W. Schubart's study of the style of royal letters(APF 1920) and F. Schröter's dissertation De regum hellenisticorum epistulis in lapidibus servatae (1932) were obliterated by C. B. Welles' Royal Correspondence (1934). Welles observed that royal letters were characterized by an absence of rhetoric, while not ruling out rhetorical training for royal secretaries and also observing the rhetorical forms of certain letters. A new letter from Eumenes II to the city of Tabai in Caria (166-158) (F. Guizzi, MedAnt, 2006, p. 181-203) contains the clearest example of the use of rhetoric: Eumenes, in notifying the city of the merits of Koteies and the honors he had bestowed upon him, opens the letter with a long sentence dominated by the rhetorical figure of praeteritio.
10:45 - 11:45
Guest lecturer
Seventy-five years after C. B. Welles' Royal Correspondence
Biagio Virgilio
10:45 - 11:45
