ABSTRACT
Three major authors are associated with independent collections of invented correspondences in the period of the Second Sophistic: Aelian, Alciphron, and Philostratus. All three choose epistolary form as a medium for displaying short scenes of emotional intensity, or to invent predicaments in the personal lives of others. The impetus for their compositions, as in the case of the authors in earlier chapters, can be traced back to the rhetorical characterizations (ethopoieia) so popular at the time. Their compositions reveal little or no character development, sustained plot, or dramatic rhythm; instead, these writers use the letter as a kind of justification for a brief glimpse into the lives of (mostly) ordinary people. The letters are portraits, as it were, as opposed to moving pictures, soliloquies rather than dialogues. They present one side of an issue and usually leave the matter unresolved, open to multiple resolutions in the mind of the reader.
