Quarreling, arguing, negotiating, persuading and compromising: Rhetorical Strategies and Techniques in late antique Greek papyrus letters

"Reading other people’s letters has always been a tempting prospect”. This statement, found in a recent book on Ancient Greek epistolography, reveals a universal truth on human attitude towards other people’s secrets, which applies to ancient papyri as well as modern-day e-mails. However, classicists were able to satisfy their legitimate scientific curiosity only from the late nineteenth century onwards, when thousands of Greek papyri were discovered in ancient Graeco-Roman sites in Egypt, like Arsinoe, Heracleopolis, Hermopolis and Oxyrhynchus. Following a short introduction to documentary papyrology and the challenges, rewards and perspectives of the study of late antique Greek letters preserved on papyrus, the present paper aims to revive a colourful world of quarreling, arguing, negotiating, persuading and compromising, on the basis of representative letters preserved from late antique Egypt. Furthermore, an attempt will be made to analyze the rhetorical strategies and techniques ancient epistolographers employed in their letters in order to persuade their addressees and achieve their communicative goals.

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