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THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS
• SPRING 2012 •
Classics / Anthropology / Literature & Criticism
August 2012
LC: 2011042653 PA
216 pp. 6 x 9
Paper $34.95 s
ISBN 978-0-299-28834-1
e-book $19.95 s
ISBN 978-0-299-28833-4
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TUDIES IN
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LASSICS
William Aylward and Patricia A. Rosenmeyer,
General Editors
Friendship in Cicero’s
Ad Familiares
and Seneca’s
“The letter collections of Cicero and Seneca have rarely
been considered in concert, a consideration crucial to
furthering our understanding of ancient epistolography,
epistolarity, and ancient literary gift-giving as a whole.
Wilcox’s focus on letters as a sort of gift is an important,
smart, and valuable one.”
—Sarah Culpepper Stroup, University of Washington
Amanda Wilcox offers an innovative approach to two major
collections of Roman letters—Cicero’s
Ad Familiares
and Seneca’s
Moral Epistles
—informed by modern cross-cultural theories of gift-
giving.
By viewing letters and the practice of correspondence as a
species of gift exchange, Wilcox provides a nuanced analysis of
neglected and misunderstood aspects of Roman epistolary rhetoric
and the social dynamics of friendship in Cicero’s correspondence.
Turning to Seneca, she shows that he both inherited and reacted
against Cicero’s euphemistic rhetoric and social practices, and she
analyzes how Seneca transformed the rhetoric of his own letters from
an instrument of social negotiation into an idiom for ethical philoso-
phy and self-reflection. Though Cicero and Seneca are often viewed
as a study in contrasts, Wilcox extensively compares their letters,
underscoring Cicero’s significant influence on Seneca as a prose
stylist, philosopher, and public figure.
is assistant professor of
classics at Williams College in Massachusetts.
She specializes in late republican and early
imperial Latin prose, with interests in
epistolography, ethics, and representations of
grief and friendship.
Of related interest
translated by Marion Leopold
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ISCONSIN
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TUDIES IN
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LASSICS
“This excellent study by Andreau and Descat presents a highly informed discussion of the
questions that are currently occupying ancient historians in their attempts to reconstruct the
respective worlds of the slave-owner and the slave.”––Marc Kleijwegt, editor of
The Faces of
Freedom
Published December 2011
LC: 2011018956 HT 232 pp. 6 x 9
ISBN 978-0-299-28374-2 Paper $26.95 s
“Wilcox describes a ‘logic of practice’ for
Roman letter-writing, reveals the contests and
strategies at play in Cicero’s exchanges with
his friends, and demonstrates that Seneca
created his new genre of ‘moral letters’
through a brilliant short-circuiting of the
forms and values of the epistolary system.”
—James Ker, author of
The Death of Seneca
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