Reditus and self-figuration in Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum IV.1

Abstract

Considering the fact that exile entailed a major blow to Cicero’s political career, this letter presents us with a complex context where the epistolary ego, after returning to Rome, would strive to neutralize the identity dissolution implied in the disgraceful punishment he has suffered. Our analysis is based on the conceptual framework proposed by Amossy (2010), who considers self-presentation –or what the rhetorical tradition calls “ethos” and we will name “self-fashioning”– as an intrinsic dimension of discourse, according to which anyone who utters something would be offering ipso facto, and more or less consciously, a performance of his or her self, with different communicative goals in mind. The idea of identity as something emerging from discourse and not preceding it is especially relevant in Cicero’s case, who, being a nouus homo, lacked illustrious ancestors to fall back on, and consequently, needed to use the activity of writing as well as other people’s presence to carry on the process of his social identity’s discursive construction.