A world both small and wide: the letter-bearer’s journey from Cicero to Jerome

This thesis offers an examination of the roles and literary depictions of letter bearers and changing patterns of communication in the Roman world in the periods between Cicero and Jerome. It also explores the extent to which the letter bearers themselves played a part in these changing patterns of communication. The research begins with an examination of the bearers for the letters of the Ciceronian collections. The study proceeds to consider the role of bearers in the correspondence of Pliny, Trajan, Fronto, Augustine, Paulinus of Nola and Jerome. Each chapter challenges the long-held perception of the letter bearer as a mere functionary with a role that was immutable. What emerges from the analysis of numerous largely overlooked epistolary asides is that the correspondents’ relationship with their bearers was both complex and evolving and that the bearers were always viewed as the critical facilitators of their highly influential epistolary networks.