Year: 2017
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Caesar the letter writer appears in numerous remarkable vignettes of multi-tasking productivity: sources describe him causing offence by openly dealing with correspondence during shows, 1 dictating multiple letters on horseback to at least two secretaries simultaneously, 2 or receiving a love letter from his mistress during a Senate debate.3 Even on the last night of his life, we find him half-listening to conversation after dinner while 'reclining on the couch adding his personal notes to letters as usual' ('not an endearing habit', as Pelling remarks).4 Caesar's letters themselves were noted, too, for rich content, 5 unusual layout, or even clever delivery methods.6 His formal dispatches to the senate, for example, apparently looked unlike those of other commanders, being set out in something unusually close to a book format, a habit that may suggest confidence in the lasting value of these letters, and perhaps even their literary aspirations.7 Conversely, his famous cipher excluded inquisitive readers from letters de domesticis rebus, 8 prompting a learned commentary de occulta litterarum significatione in epistularum C. Caesaris scriptura.91 Suet.Aug. 45.1.For Caesar's public multi-tasking, cf.Nicolaus of Damascus, FGH 90 fr.130.78-9; Pliny, HN 7.91.Such tales put Caesar in a tradition of indefatigable individuals such as Cato, who read in the curia (Cic.de finibus 3.7; Val.Max.8.7.2;Plut.Cato minor 19.1), although only before senate sessions began; see Zadorojnyi (2005) 117. 2 Plut.17.7.4,7; cf.Pliny the Elder HN 7.91.For Caesar sending and receiving letters, cf.Plut.17.4-5; 23.4; 24.2; 30.2; 31.1;48.2; 49.4.3 Plut.Cato Minor 24.1.6,24.2.1.4 Plutarch Caes.63.7.Pelling (2011) 471.Ironically, distraction allegedly prevented him from reading the missive that might have saved him on the Ides (Plut.Caes.65.) 5 Uberrimis litteris, Cicero says in Att.4.16.6 about Caesar's richly informative letters from Britain; cf.Cic.Prov.Cons.22. 6 On the dispatch written in Greek characters and wrapped round a javelin (BG 5.48), see Osgood (2009) 336-8.7 Suet.Diu.Iul.56.6 quas primum uidetur ad paginas et formam memorialis libelli conuertisse.On this problematic passage, see most recently McCutcheon (2013) 162-65.See also Osgood (2009) 339; Ebbeler (2003) 4, 10-11.8 Gellius, NA 9.2; Suetonius Diu, Iul.56.6; cf.Dio 40.9.3.9 Gellius, NA 9. 5. White, P. (2010) Cicero in Letters.Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic, Oxford.
Author: Ruth Morello
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2780767091