Francesca Martelli’s study contributes to a scholarly trend that treats Cicero’s correspondence as literary texts rather than historical documents, thus challenging the practice of editing (and reading) the collection ad Familiares chronologically (initiated by M. Beard in T. Wiseman (ed.), Classics in Progress (2002), 103–44). The latter obscures narrative patterns which constitute the topic of M.’s study. The book’s main thesis is that ‘Cicero’s letter collections are best read as imperial (and post-imperial) texts’ (14–15). By proposing a model of democratic transmission — shaped by multiple actors over a long period of time — M. argues that the form in which Cicero’s letters were read can reveal much about the collection’s imperial readership. She approaches these letters as an archive of residual media, reorganised for renewed consumption in a context far removed from their original moment of writing. According to M., the letters operate as souvenirs of a re-imagined republican past, mediating between that past and the present of the new imperial regime. Therefore, they contribute to the process of memory-shaping of the fallen res publica. The book opens with a theoretical introduction (drawing on Jacques Derrida, Raymond Williams and Susan Stewart) followed by five chapters, a conclusion and a helpful index.

M.’s argument is based on the premise that the form of the collection delivers these narratives. She proposes that the sixteen-book format preserved in our earliest extant manuscript of the complete text reflects the version which circulated in antiquity. The ancient sources first mention book rolls of Cicero’s letters organised by addressee. After the transition to the codex, textual tradition attests two eight-book branches, each numbered from one to eight. Hence, scholars assumed that these two separate collections represented the form of Fam. known to antiquity. The narratives examined in this study, however, lead M. to believe that ‘a sixteen-book format predates the two eight-book collections’ and that these arose from a later bifurcation (13–14 n. 34). This stands out as a significant and original contribution to the transmission-history of Fam.

Ch. 1 begins with Fam. 16, the last book of the collection consisting of letters to (and one about) Tiro, Cicero’s servile secretary. As M. demonstrates, the collection itself casts this figure as potential editor of the collection (pace Beard 2002). Her reading is supported by the exceptional inclusion of letters addressed to a slave or libertus as well as by the book’s positioning at the collection’s outer margin (37). M. innovatively proposes a wider post-republican readership (including slaves: 57 n. 65) for Cicero’s letters for whom the ex-slave, now editor, Tiro serves as anchor. In ch. 2, the author proceeds to analyse the outer edges of the collection, Fam. 1 and Fam. 15 (treating Fam. 16 as a paratext). According to M., the framing effect created by these books which gather correspondence to and from Cilicia reflects a dialectic of social inclusion and exclusion present in these books (64). These letters, then, all grapple with the experience of being outside of, or, as Cicero would put it, exiled from Rome. Ch. 3 (85–112) focuses on Fam. 8, the only book to feature Cicero exclusively as addressee. Here M. likens the collection to a notoriously imperial building: the arena. Cicero’s absence in Fam. 8, she argues, creates a ‘hollow space at the center of this edifice’ (95), with the surrounding books forming the seating ranks. Ch. 4 (113–61) tackles the trilogy of Fam. 10–12, dealing with the (doomed) struggle against Antony. M. characterises this narrative as a counter-history written by the defeated. She highlights that later imperial readers would have read these letters aware of the outcome of that struggle, still undecided in the letters of Fam. 10–12. Moreover, this temporal tension is reflected in the theme of untimeliness which permeates these letters ‘in the form of victories declared to soon, and news received too late’ (127–8). M. successfully shows how this trilogy preserves a view of an alternative outcome — one which the actors in these letters desperately cling on to. Ch. 5 (162–94) deals with Fam. 13 and the letters of recommendation contained within it. Particularly thought-provoking is M.’s reading of the first letter of Fam. 13 about the ruins of Epicurus’ house, which stands out amongst the other letters addressed to magistrates. M. highlights the image of the domus and, following this, the concept of familiaritas as themes for the whole of Fam. 13. She showcases how these letters function as gateways between households, enabling agents to move smoothly across networks of familiares.

This reviewer has but one reservation. In this very chapter, M. questions whether the letters of Fam. 13 truly reveal ‘eternal truths about the structure of social relationships in Rome and the modes of address proper to those relationships’ (193) and thereby challenges recent studies on the concept of politeness in Cicero’s letters. However, the recommendations in Fam. 13 exhibit a consistent pattern, from which Cicero deviates, explicitly, only in especially significant letters (e.g. Fam. 13.15 to Caesar). This regularity supports, in the reviewer’s eyes, a cautious degree of generalisation.

Overall, M.’s book offers a fresh exploration of several underappreciated themes in Cicero’s correspondence and encourages a reading of Cicero’s letters in the format in which they were transmitted to us. As an authoritative guide to the subtle forces that shaped Fam., it will serve as a valuable point of reference for anyone engaging with Cicero’s correspondence in particular and ancient letters in general.