250 BOOK REVIEWS holy institutions” (p. 28). That is not something archaeology can tell you, and as an interpreter of the literary evidence Carandini has, to put it mildly, no more authority thanthe classicists he so detests. The translation is faulty in places,2 but it hardly matters. Even where accurately translated, Carandini’s handsome little book offers no more than an enjoyable fantasy. T.P. WISEMAN University of Exeter,T.P.Wiseman@exeter.ac.uk Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic. By Peter WHITE. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xii + 235. Hardcover,£40.00/$60.00.ISBN: 978-0-19-538851-0. Peter White is well-known to any student or scholar of Latin poetry, but the book under review marks the culmination (so far) of his interest in Roman letterwriting and epistolaryculture (see also “Tactics inCaesar’sCorrespondence with Cicero,” in F. Cairns and E. Fantham, eds., Caesar against Liberty? Perspectives on his Autocracy, Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 11 [2003] 68–95). His bookon Cicero’s letters comes at a time when studies in Latin epistolography and Ciceronian scholarship on the correspondence are flourishing. Most recently, Hall’s Politeness and Politicsin Cicero’s Letters (Oxford, 2009), hasturned our attention to the social interaction and social etiquette played out in the correspondence. There is so much more to be done with Cicero’s letters and White’s work is therefore a welcome addition to the scholarship on epistolary culture and the Ciceroniancorrespondence. The book comprises six chapters divided into two parts. The first part, “Reading the Letters from the Outside In,” deals with practical aspects of letter writing in the Roman world (Chapter 1), the ways in which the collection of Cicero ’s letters was edited (Chapter 2), and the structural elements of a letter (Chapter 3). The second part, “Epistolary Preoccupations,” looks at three differ2 E.g. “below see level” for sul livello del mare (p. 64), “fourth century” for VI secolo (p. 75), “pagan statue” for statuto paganico (p. 96), and more complex misunderstandings of the original at pp. 33, 40, 59, 93, 103, 108. BOOKREVIEWS 251 ent aspects of Cicero’s letters: the interaction between literature and the correspondence (Chapter 4), the social aspects inherent in the exchange of advice (Chapter 5), and a detailed study of Cicero’s correspondence in the period November 44–July 43 BC, focusing on his exchanges with Decimus Brutus, Plancus and Brutus/Cassius (Chapter 6). White also provides a short “Afterword” on his views of the collection after writing his book; two appendices which (1) quantify the corpus of letters and (2) list the contemporary works circulating in written form (poetry and prose); a bibliography; and indices of persons and passages mentioned (but not subjects). White writes in an admiringly clear and flowing language, an example to all classicists of how to present the results of scholarly research. No doubt the position of the notes at the end rather than at the foot of each page makes the reading flow more smoothly, but it is still inconvenient to the reader to have to flick back and forth between text and corresponding note; it may be the decision of the publisher. On the other hand, the main text generously gives both an English translation and the Latin text of all passages cited and discussed, which greatly assiststhe reader and encourages further thoughtsonthe analyses presented. The overall aim of White’s book is “to try to answer one question: What makes these letters the way they are?” He further clarifies that the direction of his answer is dictated by what he himself would have liked to know before reading Cicero’s letters (167). This premise explains the combination of practical, historical and literary questions pursued and the sense that this book presents a collection of various strands, which are linked in their shared basis of Cicero’s letters, but separate in terms of focus. There is, as far as I can see, no unifying thesis pervading this book, but this is not necessarily a disadvantage. Many different interests can be satisfied by White’s study: students will find Chapter 1 on the practicalities of...
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Aug 4, 2011
Kai Kupferschmidt 
Open Access