EDITORIAL INFLUENCE: THE LITERARY STRUCTURE OF CICERO’S LETTERS TO ATTICUS
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This dissertation investigates the literary structures in the ancient arrangement of Cicero’s Letters to Atticus. The analysis presented here focuses on two editorial tools available to the ancient editor: the implementation of book divisions and the chronological displacement of letters. The first section of the dissertation documents the use of book divisions for literary effect by the ancient editor through a consideration of the divisions that define the Cilicia Books (Books 5 and 6) as well as the division that separates Books 13 and 14. The second section examines the ancient editor’s use of chronologically displaced letters in Books 4 and 9 of the collection to draw out particular themes and narratives from Cicero’s life. The third section looks beyond the Letters to Atticus to consider how the collection stands in comparison to the earlier Greek letter collections of Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Plato. By analyzing the use of these two ancient editorial tools (book divisions and the chronological displacement of letters), this dissertation demonstrates that the Letters to Atticus is more than just a chronological archive of Cicero’s letters; the collection is a unified literary text that is worthy of study as such.