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LITERATURE PRODUCTION IN ANTIQUITY

of only a part of it. M. Neger examines the way in which Pliny the Younger, in his Letters, discusses means and techniques of persuasion and puts them into action. She identifies Pliny’s three levels of communication: the editor of letters and his readers; the writer and his addressees; the acting figure and his audience in the letter-narratives on trial. In her analysis Pliny is self-centred but avoids self-praise. Part 6 focuses on the rhetoric of numbers in historiography and oratory. T.A. van Berkel reads Pericles’ speech in Thucydides 2.13 as an example of numerical rhetoric, which boosts the confidence of the listeners and exhorts them to action, against the direct persuasion of sight, in comparison with Diodorus Siculus’ version of the same speech, and the speeches of Archidamus, and the speeches of the Peloponnesian commanders and Phormio before the battle at Naupactus, which thematise the same rhetoric. R. Sing underscores the limitations of Thucydides’ Pericles as a source for reconstructing the rhetoric of strategic financial decision-making and then compares it with Demosthenes’ financial rhetoric, which relied on an accumulation of specialist knowledge and popular understanding. The volume has a bibliography, but some studies cited in the footnotes are not included. There is also an index locorum. It is deeply grounded in the original sources and augurs well for future studies on the role of persuasion. The footnotes are full of helpful information and observations, with ample guidance on bibliography related to each topic. This is a useful collection of papers, which deserves thorough study.