This paper examines the principles of selection and arrangement of the letters of Basil the Great in the Aldine edition and in one of the major manuscript families, arguing that the ordering of Basil’s letters in them was mainly based on the content of the letters, whether thematical or by addressee. It concludes that the ancient and medieval thematical orderings of the letters are helpful for our understanding of the content of a large collection as that of Basil, compared to the modern reconstructed chronological order presented in the editions.

This paper is about Pecyllus, a magistrate in 3rd c. AD Oxyrhynchus, whose dossier consists of several private and official documents as well as letters. After a brief description of Pecyllus’ social and financial situation, the paper focuses on his private letters, analysing how Pecyllus adapted the layout, palaeography and linguistic style of each of his letters according to the message, the addressee and situation. It argues that ancient letter writers were able to adapt the external appearance of their writings according to their relationship to the addressee and in order to increase the persuasiveness of their letters.

Letter writing was widespread in the Graeco-Roman world, as indicated by the large number of surviving letters and their extensive coverage of all social categories. Despite a large amount of work that has been done on the topic of ancient epistolography, material and formatting conventions have remained underexplored, mainly due to the difficulty of accessing images of letters in the past. Thanks to the increasing availability of digital images and the appearance of more detailed and sophisticated editions, we are now in a position to study such aspects. This book examines the development of letter writing conventions from the archaic to Roman times, and is based on a wide corpus of letters that survive on their original material substrates. The bulk of the material is from Egypt, but the study takes account of comparative evidence from other regions of the Graeco-Roman world. Through analysis of developments in the use of letters, variations in formatting conventions, layout and authentication patterns according to the sociocultural background and communicational needs of writers, this book sheds light on changing trends in epistolary practice in Graeco-Roman society over a period of roughly eight hundred years.