In this well-written and well-researched study, W. focuses in roughly equal measure on Cicero's Ad familiares and Seneca's Moral Epistles and, starting from the rhetorician Demetrius' description of letters as ‘a kind of gift’ (p. 3), deploys various interpretative approaches in an attempt to elucidate Roman epistolary practices. The opening chapters argue that Cicero's correspondence exhibits the three defining characteristics of the gift as formulated by Lewis Hyde (The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property [1979]). According to Hyde: (1) although gift-exchange initially engages a minimum of two participants, further individuals often become involved in the transaction; (2) the movement of gifts is essential to the fulfilment of their social purpose; and (3) as gifts are re-exchanged, they increase in scope and significance (see W.'s summary at pp. 10–12). W. succeeds in showing (in formal terms at least) that Cicero's correspondence manifests these characteristics (see Chapters 1–4). Roman letters, for example, were usually based on the basic dyad of writer and addressee, yet often invoked other individuals too as parties to the exchange (see, e.g., pp. 10, 70, 89). Such letters sometimes circulated beyond the original pair and performed vital social business as they did so; and, as a consequence of this circulation, these letters could trigger further social activity and so create ‘increase’ (e.g. pp. 66–7, 72, 80, 82).
W. utilises as an analytical tool the notion formulated by Pierre Bourdieu of ‘euphemistic’ linguistic strategies – that is, strategies whereby individuals systematically deny or misrecognise gifts and the obligations they impose upon others (see in particular Chapter 1). This perspective emphasises the function of Roman letters as instruments of social negotiation, and complements well the recent work by scholars such as P. White (Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic [2010]). In the same vein, W. argues that letter-writing, like gift-giving, manages to encourage social cohesion while simultaneously promoting competition between the parties involved. This latter aspect leads to what W. calls the ‘eristic’ quality of Roman friendship, an element particularly evident (it is claimed) in the letters of consolation exchanged among Cicero and his associates (see Chapter 4).
The second part of the study focuses on Seneca and is more literary-critical in approach. In Chapter 7, for example, W. presents a close reading of Epistles 30–6, ‘to see how these texts disrupt the definition and practice of epistolary friendship’ (p. 133). One of Seneca's aims in this sequence of letters is to destabilise and reassert ‘the formal epistolary identity of the texts … by alternately highlighting and neglecting or undercutting epistolary conventions’. (These conventions include viewing letters as a bridge between correspondents and as a means of overcoming distance; p. 132.) Chapter 8 develops the earlier discussion of Cicero's letters of consolation and considers in detail Seneca's own letter of this type in the collection (Epistle 63). This letter, W. argues, ‘comments critically on the accepted forms for demonstrating grief, on conventional prescriptions for easing mourning, and on the mistaken values they represent’ (p. 165). The conclusion drawn is that ‘Letter 63 not only extends consolation but also bears witness to an inwardly directed practice of consoling the self. Seneca shows us how gift exchange can be transmuted into introspection’ (p. 172).
This study, then, offers a variety of subtle and nuanced interpretations, some more convincing perhaps than others. The deployment of anthropological theories of gift-exchange, for example, seems strained in places. The characteristics of Ciceronian letters that W. identifies as typical of gift-exchange are not necessarily a direct result of their functioning as a kind of gift (other explanations are available); arguably too there is a qualitative difference between the function of gift-exchange in the societies described by, for example, M. Mauss (The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies [1969], pp. 10–11, 22–3), and the exchanging of letters in Roman society (especially with regard to the notions of ‘circulation’ and ‘increase’). In the end, W.'s formulation works better as a tool for structuring her own discussion than one that offers sociological insights into Roman practices.
The argument that Seneca's Epistles consistently aim to challenge their Ciceronian predecessors is also open to question. (See, e.g., p. 118: ‘Rather than simply mimicking or emulating Ciceronian precedent, Seneca's renditions of triangularity in friendship and letters are designed to undermine it’.) W. makes much of Epistle 118 in this regard, proposing that it ‘underlines the persisting importance of the Ciceronian themes whose presence pervades the collection's early books’ (p. 101). But, according to note 6 (on p. 101), the first direct mention of Cicero does not appear until Book 2 (in Epistle 17), and then we encounter only four more references in the next forty or so epistles. Certainly Epistle 118 engages at some length with Cicero, but this seems rather late in the collection to declare a major thematic point. W. is clearly aware of this problem, describing the letter as ‘so late in the sequence’ (p. 101), but attempts to minimise it with the claim that the letter is nevertheless ‘prominently positioned’. This gives the impression of stretching the evidence to suit a prefabricated hypothesis. Overall, the tendency to proceed through bold interpretative assertion means that some conclusions will find greater acceptance than others.
The book is well produced, with only a few minor slips (on p. 4, ‘And yet it is unlikely’ is needed for ‘And yet is unlikely’; on p. 122, the Latin phrase sic itaque me audi tamquam mecum loquor seems to have gone untranslated).
