Preface -- Administrative epistolography in ancient empires : an introduction / Epistolography in the ancient near east -- Some like it hot : reflections on the historical "Temperature" of letters from Mesopotamian royal archives / Special cases and legal matters : diction and function of letters in the state of the third dynasty of Ur (2110-2003 BC) / To write or not to write : the duty of information towards the king in the amorite near east (20th-17th centuries B.C.) / Les lettres des rois d'A¿Ł¿Łur d©♭couvertes © Kanis (XIXe si©·cle av. J.-C.) / Royal pen pals : the kings of Assyria in correspondence with officials, clients and total strangers (8th and 7th centuries BC) / Doing the king's work : perceptions of service in the Assyrian royal correspondence / Idiolects and identities in the Neo-Assyrian epistolary corpus / Rhetorics, politeness, persuasion and argumentation in late babylonian epistolography : the contrast between official correspondence and private letters / Royal strategies of representation and the language(s) of power : some considerations on the audience and the dissemination of the achaemenid royal inscriptions / Epistolography in the classical world -- Amtliche Ermahnungsbriefe aus dem hellenistischen ©gypten / Communications between city and king in the Hellenistic East / Die Korrespondenz hellenistischer und r©œmischer Herrscher aus der Perspektive modernen Managements / Three revolutions in government / The epistolary genre of classical antiquity and the epigraphy of early imperial galatia : the 'Appendix' to the res gestae / Die r©œmischen Amtstr©Þger und die sozialen Gruppen im Imperium Romanum : der Reflex in der epigraphischen Dokumentation / Tradition, precedent, and power in roman Egypt / Epistolography in late antiquity and early Islam -- "The augusti and caesars say" : imperial communication in a collegiate monarchy / Diktion und Funktionalit©Þt verwaltungsinterner Korrespondenz von Amtstr©Þgern des Sicherheitswesens im sp©Þtantiken ©gypten / Des villageois en qu©®te de lettres officielles : le cas des p©♭titionnaires d'Aphrodite (Egypte, Vie s. ap. J.-C.) / The Rhetoric of power and the voice of reason : tensions between central and local in the correspondence of Qurra ibn Shar♯±k / Empireness in Arabic letter formulae / Performatives in Arabic administrative speech