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Empire of Letters


 Empire of Letters studies representations of texts and media in Roman authors from Lucretius to Ovid (c. 55 BCE–15 CE) in order to demonstrate how ancient writers conceived of the world, their work, and their own identities through material forms of writing. Drawing together methods of interpretation from a wide variety of fields (including Greek and Latin philology, epigraphy, papyrology, manuscript studies, literary criticism, media theory, and book history) and uniting close readings of major authors with the careful analysis of the physical forms inhabited by ancient texts (papyrus bookrolls, waxed tablets, and monumental inscriptions in stone and bronze), Empire of Letters provides a new model for understanding the history of the book in antiquity. Putting the written word back at the center of Roman literary culture, this book redefines our understanding of the role of writing in the intellectual life of Rome at the moment of epochal transition from Republic to Empire.