Two emphases of recent Ciceronian scholarship converge in this revised Cambridge dissertation: on one side, the welcome recognition of the interest and importance of Cicero as a philosopher (and indeed of Roman philosophy in general); on the other, an equally welcome attention to the complexity and sophistication of Cicero's correspondence. Sean McConnell's goal in the volume under review is to discover and examine some serious philosophical aspects of the letters. As he notes, his five chapters do not form a single line of argument: rather, they are linked studies which contribute to a broad picture.

Thus, ch. 1 concerns the long letter to Lentulus (Fam. 1.9) of December 54 and its use of Plato's Seventh Epistle to shape Cicero's self-image and self-justification, contrasting Cicero's merging of himself as political adviser and philosopher in that letter with his earlier separation of philosophy from politics. Ch. 2 also deals with Cicero and the Seventh Epistle: M. argues that Cicero used it in Att. Books 7–9 again, to explain and justify his own uncertain relationship to Caesar in the early months of 49 b.c. That leads in ch. 3 to a discussion of Cicero's use of Dicaearchus on the choice of lives in shaping his own position just before the civil war. The final two chapters, dealing respectively with the letter to Paetus on obscenity (Fam. 9.22) and the discussion with Atticus in 45 b.c. about writing a letter of advice to Caesar, both concern problems of free speech and the dictatorship of Caesar.

M.'s selection of texts emphasizes the rôle of philosophy in Cicero's public life and actions: on the one hand, the use of philosophy to analyse his public positions, real or contemplated; and on the other, his apparent attempts to deploy philosophy in political debate and public affairs. The former is pervasive and important: Cicero constantly — and M.'s discussions illuminate this very well — turns to his reading of philosophy, Plato and the Peripatetics in particular, for self-justification or guidance. But while M. is probably right to see Cicero shaping his self-image through Plato's Seventh Epistle, in fact Cicero has no interest here in the philosophical content of Plato's attempted advice to Dionysius: he adopts only the biographical rôle of unwilling adviser to a tyrant. His desire to behave ethically is obviously genuine, but he is as interested in finding a screen to hide behind as in genuine guidance on how to behave. M. consistently emphasizes the philosophical model over political spin, but the two are very hard to separate.

M.'s focus on philosophical sentences in the correspondence often illuminates a particular moment at the expense of focus and proportion. Cicero does cite Plato's Seventh Epistle while agonizing in 49 b.c. about what to do, but it is a tiny part of an extensive correspondence in which he deploys all sorts of images to explain himself to himself: the Platonic allusion in Att. 9.10.2 is immediately preceded by a comparison of Pompey to a lover who has behaved immunde, insulse, indecore. One wonders whether Cicero entertained for longer than it took to write the letter the idea of himself as philosophical adviser to Caesar either in 49 or in 45 b.c. He was far too good a politician to expect a sermon on concordia or a pamphlet on the duties of kingship to sway someone who knew even better than Cicero how to manipulate language and ideas. Cicero was quite serious in his belief in the necessity of moral government; but he was just as serious in trying to use philosophy to maintain his self-respect in intolerable circumstances. Cicero's letters, as M. well shows, display serious philosophical thinking, but it was often philosophical wishful thinking or rôle-playing for his own (and Atticus’) benefit.

What emerges from M.'s account is a very serious and rather one-sided Cicero: M. stays away from the philosophical jokes (as in the correspondence with Cassius) and he gives the letter on obscenity far more weight than it deserves. M. burrows deeply into nuance, context and background. He excavates Dicaearchus’ views on the choice of lives; he reconstructs a Platonic framework for Cicero's vacillations about what to do in 50 and 49 b.c. Many of his arguments are, however, tenuous, as he is himself aware, and while he mentions objections in passing, for the most part he does not face them directly. It seems very unlikely, for instance, that Cicero retroactively constructed his private correspondence with Atticus in order to lead up to the image of himself as the Plato of the Seventh Epistle, or that in the συμβουλευτικόν of 45 b.c. Cicero intended to propose to Caesar a portrait of the ideal king/dictator modelled on Aristotle's letters to Alexander and the statesman of De re publica. But if M.'s more speculative arguments are often improbable as well as unprovable, the attempt to link C.'s epistolary agonies of indecision and self-doubt to the serious philosophical arguments to which his passing allusions refer is a laudable one. M.'s work is careful, well-constructed and intelligent, if not always convincing. It is a useful reminder of just how large a rôle philosophy played in Cicero's life as well as his books, and it makes his correspondence even more complex than it already was.