The Empire of the Self: Self-Command and Political Speech in Seneca and Petronius

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Redde quod debes, “pay back what you owe,” write both Seneca and Petronius. I cannot hope to repay the friends, colleagues, and institutions that have aided me in completing this book. This expression of gratitude will have to stand as small recompense for the debts I have incurred. My forays into self-address in Seneca and Petronius began with my dissertation at the University of Chicago under the guidance of Shadi Bartsch, Martha Nussbaum, and David Wray. Since then those three have continued to support my work in a variety of ways. Susanna Braund and Niall Slater have also provided a great deal of encouragement and assistance for several years now. Work on this book was supported by a generous grant from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation. My thanks go to Richard Thomas and the other members of the foundation. My sabbatical was spent as a visiting scholar at Harvard University. Thanks to John Duffy, chair of the Department of the Classics, and the other members of the department for allowing me to visit for the year. Portions of this book were presented to audiences at Boston University, Dartmouth, Emory, Harvard, Temple, and Yale. I am grateful to all who have provided suggestions and encouragement, including Victor Bers, Pramit Chaudhuri, Margaret Graver, Wolfgang Haase, Jeffery Henderson, Albert Henrichs, Robin Mitchell-Boyask, Victor Nuovo, Michael Reeve, Steve Scully, Nancy Sherman, Steve Strange, Peter White, and Jack Zupko. Further support was provided by a grant from Middlebury College to employ a research assistant at a crucial stage in the book’s development. I am grateful to James Ralph, dean of faculty development and research, for awarding the grant and to Margaret Clark for filling that role so admirably. My colleagues in the Department of Classics at Middlebury College, Jane Chaplin, Randall Ganiban, Pavlos Sfyroeras, and Marc Witkin, welcomed me into the fold and encouraged me to develop new courses that helped to foster and explore several of the ideas contained in this book. viii Acknowledgments My editor, Matthew McAdam, is to be thanked for taking immediate interest in this book and for his guidance and support throughout the publication process. He and the staff at the Johns Hopkins University Press were remarkably efficient and helpful in seeing it through production. The anonymous reader for the Press provided numerous suggestions and critiques that greatly aided my final revisions. Joanne Allen was a skilled and careful copyeditor. An earlier version of chapter 2 was published as “Commanding Constantia in Senecan Tragedy” in Transactions of the American Philological Association 136, no. 1 (2006): 207–44, copyright © 2006 The American Philological Association, used with permission from The Johns Hopkins University Press. On a more personal note, my greatest debt of gratitude is to my family, both the Stars and the Robertses. I owe an incalculable debt to my wife, Sarah, who always was willing to leave her own important work to come to my aid and listen to my ideas. This book is dedicated to her. The Empire of the Self This page intentionally left blank ...