Epistŏla
（
ἐπιστολή). A letter, written upon paper for transmission
to an absent person, as distinguished from one written upon waxed tablets (Cic. ; Caes. ; Tac.
;
Plin. Ep. xiv. 11,
chartae
epistolares.) The annexed illustration represents a letter
 |
|
Sealed Letter. (Pompeian Painting.)
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folded and sealed, with its direction, as represented by a painting on the walls of
a house at Pompeii, in which it is accompanied by various implements employed for writing,
both on paper and wax. It is engraved in the
Mus. Borb. xiv. tav. a and b, 1852, where the address upon it is
thus deciphered: Marco Lucretio Flamini Martis Decurioni
Pompei.—“To Marcus Lucretius, Priest of Mars, Decurion,
Pompeii.” (See
Writing and
Writing Materials.) Letters usually had prefixed to them the name of the sender and the
person addressed, and were not signed at the end. The following are some of the usual forms:
Cicero Varroni (Cicero to Varro); Cicero
Dolabellae S. (Cicero to Dolabella, greeting); Cicero Planco
D. (Cicero to Plancus gives greeting); Cicero Imp. Planco
(Cicero, the commander, to Plancus); Cicero D. Bruto S. P. D.
(Cicero to Decimus Brutus gives a hearty greeting); Cicero Terentiae
Suae (Cicero to his Terentia). S. stands for
salutem; S. D.
salutem dicit; and S. P. D. for
salutem plurimam dicit.
Formulas of courtesy that often begin letters are the following: V. E. (
si
vales, bene est); S. V. B. E. E. V. (
si vales bene est; ego
valeo); S. V. E. Q. V. B. E. E. Q. V. (
si vos exercitusque valetis bene
est; ego quoque valeo), etc. Phrases of courtesy or affection at the end of a letter
are the following:
Vale.—Cura ut valeas.— Da operam ut
valeas.—Fac ut diligentissime te ipsum custodias.—Cura ut valeas et me,
ut amas, ama.— Cura ut valeas et nos ames et tibi persuadeas te a me fraterne
amari.—Vale et nos dilige.—Bene vale et me dilige.—Fac valeas
meque ames.—Tu, ut instituisti, me diligas rogo, proprieque tuum esse tibi
persuadeas. — Fac valeas meque mutuo diligas.—Etiam atque etiam
vale.
The date and place, if written at all, are given at the end of the letter. Thus:
Data
pr. Kal. Mai. Brundisii.—Hoc ex Nicia, etc.
The epistle plays an important part in ancient as in modern literature, though in classical
Greek literature the number of genuine letters is small. The collection attributed to Plato,
though highly interesting and regarded by Grote as authentic, is rejected by recent
scholarship; and so the letters ascribed to Demosthenes, to Aeschines, and to Xenophon. The
nine that bear the name of Isocrates are universally accepted as his. (See
Isocrates.) Three letters of Epicurus are preserved by
Diogenes Laertius. Specimens of the official epistle are to be seen in the oration of
Demosthenes on the Crown. Much valuable information on the history of the times is gathered
from the later Greek letters of Gregory Nanzianzenus, Basil, Chrysostom, and other
ecclesiastical writers.
Letter writing was from an early period cultivated among the Romans, and
both official and personal letters of eminent men soon began to be collected, such as the
letters of the elder Cato to his son, and of Cornelia to C. Gracchus. At a later period, those
of Caesar, Brutus, and especially of Cicero, were preserved. Most of the Roman letters
remaining to us are not the genuine private correspondence of their authors, but were from the
first written with an eye to publication, like the priggish and self-conscious epistles of the
younger Pliny. The most valuable correspondence ever preserved is that of Cicero, whose
letters to the number of nearly one thousand were published by his amanuensis,
Tiro (q.v.). These are the familiar effusions of the
orator, written with no view to publication, and are invaluable for the light they throw upon
the personality of the writer and the history of his times. See
Cicero.
Examples of letters in historical works are those in Antipater, Quadrigarius, and especially
in Sallust. The epistolary form was also used by the jurists for their
responsa on questions of law; by scholars for their learned discussions (e. g. Verrius
Flaccus, Lactantius, etc.); by physicians for medical expositions (e. g. Marcellus Empiricus
and Oribasius); and by the rhetoricians of the imperial age as a form of stylistic exercise.
(See Teuffel,
Hist. of Rom. Lit., Eng. trans., i. pp. 73-76). Next to the
letters of Cicero, those of Pliny the Younger are most read. Other important letterwriters are
Seneca, Fronto, Symmachus, Sidonius, and still later Salvianus, Ruricius, Ennodius,
Lactantius, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Cassiodorus. Specimens of Vergil's correspondence
are given by Macrobius (i. 24, 11).
The poetical epistle was cultivated as early as B.C. 146 by Sp. Mummius, who, when in camp
before Corinth, addressed satirical letters in verse to friends at Rome (
Ad
Att. xiii. 6, 4). Several of the satires of Lucilius were composed in the form of
letters, and the poem of Catullus to Manlius (
68 A) is in the
epistolary form. The most successful in this department of literature were Horace in his two
books of
Epistolae and Ovid in the imaginary love-letters
(
Heroides) and in his own genuine lamentations from exile
(
Tristia and the
Epistolae ex Ponto). Statius, Ausonius, and
Claudianus are later examples of the poetical epistolographer.
Forged letters are frequently found in Latin literature. Instances are the
Epistulae
Medicinales professedly from Hippocrates to Maecenas, and the celebrated fourteen
letters which form the alleged correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul, which were,
however, accepted as genuine by St. Jerome (
De Vir. Illust. 12), and by St.
Augustine (
Epist. 153). On these see Fleury,
St. Paul et
Sénèque (Paris, 1853); Lightfoot,
St. Paul's
Epist. to the Philippians, p. 260
(London, 1868); and Aubertin,
Sénèque et St. Paul (Paris, 1869).
Bibliography.—See
Roberts, Hist. of Letter
Writing (1843); Grote,
Plato and the other Companions of
Socrates, ii. pp. 220 foll.; Czwalina,
De Epistularum Actorumque, etc.
Fide et Auctoritate (Bonn, 1871); Nisard,
Notes sur les Lettres
de Cicéron (Paris, 1882); and Tyrrell's introduction to his
edition of the Correspondence of Cicero
(1893). The Greek epistolographers are
collected by Hercher in his
Epistolographi Graeci (Paris, 1873);
and on the Latin rhetorical letter writers see Halm's
Rhetores Latini, pp. 447
foll. and 589. On the epistle in fiction, see
Novels and Romances.
