The Language of Roman Letters
Bilingual Epistolography from Cicero to Fronto

Explores in depth how bilingualism in the correspondence of elite Romans illuminates their lives, relationships and identities.

Olivia Elder (Author), Alex Mullen (Author)

9781108480161, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 October 2019

346 pages
22.3 x 14.6 x 2 cm, 0.59 kg

Roman letters demonstrate that language has imperium: the power to resolve problems, to negotiate relationships and to construct identities. This book combines sociolinguistic and historical approaches to explore how that power is deployed by the bilingual elite of the Roman Republic and Empire, offering the first systematic analysis of Greek code-switches in the letters of Cicero, Pliny, Marcus Aurelius and Fronto and in the Lives of Suetonius. Greek was a subtle tool within Latin epistolary communication, and an analysis of letter writers' bilingual practices reveals their manipulation of language to manage relationships between peers and across hierarchical or political divides, uncovering the workings of politics and society. Comparative analysis of Roman and modern code-switching contributes to the debate on how bilingual strategies in letters evolve and how they relate to oral and literary language. The language of letters illuminates the Roman world and its entanglements with Greek language and culture.

1. Language and life in letters
2. A Roman conversation? Code-switching in diachronic context
3. Republic of letters: the politics of Cicero's Epistolary Code-Switching
4. Imperial relations: Greek and the lingua Romana of Fronto and friends
5. The language of letters and beyond: Greek in Suetonius' biographies
6. Weaving together the threads: epistolary connections.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Linguistics [CF]