiori scribas, ne iocularis sit; si pari, ne inhumana; si inferiori, ne superba; neque docto incuriose, neque indocto indiligenter, nec coniunctissimo translatitie, nec minus familiari non amice. Quotations are taken from the critical edition by Remo Giomini and Maria Silvana Celentano (C. Iulii Victoris Ars rhetorica, Leipzig 1980, pp. 105.9– 106.20). The text can also be found in Karl Halm (ed.), Rhetores Latini Minores (Leipzig 1863); the relevant paragraph that is discussed here (§ 27) is on pp. 447–8 of this edition. See also Malherbe (1988) 62–5 and Trapp (2003) 184–9.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles (18) Iul. Vict. Ars rhet. 27: lucem vero epistolis praefulgere oportet, nisi cum consulto clandestinae literae fiant…. caeterum cum abscondito nihil opus est, cavenda obscuritas magis quam in oratione aut in sermocinando: potes enim parum plane loquentem rogare, ut id planius dicat, quod in absentium epistolis non datur. Et ideo nec historia occultior addenda nec proverbium ignotius aut verbum curiosius aut figura putidior. (19) Iul. Vict. Ars rhet. 27: Negotiales sunt argumento negotioso et gravi. In hoc genere et sententiarum pondera et verborum lumina et figurarum insignia conpendii opera requiruntur atque omnia denique oratoria praecepta, una modo exceptione, ut aliquid de summis copiis detrahamus et orationem proprius sermo explicet. (20) Iul. Vict. Ars rhet. 27: in familiaribus litteris primo brevitas observanda: ipsarum quoque sententiarum ne diu circumferatur, quod Cato ait, ambitio, sed ita recidantur, ut numquam verbi aliquid deesse videatur. (21) Iul. Vict. Ars rhet. 27: Graece aliquid addere litteris suave est, si id neque intempestive neque crebro facias: et proverbio uti non ignoto percommodum est, et versiculo aut parte versus. Lepidum est nonnumquam quasi praesentem alloqui, uti ‘heus tu’ et ‘quid ais’ et ‘video te deridere’: quod genus apud M. Tullium multa sunt. sed haec, ut dixi, in familiaribus litteris; nam illarum aliarum severitas maior est. (22) See Brinkmann (1909) and Thraede (1970) 26. On the basis of an analysis of the treatise’s style, Brinkmann (1909) 316–17 dates its origin to the period from the second century BCE to the middle of the first century CE, but adds that it is more likely to belong to the earlier than to the later segment of that period. See, however, Keyes (1935) 30 who, after revisiting some of Brinkmann’s arguments, does not rule out a later date: ‘In its original form it must go back at least to 100 B.C., but it seems clear that it was subjected to a considerable amount of revision during the four hundred years following.’ See also Koskenniemi (1956) 54–5; Suárez de la Torre (1987) 191–2; and Poster (2007) 24. (23) On the dates of Pseudo-Demetrius and Pseudo-Libanius, see also Artés Hernández (2005) 7–16. On Pseudo-Libanius, see also Koskenniemi (1956) 56; Muñoz Martin (1985) 52; and Suárez de la Torre (1987) 197. (24) Ps-Demetr. Formae epist. praef.: Γένη μὲν οὖν ἐστιν, οἷς ἐντετυχήκαμεν, ἓν καὶ εἴκοσι. τάχα δ᾽ ἂν ἐνέγκοι πολλαπλάσια τούτων ὁ χρόνος. εὐφυὴς γὰρ εὑρετὴς καὶ τεχνῶν καὶ θεωρημάτων οὗτος. (25) See Koskenniemi (1956) 36; Thraede (1970) 27; and Klauck (1998) 159. (26) Ps-Demetr. Formae epist. 1: Ὁ μὲν οὖν φιλικός ἐστιν ὁ δοκῶν ὑπὸ φίλου γράφεσθαι πρὸς φίλον. γράφουσι δὲ οὐχ οἱ πάντως φίλοι. πολλάκις γὰρ ἐν Page 31 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles ὑπάρχοις κείμενοι πρὸς ὑποδεεστέρους ὑπό τινων ἀξιοῦνται φιλικὰ γράψαι καὶ πρὸς ἄλλους ἴσους, στρατηγούς, ἐπιστρατήγους, διοικητάς. ἔστιν ὅτε καὶ προσγράφουσι τούτους ἀγνοοῦντες. οὐ γὰρ διὰ τὸ συγκεκρᾶσθαι καὶ μίαν ἔχειν αἵρεσιν τοῦτο πράττουσιν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδένα νομίζοντες ἀντερεῖν αὐτοῖς φιλικὰ γράφουσιν, ὑπομενεῖν καὶ ποιήσειν περὶ ὧν γράφουσιν. ὁ μέντοι τύπος καλεῖται τῆς ἐπιστολῆς φιλικὸς ὡς πρὸς φίλον γραφόμενος. (27) Thphr. Char. 24.13: καὶ ἐπιστέλλων μὴ γράφειν ὅτι ‘χαρίζοιο ἄν μοι’, ἀλλ᾿ ὅτι ‘βούλομαι γενέσθαι’ καὶ ‘ἀπέσταλκα πρὸς σὲ ληψόμενος’ καὶ ‘ὅπως ἄλλως μὴ ἔσται’ καὶ ‘τὴν ταχίστην’. See also Muir (2009) 4 and Ceccarelli (2013) 293– 4. (28) Aristo fr. 14.2 Wehrli: παῖδα πριάμενος μηδὲ το[ὔνομ]α προσερωτῆσαι μήτ᾽ αὐ[τὸς] θέσθαι, καλεῖν δὲ παῖδα [καὶ] μηθὲν ἄλλο, καὶ τὸν συναλείψαντα μὴ ἀντισυναλείφειν· καὶ ξενισθεὶς μ[ὴ] ἀντιξενίσαι· καὶ θύραν ἀλλοτρίαν κό[π]των, ἐπερωτήσαντος τίς ἐστιν, μηδὲν ἀποκρίνεσθαι, μέχρι ἂν ἐξέλθῃ. καὶ ἀρ̣[ρ]ωστοῦντ᾽ αὐτὸν ἐπισκεπτομένου φίλου μὴ λέγειν πῶς ἔχ[ει], μηδ᾽ αὐτὸς ἐπι[σ]κεπτόμ[ενός] τινα τοιοῦτό τι προσεπ[ερ]ωτ[ῆσ]α[ι· κ]αὶ γρά[φ]ων ἐπιστολὴν τὸ χαίρειν μὴ προσγράψαι μηδ᾽ ἐρρῶσθαι τελευταῖον. (29) Ps-Lib. Char. 46–9: δεῖ δὲ τὸν ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστέλλειν ἐθέλοντα μὴ μόνον τῇ τῆς ὑποθέσεως μεθόδῳ χρῆσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ φράσεως ἀρετῇ τὴν ἐπιστολὴν κατακοσμεῖν καὶ ἀττικίζειν μὲν μετρίως, μὴ μέντοι πέρα τοῦ προσήκοντος κομψολογίᾳ χρῆσθαι. ἡ γὰρ ὑπὲρ τὸ δέον ὑψηγορία καὶ τὸ ταύτης ὑπέρογκον καὶ τὸ ὑπεραττικίζειν ἀλλότριον τοῦ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν καθέστηκε χαρακτῆρος, ὡς πάντες οἱ παλαιοὶ μαρτυροῦσι, Φιλόστρατος δὲ ὁ Λήμνιος μάλιστά φησι· ‘δεῖ γὰρ τὴν τῆς ἐπιστολῆς φράσιν τῆς μὲν συνηθείας ἀττικωτέραν εἶναι, τοῦ δὲ ἀττικισμοῦ συνηθεστέραν καὶ μήτε λίαν ὑψηλὴν μήτε ταπεινὴν ἄγαν, ἀλλὰ μέσην τινά. κοσμεῖν δὲ δεῖ τὴν ἐπιστολὴν σαφηνείᾳ τε μάλιστα καὶ συντομίᾳ μεμετρημένῃ καὶ ἀρχαϊσμῷ λέξεων. σαφήνεια γὰρ ἀγαθὴ μὲν ἡγεμὼν παντὸς λόγου, μάλιστα δὲ ἐπιστολῆς.’ χρὴ μέντοι μήτε συντομίᾳ σαφήνειαν διαφθείρειν μήτε σαφηνείας φροντίζοντα ληρεῖν ἀμέτρως, ἀλλὰ τοῦ συμμέτρου στοχάζεσθαι τοὺς ἀκριβεῖς τοξότας μιμούμενον. (30) Ps-Lib. Char. 50: τὸ μὲν οὖν μέγεθος τῆς ἐπιστολῆς ὡς πρὸς τὰ πράγματα, καὶ οὐ πάντως τὸ πλῆθος καθάπερ κακίαν ἀτιμάζειν καλόν, ἀλλὰ δεῖ καί τινας ἐπιστολὰς ἀπομηκύνειν ἐν καιρῷ πρὸς τὴν ἀπαιτοῦσαν χρείαν. (31) Ps-Lib. Char. 44: ἐρωτικὴ δι᾽ ἧς ἐρωτικοὺς πρὸς τὰς ἐρωμένας προσφερόμεθα λόγους. (32) Ov. Ars am. 1.439–40: blanditias ferat illa tuas imitataque amantem | verba. This is taken up in 1.455–6: Ergo eat et blandis peraretur littera verbis, | exploretque animos, primaque temptet iter.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles (33) One may compare the advice given in a modern manual on the writing of love letters (Obioha (1960) 11): ‘You should be very simple when you are writing a letter to your lover. You cannot use high words in writing a letter to your lover so as to show that you know big words.… Simplicity is best when writing a letter to your lover.’ (34) Ov. Ars am. 3.473–4: Postque brevem rescribe moram: mora semper amantes | incitat, exiguum si modo tempus habet. (35) Ov. Ars am. 3.479–82: Munda, sed e medio consuetaque verba, puellae, | scribite: sermonis publica forma placet. | A! quotiens dubius scriptis exarsit amator, | et nocuit formae barbara lingua bonae! (36) Further reflections on letter-writing in Ovid, specifically in his Heroides, Tristia, and Epistulae ex Ponto, are investigated by Thraede (1970) 47–65. (37) See Stowers (1988) 80: ‘It is clear that Demetrius and Libanius are not using a conception of genre as a complex combination of formal, structural, stylistic, and thematic characteristics. We are not dealing with anything comparable to Aristotle’s generic description of drama and epic, or even Horace’s discussion of poetic types in the Ars poetica. The definitions that the handbooks give are too bare, and the sample letters too sketchy, for this method of classification.’ (38) Stowers (1988) 80. (39) Stowers (1988) 87. (40) On letter-writing as part of the advanced school curriculum, see Malherbe (1988) 6–7, who concludes his considerations with the following statement: ‘It is more likely that the handbooks were used in the training of professional letterwriters. Their occupations required them to be familiar with both official and rhetorical styles, and the comparative similarity that does exist in their letters suggests that they had received instruction in the subject.…It is natural to assume that such instruction of these professional writers as did exist took place under teachers of rhetoric’ (7). See also Poster (2007) 24–6. (41) Ps-Demetr. Formae epist. praef.: Τῶν ἐπιστολικῶν τύπων, ὦ Ἡρακλείδη, ἐχόντων τὴν θεωρίαν τοῦ συνεστάναι μὲν ἀπὸ πλειόνων εἰδῶν, ἀναβάλλεσθαι δὲ ἐκ τῶν ἀεὶ πρὸς τὸ παρὸν ἁρμοζόντων, καὶ καθηκόντων μὲν ὡς τεχνικώτατα γράφεσθαι, γραφομένων δ᾽ ὡς ἔτυχεν ὑπὸ τῶν τὰς τοιαύτας τοῖς ἐπὶ πραγμάτων ταττομένοις ὑπουργίας ἀναδεχομένων, θεωρῶν σε φιλοτίμως ἔχοντα πρὸς φιλομάθειαν ἐπραγματευσάμην διά τινων συστήσειν ἰδεῶν καὶ πόσας καὶ ἃς ἔχουσι διαφοράς, καὶ καθάπερ δεῖγμα τῆς ἑκάστου γένους τάξεως ὑποδέδειχα προσεκθέμενος μερικῶς τὸν περὶ ἑκάστου λόγον, ἅμα μὲν ὑπολαμβάνων καὶ σοὶ τοῦτο κεχαρισμένον ὑπάρχειν, εἴ τι τῶν ἄλλων περισσότερον εἰδήσεις τὸ λαμπρὸν τοῦ βίου τιθέμενος οὐκ ἐν τοῖς βρώμασιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ταῖς ἐπιστήμαις, Page 33 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles ἅμα δὲ κἀμὲ νομίζων τοῦ προσήκοντος ἐπαίνου μεθέξειν. See Koskenniemi (1956) 49. (42) Ps-Lib. Char. 1: Ὁ μὲν ἐπισταλτικὸς χαρακτὴρ ποικίλος τε καὶ πολυ σχιδὴς ὑπάρχει, ὅθεν τῷ γράφειν βουλομένῳ προσήκει μὴ ἁπλῶς μηδ᾽ ὡς ἔτυχεν ἐπιστέλλειν, ἀλλὰ σὺν ἀκριβείᾳ πολλῇ καὶ τέχνῃ· ἄριστα δ᾽ ἄν τις ἐπιστεῖλαι δυνηθείη, εἰ γνοίη, τί τέ ἐστιν ἐπιστολὴ καὶ τί λέγειν ὅλως ἐν αὐτῇ θέμις καὶ εἰς πόσας προσηγορίας διαιρεῖται. (43) See Koskenniemi (1956) 59 and Malherbe (1988) 44–57. (44) Malherbe (1988) 5. (45) There are an enormous amount of studies on Cicero’s letters. It may suffice here to refer to Cugusi (1983) 159–85; Hutchinson (1998); Klauck (1998) 126– 33; Gavoille (2000); Schröder (2004/5); White (2010); Bernard (2013); and Morello (2013). See also Schröder (Chapter 2) and Gildenhard (Chapter 7) in this volume. (46) See White (2010) 171–5 and Morello (2013) 196; further Klauck (1998) 127: ‘Man schätzt, daß damit knapp die Hälfte dessen erhalten ist, was im Altertum an ciceronianischen Briefsammlungen in ca. 80 Büchern bekannt war.’ The extant letters nonetheless constitute a sizeable amount of material: 1,432 pages in Shackleton Bailey’s Teubner edition. (47) Cic. Fam. 2.4.1: Epistularum genera multa esse non ignoras, sed unum illud certissimum, cuius causa inventa res ipsa est, ut certiores faceremus absentis, si quid esset, quod eos scire aut nostra aut ipsorum interesset. (48) Cic. Fam. 2.4.1: reliqua sunt epistularum genera duo, quae me magno opere delectant, unum familiare et iocosum, alterum severum et grave. utro me minus deceat uti, non intellego. iocerne tecum per litteras? civem mehercule non puto esse, qui temporibus his ridere possit. an gravius aliquid scribam? quid est quod possit graviter a Cicerone scribi ad Curionem nisi de re publica? atqui in hoc genere haec mea causa est, ut neque ea, quae sentio, audeam neque ea, quae non sentio, velim scribere. (49) Cic. Fam. 4.13.1: Quaerenti mihi iam diu, quid ad te potissimum scriberem, non modo certa res nulla, sed ne genus quidem litterarum usitatum veniebat in mentem. unam enim partem et consuetudinem earum epistularum, quibus secundis rebus uti solebamus, tempus eripuerat, perfeceratque fortuna, ne quid tale scribere possem aut omnino cogitare. relinquebatur triste quoddam et miserum et his temporibus consentaneum genus litterarum. id quoque deficiebat me, in quo debebat esse aut promissio auxili alicuius aut consolatio doloris tui. quid pollicerer non erat; ipse enim pari fortuna adfectus aliorum opibus casus

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles meos sustentabam, saepiusque mihi veniebat in mentem queri, quod ita viverem, quam gaudere, quod viverem. (50) Cic. Fam. 6.10.1: Antea misissem ad te litteras si genus scribendi invenirem. tali enim tempore aut consolari amicorum est aut polliceri. (51) Cic. Fam. 6.10.3: Itaque illud alterum quod dixi litterarum genus cottidie mihi, ut spero, fiet proclivius, ut etiam polliceri possim. (52) See also Koskenniemi (1954) 101: ‘In ihren eigenen Zusammenhängen sind diese Stellen, welche die Briefarten Ciceros behandeln, also keine spezifisch brieftheoretischen Äusserungen…. Sie haben jedoch in dieser Hinsicht natürlich ihre indirekte Bedeutung, weil wir durch sie eine Ahnung davon bekommen, welche verschiedenen Möglichkeiten sich in Ciceros Sinn regen konnten und in welche Bahnen seine Gedanken sich bewegten, wenn es galt, für jeden einzelnen Fall die geeignete Form zu finden. Auch setzt er voraus, dass die Hauptzüge dieser Richtlinien auch seinen Adressaten bekannt sind.’ (53) Cic. Fam. 9.21.1: verum tamen quid tibi ego videor in epistulis? nonne plebeio sermone agere tecum? nec enim semper eodem modo. quid enim simile habet epistula aut iudicio aut contioni? quin ipsa iudicia non solemus omnia tractare uno modo. privatas causas et eas tenuis agimus subtilius, capitis aut famae scilicet ornatius. epistulas vero cottidianis verbis texere solemus. On this letter, see Hutchinson (1998) 5–6; Bernard (2013) 91–100; and Morello (2013) 200–1. On the Latin of Cicero’s letters, see Hutchinson (1998) 9–19 and passim; von Albrecht (2003) 52–71, 94–5, 118–19; and Halla-aho (2011) esp. 430–4, 436–7. (54) Cic. Fam. 10.16.1: Nihil post hominum memoriam gloriosius, nihil gratius, ne tempore quidem ipso opportunius accidere vidi quam tuas, Plance, litteras. redditae sunt enim frequenti senatu Cornuto, cum is frigidas sane et inconstantis recitasset litteras Lepidi. sub eas statim recitatae sunt tuae non sine magnis quidem clamoribus. cum rebus enim ipsis essent et studiis beneficiisque in rem publicam gratissimae, tum erant gravissimis verbis ac sententiis. flagitare senatus institit Cornutum, ut referret statim de tuis litteris. (55) See Cic. Fam. 15.21.1: meque tanto desiderio adficis ut unam mihi consolationem relinquas, fore ut utriusque nostrum absentis desiderium crebris et longis epistulis leniatur. This is taken up at the end of the same letter (Fam. 15.21.5): Reliquum est tuam profectionem amore prosequar, reditum spe exspectem, absentem memoria colam, omne desiderium litteris mittendis accipiendisque leniam. See also Att. 16.11.2: Quod vereris ne ἀδόλεσχος mihi tu, quis minus? cui, ut Aristophani Archilochi iambus, sic epistula longissima quaeque optima videtur. The importance of frequent letters, often motivated by a desire for reassurance or consolation, is expressed e.g. in Att. 7.10 fin., 7.11.5, 7.12.1, 7.12.3, and 7.12.6. See also Att. 1.16.16–18, Page 35 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles 1.19.1, and 13.18: colloqui videbamur in Tusculano cum essem; tanta erat crebritas litterarum. (56) See in particular Cic. Att. 10.4.1: Multas a te accepi epistulas eodem die, omnis diligenter scriptas, eam vero quae voluminis instar erat saepe legendam, sicuti facio. in qua non frustra laborem suscepisti, mihi quidem pergratum fecisti. qua re ut id, quoad licebit, id est quoad scies ubi simus, quam saepissime facias te vehementer rogo. (57) See Cic. QFr. 1.1.45: sed ego quia, cum tua lego, te audire, et quia, cum ad te scribo, tecum loqui videor, idcirco et tua longissima quaque epistula maxime delector et ipse in scribendo sum saepe longior. See also Att. 7.15.1: Ut ab urbe discessi, nullum adhuc intermisi diem, quin aliquid ad te litterarum darem, non quo haberem magno opere quid scriberem, sed ut loquerer tecum absens; quo mihi, cum coram id non licet, nihil est iucundius. Further Att. 9.10.1:…tecum ut quasi loquerer, in quo uno acquiesco, hoc nescio quid nullo argumento proposito scribere institui. Similarly Fam. 15.16.1: fit enim nescio qui, ut quasi coram adesse videare, cum scribo aliquid ad te.…To these passages many others could be added, e.g. Att. 8.14.1, 12.53, and 13.18. See further Thraede (1970) 35–46. (58) See e.g. Cic. Att. 2.15.1: Romae enim videor esse cum tuas litteras lego et, ut fit in tantis rebus, modo hoc modo illud audire. On this letter, see Morello (2013) 199. (59) For a modern equivalent to that idea, see Goes (1949) 70–1: ‘der Brief ist nicht nur die ruhigere und bedachtere, sondern auch die kühlere und fremdere Form. Man kann dem geschriebenen Wort nicht mitgeben das Lächeln in den Augen, mit welchem man den Satz bei der Niederschrift begrüßt hat, nicht den herzlichen Klang der Stimme, nicht das versöhnliche Zögern der Gebärde.’ But see Altman (1982) 135: ‘The status of the letter as a written, tangible document, moreover, enables epistolary discourse to introduce its own extraverbal signs equivalent to tones and gestures in oral discourse. Tears, handwriting, punctuation, and even spelling may be part of the message.’ (60) See Cic. Fam. 5.12.1: Coram me tecum eadem haec agere saepe conantem deterruit pudor quidam paene subrusticus quae nunc expromam absens audacius; epistula enim non erubescit. Ardeo cupiditate incredibili neque, ut ego arbitror, reprehendenda nomen ut nostrum scriptis illustretur et celebretur tuis. (61) See e.g. Cic. Att. 1.17.10: Sic ego conservans rationem institutionemque nostram tueor, ut possum, illam a me conglutinatam concordiam. sed tamen, quoniam ista sunt tam infirma, munitur quaedam nobis ad retinendas opes nostras tuta, ut spero, via, quam tibi litteris satis explicare non possum, significatione parva ostendam tamen: utor Pompeio familiarissime. video quid dicas. cavebo quae sunt cavenda, ac scribam alias ad te de meis consiliis Page 36 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles capessendae rei publicae plura. Further Att. 1.18.8: Nunc vides quibus fluctibus iactemur; et si ex iis, quae scripsi, multa etiam a me non scripta perspicis, revise nos aliquando. Cf. Att. 10.8.1: Et res ipsa monebat et tu ostenderas et ego videbam de iis rebus quas intercipi periculosum esset finem inter nos scribendi fieri tempus esse. sed cum ad me saepe mea Tullia scribat orans ut quid in Hispania geratur exspectem et semper adscribat idem videri tibi idque ipse etiam ex tuis litteris intellexerim, non puto esse alienum me ad te quid de ea re sentiam scribere. See also Peter (1901) 40; Schröder (2004/5) 196–201; and Schröder (Chapter 2) in this volume. (62) For readings of Seneca’s Epistulae morales, see e.g. Russell (1974); Cugusi (1983) 195–206; Klauck (1998) 134–40; Inwood (2007); and Edwards (Chapter 13) in this volume, whose chapter also contains a useful bibliography. (63) On Seneca and Epicurus, see e.g. Klauck (1998) 138–9 and Edwards (Chapter 13) in this volume. (64) See Sen. Ep. 40.1: Numquam epistulam tuam accipio ut non protinus una simus. si imagines nobis amicorum absentium iucundae sunt, quae memoriam renovant et desiderium falso atque inani solacio levant, quanto iucundiores sunt litterae, quae vera amici absentis vestigia, veras notas adferunt? nam quod in conspectu dulcissimum est, id amici manus epistulae inpressa praestat, agnoscere. Further Ep. 67.2: si quando intervenerunt epistulae tuae, tecum esse mihi videor et sic afficior animo, tamquam tibi non rescribam, sed respondeam. Itaque et de hoc, quod quaeris, quasi conloquar tecum. See also Ep. 49.1–2 and 55.8–11. For further details, see Thraede (1970) 65–74. (65) Sen. Ep. 75.3: Non mehercules ieiuna esse et arida volo quae de rebus tam magnis dicentur (neque enim philosophia ingenio renuntiat), multum tamen operae inpendi verbis non oportet. See also Ep. 13.4: non loquor tecum Stoica lingua, sed hac submissiore. (66) See Fögen (2009a) esp. 9–12 and 28–34 for details. (67) Sen. Ep. 75.4–5: Haec sit propositi nostri summa: quod sentimus loquamur, quod loquimur sentiamus; concordet sermo cum vita. Ille promissum suum implevit qui et cum videas illum et cum audias idem est. Videmus, qualis sit, quantus sit: unus est. Non delectent verba nostra sed prosint. On style (oratio) as the mirror of someone’s lifestyle (talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis vita), see esp. Ep. 114, together with Russell (1974) 84–5; Müller (1980) 139–40; Fögen (2009b) 34–7; and Williams (2015) 140–1. (68) Sen. Ep. 75.5: Si tamen contingere eloquentia non sollicito potest, si aut parata est aut parvo constat, adsit et res pulcherrimas prosequatur: sit talis ut res potius quam se ostendat.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles (69) Sen. Ep. 75.6–7: Non quaerit aeger medicum eloquentem, sed si ita competit, ut idem ille, qui sanare potest, compte de iis, quae facienda sunt, disserat, boni consulet. Non tamen erit quare gratuletur sibi, quod inciderit in medicum etiam disertum; hoc enim tale est quale si peritus gubernator etiam formosus est. Quid aures meas scabis? quid oblectas? aliud agitur: urendus, secandus, abstinendus sum. Ad haec adhibitus es; curare debes morbum veterem, gravem, publicum; tantum negotii habes, quantum in pestilentia medicus. Circa verba occupatus es? iamdudum gaude, si sufficis rebus. Quando tam multa disces? Quando, quae didiceris, adfiges tibi ita, ut excidere non possint? quando illa experieris? Non enim, ut cetera, memoriae tradidisse satis est: in opere temptanda sunt; non est beatus, qui scit illa, sed qui facit. (70) Sen. Ep. 100.2–6: Fabianus mihi non effundere videtur orationem, sed fundere; adeo larga est sine perturbatione, non sine cursu tamen veniens. Illud plane fatetur et praefert, non esse tractatam nec diu tortam. Sed ita, ut vis, esse credamus: mores ille, non verba composuit et animis scripsit ista, non auribus…. Oratio sollicita philosophum non decet…. Fabianus non erat neglegens in oratione sed securus. Itaque nihil invenies sordidum: electa verba sunt, non captata, nec huius saeculi more contra naturam suam posita et inversa, splendida tamen quamvis sumantur e medio…. Desit sane varietas marmorum et concisura aquarum a cuniculis cubicula interfluentium et pauperis cella et quidquid aliud luxuria non contenta decore simplici miscet: quod dici solet, domus recta est. (71) Sen. Ep. 40.2–3, further 40.7: Quemadmodum per proclive currentium non ubi visum est, gradus sistitur, sed incitato corporis ponderi servit ac longius quam voluit effertur, sic ista dicendi celeritas nec in sua potestate est nec satis decora philosophiae, quae ponere debet verba, non proicere, et pedetemptim procedere. (72) Sen. Ep. 40.4–5: Adice nunc, quod quae veritati operam dat oratio incomposita esse debet et simplex: haec popularis nihil habet veri…. Multum praeterea habet inanitatis et vani, plus sonat quam valet. Cf. Ep. 49.12, 82.19, and 83.11. (73) Similarly Sen. Ep. 115.1–2: Nimis anxium esse te circa verba et compositionem, mi Lucili, nolo: habeo maiora, quae cures. Quaere quid scribas, non quemadmodum … Cuiuscumque orationem videris sollicitam et politam, scito animum quoque non minus esse pusillis occupatum. Magnus ille remissius loquitur et securius…. Oratio cultus animi est: si circumtonsa est et fucata et manu facta, ostendit illum quoque non esse sincerum et habere aliquid fracti. Non est ornamentum virile concinnitas. Also important is Ep. 115.18; see further Ep. 52.14.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles (74) For a more detailed analysis of the role of friendship and philosophical community in Seneca’s Letters, see Edwards (Chapter 13) in this volume, with further literature. (75) See Peter (1901) 231: ‘Jeder Leser der Briefe weiß, daß dies, mild geurteilt, die in der Rhetorenschule gelehrten Phrasen der Bescheidenheit sind, zu denen sich Seneca auch als Philosoph verpflichtet fühlte…, er vielmehr in den Briefen… der Form…die peinlichste Sorgfalt zugewandt und dem Geschmack der Zeit folgend gekünstelt hat…. Jedenfalls werden wir berechtigt sein, trotz der gegenteiligen Versicherung Senecas anzunehmen, daß er, um seinen Hauptzweck, das “prodesse” zu erreichen, auch zu dem “delectare” gegriffen hat.’ Further Russell (1974) 74: ‘The Letters often rise in tone to the high, emotional rhetoric of the treatises.’ See also Klauck (1998) 136; Inwood (2007) 139, 146; Williams (2015); and Edwards (Chapter 13) in this volume. (76) This is, for example, illustrated by Russell’s analysis of Ep. 90 (Russell (1974) 90–3), who rightly maintains that this letter ‘makes no concession at all to the epistolary form: no “occasion”, no personal touches. We go straight to the subject’ (91). See also Peter (1901) 234–5. (77) Two of the most recent monographs on Pliny the Younger are Lefèvre (2009) and Gibson and Morello (2012). Detailed references to further secondary literature can be found in Häger (2015) and Fögen (2017). (78) Plin. Ep. 1.1.1: Frequenter hortatus es ut epistulas, si quas paulo curatius scripsissem, colligerem publicaremque. Collegi non servato temporis ordine (neque enim historiam componebam), sed ut quaeque in manus venerat. See also Ep. 2.13.7 (about Voconius Romanus): epistulas quidem scribit, ut Musas ipsas Latine loqui credas. Further Ep. 9.28.1 (addressed to the same): Post longum tempus epistulas tuas, sed tres pariter recepi, omnes elegantissimas amantissimas, et quales a te venire praesertim desideratas oportebat. For secondary literature on Ep. 1.1, see Fögen (2017) 28 n. 16. (79) Plin. Ep. 3.20.11: Et hercule quousque illa vulgaria? ‘Quid agis? ecquid commode vales?’ Habeant nostrae quoque litterae aliquid non humile nec sordidum, nec privatis rebus inclusum. On this passage, see Muñoz Martin (1985) 94–5; Lausberg (1991) 84–5; Lefèvre (2009) 96–7; and Gibson and Morello (2012) 253–9. (80) For a more detailed interpretation of Ep. 7.13, see Fögen (2017) 28–31, who circumscribes Pliny’s stylistic ideal as the principle of ‘kunstvolle Kunstlosigkeit’. (81) Plin. Ep. 9.2.3: nos quam angustis ter minis claudamur etiam tacente me perspicis, nisi forte volumus scholasticas tibi atque, ut ita dicam, umbraticas litteras mittere. See Lausberg (1991) 92: ‘Die Worte des Plinius Page 39 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles über die scholasticae litterae…werden in der Forschung meistens als kritische Bezugnahme auf Senecas Briefe verstanden. In der Tat enthalten Senecas Briefe weitaus weniger spezielle Lebensrealität als die des Plinius—oder gar als diejenigen Ciceros….’ See also Gibson and Morello (2012) 101–3. (82) Plin. Ep. 7.9.8: Volo interdum aliquem ex historia locum adprendas, volo epistulam diligentius scribas. Nam saepe in oratione quoque non historica modo sed prope poetica descriptionum necessitas incidit, et pressus sermo purusque ex epistulis petitur. See also Lilja (1970) 63–5 and Gamberini (1983) 171–4. (83) Plin. Ep. 1.10.9: Nam distringor officio, ut maximo sic molestissimo: sedeo pro tribunali, subnoto libellos, conficio tabulas, scribo plurimas sed inlitteratissimas litteras. (84) On Pliny’s treatment of history in epistolary form, see especially Traub (1955). Further references in Fögen (2017) 23 n. 5. (85) Plin. Ep. 6.16.22: Tu potissima excerpes; aliud est enim epistulam, aliud historiam, aliud amico, aliud omnibus scribere. On Ep. 6.16, see Lefèvre (2009) 126–35, with further references; see also Gibson and Morello (2012) 108–15. (86) Plin. Ep. 6.16.1–2: Petis, ut tibi avunculi mei exitum scribam, quo verius tradere posteris possis. Gratias ago; nam video morti eius, si celebretur a te, immortalem gloriam esse propositam. Quamvis enim pulcherrimarum clade terrarum, ut populi ut urbes memorabili casu, quasi semper victurus occiderit, quamvis ipse plurima opera et mansura condiderit, multum tamen perpetuitati eius scriptorum tuorum aeternitas addet. See also Ep. 7.33, esp. 7.33.1–3 and 7.33.10; cf. Cic. Fam. 5.12.1 (see above, n. 60), together with Lefèvre (2009) 152–6. (87) Plin. Ep. 2.18.3: Quod superest, cum omnes qui profitentur audiero, quid de quoque sentiam scribam, efficiamque quantum tamen epistula consequi potero, ut ipse omnes audisse videaris. (88) Plin. Ep. 5.7.5–6: Haec ego scribere publice supersedi, primum quod memineram pro necessitudine amicitiae nostrae, pro facultate prudentiae tuae et debere te et posse perinde meis ac tuis partibus fungi; deinde quia verebar, ne modum, quem tibi in sermone custodire facile est, tenuisse in epistula non viderer. Nam sermonem vultus gestus vox ipsa moderatur, epistula omnibus commendationibus destituta malignitati interpretantium exponitur. (89) Plin. Ep. 5.1.12: Haec tibi scripsi, quia de omnibus, quae me vel delectant vel angunt, non aliter tecum quam mecum loqui soleo; deinde quod durum existimabam, te amantissimum mei fraudare voluptate quam ipse capiebam.

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles (90) Plin. Ep. 6.7.1–3: Scribis te absentia mea non mediocriter adfici unumque habere solacium, quod pro me libellos meos teneas, saepe etiam in vestigio meo colloces. Gratum est quod nos requiris, gratum quod his fomentis adquiescis; invicem ego epistulas tuas lectito atque identidem in manus quasi novas sumo. Sed eo magis ad desiderium tui accendor: nam cuius litterae tantum habent suavitatis, huius sermonibus quantum dulcedinis inest! On this letter, which is reminiscent of love elegy, see Ramírez de Verger (1997/8), who describes it as ‘one whole series of familiar amatory motifs’ (114). See also Lefèvre (2009) 207– 8. (91) Trapp (2006) 343 speaks of a ‘conscious and calculating (auto)biography’ which displays ‘his [sc. Pliny’s] social connections, his taste and learning, and all the most creditable facets of his career and character, from sensitive (and much loved) husband to efficient administrator and confidant of the Emperor’. In Ep. 6.7, ‘Pliny simultaneously displays himself to the wider world and to posterity as (in his own estimation) deeply loveable, deeply fortunate, and deeply sensitive.’ (92) For a more detailed analysis of brevitas in Pliny the Younger’s Letters, see Fögen (2018). (93) Plin. Ep. 2.5.13: Longius me provexit dulcedo quaedam tecum loquendi; sed iam finem faciam, ne modum, quem etiam orationi adhibendum puto, in epistula excedam. (94) Plin. Ep. 3.5.20: Extendi epistulam cum hoc solum quod requirebas scribere destinassem, quos libros reliquisset; confido tamen haec quoque tibi non minus grata quam ipsos libros futura, quae te non tantum ad legendos eos verum etiam ad simile aliquid elaborandum possunt aemulationis stimulis excitare. Further Ep. 3.9.27: Dices: ‘Non fuit tanti; quid enim mihi cum tam longa epistula?’ Nolito ergo identidem quaerere, quid Romae geratur. Et tamen memento non esse epistulam longam, quae tot dies tot cognitiones tot denique reos causasque complexa sit (cf. Ep. 3.9.36–7). See also Ep. 4.17.11: quamquam non solum veniam me, verum etiam laudem apud istum ipsum, a quo (ut ais) nova lis fortasse ut feminae intenditur, arbitror consecuturum, si haec eadem in actione, latius scilicet et uberius quam epistularum angustiae sinunt, vel in excusationem vel etiam commendationem meam dixero. One may compare Ep. 7.9.15–16: et alioqui tam immodice epistulam extendi, ut dum tibi quemadmodum studere debeas suadeo, studendi tempus abstulerim. On the detailed portrayal of his Tuscan villa with which he positions himself within the ecphrastic tradition, see Ep. 5.6.41–4, esp. 5.6.41: Vitassem iam dudum ne viderer argutior, nisi proposuissem omnes angulos tecum epistula circumire. Neque enim verebar, ne laboriosum esset legenti tibi, quod visenti non fuisset, praesertim cum interquiescere, si liberet, depositaque epistula quasi residere saepius posses. See also Ep. 9.13.26: Habes epistulam, si modum epistulae

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles cogites, libris quos legisti non minorem; sed imputabis tibi, qui contentus libris non fuisti. (95) Plin. Ep. 2.11.25: In summa, nisi aeque longam epistulam reddis, non est quod postea nisi brevissimam exspectes. Cf. Ep. 4.11.15–16. On letters as a ‘return gift’, see Ep. 5.2.2 and 2.12.7: Tuae nunc partes, ut primum illam, deinde hanc remune reris litteris, quales istinc redire uberrimae possunt. See also Ep. 9.2.5: Habes, ut puto, iustam excusationem, quam tamen dubito an tibi probari velim. Est enim summi amoris negare veniam brevibus epistulis amicorum, quamvis scias illis constare rationem. Further Ep. 9.20.1: Tua vero epistula tanto mihi iucundior fuit, quanto longior erat, praesertim cum de libellis meis tota loqueretur. (96) Plin. Ep. 2.2.1–2: graviter irascor, quod a te tam diu litterae nullae. Exorare me potes uno modo, si nunc saltem plurimas et longissimas miseris. Haec mihi sola excusatio vera, ceterae falsae videbuntur. See also Ep. 9.2.1: Facis iucunde, quod non solum plurimas epistulas meas, verum etiam longissimas flagitas; in quibus parcior fui, partim quia tuas occupationes verebar, partim quia ipse multum distringebar plerumque frigidis negotiis, quae simul et avocant animum et comminuunt. (97) See also Gamberini (1983) 170: ‘The text of the Letters does not contain many statements on the nature of epistolary style.’ Similarly Den Hengst (1991) 27: ‘Programmatische opmerkingen over zijn brieven maakt hij zelden.’ Further Wolff (2003) 47: ‘Il n’y a chez Pline aucun discours théorique suivi sur la lettre, mais on parvient à le reconstituer plus ou moins à partir de quelques réflexions dispersées.’ See also Thraede (1970) 74–7 and Cugusi (1983) 218–22. (98) On varietas in Pliny the Younger, see Wolff (2003) 41–5; Fögen (2017) esp. 28. See also Gamberini (1983) 136–43, 333–7; Fitzgerald (2016) 84–100. (99) For details, see Fögen (2015) 23–39, 46–7 and (2017), each with further secondary literature. (100) Smolak’s edition and translation of a selection of De conscribendis epistulis (1980) provides a very extensive introduction to this work. In addition, see e.g. the articles by Gerlo (1971); Henderson (1983); Rummel (1989); and Henderson (2007) esp. 144–9. See also Suárez de la Torre (1987) 201–4, who provides a useful overview of the structure of the treatise. (101) Smolak (1980) lxxv–lxxix. (102) See e.g. Erasmus, De conscr. epist. p. 38 Smolak: Neque enim rei solum obsequundabit epistolae stilus, verum ut dignum est egregio quopiam Mercurio (nam nuncii vice fungitur epistola) temporumque personarumque rationem habebit; nec eadem de re quovis tempore, nec apud quosvis loquetur; alia specie Page 42 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles sese offeret senibus, alia iuvenibus, alia tetricis ac severis, alia iis qui festiviore sunt ingenio, alia aulicis, alia philosophis, alia familiaribus, alia ignotis, alia vacuis, alia negociosis, alia fidis sodalibus, alia fictis amicis, ac parum bene volentibus. (103) Cicero’s letters are also commended elsewhere in this work. See e.g. pp. 196, 216, 230, and 286 Smolak. On epistolographers whom Erasmus views as exemplary, see Gerlo (1971) 111–12. (104) Erasmus, De conscr. epist. pp. 24–6 Smolak: Sed quemadmodum pro re non solum probanda, verumetiam necessaria est perspicuitas, facilitasque sermonis, veluti, quoties serium quippiam petitur ab homine semidocto, morosove, aut etiam vehementer occupato, ita incidit nonnumquam, ut non aliud genus excusatius admittat obscuritatem: velut cum eruditus cum erudito velitatur literatis iocis, quos nolit a quovis intelligi. (105) See Erasmus, De conscr. epist. p. 58 Smolak: ut mediocriter literatos didascalos…adiuvemus. Further De conscr. epist. p. 126 Smolak: doctorem magis instruximus quam pueritiam. (106) Erasmus, De conscr. epist. p. 288 Smolak (on the epistola conciliatoria): Est genus epistolarum non dissimile commendatorio, quod nobis visum est appellare conciliatorium. Nam ut commendatione conciliamus aliis favorem, ac benevolentiam apud amicos, ita quum studemus nobis conciliare viros, quibuscum antehac nulla intercessit noticia aut amicitia, quoddammodo nosmet ipsos commendamus. Hoc argumentum frequens est inter eruditos, dum alioquoties totis regionibus disiuncti, tamen mutuis epistolis sese provocant ad sodalitatem literariam ac foedera Musarum. (107) For reasons of space, I have refrained from including evidence from late antique epistolography (with the exception of some brief remarks on Gregory of Nazianzus; see below). For details, see e.g. Thraede (1970) 109–214; Abram (1994); Gemeinhardt (2007) 187–9, 196–200; and Schröder (2007) esp. 204–12; some references to late antique testimonies can also be found in Sykutris (1931) 189–95. (108) See Reed (1997) 181–2. (109) On ancient ethopoiia and its rhetorical background, see e.g. Sykutris (1931) 194–5, 216 and Amato and Schamp (2005). See also Fögen (2007), with reference to the fictional letters of Alciphron (and Aristaenetus). (110) On the temporal relativity of epistolary communication, see Altman (1982) 129: ‘Since the present of the letter-writer is never the present of his addressee, epistolary discourse is caught up in the impossibility of a dialogue in the present. That is, “I feel” cannot be interpreted by the addressee as “you feel” but Page 43 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles rather as “you felt when you wrote this letter…”.’ Further Altman (1982) 135: ‘Writer and reader share neither time nor space. The discontinuity of the space and time is reflected in the discontinuity of exchange, a dialogue composed of more separate, monologuelike units than the component units of the oral dialogue. The written exchange not only introduces the time lag between message transmission and message reception; it also widens the interval between message reception and response. The writer has more time to meditate, to measure and correct his words, to polish his style.’ Bürgel (1983) 177 and 236 speaks of the letter as a ‘phasenverschobenes Gespräch’. (111) See e.g. Bütow (1908); Worstbrock (1981); Witt (2005); Richardson (2007); and Grévin and Turcan-Verkerk (2015). See also Brüggemann (1971) 120–3 and Reinlein (2003) 61–2. (112) It is interesting to note that two other Briefsteller appeared in the same year: Johann Christoph Stockhausen’s Grundsätze wohleingerichteter Briefe (Helmstädt 1751) and Johann Wilhelm Schaubert’s Anweisung zur Regelmäsigen Abfassung Teutscher Briefe und besonderes der Wohlstandsbriefe (Jena 1751). On Gellert and letter-writing manuals of the eighteenth century, see e.g. Brüggemann (1971); Arto-Haumacher (1995); Kaiser (1996); Reinlein (2003); Nickisch (1969); and Ebrecht, Nörtemann, and Schwarz (1990). (113) Gellert (1989) 127 n. 3. Translation: ‘As voluminous as the directives on letters are that are written in German: equally large, if not larger, is their number in Latin, in part composed by great scholars, yet seemingly proving that any effort to turn letter-writing into an art form is in vain.’ (114) On Gregory of Nazianzus’ Epist. 51, see Guignet (1911) esp. 6–14 and Grünbart (2007) 124–30. Guignet (1911) 8 characterizes this letter as ‘tout un petit traité épistolaire’ and refers to its ‘ton entièrement didactique’ (9). (115) Greg. Naz. Epist. 51.5–6: Ταύτην [sc. χάριν] δὲ φυλάξομεν, εἰ μήτε παντάπασι ξηρὰ καὶ ἀχάριστα γράφοιμεν καὶ ἀκαλλώπιστα, ἀκόσμητα καὶ ἀκόρητα, ὃ δὴ λέγεται, οἷον δὴ γνωμῶν καὶ παροιμιῶν καὶ ἀποφθεγμάτων ἐκτός, ἔτι δὲ σκωμμάτων καὶ αἰνιγμάτων, οἷς ὁ λόγος καταγλυκαί- νεται· μήτε λίαν τούτοις φαι νοίμεθα καταχρώμενοι· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀγροῖκον, τὸ δ᾽ ἄπληστον. Καὶ τοσαῦτα τούτοις χρηστέον, ὅσα καὶ ταῖς πορφύραις ἐν τοῖς ὑφάσμασι. Τροπὰς δὲ παραδεξόμεθα μέν, ὀλίγας δέ, καὶ ταύτας οὐκ ἀναισχύντους. Ἀντίθετα δὲ καὶ πάρισα καὶ ἰσόκωλα τοῖς σοφισταῖς ἀπορρίψομεν· εἰ δέ που καὶ παραλάβοιμεν, ὡς καταπαίζοντες μᾶλλον τοῦτο ποιήσομεν ἢ σπουδάζοντες. (116) Greg. Naz. Epist. 51.7: Πέρας τοῦ λόγου, ὅπερ τῶν κομψῶν τινος ἤκουσα περὶ τοῦ ἀετοῦ λέγοντος, ἡνίκα ἐκρίνοντο περὶ βασιλείας οἱ ὄρνιθες καὶ ἄλλος ἄλλως ἧκον ἑαυτοὺς κοσμήσαντες, ὅτι ἐκείνου κάλλιστον ἦν τὸ μὴ οἴεσθαι

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Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles καλὸν εἶναι. Τοῦτο κἀν ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς μάλιστα τηρητέον τὸ ἀκαλλώπιστον καὶ ὅτι ἐγγυτάτω τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν. (117) Gellert (1989) 127 n. 3. Translation: ‘The short letter by Gregory of Nazianzus to Nicobulus, about the brevity, perspicuity, and grace of a letter, is perhaps worth more than many a prolix directive.’ (118) See also Gellert (1989) 100 and 107. Gellert shares this view with Johann Christoph Stockhausen and Johann Wilhelm Schaubert (see above, n. 112). See Reinlein (2003) 69: ‘Allen dreien ist gemeinsam, daß sie das Ideal der “schönen Natürlichkeit” und der “Lebhaftigkeit” propagieren. Die teilweise frappierenden Übereinstimmungen lassen sich mit einem gesellschaftlich verankerten Bedürfnis nach Abkehr von alten Regelpoetiken erklären. Nicht nur innerhalb der Brieftheorie stößt man auf dieses Phänomen. Auch innerhalb anderer Gattungen läßt sich diese Entwicklung beobachten.’ See also Brüggemann (1971) 119 and 147–8. (119) See Gellert (1989) 111: ‘Ein Brief ist kein ordentliches Gespräch; es wird also in einem Briefe nicht alles erlaubt seyn, was im Umgange erlaubt ist. Aber er vertritt doch die Stelle einer mündlichen Rede, und deswegen muß er sich der Art zu denken und zu reden, die in Gesprächen herrscht, mehr nähern, als einer sorgfältigen und geputzten Schreibart.’ See also Gellert (1989) 112. (120) See Ueding and Steinbrink (31994) 129: ‘Soweit wie Gellert in der Forderung nach einem natürlichen, doch weiterer Regeln nicht bedürftigen Briefstil mochte kaum einer der späteren Theoretiker gehen, die Bedürfnisse des Alltags und die überlieferten Briefkonventionen erwiesen sich insgesamt als stärker. Auch in den Rhetorik-Lehrbüchern findet man später meist wieder differenziert entfaltete Briefstil-Lehren.’ One example is Johann Gotthelf Lindner’s Kurzer Inbegriff der Aesthetik, Redekunst und Dichtkunst (1771) which contains a chapter ‘Von Briefen und dem Briefstil’. (121) See Gellert (1989) 102: ‘Ich kenne Frauenzimmer, welche die schönsten Briefe schreiben, und die ich wegen der Freundschaft nicht nennen will, die lebhaft von Natur, aber gewiß nicht gelehrt sind. Sie kannten weder den Menantes [= Christian Friedrich Hunold (1680–1721)] noch Weisen [= Christian Weise (1642–1708)], noch Neukirchen [= Benjamin Neukirch (1665–1729)], und dennoch schrieben sie wohl.’ See also Gellert (1989) 136–7: ‘Was unter vielen Vorstellungen, durch die Hülfe einer zarten und glücklichen Empfindung die leichtesten, feinsten und nöthigsten wählen, und einen gewissen Wohlstand in ihrer Verbindung beobachten kann, der wird gewiß gute Briefe schreiben. Aus diesem Grunde kann man sich sagen, woher es kömmt, daß die Frauenzimmer oft natürlichere Briefe schreiben, als die Mannspersonen. Die Empfindungen der Frauenzimmer sind zarter und lebhafter, als die unsrigen. Sie werden von tausend kleinen Umständen gerührt, die bey uns keinen Eindruck machen. Sie Page 45 of 46

 

Ancient Approaches to Letter-Writing and the Configuration of Communities through Epistles werden nicht allein öfter, sondern auch leichter gerührt, als wir. Eine Vorstellung macht bey ihnen geschwind der andern Platz, daher halten sie sich selten bey einem guten Gedanken zu lange auf; wir fühlen ihn stärker, und darum gehen wir oft zu lange mit ihm um. Ihre Gedanken selbst sind, wie ihre Eindrücke, leicht; sie sind ein scharfes, aber kein tiefes Gepräge. Die Frauenzimmer sorgen weniger für die Ordnung eines Briefs, und weil sie nicht durch die Regeln der Kunst ihrem Verstande eine ungewöhnliche Richtung gegeben haben: so wird ihr Brief desto freyer und weniger ängstlich. Sie wissen durch eine gewisse gute Empfindung das Gefällige, das Wohlanständige, in dem Putze, in der Einrichtung eines Gemäldes, in der Stellung des Tischgeräthes leicht zu bemerken und zu finden; und diese gute Empfindung der Harmonie unterstützt sie auch im Denken und Briefschreiben. Wer die Farben wohl zu wählen, und Theile, die nicht nothwendig zusammen gehören, so zu stellen weis, daß eins das andre erhebt, der wird auch seine Gedanken in einem Briefe gut wählen und geschickt ordnen können. Wir reden nicht von Frauenzimmern, die unter Leuten von verderbtem Geschmacke aufgewachsen sind; die ihren Verstand und ihre Sprache noch durch keinen vernünftigen Umgang, durch kein gutes Buch ausgebessert haben; nein. Aber wir meynen auch nicht vielwissende Frauenzimmer.…Man kann bis zur Orthographie, bis zu den Unterscheidungszeichen in einer Rede unwissend seyn, und imer noch sehr schöne Briefe schreiben.’ (122) This chapter is a significantly extended and revised version of various papers given at Humboldt University of Berlin, the Universities of Würzburg, Wuppertal, Thessaloniki, Erfurt, Durham, Reading, Munich (LMU), Newcastle, Uppsala, and Liège. My sincere thanks are due to the audiences for their feedback and to my co-editors of this volume for their collegial advice.

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network

Letters and Communities: Studies in the SocioPolitical Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard

Print publication date: 2018 Print ISBN-13: 9780198804208 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804208.001.0001

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network Schröder Bianca-Jeanette

DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198804208.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords There was no postal service in antiquity: transmission of letters therefore always involved someone who carried the letter from sender to addressee. This chapter shows that the courier has to be inserted, as an important figure in his own right, into the complex and fascinating picture of etiquette and interaction that defined ancient epistolary communication. With special reference to the correspondence of Cicero, Schröder demonstrates that the author of a letter had to take into account not only the letter’s recipient and other potential readers within his circle (and beyond) but also, and every bit as much, the courier, who loomed over the potential contents of any letter as an inevitable frame and first filter. Detailed readings of passages from Cicero’s epistolary corpus illustrate the implications of this hitherto much-neglected aspect of letter-writing for our understanding of his correspondence. Keywords:   postal service, letter-carrier, couriers, confidentiality, news, Marcus Cicero, Atticus, Quintus Cicero, epistolary conventions

In the written correspondence of antiquity, the person charged with delivering a letter decisively influenced how the letter was read and interpreted.1 Forced to make do without an institutionalized postal service or the expectation of privacy, ancient epistolary correspondence was not solely defined by the familiar coordinates of sender, recipient, and subject matter. The means of delivery also was a significant factor. Without the courier, the space between sender and recipient could not be bridged.

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network As a mobile bridge between author and addressee, however, the courier available at any given moment could never be completely neutral or without qualities of his own. The author therefore had to weigh both the advantages and the risks of using him.2 For the sender, the courier exerted a certain influence on the potential content of the letter to be delivered. And for the recipient he functioned as a living paratext of the message he transported, framing its substance even without speaking a word. The mere presence (and identity) of the courier provided an (implicit) commentary on the letter he delivered. Couriers who delivered oral messages (that is, messengers in the pregnant sense of the term) are a different phenomenon. This chapter will explore the influence of the person responsible for delivery on epistolary communication in the Roman world. This includes instances in which letter-writers refer to the circumstances of delivery in their correspondence: couriers were often the subject of letters; a letter-writer might mention them for a variety of reasons, and not just their degree of trustworthiness. (p.82) Studies in the field often emphasize the central role of couriers.3 They examine the external aspects of epistolary correspondence, which we can glean primarily from the letters of Cicero, such as the persons who acted as couriers, be they special slaves or travellers; the dangers that lurked along the way (from carelessness on the part of the courier and rainstorms that rendered letters illegible to robbery and espionage); and the fundamental issue of the trustworthiness of a courier (or lack thereof).4 Some publications have explored the particular case of couriers being charged with delivering news orally.5 Yet as well documented as these aspects are, they have seldom been incorporated into the analysis and interpretation of the letters themselves, though scholars are aware of their significance. Peter White, for instance, notes that the content of a letter to Terentia (Fam. 14.13, Brundisium, 47 BCE) says less about the relationship between a husband and wife than it does about the means by which their letters to one another were delivered.6 There are, in short, repeated references to the general influence of the courier on the message, but this influence has yet to be systematically examined. It is usually mentioned in introductory chapters on the material aspects of letter-writing but afterwards referred to only sporadically. Though the scope of this chapter does not allow for an exhaustive study of this aspect, my hope is that what follows will encourage an interpretative approach to Cicero’s letters that pays more attention to the couriers themselves. Numerous passages in Cicero’s letters attest not only to the substantial influence of the courier on the content of the letter. They also give insight into some social conventions that guided the epistolary network of writers, addressees, and couriers. And occasionally, they reveal how a courier might place the author in a precarious position. This chapter will consider the fundamental influence of the courier on both the conception and the actual content of letters in sections 1–4. Sections 5 and 6 treat specific examples in Page 2 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network which couriers were either unknown or known all too well. A short conclusion is drawn in section 7.

1. The Influence of the Courier In recent years, a clear focal point of research on Cicero’s letters has been the analysis of etiquette and the strategies of interaction among the Roman elite.7 (p.83) In the course of this research, it has become clear that Cicero was hardly as blithe about dispatching his innermost thoughts as earlier generations of scholars assumed. Even today, some cling to the (in principle attractive) idea that in his letters we capture the ‘true’ Cicero (as opposed to the public figure he cut in his speeches). But for several reasons, this approach is mistaken. In the first place, when writing to certain recipients or in certain situations, Cicero had no intention to show his ‘true opinion’.8 Letters were the only means of communication when distance made face-to-face encounters impossible. In this light, what held true for spoken was also true for written expressions, namely, that ‘private opinion was often less important than public appearance’.9 ‘Openness’ in individual letters was as present or as absent as it would have been in everyday political and social life. Secondly, a letter-writer had to assume that the intended recipient would not be the only person reading it.10 Letters were often read aloud to others or transcribed and passed along.11 These practices were apparently commonplace enough that they would not have been questioned, at least not without a good reason for doing so.12 In composing a letter, an author needed to take into account the likelihood of it being forwarded to others by the recipient.13 The possibility of having more readers than just the explicit addressee was not necessarily a disadvantage: ‘The semipublic nature of these epistolary encounters also made them an excellent venue for social performance.’14 The aim of this chapter is to show that the courier has to be inserted into this complex and fascinating picture of etiquette and interaction as a figure in his own right. The author of a letter needed to take into account not only the letter’s recipient and other potential readers within his circle (and beyond) but also, and every bit as much, the courier. Generally speaking, what mattered most was not so much what the author wanted to communicate to a given correspondent but what he could communicate. The courier loomed over the potential contents of any letter as an inevitable frame and first filter. (p.84) Trustworthy couriers that could be sent to traverse a short or a long distance did of course exist. But on the other end of the spectrum we encounter the unfamiliar or notoriously curious courier, sometimes with a long stretch of ground to cover. In this light, it is unrealistic to suppose that we can determine how ‘intimate’ or ‘open’ a letter is by only taking into account its recipient or the recipient’s relationship to Cicero—as does Wolfgang Müller, for instance, when he endorses the widespread assumption that Cicero’s letters to Atticus contain his innermost and freely shared thoughts.15 Rather, any interpretation should take into account Page 3 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network that the numerous letters to Atticus were delivered by many different couriers, and that their degree of dependability as well as the routes they travelled varied greatly. Thus, what Cicero may have expressed in any one letter may not be used to draw general conclusions. For example, he writes to Atticus (Formiae, April 59 BCE), ‘do give this boy (I’ve told him to hurry back to me at once) a nice massive letter, full of news’ (isti puero, quem ad me statim iussi recurrere, da ponderosam aliquam epistulam plenam omnium, Att. 2.11.1). But we should not forget that elsewhere he has written—again, to Atticus—(Rome, January 61 BCE) ‘but I have been rather slow in making one [sc. reply], because I can’t find a trustworthy carrier. There are so few who can carry a letter of any substance without lightening the weight by perusal’ (idcirco sum tardior quod non invenio fidelem tabellarium. quotus enim quisque est qui epistulam paulo graviorem ferre possit nisi eam perlectione relevarit?, Att. 1.13.1). However, in some cases the courier is apparently more trustworthy than the slave to whom the letter was dictated, as can be seen when Cicero adds to a letter in his own hand (Tusculum, June 44 BCE): ‘I thought this should be written in my own hand, and have done so’ (Haec putavi mea manu scribenda itaque feci, Att. 15.20.4).16 It follows that we must interpret Cicero’s letters individually, assessing as we go whether there is evidence that ‘caution’ may have been necessary or whether Cicero could have written what he wanted, free of worry that the letter would fall into the wrong hands. And even if Cicero knew that the courier was trustworthy, it should not be assumed automatically that he wrote ‘openly’ to any given addressee. Cicero himself noted that the situation was constantly changing (Arpinum, June 45 BCE): ‘You see the virtue of propinquity.…When I was at Tusculum it was as though we talked to one another, letters passed to and fro so rapidly. But it will soon be so again’ (Vides, propinquitas quid habeat.…conloqui videbamur, in Tusculano cum essem; tanta erat crebritas litterarum. sed id quidem iam erit, Att. 13.18). (p.85) Some of the mischaracterization of the letters to Atticus in current scholarship is due to a one-sided reading that views them as a replacement for personal conversation, in line with the most common epistolary topos, the tecum loqui.17 Ancient works on epistolary theory such as Demetrius’ De elocutione, in which the letter is referred to as ‘the other half of a dialogue’ (§ 223)18 and an ‘image of the soul’ (§ 227), have also contributed to such interpretations. This, however, overlooks that in their letters authors frequently draw attention not only to the similarities between a conversation and a letter, but also the differences. In fact, the exact opposite of the sentiment expressed in the topos tecum loqui can be found, namely that a conversation by means of letters cannot take place due to potential eavesdroppers (that is, unwelcome readers) or that a letter cannot replace a conversation for any number of reasons.19 Were one to assemble these ‘negative’ references as systematically as the tecum loqui and related commonplaces have been gathered, the two would probably cancel each other out. In the end, the topoi are an arsenal of possible and sometimes Page 4 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network conflicting statements that a letter-writer might draw upon if he wanted. But the topoi should by no means be considered an exclusive key to how people in the ancient world thought about epistolography. As such, they are of no help in understanding the reality of communication, not least because they tend to exaggerate or idealize one facet of the complex phenomenon and minimize others. To be sure, explicit references to couriers are found only in some letters and certainly not the majority of them—but it was not a subject that usually required broaching. In most instances, the relationship of the courier to both the author and the recipient and the degree of trust he should be afforded was presumably clear to both sides. Regardless of how a given letter may have been worded, the person of the courier was for both author and recipient an important piece of additional information about the nature of the letter’s contents: he was a living paratext. This information is lost to today’s readers. For sender and recipient it was impossible to forget about the courier, because without him, there was no correspondence at all. For those interpreting ancient correspondence today, however, it is less obvious that the courier (p.86) has to be integrated into the picture of epistolary interaction. More often than not, we see only the letters, for it is all we have. We read the letters not one by one, as they arrive, but in comfortable collections. And it is difficult enough that we can only read Cicero’s part of the epistolary dialogue, since the replies are lost. But paying more attention to the courier can help to understand certain key facets of ancient epistolary interaction.

2. Collaboration Many passages in the letters of Cicero provide a glimpse of both the quantity of daily correspondence and the enormous amount of effort spent collaborating and communicating before the courier was even dispatched.20 Information needed to be exchanged about who was travelling, when they were leaving, and where they were going, as well as to how the letter would reach the courier or the courier the letter. The quality of this network of communication, which required the collaboration of various parties, depended on the personal qualities of each participant, and Cicero’s letters provide glimpses of possible failures. The passages in which he expresses his dissatisfaction show how he expected epistolary transmission to work, that is, what he wanted to get out of a courier. A particularly instructive case of a potential courier blatantly failing to offer his services is recorded in a letter by Cicero to his brother Quintus, who at the time (summer/autumn of 54 BCE) was part of Caesar’s entourage, which meant that letters between the brothers had to cover a long distance fraught with risks and dangers. When Quintus’ freedman Hippodamus departed for Gaul without taking a letter with him, an annoyed Cicero complains to his brother (QFr. 3.1.21):

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network Cum Romam ex Arpinati revertissem, dictum mihi est Hippodamum ad te profectum esse. non possum scribere me miratum esse illum tam inhumaniter fecisse ut sine meis litteris ad te proficisceretur—illud scribo, mihi molestum fuisse. iam enim diu cogitaveram ex eo quod tu ad me scripseras ut, si quid esset quod ad te diligentius perferri vellem, illi darem, quod mehercule hisce litteris quas vulgo ad te mitto nihil fere scribo quod, si in alicuius manus inciderit, moleste ferendum sit. When I got back to Rome from Arpinum I was told that Hippodamus had set out to join you. I cannot say that I was surprised by his lack of consideration in leaving to join you without a letter from me. I say only that it vexed me. You see, it had been in my mind for a long time, from what you had written to me, that if there was anything that I wanted conveyed to you with extra care (p.87) I should give it to him; for in these letters which I send you in the ordinary way the fact is that I write practically nothing which would be awkward if it fell into the wrong hands. Cicero does not hold back his anger: his brother Quintus had offered his freedman Hippodamus as a confidential courier, yet Hippodamus departed without alerting Cicero of the opportunity to send a letter. Cicero clearly expected Hippodamus not only to give notice of his travel plans well in advance but also to wait for Cicero’s missive even at his own inconvenience. Since Cicero complains so openly to Quintus, we can infer that these were not only his own whimsical expectations, but that he was sure that Quintus would agree. This episode thus reveals an important convention before departing for travel: if someone went on a journey (whether or not involving the transmission of a letter), he was expected to broadcast this fact more widely among family members and friends so that those who wanted could compose letters to send along.21 Here, it appears that Cicero’s anger has been building for quite some time: he mentions that the freedman’s behaviour comes as no surprise to him. Cicero sees Hippodamus’ uncooperative behaviour as a potential courier as yet further evidence of his poor conduct in general. This criticism is directed not only at the freedman but also, and even more so, at Quintus for holding Hippodamus in higher esteem than he deserves and trusting him too much.22 Hippodamus offered the rare opportunity to transmit sensitive information reasonably safely, but wilfully neglected the brothers’ desire to communicate. There are other passages in which Cicero describes how and when letters were given to a courier or delivered to the recipient. All remarks, whatever their length, on the achievements or failures of couriers played a decisive role in epistolary interaction. It was very important to know the reliability and degree of cooperation of the participants in the network and therefore useful to pass

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network evaluative comments on individuals and their actions, however briefly. For obvious reasons, failures attracted more frequent comments than good work. One letter to Atticus begins: ‘Your freedman Philogenes has come to pay his respects to me in Laodicea’ (Cum Philogenes libertus tuus Laodiceam ad me salutandi causa venisset, Att. 6.2.1). Atticus’ freedman Philogenes did what he was expected to do: he attended to his duty of salutatio and thus created an opportunity for a letter. But Cicero’s next words contain a slight criticism: ‘and says he is returning to you at once by sea, so I am giving him this letter’ (et se statim ad te navigaturum esse diceret, has ei litteras dedi, Att. 6.2.1). Philogenes expects Cicero to write at once, and this is what he does, so that the freedman (p.88) can leave with this letter the next morning. But in the end, Cicero will hint again at the fact that Philogenes is waiting (see section 3, below). This is one of many cases in which potential couriers announce their departure (and thus generate the opportunity to send letters along), but do so only at very short notice. Occasionally, Cicero, more or less annoyed, makes reference to having hastily authored a letter upon receiving news that a courier was about to depart.23 In such cases, the recipient would have been aware that the author had seized the opportunity to write something quickly and could assume that the letter would otherwise have been lengthier. Sometimes, a more detailed account of the news was put on hold in favour of a simple summary until another letter could be penned.24 In mentioning the haste involved in producing a letter, Cicero also implies that he would have appreciated it if he had been informed about the departure of a potential courier in a more timely fashion. Sometimes, Cicero expresses this dissatisfaction quite clearly, and we can assume that the recipient was meant to pass it on to the courier.25 It was, at any rate, not advisable to pass up a chance to send a letter. After all, one wanted to remain a part of the social networks in which letter-carriers circulated. A letter-writer who used every possibility on offer advertised that he had a general and constant demand for couriers. In this context it bears stressing that the need to impart more or less important news was hardly the only reason for writing. Often enough, it was the letter as such and the fact of its sending that delivered an important message.

3. The Letter as a Token of Esteem Criticism of the courier was of course not all a letter could convey. Many letters show that Cicero took advantage of an opportunity to send a letter not only to reach out to its recipient, but to express his esteem for the courier. He notes on many occasions that, although he had just written and thus had no real necessity for writing again, he did not wish to see the courier leave empty-handed.26 In other words, given that an opportunity to send a letter had opened up, it would have been inappropriate not to furnish one.

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network (p.89) In these cases, Cicero does not stress the comfortable situation of having too many couriers, but rather that he writes even though there is nothing new to say. John Nicholson has collected some of these remarks (‘nihil novi’) and comes to the conclusion: ‘Cicero simply liked to exchange letters, even if only short notes quite empty of content.’27 But the wording and context of these passages show that Cicero’s practice of writing a letter at every possible opportunity is in fact much more than him indulging in his favourite activity. In the light of the above-mentioned irregularities in the transmission of letters, it was on the whole better to use every chance to get a letter underway—even if it often meant repetition and the penning of banalities. Moreover, conveying information was not the only function of letters. The social import of Cicero’s letters often outweighs their role as news channel. Epistolary communication cultivated the relationships among all the persons involved (writer, addressee, and courier) and was thus also an end in itself. Sending a letter through a courier was an outward sign of amicitia or fides and officium, all of which were matters of concern in Roman upper-class society of equal relevance to the exchange of news. In these passages, Cicero’s wording stresses that for him the presence of the courier is more important than the state of news: ‘I have no news to give you [sc. Marcellus], and was in fact beginning to expect a letter from you, or rather yourself in person; but since Theophilus is leaving, I could not let him go without something in the way of a letter’ (Etsi nihil erat novi, quod ad te scriberem, magisque litteras tuas iam exspectare incipiebam vel te potius ipsum, tamen, cum Theophilus proficisceretur, non potui nihil ei litterarum dare, Fam. 4.10.1, 46 BCE).28 Cicero seems to regard a potential courier not only as the chance of sending a letter, but also as the obligation to do so. Here he also brings into play several other conventions of letter-writing, such as the expectation (in theory, at least) that both parties alternate in writing and that sending letters becomes redundant if a meeting in person is imminent. By stressing that the opportunity presented by Theophilus’ departure makes him disregard these conventions, Cicero issues a compliment to both courier and recipient: they are more important than the unwritten rules of epistolary communication. Nevertheless, Cicero also uses the occasion to remind the recipient of his duty to turn into a sender as well. Cicero’s statements that there is nothing new to say deserve more attention: what is he writing when there is nothing to write? ‘I have no news really,…but as I am sending Philotimus to Rome I must write you a line or two’ (Etsi nihil habebam novi…tamen, cum Philotimum Romam remitterem, scribendum aliquid ad te fuit, Att. 6.3.1, May/June 50 BCE, on the way to Tarsus). Maybe Cicero has no new information to give, but in fact he discusses a severe (p.90) problem that he only hinted at very obliquely in the last letter (and which he will develop in the following letters):29 who is to replace him after his departure from the province and before the arrival of his successor? The main point is not that he Page 8 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network does not have anything to say, but that is does not make much sense to bother Atticus with this problem. Cicero emphasizes that the distance between them and the time needed to cover it are too great to allow for Atticus to give him useful advice. Even if Atticus can think of a solution, he cannot help him, as his advice would arrive too late. But nevertheless: Cicero uses the opportunity to clarify his thoughts and formulate his position on matters that occupied him at the time. Maybe not only in this case, such letters, which are allegedly and at first glance unnecessary, had an important function for Cicero himself—and they certainly are of great value to today’s reader in assessing the cultural standing of epistolary communication among members of Rome’s ruling elite. Indeed, Cicero’s words ‘I could not let him go without a letter’ point to the social function of letter-writing, which is also paramount in the next example. To provide a potential courier with a letter is a possibility to express esteem for him. In another letter to Marcellus Cicero writes (46 BCE): ‘It is only a very few days since I gave Q. Mucius a letter for you of considerable length.…But since your freedman Theophilus is setting out, whose loyalty and good will towards you I have plainly seen, I did not wish him to go to you without a letter from me’ (Etsi perpaucis ante diebus dederam Q. Mucio litteras ad te pluribus verbis scriptas…, tamen, cum Theophilus, libertus tuus, proficisceretur, cuius ego fidem erga te benevolentiamque perspexeram, sine meis litteris eum ad te venire nolui, Fam. 4.9.1). Cicero praises Theophilus’ fides and benevolentia not only explicitly, but also implicitly by not letting him go without a letter. As such, the letter offers a twofold opportunity to provide the freedman with, quite literally, a ‘letter of recommendation’. This will please not only Marcellus but Theophilus as well, who, as many other examples show, will naturally hear of the praise and thus be happy to play the role of reliable courier at the next available opportunity. This may be contrasted with the poor endorsement that Quintus receives for his freedman Hippodamus (see section 2, above). Cicero also uses the letter to mention that Q. Mucius is underway with a longer letter, which explains why the current letter is only a brief summary. If Theophilus arrives before him, Mucius will learn that Marcellus is already expecting the letter he carries. Here we see another important function of letters deemed not ‘actually’ necessary: the more couriers involved in carrying letters, the more opportunities there were to keep tabs on one another and issue reminders if need be. (p.91) Whereas in this example Cicero deems it merely possible that Theophilus will overtake Mucius with his letter, in the following case he explicitly states the expectation that his couriers will overtake Saufeius, though he leaves a day earlier: ‘I am going to send couriers to you all tomorrow. I expect they will arrive before friend Saufeius, but it would scarcely have been right for him to join you without a letter from me.’ (Ego tabellarios postero die ad vos eram missurus, quos puto ante venturos quam nostrum Saufeium; sed eum sine Page 9 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network meis litteris ad te venire vix rectum erat, Att. 6.9.4, Athens, 50 BCE). In the promised letter, Cicero again mentions the possibility that Saufeius may be slow in arriving with his own missive and now couples it with an allusion to the fact that Saufeius is an (Epicurean) philosopher. ‘I gave L. Saufeius a letter for you, and for nobody else, because even though I did not have time enough for writing I was unwilling that so close a friend of yours should join you without a letter from me. But at the rate philosophers move I imagine this will reach you first’ (Dederam equidem L. Saufeio litteras et dederam ad te unum, quod, cum non esset temporis mihi ad scribendum satis, tamen hominem tibi tam familiarem sine meis litteris ad te venire nolebam, sed ut philosophi ambulant, has tibi redditum iri putabam prius, Att. 7.1.1). In both letters, Cicero not only emphasizes his unwillingness to let Saufeius depart without a letter despite the fact that a further opportunity to write (with, most likely, a more speedy delivery) would present itself almost immediately. He also stresses that there was only time to write one letter before Saufeius’ departure, and that he chose to make Atticus its recipient. Whereas all the others addressees living in the area get one letter only, Atticus thus gets two. The second letter (which Cicero expects to arrive first) contains a playful comment on Saufeius and his speed of travel (or lack thereof), whereas in the first letter carried by Saufeius himself, Cicero kept his pen in check. Any such witticism would have compromised the function of the first letter as an outward sign of the special relationship between Cicero and Atticus into which Saufeius, as willing courier, is temporarily included. Not every reference a letter-writer makes to a courier waiting to depart entails brevity or triviality. In the letter from Laodicea that, as we already had occasion to note (see section 2, above), he gave to Atticus’ freedman Philogenes, Cicero ends by saying: ‘I should love to go on gossiping a while longer, but it is light.… Philogenes wants to be off’ (Cupiebam etiam nunc plura garrire, sed lucet;… festinat Philogenes, Att. 6.2.10). In fact, the letter is anything but short or empty: Cicero is here only wrapping things up. Using the waiting courier as a means to justify why he stops writing, he at the same time makes it clear that he spent a good portion of the night writing it (because the freedman showed up only the day before his departure), which is a compliment to the recipient.

(p.92) 4. The Courier Impeding or Preventing Correspondence Just as a courier could provide the impetus for authoring a letter and serve as the means of its conveyance, he could also be the reason a letter already written remained unsent or was reworded. Often, the scenario of transmission meant that some things would only be implied and others left unsaid: ‘Of private worries with all their pricks and pains I shall say nothing. I won’t commit them to this letter and an unknown courier’ (domesticarum quidem sollicitudinum aculeos omnis et scrupulos occultabo neque ego huic epistulae atque ignoto tabellario committam, Att. 1.18.2; Rome, January 60 BCE). Or: ‘since you left me there are things that well deserve a letter of mine, but I must not expose such to Page 10 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network the risk of getting lost or opened or intercepted’ (Sunt autem post discessum a me tuum res dignae litteris nostris, sed non committendae eius modi periculo ut aut interire aut aperiri aut intercipi possint, Att. 1.13.2; Rome, January 61 BCE). Passages such as these in which Cicero makes reference to limitations to his ability or willingness to write freely are frequently cited in the literature.30 The next logical step would be to incorporate these findings into interpretations of the letters. When Cicero emphasizes that he does not know a courier and does not trust him, this is not only of general interest for the question of letter transport but is also—first and foremost—a clear indication that, for that letter in particular, he did not commit to paper everything he might have wished to. In Att. 4.16 (Rome, July 54 BCE) Cicero mentions not only that he is making an exception by dictating a letter rather than writing it himself because he is so busy (§ 1), but also that he is not familiar with the courier and does not even know for certain that he will have the opportunity to deliver the letter (§ 9).31 Perhaps it is no coincidence that in this letter Cicero discourses at length on relatively harmless subjects, including the personnel of De re publica and De oratore and some of the larger construction projects underway in Rome at the time.32 And Cicero also inserts a passage that seems addressed to readers beyond Atticus: he mentions that a recent letter from his brother Quintus made much of Caesar’s amor towards him and adds that he also received ‘a very copious letter from Caesar himself’ that corroborated Quintus’ report (§ 7). Atticus, who must have been well trained in picking up Cicero’s hints about couriers, will have known how to interpret this information. But the (p.93) matter does not stop here: in the letters Cicero sent to Quintus during his brother’s time with Caesar in Gaul, we find numerous references to couriers, most of whom were couriers of Caesar.33 This means that, most probably, the letter from Quintus completed its journey at the hands of a courier of Caesar as well, who will presumably have had a peek at its content already. Cicero amplifies the effect by broadcasting his appreciation of Caesar’s warm feelings towards his family even further. The risk of third parties reading a letter could thus be transformed, if need be, into an opportunity to disseminate certain information: others privy to the correspondence could have—indeed, were meant to have—learned of Caesar’s esteem for the Cicerones. Cicero’s conspicuous words of praise for Caesar himself (e.g. QFr. 2.14.1) are probably not meant either for the eyes of Quintus alone.34 During Quintus’ term as propraetor of Asia, Cicero comments at length and on multiple occasions on the carefree manner of Quintus’ correspondence.35 He advises that, when in doubt, fear of a letter falling into the wrong hands should win out: ‘I would also advise you not to trust anything to a letter which might embarrass us if it became public property. There are many things of which I had sooner be ignorant than informed, if the information carries risk’ (etiam illud te Page 11 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network admoneo, ne quid ullis litteris committas quod, si prolatum sit, moleste feramus. multa sunt quae ego nescire malo quam cum aliquo periculo fieri certior, QFr. 3.6.2). It would certainly be a worthwhile endeavour to study the types of information letters with explicitly stated limitations nonetheless contain. In the letters from Pharsalus, for example, we find: ‘That is as much as I can prudently put on paper’ (Hactenus fuit, quod caute a me scribi posset, Att. 11.4a). And: ‘finding as I do no sort of satisfaction either in the happenings or the doings here. If only I had talked to you in days gone by instead of writing!’ (nec quae accidunt nec quae aguntur ullo modo probentur. utinam coram tecum olim potius quam per epistulas, Att. 11.4). Apparently, a seal on a letter did not provide sufficient protection either. ‘After I had sealed my last letter I decided not to give it to the man I had intended because he was not one of our own people, so it was not dispatched that day’ (obsignata iam epistula superiore non placuit ei dari cui constitueram quod erat alienus; itaque eo die data non est, Att. 10.11.1, May 49 BCE). Cicero also writes that if the contents of a letter were confidential, he would refrain from writing in his own hand and applying his own seal (Att. 2.20.5, July 59 BCE); in this manner, if worst came to worst, the author could not be identified.

(p.94) 5. An Example of an Unknown Courier In one letter (autumn of 59 BCE), Cicero explicitly states his wish that Atticus pass on any praise he (Cicero) may have bestowed upon others in their correspondence (Att. 2.25.1): Cum aliquem apud te laudaro tuorum familiarium, volam illum scire ex te me id fecisse, ut nuper me scis scripsisse ad te de Varronis erga me officio, te ad me rescripsisse eam rem summae tibi voluptati esse. sed ego mallem ad ipsum scripsisses mihi illum satis facere, non quo faceret sed ut faceret. mirabiliter enim moratus est, sicut nosti. When I praise one of your friends to you, you may take it that I want to let him know that I have done so. The other day, you remember, I wrote to you about Varro’s good offices towards me, and you wrote back that you were delighted to hear of it. But I would rather you had written to him that I was well content with him, not that this really was so but that it might become so. He is a strange person, as you know. Leafing backwards several letters, we can see that Cicero had spared very few words for Varro prior to that, mentioning him only in connection with others with whom he had dealings (Att. 2.20.1; for our purposes, the ‘who is who’ does not matter):

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network Anicato, ut te velle intellexeram, nullo loco defui. Numestium ex litteris tuis studiose scriptis libenter in amicitiam recepi. Caecilium, quibus rebus par est, tueor diligenter. Varro satis facit nobis. Pompeius amat nos carosque habet. I have done my utmost for Anicatus, as I saw you wished. After the strong recommendation in your letter I was glad to take Numestius into my circle. Caecilius has my best offices in such matters as call for them. I am well satisfied with Varro. Pompey is my affectionate good friend. He then goes on about Pompey. In this letter, the short sentence about Varro (Varro satis facit nobis) is easy to miss. The only thing conspicuous about it is that it is shorter and more general than the others and mentions no specific act. The next letter contains a nearly identical sentence about Varro, which is again nestled in remarks about others: ‘I am well satisfied with Varro’ (Varro mihi satis facit, Att. 2.21.6). Several sentences about Clodius precede it, and more remarks about Pompey follow. Yet another brief mention of Varro can be found in the next letter, but its purpose is rather to make a demand of Atticus: ‘Much can be done through our friend Varro, and more reliably with you to apply the spur’ (multa per Varronem nostrum agi possunt quae te urgente erunt firmiora, Att. 2.22.4). Nowhere do we find direct praise of Varro, yet rather than assuming that a letter containing it is missing, we can suppose that the brief sentence satis facit nobis is, in fact, purposely chosen. Indeed, it is used again in the clarification in 2.25 (mihi illum satis facere). Cicero apparently (p.95) assumed Atticus would mention his words to Varro, thus obligating him to actually act, but Atticus appears to have misunderstood his meaning. The sequence makes three things in particular clear. First of all, Cicero would have liked Atticus to relay his thoughts on Varro to Varro himself in the hope that his praise (as relayed by Atticus) would obligate Varro to finally do what he had already been praised for. Secondly, it illustrates that for Cicero, it went without saying that Atticus would relay his words, brief as they were. It is an example that illustrates, ex negativo, how normal Cicero considered it that remarks in a letter would be directly passed on to the person remarked upon.36 Lastly, we can see that communication did not always work perfectly, as shown by the fact that Atticus apparently did not react as Cicero expected him to. Could not Cicero have spared a few more words that would have prevented the misunderstanding?37 After all, elsewhere he gives clear instructions to Atticus on how he was to exercise his greater influence upon common acquaintances. In Att. 12.36.2, for example, he writes: ‘If you are writing to Brutus and don’t think it out of place, scold him for…’ (Ad Brutum si quid scribes, nisi alienum putabis, obiurgato eum, quod…). The brevity of his remarks on Varro can evidently be attributed to his distrust of the courier. The later letter (mentioned first above but chronologically the last, 2.25) containing the clarification that Varro be Page 13 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network persuaded by Atticus to act as Cicero wished was written shortly before a meeting with Atticus in September, 59 BCE, as follows from the text. This means that not only did the letter not have to travel a great distance, but also that Cicero apparently had a dependable courier at his disposal and could therefore give free rein to his thoughts on Varro. The same cannot be said for the first letter (July, 59 BCE), in which Varro is mentioned only briefly. Here, Cicero explicitly states that ‘I am terrified by now for fear the very paper may betray us’ (iam enim charta ipsa ne nos prodat pertimesco, Att. 2.20.3). As such, it is clear why Cicero would refrain from revealing his true thoughts. Afraid that the letter might fall into the wrong hands, he did not want to write that Varro’s support for him was lacking. Upon receiving this (not only brief, but also wrong) information, Atticus was to have thanked Varro, as usual, and other potential readers could assume that Varro supported Cicero. In this instance, Cicero is writing first and foremost for the unintended but inquisitive reader and, by planting untruths, which he knows—and hopes—will be further disseminated, does so in a way that allows him to profit from their curiosity. By factoring in the (p.96) identity of the couriers when interpreting the relationship between Cicero and Varro, we thus reach a conclusion that is exactly the opposite of the one Thomas Baier reaches when presenting the same three letters (among others). In 2.20, he sees Cicero as attempting to screw up his courage, whereas in reality his words are directed neither at himself nor at Atticus but, rather, at other parties who may happen to read the letter.38 In a letter to his brother Quintus, at the time propraetor of Asia, Cicero writes that for politicians rumours were just as important as the truth: ‘Since the fate of all politicians is not only based on truth but also on rumours, I am writing to you not only what springs from my own judgement, but also what other people are talking’ (neque ego, quae ad te de illo scripsi, scripsi meo iudicio, sed cum ratio salusque omnium nostrum, qui ad rem publicam accedimus, non veritate solum sed etiam fama niteretur, sermones ad te aliorum semper, non mea iudicia perscripsi, QFr. 1.2.2). We could apply this to the sequence of letters on Varro: even though Varro may not (yet) have supported Cicero, it may have been useful to let others think that this was the case. This short sequence must serve as a warning to anyone interpreting the letters of Cicero and wishing to glean information about the people, actions, and motives contained within them. In this case, 2.25 clarifies information found in 2.20 and 2.21, yet it is impossible to know how many such clarifications may have been lost or how often Atticus understood Cicero’s words right off the bat, without any further need for clarification.

6. Couriers All Too Well Known It was not always the case, however, that Cicero assumed Atticus would react as he hoped when a courier prevented him from expressing himself as freely as he wished. In the following example, Cicero finds himself in a complicated scenario, Page 14 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network feeling indebted as he does to both his nephew Quintus and his friend and brother-in-law, Atticus. Quintus, the brother of Marcus Tullius Cicero, was married to Pomponia, the sister of Titus Pomponius Atticus. Their son, also named Quintus, was thus nephew to both Atticus and Marcus Cicero. But Atticus was the maternal uncle (avunculus), who in Roman culture was supposed to be indulgent, and Cicero was the paternal uncle (patruus), supposed to be severe. Nephew Quintus is mentioned regularly in the letters, early on within the context of his education and, later, in connection with his stance on Caesar during and after the civil war—which prompts a series of brief and lengthy (p. 97) complaints.39 In July of 44 BCE, Cicero writes at length about Quintus to Atticus in a tone that is suddenly different from numerous complaints up until then (Att. 16.5.2): Quintus f. fuit mecum dies compluris, et, si ego cuperem, ille vel pluris fuisset; sed quantum fuit, incredibile est, quam me in omni genere delectarit in eoque maxime, in quo minime satis faciebat. sic enim commutatus est totus et scriptis meis quibusdam, quae in manibus habebam, et adsiduitate orationis et praeceptis, ut tali animo in rem publicam, quali nos volumus, futurus sit. hoc cum mihi non modo confirmasset, sed etiam persuasisset, egit mecum accurate multis verbis, tibi ut sponderem se dignum et te et nobis futurum; neque se postulare, ut statim crederes, sed, cum ipse perspexisses, tum ut se amares. quod nisi fidem mihi fecisset iudicassemque hoc, quod dico, firmum fore, non fecissem id, quod dicturus sum.… Quintus fils has been with me for several days and would have stayed even longer if I had desired. But as long as his visit lasted you will scarcely believe how pleased I was with him in all respects, and especially on the point as to which I formerly felt most dissatisfied. So complete has been the change in him produced by certain writings of mine which I have in hand and by constant talk and advice that his political sentiments are likely in future to be just what we desire. After he had not only promised but persuaded me of this he requested me, deliberately and at some length, to stand guarantor with you that he will in future be a credit to us both. He added that he did not ask you to believe this straight away, but to give him your affection only when you had seen for yourself. If I had not been convinced, if I had not formed an opinion that this frame of mind would last, I should not have done what I am about to tell…. Given all that has happened prior to this, it seems rather remarkable that Cicero would immediately accept his nephew’s promises of improvement at face value— especially given that his role as patruus was supposed to be that of a strict disciplinarian. Sure enough, Cicero simultaneously dispatches another letter to

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network Atticus by special courier, hoping that it will arrive before the first letter (Att. 16.1.6): Nunc, cuius rei causa tabellarium miserim, accipe: Quintus filius mihi pollicetur se Catonem. egit autem et pater et filius, ut tibi sponderem, sed ita, ut tum crederes, cum ipse cognosses. huic ego litteras ipsius arbitratu dabo. eae ne te moverint. has scripsi in eam partem, ne me motum putares. di faxint, ut faciat ea, quae promittit! commune enim gaudium. Now let me tell you why I have sent a courier. Quintus junior assures me that he will be a Cato in future. Both father and son have asked me to be his guarantor (p.98) with you, on the understanding that you will believe it only after you have proved it for yourself. I shall give him a letter in any terms he likes. Don’t let it impress you. I write this so that you may not think that I have been impressed. I devoutly hope that he lives up to his promises—we should all be delighted. In a later letter we learn that the cautionary letter did in fact reach Atticus first: ‘I am glad to know that my courier delivered my letter to you before the young man himself, though you would not have been misled. Still it’s as well…’ (De Quinto filio: gaudeo tibi meas litteras prius a tabellario meo quam ab ipso redditas; quamquam te nihil fefellisset; verum tamen…, Att. 16.3.3).40 The sequence illustrates much about the relationship between Cicero, Atticus, and their nephew Quintus. At times, the need to reconcile the demands of family and amicitia (as Cicero’s brother-in-law, Atticus falls into both categories) could complicate things considerably. Even as patruus, Cicero cannot really refuse to write a letter full of praise and hope for his nephew. At the same time, he feels a duty towards Atticus to be frank which overrides his obligation to Quintus. But since Quintus himself is the courier, Cicero had to reckon with the possibility that Quintus reads the letter or that Atticus reads it in his presence. He therefore needed to be rather more lavish in his praise than he would have been otherwise, which entailed the risk of influencing Atticus’ actions in unwanted ways. Cicero clearly had doubts that Atticus would guess the true intent behind the letter if left to his own devices with that fulsome praise, especially since as avunculus he was supposed to adopt an indulgent disposition towards his nephew anyway. Not wanting to leave Atticus’ reaction to chance this time, Cicero resorts to the manoeuvre of sending an extra courier to ensure that his meaning is clear. We have no way of knowing today how often such couriers were sent.41

7. Conclusions In his fundamental study of Cicero’s letters, Gregory Hutchinson has pointed to the fact that there are still some ‘sides of the letters which have received remarkably little attention’ and opened the eyes of today’s readers for the letters’ literary qualities.42 But they are a very special kind of literature since Page 16 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network they were not only a vital news channel but also a crucial means of social (p.99) interaction among the Roman elite. Sender and recipients were not the only participants in epistolary transactions; Cicero’s letters offer ample evidence that the mobile bridge between them, the courier, was an important part of the picture as well. And a focus on the passages in which Cicero discusses couriers shows that the etiquette and the strategies of interaction include special conventions for interaction with couriers. In this light, it is not enough to collect references to couriers as they appear in the letters, but it is necessary to integrate them into interpretations. The scope of this chapter does not allow an exhaustive study of the influence of a given courier on a letter and of all the conventions that guided the social interactions with couriers. But I hope that readers of Cicero’s letters will pay more attention to the presence of couriers and study their influence further. The examples that are presented in this chapter show that Cicero, on the one hand, attends to these conventions and, on the other hand, plays with them artfully. He knew that couriers as mobile bridges could be a chance or a risk, and he also knew how to turn the risk into a chance. He used his letters not only to chat or to transmit news, but in some cases he manipulated them to function as ‘rumour mills’, by deliberately affording unauthorized access to seemingly authentic opinions. Today’s readers should be aware that the couriers are not an outward peculiarity of ancient epistolography: they are embedded deep within the letters. Bibliography Bibliography references: Baier, Thomas (1997), Werk und Wirkung Varros im Spiegel seiner Zeitgenossen, Stuttgart. Baraz, Yelena (2012), A Written Republic: Cicero’s Philosophical Politics, Princeton. Bernard, Jacques-Emmanuel (2013), La sociabilité épistolaire chez Cicéron, Paris. Drecoll, Carsten (2006), Nachrichten in der Römischen Kaiserzeit: Untersuchungen zu den Nachrichteninhalten in Briefen, Freiburg. Hall, Jon (2009), Politeness and Politics in Cicero’s Letters, Oxford. Henderson, John (2007), ‘“…When Who Should Walk into the Room But…”: Epistolarity in Cicero, Ad Qfr. 3.1’, in Ruth Morello and Andrew D. Morrison (eds), Ancient Letters, Oxford, 37–85.

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network Hutchinson, Gregory O. (1998), Cicero’s Correspondence: A Literary Study, Oxford. Klauck, Hans-Josef (1998), Die antike Briefliteratur und das Neue Testament, Paderborn. Kolb, Anne (2000), Transport und Nachrichtentransfer im Römischen Reich, Berlin. Leach, Eleanor W. (1999), ‘Ciceronian “Bi-Marcus”: Correspondence with M. Terentius Varro and L. Papirius Paetus in 46 B.C.E.’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 129, 139–79. Malherbe, Abraham J. (1988), Ancient Epistolary Theorists, Atlanta. Müller, Wolfgang G. (1980), ‘Der Brief als Spiegel der Seele: Zur Geschichte eines Topos der Epistolartheorie von der Antike bis zu Samuel Richardson’, Antike und Abendland 26, 138–57. (p.100) Müller, Wolfgang G. (1994), ‘Brief’, in Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, vol. 2, Tübingen, 60–76. Nicholson, John (1994), ‘The Delivery and Confidentiality of Cicero’s Letters’, Classical Journal 90, 33–63. Nikitinski, Oleg (1999), ‘Die (mündliche) Rolle von Briefboten bei Cicero’, in Lore Benz (ed.), ScriptOralia Romana: Die römische Literatur zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit, Tübingen, 229–47. Rösch-Binde, Christiane (1998), Vom ‘deinos aner’ zum ‘diligentissimus investigator antiquitatis’: Zur komplexen Beziehung zwischen M. Tullius Cicero und M. Terentius Varro, Munich. Schneider, Wolfgang C. (1998), Vom Handeln der Römer: Kommunikation und Interaktion der politischen Führungsschicht vor Ausbruch des Bürgerkriegs im Briefwechsel mit Cicero, Hildesheim. Schröder, Bianca-Jeanette (2004/5), ‘Ciceros Briefe als Briefe’, Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 40/1, 193–214. Schuricht, Ralf (1994), Cicero an Appius (Cic. fam. III): Umgangsformen einer politischen Freundschaft, Trier. Shackleton Bailey, David R. (1965–8), Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, vols 1–6, New York. Shackleton Bailey, David R. (2001), Cicero: Letters to Friends, vols 1–3, Cambridge and London. Page 18 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network Shackleton Bailey, David R. (2002), Cicero: Letters to Quintus and Brutus. Letter Fragments. Letter to Octavian. Invectives. Handbook of Electioneering, Cambridge and London. Thraede, Klaus (1970), Grundzüge griechisch-römischer Brieftopik, Munich. White, Peter (2010), Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic, Oxford. Notes:

(1) This work is based on presentations and workshops held in Durham, UK; Sofia, Bulgaria; Halle, Cologne and Munich, Germany; and Austin, Texas, in the US. The author wishes to express her thanks to the participants for the lively discussions and to Kevin Fencil for translating this chapter. The translations of Cicero’s letters are Shackleton Bailey’s. (2) As far as I see, there is no sign of female couriers in Cicero’s letters. On Cicero’s couriers with remarks on their social status, cf. the chapter of Bernard (2013) 47–52. (3) See in particular Nicholson (1994); Klauck (1998) 66–8; Nikitinski (1999); Kolb (2000) 20–7; Schröder (2004/5) 198–201; White (2010) 11–18. (4) Drecoll (2006) draws upon Cicero’s letters in his examination of news conveyed by letter in the Roman imperial period but makes no mention of the possible influence of the courier on a letter’s content. (5) Nikitinski (1999); White (2010) 16. (6) White (2010) 13. (7) See e.g. Schuricht (1994); Schneider (1998); Hall (2009); White (2010). In both quantitative and qualitative terms, Cicero’s letters offer an almost boundless field of research that may be approached in any number of ways. The letters’ language, style, and literariness are as common a subject of research as Cicero’s own biography, the eventful times in which he lived, and various cultural-historical and socio-historical topics. (8) See e.g. Leach (1999) 140 n. 2: ‘The assumption that their self-revelation is unguarded, which is to say rhetorically unprogrammed, is a premise very much at odds with Roman views of the close relationship between self-representation and style.’ (9) Hall (2009) 75. (10) See e.g. QFr. 3.1.19: venit ad nos Cicero tuus ad cenam…; dedit mihi epistulam legendam tuam, quam paulo ante acceperat (‘your son came over to Page 19 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network us for dinner…; he gave me your letter to read, which he had received shortly before’). (11) See e.g. Att. 1.17.1, 13.38.1, 15.5.2, 16.11.8, 16.12.1. (12) When Cicero denounces Antonius in a speech (Phil. 2.4) for publicly reading letters Cicero had sent him, this exception merely proves the rule that one could accurately predict how the recipient of a letter would react. (13) Individual details of letters were also intended to be passed on verbally, as can be observed repeatedly. See section 5 on Varro. (14) Hall (2009) 25. (15) Müller (1994) 67: ‘Einen unerhört intimen, zutiefst persönlichen Charakter haben…die Atticus-Briefe, in denen sich Cicero dem besten Freund gegenüber vorbehaltlos öffnet und die politischen Ereignisse der Zeit in rückhaltloser Subjektivität und aus persönlicher Betroffenheit heraus darstellt.’ (16) This raises the interesting question of whether letters written or appended in Cicero’s own hand found their way into the archives and, if so, how? Who transcribed them, who archived them? (17) ‘But when I read your letters I seem to hear you talk, and when I write to you it is as though I were talking to you’ (quia, cum tua lego, te audire, et quia, cum ad te scribo, tecum loqui videor, QFr. 1.1.45). Further examples: Att. 7.15.1, 8.14.1; Fam. 1.7.1 to Lentulus; Fam. 15.19.1, Cassius to Cicero. See also Thraede (1970) 35–8; Müller (1980); and Fögen (Chapter 1). Malherbe (1988) provides good access to the works and passages touching on epistolary theory. (18) That Demetrius in this instance is actually criticizing the expression, which originally stems from Aristotle, is often overlooked. (19) This, depending on the situation, could prove to be an advantage or disadvantage. See e.g. Fam. 15.14.3; Att. 8.9.4, Att. 14.13 A1, Att. 14.13 B1: ‘You could then have seen my affection for you not only in my words but in my eyes, written as the saying goes all over my face’ (non enim solum ex oratione, sed etiam ex vultu et oculis et fronte, ut aiunt, meum erga te amorem perspicere potuisses). See also Fögen (pp. 58–60 in this volume). (20) See e.g. Att. 8.1.1, 8.2.1, 8.3.7, 8.6.1. (21) See e.g. Fam. 12.18.1, 12.19.3. (22) Cicero criticizes Quintus openly (e.g. QFr. 1.2.1, 1.2.3) for allowing some of his freedmen too much influence.

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Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network (23) See e.g. Att. 2.9.1: ‘I write this in haste, as Quaestor Caecilius has suddenly told me that he is sending a boy to Rome’ (Subito cum mihi dixisset Caecilius quaestor puerum se Romam mittere, haec scripsi raptim). Whether such spontaneous or uncertain situations could have been used as an excuse for writing only briefly or infrequently, as White (2010) 14 assumes, must have varied from case to case depending on the circumstances and the people involved. That it at times afforded a convenient excuse seems likely, though this is difficult to prove in individual cases. Cicero would hardly have issued severe reproaches out of the blue. (24) See e.g. Att. 8.1.1, together with 8.2.4. (25) See e.g. Fam. 15.17.1, 15.18.1. (26) See also, e.g. Att. 8.12.1 and the beginning of Att. 6.3. (27) Nicholson (1994) 36. (28) Cf. also, e.g. Fam. 9.3.1, 9.10.1. (29) Cf. Att. 6.2.10, 6.3.1, 6.4.1, 6.5.3, 6.6.3–4, 6.9.3, 7.1.1. (30) See n. 3, above. (31) One interesting question would be to what degree letters written differed from those dictated in terms of their content and form of expression. (32) Cicero did not write about his own works very often and certainly not in great detail. White (2010) 102 observes: ‘Typically, he says no more than that he is busy with such-and-such a project or that he is sending such-and-such a finished book to friends.’ Some exceptions are presented in White (2010) 110– 14. (33) QFr. 2.13.3, 3.1.8. (34) Henderson (2007) 38 suspects that the letters to Quintus at issue here were written with Caesar as the more important recipient in mind. (35) See e.g. QFr. 1.2.6, 1.2.8. (36) Cicero’s letters contain countless remarks about other people that he intended those people to hear about. When Cicero praises Lentulus’ son in a letter to Lentulus (Fam. 1.7.11), he wishes Lentulus to pass along his esteem— though he does not directly make the request. (37) Rösch-Binde (1998) 73–82 discusses the letters, but she offers no explanation for Cicero’s laconic praise; her focus is on the fact that Cicero does not communicate directly with Varro, but needs Atticus as a go-between. Page 21 of 22

 

Couriers and Conventions in Cicero’s Epistolary Network (38) Baier (1997) 19. (39) See e.g. Att. 6.2.2: ‘the boy’s nature, though gifted, is complex, and I have plenty to do guiding it’ (est magnum illud quidem, verum tamen multiplex pueri ingenium, quod ego regendo habeo negotii satis); Att. 15.27.3: ‘What a rascal you have for a nephew!’ (O turpem sororis tuae filium!). For a more detailed outline, see Baraz (2012) 62–7. (40) Hall (2009) 40–1 mentions the letter Att. 16.5 as an example of asking for help on behalf of someone else but fails to reference the twist supplied by letters 16.1.6 and 16.3.3. Baraz (2012) 62–7 is very attentive to the fact that the recommendation is a fake, and her argument builds on Cicero’s assumption that not only Atticus will read it. She studies how Cicero presents the role of philosophy in the improvement of Quintus’ character, that is, how he presents ‘his thought to appear plausible to Atticus and to the expected over-reader’ (62). (41) See e.g. Att. 8.5.1. (42) Hutchinson (1998) 1.

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy

Letters and Communities: Studies in the SocioPolitical Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography Paola Ceccarelli, Lutz Doering, Thorsten Fögen, and Ingo Gildenhard

Print publication date: 2018 Print ISBN-13: 9780198804208 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804208.001.0001

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy Sian Lewis

DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198804208.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords The chapter explores the part played by letters in how tyrants in the world of fifth- and fourth-century BCE Greece exercised power, with a specific emphasis on processes of decision-making and the role of state institutions that embedded the ruler within the wider political community. The focus is on the place and function of letters in the traditions surrounding the rulers of Syracuse (Dionysius I and II, Timoleon, and, moving into the Hellenistic period, Agathocles). A nuanced picture emerges: whereas the classical tyrants did not attempt to impose a model of rule through written communication within their poleis, where traditional oral methods of rule continued, in communications outside the polis tyrants moved gradually towards the letter as part of the consolidation of their rule. Keywords:   classical Greece, tyrants, political communities, epistolary communication, Syracuse, Dionysius I, Dionysius II, Dion, Timoleon, Agathocles

‘In the place of the imprinted monuments scattered throughout the East’, writes Deborah Steiner in The Tyrant’s Writ, ‘Herodotus presents oral commemoration in the Greek city-states; where written dispatches structure relations between the ruler and the ruled, discussion and debate regulate Greek affairs; the externalized, textual manifestations of the tyrant’s power give way to the interior voices that direct free men.’1 Yet according to John Muir’s Life and Letters in the Ancient Greek World, [i]t was also the case that most Greek city-states (particularly those with democratic constitutions) conducted their affairs by recording resolutions Page 1 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy and decrees rather than by writing letters.…In the Hellenistic world from the time of Alexander the Great onwards, the situation changes remarkably. Monarchy was in the end a personal exercise of power and the king wrote to his subjects person to person in letter-form, the writer of the letters uttering the royal voice.2

1. Introduction Despite the many and extravagant tales of ancient tyrants, one question remains very hard to answer: how exactly did a tyrant rule? Beyond the frequently made but bland statement that an individual ‘made himself a tyrant’ or ‘established himself in power’, many aspects of tyrannical government remain obscure to us: how were decisions taken and communicated to the demos? What was the role of public institutions under a tyranny? How far (p.104) was day-to-day decisionmaking devolved, and to whom? Over a period of rule which could last for thirty years or more, institutions needed to be created which could support government by an individual. It is clear from our sources that few classical tyrants created new constitutions; most employed the regular civic bodies such as the assembly and courts while retaining overall direction of affairs.3 The few discussions of the topic to date have suggested that writing, both inscriptions and letters, played a significant role in tyrants’ organization of their poleis. The relationship between writing and power in the ancient world has been much debated, especially the connection between the public use of writing and particular political systems.4 Scholarly attention has tended to focus on the development of democracy and the place of writing in the democratic state, but a smaller number of studies have considered the role of writing in tyrannical constitutions and compared its use in monarchic and representative forms of government. As can be seen from the two passages quoted above, conclusions have differed depending on the period under consideration. Deborah Steiner’s The Tyrant’s Writ examines the meaning of writing in archaic Greece, and, taking as its primary source material the writings of Herodotus, identifies a clear distinction between tyrannical rulers and city-states in their use of writing, arguing that inscriptions, inventories, and letters enabled the ruler to distance himself from his subjects and conceal himself behind signs, contrasting with the open and public debate of the citizen assembly.5 The discussion to some extent glosses over the question of whether this distinction is real, or is one generated by Herodotus’ story patterns, something which is easier to do for the archaic period, where contemporary sources are unavailable and later traditions are all we have. Such an interpretation fits well with the traditional model of Greek tyranny, which locates tyrants firmly in the archaic period and contrasts their rule with the more representative forms of government which appeared at the end of the sixth century. If one follows the view that tyranny disappeared after 500 BCE, archaic tyrants can represent an ‘Easternizing’ mode of rule based on writing Page 2 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy which died out in favour of the orally dominated ‘world of the city-state’. It becomes more problematic, however, if one notes that the phenomenon of tyranny was not an isolated episode in Greek political development, confined to the archaic period: it was a continuously appearing phenomenon throughout the history of the polis.6 Tyrannies continued to rise and flourish throughout the fifth and fourth centuries, particularly in Sicily, but also in Heracleia, (p.105) Euboia, the Peloponnese, and Thessaly, with states changing constitution from representative to autocratic and vice versa.7 Paola Ceccarelli, in a study focusing specifically on epistolary communication in Greece between the sixth and second centuries BCE, follows Steiner in describing letters as being perceived as ‘oriental, tyrannical, and deceptive’, but extends the theory to encompass the Sicilian tyrants of the fourth century too.8 Other scholars who have examined the use of letter-writing in public affairs in the classical period have identified a moment of change much later: both J. V. Muir and J.-M. Bertrand argue that the greatest distinction in the use of letters at a public level is to be found between ‘the world of the city-state’ and that of the Hellenistic kings, pinpointing the reign of Alexander as the turning-point between oral and written modes of government.9 It is seen as distinctive of citystates, whether their constitution be democratic or tyrannical, that government is conducted through oral methods, and only with the rise of monarchies after Alexander does rule by letter become standard in Greece. Paola Ceccarelli, considering the role of letters in the classical Greek polis, offers a more nuanced conclusion: documenting the use of the letter as public communication in Sparta and Crete, and noting the many instances of internal communication by letter at Athens, she suggests that while the model may be true in outline, one should not see a deliberate rejection of the letter as official document by the Greek polis.10 This then raises the question of whether classical tyrants’ use of letters was appropriate to the earlier or the later model: was written communication an essential mode of government in all one-man rule? Neither of the models outlined above consider the classical tyrants, who fall outside the area of interest of both: a tyrant’s rule was undoubtedly ‘a personal exercise of power’ and as individual rulers, by Steiner’s view, they should be using letters and inscriptions as their primary mode of rule, yet according to Muir the concept of rule by letter had not taken hold in the fourth-century Greek polis. In fact the classical tyrants offer a particularly valuable opportunity to test out assumptions about the use of letters as public documents, allowing as they do the discussion of actual historical examples rather than historians’ constructions of archaic tyrants. I will ask, then, whether there is evidence for the contrast between tyrants and city-states in this respect: did letters play a role in classical tyrants’ rule? Could they? Were tyrannical rulers simply imitating the modes of

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy kingship elsewhere, or did their letters have a purpose in the working of the state? As primary material I will take the attested letters of Syracusan rulers from Dionysius I to Agathocles, first reviewing them, then offering an analysis of their form and purpose. The usual caveat when dealing with ancient sources (p.106) applies here: while some of these letters are historical, plainly some could have been invented. Those under consideration here, however, are both sporadic, often linked to a particular circumstance or event, and are rarely quoted in other contexts (unlike, say, the letters of Alexander the Great, which are both very numerous and various, and are widely quoted across different literary genres).11 Contextual analysis will therefore be important.

2. Documented Letters Letters as a mode of government were familiar to the Greek poleis from the states with which they interacted in the fifth and fourth centuries, primarily Persia, but also the Macedonian and Thracian kings. The Persian king’s rule by decree and letter was well understood; in Persia all power rested with the king, and in his person: he did not empower representatives to make decisions, or devolve power to them—all actions reflected the will of the king.12 In Herodotus we see the institution of the grammatistes basileios (royal secretary) (3.128) whose role is to read aloud the decrees of the king and function as his voice, and both Thucydides and Xenophon describe instances in which letters were sent accompanied by the royal seal: an example is the inauguration of the King’s Peace in 387, when the Persian satrap Tiribazus produced the document from the king containing the terms of the peace, showed the Greek ambassadors assembled at Sardis the king’s seal and then read the document aloud (Xen. Hell. 5.1.30). A similar approach is evident among the other monarchs who interacted with the Greeks: Macedonian and Thracian kings regularly sent letters to Greek poleis, and we have the texts of some of Philip’s and Alexander’s letters recorded among the speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines.13 It is worth noting at this point that official letters of this kind opened with a common formula: ‘Philip, King of Macedon, to the Boule and Demos of [polis], greetings.’14 As in Persia, the kings preferred this mode of communication to the sending of representatives because it reflected the monarch’s personal direction of affairs: the letter was not simply informative, but embodied the voice and will of the king. Turning to the tyrants of Syracuse, and taking them in chronological order, we find two letters recorded during the reign of Dionysius I, both from the later years. The first appears during an episode in the 370s in which Dionysius had sent a number of chryselephantine statues as offerings to Delphi and (p.107) Olympia; his ships were captured by an Athenian fleet off Corcyra under the command of Iphicrates, who consulted the Athenians as to what he should do

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy with the statues. The Athenians approved his selling them and using the money to fund his soldiers (Diod. Sic. 16.57.3): ὁ δὲ τύραννος ὀργισθεὶς τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἔγραψε πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἐπιστολὴν τοιαύτην. Διονύσιος Ἀθηναίων τῇ βουλῇ καὶ τῷ δήμῳ εὖ μὲν πράττειν οὐκ ἐπιτήδειόν ἐστι γράφειν, ἐπεὶ τοὺς θεοὺς καὶ κατὰ γῆν καὶ κατὰ θάλατταν ἱεροσυλεῖτε καὶ τὰ ἀγάλματα τὰ εἰς ἀνάθεσιν ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν τοῖς θεοῖς ἀπεσταλμένα παρελόμενοι κατεκόψατε καὶ περὶ τοὺς μεγίστους τῶν θεῶν ἠσεβήκατε, περὶ τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα τὸν ἐν Δελφοῖς καὶ τὸν Δία τὸν Ὀλύμπιον. Enraged at the Athenians, the tyrant wrote the following letter to them: Dionysius to the Boule and Demos of Athens. It is pointless to write that I wish you well, since you are committing sacrilege against the gods on land and sea, and have seized the statues which we sent to be dedicated to the gods and broken them up for coining, and are acting impiously towards the greatest of the gods, Apollo of Delphi and Zeus of Olympia. I will analyse this letter in the next section, but its noteworthy aspects are, first, that it is given a strong motivation—it is written in anger, in a situation requiring a public response—and, second, the form of address, which is given here simply as ‘Dionysius to the Athenians’, without an indication of the role or status of the sender. A second letter is attested a few years later in an Athenian inscription recording the grant of Athenian citizenship to Dionysius and his sons in 369/8.15 Dionysius is said to have both sent ambassadors to Athens, and to have written a letter ‘about the rebuilding of the temple and the peace’, a decision which is referred to the synedrion (council) of the Athenian League. The format of this letter is not preserved, but it shows the tyrant writing to the Athenians and their allies on issues of foreign policy—the peace referred to is the King’s Peace, in which Dionysius evidently wished to participate. This letter was accompanied by ambassadors whom the decree instructs to be introduced to the assembly, but stated Dionysius’ wishes and policies in his own voice. No other letters are recorded from the long reign of Dionysius I, but several appear in the tradition of his son, Dionysius II. The first is at the centre of the discrediting of Dionysius’ uncle Dion at the start of the reign, since it implicated him in a conspiracy with Carthage (Plut. Dion 14.3–5): ἐκ τούτων ὑποψίας πρῶτον, εἶτα καὶ φανερωτέρας ὀργῆς καὶ διαφορᾶς γενομένης, ἐκομίσθη τις ἐπιστολὴ κρύφα πρὸς Διονύσιον, ἣν ἐγεγράφει Δίων πρὸς τοὺς Καρχηδονίων ἐπιμελητάς κελεύων, ὅταν Διονυσίῳ περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης διαλέγωνται, μὴ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ποιήσασθαι τὴν ἔντευξιν, ὡς πάντα θησομένους ἀμεταπτώτως δι᾽ α (p.108) ὐτοῦ. ταύτην ἀναγνοὺς Διονύσιος Φιλίστῳ καὶ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου βουλευσάμενος, ὥς φησι Τίμαιος, ὑπῆλθε τὸν Δίωνα πεπλασμέναις διαλύσεσι· καὶ μέτρια σκηψάμενος Page 5 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy διαλλάττεσθαί τε φήσας, μόνον τε ἀπαγαγὼν ὑπὸ τὴν ἀκρόπολιν πρὸς τὴν θάλασσαν, ἔδειξε τὴν ἐπιστολὴν καὶ κατηγόρησεν ὡς συνισταμένου μετὰ Καρχηδονίων ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν. ἀπολογεῖσθαι δὲ βουλομένου τοῦ Δίωνος οὐκ ἀνασχόμενος, ἀλλ᾽ εὐθὺς, ὡς εἶχεν, ἐνθέμενος εἰς ἀκάτιον προσέταξε τοῖς ναύταις κομίζοντας αὐτὸν ἐκθεῖναι πρὸς τὴν Ἰταλίαν. As Dionysius first became suspicious of Dion, and then more open in his anger and disagreement with him, a letter was brought secretly to the tyrant, in which Dion wrote to the Carthaginians telling them to take care that whenever they negotiated with Dionysius over the peace treaty, not to hold talks without his being there, since he would arrange everything securely. Dionysius showed Philistus the letter and took counsel with him, and, as Timaeus says, deceived Dion with a false reconciliation: making it seem that their dispute was at an end Dionysius led him alone from the Acropolis down to the harbour, where he showed him the letter and accused him of conspiring against him with the Carthaginians. He did not listen to Dion’s attempts to defend himself, but immediately, it seems, put him aboard a small boat and told the sailors to carry him over to Italy. The letter is not a communication of Dionysius II himself, but (at least in theory) of Dion: Dionysius had become dissatisfied with his uncle’s role at court for some time, and the strong implication in Plutarch’s account seems to be that the letter was a forgery designed to discredit Dion, and that Dionysius was aware of this, if not responsible for it.16 There is also the entertaining but dubious story of the letter sent in 357/6 by Timocrates, a relation of Dionysius II, to the ruler who was absent from Syracuse, reporting Dion’s return at the head of an army.17 The story goes that the messenger entrusted with the letter crossed over to Italy and was on his way to Caulonia, passing through the territory of Rhegium. He met on his way an acquaintance who was carrying an animal which had been sacrificed, accepted a portion of the meat from him, and continued on his way. But when he lay down to sleep in the night, a wolf was attracted by the scent of the meat, and snatched it up; the meat was tied to the packet with the letter, and so the wolf made off with meat and letter together. The messenger was supposedly so anxious about appearing before the tyrant without the letter that he decided it was best to run away, and the message was never delivered. This is plainly a most unlikely story —how could the events have become known if neither the letter nor the messenger ever reached the recipient?—but it bears some relation to the previous one, as I will shortly show. Finally, when Dion had captured Syracuse (or liberated it, depending on one’s point of view) and Dionysius was under siege on the acropolis with (p.109) his

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy family, he sent a letter to Dion in a particularly intriguing episode (Plut. Dion 31.1–3): Κήρυκες δὲ παρὰ τοῦ Διονυσίου κατέβαινον ἐπιστολὰς πρὸς Δίωνα παρὰ τῶν οἰκείων γυναικῶν κομίζοντες, μία δ᾽ ἦν ἔξωθεν ἐπιγεγραμμένη, ‘τῷ πατρὶ, παρ᾽ Ἱππαρίνου·’ τοῦτο γὰρ ἦν ὄνομα τῷ Δίωνος υἱῷ….αἱ μὲν οὖν ἄλλαι τοῖς Συρακουσίοις ἀνεγνώσθησαν ἐπιστολαί πολλὰς ἱκεσίας καὶ δεήσεις ἔχουσαι παρὰ τῶν γυναικῶν, τὴν δὲ παρὰ τοῦ παιδὸς εἶναι δοκοῦσαν οὐκ ἐώντων φανερῶς λυθῆναι βιασάμενος ὁ Δίων ἔλυσεν. ἦν δὲ παρὰ τοῦ Διονυσίου, τοῖς μὲν γράμμασι πρὸς τὸν Δίωνα, τοῖς δὲ πράγμασι πρὸς τοὺς Συρακοσίους διαλεγομένου, σχῆμα μὲν ἔχουσα δεήσεως καὶ δικαιολογίας, συγκειμένη δὲ πρὸς διαβολὴν τοῦ Δίωνος, ὑπομνήσεις τε γὰρ ἦσαν ὧν ὑπὲρ τῆς τυραννίδος ἔπραξε προθύμως, καὶ κατὰ τῶν φιλτάτων ἀπειλαὶ σωμάτων, ἀδελφῆς καὶ τέκνου καὶ γυναικός, ἐπισκήψεις τε δειναὶ μετ᾽ ὀλοφυρμῶν, καὶ τὸ μάλιστα κινῆσαν αὐτόν, ἀξιοῦντος μὴ καθαιρεῖν, ἀλλὰ παραλαμβάνειν τὴν τυραννίδα, μηδ᾽ ἐλευθεροῦν μισοῦντας ἀνθρώπους καὶ μνησικακοῦντας, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸν ἄρχειν, παρέχοντα τοῖς φίλοις καὶ οἰκείοις τὴν ἀσφάλειαν. Heralds came down from Dionysius on the acropolis, bringing letters to Dion from the women of the family, among which was one addressed on the outside ‘To his father, from Hipparinus’: for this was the name of Dion’s son….The other letters were read out to the Syracusans, and contained many supplications and entreaties from the women, but the letter from his son they thought should not be opened and read in public; Dion, however, insisted on it and opened the letter. It was from Dionysius himself, and although ostensibly written to Dion, was in fact addressed to the Syracusans; despite being in form an entreaty and self-justification, it was intended to stir up ill-feeling against Dion, recalling how energetically he had served the tyranny, making threats against his family, his sister, children, and wife, offering dire warnings together with lamentations, and most disturbing of all to Dion, a request that he should not overthrow the tyranny but take it over himself, saying that he should not set free men who hated and would bear a grudge against him, but should take the rule and ensure the safety of his friends and family. This letter contains several layers of misdirection: while purporting to be to Dion from his son, it was in fact a letter from the tyrant, addressed to Dion but really aimed at the Syracusan demos; the letter-format created particular difficulties for Dion, since if he chose not to make it public, he risked association with a plot (as in the past), while if he did read it in the assembly it offered Dionysius an opportunity to communicate with the citizens, enabling him to cast suspicion on Dion and his intentions.

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy After the overthrow of Dionysius II, Syracuse experienced the rule of Timoleon (344–337 BCE), who occupies a somewhat ambivalent position between founder and tyrant. Sent by the Corinthians to their former colony to restore its fortunes, Timoleon gained the reputation of an opponent of tyranny, yet at the same time he occupied a similar position within Syracuse as the Dionysii, Dion, and others before him, accepting the office of strategos (p.110) autocrator and redrafting the constitution.18 He continued as leader of the state until forced by ill health to lay down office (Plut. Tim. 37.6). Diodorus recounts an episode after the liberation of the city in which Timoleon invited the Corinthians to send new colonists to Syracuse (Plut. Tim. 23.1–3): τῶν δὲ γραμμάτων τούτων παρὰ τοῦ Τιμολέοντος κομισθέντων, καὶ πρέσβεων ἅμα παρόντων Συρακουσίων καὶ δεομένων ἐπιμεληθῆναι τῆς πόλεως καὶ γενέσθαι πάλιν ἐξ ὑπαρχῆς οἰκιστάς, οὐχ ἥρπασαν οἱ Κορίνθιοι τὴν πλεονεξίαν, οὐδὲ προσεποίησαν αὑτοῖς τὴν πόλιν, ἀλλὰ πρῶτον μὲν ἐπιόντες τοὺς ἱεροὺς ἀγῶνας ἐν τῇ Ἑλλάδι καὶ τὰς μεγίστας τῶν πανηγύρεων ἀνηγόρευον ὑπὸ κηρύκων ὅτι Κορίνθιοι καταλελυκότες τὴν ἐν Συρακούσαις τυραννίδα, καὶ τὸν τύραννον ἐξεληλακότες, καλοῦσι Συρακουσίους καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Σικελιωτῶν τὸν βουλόμενον οἰκεῖν τὴν πόλιν ἐλευθέρους καὶ αὐτονόμους, ἐπ᾽ ἴσοις καὶ δικαίοις τὴν χώραν διαλαχόντας· ἔπειτα διαπέμποντες ἀγγέλους εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν καὶ τὰς νήσους, ὅπου πλείστους ἐπυνθάνοντο τῶν φυγάδων διεσπαρμένους κατοικεῖν, παρεκάλουν ἰέναι πάντας εἰς Κόρινθον, ὡς Κορινθίων ἀσφαλῆ πομπὴν καὶ πλοῖα καὶ στρατηγοὺς παρεξόντων ἰδίοις τέλεσιν εἰς Συρακούσας. These letters were sent from Timoleon together with ambassadors from the Syracusans who entreated the Corinthians to have a care for their polis and to become its founders once again. The Corinthians did not look to their own advantage, nor did they lay claim to Syracuse for themselves alone; they first attended the sacred games in Greece and the greatest of the festivals, and announced by heralds that they, the Corinthians, had overthrown the tyranny in Syracuse and driven out the tyrant, and now summoned the Syracusans and anyone of the other Sicilians who wished to settle in the city, free and self-governing dividing the land on terms of equality and justice. They also sent messengers to Asia and the islands, where they knew that most of the exiled citizens were living, and summoned them all to come to Corinth, where they undertook to provide them with leaders, ships and safe passage at their own expense to Syracuse. This episode combines the use of a letter as official document with the sending of ambassadors: the letters are attributed to Timoleon alone, and were presumably written under his name, but they are accompanied by ambassadors from the Syracusans, suggesting a dual responsibility for the decision. The Page 8 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy Corinthians, in contrast, communicate their invitation to the other Greek poleis by proclamations at the panhellenic games and by sending messengers.19 Finally, the rule of Agathocles, which spans the period of transition to Hellenistic kingship, contains just one recorded instance of communication by letter. At the end of his life, Agathocles attempted to transfer power to his son by his second wife, also called Agathocles (Diod. Sic. 21.16.3): Στρατοπεδεύοντος αὐτοῦ περὶ τὴν Αἴτνην, ὁ μὲν βασιλεὺς βουλόμενος προάγειν ἐπὶ τὴν διαδοχὴν τῆς βασιλείας τὸν υἱὸν Ἀγαθοκλῆ, πρῶτον μὲν ἐν ταῖς Συρακούσαις σ (p.111) υνέστησε τὸν νεανίσκον, ἀποφαινόμενος διάδοχον ἀπολείψειν τῆς ἀρχῆς· μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ἐξέπεμψεν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὸ στρατόπεδον. γράψας ἐπιστολὴν ἐπὶ τὸν Ἀρχάγαθον, προσέταξε τούτῳ παραδιδόναι τὰς πεζικὰς καὶ ναυτικὰς δυνάμεις. While Archagathus was camped near Aetna, King Agathocles, wishing to secure his son Agathocles as heir to his throne, first introduced the young man to the Syracusan assembly, making it plain that he was heir to his rule. He then sent him to the army camp with a letter for Archagathus in which he commanded him to hand over the infantry and naval forces to the younger Agathocles. Despite the tyrant’s efforts the transfer was unsuccessful: Archagathus, grandson of the tyrant from his first marriage, resented his grandfather’s preference of Agathocles the younger, and entered into a conspiracy to kill both him and Agathocles the elder. The tyrant, though, had his revenge, restoring government to the Syracusans on his deathbed rather than see Archagathus inherit the tyranny.20

3. Modes of Government How can one make sense of this series of communications? Letters are attested for all Syracusan rulers, and while these are by far the best documented of classical tyrants, the persistence of the letter in the tradition is striking. Those attributed to the reign of Dionysius II, however, are markedly different from the rest. A distinction can be made between external and internal communication: between those letters from a ruler to an outside power, and those internal to the state. Dionysus I’s letters to Athens and Timoleon’s to the Corinthians fall into the former category, and those of Dionysius II and Agathocles into the second. But Agathocles’ letter, while also personal in its addressee, impinges on the internal political structure of the state: although on one level it is a letter from a grandfather to a grandson, and a command from the ruler to a general, it is also relevant to the attempt to establish Agathocles the younger in power—he had been formally presented as heir to the kingship in the assembly (so clearly a level of acclaim or acquiescence was necessary) and the instruction to

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy Archagathus to relinquish all military and naval power to him was a part of that assignment of power. The first two letters of Dionysius II are therefore distinct in being personal communications between individuals, while the third has a strange status, being ostensibly also personal and individual, although in fact it actually functioned as a communication between ruler and demos. The letters of Dionysius II are in fact much more similar to the ‘Herodotean’ type of letter identified by (p.112) Rosenmeyer and Steiner, and are thus in a much older tradition: they are all letters as failed communications—letters written for the purpose of deception, intercepted, or thrown away, communicating with a different audience to their ostensible recipient.21 The third letter in particular fits very neatly into Steiner’s model of tyrannical communications: Dionysius II is besieged on Ortygia, unable or unwilling to access public arenas of debate, and resorts to a letter to communicate with the people. This archaizing presentation is, I think, related to the characterization of Dionysius II as a failure of a tyrant—he is described as the man who inherited the greatest and most secure of tyrannies but lost it through personal weakness—and so his methods of government are shown as reverting to the type of the distant and paranoid tyrant.22 The idea that tyrants structured their rule through writing (as Steiner suggests), however, is not borne out by the evidence: within states there is no sign that the tyrant hid himself behind a wall of writing or communicated only by written decree. We do not see letters used as a means of governing, or written petitions sent to the ruler as in Macedonia and Persia: in fact, almost all of the classical tyrants made a virtue of their approachability and affability, a tradition which stretched back to the Pisistratids in Athens.23 Such a claim may seem odd in the context of the ‘black legend’ of Dionysius—later sources notoriously depict him hiding himself away from any contact with his citizens and giving speeches from a high tower—but our histories are on the contrary full of instances in which the tyrant worked alongside the demos, went out among his citizens to encourage them, addressed assemblies, and held public banquets.24 Likewise Agathocles is said to have been so popular with the demos that he would attend the assembly without a bodyguard, and he too held banquets and caroused with those he wished to favour.25 When these rulers wished to communicate with their citizens, they did so directly, through the assembly, and there was no limitation to the opportunity for debate. So, for instance, we see Dionysius I putting his plans for war against Carthage to the vote in the Syracusan assembly, presenting his coinage reforms, and listening to debate on his rule.26 It is clear from the occasional inscriptions which have survived that government by decree and resolution continued.27 Nor do we see regular communication with external states by letter: most tyrants’ interactions are made in the regular Greek polis mode of ambassadors (p.113) and heralds.28 This contrasts strongly with the communications of Page 10 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy kings such as Philip of Macedon, whose interactions with the Greek states are very well documented—the large number of references indicates that the letter was his normal mode.29 The Syracusan rulers used letters far more sporadically, and the first recorded for Dionysius I offers some hints as to the reason. The formal protest sent to Athens in 373 BCE after Iphicrates’ appropriation of the tyrant’s statues arose from a situation which required more than a normal embassy: one of Dionysius’ aims was plainly to make the Athenians’ impious behaviour known across Greece, both to invite opprobrium against them, and to make his own generous intentions, which had been thwarted, public. A letter had the great advantage that it could be circulated or otherwise publicized to third parties, as compared to the face-to-face conduct of an embassy. Furthermore, the format of this letter as quoted illustrates why this approach could be particularly problematic for a tyrannical ruler. The issue at the heart of the official letter, for unconstitutional rulers, is of course the need to find an appropriate title: an official letter must indicate not only the sender, but the nature of the sender’s power which enables him or her to make the decisions contained within the missive. As noted above, the Persian king’s seal accompanied a royal letter, endorsing the statement with the royal power, and formal interstate letters used a regular opening formula with the title of the sender. For a tyrant the question of titles was always vexed: there was no position in itself of ‘tyrant’—a man who took power in a polis, whether by military coup or public acclaim, did not occupy a pre-existing office.30 His power was great, potentially absolute, but difficult to define: many of the Syracusan rulers began their reigns with an appointment as strategos autocrator, a role similar to that of the Roman dictator, but this was neither a permanent office, nor one which entitled the holder to write letters to foreign powers on behalf of the demos.31 Indeed, under all the Syracusan rulers (and many others) we know that the popular assembly continued to meet with at least theoretical power, and if a communication was to come from the state it should correctly be sent by the magistrates on behalf of the demos. The episode involving Timoleon seems to reflect this: the double communication both marks Timoleon’s extraordinary role as strategos autocrator and effective leader of the state, and attempts to dispel the implication of autocracy by associating the Syracusan demos with the action through the normal institutions of the state. Finding an appropriate title is of course a problem which previous generations of tyrants had faced: the Deinomenid rulers in the early fifth century faced the same difficulty in the victory dedications which they made after the (p.114) battles of Himera and Cumae, and chose to sidestep it by using personal names only.32 A letter, however, will not allow this option: Dionysius son of Hermocritus has no more power to write to Athens on behalf of the state than does any other Syracusan, so an indication of the nature of his power must be included. Recorded Athenian responses to Dionysius tell us that he was, as early as the 390s, using the title ‘archon of Sicily’, and while not in itself very meaningful, Page 11 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy this term offered a solution: a letter could be sent as from a civic magistrate, and no further claim needed to be made about the roots of Dionysius’ power.33 Contemporary evidence, however, shows us that the use of this title was contested in mainland Greece: Lysias’ Olympic Oration, delivered at the games in 388, exhorted the crowd to reject Dionysius’ power over Sicily, describing him plainly as a tyrant. Lysias, a Sicilian who lived at Athens as a metic, refused to adopt Dionysius’ public title and attempted (apparently successfully) to manipulate Greek opinion against him through his choice of language.34 To write a letter, then, was for a tyrant a risky proposition: he needed to state his position and his power to the wider Greek world, but in doing so was forced to test the acceptability of this position to his addressees. There is a significant comparison to be drawn between Dionysius’ letters to the Athenians and a later letter which is said to have been sent by Callippus, who became briefly the ruler of Syracuse in 354. Callippus, an Athenian by birth, had accompanied Dion on his expedition to liberate Syracuse, but once Dion was in power, Callippus turned against him, developed an alternative power base through the Syracusan assembly, and ultimately murdered him.35 After the assassination, as a mark of his assumption of power, Plutarch says, καὶ πρὸς τὴν Ἀθηναίων ἔγραφε πόλιν (‘he even wrote a letter to the city of Athens’), suggesting both that Callippus marked his claim to rule in Syracuse by assuming the right to send letters on behalf of the state, and that this was taken by the Athenians as a sign of unacceptable arrogance and personal aggrandisement—a case where the recipients emphatically refused to endorse the claim made by the writer.36 It is not surprising that the letter was such a problematic form for classical tyrants, as we see it play a significant role in the later establishment of monarchic power by the Successors of Alexander. The formal assumption of the title of king was effected by public proclamation in the ruler’s land and by the wearing of a diadem, and also by the use of the title in official letters (Plut. Demetr. 18.1–2): ἐκ τούτου πρῶτον ἀνεφώνησε τὸ πλῆθος Ἀντίγονον καὶ Δημήτριον βασιλέας. Ἀντίγονον μὲν οὖν εὐθὺς ἀνέδησαν οἱ φίλοι, Δημητρίῳ δὲ ὁ πατὴρ ἔπεμψε διάδημα κ (p.115) αὶ γράφων ἐπιστολὴν βασιλέα προσεῖπεν. οἱ δ᾽ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ τούτων ἀπαγγελλομένων καὶ αὐτοὶ βασιλέα τὸν Πτολεμαῖον ἀνηγόρευσαν, ὡς μὴ δοκεῖν τοῦ φρονήματος ὑφίεσθαι διὰ τὴν ἧτταν. ἐπενείματο δὲ οὕτως τὸ πρᾶγμα τῷ ζήλῳ τοὺς διαδόχους. καὶ γὰρ Λυσίμαχος ἤρξατο φορεῖν διάδημα, καὶ Σέλευκος ἐντυγχάνων τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, ἐπεὶ τοῖς γε βαρβάροις πρότερον οὗτος ὡς βασιλεὺς ἐχρημάτιζε. Κάσανδρος δέ, τῶν ἄλλων αὐτὸν βασιλέα καὶ γραφόντων καὶ καλούντων, αὐτός, ὥσπερ πρότερον εἰώθει, τὰς ἐπιστολὰς ἔγραφε.

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy At this point the crowd first proclaimed Antigonus and Demetrius as kings; Antigonus’ friends immediately put a diadem around his head, and Antigonus also sent to Demetrius a diadem and a letter which addressed him as king. The Egyptians, when they heard this news, likewise hailed Ptolemy as king, lest it appear that he had been humbled by his defeat. And so the practice spread among the Successors by emulation: Lysimachus too began to wear a diadem, and Seleucus also among the Greeks—he had already taken the title of king in his dealings with the barbarians. Cassander, however, continued his normal practice and wrote letters in his own name, even though the others addressed him as king in letters and in person. In Diodorus’ account of the same episode (20.53.3) Ptolemy too is said to have written letters naming himself as king: proclamations and displays of power within one’s state are easily made, but the letter allowed the ruler to gain external legitimation of his claim, and to offer it in turn to others, acknowledging their right to the title. Cassander’s continued caution in requesting this legitimation from the Greek poleis is noteworthy: as ruler in Macedon he had the most difficult task in persuading his subjects to accept him as king, and the official letter was plainly a sensitive matter. The significance of the letter, both in the use of titles, and in the claiming of the right to speak on behalf of the state, should thus not be underestimated. Among classical tyrants we see a sporadic and tentative use of letters, which forms one part of a larger spectrum of methods of expressing their power. Because tyranny was an extra-constitutional form of government, there was no predetermined role into which the ruler could step, but these were individuals with long-term dynastic aims who began to move towards ideas of kingship quite early on in the period. As they entrenched themselves and their families in power, they began to find ways of expressing their power within and beyond the state, building on their predecessors’ traditions and often adopting modes of display from the Persian tradition too. Costume was one important area of self-presentation, but it was not simply a case of putting on the regalia and costume of a king as Alexander the Great was to do in Persia, because in the Greek tradition ‘king’s clothes’ did not exist. Dionysius I of Syracuse is said to have worn a long robe, a golden crown, and a mantle such as tragic actors wore, and similarly Clearchus, who became ruler of Heracleia in the 360s, is said to (p.116) have worn a purple robe, gold crown, and the boots worn by kings in tragedy.37 In both cases the rulers, standing as they did at the head of an intended dynasty, were trying to find a mode of expression of monarchic power through their clothes, blending existing aspects of display familiar from the Persian tradition (purple robes), the theatre (mantle and boots), and the civic arena (the crown) to create their own costume. This then became an inherited mode of self-presentation within their states, and we see Dionysius’ and Clearchus’ successors both following precedent and influencing each other—Clearchus’ son Dionysius, named after Page 13 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy the founder of the Syracusan tyranny, is supposed to have bought the royal outfit of Dionysius II after his overthrow by Timoleon.38 Similar aspects of tyrannical display can be traced in the use of the chariot drawn by four white horses which Dionysius I adopted from the Persian model of kingship, and which became a tradition in the reigns of his successors, and the use of armed bodyguards, which derived from an archaic precedent.39 The creation of monumental tombs had similarly been a practice among fifth-century Sicilian and Italian rulers—the tomb of the Deinomenid Gelon had been a prominent monument in Syracuse until its destruction in 396—and the Dionysii followed this precedent too.40 By the time of King Hieronymus in the second century BCE, there was a strong hereditary tradition of display on which the later rulers could draw (Livy 24.5.3– 5): Nam qui per tot annos Hieronem filiumque eius Gelonem nec vestis habitu nec alio ullo insigni differentes a ceteris civibus vidissent, ei conspexere purpuram ac diadema ac satellites armatos, quadrigisque etiam alborum equorum interdum ex regia procedentem more Dionysi tyranni. For the citizens, who had for so many years seen Hieron and his son Gelon dressed in the same manner as themselves and without any other mark of rank, now saw Hieronymus wearing a purple robe and a diadem, with armed attendants, and even sometimes driving out from the palace in a chariot drawn by white horses, as Dionysius the tyrant used to do. The adoption of such display, however, was inevitably a process of negotiation with public opinion, at home and abroad: Dionysius I appears to have misjudged Greek opinion at Olympia in 388 when he sent envoys to the Games with (p. 117) a Persian-style ‘royal tent’: the Persian king’s tent was well known as a symbol of both luxury and wealth, but Lysias, as noted above, urged the audience at the festival to reject Dionysius’ claim to such display and strip the tent of its valuables and hangings.41 Indeed at times the rejection of a particular type of display could be more powerful than its use; Agathocles, for instance, who was certainly wearing purple clothes in the early part of his reign and who enthusiastically adopted the title of king on his coinage, made a point of rejecting bodyguards, and when he took the title of king in emulation of the Successors, he pointedly chose not to wear the diadem, retaining instead the wreath associated with the priesthood of Demeter and Kore.42

4. Conclusions Each successive ruler, then, could use different aspects of public display to create his own appearance of power, testing new ideas and rejecting traditional ones, as best suited the circumstances of his time. It is therefore no surprise that we see tyrannical rulers negotiating with letters in a similar way: the official letter was understood as a monarchic form of communication, one which made an implicit claim about the embodiment of power in the ruler and his ability to Page 14 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy command respect and obedience among the recipients. The classical tyrants did not attempt to impose a model of rule through written communication within their poleis: traditional oral methods of rule continued. But in communications outside the polis we find tyrants moving gradually towards the letter as part of the consolidation of their rule. A letter sent on behalf of the ruler was thus a form of status acquisition, potentially a very powerful one, but it also carried risk and needed to be carefully judged for its particular audience. If the ruler’s letter was accepted by a foreign state, confirming his right to make individual decisions for his polis, it bestowed legitimacy on his rule, but if rejected, as in the case of Callippus, it could be profoundly damaging to his status at home. Tyrannical rulers’ letters are sporadic, then, precisely because they were so important: they were introduced gradually over the period of the reign, and many occur in situations of particular stress (Dionysius’ anger, Agathocles’ attempt to establish a succession). Classical tyrants did not structure their rule through written communication, but we do see a gradual movement towards ‘textual manifestations of the tyrant’s power’, which prefigured the role which the letter was to play under the Hellenistic kings. (p.118) Bibliography Bibliography references: Bertrand, Jean-Marie (1990), ‘Formes de discours politique: décrets des cités et correspondance des rois hellénistiques’, in Claude Nicolet (ed.), Du pouvoir dans l’antiquité: mots et réalités, Geneva, 101–15. Bowman, Alan K., and Greg Woolf (eds) (1994), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, Cambridge. Bresson, Alain, Anne-Marie Cocula, and Christophe Pébarthe (eds) (2005), L’écriture publique du pouvoir, Bordeaux and Paris. Briant, Pierre (2002), From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (trans. P. T. Daniels), Winona Lake, IN. Burstein, Stanley M. (1976), Outpost of Hellenism: The Emergence of Heraclea on the Black Sea, Berkeley. Caven, Brian (1990), Dionysius I: War-Lord of Sicily, New Haven and London. Ceccarelli, Paola (2005), ‘Forme di comunicazione e ideologia della polis’, in Umberto Bultrighini (ed.), Democrazia e antidemocrazia nel mondo Greco (Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi Chieti, 9–11 aprile 2003), Alessandria, 345– 69. Ceccarelli, Paola (2013), Ancient Greek Letter Writing: A Cultural History (600– 150 BC), Oxford. Page 15 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy Connor, Walter R. (1985), ‘The Razing of the House in Greek Society’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 115, 79–102. Hammond, Nicholas G. L. (1993), Sources for Alexander the Great: An Analysis of Plutarch’s Life and Arrian’s Anabasis Alexandrou, Cambridge. Harrell, Sarah E. (2002), ‘King or Private Citizen: Fifth-Century Sicilian Tyrants at Olympia and Delphi’, Mnemosyne 55, 439–64. Harris, William V. (1989), Ancient Literacy, Cambridge, MA. Hedrick, Charles W., Jr (1999), ‘Democracy and the Athenian Epigraphical Habit’, Hesperia 68, 387–439. Holloway, R. Ross (1991), The Archaeology of Ancient Sicily, London. Jordovic, Ivan (2005), Anfänge der Jüngeren Tyrannis: Vorläufer und erste Repräsentanten von Gewaltherrschaft im späten 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr., Frankfurt am Main. Kurke, Leslie (1999), Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece, Princeton. Lavelle, Brian M. (2005), Fame, Money and Power: The Rise of Peisistratos and ‘Democratic’ Tyranny at Athens, Ann Arbor. Lester-Pearson, Miles P. D. (2015), The Influence of Achaemenid Persia on Fourth-Century and Early Hellenistic Greek Tyranny, PhD thesis (St Andrews). Lewis, Sian (1996), News and Society in the Greek Polis, London and Chapel Hill. Lewis, Sian (2006), ‘Agathocles: Tyranny and Kingship in Syracuse’, Electrum: Studies in Ancient History 11, 45–59. Lewis, Sian (2009), Greek Tyranny, Exeter. Lewis, Sian (forthcoming), ‘Tyrants and the Assembly’, in Sian Lewis (ed.), Tyranny: New Contexts, Besançon. Longo, Oddone (1981), Techniche della comunicazione nella Grecia antica, Naples. Miller, Margaret C. (1997), Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity, Cambridge and New York. (p.119) Mitchell, Lynette G. (2013), The Heroic Rulers of Archaic and Classical Greece, London.

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy Muir, John V. (2009), Life and Letters in the Ancient Greek World, London. Pébarthe, Christophe (2006), Cité, démocratie et écriture: histoire de l’alphabétisation d’Athènes à l’époque classique, Paris. Rhodes, Peter J., and Robin Osborne (2003), Greek Historical Inscriptions 404– 323 BC, Oxford. Rosenmeyer, Patricia A. (2001), Ancient Epistolary Fictions: The Letter in Greek Literature, Cambridge. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Heleen (2000), ‘The Tyranny of Peisistratos’, in Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (ed.), Peisistratos and the Tyranny: A Reappraisal of the Evidence, Amsterdam, 1–15. Sanders, Lionel J. (2002), ‘Callippus’, Mouseion 2, 1–21. Sordi, Marta (1992), ‘L’elezione di Dionigi’, in M. Sordi, La ‘dynasteia’ in occidente: Studi su Dionigi I, Padova, 25–32. Steiner, Deborah T. (1994), The Tyrant’s Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient Greece, Princeton. Stroheker, Karl Friedrich (1958), Dionysius I: Gestalt und Geschichte des Tyrannen von Syrakus, Wiesbaden. Talbert, Richard J. A. (1974), Timoleon and the Revival of Greek Sicily 344–317 BC, Cambridge. Weinstock, Stefan (1971), Divus Julius, Oxford. Westlake, Henry D. (1994), ‘Dion and Timoleon’, in David M. Lewis et al. (eds), Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 6, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 693–722. Zahrnt, Michael (1997), ‘Der Demos von Syrakus im Zeitalter der Dionysioi’, in Walter Eder and Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp (eds), Volk und Verfassung im vorhellenistischen Griechenland: Beiträge auf dem Symposium zu Ehren von Karl-Wilhelm Welwei in Bochum, 1.–2. März 1996, Stuttgart, 153–75. Zambon, Efrem (2006), ‘From Agathocles to Hieron II: The Birth and Development of basileia in Hellenistic Sicily’, in Sian Lewis (ed.), Ancient Tyranny, Edinburgh, 77–92. (p.120) Notes:

(1) Steiner (1994) 127–8. I am grateful to Ingo Gildenhard for the invitation to contribute to the Durham research seminar which was the starting-point for this

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy chapter, and to the anonymous readers for their comments. All source translations are my own. (2) Muir (2009) 83. (3) For the assembly under the Syracusan tyrants, see Lewis (forthcoming). (4) Harris (1989); Woolf and Bowman (1994); Hedrick (1999); Bresson et al. (2005); Pébarthe (2006). (5) Steiner (1994) ch. 4; see also Lewis (1996) 142–52; Kurke (1999) ch. 3; Ceccarelli (2013) treats the topic in detail. (6) Lewis (2009) esp. 127–8; Mitchell (2013). (7) Jordovic (2005). (8) Ceccarelli (2013) 128. (9) Bertrand (1990); Muir (2009). (10) Ceccarelli (2005), (2013) 297–330. (11) On Alexander’s letters, see Hammond (1993) 158–62. (12) Briant (2002) 344–5; on Greek views of the use of the royal seal, see Steiner (1994) 115–16, 150–1. (13) Ceccarelli (2005) 357–8. (14) Muir (2009) 2–5. (15) IG ii2 103, Rhodes and Osborne (2003) no. 33. (16) Plut. Dion 10–12, 14. (17) Plut. Dion 26.3. (18) Talbert (1974) 122–43; Westlake (1994) 708–22. (19) Lewis (1996) 68–73. (20) Diod. Sic. 21.16.4. (21) On letters as ‘failed communication’, see Longo (1981); Steiner (1994) ch. 4; Rosenmeyer (2001) 27–8 and ch. 3. (22) Diod. Sic. 16.5.4; Plut. Dion 7.2–4; Ael. VH 12.60; see Caven (1990) 213–14. (23) [Arist.] Ath. pol. 16.6; Thuc. 6.57.2. Page 18 of 20

 

Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy (24) Cic. Tusc. 5.58–9 (cf. Plut. Mor. 781e; Burstein 1976: 64); Diod. Sic. 14.18.7– 8, 42.1. (25) Diod. Sic. 19.9.6–7; 20.63.1–3. Other fourth-century rulers such as Jason of Pherae similarly presented approachability as a virtue (Xen. Hell. 6.4.31). (26) Diod. Sic. 13.95.1–5, 96.3; 14.45.2–4, 64.5; Arist. Oec. 2.1349a–b; IG ii2 105, 523. (27) See Zahrnt (1997); Lewis (2017). (28) Dionysius sends embassies: Diod. Sic. 14.44.4, 6, 62.1, 95.4. (29) Lewis (1996) 146–7; Ceccarelli (2005) 357 n. 38, (2013) 166–7, 266–7, 276– 84. (30) Sancisi-Weerdenburg (2000). (31) Stroheker (1958) 41–2; Sordi (1992). (32) Harrell (2002). (33) IG ii2 18 (= Rhodes and Osborne no. 10); IG ii2 103 (above n. 15). (34) Lys. 30.5; Dion. Hal. Lys. 29; Lys. 6.6 refers to Dionysius I as one of a number of ‘basileis’. Compare also Isoc. To Philip 5.81. (35) Plut. Dion 54–8; Sanders (2002). (36) Plut. Dion 58.1. (37) Duris FGrH 76 F14 (= Ath. Deipn. 535e–36a), see Stroheker (1958) 159–60; Justin Epitome 16.5.10, see Burstein (1976) 79. (38) Theopompus FGrH 115 F 187 (= Ath. Deipn. 436a–b); Memnon FGrH 434 F 4.5. See further on this topic Lester-Pearson (2015). (39) Chariot with white horses: Diod. Sic. 14.44.8; Plin. NH 7.110, Theopompus FGrH 115 F 187; Weinstock (1971) 72. Armed bodyguards: Diod. Sic. 13.95.5–6; Hdt. 1.59; Plut. Sol. 30.3; [Arist.] Ath. pol. 14.1; Arist. Pol. 1311a7–8; see Lavelle (2005) 95–6. (40) Tombs: Gelon: Diod. Sic. 11.38.4–5; 14.63.3; Hieron: Diod. Sic. 11.76.3; Strabo Geog. 6.2.3; Theron: Diod. Sic. 13.86.2; Connor (1985); Holloway (1991) 65; Dionysii: Diod. Sic. 15.74.5; Plut. Dion 53.2; Plut. Tim. 22.2. (41) Royal tent: Diod. Sic. 14.109.1; Dion. Hal. Lys. 29; Hdt. 9.82; Miller (1997) 49–53.

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Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy (42) Diod. Sic. 19.9.7; 20.34.3, 54.1, 63.3; see Lewis (2006); Zambon (2006).

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4 Powers in Dialogue The Letters and diagrammata o f Macedonian Kings to Local Communities Manuela Mari

In a volume focused on the communal aspects of epistolary communication a chapter on the uses of letters as a political and legislative tool in ancient Macedonia is something more than a mere regional case study.1 According to a commonplace in ancient literature, reading and writing letters was the most time-consuming and heaviest task of a Hellenistic king, and the roots of this practice (as of other key features of Hellenistic history and culture) can be traced back to Macedonian institutions and traditions. In Macedonia, at least from the reign of Philip II onwards (359-336 b c e ) and possibly earlier, epistolary communication was effectively employed to exercise power throughout the hierarchical chain; to negotiate between authorities of different level; to meet the practical needs o f individual communities; and, last but not least, to guide local customs and laws (both concepts being expressed by the Greek word νόμοι) towards a relatively uniform pattern. Due to the nature of the documentation, almost all we know about the requests, petitions, or complaints addressed by local communities to the central power comes from indirect references in royal documents. On the other hand, the royal epistolary activity as expressed by both ‘letters’ (epistolai) and ‘circular letters’ (diagrammata) is by now very well known, especially thanks to a growing number of inscriptions. Section 1 is focused on the state of the sources

1 I thank the organizers of the conference and editors of this volume, and particularly Paola Ceccarelli, for their invitation and for useful remarks on many specific issues. I also thank Alice Bencivenni and Miltiades Hatzopoulos for precious exchanges o f views on the topic of this chapter and for bibliographic suggestions. In the following pages, all dates are bce. On the formal differences between letters (epistolai) and ‘circular letters’ (diagrammata) in the Macedonian tradition and in the Hellenistic world, see below.

Manuela Mari and includes an updated list of the available epigraphic testimonia which have been found within Macedonia proper and in the neighbouring regions which were more or less directly annexed to the kingdom. Such an overview allows us to evaluate, though cautiously, the different relevance of epistolary activity in the political action of individual kings. The different functions and formal features of epistolai and diagrammata are the object of section 2, along with the topics that the kings usually dealt with in their written communication with local authorities. Sections 3 and 4 describe the institutional and hierarchical channels of Macedonian epistolary communication, the role of the local officers (the epistatai) who usually were the addressees of royal letters, and the features of ‘epistolary style’ which emerge here and there from the available evidence. Sections 5 and 6, finally, make an attempt at drawing wider conclusions from the epistolary communication about the nature of the Macedonian kingship and of the relationship between king and cities, the interferences of royal authority in the autonomy and self-government of the poleis, and, finally, the personal and institutional nature of the ‘friendship’ between a king and his philoi. New light on the last topic was recently thrown by the publication of an exceptional document, the letter of King Antigonos Doson to a local officer named Megalokles, the text of which is given and commented on in section 6.

1. S O U R C E S Our knowledge of ancient Macedonia and its geography and institutions has improved enormously over the last thirty years. The extremely rich and brilliantly intuitive picture that Nicholas Hammond drew in his History of Macedonia and in a long series of papers was based on a profound knowledge of all the sources available at the time, but has since been modified in many respects on the basis of further archaeological and epigraphic discoveries.2 After Fanoula Papazoglou’s fundamental studies on the geography and institu­ tions of Hellenistic and Roman Macedonia,3Miltiades Hatzopoulos’s Macedonian Institutions under the Kings (1996) represented a further important advance. The second volume of Hatzopoulos’s monograph included almost one hundred inscriptions, many of which were there published for the first time: they threw significant new light on the institutions of the kingdom and its inner subdi­ visions. The collection as a whole comprises interstate treaties, dedications of kings and cities and collective dedications of ‘the Macedonians’, civic decrees and laws, catalogues of public officials, accounts, deeds of sale, and a long

2 Hammond et al. (1972-88); Hammond (1989); some papers on specific issues are now available in Hammond (1993-2001). 3 See especially Papazoglou (1983), (1988).

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series of documents issued by the royal chancery such as grants o f land, letters, diagrammata, and other legislative acts. The section of Hatzopoulos’s collec­ tion devoted to the royal documents, the one of most direct concern to the topic of this chapter, includes nineteen texts, eighteen of which are from Mace­ donia proper.1*4 Some of the texts were still unpublished in 1996, and in those cases Hatzopoulos only gave a general description of their contents or a partial quotation. Today, more than twenty years later, most of the then unpublished texts have finally appeared, and some new ones can be added to the dossier, from Macedonia proper or from neighbouring areas, such as Thessaly, Magnesia, or Perrhaibia, which increasingly appear to have been made to conform to the original core of the kingdom at an institutional level. The following remarks on Macedonian royal epistolography are therefore based on a rather wide range of documentation, mainly epigraphic, though it remains of course possible that new discoveries will help to clarify currently obscure points or even force us to adopt radically new positions. I am well aware, in particular, that any discovery of new documents may well invalidate statistical inferences drawn from the data available so far, as the inscriptions from Perrhaibia published in 2010 by Athanassios Tziafalias and Bruno Helly clearly show.5 Thanks to the epigraphic texts mentioned above, however, our knowledge of the Hellenistic world as a whole has greatly improved. Specific­ ally, we now know much more about the workings of power within the Macedonian kingdom, especially under the Antigonid kings. To a certain degree, we are now able to reconstruct some features of the diplomatic relationships between Antigonid Macedonia and the other Hellenistic king­ doms as well as the relationships between king and cities within the kingdom itself. We are now also in the position to appreciate the development of a specific language in the royal documents from Macedonia that sets it apart from the language of civic laws and decrees—in line with what we know about the remaining parts of the Hellenistic world. If our knowledge of the Hellenistic world, and of Antigonid Macedonia in particular, were based exclusively on literary sources, these phenomena could hardly be properly studied. To be sure, ancient authors were interested in royal correspondence and, of course, in the relationships between cities and kings. 1 Hatzopoulos (1996), ii, nos. 4-22; see also his synthetic and updated presentation in Hatzopoulos (2006) 75-92, which also includes some of the most relevant texts. At the time of his ground-breaking book on the Hellenistic royal correspondence Welles chose to deal only with the royal documents from Asia and the Aegean islands, although a few inscriptions from Macedonia and Greece’ were already known, as he considered the latter belonging ‘to the field of business rather than of diplomacy’ (1934: vit), 5 Tziafalias and Helly (2010); Hatzopoulos, Bull. ép. 2011, 399-400. This exceptional dossier of documents from the Perrhaibian Tripolis, which will often be mentioned in the following pages, includes four royal letters and a letter by an officer o f the royal cavalry to King Demetrios II. A synthetic overview o f the recently published documents from Macedonia is given by Hatzopoulos (2009) 48-50.

Manuela Mari They frequently make reference to Philip II’s and Alexander’s letters to the cities, especially Athens.6 Such attention certifies that the relationship between kingship and writing (or, more particularly, epistolography) was perceived to be particularly close and even ‘obvious’: according to a famous and oftenquoted aphorism which Plutarch attributes to Seleukos, writing and reading letters was the main and most tiresome activity of any king.7 But ancient historians avoided quoting the ‘documents’ available to them directly and/or entirely, and the royal letters usually do not meet a better fate in their pages.8 Two famous exceptions to this rule are Alexander’s letter announcing the recall of the Greek exiles (read at the Olympic games of 324) and Philip Ill’s diagramma on the ‘liberation’ of the Greeks, which Polyperchon made known in 319: both are cited in full by Diodorus.9 The exceptional character of these long quotations can be partly explained if we accept that here, as in many other sections of Book 18, one of Diodorus’ sources was the lost work of Hieronymos of Cardia. Hieronymos almost certainly had direct access to the documents of the royal chancery: he was a friend and fellow-citizen of Eumenes, one of Alexander’s secretaries, and became himself a close collab­ orator of the Antigonid kings.10 But if we consider Hellenistic historiography in general—in spite of its being so poorly preserved—we have to admit that even Polybius, a deep connoisseur of the late Hellenistic kingdoms and o f their institutional workings, does not describe the uses of writing and of written communication within that world in a way that satisfies scholarly curiosity. The word διάγραμμα, for example, appears only once in the preserved sections of the Histories, and it is used neither in its technical meaning nor with reference to a king.11 Indeed, Polybius gives frequent space to exchanges of letters and to public readings of imaroXai, and he is attentive to the use of forged letters in political strife, but, in accord with his main historiographic interests, his references are almost exclusively to diplomatic manoeuvring and interstate relationships.12

6 Ceccarelii (2005) 357.

7 Plut. An scni 790 A. See, among others, Capdetrey (2006) 105 n. 4. 8 On this see Ceccarelii (2005) 351, (2013) 150, 155, 168, 177: on references to letter writing within the narrative strategies of ancient Greek historians, see Ceccarelii (2013) part i, ch. 4. 9 Diod. Sic. 18.8.3-5; 55-6. 10 On Diodorus’ use o f Hieronymos and other sources and on Hieronymos’ use of ‘docu­ ments’, see Rosen (1967); Goukowsky (1978) xii-xxiv; Hornblower (1981) 131-7; Landucci Gattinoni (2008) xii-xxiv, 60. 11 Polyb. 22.10.6, with reference to a decision enacted by T. Quinctius Flamininus. On the importance assigned by Philip V to the written documents in his archives, obviously including

the copies of royal letters, see also Polyb. 18.33.2-3 (after the defeat at Cynoscephalae the king ordered the βασιλικά γράμματα kept in Larisa to be destroyed). ,s On the epistolary communication in Polybius’ Histories, see Ceccarelii (2013) 167-78; as far as diplomatic exchanges and political manoeuvres are concerned, in Polybius’ world and work ‘written exchanges...are ubiquitous’; nevertheless, in the preserved parts of the Histories only a few letters are quoted in full (168, 177). On Polybius’ use o f documents see Zizza (2017).

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Polybius is somewhat more informative about the writing habits of Antigonos Doson, who was not coincidentally, at least in the historian’s eyes, the Mace­ donian king whose actions most closely resemble those of a magistrate of a Greek polis. Thus he pays attention to the written dispositions (διαθή κη ) which Doson left to the Macedonians before dying: they are a mixture of a will, a report on his government, and a series of arrangements for the future.13 Such an act can be partly explained by considering Antigonos’ delicate position as ‘regent’ (επ ίτρ οπ ος) of the state and of the future king Philip V. Antigonos’ measure, moreover, fits in well with his general behaviour, always enforcing the traditional Macedonian ‘customs’ (nomima) while avoiding any despotic act. The epigraphic sources usefully complement Polybius’ testimony, offering further evidence of Doson as a keen practitioner of royal correspondence. To date, we know of seven of his letters: three letters out of the seven are known only indirectly, through quotations in preserved inscriptions;14 of the remaining four, three, all of exceptional interest, belong to the important dossier from Perrhaibia mentioned above.15 Overall, this is a remarkable number if we consider that his reign lasted less than ten years (230/29 to October 221).

2. C H R O N O L O G Y , LEGAL D E F I N I T I O N S , A N D A FE W S T A T I S T I C S Literary sources and a few inscriptions encourage dating the creation o f a royal chancery in Macedonia to the period o f Philip II at the latest. In that period, if not earlier, Macedonian kings began frequently to use ίπ ισ τ ο λ α ί to

13 Polyb. 4.87.6-7. 14 Letter to the Chtysaoreis on the property and administration of the sanctuary o f Labraunda, in Caria, quoted in a later letter by Philip V (Crampa 1969, no. 5 = Virgilio 22003, no. 23,11.5-18; cf. Bencivenni (2003) 281-6, 293-6; moreover, the authenticity o f Antigonos’ letter was appar­ ently challenged by the city o f Mylasa: Virgilio (22003) 171, 178-9, 181; Bencivenni (2014b) 320-1, with further bibliography); letter to the regional authorities of Bottia about the grant of immunity from π ο λίτικ οι λειτουργίαι to some officers, quoted in a letter to the authorities of Beroia on the same subject (Allamani-Souri and Voutiras (1996); Gounaropoulou and Hatzopoulos (1998) no. 4; Hatzopoulos (2001a) epigr. app., no. 5, 11. 8-9, (2001b); cf. also Hatzopoulos, Bull. ép. 2006, 251 and SEG 54, 2004, 603); letter to Damason, epistates of Azoros (?), on the guardianship of Asklepiades, son of a dead philos o f the king, quoted in the letter to Megalokles, regional magistrate of the Perrhaibian Tripolis, on the same subject (Tziafalias and Helly (2010) no. 3), 1. 31. 15 Letter to the authorities of Beroia about the grant of immunity from πολιτικοί λειτουργίαι to some officers, mentioned in n. 14, with references; two letters on similar matters to the regional magistrate Megalokles and to the koinon o f the Tripolitans o f Perrhaibia (Tziafalias and Helly (2010) no. 4); letter to the same Megalokles on the guardianship of Asklepiades, son of a dead philos of the king (Tziafalias and Helly (2010) no. 3). On the chronology of some of the documents here quoted and of the reign of Doson as a whole, see Hatzopoulos, Bull. ip. 2011, 399.

Manuela Mari

communicate with military and civic officers and meet specific petitions and to use δ ια γρ ά μ μ α τα to regulate wider questions and provide the cities of the kingdom with a generally acknowledged source of law.16 In fact, some of Alexander the Great’s interventions in the cities of Asia Minor and the Aegean islands have raised doubts about the real existence of a clear-cut formal distinction between royal letters and δ ια γρ ά μ μ α τα .17 The διά γρ α μ μα seems to have been a very flexible legislative tool: sometimes, when local matters were at issue, it was specifically addressed to a single community; in other cases the royal document in its original form dearly addressed local issues in the framework (or as a section) of more general legislation. In such cases, each city understandably decided to publish only the ‘chapter(s)’ which was/were most relevant to it, and this habit of course affects our understanding of the documents and of the procedure as a whole.18 On the other hand, the written dispatches that are either explicitly called ίπ ισ τ ο λ α ί or follow the general rales of the genre (conventional greetings, direct speech) often limit themselves to suggesting provisions to the local communities and therefore formally respect the cities’ right to make decisions. In other cases such ‘letters’ simply communicate, more or less clearly, the king’s will, thereby acting as sources of law exactly like δ ια γρ ά μ μ α τα always had. But these legal distinctions are anyway ‘perhaps more apparent than real’, as Hatzopoulos already stressed.19 In any case, the many letters and diagrammata that are currently available allow us to define the main purposes that the letter writing of Macedonian

16 Bikerman (1938), (1940); Welles (1938); Kalléris (1984); Hatzopoulos (1996) i, 396-429, (2001a), 29-31; Mari (2006). On Philip’s role, cf. also Faraguna (2013) 16; Sickinger (2013) 130, 132; Bencivenni (2014a) 147. 17 See Bencivenni (2003) 18-32, 115-29, (2014b) 324-5; Faraguna (2013) 20-1; Sickinger (2013) 133, 134 n. 38, 137. Alice Bencivenni suggests per litt. (November 2013) that this particular way of using the diagramma could be specific to Alexander and reflect a ‘transitional’ phase in the evolution of this legal tool. 18 Miltiades Hatzopoulos restates his opinion per litt. (October 2013), in very clear terms; ‘Le diagramma, contrairement à la lettre, légifère sur des questions générales....Nous n’avons que des extraits des diagrammata civils portant sur des questions d’intérêt local ou particulier. Le diagramma de Polyperchon, par exemple, a une portée générale, mais se réfère aussi à certains cas particuliers (Tricca, Oropos, Samos, etc.). Si on avait trouvé seulement l’exemplaire gravé à Mégalopolis, il serait peut-être limité aux paragraphes 5 et 6 du chapitre 56 du livre 18 de Diodore. Mutatis mutandis on pourrait dire que le rapport entre diagramma et lettre royale est comparable de celui entre loi et décret civique. Les diagrammata en matières militaires, qui relèvent de la compétence exclusive du pouvoir central, sont publiés par les autorités centrales elles-mêmes. Les extraits de diagrammata civils sont envoyés aux autorités civiques, qui à leur tour les transmettent aux institutions civiques concernées. Autrement dit il y a médiation des autorités civiques entre le pouvoir central et différentes entités (sanctuaires, gymnases etc.) à l’intérieur de la cité.’ At least in some cases, however, we have to leave the question open: to quote just one example, it is impossible to decide whether the diagramma on the properties of the Sarapeion of Thessalonike (often referred to in the following pages), as far as we can read it, is only an excerpt of a wider text addressed to several (or all) Macedonian cities (see below, n. 34). 19 Hatzopoulos (1996) i, 404.

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kings fulfilled.20 If Polybius in mentioning royal letters (from Macedonia and elsewhere) deals almost exclusively with diplomatic manoeuvring, attempts at establishing interstate agreements, or more generally with the external rela­ tionships of each state, such topics are virtually absent from the ‘epistolography on stone’. Epigraphic texts usually record instead the outcomes of such efforts (treaties of peace and/or alliance, civic decrees, etc.). Inscriptions provide a much richer amount of information as far as other topics are concerned. Philip V’s intense activity in issuing military regulations has long been known from several inscriptions, which are probably to be identified with the sections of one general code.21 Many royal letters and even some diagrammata are concerned with purely local matters, sometimes replying to petitions by local communities, individuals, or groups such as military units or boards of priests. Particularly frequent are boundary settle­ ments involving two or more communities, settlements concerning the exten­ sion of the territory of a single city, and royal interventions in regulating the administration of sacred properties (within Macedonia proper or in areas under the kings’ control). In the Greek world the latter issue was very often a source of conflict between sanctuaries and neighbouring cities, which frequently needed external arbitration. The written interventions of the Macedonian kings on such matters, therefore, did not necessarily depend on their supposed role of ‘high priests’ of the state. The outcomes of such disputes and of royal interventions vary deeply, in any case, as some meaningful examples clearly show. The future king Demetrios II, when he was still associated in the kingship with Antigonos Gonatas, wrote at least three letters to Harpalos, probably the epistates of Beroia, in order to stop the city from appropriating the funds of the sanctuary of Herakles Kynagidas; Antigonos Doson and Philip V settled in a completely opposite way the controversy between the sanctuary ofLabraunda and the nearby city of Mylasa, in Caria; Philip ¥ sent a diagramma to the authorities of Thessalonike, through the local epistates or regional officer Andronikos, which regulated the administration of the properties of the local Sarapeion, protecting them from the designs of the city.22 M From now on I will use ‘letter-writing’, or similar expressions, in a deliberately broad sense, in order to cover every kind of written text which a Macedonian king addressed to specific communities, or their magistrates, or to officers or groups of soldiers, as well as the circular letters introducing general rules to be applied in the whole kingdom. 21 The most recent and complete edition of Philip V’s military regulations is Hatzopoulos (2001a) 151-64, epigr. app., nos. 1 i and 1 ii (diagramma about garrison duties, in two copies from Chalkis and Kynos = Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 13), 2 i and ii (diagramma about recruitment and military service, in two copies from Drama [originally from Amphipolis?] and Kassandreia), 3 (diagramma about military campaigns, from Amphipolis = Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 12); see also no. 4 (civic law or diagramma about recruitment, from Neapolis-Kavala) and, finally, the fragmentary text on the treatment of the war prisoners, again from Amphipolis (Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 42, (2016b)). 22 For the texts see, respectively, Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 8 (= Gounaropoulou and Hatzopoulos (1998) no. 3); Crampa (1969) nos. 5 and 7; Welles (1938); Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 15, with further bibliography. A reconstruction of the controversy between the league of the

Manuela Mari

Not surprisingly, fiscal matters as a whole are frequently addressed in the letters of the kings: their regulation pertain par excellence to the royal pre­ rogatives.23 The treaty between the king Amyntas III and the Chalkidian koinon, to be dated to around 390, makes reference to ‘written taxes’ (τέλεα τά γ εγ ρ α μ μ έν α ), that is perhaps to a diagramma on taxation; in any case, it is noteworthy and maybe no coincidence that the most ancient reference in an epigraphic document to written rales issued (or at least endorsed) by a Macedonian king has to do with fiscal matters.24 Other meaningful royal interventions in the fiscal sphere are addressed to specific groups or commu­ nities: Antigonos Doson, between the summer of 223 and October 222, wrote a series of letters to the regional authorities of the Perrhaibian Tripolis and of the Bottia and to the civic magistrates of Beroia in order to communicate his decision to reward several officers of both the royal cavalry and the phalanx who participated in the long Peloponnesian campaign against the Spartan king Cleomenes III with ‘immunity from civic obligations’ (α τέλεια ν τω ν π ο λ ιτικ ώ ν λ ειτο υ ρ γιώ ν ), a vague sentence which probably also included financial contributions.25 Another interesting example of intervention in fiscal matters is provided by a very fragmentary inscription from Amphipo­ lis, to be dated to 192, which includes a request by Philip V to the inhab­ itants of the city to fulfil the obligations from which they had been exempted six years before.26 As I have already stressed above, to draw statistical inferences from the documents known so far is difficult or even rash, even if we were to limit ourselves to their chronological distribution. For example, while the literary sources show that Philip II and Alexander the Great already regulated local matters and issued rules on general questions by way of epistolai and dia­ grammata, the inscriptions that clearly attest to this practice by the two greatest Macedonian kings are not abundant, especially as far as Macedonia proper is concerned. In the case of Philip II, we rely on just three epigraphic testimonia, out of which one is only indirectly known from a later document27 and another one, the letter from Oleveni’, is attributed by several scholars to

Chrysaoreis and the priest of Zeus, on the one hand, and the city of Mylasa, on the other, can be found in Bencivenni (2003) 281-6, 293-6. On the relationships between Antigonid kings and local sanctuaries as testified by royal letters and diagrammata, see now Mari (forthcoming). 23 On the general question, see Faraguna (2006). 24 Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 1 ,1. 6; cf. Mari (2006) 213-14. 25 References above, nn. 14 and 15. The Perrhaibian documents make explicit reference to the victory at Sellasia, while the letter from Beroia is to be dated, according to Hatzopoulos (2001b) 45, 47-8, one year earlier (see also Hatzopoulos, Bull ép. 2011, 399, against the different reckoning by Tziafalias and Helly (2010) 106-12). 26 Koukouli-Chrysanthaki (1996) 11. 1-4 (cf. Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 14, Bull. ép. 1997, 370; SBG 46, 1996, 716). 27 Alexander’s settlement o f the territory of Philippoi mentions a previous intervention by Philip, possibly in the form of a diagramma: Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 6 , 11. 7-12.

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Philip V.28 As concerns Alexander, the only piece of evidence from Macedonia known so far is his settlement concerning Philippoi, not in the form of a direct communication to the city or of a true diagramma, but as indirectly quoted in the report of the city’s ambassadors sent to the king about their mission.29 As for the Antigonid kings, if we consider the length of reign for each of them, the seven letters of Antigonos Doson, who reigned for nine years,30 and the three known letters (all of which are, moreover, of uncertain attribution) of Anti­ gonos Gonatas, who reigned for almost forty years,31 could have a statistical relevance. However, the fact that three of Doson’s seven epistolai come from the Perrhaibian Tripolis invites us to keep in mind how fortuitous our discoveries are, with obvious consequences for the reliability (or lack thereof) of arguments based on statistical evidence, such as geographical or chrono­ logical distribution. The large number of royal letters and diagrammata from Philip V, however, does not seem to be pure chance. In his case, over twenty letters and dia­ grammata, most of which are from Macedonia and Thessaly, in forty-two years of reign32 attest to the royal chancery’s hectic activity, to an extremely 28 HatzopouJos (1996) ii, no. 5; cf. also, for a detailed discussion and bibliography, Arena (2003). The third inscription alluded to in the text is a boundary settlement from Mygdonia: Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 4. 29 Reference in n. 27. 30 References in nn. 14 and 15. 31 Two copies of a letter of an ‘Antigonos’ to Agasikles, probably a local magistrate, concern­ ing a land property in Apollonia in Mygdonia, one from Dion (SEG 48,1998, 783; SEG 55,2005, 675), the other from Apollonia itself (SEG 51,2001, 796; cf. Hatzopoulos, Bull. ép. 2007,369 and 371, (2009) 48-53); one of the fragmentary grants of asylia to the sanctuary of Asklepios o f Cos has been also tentatively attributed to Antigonos Gonatas (Rigsby (1996) no. 10). Three decrees of the Macedonian cities granting asylia to Cos make explicit reference to ‘the king’s will’, which almost certainly means that Gonatas sent each city a letter on this subject (see below, section 5). 32 Due to space limits, I list here only the royal documents so far known from Macedonia, Thessaly, and adjacent areas that are (or can be) referred to Philip V. As for Philip V ’s military regulations, see references in n . 21 above; in Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, see the following entries, with the relevant bibliography: 5 (letter from Oleveni to the Katlestai, maybe a military unit, which Hatzopoulos attributes to Philip II [above, n. 28]); 9 (letters to the Amphipolitans on the privileges enjoyed by the Aenian residents); 14 (letters to the Amphipolitans, with the request of fulfilling some obligations [above, n. 26]); 15 (diagramma on the administration o f the Sarapeion o f Thessalonike); 16 (diagramma on the crown games, from Amphipolis); 17 (letter to Archippos, possibly the epistates of Euia, including the grant o f a land to a military unit); 18 (fragment of a letter mentioning Mount Pangaion, from Banitsa). As for Thessaly and adjacent areas, see Philip’s letters to Larisa on the grant o f citizenship (below, n. 60); the settlement of the controversy between Heraclion (in Macedonia) and Gonnoi (in Perrhaibla), from the latter city, referring to previous diagrammata (below, n. 51); the diagramma from Demetrias, referring to the kynegoi of Herakles (Intzesiloglou 2006). Further inscriptions containing letters or diagrammata by Philip V, from both Macedonia proper and Thessaly lato sensu, have been published after 1996: a letter to the epistates and the peliganes of Dion on the grant of asylia to Kyzikos (below, n. 40); a letter to a Polem[-----], possibly the epistates of Pella (Hatzopoulos, Bull. ép. 1999, 345; SEG 48, 1998, 818). On the other hand, the letter to the authorities o f Beroia about the grant of immunity from m X m m l λατουργίαι to some officers, which was previously attributed to Philip V (Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 10: see also nn. 14 and 15 above), can now be definitely referred to Antigonos Doson; the letter from Dion regulating the

Manuela Mari huge and varied field of interests, and to the king’s determination to act as a true lawgiver, defining precise rules on a wide range of topics, including military discipline33 and the administration of sacred properties.34 When we explore the epistolary habits and the legislative activities of the Macedonian kings, we thus have to bear in mind that we are in fact talking in the majority of cases of the actions of this one king.35

3. E P I S T O L A R Y STYLE A N D A D D R E S S E E S In the heading and the greeting formula of a Macedonian royal letter (be they simply covering letters accompanying further regulations or epistolai that themselves contain the instructions of the king), the king almost always addresses an officer, in most cases a civic or regional magistrate; the written texts which are explicitly called diagrammata are in their turn sent to the individual communities through a local officer. The tone of the letters is an informal one, generally avoiding the ‘pluriel de majesté’,36 and the king usually does not indicate his addressee’s official qualification.37 Such a practice has fed the endless disputes by modern scholars boundaries between the Thessalian cities Pherai and Demetrias, still attributed to Philip by Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 11, was In fact enacted by Demetrios Poliorketes (see also Magnetto (1997) no. 57; S£G 46, 1996, 740; 48, 1998, 782; 56, 2006, 703; Hatzopoulos, Bull. ép. 2000,453, 2006, 88-9, with a French translation of the still unpublished text, (2009) 48, 53), On the probable derivation of the gymnasiarchical law of Beroia (Gauthier and Hatzopoulos (1993) = Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 60 = Gounaropoulou and Hatzopoulos (1998) no. 1) and of the ephebarchical law of Amphipolis (Lazaridi (2015); Hatzopoulos (2016a)) from a general regu­ lation enacted by the central power in the late Antigonid period see, along with the editors of both documents, also Mari (2006) 217-18; (2017) 351-2; Hatzopoulos (2016b).

33 See references in n. 21. M This can be maintained on safer grounds if the diagramma on the Sarapeion of Thessalonike was part of a more general code, as some scholars have suggested; for bibliography, see Hatzopoulos (1,996) ii, no. 15; Voudras (2005). Philip V’s intense activity in letter writing is also recorded by literary sources, mainly by Polybius (Ceccarelli (2013) 170-3). ” Philip V’s frantic activity' in writing letters and diagrammata may be part of a general evolution in the forms of communication between central power and local entities that affected other areas of the Hellenistic world as well. Bencivenni (2014a) 151 stresses that the great majority of the surviving Seleukid royal letters whose publication was ordered by the king belong to the reigns of Antiochos III and Seleukos IV (223-175 bce), that is, to a period largely corresponding to the reign of Philip V in Macedonia. 36 Cf. Hatzopoulos (2009) 51, on this feature as one of the possibly meaningful differences between Antigonid and Seleukid epistolary' practices. 37 See, e.g. the letters of Demetrios II to Harpalos on the sanctuary of Herakles Kynagidas (Hatzopoulos (1996) it, no. 8,11, 4, 9, 14; Λημή-rpcas Μρνάλωι χαίρεα·)·, the letter of Philip V to Olympichos (a strategos?), on the status of the sanctuary of Labraunda (Crampa (1969) no. 7 = Virgilio (2003*) no, 25,11. 1-2: Βασιλεύς Φίλιππος Χ)λνμπίχιυι ye/pjctr" Η ερριοσαι,] | τύ ôcov dr eäj· κάγώ Ht ùy&ui'oi’); the letter of Philip v to Archippos, probably the epistates of Euia (Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 17, 11, 1-2: [/JjaatActry Φίλιππος ττ(! the letterof

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over the real nature of the ε π ισ τ ά τ α ι, the local magistrates with whom the addressees of royal letters and diagrammata within Macedonia are usually identified.38 Long discussions have also been devoted to identifying the ε π ιμ ε λ η τ α ί to whom Philip V addresses the dispositions on the managing of crown games;39 probably the best solution would be to translate τοΐς επιμ ελη ταΐς, in modern terms, ‘to whom it may concern’, insofar as the text specifies that the provisions can be carried out by different officers (cf. below, section 4). I know of only one case in the available Macedonian inscriptions where an επιστάτης is explicitly addressed as such by the king, and this too is only an apparent exception to the rule that address is by personal name only: in this particular case, the officer’s qualification needs to be specified since Philip V addresses not just him, but also the peliganes (the members of the council) and the other citizens of Dion (Β α σιλεύς Φ ίλιπ π ο ς Δ ιεσ \τω ν Ε ν ρ υ λ ό χ ω ι τώ ι επ ισ τά \τει και τοΐς π ε λ ε ιγ ά σ ι κ α ι το ΐς \ λ ο ιπ ο ΐς π ο λ ίτ α ις χα ίρ ειν: ‘King Philip to the epistates Eurylochos, the peliganes, and all the citizens of Dion, greetings’).40 Similar informal uses apparently characterize the correspondence between the officers themselves. Thus only personal names, and no official titles, are employed in an inscription from Alkomena, which elucidates the hierarchical channels through which a royal letter was usually forwarded: Doules (probably a regional magistrate) sends a covering letter and a royal επ ισ τ ο λ ή concerning the organization of the festival of the Daisia to Nikolaos (probably the epistates o f Alkomena) and probably to all the other epistatai subjected to his authority as well, but no official qualification appears in the text.41 Philip V to the Amphipolitans about the privileges to the Enians, addressed to a local officer whose name is only partly preserved (Hatzopoulos (1996) ii, no. 9,11. 2-3: Βασιλεύς Φ ίλιππος [.Ahai\