‘Hail, my sweetest of masters:
We are well. I slept somewhat late owing to my slight cold, which
seems now to have subsided. So from five A.M. till nine, I spent
the time partly in reading some of Cato’s Agriculture, partly
in writing not quite such wretched stuff, by heavens, as yesterday
… After easing my throat I went off to my father and attended
him at a sacrifice. Then we went to the luncheon. What do you think
I ate? A wee bit of bread, though I saw others devouring beans,
onions, and herrings full of roe. We then worked hard at grape-gathering,
and had a good sweat, and were merry … After six o’clock
we came home. … Then I had a long chat with my mother …
My talk was this: “What do you think my Fronto is now doing?”
Then she: “And what do you think my Gratia is doing?”
… Whilst we were chattering in this way and disputing which
of us loved the one or other of you two the better, the gong sounded,
an intimation of my father had gone to his bath. So we had supper
after we had bathed in the oil-press room … After coming back,
before I turn over and snore, I get my task done and give my dearest
of masters an account of the day’s doings, and if I could
miss him more, I would not grudge wasting away a little more. Farewell,
my Fronto, wherever you are, most honey-sweet, my love, my delight.
How is it between you and me? I love you and you are away’
(In Foucault, 1988: 28-29).
As can be seen Fronto was not only his master, but also his lover.
In order to treat with more precision
what Professor J.D. Ramírez (this volume) pointed out in the
symposium, private reading is not privative of a civilized bourgeois
history of manners. History of technique needs to be analysed much
more carefully. One of the problems is to suppose that all of these
practices are necessarily progressive
