Advice and its Rhetoric in Greece and Rome more

Commencing with the Iliad and focusing on the complex socio-cultural and rhetorical tensions embodied in the practice of giving and receiving advice, the contributors consider how and why the classical world returned again and again to the nature of the relationship between adviser and advisee. This book’s particular focus is on the performative element embodied in this relationship, and the concepts of gift-exchange and the role of the adviser in a shame-honour culture are also explored. A particular strength of this volume is that it showcases the dynamics of advice-giving, and more importantly, the rhetorical strategies adopted, not just in the most high-profile authors and texts (e.g. Cicero’s First Catilinarian oration; Xenophon’s Anabasis; Homer; Plato; Seneca), but also in political tracts On Kingship, the epistles of Pliny, and early Christian literature. The collection developed out of a conference held in 2000, but additional chapters were commissioned to provide a synthetic but also wide-ranging study of this phenomenon.

Contents:
Preface
- Introduction (Diana Spencer and Elena Theodorakopoulos)
- 1. 'Good men who have skill in speaking': performing advice in Rome,  Diana Spencer and Elena Theodorakopoulos
- 2. On the receiving end: the hidden protagonist of Plato's Laches, Andrew Barker
- 3. Advice and Advisers in Xenophon's Anabasis,  Tim Rood
- 4. Consul and consilium: suppressing the Catilinarian conspiracy,  Catherine Steel
- 5. Telling it like it is: Seneca, Alexander and the dynamics of epistolary advice, Diana Spencer
- 6. Advice from on high - Pliny and Trajan,  Andy Fear
- 7. Dio Chrysostom and the development of On Kingship literature,  Harry Sidebottom
- 8. 'That's not funny': advice in skoptic epigram,  Gideon Nisbet 
- 9. Afterword: giving advice in Greek letters,    Desmond Costa 
- Bibliography
- Index.

[unfortunately google books only provides a 'snippet' view]