Scripted Intimacy in Fronto's Correspondence with Marcus Aurelius

In this reappraisal of the early letter exchange between the Roman orator Fronto and his most famous pupil, Marcus Aurelius (second century AD), Wytse Keulen explores the profound mimetic impact of their strikingly 'authentic' intimacy. Keulen's analysis includes the letters' public appeal as a social performance, which skilfully combines eloquent self-fashioning with polite consensus building. He elucidates Fronto's letter collection as an artistic unity, published by Fronto himself: by weaving letters and replies into a meaningful overarching structure, the correspondence memorializes Fronto's friendship with the future Emperor as a literary monument dedicated to both correspondents. Thanks to this original conception, Fronto's letter collection proves to be a more than worthy successor to Pliny the Younger's epistolary project, surpassing its model through its dramatic power and captivating intimacy

Part One: Community of Letters
Chapter 1. Ritualised Communications
Chapter 2. convivium in litteris
Chapter 3. salutatio in litteris
Part Two: Theatre of Letters
Chapter 4. Epistle-in-Character: Scripted Roles and Lettered Ethopoeia
Chapter 5. Epistolary Theatricality: Communication and Meta-Communication
Part Three: Corpus of Letters
Chapter 6. mea oratio extabit. Fronto's Literary Letter Corpus
Chapter 7. Liber I: Imagination and Exposure
Chapter 8. Liber II: Occasion and Extemporisation
Chapter 9. Liber III: Instruction and Resistance
Chapter 10. Liber IV: Conflict and Reconciliation
Chapter 11. Liber V: Intimisation and InCORPoration