[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
The volume under discussion is the result of a joint research project, carried out between 2009 and 2013, by the universities of Basel, Bern, Freiburg, Mulhouse, and Strasbourg. The volume’s bilingual nature is immediately evident from the inclusion of chapters written in both French and German—although mostly in German. I will summarize the topics covered in the volume, then focus on selected chapters.
Gesellschaft im Brief views Cicero’s correspondence as a chronotope—as a source for conducting studies on the society of the 1st century BC and its prominent figures. For this reason, it was necessary to reframe (as stated in the introduction to the volume) Bakhtin’s concept of chronotope to examine the social space of Cicero’s correspondence in its historical context. The volume’s twelve chapters, therefore, examine the social practices that emerge from the correspondence and their situational dispositions, encompassing spaces like domus or urbs, historical contexts, and collective frameworks, including family and political structures. Moreover, the analysis homes in on the material and symbolic conditions that are integral to these practices, such as economic and ecological prerequisites, or collective ideas relating to identity, past, and gender. This approach aims to offer, as Thomas Späth asserts in his introduction,a novel perspective on Cicero’s correspondence, emphasizing the reflection of ‘everyday life and social practices’ in the letters, rather than ‘viewing [them] as mere evidence for historical, political, and legal questions’ (p. 13). This is an ambitious project not without its problems, as Späth himself acknowledges (pp. 12–14) and as I will also suggest later.
Gesellschaft im Brief is divided into three main parts, each containing four chapters, accompanied by an introduction and a concluding section. The introduction by Thomas Späth is meticulously crafted and informative, providing valuable insights into the subject and methodology presented in the volume. Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg’s historiographical essay further contributes to this objective by shedding light on the debate surrounding social history and such prominent figures as Gaston Boissier, Matthias Gelzer, and Eugen Täubler. The first section of the volume (‘Nouveaux objects’) focuses on Cicero’s self-portrayals and narratives about himself and his society (Marianne Coudry, Laura Diegel, Michel Humm) and its spaces (Ilse Hildbold) as they emerge from the correspondence. The second section (‘Nouveaux problems’) places Cicero and his correspondence in the context of Roman society (Jan B. Meister) and analyses the social practices that emerge from the correspondence (Franziska Reich, Ann-Cathrin Harders, Anabelle Thurn). The third section (‘Nouveaux approaches’) proposes a reading of Cicero’s correspondence through the lens of illness (Manuela Spurny) and death (Susanne Froehlich), masculinity and gender (Thomas Späth), and also focuses on Cicero’s attitude towards ‘foreigners’ (for e.g. the Greeks: Simone Berger Battegay). The concluding section surveys recent editions and translations of Cicero’s letters and includesindices locorum and nominum.
The contributions demonstrate a notable level of consistency and adhere both to the methodology and to the themes that the volume aims to tackle. Jan B. Meister and Manuela Spurny’s chapters stand out as noteworthy examples highlighting the crucial need to exercisecaution when analyzing the events portrayed in Cicero’s letters. They emphasize the importance of employing appropriate methods of analysis to ensure increasingly accurate interpretations. For instance, Jan B. Meister tries to reinterpret the portrayal of Cicero as a homo novus by drawing on Gelzer’s concept of the Roman aristocracy. Meister argues that the notion of a homo novus may have been influenced by modern notions of ‘social climbers’, rendering it anachronistic. This idea is supported by an exploratory reading of Cicero’s letters designed to suggest that, during the late Republic, there was no distinctive aristocratic culture or conduct that set the social elite apart from those who attained a place among the aristocracy through their political achievements. A similar note of caution is sounded in Manuela Spurny’s chapter. Starting from Leven’s criticism of the application of modern medical diagnostics to antiquity (and in particular to Thucydides description of the ‘plague’: Leven 1991, 128–160), the author discusses the proposed diagnosis of malaria for Cicero’s enslaved secretary Tiro, while also emphasizing the challenges posed by a diagnosis based on purely literary investigations.
The contributions within the volume offer some valuable insights into significant aspects of socio-political life in Rome 60–40 BC as they emerge from Cicero’s correspondence. However —and this is a serious problem—Gesellschaft im Brief effectively regards Cicero’s correspondence as a mere ‘container’ from which to extract specific answers to specific questions. The volume essentially repeats the same (probably inadequate) procedures of previous research that the volume aimed to overcome (p. 13). Focusing solely on specific socio-political practices revealed by single letters does not facilitate a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the correspondence. To achieve that, it is essential to seriously consider the narratives crafted by ancient editors concerning Cicero, his correspondents, and the historical period they lived in. These deliberate narratives that emerge from the Ciceronian collections—and which scholars started to detect beginning with Beard 2002—are key to the study of the collection ‘as a whole’. After all, the information that emerges from Cicero’s letters (including social and political practices) are exactly the ones that the ancient editors intended to preserve for their first readers and for posterity.
In conclusion, Gesellschaft im Brief offers a wide variety of perspectives that will prove interesting to those who desire a more profound comprehension of single social norms as they occur in Cicero’s letters. However, the approach proposed by the volume is better suited for the corpus of Propertius, which is characterized by a narrower focus in terms of location, time, and subject matter. When applied to the vastly richer and more varied corpora of Cicero’s correspondence, the proposed methodology yields heterogeneous results.
Bibliography
Beard 2002 = M. Beard, ‘Ciceronian correspondences: making a book out of letters’, in T.P. Wiseman (ed.), Classics in Progress: Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford, 2002), 103–44.
Leven 1991 = K. H. Leven, Thukydides und die „pest“ in Athen, in MHJ, 26 (1991), 128–60.
Authors and Titles
- Sozialgeschichte und Ciceros Korrespondenz als Chronotopos (Thomas Späth)
- Drei Beiträge zu einer römischen gesellschaftsgeschichte: Gaston Boissier – Matthias Gelzer – Eugen Täubler (Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg)
- La correspondance de Cicéron gouverneur provincial : ambitions et limites d’une stratégie d’auto-représentation (Marianne Coudry)
- Selbstbildnisse eines E Ich-Narrative Ciceros in den Briefen aus dem
Exil und danach (Laura Diegel) - Les horti de Rome, «une maison comme les autres»? Pratiques résidentielles aritstocratiques dans la Correspondance de Cicéron (Ilse Hilbold)
- Évocations historiques, representations du passé et autoreprésentation dans la Correspondance de Cicéron (Michel Humm)
- Aristokratischer Habitus als Modus der Differenzierung? Der homo novus Cicero und die römische Aristokratie (Jan B. Meister)
- Quod rogas ut mea tibi scripta mittam quae post discessum tuum scripserim … : envois littéraires et pratiques de communication dans la correspondence de Cicéron (Franziska Reich)
- ,,Wenn wir noch eine res publica hätten … ‘’– Familie, domus und die Grenzen des paterfamilias in Ciceros Briefen (Ann-Cathrin Harders)
- Improbare animum adversari. Invektivisches in Ciceros Reden und Briefen (Anabelle Thurn)
- Omnia a te data mihi putabo, si te valentem videro – Tiros Beziehung zu Cicero während seiner Krankheitsphasen aus sozial-und medizingeschichtlicher Sicht (Manuela Spurny)
- Cicero, die Griechen und das Fremde in mikrogeschichtlicher Perspektive (Simone Berger Battegay)
- Zerrissene Fäden? Der Austausch über Trauerfälle und die Komplexität des sozialen Netzwerks in Cicero Briefen (Susanne Froehlich)
- Geschlecht und Epistolographie. Männlichkeit in Cicero Briefen des Sommers 44 (Thomas Späth)