Pliny the Book-Maker: Betting on Posterity in the Epistles 0198729464, 9780198729464

Citation preview

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

P L I N Y TH E B O O K - M A K E R

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

Pliny the Book-Maker Betting on Posterity in the Epistles

Edited by I L A R I A M A RC H E S I

1

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # Oxford University Press 2015 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2015 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014953744 ISBN 978–0–19–872946–4 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

Contents List of Abbreviations List of Contributors

vii ix

Introduction Ilaria Marchesi

1

1. The Publication of Pliny’s Letters John Bodel Introduction The manuscript tradition and forms of publication in Pliny’s day The introductory epistle and Book 1 Books 1–5 Book 9 Books 7 and 8: Formal balances Books 7 and 8: Thematic connections Conclusion Appendix to Chapter 1

13 13 20 42 57 74 86 93 103 105

2. Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2 Christopher Whitton

109

3. Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader Ruth Morello

144

4. Not Dark Yet . . . : Reading to the End of Pliny’s Nine-Book Collection Roy Gibson

185

5. Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts: Pliny’s Villas as Editorial Places Ilaria Marchesi

223

References General Index Index of Passages Discussed

253 275 277

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

List of Abbreviations ANRW

H. Temporini and W. Haase, eds, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Berlin, 1972–.

CAH 112

A. K. Bowman, P. Garnsey, and D. Rathbone, eds, The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, vol. 11: The High Empire, AD 70–192, Cambridge, 2000.

CEL

P. Cugusi, ed., Corpus Epistularum Latinarum Papyris Tabulis Ostracis Servatarum (Papyrologica Florentina 23), Florence, 1992–.

CIL

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Berlin, 1863–.

ILS

H. Dessau, ed., Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, Berlin, 1892–1916.

PIR

E. Groag, A. Stein, L. Petersen, and K. Wachtel, eds, Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saeculi I, II, III, 2nd edn, Berlin, 1933–.

RE

G. Wissowa, W. Kroll, K. Mittelhaus, and K. Ziegler, eds, Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart, 1894–1978.

RP 1–7

R. Syme, Roman Papers, Oxford (vols 1–2, E. Badian, ed., 1979; vol. 3, A. R. Birley, ed., 1984; vols 4–5, A. R. Birley, ed., 1988; vols 6–7, A. R. Birley, ed., 1991).

SB

D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Cicero: Epistulae Ad Familiares, 2 vols, Cambridge, 1977.

2

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

List of Contributors John Bodel is W. Duncan MacMillan II Professor of Classics and Professor of History at Brown University. He studies Roman history and Latin literature, especially prose authors of the early Empire, and he has special interests in the Roman novels and the Trajanic literature of Pliny and Tacitus. Much of his research involves inscriptions, and since 1995 he has directed the U.S. Epigraphy Project, the purpose of which is to gather and share information about Greek and Latin inscriptions in the USA. Roy Gibson is Professor of Latin at the University of Manchester. With Ruth Morello he is co-author of Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: an Introduction (2012), and co-editor of Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts (2011) and Re-imagining Pliny the Younger (2003). With Chris Whitton, he is co-editor of Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: the Epistles of Pliny the Younger (2015). Ilaria Marchesi is Associate Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Hofstra University. Her research interests range from Latin satire to Roman epistolography, and she is currently working on the satirical aspects of Martial’s epigrams. She is the author of The Art of Pliny’s Letters: A Poetics of Allusion in the Private Correspondence (2008). Ruth Morello is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Manchester. Her work focuses on ancient letters and Latin historiography. With A. D. Morrison she is co-editor of Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography (2007). With Roy Gibson she is co-author of Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: an Introduction (2012), and co-editor of Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts (2011) and Re-imagining Pliny the Younger (2003). Christopher Whitton is Lecturer in Classical Literature at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College. He works on Latin literature of the early Roman empire, with particular interests in prose and Trajanic literature. His commentary on Pliny Epistles 2 was published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Introduction Ilaria Marchesi

Posteritati suae interfuit. Pliny Ep. 2.1.1

In addition to his Panegyricus for Trajan, Pliny left us ten books of correspondence. Nine of them are addressed to his familiares on more or less mundane matters, one to the Emperor on matters of public interest. Naturally, what we now read as an orderly collection, the Epistles, was not always that. According to the authorial fiction in the short text that we today read as the opening epistle of Book 1, the Epistles began as individual pieces of correspondence that the author, a busy lawyer and civil servant at the turn of the second century ce, had graced with a little more editorial attention than normal. These books of carefully edited, organized, and published correspondence have, in other words, an internal history. How, in what order and through what stages, why, and indeed at what cost, did these pieces of writing become first a book of collected epistles, then a growing multi-volume edition, and finally a nine- (or even ten-) book organic whole? Neither the opening gambit of Epistles 1.1—in a way, the cover-letter for the whole work—nor any other item in the collection addresses these questions. Unlike many epistolary corpora from antiquity, we know that these texts received the editorial attention of their author. What we don’t know, however, is when that process took place and what it entailed. Similarly, and just as importantly, we are left to ask what consequences this making of the book may have for our understanding of the Epistles. This collection of essays attempts to investigate precisely these questions.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

2

Ilaria Marchesi

Varied in approach, focusing on different areas of Pliny’s epistolary collection, and adopting diverse styles of inquiry, the essays gathered in this volume converge on the study of the ‘making’ of Pliny’s ‘book’ and on the reading strategies that the resulting product invites readers to deploy. As they investigate the traces that the formation process left in the texts of the Epistles, all the essays also reflect on the roles that Pliny designed for his audience and, in a way, model themselves on it. In Pliny’s Epistles, the readership is just as multi-layered as the process that produced the collection, including the named addressees of the letters, the contemporary readers among which these texts are circulated in collected form, and an ideal ‘posterity’ to which the book is entrusted as to a final audience. This is the public Pliny’s texts at once project and construct: an imagined community of literate readers, trained by the Epistles themselves in the art of detecting the subtle signs connecting the individual tesserae in the mosaic of the collection, and ultimately proficient in negotiating their meaning. The unusual format of this collection—an extensive study followed by four shorter chapters—represents the culmination of several interwoven threads of research, the layout of which it is perhaps best to trace from the start. The project had its origin in a one-day conference organized by Lisa Mignone at Brown University in October 2010, at which two of the papers were first presented. Its roots, however, run deeper. The Brown meeting helped bring into focus the fact that, although they were approaching the issue of Pliny’s editorial strategies from quite different angles, the papers could engage in a dialogue because they relied on a shared set of procedures. This was a combination of working assumptions, argumentative strategies, and detailed local observations that the speakers had developed in the wake of John Bodel’s unpublished essay on Pliny’s work as editor of his own letters. That paper, which Bodel had circulated among colleagues in various stages of development, had provided students of Pliny with a common ground for understanding his collection as a complex literary artifact, one that invited contemporary and future readership to play an active hermeneutic role.1 On that

1 Four recent volumes appeal more than once to the seminal arguments in Bodel’s essay, while referring to it as forthcoming or unpublished: Marchesi 2008; Carlon 2009; Gibson and Morello 2012; and Gibson and Whitton, 2015. In order to preserve the stylistic integrity of the piece, the original American spelling and style has been preserved in Chapter 1.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Introduction

3

occasion, in other words, it became clear that Bodel’s essay had acted as the trigger for an approach to Pliny in which philological and cultural-historical arguments might be pressed into service in reconstructing the carefully layered process of signification active in his Epistles. Bodel’s essay now finds its home, together with the research that has in some ways grown out of it, in this volume. What Bodel uses to reconstruct the phases in publication which moved Pliny’s collection from a monobiblos to a nine-book edition, spanning several intermediate stages, are the traces of a process of authorial ‘book-making’ that are still legible in its final product. As we shall see, Bodel’s arguments are primarily based upon the form in which Pliny’s books have come down to us (with partial indexes of correspondents) and the modes of publication of short miscellaneous collections of occasional works in his day (in various individual libelli or collectively, in rolls or in codices, with prose prefaces or introductory epistles). Equally central to his observations, however, are literary-critical arguments about significant placements, thematic and verbal correspondences across books, and intertextually poignant analogues for Pliny’s literary aspirations. The remainder of the essays collected here are in tune with Bodel’s reasoning on the phases of publication of Pliny’s work and with one another. Moving beyond Bodel’s field of inquiry, they investigate not simply the mechanics of Pliny’s activity as editor of his own texts, but also the effects that this work has on the reception of those texts. What in the first essay is an attention to the clues deposited on the many layers of internal correspondences in the complex semiotic organism of the Epistles becomes in the new analyses the willingness to assign significance, along with thematic and stylistic links, to such elements as letter addressees and numbering, verbal echoes, and poetic allusions. These are all elements that may be shown to serve as connectors for the epistles, in the reading practice of an engaged audience—one composed, that is, of readers who advance from one individual letter to the next, while maintaining a constant awareness of the collection as a whole. All contributors have accepted the challenge created by Pliny’s activities as self-editor and have become that engaged posterity to which his editorial work was ultimately addressed. By investigating the nature and modalities of this process they have become the critical and responsive audience that Pliny’s collection, no less than Bodel’s essay, projects and constructs.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

4

Ilaria Marchesi

There are two more areas of critical discourse in which this volume is rooted. In the questions it broaches and in the methods it adopts, Pliny the Book-Maker continues in the wake of, and contributes momentum to, the wider re-orientation of Pliny studies that has been underway for the last fifteen years and has seen the shift in focus from (crudely put) socio-historical data-mining campaigns to a more explicitly literary engagement with Pliny’s texts. Pliny’s collection is increasingly perceived as an organic work, one for which arguments can and should stretch beyond the confines of individual books and mobilize all textual and para-textual elements defining the individual epistles. In paying attention to numerical distribution, recurring addressees, thematic anticipations, and even lexical bridges between individual pieces in the collection, the essays in the present volume advocate, each in its different way, the same understanding of Pliny’s nuanced strategies of authorial self-presentation and the ‘literariness’ of the Epistles themselves. Together they invite readers to recognize and appreciate the subtler signals of intratextual connection linking letters and books to one another.2 At the same time, considering these and other patterns as traces of Pliny’s editorial strategies and publication tactics allows these essays to shift some of the interpretive weight from modern specialized readers to the original reading context. Seen in the light of the author’s dialogue with his audience, these techniques may actually be shown to be more than the simple consequence (or, worse, a mere by-product) of our contemporary formalist readings. Once they are recognized as functional in the author’s editorial strategy to make each book into a coherent whole and in turn the whole collection into an artistic unity, the elements of what one may call the ‘art of structural allusion’, which feature prominently in contemporary readings of Pliny’s epistles, appear ever more likely to have existed from the start. If they are an integral part of the original composition technique—a strategy which can be historically and culturally contextualized, as we shall see—there are fewer chances that these features are the result simply of a modern concern.

2

Different in many ways, but perhaps with a similar interest in exploring this ‘other’ side of Pliny, are Ludolph 1997; Hoffer 1999; Henderson 2002a; Castagna and Lefèvre 2003; Gibson and Morello 2003, Méthy 2007; Ash 2013, in addition to the monographs listed in the previous note.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Introduction

5

In the attention they pay to the wide array of inter- and intratextual markers undergirding Pliny’s collection, the essays here also respond to the current critical interest in the history of the ancient book. Recent studies of editorial practice, ‘publishing’ strategies, and dissemination patterns of collected texts in Greco-Roman antiquity have converged on seeing the ancient book as a semantically charged, overdetermined unity, a literary object whose meaning depends as much on the ordering of its parts and the dialogue between them as on the interpretation of each of its components in isolation. Taken together, these essays thus contribute to the debate over the nature of classical book-making, by insisting that similar—if not, perhaps, the same— mechanisms as those that structure the ancient book of poetry may be seen at work in the genesis of prose-collections, Pliny’s in particular.3 As the result of a process of editorial selection, ordering, editing, copying, and distributing—in short, as the product of a multi-layered compositional process—the letters in Pliny’s collection may, and perhaps should, be read with the same attention as ancient poetry collections are studied. This kind of closer reading may actually yield similarly rich results. Attention to form has never been an exclusive domain of poetry; especially not in Roman culture, a culture in which different genres and modes of writing ultimately relied on a common definition of literary textuality and on a similar set of techniques to achieve it. * *

*

One task of an introduction to such a volume is to introduce the pieces that follow and the interconnected strains of thought that they develop. In the case of the essays collected here, product as they are of ongoing dialogue among their authors, this is a particularly easy task. For its role as catalyst for the discussion Bodel’s initial essay may serve as a fil rouge, the common thread upon which to organize this 3 The bibliography on the semantic importance of the book is vast. On Hellenistic poetry books, the models in many ways for Roman collections, see Gutzwiller 1998; Barchiesi 2005; Hutchinson 2008; Acosta-Hughes 2002 and 2011. On the Catullusfrage and Catullus’ book as a case study of organizational semiosis at the core, if not at the start of Roman collection-publishing, see Dettmer 1997; Claes 2002; Skinner 2003; and, most recently, Du Quesnay and Woodman 2012. On Augustan poetry collections and their role as models for classicizing editions, see at least the Arethusa 1980 special issue, Anderson 1986; Barchiesi 2001. Finally, on the book-making of Pliny’s contemporary, Martial, see Citroni 1988; Fowler 1995; Scherf 1998; Roman 2001; and Fitzgerald 2007a.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

6

Ilaria Marchesi

survey. First, however, I should perhaps devote a few words to Bodel’s study iuxta propria principia, addressing its role in the question of the publication of Pliny’s epistles. Bodel’s primary contribution is that it gets the scholarly debate unstuck and propels it beyond the impasse reached in the late 1980s. The history of the critical debate may be summarized briefly. SherwinWhite’s dating of the individual books, which included a devaluation of the ninth book as an incoherent series of often trivial notes, was resisted in part by Syme, who pointed to strategically placed letters, all coherently addressing the issue of fame and survival with posterity (some of them, significantly, in dialogue with Tacitus). Syme’s revised dating of the publication phases of the collection came, in turn, to be challenged by Murgia’s counter-hypothesis, which advocated a consideration of Books 1–9 as a meaningful and coherent unity, a work published by Pliny himself and one whose relation to the previous, partial and superseded editions was to remain undetermined.4 Bodel’s paper challenges these two negative assumptions and invites us to consider at the same time the coherence that the nine-book form imposes on the collection, together with the traces of the previous stages in that progress. The key to addressing Pliny’s phases of composition and strategies of publication of the work is, for Bodel, the mapping of internal correspondences across letters. Particularly important are the instances of subtle foreshadowing, both within individual books and across groups of books. Based on the system of signals prospectively referring the reader from one unit in the collection to others, Bodel argues that Pliny’s collected epistles developed from a single-book edition, through intermediate groupings, to its final, authorial, nine-book form. Any argument that relies on a subtle (and evasive) body of evidence is doubtless destined to meet with only partial agreement. Yet, quite apart from its conclusions, this essay provides important lessons in methodology. By identifying several new connections between epistles, Bodel’s research paved the way for the close readings of Pliny’s epistles which consider further strata of signification present in the letters, beyond their subject and theme. An example is his reconstruction of two coexisting arrangements of letters in Book 1. For 4 See Sherwin-White 1966; Syme 1985b (= RP 5.483ff.); Murgia 1985 (most recently taken up in Edwards 2008). Detailed argumentation and extensive relevant bibliography may be found, of course, in the body of Bodel’s essay in Chapter 1.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Introduction

7

Bodel this book is organized according to a scheme based on the combination of stylistic and thematic features in the individual letters; this system, however, is complicated by another one, based on the alternation of singularly marked addressees. The first arrangement, for the discovery of which Bodel credits Merwald’s 1964 dissertation, allows readers to see the book as a balanced sequence of three interlocked micro-cycles, each introducing variations in the rhetorical development of interconnected themes. The concentric and interlocking thematic frames Merwald identified encompass the themes of mutual editing of literary works (emendatio), intellectual leisure (otium), the pursuit of culture and refinement (studia), the praise of the learned (laudatio docti), and the bonds of friendship (amicitia). Interspersed with these, however, and marking crucial junctures in the overall disposition, are two letters that feature Regulus (1.5 and 1.20), which, as Bodel notes, lie five letters from start and end of the book respectively. This second arrangement is, thus, coextensive and interlocking with Merwald’s, providing a supplementary and yet essential reading pattern for Book 1. This new model is also marked by a subtle but important factor: the alternation of two individual addressees, Septicius Clarus and Tacitus, the only individuals to receive more than one epistle in the book. Clarus receives 1.1 and 1.15, Tacitus the interlocking pair 1.6 and 1.20, in each case a diptych on the related topics of desidia and studia, one more serious, one more playful. These two responding groups of epistles frame the book, and they do so by using a five-letter interval system of signposting which draws the reader’s attention to the careful arrangement of addressees, topics, and compositional style in the collection. This final observation on the structuring role played by the spacing of epistles reinforces the notion that the internal disposition of the book is a meaningful factor in compositional design. The same attention to design in the macro-textual disposition of elements within the book, and in particular the question of centres, underlines the argument Christopher Whitton develops in his essay (Chapter 2) on structure and design in Book 2.5 Whitton’s chapter hinges on a set of observations about the way Book 2 retrospectively interacts with its antecedent and, projecting Pliny’s collection beyond the confines of a 5 For further intersections with the argument developed here, see also the observations on the double framing of the collection developed in Whitton 2010, 2012, and 2013a. The focus on Book 2 is reinforced in Whitton 2013b.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

8

Ilaria Marchesi

single volume, eventually prepares the reader for the addition of other elements to the growing epistolary corpus. One of the crucial vindications in the article is that modern (bookformat) readers should make an effort to appreciate the feel for centres that ancient (scroll-format) readers did have—be it the centre of a book, or of a section, or even of an epistle within it. While this entails no depreciation of the charged areas of the beginning and ending of individual units in Pliny’s collection, Whitton’s study of these intermediary gravity centres produces a twofold set of results. On the one hand, his attention to centres in the book triggers the appreciation of small-scale concentrically framed ‘architextures’ in epistles that turn out to be carefully (and just as concentrically) designed. A case in point is, for instance, Epistle 2.17, the first villa letter, to which Whitton devotes considerable interpretive energy. On the other hand, attention to the centre of the individual book produces an appreciation of Pliny’s ‘grand designs’, his consideration of the rhetorically balanced disposition of micro- and macro-elements in the letters. These designs are delicate objects. They are always in tension with the fragmentary quality of the material they subsume, as Whitton’s investigation of Epistle 2.5 as meta-epistolary text suggests. They are also inevitably shifting, since they depend on the different possible approaches readers take to the book and the individual items in it. Pondered reading and sequential reading unsettle the reader’s sense of the collection, as apparently happens with the gradual darkening that Whitton detects in Book 2 and reads as a presage of the crepuscular quality of Book 9. Ruth Morello’s essay on sequential reading in Book 8 (Chapter 3) is also concerned with tonal shifts, but on a smaller scale. Morello takes as her starting point a unique diptych, the two letters on Calpurnia’s miscarriage (8.10 and 8.11), which are clearly designed to form a significant unit. She tackles Pliny’s different affective and tonal framing of the same ‘fact’ for two different addressees, Calpurnia’s grandfather and aunt, as a crucial instance of the Book’s overarching call to readers to position themselves morally and emotionally in relation to the issues presented in the letters: the variance is far from being just an exercise in epistolary etiquette or rhetorical deftness. In Morello’s compelling analysis the letters open up to reveal, in their tonal opposition, literary antecedents in the elegiac canon: the paired contrasting poems about Corinna’s abortion in Ovid (Amores 2.13–14) and Cynthia’s illness in Propertius (2.28a–28b). In the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Introduction

9

reversal of ethical responses they elicit from readers, who are asked to move from blame to compassion, these intertexts also give the miscarriage letters a central role in Pliny’s ethical exploration. This exploration is a hermeneutical training-ground for Pliny’s readers too: in Morello’s reading, Book 8 becomes the terrain on which Pliny invites readers to take what she calls a ‘pedestrian’, gradual, and shifting approach to the issues he raises in his letters—above all the negotiation of social disparities.6 Pliny does not simply invite his audience to appreciate the deft rhetorical pursuit of relativist approaches to the real, but also exposes the moral implications of one’s individual actions and role in society. He often does this through meaningful juxtapositions: by paying attention to these, Morello’s essay invites appreciation of the many trails of language, images, and themes connecting individual items in the sequential disposition of the letters. The result is a more precise, more articulate sense of what was entailed in Pliny’s observance of the principle of varietas. In taking one step further into the true ending of the collection, Roy Gibson’s piece (Chapter 4) examines Pliny’s strategy of content distribution and suggests that the links uniting Books 1 and 9 may be made to bear semantic weight. Building on Bodel’s re-evaluation (and valuing) of the authorial strategies detectable in its last unit, Gibson targets the specific function of the final book in the collection. He sees it as embodying a retrospective invitation for readers to revisit and progressively re-evaluate the tone and substance of the entire corpus, with a new awareness of essential pieces of information which are allowed to appear only in its final instalment. Whereas Bodel focuses on the prospective value of intratextuality, Gibson emphasizes the reverse role it may play, and presents Book 9 as an unanticipated corrective to Book 1. Common to both approaches is the sense that the invitation to re-reading that Book 9 imposes on the optimistic narrative of Book 1 amounts to a deliberate sign of completion, marking the closing movement of the collection.7

6 On sequential reading (applied to a section of Book 6, but with considerations valid beyond its confines), see chapter 2 in Gibson and Morello 2012: 53–68. 7 For the pointed argument about tonal darkening in the collection, see Gibson 2011b; for the role of addressees, see also chapter 5 in Gibson and Morello 2012: 136–68.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

10

Ilaria Marchesi

Bodel uses the detection of the carefully constructed symmetries between themes and formal features of epistles occupying the same prominent position—letters 1–3—in Books 1, 7, and 9, to argue in favour of seeing a conjunct publication of Books 7 and 8, with Book 9 as a later, final addition. Gibson takes the same awareness of the existing links between themes, situations, and verbal echoes, and invests them with the role of tone-setting retrospective indications for the reader. In the wake of the system of correspondences thus established, Gibson extends also to Epistles 9.13, 9.19, and 9.27 the function of re-orienting correctives. These letters are designed to bind the two book-ending units in Pliny’s collection together, making the collection into a whole. For Gibson, these letters dealing with the turmoil of the early years after Domitian’s demise—the chronological territory of the first book of the epistles—together imbue the end of the Epistles with a more sombre and reflective hue. The facts now added to their dossiers, for instance, cast an ambiguous light on Verginius Rufus (in 9.19), for his position in the year of the four emperors, no less than on Pliny himself, the revenge-exacting ‘prosecutor’ of Publicius Certus (in 9.13). The final retrospection comes to balance the optimistic light that scholars have tended, perhaps too easily, to assume brightens not just the opening but the whole of Pliny’s collection. One last element in Bodel’s essay is worth mentioning for the effect it has had on one more essay collected here: his observations on Pliny’s naming practices across books as an index of bookgrouping and collected circulation. In the overall argument, they are used to suggest the existence of a five-book intermediary edition of the letters, but they are open to a wider application. According to Bodel, the fact that Regulus is formally named (praenomen and cognomen) in Epistle 6.2, after references to him had been shortened to the simple cognomen in the intervening epistles (one of which is addressed to the same recipient as 6.2), suggests that Book 6 had been released independently from the coherent conglomerate of Books 1–5. In another area of his reconstruction, Bodel similarly advances the notion that Pliny could refer one or more of his addressees to previous items in his collection as texts that were already in the public domain. The case in point is the reference that 9.19 makes to 6.10, and Bodel uses it as an indication that Books 6–8 were most likely added serially to the collection, never resulting in a larger unit.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Introduction

11

Pliny’s collection contains attestations of the circulation of the epistles as a finished literary and editorial product, but discloses no detail in the history of its actual making. Bodel’s attention to precisely this kind of tantalizing evidence has triggered my inquiry into the social and cultural restrictions that Pliny accepted and enforced when (not) talking about the actual making of his book (Chapter 5). While keeping in focus the internal dynamics of the publication process and the subtler signals that the editing process produced in the texts, my concluding essay is concerned with the dissection of a different object. What interests me is the curious connection that appears to exist in his letters between the discourse on villas, in particular their architectural features, and that of literary creation, in particular the urgency of producing publications. The argument points to a double absence that accompanies both discourses and their intersections: the near-total silence Pliny maintains on the editorial process leading to the formation of his collected epistles and the almost absolute absence of furniture from the description he produces of his villas.8 Opening up the focus to include Pliny’s often silenced, and yet inescapable, dialogue with Martial on matters of literary endurance and the material side of it, my essay suggests that Pliny and Martial may be taken as opposite polarities when it came to the sociological connotations of publishing one’s own work. As highly self-aware and active editors of their respective collections, they worked in almost parallel fashion, and with substantial chronological overlap, but with radically diverging assumptions about the materiality of what they were producing. In their contrasting attitudes toward the literary representation of the objects of daily life, I argue, we may see how differently they reacted to the possibility of representing their activity as publishing authors. In comparing Martial’s openness and Pliny’s reluctance to discuss the material aspects of the process of cultural production, my essay attempts to give a sense of what it meant—in terms of social, cultural, and literary negotiations—to publish one’s own work at Rome at the turn of the second century ce. To put it another way: what kind of well-choreographed balancing act was needed to ensure that one’s work would garner immediate market 8 From a different, but related point of view, see also Marchesi 2013, exploring the Pliny–Martial–Regulus connection in the transition between Books 3 and 4 of the Epistles.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

12

Ilaria Marchesi

availability and success with its historical contemporary audience, while guaranteeing its long-lasting appeal with a future hypothetical one? While the footnotes to these introductory pages have provided some external framework for each essay contained in this volume, pointing to the micro-context of the individual scholar’s research in which they arose, the body of the argument has concentrated on the internal connections linking them to John Bodel’s work and to one another. As the reader will be able to appreciate, the interconnections also extend to individual chapters. The shared interest of several essays in the darkening of the collection has been already noted. To that one may add that epistles such as 2.17 on villas seem to have elicited a curiously strong interest, for instance, in both the second and last essay in this volume. Similarly, the symmetrical placement of letters from both ends of individual books is a feature stressed no less in Whitton’s than in Gibson’s essay. Finally, the implicit dialogue Pliny establishes with Martial’s epigrams, especially on the differing attitudes toward Saturnalian leisure and licence and the cultivation of literature in the midst of or isolation from the festive atmosphere of that holiday, recurs across at least three chapters. We find it in Whitton’s exploration of the progressively narrower and narrowly focused spaces of Epistle 2.17, in Morello’s argument on 8.7, one of Pliny’s light-hearted epistles to Tacitus, and in my essay on villa rooms, their scant degree of furnishing, and the literary works whose production is imagined to take place there. These are only some of the examples of the varied types and the various levels of interweaving among the essays. There are, in other words, multiple forms of coherence that balance the variety intrinsic to their individual approaches. It is certainly possible that other, subtler and perhaps more revealing webs of interconnections will be more evident to the reader than to the editor of this collection. But that is exactly the kind of openness that the editor of a work on Pliny as editor should hope for.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

1 The Publication of Pliny’s Letters John Bodel In Memoriam Charles E. Murgia

INTRODUCTION C. PLINIUS SEPTICIO SUO S. Frequenter hortatus es ut epistulas, si quas paulo curatius scripsissem, colligerem publicaremque. Collegi non seruato temporis ordine (neque enim historiam componebam), sed ut quaeque in manus uenerat. Superest ut nec te consilii nec me paeniteat obsequii. Ita enim fiet, ut eas quae adhuc neglectae iacent requiram et si quas addidero non supprimam. Vale. (Pliny, Ep. 1.1)

In introducing his literary correspondence to the public, the younger Pliny professed to have gathered the letters ‘as each had come into his hands’, without regard to the order of their composition. Ostensibly intended to preface only a first book or group of books published, Pliny’s modest disclaimer now stands at the head of a nine-volume collection of his private correspondence, where it naturally seems to refer to the entire corpus. The dates at which the letters were composed and published have long been of interest to historians, since they concern persons and events important in the political history of the period; more recently the intertextual connections they exhibit with contemporary authors have been shown to implicate much of the literary history of the era as well.1 1 See e.g. Marchesi 2008: 97–206; Woodman 2009: 32–5; and Whitton 2010 (Tacitus); Power 2010 (Suetonius); Marchesi 2013 (Martial).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

14

John Bodel

Mommsen long ago exposed part of Pliny’s conceit by showing that the datable letters within each book fall within narrow limits and that the books themselves are arranged in sequential order.2 The chronological framework that Mommsen then went on to erect on this foundation, however, which assumed that all the letters in a book belonged to the period defined by the earliest and latest datable letters and that each book was published shortly after the date of its latest letter, was overly rigid, so that a generation of critics assailing the structure at vulnerable points succeeded in undermining confidence in the soundness of the whole.3 It was not until Syme and Sherwin-White had shored up Mommsen’s edifice nearly a century later that Pliny’s arrangement of his material within and among individual books could be investigated on a sound basis.4 Following Mommsen, Sherwin-White established ‘book-dates’ for each of the nine volumes of private correspondence based on the range of securely datable letters included in each book. Working from this general outline, he was then able to show that Pliny aimed for balance and variety within individual books. This aim for balance within each book became for Sherwin-White a guiding rule when it came to considering Pliny’s method of compilation, which in turn impinged heavily upon his consideration of the sequence of publication. The presence of three obituaries (of Silius Italicus, Larcius Macedo, and Martial) in Book 3, for example, he found ‘surprising on grounds of distribution and variety if Pliny was already planning a fourth volume’, since Book 4 is light on exitus illustrium, with only one (4.21); this overload of a single type, he believed, showed that in Book 3 ‘Pliny had nearly exhausted his stock of good letters.’5 At the same time, he imagined that certain letters on topics already represented in the volume being compiled might have been held over for publication in a later volume. As a result, related letters on 2 Mommsen 1869: 366–88. Where not otherwise indicated, source references are to Pliny’s Epistulae and dates are ce. 3 Chief among the critics of Mommsen were Peter 1872 and Otto 1919: 17–43, whose scepticism long held the field. 4 Syme 1958: 660–4; Sherwin-White 1966: 20–69, esp. 50–6. Despite much uncertainty about detail, the chronological sequence of the book-dates has never been disproved, nor has the integrity of the basic framework been compromised: see Gibson and Morello 2012: 16, 19–20, on what Gibson 2012: 62 calls the macrochronology of Pliny’s letters, in which the books follow a chronological sequence but the letters within individual books do not. 5 Sherwin-White 1966: 52–4 (cf. 32, 50); see below, p. 70 n. 151 in this chapter.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

15

a particular theme are sometimes distributed over more than one book, so that a nexus of serial links seemed to join different sections of the correspondence.6 Syme had already raised the possibility of authorial revision and editing in the case of paired letters such as 3.14, on the murder by his slaves of the praetorian senator Larcius Macedo, and 8.14, involving the alleged implication of the household of the consul Afranius Dexter in his demise in 105, and other signs of artistic arrangement have been detected elsewhere in the correspondence.7 Interpretation of these phenomena hinges on the sequence of publication of the various books—or groups of books, for it has long been apparent that some, at least, of Pliny’s volumes were released conjointly in blocks of two, three, or more.8 The questions that have dominated discussion since Mommsen’s day are: how many volumes at one time, in what configurations, and when? Not surprisingly, in view of the tenuous nature of the arguments that can be advanced on the basis of a few fixed dates, the answers that have been 6 Sherwin-White 1966: 27–52. See now also Marchesi 2008: 22–7; Gibson and Morello 2012: 16, 19–20. 7 Syme 1958: 663. According to Syme, Mommsen assumed without cause that the nine books of letters were issued individually and in quick succession, beginning in 97, and ‘did not see that he had to prove it’ (662). Syme himself supposed that ‘the author, when editing (and supplementing) his previous output, was able to arrange the material in the light of subsequent events’—thus begging several questions that more recent readings have shown to be open and problematic. The clue for Syme was the ominous warning appended to the earlier anecdote (nec est quod quisquam possit esse securus, 3.14.5) that seemed to portend the later incident. He did not observe that the letters appear in identical positions within their books. See further below, pp. 55–6, on the placement of the letters concerning Regulus; note also Merwald’s early effort (1964) to discern structural order in the arrangement of letters throughout the nine books and Ludolph 1997 on Pliny’s ‘parade’ letters (1.1–8). Since the publication of Marchesi 2008, which demonstrated Pliny’s practice of linking adjacent letters on disparate themes through allusion to a common source, interest in the topic has flowered: note e.g. Power 2010: 141–51, on 5.5, 5.8, and 5.10, linked through Vergil; Whitton 2010, on 8.13–15 and the centrality of 8.14, linked through slavery; Gibson and Morello 2012: 53–68, on 6.1–17. Note also Gibson 2012, on the ordering of ancient letter collections, esp. 67–9 on ‘the Plinian model’ of artistic variety and significant juxtaposition. 8 Mommsen conceded the possibility of joint publication in the case of Books 1 and 2 (1869: 373 n. 1) and considered it likely with Books 8 and 9 (388). Asbach 1881 was the first to propose a more systematic publication of the correspondence by groups of books (1–3, 4, 5–6, 7–9). Peter’s well-known theory of a publication in triads (1901: 105–9) is refuted by Sherwin-White 1966: 52–4, who cautiously advances a more flexible scheme (1–2 [together or separately], 3, 4–6 or 3–6 or 4–7, 7, 8–9 or 7–9); cf. Gibson and Morello 2012: 19 and n. 42. For other proposals see the Appendix to this chapter.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

16

John Bodel

returned to these questions are nearly as numerous and diverse as the scholars who have addressed themselves to the problem. Difficulties of all sorts abound, but nowhere have the uncertainties that hamper reconstruction of the original sequence of publication proved more vexing than with the later books (7–9), where the customary difficulties of establishing a relative and absolute chronology are compounded by our ignorance of the year in which Pliny embarked on his mission to Bithynia (the generally accepted terminus ante quem for publication of the last book) and the apparently uneven quality of the material included in the selection. The paucity of clear references to contemporary events led Mommsen to despair of his rigidly sequential chronology and to posit a joint publication of Books 8 and 9—his one firm retreat from the position that Pliny produced each book independently.9 Sherwin-White remarked the scarcity of letters on political subjects and suggested that Pliny may have been running short of suitable material: in Book 7 the balanced distribution of topics characteristic of the early volumes (1–4) is only precariously maintained; in Book 8 private domestic themes predominate, and the sole representative of a type of letter frequently found in the earlier volumes, a detailed exposition of a contemporary cause célèbre (8.14, the companion piece to 3.14), concerns an event two years earlier than the bookdate of 107–8. In Book 9 the scheme breaks down entirely; contemporary material of genuine interest is scarcely to be found, and a number of inconsequential notes resurrected from the remnants of Pliny’s older correspondence are pressed into service in order to fill out the roll. Sherwin-White concluded that Pliny may have compiled the last two, or perhaps three, books in a hurry, shortly before he departed for Bithynia, whether that was in 109, 110, or later.10 In 1985 Syme adduced new inscriptional evidence to fix a terminus post quem of late 108 or early 109 for the composition of at least some letters in the last two books. At the same time he drew attention in passing to a concentration of letters in Book 9 on Pliny’s favorite theme of fame, particularly as it concerned the parity of his literary reputation with that of Tacitus; perhaps, Syme suggested, ‘the author may have been saving up these items for his concluding book’.11 In the same year Charles Murgia challenged the interpretation of Pliny’s 9 11

10 Mommsen 1869: 388. Sherwin-White 1966: 37–41, 49–50, 56. Syme 1985b: 183 (= RP 5.487–8), citing 9.14, 9.19, 9.23, 9.27, and 9.31.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

17

last book as a miscellany of material drawn from the entire period covered by the published correspondence. While accepting in substance Sherwin-White’s view of the original composition of the earlier books, Murgia argued that when Pliny came to the final installment, he did not publish a single book containing a mixed assemblage of new, old, and reworked material but a comprehensive edition comprising versions (possibly revised, rearranged, or reselected) of the first eight volumes along with a new final book designed to cap the collection. According to Murgia, the letters as we now have them represent the arrangement of this omnibus edition and were meant to be read as a unified corpus; about the form and contents of the original volumes, and hence also about their original dates of publication, we can have no reliable information.12 If correct, Murgia’s thesis has wide implications not only for our understanding of Pliny’s literary methods but also for the political and literary history of the period covered by the private correspondence, roughly the years 98 to 109. In principle, at least, the date of any reported event, or the direction of any presumed literary borrowing or influence in the first eight books that is determined solely by the presumed book-date of the volume in which it appears, comes under doubt. Murgia was mainly concerned with establishing the literary relationship between the Dialogus and certain of Pliny’s letters, especially in Book 1, that seem to exhibit signs of stylistic borrowing from Tacitus; the composition of Pliny’s collection was of interest only insofar as it justified the reliance on any single letter or group of letters to fix chronological termini for Tacitus’ work.13 Murgia does not, in fact, maintain that any of the letters we now find in the first 12 Murgia 1985: 197–202. Stout 1954 had already suggested that ‘if [the private] letters had been published in units of one or more books at a time, [Pliny] may have brought them together and published them as a collection about 109 or 110’ (1); elsewhere (53) he assumed the existence of a ‘nine-book corpus published under [Pliny’s] own supervision’. 13 At issue is the date of Tacitus’ Dialogus: against the communis opinio of a publication sometime between 102 and 107, Murgia 1980 argued that the work was published, or at least informally circulated in a completed form, early in the reign of Nerva. That date, if correct, has interesting implications for the author’s possible literary aspirations (cf. Barnes 1986), but in a literary world in which friends regularly exchanged draft manuscripts, too much remains uncertain about the direction of any presumed literary influences to date one insecurely datable work against another, and Murgia’s arguments have found little favor: see Häussler 1987: 84 n. 6; Brink 1994; and Mayer 2001: 22–7; cf. Woodman 2009a: 331, ‘102?’. For the same reason, a recent and attractive argument that Tacitus, when writing Agricola (securely datable to 97/98),

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

18

John Bodel

eight books underwent substantial revision between initial publication and the form in which it has come down to us, nor, in the end does he believe the sequence of book-dates worked out since Mommsen’s day to be seriously compromised. But the process of pruning and possible reselection that Murgia envisages, with its consequent implication that certain letters now in our corpus may have been placed in their current positions only in the comprehensive edition, whereas others originally appearing in the initial publications of the individual volumes (such as introductory or dedicatory epistles at the start of each new installment) may have been omitted when the correspondence was reissued as a unified corpus, raises important questions about the literary character of Pliny’s collection, questions that call for a more comprehensive investigation than Murgia was able to provide. For if it is true that ‘Books 1–9 are meant to be considered as a unit’ and that ‘each book is dependent on others for full understanding’,14 then we shall be doing Pliny a serious disservice if we persist in regarding the composition of his collection as merely tangential to his literary aims. What principles informed Pliny’s organization of his material within and among the nine books, and what, if anything, can be deduced about his artistic goals from any patterns of arrangement that may emerge? Despite a recent swell of interest in intertextual and thematic relations among letters within (and occasionally across) books, and in the internal organization of individual books, the overall architecture of the collection—how the various pieces of the structure were fitted together—has thus far attracted little attention. Barchiesi has noted how a significant juxtaposition of addressees in the first (1.1) and last (9.40) letters (Clarus/Fuscus) invites the reader to regard the entire nine-book opus as a unified collection, and Marchesi has further observed how the names mirror the trajectory from dusk to dawn that both the final letter (literally) and the entire collection (metaphorically) evoke, even as the pairing nods to one of Pliny’s main epistolographic models, Horace (Epist. 1.4, Albius; 1.10, Fuscus).15 Gibson and Morello find in another letter of Pliny’s last book (9.4), a brief cover note outlining an approach to reading the had read a published version of Pliny’s Book 1 (Woodman 2009b: 34) can be considered plausible, but is not decisive. 14 Murgia 1985: 201. 15 Barchiesi 2005: 330–2; Marchesi 2008: 249–50. For ‘Clarus’, see now also Gibson 2011b.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

19

speech it accompanies, a guide also to how we are meant to read the collection of letters: as a long work to be taken in parts, with many new beginning and endings, so that any part can be enjoyed both as a new beginning and in the light of what precedes—both for its autonomy, in other words, and for its ‘quasi coherence’ within its context.16 These observations are useful in confirming Murgia’s argument that Book 9, by recalling the first book, was meant to cap the multivolume collection, and in pointing the direction for our reading of it as an allusive and metaphorically ‘poetic’ work designed to be appreciated for its integrated structure. But they do not indicate how we are meant to regard the book-by-book partitioning of the work, or how to reconcile the shape of the final assemblage with the presumed sequential stages of its construction. In Pliny’s thinly coded guide to reading his work (9.4), Gibson and Morello focus on the interconnectedness of the pieces (quasi cohaerentia, 9.4.2) and take Pliny’s allusions to false starts and endings (saepe incipere, saepe desinere) to imply that the work ‘could be picked up or left off at any point’.17 In the immediate context, in reference to a speech, that makes sense, but if we are to read Pliny’s protreptic as advice also to the reader of his letters, it seems more likely, in the context of a multi-volume collection, that Pliny’s reference to multiple beginnings and endings points to the individual books, or groups of books, that articulated the work. If the final product was to be seen as a well-proportioned, fully coherent structure, Pliny nonetheless seems to hint that individual elements of its design, and the various stages of its construction, like the artfully varied wings and porticoes of his country houses, were to be enjoyed both as discrete units and for their place within the whole.18 Investigation of the phases of publication of Pliny’s collection must to a large degree remain speculative, since the nature of the evidence renders all but the most basic observations insusceptible of proof, and

16

9.4.1 Vererer ne immodicam orationem putares, quam cum hac epistula accipies, nisi esset generis eius ut saepe incipere saepe insistere uideatur . . . Poteris ergo, undecumque coeperis ubicumque desieris, quae deinceps sequentur et quasi incipientia legere et quasi cohaerentia . . . Gibson and Morello 2012: 238–43: ‘just as Pliny breaks up a long, formless day into a series of manageable and coherent tasks, or a complex speech into readable sections, so we are invited to break up our reading task’ (242). 17 Gibson and Morello 2012: 241. 18 For Pliny’s villa letters as metaphorical blueprints, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 200–33.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

20

John Bodel

the rival claims of opposing theories inevitably reduce to arguments from probability. The most that can be asked of any new interpretation is that it provide a coherent explanation of any internal correspondences that can be observed and that it not contradict the few generally recognized chronological termini established for individual letters on external grounds. Since much of the discussion will necessarily focus on the ultimately subjective issue of the placement of related letters within and among the several books, it will be useful first to determine what, if anything, can be learned about the way in which Pliny intended his corpus to be read from the form in which it has survived.

THE MANUSCRIPT TRADITION AND FORMS OF PUBLICATION IN PLINY’S DAY

Three families of manuscripts Pliny’s letters come down to us in three forms: an eight-book collection preserving Books 1–7 and 9, a nine-book collection comprising all the extant volumes of the private correspondence, and a ten-book collection, in which the official correspondence with Trajan is appended to the nine books of private letters.19 The tenth book, which differs markedly from the others, has long been thought to have been collected and published posthumously, but its singularity has recently been called into question, on the grounds that it coheres more closely with the rest of the collection in presenting a flattering portrait of its author than has previously been recognized and further shows signs of Pliny’s characteristic technique of exploiting a general aim for varietas to create significant juxtapositions of letters.20 Gibson 19 The best account of the tradition of Pliny’s letters, upon which much of the present discussion is based, is Mynors’s preface (1963). The characteristically lucid summary by Reynolds (1983: 316–22) furnishes additional details. Our oldest surviving witness, a manuscript penned in uncials toward the end of the fifth century and now preserved in New York (Pierpont Morgan Library M 462, conventionally known as —), comes from the ten-book tradition: see Lowe and Rand 1922 (ed. princ.). 20 For the traditional view that Pliny’s Letters were collected and published posthumously, see Mommsen 1869: 433; Syme 1958: 660; and Cugusi 1983: 232–4; note also Sherwin-White 1966: 84, ‘Addendum to II’. Stadter 2006 and Noreña 2007 remark the consistency of Pliny’s self-presentation in Book 10 with that of Books

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

21

and Morello have now gone further; they argue that Pliny systematically set out in Book 10 to cap his collection by presenting himself as a new and better Cicero, discussing affairs of state amicably (if not quite as a peer) with the optimus princeps and (like his elder models) leading an exemplary life of negotium to balance the world of otium depicted in the earlier books. What is more, Pliny’s narrative of his journey to and sojourn in Bithynia mirror those of Ovid in his exile poetry, showing Pliny to be also, like Martial, a new and better Ovid, with a more constructive attitude toward his situation and a better relationship with his imperial patron; the final book would thus frame the collection by looking back to the opening letter of the collection with Pliny’s nod to Ovid’s programmatic closing of his third book of Epistulae ex Ponto.21 Whether or not Pliny’s letters to Trajan from Bithynia were collected and arranged by Pliny himself, Book 10 stands apart from the other nine in several ways. Alone of the ten books, for example, it includes letters addressed to only two correspondents, one of whom is Pliny himself and the other is the emperor. Most particularly, the form in which the correspondence with Trajan reached the Middle Ages (and in which it was handed down as far as the edition of Aldus in 1508)—with the letters divided into seventy-three consecutively numbered units, each consisting of a letter of Pliny’s with Trajan’s reply and each equipped with a brief lemma indicating the subject of the exchange—is very different from that in which the nine books of private correspondence arrived.22 From the publication by (probably) Symmachus’ son (probably), early in the fifth century, of a posthumous edition of his father’s correspondence comprising nine books of private epistles followed by a tenth of official letters, we may conclude that a comprehensive edition of Pliny’s correspondence was circulating in late antiquity, but there is no telling precisely when or how the

1–9; Woolf 2006: 103–4 notes its similarity in literary texture. All three conclude that Pliny edited the collection himself. 21 Gibson and Morello 2012: 251–63, 270; cf. also Whitton 2013a: 54–5 on 10.120–1 providing closure to the collection; and, already, Barwick 1936: 439–45, arguing for a ten-book edition on the evidence of the indices (see below, n. 28). For Pliny’s opening allusion to Ovid, Pont. 3.9.51–4, see Marchesi 2008: 20–4; Gibson and Morello 2012: 260; below, p. 52. 22 Cf. Stout 1954: 53; 1958: 173. Reynolds 1983: 317 suggests that the tenth book may have been added to the other nine at a time when Pliny’s oeuvre was being transferred from papyrus rolls into a codex, perhaps during the fourth century.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

22

John Bodel

communications with Trajan became attached to the nine volumes of private letters.23 The nine-book and eight-book traditions go back to a common ancient source some distance removed from the versions that left Pliny’s hand, but the split between the two branches seems to have divided the family early, perhaps already in antiquity. From that period we have only the miserable six leaves of a codex, —, from the late fifth century, which descends from the ten-book tradition, and some hints in later manuscripts of how the letters were transmitted during earlier stages of the tradition. The lost archetype of the eight-book tradition, for example, which left a descendant in the library at Verona in the tenth century, evidently exhibited certain features which suggest that it or its ancestor was produced at a time when Pliny’s libri circulated independently in rolls. Not only does the Veronensis omit all of Book 8 and several letters of Books 1 and 9, but the order of the letters in Books 5 and (especially) 9 is scrambled and the ninth book is labeled as the eighth.24 The absence of Book 8 and the consequent renumbering of Book 9 might be attributed to the loss from an earlier codex of a single quire containing precisely the eighth book, but the elision is more easily explained on the supposition that a single roll comprising Book 8 fell out of a collection of similar rolls before the full corpus was transcribed into codex form. The distinctly different types of internal dislocations in Book 5, where letters 9 and 21 are transposed and 15 is moved to before 10 (possibly in order to bring together the two letters on Pliny’s hendecasyllables, 15 and 10), and in Book 9, where several individual letters and groups of letters appear out of place but sequentially after letter 32, likewise suggest that the displacements originated when the books circulated separately.25 23 For Symmachus, see Cameron 1965: 295–7; 2011: 366–83; Matthews 1974: 66–8; and Gibson 2012: 60 n. 20. Ambrose and Sidonius seem likewise to have organized their nine-book collections of letters according to Pliny’s model: see Klein 1970; Cain 2009: 18–19; and Gibson 2011b: 657–9, 2012: 68–9, and 2013a, all with further references. The arguments of Roda 1981: 58–79 for separating the publication of Books 1–7 from that of Books 8–10 and for assigning the latter to the late fifth or early sixth century are unpersuasive. 24 Mynors 1963: ix–xi adduces other evidence for the antiquity of the Veronensis (itself now lost) or its archetype. 25 Mynors 1963: x n. 2 reports the sequence of letters of Book 9 preserved in the Veronensis as follows: 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 12, 17, 21, 24, 25, 30–2, 3–5, 8, 10, 11, 13–15, 18–20, 22, 23, 26–9, 33–40. Such a pattern can most easily be accounted for by supposing that a copyist who had transcribed a badly defective copy of Book 9 that ended with the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

23

Each of Pliny’s books would originally have occupied a single papyrus roll of moderate length, and this was no doubt the form in which they circulated in his day, even if parchment codexes were already then in use.26 Consequently there is no telling, simply on the basis of the manuscript evidence for the individual books, whether the books as we have them were originally published separately, in groups, or as a unified corpus. So long as individual books circulated independently in rolls, each was subject to its own peculiar fate, for we cannot necessarily, nor even perhaps very probably, assume that the separate volumes of even a unified work invariably travelled together; indeed, such random testimony as we have concerning the circulation of books in antiquity suggests that quite often they did not.27 One feature of the ten-book tradition commonly obscured in our modern editions may, however, provide a clue to the manner in which Pliny’s collection of private correspondence circulated in his own day.

The indexes of correspondents in P and B Where — and its oldest surviving offspring, B (Laur. Ashburnham 98, s. ix2), are preserved, we can see that the full names of Pliny’s correspondents did not originally appear in the letter headings but were registered instead in separate lists prefixed to each book.28 In the salutation line preceding each letter Pliny addressed his thirty-second letter subsequently collated his text with a complete copy of the same book and simply added the letters missing from his original version onto the end in the order in which he found them. The omission of two letters from the interior of the first book (1.8, 12) and of one from the middle of the last book (9.16) might have happened at any time, but the loss of the last two letters of Book 1 (23–4) is perhaps more likely to have occurred as a result of physical damage to the end of a papyrus roll than to the loss of leaves from a codex. See also below, pp. 28–9 with n. 44, on the index to Book 2. 26 Cf. Birt 1882: 307–41, esp. 325; Roberts and Skeat 1983: 24–9; Winsbury 2009: 21–4; and below, p. 40 (with nn. 75–6). 27 Cf. e.g. P.Oxy. 2192 (s. ii), in which one friend writes to another requesting ‘copies of Books 6 and 7 of Hypsicrates’ Characters in Comedy’; an appended note in a second hand asks for assistance in filling other gaps in a personal collection. See further Starr 1987: 218 and below, n. 62, on Martial’s ‘numbering’ epigrams. 28 — now contains only letters 2.20.13–3.5.4. B is mutilated in parts of Books 2, 3, and 5, omits 4.26, and is lost after 5.6.32: see Lowe and Rand 1922, esp. 24–34, Plates II–XII (—) XIII–XIV (the corresponding sections of B); and, for a transcription of the indexes to Books 1–5 preserved in B, Robbins 1910: 476–8. The best discussion of this evidence is by Barwick 1936, who argued that Pliny himself was responsible for the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

24

John Bodel

acquaintances as he would have in his actual correspondence, with a single name, usually a cognomen, supplemented by the conventional epithet suus, and the abbreviation ‘S’ for salutem (sc. dicit).29 It is clear that the indexes of correspondents preserved in B are the product of various recensions and that they had been handed down in the form of indices, carelessly, for some time.30 They nonetheless share with the index in — the feature of recording the opening words of each letter after the names of its addressee, from which we may conclude that their original purpose was to serve effectively as tables of contents for the individual volumes, identifying more fully than in the letters themselves the addressees of each book and preserving the order in which the letters are arranged.31 Stout supposed that the posthumous editor who first attached Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan to the nine books of private letters was also the first to supply this useful tool, and others have assumed— without feeling the need to argue the point—that the indices are ten-book edition of his letters; cf. also Gibson 2011b: 655–7; Gibson and Morello 2012: 274. 29 Cf. Cugusi 1983: 50–1 and 1992: 1.20 with the chart on the facing page. With one possible exception, praenomina do not appear in the names of addressees either in the letter headings or the indexes. 3.14, addressed to a certain Acilius or Atilius (possibly the P. Acilius of Brixia [?] mentioned at 1.14.6, on whom see RP 7: 621), is listed in the index of — as Ad Patilium, which is plausibly suspected by Barwick 1936: 425–6 and Sherwin-White 1966: 246 of being a corruption of Ad P. Atilium; but Patilius is also attested (e.g. CIL viii. 20544), and the corruption might have occurred in the salutation rather than the index. The praenomen ‘D.’ apparently recorded in the index of B at 4.14 (Ad D. Paternum) is evidently the product of dittography (so Barwick 1936: 425 n. 7). The salutation lines of the letters to Pliny’s first (or second) wife’s mother Pompeia Celerina (1.4) and to the grandfather of his third wife, Calpurnius Fabatus (4.1, 5.11, etc.), include the designations socrus and prosocer respectively, a practice for which there is comparable, if not precisely parallel, evidence in real letters of the period, e.g. P.Fay. 114 (ad 100) ŒØ BººB  ºº ÆøØ HØ ØƒHØ åÆ(æØ); P.Fay. 123 (c.100) AæŒæÆ ø BººøØ

ÆøØ HØ IºçHØ åÆæØ (though possibly here IºçHØ is no more than ‘friend’: cf. Cugusi 1992: 2.16 at CEL 8.7); CEL 141 (c.112–115), Claudius [T]er[en]tianus Claudio Tiberiano domino et patri karissimo (cf. CEL 142, 144). By contrast, the salutations of the letters to his wife Calpurnia (6.4, 7; 7.5) and to her aunt Hispulla (4.19, 8.11) are devoid of familial epithets. See further Birley 2000: 21, 32–4. The Letters of Philostratus are dedicated to persons anonymously with affective epithets ( ØæÆŒø fi , ªıÆØŒd) or by name or occasionally by both: Follet 1997. 30 Cf. Robbins 1910: 479–80; Barwick 1936: 435–7. 31 Citation of letters by recipient and opening words of the letter seems to have been standard: see Fruyt 1997: 27–8. Gibson and Morello 2012: 45–7 note that the provision of an index enabled and promoted both excerpting and recombining of individual letters and consideration of each volume as a unified whole.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

25

entirely the product of the scribal tradition.32 It seems difficult to believe, however, that Pliny himself did not originally furnish each book with some sort of register of names. Otherwise he could hardly have expected his readers to know to which Maximus, say, or to which Priscus, a particular epistle was addressed.33 Occasionally a single name might have sufficed to identify a well-known figure (Spurinna, the recipient of 3.10 and 5.17, for example, or perhaps Tranquillus in 1.24.1), and in certain special cases the identity of an addressee could be deduced from the contents of the letter itself (e.g. 7.33, to Tacitus). Sometimes, no doubt, the precise identity of a correspondent was of no consequence (e.g. 9.31–2), while at others it might be suppressed out of tact (e.g. 9.21 and 9.24, to Sabinianus). Occasionally, it is not the identity of the addressee but the name itself that seems to have inspired Pliny’s selection.34 But there are many letters whose full significance would have been lost on the general reader if it were not clear to whom they were addressed, and with many of these Pliny’s contemporaries could scarcely have been in a better position than we are to ascertain the correspondents’ identities if the author himself did not provide a key. Barwick saw the necessity of an index nominum for the general reader on these grounds but imagined that Pliny only devised this expedient in putting together a final, comprehensive edition of his letters (an edition which in Barwick’s view included the correspondence with Trajan).35 It seems more probable, however, that an author otherwise careful to

32 Stout 1954: 53–4 and 1967, identifying the author of the index (and probable publisher of the corpus) as ‘one of [Pliny’s] personal friends at Novum Comum’ and nominating as a likely candidate Caelius Clemens, a relative of Pliny’s mother-in-law, Pompeia Celerina, whom Pliny thanks Trajan for sending to Bithynia (10.51.1). Elsewhere Stout argued that the earliest posthumous edition of Pliny’s letters did not include indexes, which were compiled by commentators and grammarians only in a later age, possibly near the end of the fifth century (Stout 1958). See also Stangl 1886; Robbins 1910. 33 See Syme 1985a: 324–40 (= RP 5.440–57) for a valiant attempt to sort out the five (or more) unidentified ‘Maximi’ and the four ‘Prisci’ mentioned or addressed in the correspondence. 34 For Pliny’s fondness for ‘significant’ names in identifying the letters of his collection by addressee, see Marchesi 2008: 102, 250, on ‘Secundus’; above, n. 15 on ‘Clarus’ and ‘Fuscus’; Gibson and Morello 2012, on ‘Praesens’ (7.3.2, on his prolonged absentia), ‘Tacitus’ (on the joys of silence), ‘Fundanus’ (1.9, on Pliny’s fundus, after Var. RR 1.1.1, 1.2.1), etc. For other instances of Pliny’s discretion in naming names, and in particular for his reluctance to do so when criticizing, cf. 2.6.1, 8.22.4, 9.27.2. 35 Barwick 1936: 438–9; 444–5.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

26

John Bodel

clarify obscurities for the general reader would have anticipated this difficulty at the outset and would have equipped each installment of the correspondence, if not each book, with at least an index nominum at the time of its initial publication.36 In the epistle to Turanius accompanying the epigramma extra ordinem paginarum prefaced to the ninth book of his assorted epigrams Martial shows that, when it mattered, the identity of an addressee (whether of an epigram or a letter) mentioned by cognomen alone had to be made explicit for the general reader,37 and we have every reason to suppose that Pliny was equally attentive in this regard both to the interests of his friends and to the needs of his readers. When he mentions contemporaries, particularly friends, in the body of a letter, he regularly employs a sufficiently distinctive onomastic formula to identify the person for the general reader, even in cases where such specificity would hardly have been necessary for the addressee. At 3.8.1, for example, it was not his correspondent, Suetonius, who needed to be told from whom Pliny had secured the offer of a military tribunate and to whom Suetonius had requested that it be transferred; nor, we must suppose, were the various men formally identified by gentilicium and cognomen in the formulaic topic sentences that introduce many letters always so fully named for the benefit of the original addressees.38 Figures such as the ‘Gallus’ somehow involved in a charge of extortion in Baetica in or around 97 (1.7.4) remain for us enigmatic but may not have been so for Pliny’s original readers. The identity of small fry such as the ‘Rufus’ of 6.30.5, on the other hand, cannot have meant much even to 36

For Pliny’s general aim for clarity, see e.g. Sherwin-White 1966: 5. Mart. 9 Epist.: epigramma . . . ad Stertinium clarissimum uirum scripsimus, qui imaginem meam ponere in bibliotheca sua uoluit. de quo scribendum tibi putaui, ne ignorares Auitus iste quis uocaretur. The same man is addressed in 1.16 (and possibly elsewhere: cf. Howell 1980: 144) simply as ‘Auitus’—a circumstance that may point to differing contexts (interlocutor within epigram and dedicatee) or to a new type of patronal relationship. Despite their appearance extra ordinem paginarum, both the letter to Toranius and the epigram to Avitus were meant for the eyes of the general reader (cf. Kenney 1982: 31–2) and serve an artistic end in implicating the reader in a nexus of triadic perspectives involving author, patron, and lector, in a way similar to that deployed by Pliny in his letter on Martial’s death (7.33): see Fitzgerald 2007a: 150–4. 38 Cf. e.g. 4.12, 6.8, with Sherwin-White 1966: 6–9. For Pliny’s naming practices, see Vidman 1981; Jones 1991; Birley 2000: 21–32. For the significance of Pliny styling himself in the letter headings ‘C. Plinius’, with praenomen and gentilicium alone (an archaism, according to Birley 2000: 22), see Gibson and Morello 2012: 109–10. 37

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

27

contemporaries.39 Sometimes the identity of a figure mentioned in passing was of no consequence, even to the original addressee (e.g. 1.20.1, quidam doctus homo et peritus). In revising his epistulae curatius scriptae for publication, Pliny did not bother to identify every person who happened to cross his page— it was one thing to write history, another to write a letter (aliud est enim epistulam aliud historiam . . . scribere, 6.16.22), and he was not writing history (neque enim historiam componebam, 1.1.1).40 A superabundance of onomastic information would have destroyed the impression of verisimilitude he was at pains to sustain, in accordance with the stylistic constraints of epistolography, which mandated concision and simplicity and where lightness of touch was essential.41 Even in the correspondence with Trajan, where the conventions of official communication dictated a greater degree of formality than was required merely for the sake of clarity, Pliny’s tendency in naming contemporaries was to employ a casual and informal mode of designation.42 When it came to revising his personal letters for a general readership, however, the commemorative possibilities afforded by publication and advertising the names of his friends were never far from his mind. The introductory ‘topic’ sentence of 6.25, a note to Baebius

39 For ‘Gallus’, Birley 2000: 60 s.v. (1) summarizes what is known about the man; Syme 1968: 148 (= RP 2.716–17) surveys the most likely suspects. ‘Rufus’ is so indistinctive that when referring to men of this name Pliny resorts to identifying them by gentilicium alone, a practice unparalleled in his correspondence: Dickey 2002: 62; for the Rufus of 6.30, see Birley 2000: 85 (‘clearly an “agrestis” ’). Barwick 1936: 433–4 gives further examples of both types. 40 For Pliny’s epistolographic mode of historiography, see Ash 2003: esp. 213–16. 41 Cf. 7.9.8, pressus sermo purusque ex epistulis petitur, with Gamberini 1983: 171–2. 42 Jones 1991: 149–51 rightly attributes the formality of Pliny’s naming practices in Book 10 (double names regularly, instead of only at the first mention), in contrast to his practice in Books 1–9 and to Trajan’s replies, to the role of a subordinate addressing a superior, but contrary examples suggest that, where possible, Pliny aimed to convey the intimacy of his relationship with Trajan (cf. Noreña 2007: 240–61). Note e.g. Pliny’s casual reference to a certain ‘Gemellinus’ (10.27) with Trajan’s more proper reply, pointedly identifying the man by gentilicium, cognomen, and office: Virdius Gemellinus, procurator meus (10.28; cf. 10.84). Note, similarly, 10.56.2 (Pliny to Trajan), a Servilio Calvo, clarissimo uiro, with 10.57.1 (Trajan to Pliny), a P. Seruilio Caluo proconsule. In general, Pliny’s naming practices in Book 10 conform to the principles of selection observed also in Books 1–9: minor figures (in this case, provincials) are seldom named, unless their stories provide color, whereas Roman officials regularly are: Stadter 2006: 65.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

28

John Bodel

Hispanus concerning the mysterious disappearance of a distinguished Roman knight (splendidus eques Romanus), provides a case in point: though ostensibly providing the principal subject of the note—and despite his elevated status—the hapless knight is identified simply as ‘Robustus’ and remains for us a cipher, as indeed he must have been to many of Pliny’s original readers. The man with whom Robustus was travelling, however, Atilius Scaurus, is introduced by gentilicium and cognomen, as is a certain Metilius Crispus whose similarly mysterious disappearance Pliny here relates. Both are nonentities, figures certainly unknown to Pliny’s general readership, and yet each is formally identified, the former as Pliny’s friend (amicus, 6.25.1), the latter, as it emerges, as his townsman and protégé. When it came to promoting the reputations of friends mentioned in the body of his correspondence, Pliny took care to ensure that none would go unrecognized, a practice that sometimes required him to name names, in contrast to his tendency otherwise to affect the casualness of genuine correspondence. We need not doubt that similar considerations governed his treatment of his correspondents, whose identities, in order to be recognized, had to be made clear and known.

‘Tables of contents’ in early imperial prose works We have separate indexes for Books 1–5, from which it is reasonable to infer that each of the nine books was prefaced by its own register of names. That is what we should expect if the nine books were issued independently or in groups of two or three over the course of several years. But if our corpus represents an omnibus edition of all nine books, then we might expect to find also—or instead—a single, more comprehensive guide to the collection. The lists of correspondents preserved in various manuscripts at the start of most of the sixteen books of Cicero’s Epistulae ad familiares seem to have been compiled from the letters themselves, but it is unclear when and how this may have occurred.43 Similarly, the surviving index to Book 2 of Pliny’s 43 Nonius has no knowledge of a sixteen-book edition of the corpus, and earlier authors cited individual letters by correspondent rather than by ‘book’ and ‘letter’ number: see Shackleton Bailey 1977: 19, 23–4. In V (Parisinus lat. 14761, saec. xv) the separate lists are gathered into a single index at the end. The earliest citation of a book number of Cicero’s correspondence to Atticus, Gell. 4.9.6 (citing Att. 9.5.2), comes from the latter part of the second century, and no other book references are found

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

29

correspondence, which, unlike the others, contains only single names, was evidently compiled from a text of the letters whose original index was lost before its double names had been interpolated into the salutation lines.44 Whatever may have been the state of the publication of Cicero’s correspondence ad Familiares in the late first century, Pliny had an influential model of a comprehensive index ready to hand, if he wished to put together a multi-volume collection of his private correspondence. In the first book of his Natural History, Pliny’s uncle had presented a formal catalogue of contents (summarium), explaining that its purpose was to facilitate consultation of the work and acknowledging a Roman model in Valerius Soranus’  ¯  .45 In fact, Pliny’s summarium serves more effectively to provide an overview of the structure of his encyclopedic work than it does to enable a reader to find specific information within the text; it functions, in other words, more as a guide to reading sequentially than as a tool for retrieving information from different places in the text.46 Valerius Maximus professed a similar desire to alleviate toil for the reader in the preface to his handbook, and we may readily suppose that the list of chapter headings prefixed to the Facta et Dicta Memorabilia in our manuscripts corresponds, in function, at least, if not precisely in form, to an original index capitulorum prefacing the

before Nonius (e.g. 315L, citing Att. 2), who still identifies books of Fam., as Gellius did, by the name of their first addressee (e.g. 1.22.19, in libro . . . ad L. Plancum [= Fam. 10]; 12.13.21, in libro . . . ad Seruium Sulpicium [= Fam. 4]). See Beard 2002: 116–19, and, for a thorough discussion of the issues raised by the editing of Cicero’s collection, White 2010: 31–61, with a summary of characteristics of the editor’s hand on 60–1. 44 So Barwick 1936: 435–7; cf. Robbins 1910: 482. 45 Pliny HN Pr. 33: quid singulis contineretur libris huic epistulae subiunxi . . . ut quisque desiderabit aliquid id tantum quaerat, et sciat quo loco inueniat. For the ‘Lady Initiates’ of the learned Q. Valerius of Sora (who may or may not be identical with the homonymous tribune of the plebs of 82 bce: cf. MRR 2.68, 3.214) see Schanz and Hosius 1935: i. 163–4; Bardon 1952: 182; and Henriksson 1956: 176–7. According to Friderici 1911: 56–7, Valerius’ originality, and the reason for Pliny’s citation, lay in his presenting his summary list as a separate book. For Pliny’s index, see Schröder 1999: 107–16; Doody 2001; and Riggsby 2007: 93–8. In referring to his uncle’s history ‘in thirty-seven books’ (3.5.6) the younger Pliny shows that he considered the index to be an integral part of the work. His citation of Soranus as a model contributes to his aim for transparency and utility, as well as modesty: cf. Murphy 2004: 206. 46 See Doody 2001. For the basic distinction between an index and a Table of Contents, see Schröder 1999: 99–105; Riggsby 2007: 89–90.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

30

John Bodel

work.47 Whether the surviving list was compiled independently from the chapter headings in the text or was transmitted directly from the archetype is debated, but it is difficult to believe, in view of Valerius’ express intention to facilitate consultation of his material (ut . . . longae inquisitionis labor absit), that he did not provide some sort of register to the ninety-odd chapters of his work.48 If, like the elder Pliny, he supplied a detailed table of contents in a prefatory book, labelled as the first, that would explain why his fourth-century (?) epitomator Julius Paris, in the preface to his abridgment of Valerius’ handbook—a preface, it may be noted, followed by an abbreviated index of chapters—speaks of ten books of Facta et Dicta Memorabilia, whereas his epitome presents only nine books and ends with the same anecdote as our full text, and why Aulus Gellius (12.7.8) attributes to the ninth book of Valerius a story preserved for us in Book 8 (1 Amb. 2).49 It is at any rate clear that by the middle of the first century ce readers of Roman technical handbooks and other works intended for consultation were familiar with detailed tables of contents, as well as various other aids to the reader, presented at the outset. So we may conclude from the collection of ‘Prescriptions’ (Compositiones) compiled by Scribonius Largus during the reign of Claudius, which he prefaced not only with a comprehensive table of contents (featuring numbered entries) but with a supplemental list of drugs and medications.50 More than a century later, Aulus Gellius, who had divided his 47

Val. Max. 1 Pr.: ab illustribus electa auctoribus digerere constitui, ut documenta sumere uolentibus longae inquisitionis labor absit. For the index, see Kempf 1888: xxii (on L); Briscoe 1998: 1–6. 48 The chapter headings prefacing individual sections throughout the text are generally agreed to belong to the scribal tradition and not to derive from the author (e.g. Helm 1955: 97–8; Römer 1990: 100 n. 7; Briscoe 1998: xxvii), but the authenticity of the prefatory list of contents remains open: see Schröder 1999: 101–2, who notes that the same situation applies also in the case of the texts of Florus and Solinus. The authenticity of the index capitulorum prefixed to the first book of Varro’s Res Rusticae in some manuscripts, doubted by many, is plausibly defended by Heurgon 1978: 91–2. Bloomer 1992: 17–18 takes the minority position that Valerius released his work ‘without an index, table of contents, or footnotes’ of any sort, on the grounds that ancient readers would have been adequately served by the individual chapter headings, which he believes to be genuine (cf. 255). 49 Cf. Helm 1955: 115; contra Wardle 1998: 6 n. 21, without foundation. Although Kempf omits the abbreviated index capitulorum from his edition of Paris’ epitome, he nonetheless reports the telling scribal notation that precedes it in our manuscripts: haec continentur libro primo (Kempf 1888: 473, in app. crit.; cf. Briscoe 1998: xix). 50 Scrib. Larg. Epist.15: primum ergo ad quae uitia compositiones exquisitae et aptae sint, subiecimus et numeris notauimus, quo facilius quod quaeretur inueniatur;

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

31

twenty books of notes (volumina commentariorum, NA Pr. 22) into ‘chapters’ (capita, NA 11.10.1; elsewhere called commentarii, Pr. 25, 17.21.2, or tractatus, 1.3.29), followed the elder Pliny not only in drawing up a comprehensive table of contents but in explicitly advertising the utility of presenting it at the outset (iam statim), so that readers could find ‘what is in which book’.51 Columella, on the other hand, conceived the curious notion of appending a comprehensive register of ‘the subjects of all my books’ (omnium librorum meorum argumenta) at the end of what proved to be only the first of two books appended to the original ten-book design of his handbook on agriculture—and we do indeed find at the end of book 11 a list of the contents of each of the preceding books (1–10), as well as simple rubrics for books 11 (carmen de cultu hortorum) and 12 (hic est vilicus et hortorum). Each of the first ten books is also preceded by the relevant section of the universal list, and the titles of the books conform closely to those in the index, from which it is generally concluded that the individual indices were derived from the master list at the end of Book 11.52 Columella’s deinde medicamentorum, quibus conpositiones constant, nomina et pondera uitiis subiunximus. Duly preserved in the editio princeps produced by J. Ruelle (Paris 1528), which until recently stood at the head of our tradition, Scribonius’ index was inexplicably omitted by G. Helmreich from his Teubner edition (Leipzig 1887) but has now been restored by Sconocchia 1983 to its proper place after the dedicatory epistle. Our only manuscript witness, the recently reported Toledo 98.12 (T), includes a section of the index without the numeration: see Sconocchia 1976: 263 n. 2. Further on Scribonius and his curious pharmacopeia: Baldwin 1992 and Riggsby 2007: 92–3, 106, suggesting that Scribonius’ index pointed the way for Pliny the Elder. 51 Gellius, NA Pr. 25: capita rerum, quae cuique commentario insunt, exposuimus hic uniuersa, ut iam statim declaretur, quid quo in libro quaeri inuenirique possit. Despite this precaution, the initial collection of lemmata, still present in our oldest manuscript, a palimpsest of the fourth century (A = Vat. Pal. Lat. 24), was subsequently split up and distributed throughout the corpus at the heads of the individual books: see P. K. Marshall, in Reynolds 1983: 176; further, Holford-Strevens 2003: 31; Schröder 1999: 110–11. For Gellius’ debt to the Elder Pliny, see Riggsby 2007: 100–2. For Gellius’ (and others’) chapters in ancient prose, see Fredouille, Goulet-Cazé, Hoffman, and Petitmengin 1997, esp. 493 (on Pliny the Elder and likely antecedents), 501–3 (on ‘capitula-Forschung’ after Friderici 1911); and Schmidt 1997: 227–8. 52 Columella, Rust. 11.3.65: omnium librorum meorum argumenta subieci, ut cum res exegisset, facile reperiri possit, quid in quoque quaerendum, et qualiter quidque faciendum sit. For the original, ten-book design of his handbook, cf. 1.Praef.25–28, 9.16.2, 10.Praef.1. Schröder 1999: 131–7 argues that Columella’s list was belatedly inspired by the Elder Pliny’s, and Book 12 was written so late in life that it escaped incorporation into the system (but see above, n. 48, on the index capitulorum of Varro’s Res Rusticae Book 1). Following the general list at the end of Book 11, a

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

32

John Bodel

index may have been no more than an afterthought—evidently he did not subsequently transfer it to the end of Book 12, nor did he rewrite the final sentence of Book 11 to reflect the addition of the final installment—but it nonetheless holds a special interest for the present inquiry, since it represents our only clear example of an author’s comprehensive register to the contents of a work that had previously been released in individual installments and extending over several volumes.53 Whatever its precise character and scope, Columella’s index, like those of Scribonius Largus, Pliny the Elder, and Aulus Gellius, was explicitly designed to facilitate consultation of his material.54 Other authors might supply a comprehensive overview of a continuous narrative as a sort of imprimatur designed to certify the final version of a lengthy work. The fifteen books of Diodorus Siculus’ ´ØºØŁŒÅ that survive intact come down to us with detailed tables of contents prefixed to each book, but when Diodorus first published the complete text in forty books early in the Augustan period, he complained of pirating booksellers who had released some volumes before they had received the final hand (40.8), and he sought to authorize the comprehensive edition by supplying a detailed survey

one-word rubric for a Book 13 (vilica) precedes a table of contents like those for Books 1–10, whereas all the references within the text to book numbers (8.1.1, 10. Praef. 1, 11.1.12, and 12.13.1) align with the configuration of our current twelve-book edition. Editors solve this problem by excising the otherwise suspect Book 3 De arboribus, which seems to be the work of a later imitator (see Richter 1972; cf. Rogers 2010: xvi), and renumbering the remaining following books accordingly. For the origin of the argumenta and the book titles preceding Books 2–9 and 12 (they are lacking for Books 1, 10, and 11 itself ), see Schröder 1999: 138–42; Henderson 2002c: 111–13; cf. Rogers 2010: xv–xvi, 587–96. In placing his index at the end of a volume, Columella seems to imagine that a reader who had once read through the book would not rewind the roll until the need arose (cum res exegisset) to consult a particular section of the work. 53 Some of the various stages of the initial publication of Columella’s magnum opus are revealed to us by his habit of periodically acknowledging the reactions of his dedicatee, P. (Iulius?) Silvinus (cf. RP 6.216 n. 54), to earlier books: cf. e.g. 2.1.1; 4.1.1; 5.1.1; 10.Praef.1, 5; 11.1.1–2. Cross references such as that at 12.13.1 (directing the reader to a recipe for cheese given ‘in the seventh book’) show that the version we have was regarded by Columella as a unified work, with an established sequence of books (cf. 8.1.1, 12.59.5). For the nature of the list itself, see Riggsby 2007: 98–100. 54 The same holds for the list of chapter titles prefixed by Aelian to his Tactica Theoria, a feature which he seems to have borrowed from his source Asclepiodotus and perhaps ultimately, through him, from Posidonius: see Dain 1946: 46–8; cf. Riggsby 2007: 90–1.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

33

of the work at both the outset and the conclusion (1.4.6–7; 40.8).55 More than a century later Quintilian similarly outlined the plan of his Institutio Oratoria, book by book (or group of books), at the start of his work (1 Pr. 21–2). Earlier in the preface he had disclaimed responsibility for two notebooks of his lectures circulated under his name by overzealous students (1 Pr. 7), and elsewhere he disavowed authorship of the published versions of all but one of his forensic speeches, which were being disseminated, he claimed, ‘to the stenographers’ profit’ (in quaestum notariorum, 7.2.24).56 With the Institutio Oratoria, however, it was not so much a question of unauthorized copies of individual books circulating independently—Quintilian tells us in the prefatory letter to his publisher, Trypho, that the composition of all twelve books had occupied him for little more than two years, and he seems to have published his magnum opus as a unified work (Epist. ad Tryph. 1).57 The brief introductory survey served primarily instead to impart a sense of order and unity to a treatise that advocates an orderly and holistic approach to the subject it treats. At the same time, it announced to prospective readers the configuration and sum total of books—that is, papyrus rolls— that comprised the work (1 Pr. 25); in this sense it served also as a control on the distribution of spurious material (such as the lecture

55 According to Irigoin 1997: 129–31, the brief summaries of contents in the form of short phrases of one or two lines that Diodorus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and later Josephus provided at the head of each book, like the division of their historical work into decades, reflect an aim to conform to Roman conventions of the genre. 56 Compare Ausonius’ complaints to Symmachus about the unauthorized alterations that had found their way into his Griphus during the time it had circulated informally before its official dedication (Griph. 1, 8–9, with Sivan 1992: 85–6). 57 Appel 1914: 88 n. 62 inferred from the irregular distribution and character of the formal prooemia to some of Quintilian’s books that he had released his work in installments, and the phraseology of the request attributed to Trypho at the outset— that Quintilian ‘begin to publish’ (emittere inciperem) his books—seems to suggest a protracted process. But the numerous cross references, both retrospective and proleptic, liberally scattered throughout the work and the inconcinnity between the placement of the existing prefaces (however defined: cf. Janson 1964: 55–9) and the structural division of the work outlined at the outset (1 Pr. 21–22: Books 1, 2, 3–7, 8–11, 12) and elsewhere (2.14.5) suggests that this was not so: see Austin 1948: 47; Kennedy 1969: 35–8 and this chapter, n. 91. Colson 1924: xix n. 1 regards the prooemia as ‘literary embellishments’ added after the work was finished but concedes that their chronological sequence ‘roughly corresponds with the facts’. It is easier to believe that the prefaces were written at the same time as the books they introduce and thus reflect the various stages of composition (rather than publication); cf. Kennedy 1969: 28–9.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

34

John Bodel

transcripts circulated by his students) purporting to represent the author’s final word on the subject. We need not suppose that Pliny experienced any anxiety concerning the unauthorized dissemination of his own work (though he was well aware that material circulated privately might find its way into the hands of the general public: cf. 2.10.3), or that he intended his collection of literary correspondence to be consulted like an encyclopedia. The multi-volume treatises of his uncle and of his former tutor Quintilian are in any case among the prose models he is most likely to have had at hand if he conceived the aim of preparing an omnibus edition of his letters. That both commenced with tables of contents— one detailed and specific, the other more general but nonetheless indicating the precise compass of the work—is sure to have impressed upon him the benefit, when publishing a work in several volumes, of providing the reader with an introductory overview of the material. Furthermore, Columella’s decision to append a register of subjects to the eleventh book of his treatise on agriculture provided a recent, if somewhat eccentric, precedent for compiling a comprehensive index to a work released in separate installments. It seems reasonable to suppose that if Pliny intended his nine volumes of private letters to be read as a unified corpus, he would have provided a single, comprehensive guide to the collection, but no trace of such an index survives. At the same time, the surviving indexes of correspondents prefaced to the individual books of Pliny’s letters differ fundamentally from the surviving tables of contents to other early imperial prose works in a way that makes clear their necessary integration with the books they preface: whereas the latter serve essentially to facilitate access to the material and to provide structural overviews of contents, Pliny’s lists, in supplying information not registered elsewhere (personal names), constitute a series of indispensable keys to understanding the text.58 They are not merely ancillary to the main body of material but instead form an integral part of its presentation. For a comparable example of 58 The unified list of grammarians and rhetoricians ranged under separate headings prefixed to the text of Suetonius’ De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus contains some apparently accurate onomastic information (mainly praenomina) not otherwise recorded in the individual biographies (Kaster 1992: 70–1, 80 n. 85, 120–4), but the list seems to have been compiled by some later editor, who mechanically transcribed the names found at the beginnings of the individual chapters of a copy of De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, which, though badly corrupted, yet survived intact (Kaster 1995: 41–2).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

35

such an onomastic master-key, we must leave the didactic world of prose treatises and turn to the contemporary literary form with which Pliny’s carefully polished letters share as many artistic affinities as any other, an anthology of occasional verse such as Statius’ Silvae.

Statius’ Silvae The first three books of Statius’ Silvae were probably published together sometime in 94.59 Each begins with a prefatory epistle specifying, by subject and addressee, the order of the poems included in the volume; so too does the fourth book, which was released independently in the summer of 95. The fifth book, compiled and published sometime after Statius’ death (probably before September 96), includes no such register of poems but is prefaced instead by a cover letter originally written to accompany the first poem of the book.60 The authenticity of the five prefatory letters is above suspicion, nor is the essential purpose of the first four in doubt: they were intended, in the first instance, to provide tables of contents for the general reader and, secondarily, to enhance the reputations of the patrons to whom the various poems are addressed by advertising their names at the outset.61 Scholarly opinion is divided, on the other hand, concerning the origin of the brief tituli prefixed to the individual poems of all five books in our principal witness (M, Matritensis 3678). Some believe that they go back to Statius himself, others that they were added to the collection by a subsequent editor, either shortly after Statius died, when Book 5 was gathered and published, or later, in the third or fourth century. Those in favor of authenticity note that the 59 So Gibson 2006: xxviii–xxx; Coleman 1988: xvi–xx; Hardie 1983: 64–5; Newmyer 1979: 48–9. Separate publication of the first three books at approximately yearly intervals is posited by some (cf. Coleman 1988: xvi n. 9) and is argued by Nauta 2002: 285–9, but all the internal indications point against it. 60 See Gibson 2006: xxviii–xxx; Nauta 2002: 193–4, 444 for book dates and the posthumous publication of Book 5. 61 Cf. White 1974: 60–1; Coleman 1988: 54–5; Schröder 1999: 180–2. For the patrons, see White 1975. In certain respects, the prefatory prose epistles to Books 1–4 take the place of the programmatic opening poems of Latin poetry books: Newmyer 1979: 123. Nauta 2002: 281–3 notes that the epistolary form is that of a gift presentation rather than a request for editorial assistance. Pagán 2010: 194–7 notes similarities between the prefaces of Silvae Book 1–4 and Pliny’s letter on his uncle’s works (3.5).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

36

John Bodel

titles contain onomastic information not provided elsewhere but needed to identify the recipients of the poems. For titles before individual poems within a collection, they point to Varro’s Menippean Satires and Martial’s two books of Xenia and Apophoreta (cf. 13.3, 14.2) as precedents, if not precise models.62 Those opposed question the purpose of the tags, which mainly paraphrase information given in the prefatory epistles, finding them to be clumsy and unnecessary, and draw attention to inconsistencies in the imperial titulature.63 Aesthetic judgments about the lack of artistry aside, the strongest argument by far is that concerning names, for even those who doubt the authenticity of the titles feel obliged to explain the source of information they recognize to be necessary for understanding the poems in context and therefore probably originating not long after the time of Statius’ death.64 Whether or not Statius himself produced a comprehensive edition of the four books published during his lifetime is more difficult to say, but the polemical response to his critics in the preface to Book 4, with its tendentious vaunting of the weighty new volume in distinction to the earlier, lighter ones and its concluding appeal to the dedicatee, Marcellus, to defend hunc librum, suggests that when he released the fourth volume of Silvae, he did not at the same time reissue the first three.65 For the contemporary practice of reissuing books of miscellaneous short pieces in comprehensive editions we must turn to Martial and the murky history of the production of his books of epigrams.

62 Vollmer 1898: 207–8 believed that the titles were genuine but relegated those preserved in M to his apparatus and tried to reconstruct from the ones that he supposed Statius originally used; cf. Courtney 1990: v–vi; Schröder 1999: 182–9, who marshalls the fullest arguments. 63 So Coleman 1988: xxviii–xxxii, who concedes the force of the onomastic argument and therefore believes that the titles were added ‘within decades of St.’s death’, and Van Dam 1984: 69–72, who thinks they were first added in late antiquity. Both draw attention also to inconsistencies in the imperial titulature. See also Liberman 2010: 31–2, who attributes the titles to a grammarian of late antiquity. 64 See e.g. Coleman 1988: xxxi–xxxii; Newlands 2011: 7, who remains agnostic on the question of authenticity. 65 Stat. Silv. 4 Pr.: quare ergo plura in quarto Siluarum quam in prioribus? ne se putent aliquid egisse qui reprehenderunt, ut audio, quod hoc stili genus edidissem. primum superuacuum est dissuadere rem factam . . . hunc tamen librum tu, Marcelle, defendes. et, si uidetur, hactenus, sin minus, reprehendemur (Courtney’s text).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

37

Martial’s epigrams About the original form and sequence of publication of Martial’s books of epigrams few things can be asserted with any confidence. Martial himself makes it clear that he published a second edition of at least one of his books (10.2); that he compiled a special anthology for the emperor Nerva from two others (Books 10 and 11: 12.4 [5]); and that on one occasion, at least, he donated to his old friend, Julius Martialis, a collection of autograph copies of all the volumes of assorted epigrams released to date (7.17). The exact configuration of the various editions and collections he evidently produced on several occasions for his friends or for the general public is beyond recovery, as are the precise dates of publication of all but a few of his volumes.66 For our purposes it is enough, in the present context, to observe that Martial initially released two books of epigrams independently (2.93) and that our Book 1 seems to be a revised edition that formed part of a larger collection distributed in codex form to the general public (1.2).67 In other words, Martial’s corpus provides us with a clear instance of the initial publication of separate collections of miscellaneous pieces and the subsequent reissuing, possibly in revised form, of at least some of the material from one collection in a more comprehensive edition comprising several books. Once this state of affairs is recognized, the question naturally arises how Martial intended the several books of his assorted epigrams to be read. A survey of pertinent epigrams preserved in the surviving corpus makes it apparent that even when issued together some, at least, of Martial’s books, like the individual epigrams themselves (10.1), were 66 The fullest and clearest discussion of the refractory evidence is found in the introduction to Citroni 1975: xiv–xxi and in his introductory comments to the prefatory epistle and to the first three epigrams of Book 1. For the chronology of Martial’s publications the discussion of Friedländer 1886: 50–67 remains basic. Citroni 1989: 212–26 offers refinements and the attractive speculation that Martial may have planned the public release of several individual volumes (Books 4, 5, 7, 11, 13, 14) to coincide with the gift-giving season during the annual festival of the Saturnalia (December 17–23), for which his verse might provide suitable entertainment. See also Nauta 2002: 105–20 on ‘presentation poems’ and the idea of privately circulated unpublished collections; 120–31 on the thorny issue of ‘private’ dedication and publication, 441–2 on likely dates of formal publication. For the superscriptions prefixed to many of Martial’s individual poems, see Schröder 1999: 176–7 (Books 13 and 14, judged to be authentic), 284–93 (Books 1–12, editorial). Further Lindsay 1903: 34–55. 67 On these points I accept the arguments of Citroni 1975: xvii–xix, 12–14, 17–18.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

38

John Bodel

designed to be read independently. An early patron, the notorious prosecutor M. Regulus, is imagined to be surprised at the appearance of Martial’s second book, so designated, since he did not know of a previous volume marked as the first (2.93). Addressed, through Regulus, to the general reader, the remark only makes sense if Martial had earlier released a monobiblos to which the current book could be, but need not be, regarded as a companion volume; what is more, Martial’s observation that Book 2 could become Book 1 by the simple erasure of an iota (2.93.3–4) suggests that it did not matter in what order the two books were read.68 Elsewhere, in commending a pair of volumes (probably 3 and 4) together to a reader who knows at least one of his earlier books, Martial explains that the burden of reading through so much material could be lightened by rolling up one of the two new scrolls (4.82). Later in his career Martial sent the fruits of six years’ work (probably Books 4–8) to a potential patron, Norbanus, serving the emperor on the northern frontier (9.84), but he did not on that occasion bother to include copies of his earliest works.69 We do not know whether the personally corrected copies of Books 3 and 6 included in the comprehensive collection of Books 1–7 donated to Julius Martialis (7.17) superseded the versions Martial had sent earlier in accuracy only or also in substance (cf. 3.5, 6.1), but the errors of copyists were notorious (cf. 2.8; Quint. Inst. 9.4.39), and gift copies of an author’s works might be valued as much for their intrinsic authority (7.11) as for their monetary (4.72) or sentimental (9.99) value.70 In the one place in which Martial alerts the general reader to the fact that he is reading a second edition, he goes out of his way to explain that most of the

68

See Citroni 1975: xv–xviii; Nauta 2002: 111–12, 118–20. The identity of the ‘Norbanus’ whose favor Martial was currying is uncertain: he was not the conqueror of L. Antoninus Saturninus (PIR2 A 874), Lappius Maximus (PIR2 L 84), as is sometimes maintained, but is perhaps identical with the Norbanus who, as newly appointed praetorian prefect in 96, plotted the assassination of Domitian: cf. Jones 1974 and PIR2 N 162, where the identities of the two men are wrongly confused. 70 Simple corrections in privately distributed copies could sometimes be made by the recipients at the author’s request (cf. Cic. Att. 12.6a.1, 13.21.3, 13.44.3 with Starr 1987: 219) and a fastidious collector might appeal directly to the author for correction of copies acquired elsewhere (cf. Pliny Ep. 4.26.1). Once released to the public, however, an ancient book was normally beyond the author’s control: cf. e.g. 2.10.3; Cic. Att. 13.21a.1; further Emonds 1941: 15–18; Zetzel 1981: 234–6; cf. Nauta 2002: 124–8. 69

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

39

material is new and that the remainder has been reworked (10.2.2–3). The implication is that Martial was not in the habit of substantially revising his previously published work. The picture that emerges from these random notices is of poems produced for particular occasions and dedicated and at times presented individually to particular patrons, but when collections were donated they were always of published books. Whatever the practice of professional booksellers may have been, Martial seems to have made no effort to present his ever-growing collection of assorted epigrams as a unified corpus (or corpora) when donating gift copies to his personal acquaintances, nor did he dedicate individual books to a single dedicatee exclusively.71 Reigning emperors were sometimes made the recipients of specialized anthologies not otherwise disseminated to the public and were no doubt kept abreast of the formal program of publication, but the honorific and dedicatory epigrams directed to the Caesars in Martial’s published collections imply that he normally presented his material to them one book at a time.72 When it came to the general reader, Martial was largely at the mercy of the marketing practices of professional booksellers, who are unlikely to have found it profitable to reissue his earlier books at the release of each new volume, inasmuch as the market for such collections would be practically restricted to new and avid readers. Indeed, since individual volumina, particularly of older works, seem normally to have been copied only ad hoc, in response to a specific demand, comprehensive editions of serially released books would have been produced only if and when individual buyers requested them, and neither the author nor the bookseller could predict how often and at what stages this might occur.73 Martial’s practice of conspicuously and repeatedly ‘numbering’ his books by including within them epigrams specifying their position in the sequence of publication was no doubt intended in part to encourage new readers to seek out the earlier volumes, but it also implies that the reader of any single 71 In remarking Martial’s apparent indifference to formal closure at the ends of his books, Sullivan 1991: 23 n. 38 suggests that Martial may have regarded his books as ‘open-ended collections, to which material could be added as it became available or necessary’. See further Fowler 1995. 72 Cf. 2.91 and 12.4 (5) with Citroni 1988, esp. 4–8, 17–30; Nauta 2002: 105–20 on pre-publication circulation. For the complicated question of the presentation of libelli to emperors, see Nauta 2002: 365–78; Coleman 2006: lvi–lxiv. 73 Cf. Starr 1987: 220.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

40

John Bodel

book was not expected to have the previously published volumes on hand.74 When Pliny came to recommend some of the epigrammatist’s verses (those handed down to us as 10.19.12–21) to a senatorial colleague, he imagined referring the man ad ipsum volumen and remarked that, if he liked them, others could be found in libro (3.21.4). Whatever the precise sense of the latter phrase may have been, it seems clear that the natural mode of reference to Martial’s work was to the book and that the normal form of dissemination was by the individual papyrus role (volumen).75 In short, little in the surviving corpus of Martial’s epigrams leads us to believe that he intended his collection as a whole to be read as a unified work, and there is much to suggest that he did not.76

Serial collections and comprehensive editions in the early Empire The examples of Statius and Martial show that in Pliny’s day the authors of books of miscellaneous short pieces sometimes distributed collections of multiple volumes of their works, either in individual

74 With Martial’s ‘numbering’ epigrams—2.93, 5.2, 5.15, 6.1, 6.85, 7.17, 8.Pr., 8.3, and 10.2—compare the ‘numbered’ prologues to Phaedrus’ third (3 Prol. 29) and fourth (4 Prol. 14) books of fables, which seem to have been released independently. Contrast 10.2.3 (nota leges quaedam . . . ), where Martial implies that readers of the second edition of Book 10 would have encountered some of its material before. Book numbers are attested also in Greek epigrammatists of the Julio-Claudian era (AP 9.572: Lucilius; AP 6.328 = 7 FGE: Leonidas of Alexandria) and seem to be attested already in the Hellenistic era (P.Vindob g40611: cf. Gutzwiller 1998: 23–4). 75 The phrase in libro, without further specification, is problematic. Translators seek refuge in vague paraphrase (‘dans le recueil’: Guillemin [Budé]) or burke the problem through misrepresentation (‘in his published works’: Radice [Loeb]; ‘his poems’: Melmoth [Radice’s Loeb predecessor]); modern editors remain unperturbed. Liber, however, does not mean ‘collection’, or ‘published works’, nor in Pliny’s day is it likely to have stood for ‘codex’. More probably Pliny paid his recently departed protégé the compliment of advertising the specific volume in which the entire poem from which he excerpts was in fact (and is) to be found—the revised edition of Book 10 (cf. Mart. 10.2). Written as a Roman numeral, the requisite designation decimo could easily have fallen out before requires (note the ‘:’); read, then, in libro . See further Nauta 2002: 37–9, 142–3. 76 In contrast to the absence of indications of unity across the corpus, the arrangement and thematic coherence of individual books are frequently noted: see e.g. Scherf 1998; 2001: 71–105 (Epigrammaton liber, Xenia, Apophoreta); Watson 2003: 29–31; Coleman 2006: lxii–lxiv. Holzberg 2002: 135–51 and 2004/5 goes further, arguing that the entire twelve-book corpus exhibits a unified structure as a sort of ‘dodecalogy’.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

41

rolls (Mart. 4.82.7–8) or in a codex embracing several ‘books’ (Mart. 1.2), whether the individual books had previously appeared independently (Mart. 7.17, 9.84) or were being released for the first time in a joint publication (Stat. Silv. 1–3). If we turn to a closer generic model for Pliny’s chosen literary form, we can say with some certainty that Seneca released the first three volumes of his Epistulae Morales together as a unit and (more tentatively) that he seems subsequently to have published his collection piecemeal by book or group of books, according to a program no longer recoverable.77 Pliny thus had a variety of contemporary or near-contemporary models to which he might turn for inspiration in publishing a selection of his literary letters—whether he chose to do so by individual books or in groups of books or (at a later stage) in omnibus editions embracing previously released volumes along with new material, and whether he decided to attach separate indexes of addressees to each volume or, in the case of a comprehensive edition, to preface the entire work with a single index. For the latter procedure there is no evidence in Pliny’s oeuvre, direct or indirect, of any sort, but this can hardly be taken to prove that Pliny did not produce a nine-book edition of his private letters. In sum, neither the form in which the correspondence has come down to us nor the comparative evidence afforded by the publishing practices of Pliny’s contemporaries allows us to say with certainty whether Pliny issued his volumes of private letters individually or in groups, and if the latter, whether the groups included versions of books previously released independently or comprised wholly new material. What is more, as Ovid’s example reminds us, when an author decided to reissue previously published work in conjunction with the release of new material, he might revise the earlier opus only slightly, in order to impart a sense of unity to the new collection (as with the joint publication of Ars Amatoria 1–3), or he might reshape the configuration of the earlier pieces for the new edition (as with our three-book version of Amores).78 In many instances we cannot tell 77 Cf. Sen. Ep. 29.10 and 33.1 with Cugusi 1983: 200–1; Lana 1991: 280–1. Cf. Marchesi 2008: 19–20 for internal chronology. 78 The history of Ovid’s publications has been much discussed, and almost no aspect of the question is without controversy. With most recent critics (e.g. Hollis 1977: xii–xiii) I find it easiest to believe that when Ovid released the third book of the Ars, he did no more than add to the end of the previous, two-book edition a single couplet (2.745–46) announcing the sequel; in this he perhaps followed the fashionable model of Callimachus’ Aetia: see Gibson 2000 and Knox 1993: 177–8. At the same

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

42

John Bodel

for certain whether it is the author himself or some posthumous editor who is responsible for the existing arrangement of a compilation of collected works. The division of modern scholarly opinion concerning the corpus of Catullus provides a notable illustration of the broader interpretive controversies that can become implicated in the decision.79 In the case of Pliny’s private letters, it is not immediately clear who is responsible for the configuration and sequence of the various volumes. Whether the surviving corpus represents a unified collection compiled by the author or merely an unaltered assemblage (whether Pliny’s or a later editor’s) of the nine books previously released independently must be decided on the basis of internal indications, both explicit (what Pliny himself says about the composition of his collection) and implicit (what the surviving arrangement suggests). We will do well to begin with the former, and in particular with the first epistle of the first book, for here, and only here, does Pliny speak directly about his program of publication.

THE INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE AND BOOK 1 In the opening letter of the collection (above, p. 13) Pliny declares that the addressee, Septicius Clarus, has frequently urged him to gather and publish his more carefully composed correspondence (epistulae curatius scriptae, 1.1.1; cf. 9.28.5); that in acceding to this request, he has assembled his material randomly, without regard to the order in which it was written; and that, if Septicius approves the

time, allusions in the prologue of Ars 3 to transitions between Greek works indicate that Book 3 was meant to be seen as an independent work: see Gibson 2003: 37–8, 85–6, on Ars. 1–6. As for the Amores, Ovid tells us in the epigram prefaced to our text that he has reduced an original five books to three and elsewhere implies that the process of revision was largely a matter of excision (Trist. 4.10.61–2). At least one poem (2.18), however, was either composed or substantially revised for the second edition, and the arrangement of the poems in the surviving collection seems to have been contrived in such a way that it could not have been taken over wholesale from the earlier edition: cf. McKeown 1987: 86–9, 93–8; Booth 2009: 72–3. 79 Reconstructing the character of the libellus dedicated by Catullus to Cornelius Nepos (Catull. 1) is a notorious crux: for opposing views see e.g. Clausen 1976 and Wiseman 1985: 130–82, 265–6; more generally on the interpretive problems raised by the phenomenon of ‘comprehensive’ editions of classical Greek and Latin works, Emonds 1941: 18–20.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

43

result, he will search out other letters and will not suppress any new ones he might write. An aspiring equestrian who would eventually, under Hadrian, reach the praetorian prefecture, Septicius at the time of Pliny’s writing remained an enigma, distinguished neither for political nor for literary pursuits. And yet as a future dedicatee of Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum, uncle of a man (Erucius Clarus) described by Pliny as ‘most learned’ (eruditissimus, 2.9.3), and subsequently recognized as a serious student of classical literature (uir morum et litterarum ueterum studiosissimus: Gell. 13.18.2), the unprepossessing young Septicius has appeared in retrospect as typical of Pliny’s circle of literary correspondents and thus as a fitting choice of addressee to head the collection.80 Less well recognized, perhaps, than the suitability of the role in which Septicius is cast are the peculiar literary qualities of the introductory note attached to his name. In attributing to Septicius the stimulus (if not the inspiration) for publishing a selection of his correspondence and in sketching for the general reader the character of the collection, Pliny’s first epistle performs the standard function of a formal dedicatory preface, and it is against the background of similar dedicatory prefaces that its distinctive elements can most clearly be seen. Three features claim attention in the present context: the epistolary form, the ambiguous signals Pliny conveys regarding the scope of the collection that follows, and the studied nonchalance with which the question of arrangement is addressed. It will be useful to consider the main points in turn.

Epistolary prose prefaces Prefaces in the form of letters are occasionally found at the head of Greek and Latin prose works beginning in the third century bce, and by the time of the Flavian emperors epistolary prefaces had begun to appear at the start of books of Latin poetry as well.81 The Roman 80

Cf. SHA Hadr. 9.5, 11.3 (appointment as Praetorian Prefect, c.119, and subsequent dismissal, c.122); Lydus, De mensibus 2.6 (dedicatee of Suetonius’ Caesars) with Syme 1960: 367, 374 (= RP 2.482–3, 489), suggesting a possible Transpadane origin; Zelzer 1964: 161; Gibson and Morello 2012: 157–61; and below, pp. 87–8. 81 See Janson 1964, esp. 19–24, 49–50; Pavlovskis 1967. As here defined (after Janson 1964: 106 n. 2), epistolary prefaces are those that display either or both of the distinctive formal characteristics of a letter: a salutation line at the beginning and a formulaic phrase (normally ‘Vale’) at the end. Peter 1901: 242–9 seems to have regarded as epistolary any introduction that includes a dedication.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

44

John Bodel

fashion of including a prefatory prose epistle as an integral part of the work probably grew out of a combination of two conventions associated with the essentially private character of ancient publishing: the writing of elaborate cover letters to accompany works sent out to friends for comments in advance of formal publication and the presentation of individual gift copies dedicated to the addressee.82 Pliny’s collection contains nearly a dozen examples of the former, including one (3.13) originally sent out with a draft copy of his Panegyricus, a work handed down without an introductory epistle attached.83 Perhaps the best-known example of the latter, Cicero’s letter to Varro presenting the four books of his revised and enlarged Academica (Fam. 9.8 [254 SB]), likewise comes down to us independently of the work it was designed to introduce. Whether or not Cicero intended the dedication to Varro to appear formally at the start of the work it accompanied is uncertain, but his remarks to Atticus in another context show that he had composed the piece with special care and was pleased to have its merits recognized.84 Before Cicero, Sulla may have used a letter to dedicate his memoirs to Lucullus, but our earliest surviving example of an epistolary preface surely intended for publication is A. Hirtius’ letter to the younger L. Cornelius Balbus at the start of Book 8 of De Bello Gallico, and the only other specimens we can point to before the last quarter of the first century ce are the highly artificial letters addressed to his sons by Seneca the Elder at the start of most (if not all) of his ten books of Controversiae and the

82 Janson 1964: 106–12; cf. Peter 1901: 246. For the practice, common in Pliny’s day, of submitting draft copies of a work to friends for criticism, see White 1974: 44, 53–4; Starr 1987: 213–14; Nauta 2002 and below, n. 95. Despite their chronological priority, the epistolary prefaces to Greek works of the Hellenistic period seem to have influenced the development of prefatory themes in Latin literature scarcely, if at all: cf. Janson 1964: 116. 83 Cf. 1.2, 1.8, 2.5, 3.10, 3.13, 4.14, 5.12, 7.12, 8.19, 9.29. The collection also includes letters in which Pliny responds to similar requests from his friends: 3.15, 4.20, 7.20, 8.7, 9.35. For the transmission of Pliny’s Panegyricus—separate from the letters and, except for a few fragments preserved in a sixth-century Bobbio palimpsest, along with the other surviving Latin panegyrics, primarily in Gaul—see Reynolds 1983: xvii–xviii. 84 Cf. Att. 13.25.3 (333 SB): sed, quaeso, epistula mea ad Varronem ualdene tibi placuit? male mi sit si umquam quicquam tam enitar. Janson 1964: 106–7 argues that the letter cannot have been intended for publication with the Academica on the grounds that it has only partly to do with that work, but there is very little in the surviving version not relevant or of interest to the general reader, and Shackleton Bailey (at Att. 333 [13.25].3) not unreasonably thinks it possible the letter was published with the final edition of the dialogue.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

45

dedicatory epistle to the emperor Claudius’ notorious a libellis, Callistus, prefixed by Scribonius Largus to his collection of prescriptions.85 With the passing of the emperor Vespasian, however, and with him the prevailing mood of austerity, the fashion of formally introducing a work with an epistolary prose preface suddenly blossomed. As we have seen, each of Statius’ five books of Silvae is preceded by a dedicatory letter; so too are five of Martial’s twelve books of assorted epigrams (Books 1, 2, 8, 9, 12).86 Pliny the Elder prefaced the thirtyseven books of his Natural History with a lengthy epistle to the emperor Titus, and Quintilian addressed a brief extenuating letter to his publisher Trypho at the start of his Institutio Oratoria. It is the dedicatory note at the start of Martial’s second book, however, published sometime in late 86 or early 87, that provides our clearest indication of how widespread the practice had rapidly become. In writing to his friend (and, probably, patron), the Stoic advocate Decianus of Emerita, Martial derides the use of epistolary prefaces by himself and others on two grounds: indiscriminate employment where superfluous and excessive length.87 The implication is plain that these new literary hybrids were cropping up like weeds in cultivated soil, where their prodigious growth threatened to usurp the place of more delicate flowers. Amidst this lush effusion of epistolary foliage Pliny’s modest shoot occupies a singularly inconspicuous position. On neither of the charges levelled by Martial—disproportionate size or inappropriate use—can the dedicatory note to Septicius be faulted, nor, in a 85 Books 5, 6, and 8 of Seneca’s Controversiae, preserved only in excerpts, come down to us without prefaces but are likely to have had them when originally published: cf. Winterbottom 1974: i. xv. For Sulla’s memoirs, cf. Plut. Luc. 1 with Peter 1901: 243 and Tatum 2011: 166–7 likening the presentation of the work to that of commentarii; for Scribonius’ preface, see Römer 1987. 86 For the prefaces of Martial and Statius, see Nauta 2002: 113–17 and 281–4. The epistolary preface now affixed to Martial’s Book 12 seems originally to have been intended for a smaller libellus compiled especially for Priscus: see White 1974: 45–6; Nauta 2002: 115–16. 87 Mart. 2 Epist.: ‘quid nobis’ inquis ‘cum epistula? . . . ’ epigrammata curione non egent et contenta sunt sua, id est mala, lingua: in quacumque pagina uisum est, epistulam faciunt . . . quid si scias cum qua et quam longa epistula negotium fueris habiturus? The fact that Decianus, who appears frequently in a flattering light in Book 1 (poems 8 and 24 are addressed to him; cf. 1.39, 1.61.10), is not heard of again after 2.5 (in which Martial complains about his unavailability) suggests that the prefatory letter belongs to the original publication of Book 2: cf. Citroni 1975: 43 and, further on the literary implications of Martial’s remarks, Janson 1964: 110–12.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

46

John Bodel

collection that includes several similar letters ostensibly written to accompany works sent out to friends at their request (1.8, 2.5, 3.13; cf. 4.14.1–2), does Pliny’s disingenuous overture (frequenter hortatus es . . . ) seem out of place. What is initially most striking about Pliny’s epistolary preface, in view of the popularity of the device among his contemporaries, is that it is the only such letter in his collection. Indeed, the lack of formal prefatory material at the start of any book but the first has been taken as one sign that the entire corpus of nine books was meant to be regarded as a single unit.88 Several considerations, however, suggest that this inference is neither necessary nor even, perhaps, very probable. In the first place, the decision whether or not to preface individual installments in a series of works with introductory letters appears to have been largely a matter of personal preference in Pliny’s day; what is more to the point, exercise of this preference seems to bear little, if any, correlation with the actual sequence of publication. Statius composed separate dedicatory prefaces for each of his first three books of Silvae, although the books themselves were apparently published together.89 Not surprisingly, perhaps, Martial seems to have eschewed epistolary introductions in seven of his twelve books of assorted epigrams (3–7, 10–11, and probably 12), even though most, if not all, of those were originally released independently.90 Quintilian, who was unusually fond of prefatory material, includes formal introductory remarks at the start of most of his twelve books but reserves the epistolary form for special pleading at the outset.91 Suetonius, who, like Pliny, dedicated his major surviving work to Septicius Clarus, and 88

Murgia 1985: 201. There seems to be little significance to the appearance of the formulaic closing phrase ‘vale’ at the ends of the prefaces of Books 3 and 4 but not at the ends of those of Books 2 and 5 (the end of the preface to Book 1 is missing). 90 Whatever may have been the compass of the multi-volume edition of Martial’s epigrams introduced by the poems now at the start of our collection, the preservation in our manuscripts of the preface to Book 2 suggests that Martial did not systematically suppress introductory epistles to the individual books when he subsequently released them together. None of the three specialized volumes (Liber de Spectaculis, Xenia, Apophoreta) begins with a preface. 91 The status of the various ‘prefaces’ conventionally marked off in our modern editions is uncertain: none of them has ancient authority. Janson 1964: 50–9 (at 57) distinguishes the prooemia of Books 1, 4, 6, and 12 from the prefatory remarks at the start of Books 5, 7, and 8 on the grounds that the former include autobiographical material (and, with the exception of Book 12, a direct address to the dedicatee Vitorius Marcellus), whereas the latter do not. Ahlheid 1983: 5, on the other hand, sees a 89

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

47

who, like Pliny, may well have issued the eight books of his Lives of the Caesars serially over several years, evidently dispensed with prefaces altogether after the initial dedication.92 Where such variation is possible we should be wary of drawing conclusions about an author’s method of publication from the mere presence or absence of formal introductions at the start of individual sections of his work. One of the principal attractions of the epistolary preface for authors of poetry books and narrative prose works seems to have been its formal distinctness from the material it introduced.93 If we bear in mind the essentially homogeneous nature of Pliny’s books of private letters and take into account their author’s aversion to manifest literary artifice, we can, if we wish (though we need not), recognize in the initial epistles of several books letters that may originally have served to introduce separate installments of the correspondence.94 Pliny had a distaste for vacuous prefaces (cf. 2.3.1, 3; 4.14.8; 5.12.3) and may well have been loath in publishing his literary correspondence to signal the beginning of each new installment with a device that could only draw attention to the inherently artificial character of the formally indistinguishable letters that followed. It is in any case clear that in revising his epistulae curatius scriptae for publication Pliny was presented with an unprecedented opportunity to integrate an epistolary preface into the fabric of the work. How successfully he did so can best be judged by considering the peculiarly ambivalent position the note occupies within the collection.

significant distinction between the prefaces to Books 4 and 8, which introduce Books 4–6 and 8–9 respectively, and the introductory remarks at the start of Book 3, which do double duty in introducing both Book 3 and Books 3–11. Neither of these schemes, it may be noted, agrees with the arrangement of his work articulated by the author himself at the outset (1 Pr. 21–2), according to the following division of books: 1, 2, 3–7, 8–11, 12; see further this chapter, n. 57. 92 Despite much scholarly ingenuity, the precise sequence and chronology of the publication of Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum remains obscure: see briefly WallaceHadrill 1983: 1 and, more fully, Townend 1959. A contemporary model for serial biography is afforded by C. Fannius, whose publication of a series of exitus occisorum aut relegatorum a Nerone was ended at three books by his own untimely death (5.5.3). 93 Cf. Janson 1964: 112, 116; Norden 1915: i. 432. 94 Conspicuous set-pieces in praise of elderly statesmen introduce Books 2 (Verginius Rufus) and 3 (Vestricius Spurinna). Books 4 and 6 begin with formal announcements of Pliny’s imminent departure from and recent return to Rome, an extended visit to Comum being the reason for his absence in both cases. For the first letters of Books 7, 8, and 9, see below, pp. 75, 94–6.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

48

John Bodel

A collection of undefined scope As noted above, the Latin epistolary preface owes its distinctive literary characteristics to its dual descent from the informal cover letters with which Roman authors customarily solicited comments from their friends on work in progress and the more formal notes sent out with gift copies presented to the dedicatee. Where Pliny’s specimen principally differs from other surviving examples of the type is in its conflation of the two different, and normally distinct, phases of literary production reflected in its pedigree: the private distribution of draft copies and the public release of the finished product.95 Whereas the conceit of publishing at the insistence of one to whom a work is dedicated was so well worn by Pliny’s day that it had come to be recognized as one of the hallmarks of a formal dedicatory preface,96 the closing appeal to the addressee to encourage by his approval the continuation of Pliny’s epistolary efforts suggests instead the informal presentation of a work in progress. This openended introduction to a collection of studiously undefined compass sets Pliny’s prefatory epistle apart from the similar invitations to friends to correct the work in hand found at the start of Martial’s sixth and twelfth books of epigrams and at the end of the dedicatory letter prefixed to the second book of Statius’ Silvae, which refer specifically and exclusively to the individual books they introduce and which hold out no promise of future installments.97 That theme 95 In view of the general informality of ancient methods of publication, we should not insist on too fine a distinction between the two stages of distribution (cf. Zetzel 1981: 232–5). A request for comments on a provisional manuscript nonetheless differs fundamentally from the presentation of a gift copy. A different sort of blending of two modes of presentation is found in 3.10, to Vestricius Spurinna and his wife Cottia on the death of their son, in Pliny’s request for their reaction to a work of eulogy in progress he intends to publish more widely (3.10.3). For an attempt further to delimit various rings of circulation, see Starr 1987: 213–16. 96 Cf. e.g. Auct. ad Herenn. 1.1; Cic. de Orat. 1.4, Orat. 1.1, Tusc. 1.1; Var. RR 1.1.1; [Caes.] BG 8 Pr. 1 (Hirtius); Verg. Georg. 3.41; Sen. Contr. 1 Pr. 1; Scrib. Larg. Epist. 12; Quint. Epist. ad Tryph. 1; Tac. Dial. 1.1; and especially Pliny, Ep. 6.15.1–4: when the elegiac poet Passennus Paulus at a public reading began with the words Prisce, iubes, the jurist Javolenus Priscus, who was present as a friend, perversely called out that he did not, thus subverting the topos—to the crowd’s amusement and Pliny’s indignation: see Hiltbrunner 1979; Yardley 1972; further Janson 1964: 60–1; Murgia 1980: 124–5; Mayer 2001: 87 on Tac. Dial. 1.1; and, for the popularity of the motif in late antiquity, Janson 1964: 116–24 and (on Ausonius) Sivan 1992: 95–6. 97 Cf. Mart. 6.1, sextus mittitur hic tibi libellus, / in primis mihi care Martialis: / quem si terseris aure diligenti, / audebit minus anxius tremensque / magnas Caesaris in manus uenire. Cf. Mart. 12 Epist.; Stat. Silv. 2 Epist.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

49

belongs instead to the sort of informal note one might send out to a friend inviting comment on a provisional or partial manuscript.98 Pliny’s tentative pledge to publish future letters thus sounds entirely appropriate coming from an author just embarking on a formal program of publication; as an introduction to a comprehensive (and final) edition of the correspondence, on the other hand, it rings false. Of course, readers of the published letters were never meant to take Pliny’s diffidence seriously: however sincere in origin, requests to friends for corrections to a provisional manuscript or advice on whether or not to publish, when they appear in a formal publication, cannot be seen as other than a polite fiction designed to flatter the person addressed.99 Verisimilitude is not in these instances the highest aim of art. If the note to Septicius originally prefaced only the first installment of the correspondence, the promise of future volumes would have seemed credible and the ambivalence legitimate. Even so, Pliny’s claim to have ignored chronology in compiling his material—an assertion Mommsen showed to be true only of the internal arrangement of Books 1 and 2—is best regarded neither as a sign of the separate publication of the first two books nor as an editorial oversight but as a literary flourish designed to convey an artist’s casual indifference to order: neque enim historiam componebam.100 In fact, Pliny was fully attentive to the requirements of narrative sequence, both within and among books, and he seldom, if ever, lost sight of the commemorative, and hence broadly historical, potential of his chosen form.101 Prefatory disclaimers are by convention disingenuous and frequently call attention to precisely those features of an author’s work he most wants applauded and fears may be overlooked. Under the circumstances, however, a straightforward arrangement by date seems an oddly artless feature to signal with such a self-consciously artful device. Still less plausibly is Pliny’s studiously offhand remark to be regarded as a bald statement of fact, applicable to the entire

98

Cf. e.g. Pliny, Ep. 2.5.1–2, 9–10; 5.12.4. Contrast 3.10.3–5. Cf. e.g. Phaedrus 3.Pr. 62–63; Mart. 5.80, 6.1, 7.28, 12 Epist.; Stat. Silv. 2 Epist. with Citroni 1988: 37–8 and White 1974: 54; Ausonius Griphus 1, Eclogues 1.17–18, Ludus Septem Sapientium, 1–4, 15, 18, with Sivan 1992: 95–7. 100 Mommsen 1869: 366–88, esp. 367–8; see further below, p. 52 and n. 107. 101 Serial letters are arranged serially. For Plinius historicus, see e.g. Traub 1955; Heurgon 1969; Aubrion 1975; and, on the key statement of Pliny’s views on historiography, 5.8 with Gamberini 1983: 58–81; Ussani 1970 (literary antecedents, borrowings). 99

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

50

John Bodel

collection.102 Whatever role the note to Septicius ultimately came to play in the final corpus, its basic premise that Pliny has only just been coaxed into publishing his correspondence can only have made sense (whether or not true) if in origin, at least, it prefaced merely the first installment. Since it has never been suggested, much less argued, that Pliny’s letters first saw the light of day in a single, nine-volume edition, we must conclude that the note to Septicius originally stood at the head of a smaller, perhaps more chronologically heterogeneous, collection. Hence the possibility of explaining away the discrepancy between Pliny’s professed disdain for chronology (non seruato temporis ordine) and the sequential continuity of book-dates first demonstrated by Mommsen by supposing that Pliny meant to refer only to the internal arrangement of that first installment, whatever its compass.103 The fact remains, however, that in its current position, at the head of a nine-book corpus, the statement naturally seems to refer to the entire collection. The conclusion cannot be evaded that if Pliny himself reissued the first installment of his correspondence as part of a larger edition, he did not bother to correct the impression that the material had been assembled without regard to the order in which it was written. If we keep in mind his broader literary aims and consider the particular editorial problems such a procedure would inevitably have entailed, it is easy to imagine why not: such an impression would have served to emphasize the distinction between epistolography and historiography Pliny was at pains to establish, not only here but elsewhere (e.g. 6.16.22, 7.9.8), and would further have absolved him of the need to explain any awkward inconcinnities resulting from the reissuing of old letters in conjunction with newer material. We may further imagine Pliny cherishing the newly imported ambivalence of the final clause promising future installments, appearing as it now would have done at the head of a more comprehensive collection, where it would naturally have been seen to forecast an ongoing program of publication. Columella did not revise the end of his eleventh book of Res Rusticae to reflect the subsequent addition of

102 So, notably, Masson 1709 and the critics of Mommsen, Peter 1872: 698–9 and Otto 1919: 19–20. 103 So Sherwin-White 1966: 21; cf. 86: ‘there is no reason to apply anything in this note to the whole collection’—a defensible position, to be sure, but one oddly unresponsive to Pliny’s penchant for coy artifice.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

51

the twelfth, nor, evidently, did Ovid bother to rewrite the epilogue of his original two-book edition of the Ars Amatoria (2.733–44) when he came to reissue the first two volumes along with a third.104 If these authors could allow to remain in their final editions passages announcing endings that were patently not endings, there is no difficulty in believing that Pliny might have tolerated—might even, perhaps, have welcomed—the ambivalence of an introduction that predicted no decisive close to an open-ended serial publication.

The arrangement of Book 1 It remains to consider the second part of Pliny’s opening assertion— that he had assembled his letters ‘as each had come into his hands’ (ut quaeque in manus uenerat). That this further profession of a disdain for order is not mere superfluous repetition of the claim to have ignored chronological sequence (non seruato temporis ordine) is shown by the careful separation of the two balanced phrases (of nine and ten syllables respectively, correlated by non . . . sed) with an intervening disclaimer of equal length (neque enim historiam componebam, ten syllables), which limits the first but not the second. The resulting rhetorical equation, with its fourth element implied, may be paraphrased thus: Pliny’s letters do not follow strict chronology, for they are not history; instead they are arranged randomly, for they are—what? Epistulae curatius scriptae, as we are told in the opening sentence, and from that designation certain basic questions of definition naturally arise. What, precisely, does Pliny mean by ‘more carefully written’ letters and in what ways do they differ from the ordinary letters sent out to his friends? Much has been written about Pliny’s few explicit pronouncements on epistolography as a literary form and, more generally, about his stylistic predilections in an effort to answer these questions—without complete success.105 At the heart 104

Cf. Ovid, Ars 2.733–44, 3.809–12 with Knox 1993: 177–8. By contrast, when Martial produced an edition of his assorted epigrams that comprised something more than the original first book, he wrote a separate introduction to the new collection, as he did also for the second edition of Book 10: cf. Citroni 1975 at Mart. 1.Epist. and 1–2; 10.2. 105 See e.g. Sherwin-White 1966: 2–11; Gamberini 1983: 161–75; Cugusi 1983: 190–2, 207–8. Elsewhere Pliny refers to this sort of literary letter as diligentius scripta (7.9.8) or curiosius scripta (9.28.5) and sets that type in contrast to litterae scholasticae (9.2.3), schoolboy compositions.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

52

John Bodel

of the discussion lies the problem of the authenticity of the letters as correspondence, an issue, as we have seen, on which no clear consensus of opinion has emerged. For our purposes it is enough to ask whether Pliny’s description of his material as ‘more carefully written’ implies anything further about the manner of its presentation. There can be no doubt that in publishing a selection of his genuine correspondence (however extensively polished, revised, or supplemented by fictive compositions), Pliny was evoking the model of the assembled collection of Cicero’s ad Familiares; at the same time, in characterizing his letters as curatius scriptae, Pliny knowingly placed himself in a well-defined tradition of literary epistolography, one that by his day imported with it certain traditional expectations regarding form.106 That Pliny was fully aware of these conventional expectations is shown by his acknowledgment, in the opening letter, of the predecessor who had set new standards of artifice in the arrangement of a collection. In one of his last writings on Pliny, Syme drew attention to a precise literary antecedent for Pliny’s opening gambit: Ovid, at the end of his three-book edition of Epistulae ex Ponto, had affected a similar nonchalance: postmodo collectas, utcumque sine ordine iunxi (3.9.53). As with Ovid, so with Pliny, the claim is disingenuous, as Syme observed, noting Pliny’s manifest concern with balance and variety.107 In fact, attention to order seems to have been a consideration of Roman authors—or editors—of collections of letters from the beginning, that is to say, from about the time Cicero first conceived the idea of publishing a selection of his private correspondence.108 Whether or not it was Cicero himself who contrived the sequence and groupings 106 Cf. Beard 2002: 116–19 on the uncertain early stages of the publication of Cicero’s correspondence; Cugusi 1983: 127–31 on the genre of epistolography. 107 Syme 1985b: 176 (= RP 5.478). Guillemin 1927: 2 ad loc. had already remarked in this context Pliny’s concern with varietas, a concern further documented by Sherwin-White 1966: 42–51, 86. With an equal lack of candor Gellius professed a similar disdain for order in the arrangement of the chapters of his Noctes Atticae (Pr. 2, usi autem sumus ordine rerum fortuito, quem antea in excerpendo feceramus): cf. Holford-Strevens 2003: 26–7. 108 A notion perhaps first floated by Atticus in July of 44 bce: cf. Att. 16.5.5. Cicero’s jocular mention to Tiro in the summer of 46 of collecting his letters into papyrus rolls (Fam. 16.17.1) need not imply publication (cf. Att. 9.10.4), but Tiro may well have had a hand in the publication of the Epistulae ad Familiares (see below in the text and the next note). Of ‘literary’ letters in Latin prior to Cicero we can name for certain only the poetic essays sent to his friends by Sp. Mummius from Corinth (c.150 bce: Cic. Att. 13.6.4) and the verse epistle included by Lucilius in his fifth book of satires

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

53

of the sixteen books of letters to and from his acquaintances that have come down under his name is difficult to say, but the publication of some, at least, of the individual volumes shortly after Cicero’s death provides a clear precedent for the artistic arrangement (or rather arrangements) of a collection of genuine letters.109 Not surprisingly, perhaps, in view of the prevalence of the conceit in Augustan poetry books, a more elaborate pattern of organization can be discerned in the collection of twenty verse epistles published by Horace in 19 bce.110 Ovid, as we have noted, in compiling his collection of Letters from Pontus elevated the art of arrangement to new heights: not only did he strive to avoid monotony by carefully modulating his themes, he also imposed an elaborate architectural symmetry on the three-book edition by constructing a series of concentric frames formed by letters paired according to addressee.111 Even Seneca, whose decision to address his epistolary moral essays to a single correspondent deprived him of the opportunity (and released him from the obligation) of following Ovid’s example, furthered his propaedeutic aims by contriving an orderly series of thematic links to demarcate discrete units of his material, not only within individual books but in one case, at least, across a group of books (1–3) released together.112

(fr. 181–88 Marx: c.120 bce). The authenticity and literary status of the epistolary fragments attributed to Cato the censor and of the famous letters sent by Cornelia to her sons (cf. Cic. Brut. 211) is uncertain; as far as we know, neither they nor any of the propagandistic, ‘autobiographical’ commentarii addressed by prominent politicians to their friends beginning in the age of Scipio were gathered into collections: cf. Cugusi 1983: 121–2, 152–4. 109 See Shackleton Bailey 1977: i. 23–4, Cugusi 1983: 172–3, and, for the various principles of organization that inform the existing collection, Peter 1901: 57–66. 110 See Jones 1993, who shows how Horace uses his addressees as foils in exploring three central themes (philosophy, poetry, and friendship) from various perspectives. For the structural arrangement of Augustan poetry books and their Hellenistic antecedents, see e.g. Santirocco 1986: 3–13, with further bibliography. 111 The elaborate structure of Ovid, Pont. 1–3 was first uncovered by Froesch 1968 (see esp. the chart on p. 137) and has been further elucidated by Irigoin 1980, who (following Froesch) makes a strong case for restoring the poem handed down in our manuscripts as 2.11 to what must have been its original position between 3.4 and 3.5. For variatio in the three books of letters from Pontus, see Evans 1983: 147–8. 112 See Cancik 1967: 138–51 (esp. 143–4 on the structure of Books 1–3) and Maurach 1970, esp. 11–19. Not all of the arguments advanced by either author are persuasive, but together they succeed in demonstrating Seneca’s systematic concern with the thematic arrangement of at least the early books of his collection. For judicious overviews of the question, see Russell 1974: 77–9 and Mazzoli 1989: 1860–3; further Lana 1991: 280–9.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

54

John Bodel

In Pliny’s case, not only generic convention but contemporary literary fashion dictated a degree of artifice in the arrangement of a collection of occasional pieces. Here too, there was scope for variation. Martial—under the constraint, no doubt, of the practical purpose of many of his poems to patrons—seems generally to have aimed for little more than formal and thematic variety and balance in the composition of individual volumes.113 Statius, on the other hand, followed Ovid (or, perhaps more directly, Horace in his Odes) in creating an elaborate architectural symmetry, not only within individual books but throughout a three-book collection.114 To which of these contemporary models Pliny’s collection more closely conforms is a question of some interest for the sequence of publication, since the more ambitious program naturally implies a conception of artistic unity that, potentially at least, extends beyond individual books. Sherwin-White’s meticulous analysis of the distribution of letter-types over the first four books demonstrates Pliny’s general concern for balance. If Pliny’s Ovidian allusion is to have had any further point, we may reasonably wonder whether the arrangement of his collection reflects any more elaborate pattern of correspondences. Consideration of the sequence of addressees in the first book suggests that it does. Of the twenty-two persons addressed in Book 1, only two, Septicius Clarus and Cornelius Tacitus, receive more than a single epistle, and each receives precisely two. That in itself is unremarkable: each of Pliny’s books of private letters contains at least one pair of letters addressed to the same correspondent.115 It does not seem to have 113 Even so, the task, on Martial’s own testimony, proved challenging: facile est epigrammata belle / scribere, sed librum scribere difficile est (7.85.3–4); cf. 1.16, sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura / qua legis hic: aliter non fit, Avite, liber. The arrangement of Books 1 (Citroni 1975: xxvi–xxxviii; Erb 1981) and 11 (Kay 1985: 5–6) seems to have been worked out especially carefully; for an overview of Martial’s general practice, see Sullivan 1991: 217–21. 114 See Vessey 1982: 565–7 (structure within books) and Bright 1980: 72–5 (correspondences among Books 1–3); for structure in the arrangement of Horace’s Odes 1–3, see Santirocco 1986, esp. 150–3 on the ensemble of Books 1–3. 115 Book by book the repetitions are as follows: Book 1: Septicius Clarus (1, 15) and Tacitus (6, 20); Book 2: Arrianus Maturus (11, 12); Book 3: Calvisius Rufus (1, 19); Book 4: Arrius Antoninus (3, 18) and Arrianus Maturus (8, 12); Book 5: Iulius Valerianus (4, 13); Book 6: Calestrius Tiro (1, 22), Calpurnia (4, 7), Tacitus (9, 16, 20), Calpurnius Fabatus (12, 30), and Voconius Romanus (15, 33); Book 7: Rosianus Geminus (1, 24), Caecilius Macrinus (6, 10), Pompeius Saturninus (7, 15), Neratius Priscus (8, 19), Calpurnius Fabatus (11, 16, 23, 32), Tacitus (20, 33), and Cornutus

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

55

been remarked, however, that the placement of these four letters in Book 1—in alternating sequence (by addressee) at the first, sixth, fifteenth, and twentieth positions—divides the remaining twenty letters of the book precisely into groups of four, eight, four, and four;116 or that, in theme and tone, the four letters are disposed in a chiastic pattern, in which the first and last address seriously the topic of literary studia, epistolary (1) and oratorical (20), whereas the second and third—highly polished specimens, each, of literary imitatio—adopt a more playful tone in treating the idle pastimes of hunting (6) and dining (15); or that, taken together, the four letters illustrate the principal features of one of Pliny’s favorite themes: the various pursuit of otium, both productive (1, 20) and self-indulgent (6, 15), in nourishment both of mind and of body.117 The relationships among the four letters can be represented as in Figure 1.

1. 6. 15. 20.

Septicius Tacitus Septicius Tacitus

studia: letters desidia: hunting desidia: dining studia: speeches

(serious) (playful) (playful) (serious)

Figure 1

If we consider the arrangement of the first book according to criteria other than the distribution of addressees, a different pattern can be discerned. Merwald has identified a tripartite structure, based on the recurrence of a few major themes, which divides the book into groups of nine (1–9), six (10–15), and nine (16–24) letters, each self-contained and, to some extent, internally coherent; the first and last are similarly built up around a long central letter in dialogue form Tertullus (21, 31); Book 8: Rosianus Geminus (5, 22); Book 9: Statius Sabinus (2, 18), Voconius Romanus (7, 28), Tacitus (10, 14), Rosianus Geminus (11, 30), Sabinianus (21, 24), Fuscus Salinator (36, 40). 116 Recognition of this sort of symmetrical arrangement by addressee would have been facilitated by the presence of an index of correspondents at the start of the volume. 117 For otium and the canonical joys of villa life, cf. e.g. 2.2.2: ipse ad villam partim studiis partim desidia fruor, quorum utrumque ex otio nascitur; 5.6.46: ibi [sc. in Tuscis] animo, ibi corpore maxime valeo. nam studiis animum, venatu corpus exerceo; 5.18.2, with Gibson and Morello 2012: 169–99. Part of the conceit lies in Pliny’s intimations to Tacitus that, for him, hunting is sedentary (1.6.1: apros tres et quidem pulcherrimos cepi . . . non tamen ut omnino ab inertia mea et quiete discederem. ad retia sedebam), whereas composing speeches requires vigor (1.20.23).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

56

John Bodel

BOOK 1 1 preface 2 emendatio 3 otium/studia 4 5 dialogue (Regulus) 6 otium/studia 7 8 emendatio 9 otium/studia ––––– 10 laudatio/praise of the present 11 playful pouting 12 laudatio 13 criticism of the present 14 laudatio 15 playful pouting ––––– 16 laudatio docti 17 amicitia/favor 18 Pliny as adviser 19 amicitia 20 dialogue (Regulus: §14–15) 21 sale 22 amicitia/laudatio docti 23 Pliny as adviser 24 sale/laudatio docti/favor Figure 2

in which Pliny’s rival, Regulus, comes in for criticism. Figure 2 represents the basic structure.118 It would be a mistake to feel we had to choose between these two, partially consonant, partially conflicting schemes: in theory, at least, Pliny was perfectly capable of overlaying multiple patterns, defined by various principles of organization, across the same raw material. On the other hand, neither can be taken to confirm the other: each must stand or fall on its own merits. For the present it is enough to recognize

118

Adapted from Merwald 1964: 38; cf. 14–37 for further analysis.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

57

that the principle of architectural arrangement—by addressee, theme, or any other discernible criterion—provides a potentially valuable tool for evaluating Pliny’s conception of his collection as a unified work, whether the units so defined are individual books, groups of books, or the entire assemblage of nine volumes. Before we consider the related questions of whether any discernible structural patterns extend over more than a single book and, if so, whether they correspond with the original units of publication, it will first be necessary to take up briefly the thorny issue of foreshadowing, for if it can be shown that certain letters appearing early in our collection seem pointedly to anticipate later letters, and if the links thus formed transgress the conventional book-dates and dates of publication, then we shall be obliged to give up the conventional view of the corpus as a miscellany and to recognize Pliny’s collection as a coherent unit with a deliberately defined internal sequence.

BOOKS 1–5 When did Pliny begin to publish his letters? Mommsen assumed, without feeling that he needed to argue the point, that Pliny issued each book independently shortly after the date it was completed, beginning with Book 1 in 97 and carrying on, book by book, down to the joint publication of Books 8 and 9 in 109, just before he embarked on his mission to Bithynia.119 Critics were quick to point out that the datable letters within each book could not be supposed to supply the absolute earliest and latest letters in the volume, and that the dates of composition in any case provided only a series of termini post quem for the dates of publication. Asbach went so far as to suggest that the first three books were published together and that none of Pliny’s letters saw the light of day before 104.120 The chronological underpinnings of Asbach’s theory regarding the joint publication of Books 1–3 have since been undermined, but the hypothesis of a program of publication in groups of books quickly won general acceptance, and with it a consensus gradually emerged that Pliny did 119

Mommsen 1869: 371–88; see also above, n. 6, and the Appendix. Asbach 1881, arguing that 1.7 is later than 3.4, written (in his view) after 100, and that Book 2 contains a letter (13) written (again, in his view) no earlier than 104. 120

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

58

John Bodel

not begin publishing his letters until after he had attained consular status (his term ran from September to December, 100) and perhaps not until after his first consular appointment, the cura Tiberis, undertaken, probably, in 104 or 105.121 Underlying this general consensus is the conviction that Pliny would not have presumed to publish his private correspondence until he had made a name for himself as an advocate and before he had attained some measure of prestige by holding high public office—a reasonable speculation, perhaps, but one susceptible neither of proof nor of refutation and one, therefore, in which few will be inclined to place much weight.122 Of those who favor a late date for Pliny’s initial publication, only Syme has advanced substantive arguments worthy of consideration.123 Syme drew attention to a series of acrimonious diatribes against Regulus in Books 1, 2, and 4 and questioned whether any of them could have been published before Regulus’ death, reported by Pliny some time after the event in a letter (6.2) written, probably, in 106 or 107.124 The thesis, which goes back to an observation of Mommsen that Pliny in his letters seems not to have criticized living persons—or at any rate (as Sherwin-White correctly notes) persons of high status—by name, is perhaps strictly applicable only to the earlier books; but truly vituperative attacks of the sort leveled by Pliny against his bête noire are unparalleled elsewhere in the correspondence, and it seems reasonable to accept, as a working hypothesis, that Books 1, 2, and 4 were not published in their present form while Regulus was still alive, that is before the end of 105.125 If the chronological point is conceded—that is to say, if it is acknowledged that, regardless of the orderly progression of book-dates worked out by

121 e.g. Sherwin-White 1966: 55, fixing Pliny’s consulship as the terminus post quem and the period 104–5 as ‘the earliest probable publication date’ of the first instalment; Cugusi 1983: 212, suggesting a joint publication of Books 1 and 2 toward the end of 100 ‘dopo che la fama di Plinio s’era affermata grazie al consolato’. See further below in the Appendix. 122 Sherwin-White’s contention (1966: 55) that Pliny’s self-comparison with Cicero (1.5.12, 3.20.10, 9.2) supports this argument overlooks the nuances of Pliny’s self-presentation as epistolographer, especially in 9.2, for which see below, pp. 77–8. 123 I pass over several unpersuasive efforts to show that the correspondence was first published after Pliny’s death. 124 Syme 1958: 663, followed by Murgia 1985: 192–3. 125 Mommsen 1869: 367 n. 3; Sherwin-White 1966: 54–5, remarking Pliny’s penchant for anonymous criticism (e.g. 2.6.1, 8.22.4, 9.11.1, 9.26.1, 9.27.2). See also Ash 2013, who discusses overt criticism of the living.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

59

Mommsen, some of the letters now in Books 1 and 2 may not have been published earlier than those in Book 4, then it becomes legitimate to look for signs of literary modeling in the arrangement of the first four books, and the placement of one of the letters on Regulus and his son attracts attention.

Literary foreshadowing and retrospective allusion A poignant connection between 2.20, in which Regulus is represented as constantly perjuring himself on his son’s head (§5–6), and a pair of letters in Book 4 (2 and 7) in which Pliny ridicules Regulus’ excessive mourning over the boy’s premature death, has long been recognized. Interpreting the significance of this collocation, on the other hand, has proved more problematic. Sherwin-White regarded Pliny’s failure in the earlier letter to mention or even allude to the boy’s untimely death as proof that he had no knowledge of the event, and he further took Pliny’s silence to confirm the separate and prior publication of Book 2. According to Murgia the earlier letter was selected for publication, or at any rate placed in its current position, only after Pliny knew he would elsewhere record the son’s demise. In similar fashion the letter on the death of Larcius Macedo (3.14), in which Pliny sounds an ominous warning for slave-owners everywhere (nec est quod quisquam possit esse securus, §5), earned its place in the collection only when Pliny had decided to include in a subsequent volume a piece on the death of Afranius (8.14).126 Here the disjunction is more striking, spanning a compass of five books, and if the foreshadowing is regarded as intentional, might seem to impose the conclusion that in their present form Books 3–8, at least, were published as a unit. Since the link between Books 3 and 8 interlocks with the Regulus series joining Books 1 and 2 with Book 4, it would seem to follow that Books 1–8 constitute a monolithic block, and we would be very close to realizing the omnibus edition that Murgia envisions. Strictly, however, no more is required than that at the time of Afranius’ demise Pliny conceive the notion of elsewhere adverting 126

Syme 1958: 663 and Murgia 1985: 195 n. 49, against Sherwin-White 1966: 39 and 461. For Sherwin-White (246–7) Pliny’s professed alarm at the murder of Macedo (3.14.5) and his silence regarding the death of Afranius suggest that at the time he wrote 3.14 the later incident was not yet known to him.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

60

John Bodel

to it and consequently ‘plant’ a premonition of the incident in his account of the earlier murder of Macedo. The sudden and suspicious death of a consul in office—and Pliny’s effective participation in the subsequent deliberations in the senate (8.14.12–15, 24)—are the sort of events likely to have been destined for eventual commemoration in his literary correspondence, and we may readily imagine that Pliny relished the prospect of hinting at a connection between the two episodes. Afranius, it is true, succumbed during the summer of 105—a full year later than the latest probable book-date of the volume in which the death of Macedo is registered—but the publication date of Book 3 remains an open question, and there is some reason to think that Pliny may have composed a letter describing the assassination of Afranius not long after the fact.127 As we have seen (pp. 15–16), 8.14, which chronicles an event that occurred two years earlier than the book-date (107–8) of the volume in which it appears, is out of place in its surroundings; furthermore, as Sherwin-White has remarked (ad loc.), in style and structure Pliny’s account betrays a singular lack of polish and bears all the signs of a hasty reworking of old material. It seems possible to imagine that an original version of the account of Afranius’ death, planned or actually sketched out at a date much closer to the events it describes—quite possibly earlier than the publication date of Book 3—was held over for publication later in revised and expanded form. By the time Pliny came to enshrine the anecdote in his collection, the retrospective potential of an account of the incident had acquired a new dimension. For if 8.14 seems to respond to 3.14 on the strength of a general similarity of theme and its apparent vindication of Pliny’s veiled warning in the earlier piece, the same letter might equally well be said to complement 1.22, a character-sketch of the eminent jurist Titius Aristo, whom Pliny describes as a repository of arcane learning on constitutional law and one whose judgment he is especially inclined to seek out.128 Addressed to the same Aristo and written under the pretext of a consultation on a point of senatorial procedure 127 The date of Afranius’ death, 24 June 105, is preserved for us in the consular lists of Ostia: VIII k. Iul. Afranius Dexter co(n)s(ul) in domo sua exanimis inuentus (Vidman 1982: 46; cf. 99 ad ann.). In recent years the publication date of Book 3 has been gradually pushed back from 105 or 106 (Syme 1958: 663) to 104 or 105 (Sherwin-White 1966: 55–6) to late 103 or early 104 (Cugusi 1983: 212). 128 1.22.2–3: nihil est quod discere velis quod ille docere non possit; mihi certe quotiens aliquid abditum quaero, ille thesaurus est.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

61

(§1–2), 8.14 not only substantiates the characterization in a general way but in style and phrasing seems at times explicitly to recall the earlier letter. The echo of Pliny’s enthusiastic assessment of Aristo’s legal expertise at 1.22.2 (quam peritus ille et priuati iuris et publici!) in his later address to the man himself at 8.14.1 (cum sis peritissimus et priuati iuris et publici) may be fortuitous—neither the wording nor the sentiment is distinctive—but Pliny’s methodical exposition of the senatorial debate over the punishment of Afranius’ household (8.14.12–23), elaborated in a dry, forensic style otherwise reserved in the letters for technical discussions of literary theory, seems to have been tailored specifically for his correspondent, whose deliberate approach to the law Pliny was at pains to emphasize in the earlier letter (1.22.3).129 The ostensibly uneven quality of 8.14 might seem to support the view that Pliny attempted to knock down two birds with one stone by composing a single letter, addressed to Aristo, in which a procedural question arising from the events attending the suspicious death of a consul is grafted onto an account of the incident itself, but we cannot be certain that the relation between 8.14 and the two earlier letters was the same in each case, and the supposed disjunction between the two halves of the letter may be more apparent than real.130 A fine conceptual line distinguishes foreshadowing from retrospective self-reference (sequeling), and the difference between them in practice is negligible, since any links perceived by a reader can only be perceived simultaneously, at the moment the two passages are recognized as being connected. If we accept the hypothesis that Pliny did not publish overt criticism of the living, then we must also accept that Books 1, 2, 4, and, potentially, 3, were not released to the public in their present form until after Regulus had died, probably sometime in 105. Thus, even if we agree that Pliny purposefully positioned certain letters in order to create a sense of irony (as in the case of Regulus’ son) or the appearance of prescience (as in the matter of Afranius’ death), we need not depart from the traditional view that Pliny published some 129 The unusually arid style of Pliny’s exposition of the legal point at issue is remarked by Sherwin-White 1966: 461; cf. 14–15. The only other letter addressed to Aristo, a defense of Pliny’s light verse (5.3), answers to another aspect of his characterization in 1.22 (§1). 130 Whitton 2010 traces a leitmotif of allusion to Tacitus’ Agricola, Cicero, Ovid, and Seneca in 8.14 that ties together the two main sections of the letter and establishes its centrality within the book; see further below, ‘Book 8’.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

62

John Bodel

of his books conjointly at dates not always immediately after those of the latest datable letters included within each book or group of books. In fact, none of the other suspected instances of literary foreshadowing detected elsewhere in the correspondence violates this principle. Peter long ago observed that Pliny’s sour prognostication at 3.20.7–9 of the deleterious effects likely to result from the introduction of the secret ballot is conveniently borne out in 4.25, addressed to the same correspondent.131 The letters refer to events separated by little more than a year (whether the years in question are 103 and 104 or 104 and 105), and both could easily have been written before the posited publication date of Books 1–4 of late 105. The same can be said of the series of letters in Books 4 and 5 concerning the praetorship in 105 of a certain Licinius Nepos, a firebrand intent on judicial reform.132 Here there is not the same sense of premonition and fulfillment as unites the letters on the secret ballot; rather, it is a case of variations on a theme: 4.29 concerns a different aspect of judicial impropriety (absenteeism from the standing panels of jurors) from that discussed in the letters of Book 5 (the hiring of advocates) or, for that matter, Book 6 (the summoning from the provinces of witnesses for the defense). The letters on Nepos form the first of several series of epistles on a single theme to be distributed over more than one book, and as with the others, the links that hold the Nepos cycle together are more retrospective than proleptic. The reader of one of the later letters is expected to recall the earlier letters on the same topic, but (with the exception of 5.4, which anticipates 5.13) none of the letters explicitly or implicitly forecasts subsequent developments of the theme. The question that needs to be asked, if Mommsen’s observation is valid, is how it came about that the first four or five books of Pliny’s correspondence, the earliest of which includes letters ostensibly written as early as 96, did not appear before the public in their present form before 105.

131 Peter 1901: 105; for the correspondent, Maesius Maximus, see Syme 1968: 149 (= RP 2.719); 1985a: 335 (= RP 5.452). 132 Cf. Murgia 1985: 195 and Sherwin-White 1966: 32, citing 4.29, 5.4, 5.9 (in which Nepos’ edict is first mentioned: Syme 1985b: 176 [= RP 5.478]), and 5.13; Murgia adduces also 6.5, which belongs to the following year, when Nepos was out of office: Sherwin-White 1966: 359 (at 6.5.1); Syme 1985b: 179 (= RP 5.482).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

63

A five-book edition of Pliny’s letters? Syme believed that Pliny published no letters at all until the end of 105 or possibly 106 and that he had issued the entire corpus in installments of two or three books a year by 109 or 110.133 No one will deny that an active letter writer, as Pliny surely was, could assemble within the span of a few years a collection of correspondence equivalent in bulk to the 247 letters that survive. But Pliny was by all indications a fussy author, forever seeking critical advice from his friends before revising for publication.134 Whether, in the moments snatched from his official and private obligations, Pliny could have turned out so many carefully polished literary epistles in such a brief period is considerably less certain. What is more, if Syme’s hypothesis regarding Pliny’s letters on Regulus is correct, then we must conclude that not only Books 1 and 2 but also Book 4, which includes Pliny’s most vicious attacks on the character of his rival (4.4, 4.7), must have appeared shortly after Regulus’ death (again, presumably in 105), for Pliny elsewhere makes it clear that verbal assaults on a deceased enemy were unseemly unless published promptly upon his demise (9.1). There is nothing inherently improbable about this scenario, except that it contradicts a view shared by most investigators, including Syme, that Book 4 in its current form was published separately from Book 3 and goes instead with Book 5, which contains at least one letter (20) written as late as the summer of 106 and therefore cannot have been published much before 107. Murgia’s theory of a comprehensive nine-book edition allows for the possibility that certain letters now in our collection may not have appeared in their current positions (if at all) in the original publications of any of the first eight books. But the imbalances and inconcinnities remarked by Sherwin-White in the distribution of material over the last four books suggest that if Pliny did produce such an edition, he did not alter the original composition of the later volumes in any substantial way; and if he did not bother to adjust the later books, we may ask whether he is likely to have tampered with the earlier, more coherent volumes. Another possibility exists: when

133

Syme 1958: 663; cf. 1985b: 176 (= RP 5.478); RP 7: 640. Cf. e.g. 1.2.8, 1.8.1–3, 2.5.1–2, 3.10.2–5, 4.14.6–10, 5.12, 7.17.7, 7.20.1–2, 8.3, 8.4.6–7, 8.7, 8.19.2 with Sherwin-White 1966: 51, 53–4; Gibson and Morello 2012: 95–6. 134

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

64

John Bodel

Pliny published the fifth volume of his correspondence, he released it together with a collection of the first four books in slightly revised form. The comprehensive edition that Murgia envisions embraced not nine but five books. Three considerations, none decisive but each supportive of the others, seem to point in this direction. The first concerns Pliny’s naming practice in the text of the letters of Books 1–6.135 As we have seen (above, p. 26), Pliny is generally careful to identify contemporaries mentioned in the body of his correspondence by nomen and cognomen (or praenomen and cognomen) in the interest of the general reader, even when their identities would have been obvious to the persons to whom the letters were originally addressed. Exceptions to this basic rule are found here and there throughout the collection, but a notably high proportion clusters around two persons who appear frequently in the first five books: M. Aquillius Regulus and the praetor Licinius Nepos.136 Regulus is introduced, by praenomen and cognomen, in 1.5, addressed to Pliny’s boyhood friend Voconius Romanus (§1); thereafter in Books 1, 2, and 4 he is invariably referred to by cognomen alone (1.20.14, 2.11.22, 2.20, 4.2, 4.7), but when he appears again (and for the last time) in 6.2, to Arrianus Maturus, he is formally reintroduced by praenomen and cognomen (§1). This last instance is particularly striking, since Arrianus had been the recipient of one of the earlier letters (2.11) in which Regulus was mentioned, in passing, by cognomen alone: evidently the praenomen provided at 6.2.1 was not for Arrianus’ benefit but for the general reader. A similar split between Book 6 and the earlier volumes is manifested in Pliny’s references to the praetor Nepos. At his debut, in 4.29, Pliny supplies as explicit an identification as he ever will: ecce Licinius Nepos praetor (§2); in Book 5 the man appears as ‘Nepos praetor’ (5.4.2, 5.9.3) or simply ‘Nepos’ (5.13.1), but when he surfaces for the last time (now out of office), in Book 6, he is again styled ‘Licinius Nepos’ (6.5.1), presumably so that contemporary readers could distinguish him from the many other senators who bore the same cognomen. These discrepancies suggest that Pliny expected a reader of Book 5 to recognize a person first identified in Book 4 and a reader of Books 2 135

For general observations, see Jones 1991. Nepos is perhaps to be identified with the suffect consul of 127, M. Licinius Nepos (so Syme 1977: 43 [= RP 3.1051–2]) but is otherwise unknown in Latin literature outside of Pliny. 136

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

65

and 4 to remember a figure introduced in Book 1, but no such familiarity with earlier books is assumed in the reader of Book 6, for whom figures prominent in the earlier books are formally reintroduced when they first appear in the new volume. The argument cannot be pressed: the same epistle of Book 6 that reintroduces the ex-praetor Nepos continues a series of letters on Varenus Rufus that runs from Book 5 through Book 7 (5.20, 6.5, 6.13, 7.6, 7.13) and in the opening sentence refers to the unfortunate man by his gentilicium alone. It is perhaps worth noting, however, that 6.5 alone of the letters in the Varenus series begins by summarizing the contents of the previous letter, although the earlier epistle (5.20), the first in the cycle, was addressed to the same correspondent (Cornelius Ursus). The suspicion subsists that Pliny did not presume in a reader of Book 6 knowledge of the contents of Book 5. The pattern of distribution of female correspondents over the nine books tends to support the hypothesis of a break in publication after the fifth book. Each of the first four books contains a single letter addressed to a woman, and each introduces a new lady into the correspondence. Book 5 is without a female correspondent, and then in Book 6 Pliny’s new wife, Calpurnia, receives a pair of letters. Book 7 includes missives to Calpurnia and Corellia, sister of the consular Corellius Rufus whose daughter had received one of the earlier letters. Thereafter no new women addressees emerge: Calpurnia Hispulla, the aunt of Pliny’s wife and recipient of a letter in Book 4, returns in Book 8; Book 9, like Book 5, lacks a female correspondent.137 In all, the collection includes nine letters to women, and it looks as though Pliny originally intended to provide each book with a single specimen. If so, we might expect him to have included in Book 5 one of the two letters to his wife now appearing in Book 6, had he been able to do so. When compiling the first four books, in each case from 137 Cf. 1.4 to Pompeia Celerina, mother of Pliny’s second (?) wife (RaepsaetCharlier 1987: no. 626); 2.4 to Calvina, a relative of Pliny’s, otherwise unknown; 3.3 to Corellia Hispulla, daughter of Corellius Rufus (Raepsaet-Charlier 1987: no. 268); 4.19 to Calpurnia Hispulla; 6.4, 6.7, and 7.5 to Calpurnia uxor (Raepsaet-Charlier 1987: no. 177); 7.14 to Corellia, sister of Rufus; 8.11 to Calpurnia Hispulla. The name of Vestricius Spurinna’s wife Cottia (Raepsaet-Charlier 1987: no. 298), preserved in the salutation line of 3.10 in the eight- and nine-book families but absent from the indexes in ∏ and B, was probably deduced from the name of their son (cf. 2.7) and interpolated into the letter heading in the course of transmission. After long neglect, the women of Pliny’s Letters have recently received two full treatments: Carlon 2009 and Shelton 2013. For ‘Cottia’, see Shelton 2013: 213–14.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

66

John Bodel

the correspondence written over the course of several years, Pliny had no trouble in mustering the requisite number of letters to women friends,138 but when, shortly thereafter, he put together Book 5 from his recent correspondence, he may not have had a suitable example to hand. By the time he came to assemble Book 6 a year or so later his wife’s illness and subsequent retreat to Campania had provided the opportunity to compose and publish a pair of literary notes to her, and he found no difficulty in including letters to women in Books 7 and 8. A lack of appropriate material perhaps explains the absence of any female correspondent from Book 9, a volume that exhibits signs of having been assembled in haste (see pp. 74–5). Of course, even if Pliny originally intended to include at least one letter to a woman in each book, he might have abandoned the plan voluntarily at any point. There is, however, some reason to suspect that when he published Book 5 he did not have on hand material later available to him for Book 6. Birt long ago drew attention to the remarkable uniformity of length of many of Pliny’s books: six of the nine (1–4, 7, 9) come to within approximately half a page of thirty pages in the standard modern edition.139 Evidently Pliny had a clear notion of the appropriate size for a book of his correspondence, just as he had a sense of the appropriate length for a letter.140 Of the remaining books, Book 6 is more than two pages longer than any other, and Books 5 and 8 are two-thirds of a page shorter than the next shortest book (7). The magnitude of the individual discrepancies is not so striking as is the juxtaposition of Book 5, the next to shortest book (by a single line), with the gargantuan (by Plinian standards) Book 6: between them there is a difference in length of some four pages. It seems reasonable to suppose that if Pliny had been able to include in Book 5 some of the material now in Book 6, he would have done so, for the sake of

138 1.4, to Pompeia Celerina, belongs to the period before 98; 2.4, to Calvina, might have been written at any time; 3.3, to Corellia Hispulla, should come a year or two after the death of Corellius Rufus in 97 or 98 (1.12); 4.19, to Calpurnia Hispulla, cannot be earlier than c.104: see Sherwin-White 1966: ad locc. 139 Birt 1882: 325. Book numbers are followed by the total number of lines in Mynors’s edition: 1 (772), 2 (791), 3 (801), 4 (783), 5 (756), 6 (861), 7 (771), 8 (755), 9 (796). 140 See Sherwin-White 1966: 4–5 and Birt 1882: 288–9 (on Isid. Orig. 6.12.1). For an attempt to determine the length of a standard papyrus roll, see Skeat 1982 and note Van Sickle 1980a: 7–12, on literary book-rolls.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

67

uniformity of length.141 The same situation applies in the case of Book 8 (the shortest book) and Book 9 (one of the longest). In its present form Book 8 already contains its share of short, inconsequential notes of indeterminate date (3, 9, 13, and perhaps 15); the addition of a few more from those now found in Book 9 would have done no damage to the internal structure of the volume and would have redressed the balance between the two books. Irregularities in the pattern of distribution of female correspondents and in the lengths of the individual books do not, of course, prove anything about Pliny’s program of publication. But when they are taken into account with other factors such as chronology, onomastic conventions, and formal balances, they may be seen to support the notion that Book 5 was released independently of Book 6 and are consistent with the view that Pliny may have reissued the first four volumes of his correspondence when he published the fifth. The original sequence of publication of the first four books is less easy to discern.

The original publication of Books 1–4 The close parallelism of contents between Books 1 and 2 has led many to the plausible conclusion that the first two books were compiled and published simultaneously.142 Alternatively, Books 1 and 2 may have been put together at about the same time and the first volume released early in the reign of Trajan, with the second following after a moderate interval, perhaps shortly after Pliny’s consulship in September 100.143 The once popular notion of a joint publication of the first 141 Thus I disagree with Sherwin-White 1966: 35, for whom ‘all the indications are against separate publication [of Books 5 and 6]’. By indications he means primarily the existence of serial links between Books 4 and 5 (the Nepos series) and Books 5 and 6 (the letters on Varenus). Elsewhere (48) Sherwin-White acknowledges ‘the peculiar features of Books V and VI’ as ‘due to the chronological basis of the compilation’, thus distinguishing the processes of compiling and publishing (cf. 291 on 4.15). It seems more natural to view the two activities as closely related stages of the same operation. Once the programme of publication was under way and a book had been put together in final form, why delay its publication? 142 So first (and tentatively) Mommsen 1869: 373 n. 1; cf. Syme 1958: 663; Cugusi 1983: 212. For the paired letters in Books 1–2 (1.5~2.20, 1.8~2.5, 1.9~2.14, 1.10~2.3, 1.12~2.1, 1.14~2.18) see Sherwin-White 1966: 54; each book has its letter to a woman in the fourth position (on the model of Ov. Pont. 1.4?). 143 Sherwin-White 1966: 55, 30; Murgia 1985: 200 places 1.1 and the first recitation of a book of letters in the spring of 98 or slightly later but allows for subsequent

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

68

John Bodel

three books is refuted by Sherwin-White, who rightly concludes, on the basis of a comparison of letter types and subjects, that the first two books could not have been compiled at the same time and on the same principles as Book 3. If we look for signs of artistic arrangement beyond the boundaries of individual books, our attention is drawn—naturally, in view of the precedent set by Ovid and Seneca, to say nothing of Statius—to the composition of the first three volumes. Consider the interplay of themes among the three letters that would have occupied the cardinal positions of a three-book edition of the correspondence—first (1.1), last (3.21), and at the center (2.10).144 In 1.1 Pliny responds to a friend’s encouragement to publish a selection of his letters. In 2.10 Pliny himself urges a friend (Octavius Rufus) to publish his verses as a hedge against mortality and before they pass, unauthorized, into the public domain; in response to the expected excuse that friends will see to it after his death (§5), Pliny remarks the folly of expecting friends to perform posthumously a service neglected in lifetime by the one destined to benefit most. In 3.21 Pliny commemorates the death of the poet Martial by reproducing some of his verses and in closing commends the author’s commitment to his craft: though his poetry may not be immortal, it was nonetheless written with that goal in view. Few readers have missed in the compliment the subtle intimation of a similar claim for Pliny’s own epistolary efforts.145 In other ways Book 3 seems to respond directly to Book 1. The letters of both volumes, for example, seem to be disposed in symmetrical patterns built up in groups of three.146 At the same time, each book marks the letters appearing first in a unit of ten: in Book 1, the

revision and reselection before formal publication (at an uncertain date) of the solitary volume. I find it easier to believe that Books 1 and 2 were issued together: as the first book is now arranged its final letter would make a feeble end to a monobiblos; by contrast, 2.20, with its three stories of Regulus as captator, neatly caps the three stories of Regulus’ public conniving, aggressiveness, and treachery recounted at separate places earlier in Books 1–2 (1.5, 1.20.14–15, 2.11.22). 144 The center of Book 2 falls immediately after the tenth letter (between 2.10 and 2.11), that of the three-book collection of sixty-five letters immediately before (between 2.9 and 2.10). Within Book 2, the tenth letter serves as a ‘hinge’ between the two thematically coherent halves of the volume (letters 1–9 and 11–20): Merwald 1964: 60; cf. 82 for a schematic sketch of the relations among 1.1, 2.10, and 3.21. 145 So, explicitly, Syme 1958: 97. 146 According to Merwald (1964: 38, 83) the letters of Book 1 are arranged into groups of 9, 6, and 9, those of Book 3 into smaller units of 3, 6, 3, 6, and 3.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

69

three shortest notes occupy the first, eleventh, and twenty-first positions; in Book 3 those places are reserved for the development of a thematic leitmotif centering on the idea of praise—or rather, selfpraise, for in each case ostensible praise of the subject reflects credit on the author himself, in three of his favorite guises: statesman, patron, and litterateur.147 Finally, it is perhaps significant that within the carefully articulated structure of Book 3, the only two letters that do not conform to the internal architecture of the volume (12, 17) find close counterparts in Book 1, in a pair of letters placed, chiastically, in similar positions within the book and related to each other by a common theme and tone (11, 15).148 3.12, in which Pliny accepts a dinner invitation on the condition that the fare and conversation be moderate, recalls 1.15, in which the addressee is chided for having accepted Pliny’s invitation to a simple dinner and then spurning him in favor of a richer repast elsewhere; in both the tone is playful and the literary pedigree apparent.149 The thematic relationship between the two notes, however, is one of inversion, as the setting and situation of one mirror those of the other. In 1.11 and 3.17, by contrast, theme and subject run in parallel lines. Both letters belong to a peculiar subspecies of courtesy

147

Note especially 3.1.11–12 (Vestricius Spurinna, on whom see RP 7: 541–50); 3.11.1–2 (Artemidorus the philosopher); and 3.21 (Martial) with the remarks above, n. 144; Merwald 1964: 78–80. Henderson 2002a: 43–153 characterizes Book 3 as Pliny’s ‘portrait-book’, the chief subject being, as always, a portrait of the artist. Gibson and Morello 2012: 115–23 note the parallel roles as role models played by Spurinna and Pliny the Elder in Book 3. 148 For the connections between 1.11 and 1.15—exercises, both, in playful pouting—and for their place in the structure of Book 1, see Merwald 1964: 33–4, 37–8. 149 1.15 is Pliny’s version of a well-worn poetic and epistolary theme, the ‘comparison of dinners’: cf. e.g. Catull. 13.1–8; Cic. Fam. 9.16.7; Att. 6.1.13; Hor. Epist. 1.5.1–11; Mart. 5.78 with Guillemin 1929: 135–8. In 3.12, the model for Pliny’s association of Socratici sermones and the legendary drunkenness of the younger Cato (e.g. Plut. Cato Minor 6, Mart. 2.89) seems to have been a stanza of Horace’s ‘Ode to a Wine Jar’ (Odes 3.21.9–12), where the exemplum concerns the elder Cato and the collocation arises more naturally from the context: see Guillemin 1929: 119. As Ilaria Marchesi points out to me, Mart. 10.20 (19), the flattering poem that Martial dedicated to Pliny, with its emphasis on Pliny’s abstemious rectitude and its allusion in the final line to potential censors as rigidi Catones, provides another likely model. The positioning within Pliny’s collection of the letter in which he quotes the final ten lines of Martial’s epigram, in Book 3 in the twenty-first position, parallels the placement of Horace’s ode to the wine jar at the same place in his collection (3.21). The cena theme is elsewhere touched on only in 2.6, where the stinginess of an otherwise extravagant host earns Pliny’s censure.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

70

John Bodel

note found only once elsewhere in the collection (2.2) in somewhat different form, in which Pliny adopts an unusually anxious tone in soliciting news, or at least a perfunctory response, from his correspondent; both are addressed to stalwart pillars of the Trajanic regime serving on campaign in the Dacian wars, each of whom receives only one other letter in the collection; and both play on the oldest of Roman epistolary conventions, the writer’s affirmation of health: ego valeo.150 As noted above (p. 14), Sherwin-White found the presence of three obituaries (of Silius Italicus, Larcius Macedo, and Martial) in Book 3 ‘surprising on grounds of distribution and variety if Pliny was already planning a fourth volume’, since Book 4 is light on them, with only one (4.21); in his view, this overload of a single type showed that in Book 3 ‘Pliny had nearly exhausted his stock of good letters.’151 Perhaps so, but it seems not to have been remarked that the placement of the three death notices—seventh, fourteenth, and twenty-first in a volume comprising twenty-one letters—articulates the book precisely into thirds, and that the letter on Silius, man of politics and letters, is proportionately longer than those on Macedo, vir praetorius, and Martial, professional poet. It is possible that Pliny simply made a virtue of necessity by disposing the three obituaries thus, but if so, the same explanation must hold also for Book 5. There too we find three death notices (no other book contains as many) symmetrically arranged in a volume (the only other one) comprising twenty-one letters and preceding a book in which the only representative of the species (6.2) does not fully conform to type. As in Book 3, the first of the three notices elicits from Pliny an exhortation to publish and the last occupies a prominent position as

150 Cf. 1.11.1–2: at hoc ipsum scribe, nihil esse quod scribas, vel solum illud unde incipere priores solebant: ‘si vales, bene est; ego valeo’. hoc mihi sufficit; est enim maximum. ludere me putas?; 3.17.3: ipse valeo, si valere est suspensum et anxium vivere. In categorizing these notes with other ‘epistolary visiting cards’ on various topics (5.18, 7.2, 7.13, 9.32) Sherwin-White 1966: 111 obscures the more specific points of contact between the two. For the correspondents Fabius Iustus and Iulius Servianus see Syme 1964 (= RP 6.145–6); RP 7.603; further, on Iustus: Syme 1968: 148 (= RP 3.716); 1985a: 359 (= RP 5.476–77). 151 Sherwin-White 1966: 52–4 (cf. 32, 50) arguing primarily against Peter’s theory (1901: 105–9) of a publication of the correspondence in triads but effectively countering also the arguments of Asbach 1881 and Merwald 1964: 62–82 for a joint publication of Books 1–3. Elsewhere (46–7) Sherwin-White excuses the obituaries of two poets in the same volume on the unconvincing grounds that one was an Italian senator, the other a provincial client.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

71

final letter of the book.152 These correspondences suggest that Book 5 was in certain respects meant to be seen as a counterpart to Book 3. It need not follow that the two volumes were compiled—let alone published—simultaneously. On the contrary, there is much to be said for Syme’s suggestion that Book 3 was added to Books 1 and 2 to form a triad: the last letter of the volume closes with an author’s reflections on literary immortality (3.21.6), and the first letter of the following book marks a new beginning by announcing Pliny’s impending trip to Comum.153 Book 4, which ends with Pliny’s presentation of a ‘little gift’ brought back from Comum (4.30.1) and thus has its own self-containing frame, was probably issued independently eighteen months or so after the publication of Book 3. The links established between Books 4 and 5 by the presence in each of letters on the same topic (e.g. the Nepos series) need not imply that the two books were originally published together, since each of the letters in Book 4 is fully comprehensible without knowledge of the others and could well have stood on its own.154

Were Books 6–8 published together with Books 1–5? More disturbing to the traditional view that our corpus of the letters represents a series of installments issued independently over the course of several years is the contention that certain passages in the correspondence can only be fully understood in the light of information divulged much later in the collection. According to Murgia,

152 Cf. 5.5 (C. Fannius), 5.16 (Minicia Marcella), 5.21 (Julius Avitus). The three death notices mark off the other letters of the book into the following groups: 4: 10: 4. For ruminations on publishing and perishing, cf. 3.7.14–15 with 5.5.4, 7–8. Merwald 1964: 81, 101 finds other formal and structural similarities, not all of them convincing, between Books 3 and 5. 153 Syme 1958: 663. Praise of Vestricius Spurinna (3.1), balances an appreciation of Verginius Rufus (2.1); for the two men as surrogate father-figures for Pliny, along with Corellius Rufus, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 106–7. Relevant too, perhaps, is the curious fact that of the 247 letters in the nine books, only two immediately follow a letter addressed to the same correspondent: one pair starts the second half of Book 2 (2.11–12, to Arrianus Maturus), the other bridges the transition between Books 2 and 3 (2.20–3.1, to Calvisius Rufus). 154 Pace Sherwin-White 1966: 34, who argues from the existence of such links for a joint publication (in 107) of Books 4–6 or 4–7. For the chronological uncertainties raised by 4.15, predicting a consulship for Minicius Fundanus in proximum annum, see p. 101.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

72

John Bodel

Pliny’s oblique references at 1.7.2 and 3.4.6 to pericula attending his prosecution of Baebius Massa in 93 would have puzzled the general reader until he came upon 7.33, which furnishes the necessary details.155 It might be debated whether this sort of literary effect is more likely to have been desiderated or avoided by an author with full editorial control over his material, especially one elsewhere concerned to clarify obscurities for the reader; but the question of artistic intentions is beside the point, since the nature of Pliny’s predicament would have been familiar not only to the recipients of the letters in which it is mentioned but to the reading public at large.156 In 7.33 Pliny prefaces his account to Tacitus with an apology for reporting an incident that cannot have escaped the historian’s notice, since it had appeared in the acta publica (§3), a sort of official news bulletin issued regularly to the Roman populace.157 That being the case, Tacitus will not have been the only one familiar with the affair: the acta circulated widely throughout Italy and the provinces and were eagerly read by those with an interest in the events of the capital.158 Writing early in the reign of Nerva, Tacitus alludes to the trial in a fashion which suggests that contemporary readers could be expected to remember the details of the affair a few years after the fact—and not only contemporary readers, for Tacitus no less than Pliny was writing for posterity, with literary immortality his aim.159 For us, it is true, the 155

Murgia 1985: 196–7. Cf. Murgia 1985: 196 (after Sherwin-White 1966: 14 and ad locc.) adducing the explanatory phrases at 1.5.10, nondum ab exsilio venerat (sc. Mauricus; cf. 1.5.5, is tunc in exsilio erat, a Domitiano relegatus) and 3.4.2, ut praefectus aerari (a less compelling instance, in my view); his third example, sic enim scribis at 8.7.1 (to Tacitus), rather than revealing the reviser’s hand, is an epistolary convention designed in part to impart verisimilitude: cf. Cic. Att. 12.5c.1 (241 SB), Fam. 3.7.3 (71 SB). But Pliny’s aim in this elegant note is not so much verisimilitude as literary play with his correspondent, Tacitus: see Marchesi 2008: 102–9. 157 For the acta, see Baldwin 1979. 158 Cf. Tac. Ann. 16.22.6 (Cossutianus Capito is speaking): diurna populi Romani per provincias, per exercitus curatius leguntur, ut noscatur quid Thrasea non fecerit; see further Baldwin 1979: 197–8 [467–8]. At 5.13.8 Pliny refers a correspondent (possibly a Narbonensian: Syme 1958: 802) to the acta for the text of a decree of the emperor, and in 9.15.3, written from his Tuscan estate, he requests news of the urbana acta from a friend in Rome. 159 Tac. Agr. 45.1: et Massa Baebius etiam tum reus erat; cf. Agr. 1.1, clarorum virorum facta moresque posteris tradere with 46.4, Agricola posteritati narratus et traditus superstes erit. If Pliny is to be believed, his clever rejoinder (for which see Hennig 1978) to the charge of calumnia levelled at his co-prosecutor, Herennius Senecio, subsequently became the talk of the town (7.33.8). 156

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

73

nature of Pliny’s pericula in 93 would remain obscure were it not for 7.33; but Pliny’s contemporaries were not so deprived of alternative sources of information, and the original readers of 1.7 and 3.4 were no doubt well informed of his long-standing association with the Baetici. When Pliny later imposed upon Tacitus to incorporate the affair in his Histories, a work destined, in Pliny’s view, for immortality (7.33.1), he naturally supplied the full details in accordance with the requirements of an historical narrative (7.33.4). Retrospective links, as in the series of letters pertaining to the Varenus case (7.13, 7.6, 6.13, 6.5, 5.20; cf. 4.9.1), suggest that Pliny sometimes expected a reader of his latest book to be familiar with the contents of the earlier volumes but do not necessarily imply that the books were published together. Indeed, the strongest evidence for the separate dissemination of at least one section of Pliny’s correspondence derives precisely from such a retrospective reference: 9.19 begins with an indication that the addressee has read a letter of Pliny’s that now appears in the collection as 6.10. Since the earlier letter is addressed to a different correspondent, it has generally, and no doubt rightly, been assumed that Book 6 was available to the public sometime before Pliny compiled Book 9.160 Nothing in the arrangement of the intervening volumes poses any obstacle to this view, and we have no reason to suspect that the latter half of the collection represents anything other than an unaltered joining of successive installments issued independently over the course of several years. Evidence of attention to balance in the distribution of letters on extortion trials (1.7, 2.11, 2.12, 3.4, 3.9, 4.9, 5.20, 6.13, 7.6, 7.10) and certain of the early obituaries (1.12, 2.1) and character sketches (1.10, 2.3, 3.11) testifies to a concern for variety in the composition of individual volumes but need not presuppose a master plan.161 In short, nothing in the composition of Books 6–8 leads us to believe that they were meant to be read together with Books 1–5, or that the first eight books were issued as a group. The most compelling evidence 160 9.19.1: significas legisse te in quadam epistula mea iussisse Verginium Rufum inscribi sepulcro suo . . . It is possible that Ruso saw only a copy of the letter circulated privately among Pliny’s friends in advance of its formal publication (so Prete 1948: 87; cf. Murgia 1985: 201), but the natural implication is that Book 6 was published before Book 9: cf. Mommsen 1869: 368 n. 2. See further Marchesi 2008: 229–32, on the ‘citation’ of 2.2 in 9.2, which implies that the addressee, Sabinus, of 9.2 had already read 2.2 in a published form, probably as part of a literary collection. 161 Cf. Murgia 1985: 194–6.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

74

John Bodel

that Pliny intended the completed series of nine volumes to be viewed as a unified corpus derives from the final book.

BOOK 9 Of the forty letters in the ninth book (the greatest number, by far, of any book, Book 6 ranking second with thirty-four) the great majority are short formal notes of admonition or thanks; no more than twelve, by Sherwin-White’s count, contain material of any consequence; and only one (9.37) is precisely datable, to the summer of 107.162 The thirty addressees include half a dozen nonentities who surface only here in the correspondence and another two who have not appeared since Books 1 and 2.163 In all these respects Book 9 differs markedly from the earlier volumes. What is more, the last book alone of the nine contains no letter on a contemporary political affair; instead, Pliny recounts for a young protégé the events surrounding his prosecution of Publicius Certus early in the reign of Nerva, the principal details of which the young man had already learned, perhaps as much as a decade previously, from the published versions of the speeches delivered on that occasion (9.13). The distribution, over the nine books, of letters on contemporary political topics is one of the most telling indicators of the decline in ‘desirable’ material postulated by Sherwin-White regarding Pliny’s compilation of the later books. Books 1 and 2, which cover a period prior to Pliny’s consulship in 100, contain two and three examples respectively. Books 3–5, produced during the ascendant years of Pliny’s consular career (c.101–6), contain four or five specimens each. An apogee of sorts is reached in Book 6, which boasts no fewer than six epistles on current political events. Thereafter, a precipitous decline: two examples in Book 7; one, somewhat out of date, in Book 8; none in 162 Sherwin-White 1966: 39–40, 49–50. If, as now seems likely, Pompeius Falco remained in his province, Judaea, during and after his consulship in 108, then 9.15, addressed to Falco at Rome, must belong to 109: Syme 1985b (= RP 5.489). 163 Nonentities: Colonus (9.9), Venator (9.20), Sabinianus (9.21, 24; possibly identical with the local magistrate M. Plinius Sab( ) attested at Bellagio (CIL v. 5221): cf. RP 7: 510 n. 104), Rusticus (9.29), Sardus (9.31; but see Syme 1983: 109–10 [= RP 4.379f.]), Mustius (9.39); cf. also †Atrius† (9.35). Long-forgotten correspondents: Cornelius Titianus (9.32, cf. 1.7), Lupercus (9.26, cf. 2.5).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

75

Book 9.164 This pattern of distribution suggests that, if Pliny had had suitable material to hand, he would have included in the final book a specimen of a type of letter of which, owing to its twin advantages of diverting the reader and enhancing his fame, he was particularly fond. Upon initial inspection, then, the peculiarities of Book 9 seem to answer to Sherwin-White’s hypothesis of a volume assembled in haste and comprising some recent epistles of genuine interest, several trivial notes belonging (perhaps) to the period covered by Books 7 and 8, and a few older letters resurrected to fill out the roll.165 But Pliny had no need to pad his collection simply in order to fill out a roll, and closer examination suggests that he imparted to this unpromising material a greater thematic coherence than has generally been recognized.

The last volume of the collection While not disputing Sherwin-White’s dismal appraisal of the subject matter of the final volume, Murgia points to certain letters in Book 9 that recapitulate themes introduced in Book 1 and argues convincingly that the final book was designed to balance the first volume and thus to lend unity to the entire collection.166 In particular, the opening of 9.1, saepe te monui, ut libros quos . . . composuisti quam maturissime emitteres, recalls the beginning of 1.1, frequenter hortatus es ut epistulas, si quas paulo curatius scripsissem, colligerem publicaremque, where Pliny’s role in the exchange between reluctant author and encouraging friend is reversed.167 For Murgia, the problematic relationship between the two famous letters to Tacitus on the subject of hunting and writing, 1.6 and 9.10, is to be seen in the same light: shared references to boar-hunting, literary composition, and the simultaneous pursuit of Diana and Minerva link the two letters to 164

References are supplied in the table drawn up by Sherwin-White 1966: 45. Sherwin-White 1966: 40. Murgia 1985: 198–9, anticipated in part by Merwald 1964: 136–7, who cites some of the same evidence (1.1 with 9.1, 1.6 with 9.10) but makes less of it. 167 Curiously, Murgia 1985: 198 claims that these are the only two letters of Pliny to begin with a word for ‘often’, overlooking 4.7 (saepe) and 9.23 (frequenter); cf. also 1.20.1 (frequens). 5.8.1, suades ut historiam scribam, et suades non solus: multi hoc me saepe monuerunt, presents a situation similar to that depicted in 1.1. The cogency of the parallel between 1.1 and 9.1 is reinforced by the correspondence of theme. For the trope of publishing at the insistence of one to whom the work is dedicated, see above, n. 96; further, White 1974: 54. 165 166

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

76

John Bodel

each other (and, through other thematic and verbal reminiscences, to Tacitus’ Dialogus): whereas in 1.6 Pliny brings home from the hunt three boars and full notebooks, in 9.10 he faces a shortage of boars and the tedium of revising speeches for publication. Pliny’s unsatisfactory cultivation of Diana and Minerva in 9.10 mirrors his successful pursuit of both in the earlier letter.168 Thus 9.10 balances 1.6 as 9.1 balances 1.1: in each case the letter in the last book recalls the earlier epistle through verbal and thematic reminiscences but inverts the situation depicted there. Murgia goes on to show how other letters of Book 9 resume themes introduced in the first book that were not subsequently developed; at the same time he acknowledges that balance or contrast with earlier letters was not the sole, nor even the primary, reason why most letters were included in the final volume.169 Throughout the book the theme that predominates is Pliny’s preoccupation with literary production, his own or others’, as a means of securing a lasting reputation.170 If Syme is right in supposing that certain letters in Book 9 touching on the subject of fame were purposefully reserved for the final volume, we should not be surprised if Pliny devised other means as well of signalling that the series was coming to an end. In fact, if we look to the beginning and end of the book, we find major themes of the correspondence brought to a close in ways that invite the reader to look back across the collection.

The beginning of Book 9 The second letter of Book 9, for example, culminates a series of explicit comparisons of Pliny to Cicero that run throughout the

168

We need not here enter further into the vexed question of the relationship between 9.10 and 1.6 and the pertinence to both of certain passages of the Dialogus. With Murgia and many others I accept the arguments of Bruère 1954: 167–8 that Pliny in 1.6 playfully appropriated Tacitean language and imagery from the Dialogus in urging Tacitus to literary pursuits; beyond this little else is agreed. See the discussions of Lefèvre 1978; Posch 1983; Murgia 1985: 174–81, 202–6; Häussler 1986: 70–3 and 1987; Edwards 2008, all with references to earlier literature. 169 Murgia 1985: 199, comparing 9.13 with 1.5 and 9.26 with 1.20. 170 In addition to the letters cited by Syme (above, n. 11) cf. 9.3, 9.6.4, 9.8 (looking back to 4.27.3–4) 9.11, 9.20.1, 9.25.1–2, 9.28.3, 9.35.2, and note Murgia 1985: 199–200: ‘Ep. 9.14 (to Tacitus on their prospects for continuing fame) has an appropriateness of theme which requires no formal balance to justify placement in a final book.’

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

77

correspondence. In Book 1 Regulus accuses Pliny of attempting to copy Cicero’s oratorical style (1.5.11), a charge to which he willingly admits (1.2.4, 1.5.12) and the truth of which he later confirms by appealing to Cicero’s practice in order to defend his own preference for amplitude of treatment in forensic oratory (1.20.4–10). In 3.15 an aspiring poet in search of a sponsor spurs a willing horse by reminding Pliny of Cicero’s patronage of an earlier generation of versifiers (3.15.1); later Pliny himself invokes a Ciceronian precedent in order to defend his newly acquired passion for composing light verse (5.3.5, 7.4.3–6). Nor did emulation end with literary pursuits: when Pliny attained the augurate, an old friend expressed pleasure at the thought that Pliny had followed Cicero’s path in political office as in literary endeavors, a complement that prompted Pliny to remark that he had secured his priesthood, like his consulship, at an earlier age than his republican predecessor (4.8.4–5). Conspicuously absent from the comparisons in Books 1–8, however, is any reference to Cicero the letter-writer; for that we must turn to Book 9, where it is the differences rather than the similarities between the two epistolographers that Pliny is at pains to emphasize. In 9.2 Pliny responds to a request that he write longer letters in the manner of Cicero by pleading poverty of subject-matter: whereas Cicero had a wealth of important topics to match his abilities, Pliny is constrained by a narrow range of themes (9.2.2–3). The complaint was a commonplace of the age, but Pliny’s formulation of it in this context serves at least two important and specific functions.171 By openly acknowledging a hitherto implicit rivalry with Cicero in the field of epistolography, Pliny completes the catalogue of areas in which he emulated his republican model and ties off a thematic thread woven throughout the correspondence; at the same time, consideration of the different times in which the two men wrote enables Pliny to excuse the comparative banality of his themes—an apparent failing prominent in the final book—and alerts the reader to the possibility that the letters included in what was clearly being marked as a final volume owed their place in the collection to qualities other than their subject matter.

171

With Tacitus’ well-known remarks on the monotony of his material (nobis in arto et inglorius labor, Ann. 4.32.2; cf. 6.38.1; 16.16) compare Plin. HN Pr. 12–13. For a different reading of ‘Pliny’s “enrichment” of the Ciceronian epistolary model’, in 9.2–3, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 101–2.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

78

John Bodel

What is more, just as 9.1 presents a mirror image of 1.1, so too does the second letter of Book 9 recall the second letter of Book 1 by reversing the situation depicted there. In describing the Ciceronian embellishments lavished on an otherwise restrained speech written in the Attic style, Pliny at 1.2.4 employs an obscure Greek technical term (ºŒıŁØ) elsewhere attested in the same sense only in one of Cicero’s early letters to Atticus, where the orator had likewise employed it to describe the rhetorical coloring characteristic of the more impassioned flights of his own forensic oratory.172 In the speech described in 1.2 the Ciceronian flourishes were a concession to the Attic purity of the main argument, for which Pliny found the subject matter conducive to a vehement presentation in the manner of Calvus: nec materia ipsa huic . . . aemulationi repugnauit (§3);173 in 9.2 Pliny is exhorted to write in the manner of Cicero but finds the material wanting: praeterea nec materia plura scribendi dabatur (§1). In 1.2 the contentious nature of the proceedings roused Pliny from his customary torpor and enhanced his efforts at imitation: erat enim prope tota in contentione dicendi, quod me longae desidiae indormientem excitauit (§3); in 9.2 the distractions of daily business have dissipated his energies and prevented the concentration needed to undertake longer epistolary compositions in the manner of Cicero: ipse multum distringebar plerumque frigidis negotiis quae simul et auocant animum et comminuunt (§1). The inversion of theme and situation in the two epistles is similar to the relationship between 9.1 and 1.1 remarked by Murgia and helps to confirm his view of Pliny’s intentions at the outset of the ninth book.174 But that is not all. The next letter of Book 9, addressed to a certain Valerius Paulinus, apparently presents a straightforward declaration of Pliny’s aspirations: the happiest man, in his view, is one who, having led an industrious and vigorous life, lives confident in the prospect of future fame; as for Pliny, nisi praemium aeternitatis ante oculos, pingue illud altumque otium placeat (9.3.1). The received view sees Pliny here 172 1.2.4: non tamen omnino Marci nostri ºÅŒŁı fugimus. Cf. Cic. Att. 1.14.3 (14 SB) totum hunc locum, quem ego varie meis orationibus, quarum tu Aristarchus es, soleo pingere, de flamma, de ferro (nosti illas ºÅŒŁı) ualde graviter pertexuit, with Shackleton Bailey 1965–70 ad. loc.; Weische 1989: 378. 173 The position of Calvus in Pliny’s literary pantheon is problematic (cf. SherwinWhite 1966: 88–9); for the interpretation followed here, see Picone 1978: 41–3 and Gamberini 1983: 37–40. 174 See further pp. 91–2 on the connections between 9.2 and 7.2.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

79

advocating a life devoted to literary pursuits in preference to the sort of vain endeavors (caduces labores), that only lead to low selfesteem.175 There can be no doubt that Pliny placed a high value on publication as a defense against oblivion, but Pliny, like Sallust before him, recognized more than one path to glory: equidem beatos puto, quibus deorum munere datum est aut facere scribenda aut scribere legenda, beatissimos uero quibus utrumque.176 The happiest man, in Pliny’s eyes, is one who both achieves something worth recording and writes something worth reading and whose reputation with posterity is thereby assured. Such a man was Pliny’s uncle (6.16.3) and such a man Pliny hoped to become.177 In 9.3 Pliny sets the life of deep, rich leisure (pingue illud altumque otium) against a life devoted to the pursuit of fame, for which one must strive and struggle (contendere eniti) (9.3.1–2). The choice of terms is significant. Elsewhere Pliny employs the verbs contendere and niti singly in reference to literary efforts (1.3.5, 3.5.20, 5.5.8), but in the only other passage where he uses them together (and where, again, the judgment of posterity is invoked), distinguished public service is the topic in discussion: itaque optimum quemque niti et contendere decet ut post se quoque rei publicae prosit (Pan. 78.2). Conversely, in Pliny’s idiom the adjectives pinguis and altus, when harnessed to a term for leisure or retirement, invariably point to literary activity (studia). So, for example, in 5.6 Pliny explains why he prefers the amenities of his Tuscan villa to those of the more fashionable resorts of Latium: altius ibi otium et pinguius eoque securius; such solitude, he goes on, is beneficial to both mind and body: ibi animo, ibi corpore maxime ualeo. nam studiis animum, uenatu corpus exerceo (§45–6).178 Elsewhere Pliny urges his Coman friend, Caninius Rufus, to entrust his business affairs to others and to withdraw to his lovely country estate, the better there to devote himself exclusively to literary pursuits: quin tu (tempus enim) humiles et sordidas curas aliis mandas, et ipse te in alto isto

175

Cf. Sherwin-White 1966: 146 (at 2.2.2); Bütler 1970: 22–3. 6.16.3; cf. 5.8.1; Sall. Cat. 3.1, Jug. 3–4.4. For Pliny’s belief in literary immortality, cf. 1.3.3–4, 2.10.4, 3.7.14–15, 5.5.4–7, 5.8.7, 9.27.2; and note 3.21.6. 177 Cf. e.g. 7.33.1, 9.31.1 (cf. 3.21.6) (deeds); 3.7.14–15, 5.8.6–7, 9.14 (writings); and note Syme, RP 7: 646. 178 For Pliny’s close connections to Tifernum, and its association by him especially (and in contrast to Comum) with the life of otium, see Champlin 2001, esp. 125. Note also Gibson and Morello 2012: 221–5, exploring the possibility that Pliny had inherited the villa from his uncle. 176

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

80

John Bodel

pinguique secessu studiis adseris?; only thus will he be able to create something that will last: effinge aliquid et excude, quod sit perpetuo tuum (1.3.3–4). We find here the same combination of elements—profound leisure, ephemeral endeavors, and immortal achievement—as in the later letter to Paulinus, only the relations between them are scrambled and the concept of retirement occupies a new position in the equation: in 9.3 the life of leisure is wholly inimical to the pursuit of fame; in 1.3 it is a prerequisite. Pliny seems to have reversed his earlier position. Interpreting the thrust behind Pliny’s frequent pronouncements on the subjects of fame and mortality, otium and negotium, requires that we bear in mind the context in which each occurs.179 The addressee of 9.3, Valerius Paulinus, is not known for literary accomplishments—or efforts.180 On the other hand, he distinguished himself as a man of principle at the trial of Junius Bassus before the senate in 103 (4.9.20–2), and Pliny elsewhere in Book 9 publishes a note apologizing in advance for his absence from the formal ceremonies inducting Paulinus into a suffect consulship (9.37). Caninius Rufus, by contrast, seems never to have bestirred himself from his estates near Comum. Writing to a country gentleman, Pliny naturally advertised the benefits of literary production in providing a path out of obscurity (1.3.3–5): for Rufus the alternate route, via memorable deeds on the public stage, was not a possibility. In other letters to Rufus Pliny complains about the vexations of political life (2.8.2–3) and, in ruminating on the death of Silius Italicus, goes so far as to hint that the life of a senator living under the imperial autocracy was not, perhaps, worth the candle effort (3.7.14). Comfortably ensconced in his amoenissima villa near Comum, Rufus could be expected to empathize if not fully to understand. Writing to his colleague Valerius Paulinus, consul-designate (if the chronological sequence of the book holds) and son of a man who had risen from the rank of military tribune to become procurator of Narbonensis in 69 and prefect of Egypt under Vespasian, Pliny is unlikely to have voiced the same dissatisfactions.181 When Pliny adverts to the immortal projects that 179 A basic principle not always adhered to with sufficient rigor by Bütler 1970 in his otherwise useful chapters on ‘Das Ringen um Unsterblichkeit und Ruhm’ (21–7) and ‘Der otium-negotium-Konflikt’ (41–57). For a more nuanced discussion, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 169–99. 180 Cf. Hanslik 1955: 175. Pliny’s exhortations to Paulinus at 4.16.3 to apply himself to studia are no proof that Paulinus heeded the call. 181 For the elder Paulinus see Pflaum 1960: i. 94 no. 40 and Sijpesteijn 1979.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

81

Paulinus is said always to have in mind (9.3.3), we can feel confident that he is thinking of activity in the public arena rather than literary monuments. In this respect 9.3, Pliny’s last and fullest statement on the relative merits of a life of industry and a life spent in retirement, responds to 1.3, where the otium/negotium theme is introduced. In 1.3 Pliny deprecates the mundane tasks of estate management (humiles et sordidas curas) and advocates a life of leisure (in alto isto pinguique secessu) devoted to literary pursuits. In 9.3 the life of leisure (pingue illud altumque otium) is set against a life dedicated to accomplishing something worthy of memory, and both are contrasted with a life of futile endeavors (caduces labores) undertaken in a semblance of industry. The two notes complement one another in presenting alternative answers to the question quomodo uiuendum est? In both, undying fame is held up as the ultimate reward of a life well-spent, but each promotes a different strategy for winning the prize. Pliny returns to the theme later in Book 9 in defending the decision of Verginius Rufus to compose a verse epitaph for his tomb against the criticisms of Calvisius Ruso, who preferred the modesty of his kinsman, Julius Frontinus, in disdaining any monument: neither man should be blamed, in Pliny’s view, for both had courted fame, though they had sought it by separate paths.182 The point is the same one adumbrated in the earlier letter to Paulinus, where Pliny’s comments on immortality recall his remarks in 1.3 on the same subject and only acquire their full significance when seen in their light. Thus 9.3 responds to 1.3 as 9.2 does to 1.2 and 9.1 to 1.1: in each case the later letter inverts or reverses the situation depicted in the earlier one. We could not ask for clearer evidence that Pliny intended the beginning of the ninth book to recall the opening of the first volume.183

182 9.19.8: meo quidem iudicio neuter culpandus, quorum uterque ad gloriam pari cupiditate, diverso itinere contendit, alter dum expetit debitos titulos, alter dum mavult videri contempsisse. For the addressee (Calvisius rather than Cremutius Ruso) see Jones 1968: 116–17; Syme 1984b: 184 (= RP 4.408–9) and 1985a: 357 (= RP 5.474–5). 183 Gibson and Morello 2012: 101–3 observe a further pairing of 9.2 and 9.3 through the challenge each poses to the epistolary models of Cicero and Seneca, setting the question within a Sallustian frame.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

82

John Bodel

The end of Book 9 The last letter of the last book, 9.40, addressed to the young Pedanius Fuscus and detailing Pliny’s way of life at his Laurentine villa in winter, affixes an appropriate seal to the collection.184 The note forms an appendix to an earlier letter addressed to the same Fuscus in which Pliny describes his daily routine during summer at his Tuscan estate (9.36). The opening of that letter (quaeris quemadmodum in Tuscis diem aestate disponam) in turn recalls the first words of the only other letter in the collection addressed to Fuscus (quaeris quemadmodum in secessu . . . putem te studere oportere, 7.9), in which Pliny outlines a general program of study to follow while on vacation. The three letters are thus united by theme, and the later two, complementary to each other, look back to the first. The point of view is retrospective, inviting the reader at each stage to recall an earlier section of the correspondence and to observe the connections between related letters distributed within and among different books. In subject, as well, the letters to Fuscus in Book 9 provide a fitting conclusion to a collection whose aims, as Syme rightly insists, are broadly autobiographical and thus highly personal.185 The settings presuppose and recall two of the showpieces of earlier volumes, Pliny’s elaborate descriptions of his holiday retreats at Laurentum (2.17) and near Tifernum (5.6); the contents embrace a number of the most popular topics treated elsewhere in the correspondence;186 above all, the focus—on the private life of the author himself—fixes the cultural milieu in which the letters themselves were composed.187 In type the letters to Fuscus fit comfortably into a series of character sketches of notable men (and women) that stretches from the first book to the last, but whereas in previous books Pliny had looked

The significant pairing of ‘Fuscus’ (‘Dusky’, ‘Mr. Obscure’), as recipient of the final letter of the collection (9.40), with (Septicius) ‘Clarus’ (‘Bright’, ‘Mr. Famous’), addressee of the opening letter (1.1), has been well remarked by Barchiesi 2005: 330–2, Marchesi 2008: 250, and Gibson and Morello 2012: 238–9. See now also Whitton 2013a: 51–4. 185 Syme 1958: 98; 1964: 750 (= RP 6.142); 1985b: 487–8; cf. also Ussani 1971: 130–5. 186 Literary composition (9.36.2–3: cf. 1.2, 1.6.1, 1.8.1–4, etc.), dinner entertainment (9.36.4: cf. 1.15.2–3, 3.1.9, 3.5.11, 5.3.2, 5.19.3, 7.24, 9.17, 9.33.1), hunting (with notebooks) (9.36.6: cf. 5.6.46, 5.18.2, 9.16.1 and esp. 1.6 and 9.10), managing estates (9.36.6: cf. 7.30.3, 9.15, 9.37). 187 Cf. Lefèvre 1987: 258–62. 184

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

83

outside for suitable objects of commemoration, in the final volume his admiring gaze is turned back upon himself.188 The aura of nonchalance affected in the dedicatory epistle falls away at the end and the true purpose of the program of publication—to set before the public the exemplary life of a cultured gentleman—is subtly revealed. The vehicle chosen to impart the desired perspective, the report of a daily routine, looks back to Pliny’s reverential accounts of the ordinatio diurna of his uncle (3.5.8–15) and the venerable Vestricius Spurinna (3.1) and thus implies that Pliny too had reached that stage of a well-ordered life which justified commending the disposition of his own leisure time as an exemplum vitae for younger men.189 Pliny’s sphragis, a portrait of otium cum dignitate devoted to literature, brings the collection to a close on a suitably complacent note. It seems clear that Pliny in the ninth book sought to signal the conclusion of the series of volumes of his private correspondence in a variety of ways. The concentration of letters on the subject of fame and immortality and the uncharacteristically optimistic tone of those concerning his own reputation suggest that he felt his place in history to be secure.190 The last letter of the book and its counterpart, 9.36, show a man content with himself and confident in the propriety of his life. In general the mood of quiet self-satisfaction that pervades the book contrasts markedly with the restless ambition of the persona revealed in earlier volumes. Above all, the sequence of letters at the start of the volume, by following the sequence of letters at the beginning of Book 1 and mirroring their contents, provides a sense of unity and closure to the collection.

Did Pliny produce a nine-book edition of his letters? Whether any of this implies that the final book was released conjointly with a reissue of the previously published volumes is considerably 188

For Pliny’s character sketches (including obituaries) see the table drawn up by Sherwin-White 1966: 45; Henderson 2002a: 58–124 (on Vestricius Spurinna, Pliny the Elder, and Silius Italicus). 189 Of course Pliny, unlike Spurinna, had not yet reached the age that would allow him to retire honorably from the public stage (cf. 3.1.11–12, 4.23) but Pliny’s country routine followed Spurinna’s closely, if not exactly (see Sherwin-White 1966: 206–10, passim) and in handing it down to Fuscus, Pliny set himself in the role of elder statesman. For Spurinna as a model for retirement, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 121–3. 190 Cf. 9.8, 9.11, 9.13.25, 9.14, 9.18, 9.20.1, 9.23.5–6, 9.25.2, 9.28.3, 9.31.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

84

John Bodel

less certain. If moved by the urge to achieve formal balance within a series of works, authors of collections of short pieces can effect the desired concinnity simply with the benefit of hindsight. When Horace framed the first collection of his odes with Maecenas, atauis (1.1) and Exegi monumentum (3.30) he did not know that some years later he would turn again to the lyric muse. When the time came, however, it was an easy thing to recall and complement the earlier collection by reprising in more confident tones the theme of poetic immortality there introduced, in a poem (Donarem pateras, 4.8) composed in the same distinctive meter and placed in a correspondingly significant position (at the center) of the new book.191 Even so with Pliny, once he had decided that the ninth book was to be the last in the series, it was a simple matter to arrange, or compose, a sequence of letters at its outset to recapitulate and balance the beginning of the collection; there was no need on that account to undertake a comprehensive reissuing of his previously published work. Indeed, it is difficult to see how an omnibus edition of the nine books could have been expected to appeal to any but new readers of the correspondence. Unlike Ovid, who ostentatiously vaunted his new, three-book edition of Amores in a prefatory epigram, and unlike Martial, who advertised the availability of a codex edition of his epigrams at the start of the first book and announced the revised version of Book 10 in a similarly appropriate place, Pliny provides no indication anywhere in the nine volumes that the collection we have was meant to supersede any versions of his correspondence circulated previously.192 Readers already in possession of the earlier volumes are unlikely to have felt the need to acquire new copies of the same books unless it were clear that the ones they owned had become obsolete, and for that notion we have no evidence whatsoever.193 Surely it is 191

See Fraenkel 1957: 302, 422–3. Cf. Ov. Am. 1.Ep.2: hoc illi praetulit auctor opus—a statement which no doubt contributed to the disappearance, without a trace, of the original five books; Mart. 1.2, 10.2. 193 The same argument can of course be brought to bear against the theory of a five-book edition of Pliny’s letters argued above, but I find it easier to imagine that a smaller collection, produced when Pliny’s popularity was still growing, could have supplanted earlier versions of the first four books (which may have enjoyed only limited circulation) than that a comprehensive edition of the nine books superseded the versions of Books 1–8 published previously: by the time Pliny compiled Book 9, his libelli (whether of letters or of other works is uncertain) were allegedly being sold and read in Gaul (9.11.2). 192

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

85

more plausible to suppose that Pliny composed the ninth book in such a way that readers of the earlier volumes, in particular Book 1, could recognize various thematic and formal connections established between the new volume and the books already published, but also so that the volume could stand on its own. In this respect Book 9 would differ from the previous volumes only in being marked (for those alert to the nuances of its relationships to earlier books) as the last in the series. Sherwin-White reconciled Pliny’s demonstrable attention to balance with Mommsen’s chronological framework and in so doing considerably advanced our understanding of Pliny’s literary methods. But Sherwin-White was reluctant to look beyond the distribution of types and the arrangement of serial letters in analyzing Pliny’s principles of composition; consequently any deviation from the ideal balance he attributed to necessity rather than to design, and a host of implications for the sequence of publication inevitably ensued. The cult of varietas was indeed much in vogue in Pliny’s day, and Pliny, by his own testimony, was a devotee, at least in his volume of hendecasyllables.194 But Variety was not a tyrannical divinity, and there were other deities in the rhetorical pantheon who might claim their due. Murgia therefore did well to draw attention to the generally retrospective character of the last book; in particular, by pointing out the way in which certain letters of Book 9 balance, by inversion, their counterparts in Book 1 Murgia found a unity of design where Sherwin-White saw only chaos and a dearth of interesting subjects. Syme’s suggestion that certain letters dealing with Pliny’s and Tacitus’ literary reputation may have been specifically reserved for the final volume added weight to Murgia’s observations, and Merwald showed in his structural analysis of the same book that even where the material was unpromising, Pliny was capable of imposing an orderly system of arrangement in order to achieve a certain internal coherence.195 It seems clear that when Pliny came to compile the last volume of his correspondence, variety and a balanced distribution of types were 194 Cf. 4.14.3. Peter 1901: 109–13 and, in a different sense (stressing ‘l’ordinamento ideale’), Cova 1966: 126–36 make much—perhaps too much—of this principle as the basis of Pliny’s arrangement of his letters. 195 Merwald 1964: 108–10. The forty letters of the last book are segregated into groups of 12, 12, 6, and 6 by the three longest letters of the volume, which are placed (in descending order of magnitude) at the thirteenth, twenty-sixth, and thirty-third positions, and by the final note, which caps the collection.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

86

John Bodel

not the sole, nor even the primary, artistic goals he set out to achieve. Whether this shift of focus was the result of a change in Pliny’s literary sensibilities or simply the product of necessity we cannot say, but the suspicion arises that other books in which the distribution of types is lopsided or lacunose may likewise have been composed with a different set of literary priorities in mind. Sherwin-White believed that the stockpile of material needed in order to maintain a balanced distribution by categories was nearly depleted by the time Pliny came to compile Book 7. Elsewhere he remarked that Pliny seemed to be developing a novel style of letter opening in the last three books, and he drew attention to the curious fact that specimens of the new form were clustered in groups in Books 7 (25–7) and 8 (18–22).196 If these observations have any significance, and if the arguments advanced in the preceding pages are sound, a fresh appraisal of the seventh and eighth books seems in order.

BOOKS 7 AND 8: FORMAL BALANCES

Books 7 and 8 look back to Book 1 Fifty years ago, after considering the placement of letters throughout the nine books, G. Merwald concluded that Pliny originally intended to end his collection with Book 7.197 This idea, which hinges on an elaborate pattern of perceived correspondences between the addressees of Books 7 and 4 (which Merwald believes to have been the first book of a second installment of the correspondence) and Books 7 and 1, has found no followers, nor have any of Merwald’s other main conclusions won acceptance.198 One of the arguments he advances, however, has particular relevance for the present investigation, since it closely resembles a mainstay of Murgia’s case for the retrospective character of Book 9. Certain letters of Book 7, according to Merwald, recall (often, although he does not note this, by inversion) corresponding letters in Book 1. 7.3, for example, in which Pliny summons the dilatory Bruttius Praesens from retirement in Campania to his

196

197 Sherwin-White 1966: 49, 10. Merwald 1964: 132–7. See the synthesis at Merwald 1964: 115–17 with the arguments advanced at 127–37. 198

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

87

senatorial duties at Rome, balances, by reversal, 1.3, to Caninius Rufus, in which Pliny recommends withdrawal to the country for literary pursuits.199 In the first of a pair of letters to Tacitus (1.20) Pliny invites the historian’s opinion, in the second (7.20) he offers his own. Pompeius Saturninus is involved in a chiastic pair of inversions: 1.8 and 7.15 are addressed to him, 7.8 and 1.16 are written about him. Elsewhere connections are signaled by verbal echoes: the opening of 7.29, ridebis deinde indignaberis, deinde ridebis . . . , recalls the beginning of 1.6, ridebis, et licet rideas . . . , and each letter goes on to recount an unheard-of marvel (Pliny catching boars; the imperial freedman Antonius Pallas receiving honors from the senate). Armed with these and similar parallels (by no means all of which carry the same weight), Merwald argued that Book 7 was originally intended to round out the collection by recalling Book 1. In favor of Murgia’s case, and against Merwald’s, of course, is the plain fact that Book 9, not Book 7, is the last of the collection. Merwald’s appeal to the evidence of Pliny’s late antique imitators, Symmachus and Sidonius Apollinaris, whose collections of letters were initially organized, in one case certainly, in the other probably, on the basis of a seven-book edition, is less compelling than might at first seem, since both authors knew that nine volumes of private correspondence had come down under Pliny’s name.200 More to the point, the retrospective character of Book 7, far from being distinctive, must be seen in context as part of a larger pattern; for if Book 7, like Book 9, looks back to Book 1, so too does Book 8. It may be fortuitous that the eighth book, like the first (and unlike any other), contains precisely twenty-four letters; but it can hardly be due to chance, in view of the explicit manner in which the beginning of 9.1 recalls the beginning of 1.1, that the first letter of Book 8, like the first letter of Book 1, is addressed to Septicius Clarus: only two other letters in the collection

199 Merwald 1964: 133 aptly compares 1.3.3, quin tu (tempus enim) humiles et sordidas curas aliis mandas et ipse te in alto isto pinguique secessu studiis adseris?, with 7.3.2–3, quin ergo aliquando in urbem redis? . . . tempus est te revisere molestias nostras, vel ob hoc solum ne voluptates satietate languescant. For Bruttius Praesens, see Jones 1968: 114–15; RP 5.719 and 7.670, s.v. 200 Merwald 1964: 135. For Symmachus’ seven-book edition, see Matthews 1974: 66–8 and Roda 1981: 58–79. Sidonius, addressing Constantius (and quoting Vergil) in the epilogue of his seventh book, is explicit: a te principium, tibi desinet (Ep. 7.18.1). For his awareness of Pliny’s nine books, see Sidon. Ep. 9.1.1 and Cameron 1965: 295–7; Gibson 2011b: 657–9.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

88

John Bodel

are directed to him (1.15, 7.28), and no other correspondent claims the honor of receiving the first letter of a book more than once.201 It seems that in each of the last three books Pliny sought to establish a link with the first volume of the collection, but the nature of the connection is in each case different: in Book 7 the thematic correspondences between particular letters and their counterparts in Book 1 are close but the letters themselves are disposed in no very coherent order; in Book 8 the formal affinities with Book 1 are precise but superficial, and no consistent pattern of thematic reminiscences emerges; in Book 9 thematic and structural parallels combine with other devices designed to signal the end of the collection. In this sense, the retrospective features of Books 7 and 8 anticipate, but do not pre-empt, the conflation of techniques in the final volume; the effect (pace Merwald) is not disjunctive but cumulative, as Pliny synthesizes in Book 9 the methods of recalling Book 1 introduced in the two preceding volumes.

Books 7 and 8 look forward to Book 9 Earlier (above, pp. 77–8) we remarked that explicit acknowledgment of Pliny’s rivalry with Cicero in the field of epistolography is not found before Book 9. This is not to say that Cicero’s letters did not leave their mark elsewhere in the collection. On the contrary, Pliny borrows vocabulary (especially Grecisms), phrases, even topics from Cicero, and in rare instances he seems to have fashioned entire letters after well-known Ciceronian prototypes.202 In view of what has been said in the preceding pages about the placement of thematically important letters in cardinal positions, it is surely of some interest that the two most conspicuous specimens in this last category occupy the 201 Merwald 1964 notes both points of correspondence with Book 1 (106, 136) and finds further similarities in the internal division of the two books (117) but is forced by his insistence on the overriding importance of the (presumed) connections between Books 7 and 4 to conclude that the links with Book 1 serve different purposes in Books 7 and 8: Book 8, in his view, is so marked to show that it is the first volume of the last installment of the correspondence (135), whereas the parallels between Books 1 and 7 point to ring composition (134). This sort of inconsistency is a signal weakness of his interpretation. For Septicius as an appropriate dedicatee of the Letters, see Zelzer 1964: 160–1; above in this chapter, n. 80. 202 For Pliny’s manifold debt to Cicero, see e.g. Cugusi 1983: 223–5 and Weische 1989.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

89

final places in Books 7 and 8. By establishing direct one-to-one correspondences with well-known letters in Cicero’s corpus and by assuming a contrary stance with regard to their models, 7.33 and 8.24 stand apart from other letters in Pliny’s collection that seem to recall particular themes treated by Cicero in a more general way. Noteworthy in this regard are Sherwin-White’s suggestion that Pliny may have decided to publish a note on the funeral games produced by a certain Maximus at Verona (6.34) because of its topical affinity to the correspondence between Cicero and Caelius concerning beasts for Caelius’ aedilician games, and the view of Guillemin that 9.39, on Pliny’s plans to rebuild a temple to Ceres on his property, owes its inspiration to Cicero’s letters on the shrine to Tullia.203 The thematic associations in these instances are not very close, but the placement of the two letters—at the end of Book 6 and in the penultimate position in Book 9—may suggest that Pliny wanted his readers to recognize Ciceronian allusions at the end of each of the last four volumes. Taken together, these connections suggest a mutual affinity between Books 7 and 8 and a more oblique relationship of both to Book 9. The last letter of Book 7, Pliny’s bid to be included in Tacitus’ Histories (7.33), was clearly modeled on (if not actually inspired by) Cicero’s well-known appeal to Lucceius to compose a monograph on his consulship (Fam. 5.12 [22 SB]). Pliny’s letter recalls its prototype in general theme and verbal detail and on one point, the degree of veracity required of history, presumes to correct its model: where Cicero had urged Lucceius to indulge his affection for his subject and to ignore the laws of history (Fam. 5.12.3), Pliny declares himself satisfied with the unvarnished truth (7.33.10).204 So too in the final letter of Book 8, an exhortation to a senatorial colleague embarking on a special commission to set in order the free communities of Achaia, Pliny attempts to better his model. As has long been recognized, Pliny composed his propempticon with Cicero’s letter of advice to his brother as proconsul of Asia (Qfr. 1.1 [1 SB]) very much in 203 See Sherwin-White 1966: 401 on 6.34 as modeled on Cic. Fam. 8.9.3 [82 SB], 8.8.10 [84 SB], and 2.11.2 [90 SB]). Guillemin 1929: 114 on 9.39 and Cicero’s letters on the shrine to Tullia (Att. 12.18.1 [254 SB], 12.23 [262 SB], etc. contra Sherwin-White 1966: 523, unconvincingly). 204 See Cova 1966: 29–30; 1972: 35–6; and Ussani 1970: 275 n. 19, comparing 7.33.1–2 with Cic. Fam. 5.12.1; note also 7.33.2 with Fam. 5.12.7 (analogies with the plastic arts).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

90

John Bodel

mind. The cast of the whole, however, is subtly altered to emphasize Pliny’s more enlightened appreciation of Hellenic humanitas.205 Whereas Cicero dwelled on the practical concerns facing a provincial governor, Pliny eschews pragmatic advice and embarks instead on an extended paean to Achaia as the cradle of civilization. In singling out Achaia as ‘the true and pure Greece’ (illa vera et mera Graecia, 8.24.2), Pliny pointedly echoes Cicero’s remarks in another context (Flac. 61–2) and turns them against his special pleading in the letter to Quintus, where a similar claim is made for the region of Asia Minor (Q. fr. 1.1.6, 27).206 But if the last letters of Books 7 and 8 smugly affirm Pliny’s superior cultural sophistication and ethical propriety, they also, by inviting comparison with their prototypes, inevitably bear out his complaint in Book 9 about the inferiority of his material (9.2.2). Indeed, Pliny can hardly have failed to see that his brief moment of glory following the trial of Baebius Massa paled in comparison with the stormy events of Cicero’s consulship, or that an ad hoc stewardship of the free communities of Achaia was small glory next to the republican governorship of Asia. In this sense, the two Ciceronian set pieces, placed in corresponding positions at the ends of the two penultimate books, may be seen to substantiate, and hence to forecast, Pliny’s backhanded compliment to Cicero at the beginning of the final volume.

Structural links among Books 1, 7, and 9 There is, moreover, some reason to believe that the final letter of Book 7, with its tendentious ‘correction’ of Cicero’s disregard for the laws of history, is implicated in another network of formal balances involving the first, seventh, and ninth books. Guillemin suspected an allusion to the same passage of Cicero’s letter to Lucceius (Fam. 5.12.3) at the end of Pliny’s letter on the dolphin of Hippo in Pliny’s admonition to the addressee, Caninius Rufus, to render the anecdote faithfully into verse: quamquam non est opus adfingas aliquid aut 205 See Cova 1966: 134–6; 1972: 28–35; and the classic study of Zucker 1929. The basic correspondence between the two letters was noted already by Catanaeus in the commentary to his first edition of Pliny’s letters (Milan, 1506/7). 206 Cf. Zucker 1929: 222–3. For Achaia, the Roman province, as opposed to Achaea, the territory of the Achaean League, see Oliver 1980: esp. n. 6.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

91

adstruas; sufficit ne ea quae sunt uera minuantur (9.33.11).207 The parallel does not compel immediate assent, but the notion that Pliny meant to suggest a connection between the two passages of his letters—one advising an historian not to exceed the truth (7.33.10), the other advising a poet not to fall short of it (9.33.11)—may acquire a certain plausibility from the placement of each at the end of a letter that occupies the same position in its book.208 What is more, Pliny’s exhortation to Caninius, no longer a reluctant versifier (cf. 8.4), reminds us of an earlier letter in which he had urged Caninius to publish (1.3). That letter, as we have seen (above, pp. 78–81, 86–9), bears close thematic relationships to two others placed in corresponding positions within the same two books, 7 and 9. In this it is not alone, as a consideration of the letters appearing in the second position in each volume may indicate. In 7.2 Pliny expresses surprise that the addressee, Fabius Iustus, busy making war against the Dacians, finds time in the midst of his military duties to ask to see his writings (§1); Pliny promises to send some of his poetry (nugae) at a later date and closes by declaring his intention to keep his letters shorter in the future: interim abunde est si epistulae non sunt molestae; sunt autem et ideo breuiores erunt (§3).209 The same basic elements recur in 9.2—a letter, we may recall, which completes the leitmotif of explicit comparisons of Pliny to Cicero introduced in 1.2 by reversing the picture there drawn of Pliny’s literary efforts. In 9.2, addressed to a certain Statius Sabinus

207 Guillemin 1929: 116. Note 9.33.1, vouching for the story’s authenticity: magna auctori fides: tametsi quid poetae cum fide? is tamen auctor, cui bene vel historiam scripturus credidisses. Pliny much admired the letter to Lucceius (Cicero himself considered it valde bella: Att. 4.6.4 [83 SB]) and recalled it elsewhere: in an early letter to Pompeius Saturninus on the subject of self-praise (cf. 1.8.5–6 with Fam. 5.12.8), in his programmatic epistle to Titinius Capito on historiography (cf. 5.8.1–2 with Fam. 5.12.1, 6), and in the letter to Tacitus on the death of his uncle (cf. 6.16.1, 3 with Fam. 5.12.1). 208 Merwald 1964: 109–10 identifies a natural division in Book 9 after the thirtythird letter (see above, n. 195). Does book-end correspond to section-end? On this question the formal and formulaic elements in Pliny’s letter-endings would repay further investigation; for a start, see Winniczuk 1975 and below on 7.2.3 and 9.2.5. 209 This goes against a general (though not universal) tendency of Pliny and his correspondents to hope to receive letters as long as possible—within certain limits: see Lilja 1970: 74–6. For the identification of the addressee with Fabius (rather than Minicius) Iustus, the man to whom Tacitus’ Dialogus is dedicated, see Syme 1985a: 359 (= RP 5.476–7). In 106 he was active in Moesia Inferior during the second campaign against the Dacians.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

92

John Bodel

on campaign in some arid region, Pliny politely refuses a request for longer letters, pleading in excuse poverty of subject matter (§1–2) and a reluctance to add further distractions to Sabinus’ busy schedule (§1, 4); in closing, Pliny acknowledges the compliment of Sabinus’ presumed refusal to forgive the brevity of his correspondence: est enim summi amoris negare ueniam breuibus epistulis amicorum, quamuis scias illis constare rationem (§5). The parallels of theme and situation between the two letters, and the inversion of Pliny’s response, recall the relations of balance and contrast observed earlier between 1.3, 7.3, and 9.3, where the orientation of the correspondences assumes a different configuration. In that group, two themes introduced in a single letter of the first book are picked up individually in letters appearing in the same position in the two later books; in the case of 1.2, 7.2, and 9.2, two themes established independently in Books 1 and 7 are unified in the corresponding letter of the final book. The relationships may be illustrated by a simple diagram:

1.2 7.2 \ / 9.2

1.3 / \ 7.3 9.3

Once this pattern of correspondences is recognized, the conclusion seems inescapable that Pliny sought to establish a formal connection between Books 1, 7, and 9 by placing related letters at identical positions at the start of each book. The significance of this grouping for Pliny’s literary aims and the sequence of publication, on the other hand, is open to many possible interpretations. One obvious explanation, initially attractive inasmuch as it accords with Sherwin-White’s conclusions (not to mention Peter’s) regarding the publication of the last three books, is that Books 7–9 were released as a triad, in which the first and last books recall Book 1 by a kind of ring-within-a-ring composition.210 This scheme is certainly possible, but it ignores the pattern of book lengths discussed above (pp. 66–7) and goes against other arguments to be advanced below, which suggest that Book 9 was published independently of Book 8. For now we may simply observe that all requirements of chronology and compositional balance are 210

Sherwin-White inclined to the view that Books 7–9 were published together but did not rule out the possibility that Book 7, which exhibits affinities with Book 6, appeared independently, or even conjointly with Books 4–6: see his remarks at 1966: 34, 38–9, 41, 56; and above, n. 7.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

93

satisfied if Pliny published Books 7 and 8 together, at a time when he knew he would soon publish a final book and had some idea what it would include and how it would be organized. That Book 8 was in fact published, or at least compiled, at the same time as Book 7 and along somewhat different lines from those followed in Book 9 is suggested by Pliny’s development of a pair of related themes across the two books.

BOOKS 7 AND 8: THEMATIC CONNECTIONS Even the casual reader of Pliny’s letters cannot fail to notice a proliferation of illnesses and deaths in Books 7 and 8.211 On the strength of Pliny’s testimony Syme posited the visitation of an epidemic in the wake of the second war against the Dacians, the successful completion of which Trajan celebrated with a triumph early in 107.212 No one will deny that such an outbreak might lie behind the concentration of morbid themes in a selection of the correspondence written in 108 and 109. But mere coincidence of contemporary events and epistolary subject matter cannot explain the literary modeling that evidently informs Pliny’s treatment, for in several of these letters the illness of a friend or relative—or of Pliny himself—is made the basis for demonstrating some general moral precept. A leitmotif centering on the effects of physical illness on moral character runs throughout the two books and culminates in the final letter of Book 8, where an unexpected simile, incongruous in its immediate context, acquires deeper significance—indeed, only makes sense—when viewed in the light of Pliny’s earlier treatment of the theme. In Book 7 Pliny explores the changes worked on the character of the patient by his own poor health; in Book 8 the focus shifts to the moral response evoked in the healthy by the illnesses of others. 211 Cf. 7.1 (Rosianus Geminus, the addressee; and Pliny himself, §4–6), 19 (Fannia and her relative Junia, a Vestal Virgin), 21 (Pliny, eye-trouble), 26 (a friend, prompting reflection on how illness inspires more virtuous living), 30 (a pupil of Julius Genitor, the addressee); 8.1 (Pliny’s reader Encolpius and others of his household), 5 (the wife of Minius Macrinus), 10–11 (Calpurnia, miscarriage: cf. Shelton 2013: 125–7), 16 (Pliny’s slaves), 18 (Domitius Tullus’ debilitating infirmity, §8–10), 19 (Pliny’s wife Calpurnia and his slaves), 23 (the illness (§8) and death of the young aedile Junius Avitus). 212 Syme 1985b: 182 (= RP 5.486), offering as an alternative explanation (perhaps more plausibly: see Veyne 1967: 751) a series of unhealthy seasons.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

94

John Bodel

Book 7 The first letter of the seventh book is addressed to a certain Geminus who has not appeared earlier in the correspondence but who receives two letters in each of the last three books.213 Missing from our earlier discussion of the links established between Books 1, 7, and 9 by the second and third letters of each book—conspicuously so, in view of the connections between 1.1 and 9.1 remarked by Murgia—7.1 serves an equally important structural function in introducing a theme that is brought to a conclusion in the last letter of Book 8; it thus opens a frame that unites the two volumes. The opening sentence of Book 7 establishes a connection among the three essential elements of the motif—physical health, moral character, and self-control: terret me haec tua tam pertinax ualetudo, et quamquam te temperantissimum nouerim, uereor tamen ne quid illi etiam in mores tuos liceat (7.1.1). Pliny goes on to make Geminus’ persistent poor health an excuse for expatiating on his own exemplary behavior as a patient (§3–6) and in closing declares his intention to take his own exemplum as a pledge to practice self-restraint in the future (§7).214 A trivial note later in the same book seems to have been included primarily in order to show Pliny to be as good as his word. In 7.21 Pliny writes to his long-time colleague Cornutus Tertullus that he is following Cornutus’ advice, albeit reluctantly, in refraining from reading and writing while convalescing from an eye infection (§1). But whereas in the first letter of the book Pliny boasted of resolutely denying himself the pleasures of bathing and drink in order to speed his recovery (7.1.4–6), in the note to Cornutus he admits to indulging in both, moderately, as was his custom (7.21.3). 213 7.1, 24; 8.5, 22; 9.11, 30. The pattern is distinctive: no other correspondent exhibits such an even distribution of letters, and Geminus is the only person in Book 8 to whom more than one letter is addressed. As an alert reader for the Press notes, in view of Pliny’s penchant for onomastic play (see above at n. 15; Edwards 2008: 44–5 on ‘Aper’), the pairing of letters to Geminus in the last three books may be seen to point to his name and also (we may add) to invite the reader to consider in what ways the letters are paired. Geminus is almost certainly to be identified with the (T. Prifernius Sex. f. Quir. Paetus) Rosianus Geminus (Laecan[ius Bassus?]) who had been quaestor to Pliny as consul in 100 and was later recommended by him to Trajan (10.26); see Syme 1984a: 41 (= RP 4.305); RP 5.591; and, for a recently published honorific inscription from Patrae preserving his full name, Rizakis 1989; further on his nomenclature and identity, Salomies 1992: 51–2. 214 For the idea of making a letter a pledge of future conduct, Guillemin 1927–28 ad loc. compares 3.1.12 and Cic. Fam. 5.8.12 (25 SB).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

95

The moral paradigm of temperantia in times of illness recurs in 7.26, where Pliny remarks the tendency of the sick to swear themselves to lives of moderation upon recovery (§3); from this observation he then goes on to formulate the predictable maxim: in health we should be the men we vowed to become when ill (§4).215 Here we recognize a subtle inversion of one of the lessons imparted in 7.1— that we should follow the same sound principles in sickness as we do in good health (§3). The two letters complement one another, just as, in a different sense, 7.1 and 7.21 complement each other. Common to all three is Pliny’s advocacy of moderation and self-control; with 7.1 and 7.26, the contrasting states of morbidity and health provide equally suitable platforms for preaching the merits of constancy; in 7.1 and 7.21 Pliny’s behavior as a patient provides a connection that allows him to show that he practices what he preaches. This technique of bifurcated correspondences, in which a single letter forms thematic links with two different letters not otherwise connected, is familiar from our discussion of the relations among 1.2, 7.2, and 9.2 and 1.3, 7.3, and 9.3 and helps to clarify Pliny’s intentions in establishing a new theme in the seventh book.

Book 8 The first letter of the eighth book contains no overt moral lesson but sets the motif of sickness in a prominent position at the start of the new volume. No longer does Pliny focus on the moral qualities exhibited by the sick but rather on the humanitarian response evoked in the healthy by the illnesses of others. In 8.1 Pliny is concerned about the health of his slave reader, who has been coughing up blood and whose services to literature have thereby been threatened. The situation recalls an earlier epistle (5.19), in which Pliny makes much of his indulgentia toward one of his freedmen, a comoedus, who suffered from the same symptoms. Indeed, the ostensible purpose of 215 Syme 1985a: 337 (= RP 5.454) tentatively assigned this letter, along with five others addressed to unattributed ‘Maximi’, to Novius (rather than Valerius) Maximus, but the somewhat patronizing tone adopted by Pliny in 7.26 (§4: possum . . . ipse breviter tibi mihique praecipere) and in 8.24 (§1, 10: haec velim credas, quod initio dixi, scripsisse me admonentem, non praecipientem; quamquam praecipientem quoque) suggests that they belong to the same man, viz. Valerius Maximus of Alexandria Troas (on whom see p. 98; cf. PIR2 M 423).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

96

John Bodel

both letters—to demonstrate Pliny’s compassion for his household slaves—is so similar that we may reasonably ask why Pliny chose to include the second example in his collection.216 Perhaps, as Sherwin-White suggests, by the time he reached Book 8 Pliny was simply running short of interesting new material, but the prominence lent to the second letter by its placement in the initial position of the new book suggests that Pliny had a more deliberate purpose in mind. The nature of that purpose only becomes clear with Pliny’s development of the theme later in the book. Letters 8.10 and 8.11, addressed to his wife’s grandfather and aunt respectively and both concerning his young bride’s recent miscarriage, were clearly intended to be read as a pair. As has often been remarked, the contrast in tone between the two notes could hardly be more pronounced: to the grandfather Pliny apologizes for the loss of an heir, blames the wife, and brusquely dismisses her own peril; in addressing the aunt Pliny excuses the girl, dwells on her convalescence, and enlists the aunt’s support in mollifying her father.217 Pliny’s own compassion is not in doubt; rather, the divergent sympathies of his wife’s relatives furnish the opportunity for contrasting portraits. The effect of the juxtaposition, and surely part of its purpose, is to demonstrate the human capacity for different responses to the infirmity of others. Pliny returns to the theme in his famous letter on the testamentary privileges granted to his domestic staff (8.16). There he begins by reminding us of his distress over the poor health of his slaves (confecerunt me infirmitates meorum . . . ) and goes on to draw an explicit contrast between his enlightened attitude and the cold pragmatism of self-styled philosophers who regard the death of a slave as merely a financial loss. Pliny’s contempt for such persons is plain: qui an magni sapientesque sint, nescio; homines non sunt (§3). The implication is apparent: a true man recognizes the common bond of humanity underlying superficial distinctions of civil status or social

216 Bütler 1970: 112 appositely adduces 9.36.4 for the similar positions occupied by the two slaves in Pliny’s household. A possible faint reminiscence of Cicero’s expression of grief over the death of his reader (Att. 1.12.4 [12 SB]: puer festivus, anagnostes noster Sositheus, decesserat meque plus quam servi mors debere videbatur commoverat; cf. Pliny, Ep. 8.16.3) does not in itself seem sufficiently cogent to justify the reiteration of the theme. For alternative readings of Book 8 to that proposed below, see Whitton 2010: 134–7, centering on 8.14 and finding thematic unity in slavery, and (less persuasively) Bernstein 2008: 220–1, focusing on paternity and succession. 217 Cf. e.g. Sherwin-White 1966: 459 at 8.10.1; Phillips 1978: 74–5.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

97

position and is affected by grief and sympathy for human suffering, wherever it is found. As if to confirm the point, Pliny goes out of his way in 8.19, a trivial note accompanying a book submitted to a certain Maximus (wholly unidentifiable) for criticism, to emphasize the twin sources of anxiety for which he seeks solace in literature: et infirmitate uxoris et meorum periculo . . . turbatus (§1). To sum up thus far, Pliny in Book 8 presents a series of proofs of his concern for the welfare of his wife and slaves, disposing the first four letters relevant to the theme (1, 10, 11, 16) in a simple chiastic pattern (slaves, wife, wife, slaves) and capping the series with a single note (19) in which the two objects of sympathy are ranked side by side. The message, implied rather than stated, is that Pliny the humanitarian is affected no less by the morbidity of his slaves than by the peril of his wife. It is within this context of repeated affirmations of Pliny’s universal compassion that the reader approaches the final letter of the book.

The propempticon to Maximus The last letter of Book 8 has nothing to do with illness, either of slaves or of family, but illustrates instead a different aspect of Pliny’s humanitas: his veneration of classical Greek culture (8.24). For the most part Pliny’s tribute to Achaia follows conventional lines (see above, n. 205), but a peculiar digression, the relevance of which is not immediately obvious, unexpectedly interrupts the narrative. After acknowledging that Athens and Sparta have so far fallen from their former glory that only a trace of freedom yet remains to them, Pliny admonishes Maximus not to trample on these last vestiges of liberty (§4) and then draws a startling analogy: uides a medicis, quamquam in aduersa ualetudine nihil serui ac liberi differant, mollius tamen liberos clementiusque tractari (§5). Since no comparison has thus far been made between the status of the cities of Achaia and that of other cities, the illustration is hardly apposite. Furthermore, when Pliny goes on to recommend that Maximus remember the sort of cities Athens and Sparta once were without despising them for being so no longer (§5), the contrast between slaves and free men seems positively out of place, since we are told explicitly that Athens and Sparta, though fallen from their former glory, nonetheless retain the shadow of liberty. Between servile and free statuses there is no such grey area. The argument would run more smoothly if the intrusive comparison

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

98

John Bodel

of the medical treatment accorded slaves and free men were omitted, and we may reasonably suspect that Pliny included it precisely in order to establish a link with the sickness motif developed earlier in the book. Only later in the letter does the pertinence of the medical analogy become clear. Pliny reminds Maximus of the reputation he has won for fair-minded administration during his quaestorship in Bithynia (§8) and encourages him not to allow himself to appear a more equitable overseer of servile populations, by which he means the people of Bithynia, than of free men, that is, the inhabitants of the free cities of Achaia (§9). Just as doctors are more attentive to free men than to slaves, so Maximus should treat the citizens of Achaia with even greater consideration than he has already exhibited in his dealings with the Bithynians. The medical analogy may now seem less incongruous, but the message it conveys strikes a strangely discordant note. Throughout the book Pliny has been at pains to show that his concern for the welfare of his slaves is no less acute than that for his wife—this being a true sign of humanitas. The natural implication is that doctors whose conduct betrays a less egalitarian spirit are less than exemplary models of behavior, more akin to the slave-owners who regard the deaths of their slaves merely as financial setbacks (8.16.3–4) than to true humanitarians like Pliny. In view of what has come before, we might expect Pliny’s remark about the variable practice of physicians to serve as a negative exemplum—how not to act—rather than as a positive inducement to discriminatory behavior. Here the identity of the addressee, Maximus, becomes important. Mommsen long ago connected Pliny’s friend, appointed to Achaia ad ordinandum statum liberarum ciuitatum (§2), with (1) a Sex. Quinctilius Valerius Maximus who had served as quaestor in Bithynia-Pontus and was subsequently honored as a local patron at Alexandria in the Troad; (2) a Roman official (‘Maximus’), described by Arrian as ØæŁø c H KºıŁæø ºø, who paid a visit to Epictetus at Nilopolis while en route to an imperial post in Hellas; and (3) an anonymous candidate commended by Pliny in 100 for settling the finances of a notable city during an earlier quaestorship in an unnamed province.218 Cogent arguments in support were subsequently advanced 218 Cf. CIL iii. 384 = ILS 1018; Arr. Epict. 3.7.1, 30; Plin. Pan. 70.1 with Mommsen 1887–88: ii. 2.857 n. 1 and at CIL iii. 6103, acknowledging a predecessor (W. H. Waddington) in joining the legate to Achaia with the senator from Alexandria Troas.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

99

by Groag and Tod, and although Sherwin-White demurred, accepting only the identification with Epictetus’ visitor, more recent opinion has inclined toward a consensus in favor of the identity of all four men.219 With Mommsen’s identification intact, we can better understand the thrust of Pliny’s remarks. According to Arrian, for example, the Maximus who visited Epictetus was schooled by the Stoic sage on the pernicious implications of his professed Epicurean beliefs.220 Pliny would have approved. At about the same time he wrote to Maximus he addressed an admonitory note to his coeval, Calestrius Tiro, then proconsul of Baetica, whom he suspected of harboring Epicurean notions of equality among the social classes (9.5). For all his devotion to his domestic slaves, Pliny believed that distinctions of dignity and rank had to be preserved, for nothing were more unfair in public administration than total equality (nihil est ipsa aequalitate inaequalius, 9.5.3). When viewed in this light, the medical analogy proffered to Maximus may be seen to point in the same direction as the admonitions to Tiro.221 But if Pliny’s suspicions regarding Maximus’ ethical biases help to illuminate the philosophical differences that prompted his remark, they do not explain the intrusive nature of the analogy in its immediate context, nor do they account for the pointed incongruity of the metaphor in the light of what appears earlier in the book. The nature of Maximus’ provincial service suggests another approach. Insofar as it is known, it exhibits several suggestive points of contact with Pliny’s. There were indeed important differences between the two men’s assignments—Pliny replaced the regular proconsul, whereas Maximus did not, to mention only the most obvious—but it may not simply be due to the chance survival of our literary sources that both men are the first known to have held positions that were to become characteristic of the imperial administration of their respective provinces later in the second century.222 Like Pliny, 219 See e.g. Halfmann 1979: 136 no. 40 and Syme 1985a: 329–31 (= RP 5.446–8), accepting in substance the arguments of Groag 1924 and 1939: 125–8 and Tod 1939. Sherwin-White 1966: 479–80, 760 and PIR2 M 399 are unduly sceptical. 220 Arr. Epict. 3.7; cf. Millar 1965: 145. 221 Syme 1958: 80, 1985a: 331 (= RP 5.447), and frequently elsewhere (cf. RP 3.1466, 5.720, s.v. ‘Calestrius Tiro’) remarked the tendentious nature of Pliny’s advice to Tiro in connection with the letter to Maximus. 222 For Achaia, see Oliver 1973; for Bithynia-Pontus, see Eck 1970: 12–19 and Alföldy 1977: 16, 23, 238. The extent to which Pliny’s mission differed from that of a normal governor is by no means clear; in all likelihood he enjoyed no greater formal powers than any proconsul, but he seems to have been unusually active in examining

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

100

John Bodel

Maximus was selected for his appointment to Achaia personally by the emperor and, like Pliny, he went out with a special mandate. Both points are distinctive, inasmuch as both men were assigned as imperial legates to senatorial provinces.223 Trajan in these years was experimenting with a new style of provincial government of which Pliny and Maximus were early, if not original, agents. If Pliny knew of his upcoming assignment when he wrote his propempticon to Maximus, it is reasonable to suppose that the similarity of their posts would not have gone unnoticed. What is more, if the corrector Achaiae is identical with Sex. Quinctilius, quaestor in Bithynia-Pontus, and with the unnamed quaestor provinciae whose fiscal expertise earned the emperor’s notice and Pliny’s subsequent praise in the Panegyricus, then his activity in Bithynia anticipated an important aspect of Pliny’s mission to the same province, which had among its principal objectives the inspection and correction of the financial accounts of the various cities.224 Syme believed that Pliny’s letter to Maximus may have been intended as a subtle hint to Trajan that Pliny too possessed ‘the requisite tact and judgment’ for such an assignment.225 Perhaps so, but if Pliny’s correspondent is in fact the man from Alexandria in Mysia, we may wonder about the tact displayed in Pliny’s characterization of neighboring Bithynia as a remote backwater populated by slaves (8.24.9). The irony implicit in Pliny’s imminent appointment to the same distant zone has been noted—and attributed to an accident of history.226 A different interpretation seems preferable: the irony is Pliny’s own.

Pliny’s appointment to Bithynia The date at which Pliny embarked on his mission to Bithynia-Pontus is a notorious crux. Mommsen suggested ‘etwa 111’; Sherwin-White public building projects and scrutinizing municipal accounts: see Talbert 1980, esp. 423–35. In the final analysis, we often do not know whether or not Pliny acted typically, and, if not, whether we should attribute his unusual behavior to inexperience, a natural fussiness, or the peculiar nature of his assignment. 223 For Maximus, see Arr. Epict. 3.7.30–1; for Pliny, see CIL v. 5262 = ILS 2927; 10.18.2–3, 10.32.1; and Sherwin-White 1966: 547–8 (on Pliny’s mandata). For the regular issuing of instructions to proconsuls, see Talbert 1984: 402–7. 224 Cf. 10.17A.3–4, 10.18.3 with Lepper 1970: 567–8; Talbert 1980: 429–34. 225 Syme 1958: 80–1; the objections of Cova 1966: 134–5 are unpersuasive, as is his view of the letter as indicating ‘a choice between politics and culture’. 226 See Talbert 1980: 421.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

101

argued for 109; Syme originally preferred 109 or, better, 110 and ultimately came out for the summer of the later year.227 Certainty is not possible, nor (what is more important for our purposes) do we know precisely when Pliny got wind of his assignment. In 4.15, a letter that seems to belong to 105, Pliny confidently predicted a consulship for Minicius Fundanus in proximum annum, the iudicia principis having been seen to point in that direction (§5). A suffect consulship for Fundanus is indeed on record—for the spring of 107.228 Consulships, even those of candidates favored by the Princeps, might be postponed or deferred, for any number of reasons.229 So too, we must suppose (explicit evidence is lacking), proconsular appointments abroad. Alternatively, a special commission such as Pliny’s may well have been arranged some time in advance of the date it was to take effect: the problems he was sent to address did not develop overnight, and we hear nothing to suggest that his proconsular predecessor (whoever he may have been) was prematurely removed from office.230 In view of the exceptional and unprecedented nature of the appointment, useful comparanda are not to be expected, nor are they found. Syme discovered what he believed to be a veiled allusion to Pliny’s upcoming assignment in a cryptic reference, in a letter (9.28) to Pliny’s old friend Voconius Romanus, ensconced in Saguntum, to a change in Pliny’s ordinatio vitae that involved Romanus’ leaving his domestic affairs and becoming joined to Pliny by unbreakable bonds.231 Pliny’s remarks need not be taken this way, but the possibility remains that Pliny knew of his future post at the time he was compiling the last book—or books, for the new epigraphic evidence adduced by Syme to

227 Mommsen 1869: 393; Sherwin-White 1966: 80–1 (but cf. Crook 1967: 313–14); Syme, 1960: 366 (= RP 2.481); 1981: 106 (= RP 3.1339); 1985b: 185 (= RP 5.489); and, finally, RP 7.640. 228 See Syme, RP 7.604. 229 Cf. Syme 1958: 662; 1985b: 176 (= RP 5.478). 230 Servilius Calvus is the most likely candidate: see Eck 1982: 347 n. 269, 349–50 n. 275 (placing the start of Pliny’s governorship in 110). Provincial appointments could be cut short by a variety of causes: see Syme 1985c. 231 9.28.4: polliceris in fine, cum certius de vitae nostrae ordinatione aliquid audieris, futurum te fugitiuum rei familiaris statimque ad nos evolaturum, qui iam tibi compedes nectimus, quas perfringere nullo modo possis. Cf. Syme 1958: 80–1, 659; more fully in 1966 (= RP 2.481); and ultimately, with further arguments, in 1985b: 184 (= RP 5.488–9). Sherwin-White’s reservations (1966: 80, 511, at 9.28.4) carry more weight than Syme was willing to concede.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

102

John Bodel

fix the latest date in the private correspondence, though it pushes up the received terminus by nearly a year, does nothing to alter Sherwin-White’s picture of the last two books as being to a large extent chronologically homogeneous.232 Syme guessed that Pliny may have had news of his appointment in the fall of 109 before going out in the summer of 110.233 Time enough, certainly, to put the finishing touches on a book (or pair of books) nearing completion and to compile a final volume to round off the collection, especially if some material was already on hand, having been saved up for the occasion.234 The final letter of the eighth book acquires a certain poignancy if it was written by a man who knew he was soon to embark on a mission similar to that of its addressee. The analogy of the different medical treatment accorded servile and free patients, incongruous in its immediate context and seemingly contradictory to a theme developed earlier in the book, may then be seen to be exquisitely ambivalent: to Maximus, the addressee, it functions as a pointed inducement to uphold the dignity of the privileged subjects soon to come under his jurisdiction; but to Pliny, the author who disavows the principles on which it is based, it serves as a sharp reminder of the obligations incumbent upon a humanitarian and devoted public servant to treat all persons, and all problems, with equal consideration. The servile peoples of Bithynia whose financial and social ills he is sent to cure are worthy of no less humane treatment than the free citizens of Achaia. As Pliny had earlier remarked, in the opening letter of the seventh book, where the interlocking themes of morality and illness were introduced, sometimes an epistolary exemplum can serve its author no less effectively than the one to whom it is addressed (7.1.7). With the admonitory reference to doctors and patients in the last letter of the eighth book the frame is closed. 232

Syme 1985b: 180–2 (= RP 5.484–6) assigns the death of Domitius Tullus (cf. 8.18) to the winter of 108/9. Previously 8.23, on the death of Junius Avitus, had been placed by Sherwin-White 1966: 38 ‘not earlier than the first quarter of 108, which is the latest date in the letters’. For the possibility that 9.15 belongs to 109, see above n. 162. 233 Cf. Syme 1985b: 184 (= RP 5.489); RP 7.640. Mid-summer may have been the regular season for a change of command in the provinces, although practice no doubt varied: see Talbert 1984: 497–8. Of course, nothing prevents us from believing that Pliny could have learned of his assignment more than eight months in advance of his departure. 234 Syme, RP 7.640 preferred to believe that Pliny published Books 7–9 together in the winter of 109/110 before setting out in the summer of 110.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

103

CONCLUSION On the preceding arguments, the following hypothesis concerning the publication of Pliny’s nine books of private correspondence may be advanced. The first two books were probably compiled together and published as a pair not long after Pliny held the consulship in the fall of 100; alternatively, Book 1 may have been issued during the first year of Trajan’s reign, with Book 2 following some two or three years later. In late 103 or 104 Pliny released a third volume, perhaps to form a triad with Books 1 and 2. About a year and a half later he produced Book 4 independently, and in late 106 or 107 he published a comprehensive edition comprising versions (possibly revised) of the first four books along with a new fifth book. In the first months of 108 he released the most substantial single volume of the correspondence (both in bulk and in contents) and immediately set about compiling a new pair of books, drawing in part on older material, supplementing this with contemporary compositions, and arranging the whole along somewhat different lines from the preceding volumes. Sometime in 109 came word that he would go to Bithynia; the final hand was promptly applied to Books 7 and 8 and the two volumes were issued as a pair. Book 9, for which the basic plan had been devised and some of the material earmarked perhaps as much as four years earlier, was assembled in haste and released before Pliny departed on his mission in the summer of 110. That was a good thing for Pliny’s literary legacy, as it turned out, since he never returned from Bithynia and apparently published nothing further in his lifetime.235 As Pliny well knew, when a literary reputation with posterity hung in the balance, work half done were best not begun.236 Much in this reconstruction is uncertain, and many of the arguments on which it is based are, of necessity, speculative. I do not

235 Pliny may have died in harness during the second year of his commission (Syme 1958: 81, 659; Sherwin-White 1966: 82), but more recent opinion (Stadter 2006, Woolf 2006: 103–4, Noreña 2007) inclines to the view that Pliny edited Book 10 himself; see above, n. 20. Whether edited personally or posthumously, Pliny’s tenth book stands apart from the nine books of private letters, as (already) Symmachus recognized: see above, n. 23. Whitton 2013a is skeptical of any effort to determine editorial activity or sequence of publication from apparent closing points throughout the collection. 236 5.8.7: nam si rationem posteritatis habeas, quidquid non est peractum, pro non incohato est.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

104

John Bodel

doubt that readers more alert that I to thematic links and formal balances will find correspondences overlooked, and that others will not be persuaded of the cogency even of those of whose significance I have convinced myself. Nothing in the preceding pages could not, with minor adjustments, be accommodated by Murgia’s theory of a comprehensive nine-book edition of the letters or by the opinions of Syme and Sherwin-White concerning the chronology of Pliny’s publication of his correspondence. The discrepancies between my views and theirs on the details of groupings and dates are unimportant. What matters are the various assumptions about Pliny’s literary aims and methods which they presuppose and thus inevitably tend to confirm. For all their appreciation of Pliny’s mastery of the epistolary form in individual instances, neither Sherwin-White nor Murgia nor Syme gave him much credit for artistry in the composition of a collection of epistolary books. Pliny the Younger is not in the first rank of Roman authors, nor even, perhaps, the second. But he lived at a time when lesser artists did not fail to leave their mark upon the world. For the most part, the others have found their place in literary and cultural history. Of Pliny’s pre-eminent position in the latter there has never been any question—possibly, it may be suggested, to the detriment of his standing in the former. If the arguments advanced in the preceding pages have any merit, Pliny took greater care in the arrangement of his nine volumes of private correspondence than is generally recognized. Whether or not my hypotheses regarding the exact sequence of publication are correct, I hope to have shown that the arrangement of his ‘private’ letters was an integral part of Pliny’s literary aims.

NOTE ON CHAPTER 1 This essay has a long history. The core of the argument was worked out in the late 1980s, and an early version of part of it (on thematic unity in Book 8, pp. 95–100) was first presented at a meeting of the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast at Pomona College in November 1989. Further exploration of the premise—that literary artistry informed the arrangement of letters in the collection—led to a manuscript being submitted to two learned friends and to the editor of a reputable academic journal, a distinguished Latinist, to be

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

105

considered for publication. The friends’ views were divided, the editor’s decidedly negative. The manuscript went into a drawer in 1992 and there remained for more than a decade, emerging only in the context of a graduate seminar at Rutgers University on ‘The Book’ and Roman publication practices, for which Pliny’s correspondence served as a case study. More recently, a budding—now blossoming— interest in the letters as Letters prompted its circulation among a few enthusiasts, whose own contributions in related areas, by establishing more convincingly the original premise, have provided encouragement as well as a moral impetus for exposing it to wider scrutiny. Many have helped along the way. During the earliest stages, I benefitted much from helpful advice offered freely by Cynthia Damon, R. J. Tarrant, and Richard F. Thomas. Charles Murgia’s encouraging remarks on a preliminary version of the manuscript persuaded me to expand the argument beyond the rather narrow parameters I had originally set for it. R. A. Kaster’s equally probing criticisms persuaded me to prune back some of the subsequent excesses. At a later stage, Ilaria Marchesi instigated, Roy Gibson abetted, and both inspired the updated version presented here. None of these generous scholars should be taken to agree with all of the views expressed, nor can any be held responsible for whatever errors remain.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 1 Presented here in summary form, for comparative purposes, are the most important views discussed in the preceding pages regarding the chronology and sequence of publication of Pliny’s nine books of private correspondence. Brackets mark the suggested groupings of books released conjointly in groups of two or more. No attempt is made to represent the full range of configurations considered possible by each scholar but only those regarded as probable or plausible, with question marks designating doubtful cases.237

237

For detailed discussion and argumentation, see Mommsen 1869, esp. 373 n. 1, 388, on the possibility of a joint publication of Books 1 and 2 and of 8 and 9; Asbach 1881; Peter 1901: 105–7; Syme 1958: 660–4; RP 7.477 (Books 4–6 together), 640; Merwald 1964: 14–22, 115–18; Sherwin-White 1966: 29–30, 52, 54–6; Cugusi 1983: 212; Murgia 1985, esp. 200–1. For a brief summary of other views see Cugusi 1983: 210–12 and Aubrion 1989: 317–18.

ASBACH

Book no.

Book date

Publication date

Book no.

d1 j b2

96–97

shortly after the latest book date

3

101–102

00

d1 j j2 j b3

4

104–105

00

4

5

[105]–106

00

106–107 107

00

108–109

00

d5 j j6 d7 j8 j b9

6 7 d8 j b9

97–100

00

PETER

Book date

Publication date

Book no.

Book date

Publication date

}

not before 104

d1 j j2 j b3

}

104

}

end of 108

}

109

106 }

not before 109

}

c. 110

d4 j j5 j b6 d7 d8 j b9

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

MOMMSEN

SYME Book date

d1 j b2 ? b 3

97 (98)

dd4 j? ?j5 d b6 ? db7 | ?d8 j? bb9

Publication date

} c. 105 97–101 101–102

105/6

103–105 } 107 105–106 106 } 108 107 108–109 and older letters

} 109

Book no. d1 j j2 j b3 d4 j b5 d6 j b7 d8 j b9

Book date

Publication date

SHERWIN-WHITE Book no.

Book date

d1 ? b2

96–98

d 3 ? dj4 dj j j5 dj bb6 ? b d7 ? dj8 j j b b9

Publication date

} 103/104 97–100 101–103/4

105

104–105 105–106

} c. 107

106–107 end of 107

108/109

107–108 } 109/110 most 106–108

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

Book no.

MERWALD

Book no.

Book date

d1 j b2

} end of 100

3 d4 j j5

Publication date

d8 j b9

Book no. d1 j j2 j j3

end of 103/ early 104

} after 107

b6 7

MURGIA

108 ? } 109/110

j j4 j j5 j j6 j j7 j j8 j b9

BODEL

Book date

Publication date

Book no.

}

Books 1–4 in present form not before the death of Regulus:

d d 1 j? j b 2 j? j b 3

c. 105/106 ————————

j j 4 j b 5

Book date

Publication date

}

late 100

late 103/early 104 105 (Books 1–4 + 5): } late 106/early 107

6 } 109/110

d j b

early 108

7 }

109

8 9

110

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

CUGUSI

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

2 Grand Designs Unrolling Epistles 2 Christopher Whitton

* Dear Hilary,1 You have often asked me to put together any ideas I might have on Pliny, at least those that I have worked up a little. Here are some thoughts about reading Book 2, in no particular order (this is hardly a commentary). Let’s just hope you don’t regret asking, and I don’t regret agreeing. If anything else comes to mind, I’ll send it along. Yours, Chris

** Dear John, I’m so glad your work on Pliny’s publication is finally being published: incitabantur enim homines ad noscenda . . .2 I couldn’t agree more that we should all be looking much harder at his epistolary 1 ‘Quid nobis’ inquis ‘cum epistula? Haven’t we had enough of that trope from John, Erik and the rest?’ (Henderson 2002a: ix, 2003: 115; Gunderson 2007). As I trust you’ll realize, there is meaning in this contribution’s fragmentary form, not just in its ‘desultory development of arguments’ (Marchesi 2008: xi); I fear few will enjoy every word, but hope there’ll be at least something for everyone (cf. 2.5.7). 2 I won’t patronize you by identifying the allusion (9.27.2).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

110

Christopher Whitton

structures. Here are some of my scruples about Epistles 2, a book which has escaped sustained scrutiny, falling as it does in the crack between opening parade and consular pageant.3 It has something for everyone (archaeologists, political and social historians, even . . . readers of literature): a villa (2.17), an extortion trial (Marius Priscus in 2.11—and we won’t forget the subjoined 2.12), noble deaths (old Verginius Rufus in 2.1, young Vestricius Cottius in 2.7), court sketches (2.14), the essential villain (Regulus in 2.20, lurking in 2.11 too). Diligent readers will see at once that I’ve fallen into the old trap of noticing only the larger letters, as if size is all. ‘But, I tell you,’ says Secundus, ‘as with other things, so too with good books: the bigger, the better’ (et hercule ut aliae bonae res, ita bonus liber melior est quisque quo maior, 1.20.4). Size, it seems, is all.4 But the Epistles wears a generically, and professedly, minute form. Length may be a virtue in the letters of friends—tua uero epistula tanto mihi iucundior fuit quanto longior erat and all that5—but Pliny’s own longer specimens routinely advertise their generic trangression (dices . . . ‘quid enim mihi cum tam longa epistula?’, 3.9.27), above all 5.6, the longest of the lot, with its sententious pirouette on—I mean: bold theorization of—downsized unity (5.6.41–4, . . . non epistula quae describit sed uilla quae describitur magna est).6 (Sorry if that sentence felt a little lengthy.) Even these longest letters are short by comparison with most prose works that come to mind, and the books themselves are more akin to the slim libelli of poetry than the sturdy rolls of history or oratory. Would the Pliny of Epistles agree after all with scholar Callimachus that a big book is big trouble?7 Certainly Alexandrian aesthetics, I mean to suggest,—and that doesn’t just mean brevity—are 3 Ludolph 1997 and Hoffer 1999 on Book 1; Henderson 2002a on Book 3. For Book 2 see now Whitton 2013b, which overtook the present letters in the post. 4 At least for a good speech (the topic in 1.20.4). On Plinian length, and the long 1.20, see Gamberini 1983: 27–37; Riggsby 1995; Cugusi 2003: 95–111. 5 9.20.1, with the less winning continuation praesertim cum de libellis meis tota loqueretur. The motif is also at e.g. 2.2.2 and is (of course) Ciceronian, e.g. Att. 16.11.2 epistula longissima quaeque optima uidetur with Shackleton Bailey. 6 Chinn 2007: 269–70; Squire 2011: 353–5. Similar defensiveness/concern for his reader, now over a speech, in 6.33.7 quam [sc. orationem] sit licet magna, non despero gratiam breuissimae impetraturam. 7 Athenaeus 3.72a (= Call. fr. 465 Pf.) ˚ƺºÆå › ªæÆÆØŒe e ªÆ غ r  º ª r ÆØ fiH  ª ºø fi ŒÆŒfiH, a librarian’s grumble at heavy scrolls rather than poetic creed? See Asper 1997: 142–5, lamenting the fragment’s overexposure to lazy quotation by Latinists ( . . . ). Pliny (also) lets slip his familiarity with Callimachus at 4.3.4 and 7.9.9 (Hershkowitz 1995: 169–71).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

111

more important for our epistolographer than generations nurtured on Historical and Social Commentaries have tended to allow.8 Beauty, someone said, rests in size and arrangement.9 Pliny took the lesson well. He built only a small (albeit signal) section of the Laurentine villa himself, but at every level his epistolary text is crafted in exquisite architexture.10 Take the shortest letter in the book (2.15):11 C. Plinivs Valeriano svo s. (1) quomodo te ueteres Marsi tui? quomodo emptio noua? placent agri, postquam tui facti sunt? rarum id quidem: nihil enim aeque gratum est adeptis quam concupiscentibus. (2) me praedia materna parum commode tractant, delectant tamen ut materna, et alioqui longa patientia occallui: habent hunc finem assiduae querellae, quod queri pudet. vale. Dear Valerianus, (1) How is your old Marsian place treating you? How about the new purchase? Do you like the land, now it is yours? That is a rare thing: nothing is as attractive once you have acquired it as when you desire it. (2) As for me, the estates from my mother are treating me less than well; still, they give me pleasure by dint of being my mother’s, and besides I have become hardened through long endurance: the end result of constant complaints is that one is ashamed to complain. Yours, Pliny.

Nicholas (that’s ‘A.N.’ to you and me) counted this an ‘epistolary visiting card’, combining ‘vacuity’ with a pair of aphorisms added perhaps for publication.12 Leaving aside (on this occasion) content, tone, and allusive texture, inspect the form of this miniature. Not 8 Sherwin-White 1966 is a monument which commands respect; still, we’ve been refining since then our sense of letters as literature. 9 Arist. Poet. 1450b36–7 e ªaæ ŒÆºe K  ªŁ Ø ŒÆd   Ø K  . A recent response to this passage in Purves 2010: 24–64. 10 Forgive the malformation and any inadvertent resemblance to Gérard’s architextualité (Genette 1982: 7). 11 Punctuation and translations are mine throughout. 12 Sherwin-White 1966: 111 and 184. I skirt the ‘editorial’ issue as a distraction: whether this letter was ever really sent, and in what form, is unknowable and, for present purposes, uninteresting (slightly more responsible remarks in Whitton 2013b: 1–6).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

112

Christopher Whitton

(today) the chiasmus, redditio, or antonomasia, but simple numbers. The letter opens with three questions, counting 11, 7, and 11 syllables respectively (that is, roughly, a ratio 3 : 2 : 3).13 It falls into two parts, clearly bifurcated through the antithesis of reader and writer, te . . . me. The second of these parts opens again with a 3 : 2 : 3 ratio (14~9~15 syllables). Each ends with a sententia, different in construction but closely matched: nihil . . . concupiscentibus (17 syllables) ~ habent . . . pudet (16 syllables).14 This numerical near-correspondence extends to the two ‘halves’ as a whole: 26~23 words, or, more precisely, 50~53 syllables.15 If counting syllables strikes you as eccentric, it reflects standard procedure in ancient rhetoric. Syllables played a far greater role in ancient than in modern Western education from the start,16 and any man who had been through Quintilian’s institution, at least,17 well knew the value of weighing out isocola, pairs of syllabically matched phrases.18 Orator Pliny’s ear, and that of his educated contemporaries, was trained to a degree far beyond anything we book- and screenbound moderns can imagine: think of all those childhood years practising, all those adult years composing by dictation and consuming literature aurally.19 It doesn’t matter, by the way, that the two 13 I routinely assume elision within but not between cola (as I’ve defined them). Given the uncertainties, that will have to do as an approximation (cf. Riggsby 1991). 14 On Plinian sententiae see Whitton 2013b: 26–8. 15 I omit inscriptio (address line) and the ritualized vale, which Pliny excludes from clausulation. 16 Johnson 2011. Grown-up Cicero refers to scrupulous/pedantic dictation syllabatim ‘one syllable at a time’ (Att. 13.25.3, Luc. 119). 17 Such as Pliny (2.14.9 Quintiliano praeceptore meo, 6.6.3). 18 Calboli 1969: 336–8; Lausberg 1998: 320–5, citing e.g. Quint. Inst. 9.3.79–80 eius [i.e. antithesis] fere uidentur optima . . . etiam quae sunt . . . membris aequalibus, quod N Œøº dicitur (text of Russell 2001). He exemplifies with Cic. Caec. 1 si quantum in agro locisque desertis audacia potest, tantum in foro atque iudiciis impudentia ualeret (17~17 syllables, with elision) and non minus nunc in causa cederet Aulus Caecina Sexti Aebuti impudentiae, quam tum in ui facienda cessit audaciae, where he expects us to extract—I think (pace Russell)—the homoeoteleutic antithesis nunc in causa cederet [ . . . ] impudentiae ~ t(um) in ui facienda cessit audaciae (12~12 syllables; if you can’t imagine eliding initial tum, try scanning e.g. Verg. A. 8.503 tum Etrusca). The insistence of Lausberg 1998: 321 that words, not syllables, are being counted is strange given Rhet. Her. and Quint. here, and e.g. ‘Demetrius’, On style 25 e N Œøº , Ka Y Æ åfiÅ a ŒHºÆ a ıººÆ  ‘isocolon, when the number of syllables in the cola is the same’. 19 Aural consumption: e.g. 8.1 (lector Encolpius), and all those declamations (e.g. 2.3) and recitations (e.g. 1.13) that he enjoys. Pliny dictates in bed, on foot, on wheels (9.36.1–3). Of course that is only half of the story: he reads and writes for himself too

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

113

halves of the letter aren’t precisely balanced. You could call it slightly rising bicolon, or you could consult the Rhetorica ad Herennium (complete with timely rebuke for my petty maths): compar appellatur quod habet in se membra orationis . . . quae constent ex pari fere numero syllabarum; hoc non denumeratione nostra fiet— nam id quidem puerile est—sed tantum afferet usus et exercitatio facultatis ut animi quodam sensu par membrum superiori referre possimus. What is called ‘compar’ [= isocolon] has phrases . . . which comprise roughly an equal number of syllables. This will not be achieved by counting on our part (that would be childish!), but we will acquire through experience and practice enough facility to be able to match a phrase to the one before it by, let me say, intuition. (Rhet. Her. 4.27)

According to this manual, an orator should be able to produce isocolon without thinking about it. Pliny’s Epistles reveals itself to any half-awake reader as prose which has been thought about very hard indeed. No surprise, then, that we find multiple signs of minute balance in our short 2.15.20 But this attention to detail extends much further. Let’s take the two largest letters of the book, the Priscus trial at its centre (2.11) and the Laurentine villa (2.17), which account between them for nearly a third of the volume.21 We’ll start with the longest of all. 2.17 is often read as the description of a villa, but it is more usefully characterized, I think, as the textual construction of a villa. That’s not to deny that Pliny really did own a place on the coast, but it does grave disservice to the supple ecphrastic force of this text to reduce it to anything so simple as description (an axiomatic remark these dayswhere poetry is concerned, but still needing emphasis, I think, in Pliny’s case).22 But what concerns me here is the crafting of this villa(e.g. 7.21.1, 8.9.1, Parker 2009, especially 199–200, 215–17); see also n. 54 in this chapter. 20 For another instance, take 1.21 (the shortest letter in Book 1). It begins with two isocola (ut . . . tribuo = 10~11 syllables; non . . . sapis = 11~10 syllables), and divides into two halves (§1 and §2) of 48~52 syllables. But why am I telling you this (cf. p. 51 on 1.1.1)? 21 Respectively 877 and 1,083 words (book 2 counts 6,237 words). 22 On ecphrasis in Pliny’s villas, see first Chinn 2007; for Homer, e.g. Becker 1995; Squire 2013. Pliny invites the comparison only after the event (5.6.43–4, evoking Homer’s and Vergil’s shields, and Aratus’ Phaenomena—and, I grant you, with the verb describere), but once we have ecphrasis in our sights, the first word of 2.17

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

114

Christopher Whitton

in-letter/letter-as-villa, its architextuality. Forgive my recycling that bit of coquetry, but I hardly need remind you of the immense weight of Pliny’s villas in the literary economy of the Epistles. The Laurentinum is (epistolary) otium litteratum made manifest, as the reader who has scrolled through Epistles 1–2 should realize;23 and if you had missed it, the end of Book 9 will leave little room for doubt, when Pliny stages his double sphragis back in the villas: the chiastic reprise (Tusci in 9.36, Laurentinum in 9.40) sets our last sight of him on the shore, dictating away into eternity.24 We should not be surprised, then, to find artistry on the grandly minute scale in this longest letter of the Epistles so far, a massive (miniature) ecphrastic mise-en-abyme for the whole. The reader experiences 2.17 as a tour: after a proemial sentence (§1) P. transports us from Rome, taking in the scenery en route (§§2–3), and then presents the main building, in turn its central axis (§§4–5), the south wing (§§6–9) and the north wing, including the baths and a ‘tower’ (§§10–12). We now move to a second ‘tower’ (§§13–15), from where we view the gestatio (driving circuit) and gardens, and catch a second, ring-composing sight of the front entrance (§§14–15). Next we proceed to the two pièces de résistance, first the cryptoportico (§§16–19) and then, at its end, Pliny’s pavilion, a private suite detached from the main house (§§20–4). There, in his inner sanctum, he concludes the tour, leaving time for some snapshots of locality, landscape, and seascape (§§25–8), before a peroration urging his addressee Gallus to come and visit (§29). Tired yet? Most readers are, by the time they’ve worked through a thousandodd words of—let’s be honest—hard Latin. Too tired (or impatient) to pause and consider what structure underlies this smooth linearity. But it repays attention, for Pliny has built an elaborate verbal frame for his house:

(miraris) could not be apter. This and following assertions are made and justified at more leisure in Whitton 2013b: 218–55); more on the mechanics of villa descriptions from Ilaria awaits in Chapter 5. 23 1.9.5–6 (especially o mare, o litus, uerum secretumque ı E . . . ), 1.22.11 Laurentinum meum, hoc est libellos et pugillares, 2.2.2 ipse ad uillam partim studîs, partim desidia fruor. 24 On 9.40 see Gibson and Morello 2012: index s.v.; Whitton 2013a: 51–4; Roy (this volume, pp. 189–91).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

115

§1 proem 23 words §§2–3 arrival; landward topography 92 words §§4–15 main house 463 words (ends with second ‘tower’, framing a view of gestatio and garden) §§16–24 cryptoportico and pavilion 326 words §§25–8 locality, landscape, seascape 147 words §29 peroration 32 words

The villa is mounted, to start with, in a double frame: within the outer pair of addresses to Gallus (§§1, 29), descriptions of the surroundings on land and sea (§§2–3, 25–8) encircle the buildings. In fact, as you can see from the word-counts, the villa itself is not quite central in the letter, nor does it split equally into main house (§§4–15) and outbuildings (§§16–24). But let me draw your attention to what’s at its heart: from the second ‘tower’ we look out over the gestatio that runs between house, cryptoportico, and pavilion, and to the garden enclosed within it. It’s a simple garden, simply described: hortum morus et ficus frequens uestit, quarum arborum illa uel maxime ferax terra est, malignior ceteris, ‘the garden is clothed with numerous mulberry and fig trees, trees for which the land there is especially fertile (to others it is unkinder)’ (2.17.15). The ingenuous concession at the end (no wonder-garden of Alcinous this) keeps the tone prosaic even as the vocabulary waxes poetic.25 Yet this sentence also happens to be the central sentence of the letter.26 As we peek into Pliny’s private hortus, we thus perceive the middle of a complex multiple frame: proem < landscape < main villa < gestatio < garden > gestatio > cryptoportico/ pavilion > landscape > peroration

Chez Pliny, domestic and epistolary architecture are finely in tune. A well chosen centre might not surprise readers who know their Vergil, and their ecphrasis. Not to mention the first eclogue, where

25 malignior is redolent of Verg. G. 2.179 collesque maligni (it sprouts again in Pan. 31.6). Alcinous: Hom. Od. 7.112–32. 26 hortum . . . ceteris (a sentence of 16 words/31 syllables/87 characters) is preceded in my text by 537 words (1,226 syll./3,196 char.) and followed by 532 words (1,238 syll./3,144 char.). Please bear with the overload of numbers: they just show my workings, and emphasize that the choice of unit is not decisive. More on this presently.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

116

Christopher Whitton

unnamed Octavian understatedly presides in the middle of the central line (Ecl. 1.42 hic illum uidi iuuenem, Meliboee, quot annis),27 or the rather grander Augustan temple halfway through the Georgics;28 think of the ecphrastic sympathy that sets Actium at the centre of Aeneas’ shield and Vergil’s alike (A. 8.675 in medio).29 Vergil well knew the value of ordo.30 So too, I submit, does Pliny. Not that the garden is a sole focal point of the letter. As the linear reader readily recognizes, the tour is shaped as a climactic ascent to the pavilion of private seclusion, Pliny’s sanctum for undisturbed composition and (so) the ultimate locus of his selfcrafting as master-architect of villa, of letter, and of self-image. At the end of the cryptoportico diaeta est, amores mei, re uera amores: ipse posui, ‘is a suite, my darling—really my darling: I built it myself ’ (2.17.20). Those last two words easily admit of a literal reading, supplying a handy datum about Roman practice in building and rebuilding, but they also (I suggest) signal much grander literary ambitions: think for a moment of exegi monumentum,31 and you’ll see what I meant just now about ‘self-crafting’ in masonry and in text. Once again the smooth prosaic surface is subtended by greater depths than many seem to expect. No wonder Pliny nicknames his special spot ‘my darling—really, my darling’, and sets this moment of passion (here comes another structural claim) more or less exactly two-thirds of the way through the letter.32 Accident or design, at this moment of maximal literary self-consciousness?

27 e.g. Skutsch 1969: 157. Within its line, iuuenem straddles the third and fourth (i.e. central) feet. 28 G. 3.16 in medio mihi Caesar erit. 29 Well, roughly: the fiftieth line in the 103-verse description. See Thomas 1983, rehearsed in Thomas 2004: 124–35 (still strangely shy about Octavian in Ecl. 1: ‘it may not be merely playful to point out . . .’, Thomas 1983: 180 n. 16 = 2004: 130 n. 18). 30 Cf. A. 8.629 pugnataque in ordine bella (and 1.456 Iliacas ex ordine pugnas, in another famous ecphrasis) with Squire 2014 on this loaded rhetorical term (cf. Lausberg 1998: 728 s.v. ‘ordo’; we glimpsed Aristotelian  Ø in n. 9). 31 Hor. C. 3.30.1. Literature as monument was of course a long-lived motif (Pind. Ol. 6.1–4, Verg. G. 3.16–36, Livy praef. 6, . . . ; see e.g. Nisbet and Rudd 2004: 365). Cf. 5.6.41 amo enim quae maxima ex parte ipse incohaui aut incohata percolui (with Gibson 2011a: 195 or Gibson and Morello 2012: 223). 32 diaeta . . . posui (9 words/18 syl./39 char.) is preceded by 718 words (1,645 syl./ 4,271 char.) and followed by 358 words (832 syl./2,117 char.).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

117

While you ponder on that (or snort at it), let’s head back to town for a quick look at the other big feature of our book. 2.11 narrates and re-stages the three days of Priscus’ senatorial trial in January 100 for corruption as governor of Africa, preceded by several pre-trial sessions and followed by a coda on praetor-accomplice Hostilius Firminus (who will get his epistolary pasting in the ‘appendix’ letter 2.12). The letter features Pliny as prosecutor, with Tacitus as colleague and Trajan as presiding consul—a dream team for dealing out postFlavian (and post-Nervan) justice. But at the same time the spotlight, as always, falls full on Pliny himself, fighting alone, a latter-day Cicero (remember the Verrines)33 saving state (= senate) from villainy, and from itself.34 A structural summary will clarify, and reveal the letter’s (a)symmetry: §1 proem §§2–9 pre-trial sessions §§10–16 main trial: first day §§17–22 main trial: second and third days §§23–4 appendix §25 coda

42 words 262 words 214 words 245 words 83 words 31 words

But for that appendix (§§23–4), a spoiler for the uniquely adjacent sequel 2.12, we have a tidy double frame, the three days of the trial bracketed by (grandiose) proem and (light-hearted) coda.35 A three-day trial might seem ready made for a textbook rising tricolon, but in fact the weighting is quite the opposite, with the first day occupying a (fairly) central panel and a quarter of the letter (§10–16). The reason is not far to seek: this first day features Pliny’s own performance as advocate and scourge of villainy. He paints the scene with dashing enargeia, stacks up the reasons for trepidation, plucks up his nerve, and at last . . . coepi dicere (§14). What he actually said is left for us to imagine: all the information we get is the lapidary dixi horis paene quinque, ‘I spoke for nearly five hours’.36 But would you believe,

33 2.11 (like 3.9) is an acme of Ciceronian self-representation, replaying in particular his published prosecution of Verres: see Pflips 1973: 33–159 and Whitton 2013b, esp. 157–8. 34 So too in 8.14, as Roy rightly reminds me (this volume, p. 219), the Pliny– Tacitus–?Trajan? team is also a solo act for Pliny. See also 2.12 with Whitton 2013b, and observe the apogee in 9.13.21, where fellow-senators congratulate Pliny for singlehandedly saving their reputation (quod denique senatum inuidia liberassem qua flagrabat apud ordines alios). 35 More on 2.11–12 shortly (p. 127). 36 Affirming, as ever, the letter’s status as para-oratorical (companion-piece to the speech in hand), or is that pro-oratorical (2.11 performs in its own way the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

118

Christopher Whitton

Pliny’s speech falls almost precisely in the middle of the letter as a whole:37 although it passes briefly, his own star role is both focal point and literal centre of gravity for his textualization of the trial. Now do you think, as some do, that this missive was patched together in haste?38 The minimized description—a half-day speech packaged into a few words—typically belies the weight of its content, but, as in the villa, I suspect that the placing of these words in turn emphasizes that weight: a characteristic equivocation in these Epistles between (faux-)intimate lightness of touch and monumental selfdisplay. I hope that this quick tour of villa and trial was enough to give you a sense of Pliny’s scrupulous composition on the large scale as much as in the miniature 2.15. One point in common, I have suggested, is the centre as a moment of privileged meaning. It’s not confined to these letters, either: take 2.1.7 exemplar aeui prioris (Verginius Rufus in a nutshell), 2.4.2 famam defuncti pudoremque suscipere, ‘take on the name and reputation of your father’ (double-edged exhortation to Calvina), 2.7.4 hac uelut immortalitate (Cottius’ statue in a word), 2.12.4 notatum a senatu in senatu sedere (a resounding pseudo-paradox to encapsulate the perversity of Hostilius’ remaining a senator). I’m not proffering a golden rule here: no pungent or poignant centre leaps out in 2.14, for instance, or 2.20;39 and among long letters outside our book, 3.9 (the Classicus trial) and 5.6 (the Etruscan villa) both have obvious hinges about three-fifths of the way through (3.9.22 and 5.6.32).40 In any case, we’ve all been learning never to expect such obvious patterning in these art-letters. You’ll recognize too the subjectivity at work (I am picking the examples), and the circularity of reasoning that threatens to underlie my claims about what is at the thematic and/or physical heart of

demolition of Priscus and the construction of ready-to-be-consular auctoritas)? (Roland’s remarks on gloria dicendi are pertinent here: Mayer 2003.) Pliny varies the technique in 4.9, where his speech, divided over two days, brackets almost half the letter (4.9.4 respondi ego . . . 4.9.12 bene cessit; the letter’s centre falls in the overnight deliberations, 4.9.11). Pliny’s five January hours, by the way, are barely four to us. Still not an appealing prospect, admittedly, for our (modern) attention spans. 37 dixi . . . quinque (4 words/7 syll./21 char.) is preceded by 434 words (1,114 syll./ 2,795 char.) and followed by 439 words (1,066 syll./2,697 char.). 38 Sherwin-White 1966: 19: ‘Possibly ii. 11 is an amalgamation of two news-letters about the different phases of Priscus’ own trial. The main Classicus letter, iii. 9, [sc. by contrast] is so complex that it must be the product of leisured composition’ (my italics). 39 Those centres are 2.14.6 cum mesochorus dedit signum (unless you see a middle lurking in meso-chorus . . . ), 2.20.7 quoquo modo spiritum homini prorogarent. 40 Cf. 3.9.22 hic . . . terminus fuit, after the punctuating effect of Pliny’s self-quoted one-liner (3.9.21); 5.6.32 marks the move from villa-buildings to hippodrome and gardens.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

119

a letter. But such is life, such is literature, such—I submit—are (Pliny’s) letters. Now, you’ll have noticed from some recent footnotes that I’ve been idling my time away with rather a lot of counting (a good job this is just between the two of us).41 Am I really suggesting that Pliny was calculating his proportions to the word? Well (to be just a little fatuous), counting did run in the family: Uncle Pliny not only promises a round twenty thousand ‘facts’ in the preface to his Natural History (§17), but goes on to enumerate its contents with exemplary pedantry: 417 ‘facts, stories and observations’ in Book 2, for instance, and 2,214 of the same in Book 6, which also promises 1,195 towns and 626 peoples.42 The author of these fat tomes may have been a workaholic,43 and doubtless had a few research assistants (sorry: slaves) to help him along, but don’t be fooled into underestimating how much labour, slave or otherwise, has gone into the slender Epistles.44 At the end of a well-known letter, Pliny requests a reply in equal measure, spicing that standard move with particular petulance: ego non paginas tantum sed uersus etiam syllabasque numerabo (‘I will count not just the columns but the lines and even the syllables’, 4.11.16).45 Like so many of his jokes, I suspect this mock-threat is not purely facetious: try taking it as a hint for the reader, and we have a clear cue to pay Pliny’s own letters some very particular attention. One person clearly did.46 But that same sentence also prompts us to think about what we are counting. Pliny’s graded tricolon intensifies in precision from columns (in

41 It’s a habit, as Quintilian remarked (Inst. 9.4.112), cum miseri tum minimis occupati. Pliny’s words are also counted, with slightly different results, in Carlon 2009: 227–39. 42 In the summarium (book 1), discussed recently (if not for its numerals) by Riggsby 2007: 93–8; Doody 2010: 92–131; Gibson 2014: 35–6. 43 Ep. 3.5 with Henderson 2002a: 69–102, 2002b. 44 I’m flirting inter alia with a metapoetical reading of fat uncle (cf. 6.16.13 amplitudinem corporis) vs thin nephew (2.11.15 gracilitas mea) suggested by Roy in the safe privacy of correspondence. A rather more literal view of Pliny as enfeebled aesthete is taken by Eckard (see Lefèvre 2009, with the uncivil reply of Whitton 2011). 45 4.11 tightly sews terrible tales of Domitian and Cornelia into news of Valerius Licinianus, the exiled senator-turned-rhetor in Sicily (Traub 1955: 213–20). ‘Well known’ already, perhaps, to Tacitus (4.11.8~Tac. H. 1.8.1 and 4.11.7~An. 12.65.3) and Juvenal (4.11.2~Sat. 7.197–8). 46 Self-professed epigone Sidonius Apollinaris, who produced 147 letters against Pliny’s 247 (Gibson 2013a). His villa letter (Ep. 2.2: for the number, cf. Stat. Silu. 2.2, the villa of Pollius Felix), replete with allusion to Pliny 2.17 and 5.6, features a cryptoportico—with teasing reference to Pliny’s neologism—dead centre (Ep. 2.2.10 saltim cryptoporticus meo mihi iure uocitabitur: 657 words/4,225 characters precede, 661/4,231 follow). Pliny has that word clustered six times in 2.17.16–20 (just after its midpoint), eight times in 5.6.27–31 (at and following the midpoint in 5.6.28). More Sidonian japes in n. 90.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

120

Christopher Whitton

our terms, pages) through lines to syllables. Not, you notice, words.47 I’ve already said how much emphasis rhetoricians set on the syllable as lowest common denominator; now is the time to mention what any stichometrist will tell you, that Greek and Latin prose was widely measured not by wordcount but in terms of ‘lines’ ( åØ, uersus).48 Such a line was a fixed length, which comprised perhaps 16 syllables (equal, by some counts, to the average hexameter);49 others have reconstructed it as an average of 35 letters.50 Unfortunately the same word uersus also refers to ‘lines’ in the non-technical sense, the column width of any given scroll,51 and which meaning Pliny intended in his little joke is unclear.52 What matters for our purposes, though, is that antiquity had more sophisticated means of measuring prose than people nowadays might think, and that it seems to have been based on syllables. As I took you round 2.11 and 2.17 I hedged my bets, with wordcounts for the most part, but some syllables and characters decorating footnotes too. All three are intended—and let me emphasize this belated claim to sanity—not as cyphers but as means to a closer sense of (say) where the middle of a letter falls. Words offer a reasonable approximation, but I don’t set too much store on exactitude, since they seem to reflect a way of thinking more suited to modernity (and computers) than to Pliny. Whether you prefer syllables or characters (both approximations too, of course)53 47

Pace Whitton 2010: 119 n. 6 (the early days of this small-mindedness). On stichometry start with Birt 1882: 161–222 and Lang 1999 (monoglots settle for Harris 1883), but proceed with caution. 49 Birt 1882: 213–14; Ohly 1928: 22–30. 50 Birt 1882: 193–206, especially 202. The 35-letter average is derived by modern statistical analysis (with rounding), rather than any direct ancient testimony; it allowed Kennedy 2010 supposedly to ‘crack the Plato code’ (so the papers). It doesn’t work for Pliny, so far as I’ve seen. 51 Quintilian (Inst. 10.3.32) mentions a pupil who wrote too much because he was counting the lines. A narrower wax-tablet solved the problem—presumably because the student kept counting lines, but now shorter ones (pace Lang 1999: 53). Many uses of the word (most of those in OLD s.v. uersus1 4 ‘a line of writing’) are probably or possibly non-technical; my guess is that Romans generally used it as casually as we use ‘line’. Prose, by the way, was usually written in considerably narrower columns than verse, to judge from Greek papyri finds (Johnson 2004: 114–15, with his table on pp. 162–74). 52 Birt 1882: 161 takes Pliny to mean ‘x complete pages, then a further page with y lines, and another z syllables in the last line’, to match his own letter. But I see no reason not to gloss ‘my pedantry won’t be limited to counting pages: I’ll count every line – no, every syllable’ (neither did Ohly 1928: 23). 53 The figures depend on assumptions about elision (n. 13), orthography (perit or periit?), interpolations (I excise 2.17.14 et and 2.17.15 gestationi but retain the problematic 2.17.16 {singulae sed alternis pauciores{), and unpunctuated scriptio continua (Parkes 1993: 9–11; Saenger 1997: 1–17; more fully Müller 1964; Habinek 1985: 42–88); and that’s not to mention the import of syllabic quantity (e.g. Cic. de Orat. 3.183). 48

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

121

depends in part on how far you like to emphasize the aural, how far the visual in ancient writing and reading practice: we could hear 2.11 (for instance) as about 137 sixteen-syllable uersus, or see the letter set out on, let’s say, 276 lines filling around eight columns.54 All the same, you ask (slightly irritated, I fear, by all this pseudo-maths), can we really see—can Pliny have ever anticipated—a reader actually spotting that speech in the centre? Imagine for a moment that this was a poem. Would we be surprised to find a significant axis in the middle? I mentioned some Vergilian centres à propos Pliny’s villa, and could add the still more frequent valency of middles for Horace: Augustus doesn’t straddle the cardinal lines of the Cleopatra ode by chance.55 Besides, significant placement in Augustan poetry is scarcely limited to middles: there’s Maecenas’ name in Georgics 1.2, 2.41, 3.41 and 4.2, and the Euphrates always six lines from the end of its book;56 and is it accident that Horace Odes 3.3.11 quos inter Augustus recumbens sets semidivine emperor third word in the third line of the third stanza of the third poem of the third book?57 Evidently there is a strong strain of formalism running through this poetry: whether you call it ludic or cultic, playful or deeply meaningful, centres (and more) signify for the doctus poeta.58 They signify too, I propose, for doctus Plinius, as attentive as any poet to the value of structure. Of course prose is less scrutable than the marked-out lines of poetry, but the two may not be quite so distinct as we tend to assume. In any case, you can reasonably count on subtlety being a conspicuous feature of Plinian design—which also means that it will prove resistant to definitive analysis. Cumulative suggestion is the most I can offer, and regular study. In his library-room at Laurentum is a selection of scrolls, non legendos . . . sed

54 Just one possible set of dimensions (cf. n. 61). Orality and literacy are of course hot and touchy topics: good recent interventions and summaries of debate are Parker 2009 and Johnson 2010: 3–16. On this scale, at least, I’m inclined to agree with Quintilian that acrior est oculorum quam aurium sensus (Inst. 11.2.34). 55 Hor. C. 1.37.16–17 Caesar . . . adurgens, one example among many (Moritz 1968; Harrison 2004). 56 G. 1.509, 4.561, A. 8.726 (cf. Call. Ap. 108): Scodel and Thomas 1984, pursued by Clauss 1988; Farrell 1991: 165–6; Jenkyns 1993. See also Nelis 2007 on the numerical significance of A. 7.37, and try the suggestion that Verg. G. 4.401 (make that 4.400 if we count 4.338 an interpolation) targets Od. 4.400 in allusion (Morgan 1993: 26–7, 223–9). Fuller bibliography, and an additional suggestion, in Lowe 2013. 57 The valency of ‘three’ in Greco-Roman cultic and intellectual thought is well documented (Usener 1903; Mehrlein 1959: 269–98); it is clearly expressed, e.g. in the Secular Games (and Horace’s Carmen for the occasion) a few years later (Lease 1919: 61; Thomas 2011: 60). 58 See the essays in Kyriakidis and De Martino 2004 on centres in Roman poetry; also Fowler 1970: 23–7 on ‘cosmic centrality’ in poetry of a later age.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

122

Christopher Whitton

lectitandos, ‘not for reading but for reading and re-reading’ (2.17.8). That, I think, is how we should handle the Epistles.59 I hope I haven’t tried your patience unduly: of course pedantic analysis brings its tediums, much like explaining a joke. That doesn’t make it vacuous. Listen to how Marcus apologized for the lack of dignitas in arithmetic: de uerbis enim componendis et de syllabis propemodum dinumerandis et dimetiendis loquemur; quae etiamsi sunt, sicuti mihi uidentur, necessaria, tamen fiunt magnificentius quam docentur. For I am going to discuss the composition of words and virtually the counting and measuring out of syllables. All of this, even if necessary— as I think it is—, is nevertheless more impressive in the doing than in the teaching. (Cic. Or. 147) fiunt magnificentius quam docentur indeed, and the pleasure of a reader lies in the delight of personal discovery, not in being lectured on it. But weighing up your prose, he tells us, is necessarium all the same: this apology prefaces, precisely, one of the most technical discussions in all his works. Pliny knew that, I think, and so should we, if we are to appreciate the architexture that he puts on such unostentatious display. Have I succeeded in steering a middle course between artistry and insanity? If you’re convinced, you needn’t reply. If not, I’ll expect a reply at least as long. I’ll be counting the words . . . Yours, Chris

*** Dear Ilaria, You have shown us all so well what manifold art binds Pliny’s epistolary collection together from first to last. My short note takes a smaller brief, to look at how Book 2, his second professed medley of twenty miniatures, finds cohesion in variety. Let me first recall an important fact mentioned by John.60 Pliny did not write his letters to be read in a book, on screen, or as a print-out. He wrote for the scroll, a roll of papyrus several metres long.61 Each ‘book’ of his collection occupied a single roll, within a narrow range of about 5,900 words (Book 5) 59 Ruth suspects as much too (Gibson and Morello 2012: 248 n. 23; and see ibid. 238–48 on meta-epistolary hints). 60 Pp. 22–3. 61 On the book-roll and its relevance to literary content, see Johnson 2004 (with a digest in Johnson 2010: 17–25) and Van Sickle 1980a; also Kenney 1982: 15–18; Blanck 1992: 75–101; Winsbury 2009: 3–50. The codex (book) was not unknown in

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

123

to about 6,600 (Book 6). Put differently, we could imagine (for argument’s sake) a set of nine rolls containing around 1,740 to 1,970 lines, arranged in 50 to 56 columns. Roughly twenty centimeters high, they range in width (the scroll being wound horizontally, of course) from about four to four-and-ahalf metres. That’s merely one conceivable set of dimensions,62 but it perhaps helps us visualize this prose as it might have appeared to Pliny and his first readers, and so to think about the mediality of the text. For now, I want to emphasize two things. By comparison with poetry books, these scrolls are a little on the large size: compare at random (and roughly): Aeneid 6 (5,300 words), Thebaid 8 (5,000), Martial 10 (4,900), Juvenal 3 (4,000).63 But against hefty prose like Livy 24 (14,100), Tacitus’ Histories 2 (12,200) or Pliny’s own Panegyricus (19,200), they look positively tenues.64 Note too the consistency between volumes, striking after Cicero (13,000 for Ad fam. 13 but 3,500 for Ad fam. 14) and, to a lesser extent, Seneca’s Epistulae morales (5,700 for Book 4 against 8,600 for Book 19).65 We have to look to the letters of Horace or Ovid—that is, back to verse—for something comparable: Horace Epistles 1 (5,700) ~ Epistles 2 (5,300),66 Ovid Ex Ponto 1 (4,800) ~ 2 (4,600) ~ 3 (5,000).67 This battery of numbers presses the point, if it needed pressing, that Pliny has been uncommonly attentive in filling his rolls. It also underlines something we miss when handling a modern edition (or reading on screen): that this work advertised its generic humility, compared with fat rolls of history and

Pliny’s lifetime (e.g. Mart. 1.2), but rolls were the norm (Roberts and Skeat 1983: 24–9). 62 I have assumed an average of 20 characters per line, 35 lines per column, a column-width of 6 cm and intercolumns of 2 cm, and ignored any blank sheets beginning or ending the scroll (i.e. ‘protokol’ and ‘eschatokol’); book-titles, inscriptiones and vale are included, though I have not tried to assign them separate lines. No contemporary Latin roll survives to any significant extent, and the figures for this thought-experiment are sifted from Johnson 2004 (on Greek papyri of our period found at Oxyrhynchus). The line-totals in these proportions are: 1 (1,780), 2 (1,852), 3 (1,924), 4 (1,787), 5 (1,737), 6 (1,968), 7 (1,770), 8 (1,687), 9 (1,806). Birt 1882: 325 gives stichic totals for Pliny’s books (using notional 35-character lines: cf. my n. 50), inaccurately as I find: they should be: 1 (1,017), 2 (1,058), 3 (1,099), 4 (1,021), 5 (992), 6 (1,124), 7 (1,011), 8 (1,021), 9 (1,032). This slightly revises the relative sizes compared with Birt, and with John’s estimates (this volume, p. 66). 63 All very rough figures. Lucretius’ exceptional fifth book is around 8,100 words. 64 Contrast Epistles 10 with its c.9,500 words. For studies of book sizes see Birt 1882: 286–341 (by stichic counts) and Johnson 2004 (who establishes a ‘normative’ range of about 3 to 15 metres, p. 149). 65 A fuller overview of Senecan and Ciceronian book-lengths in Birt 1882: 325–7. 66 Don’t be distracted by the difference in numbers of letters (20~3), but do strike the comparison if you agree with Rudd 1989 et al. that Ars Poetica was never part of Epistles 2 (Brink 1963: 243 n. 4 seems agnostic). 67 Lament spins out of control in the tacked-on Ex P. 4 (6,500 words).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

124

Christopher Whitton

oratory,68 already on the outside: even before you reach Epistles 1.1, your expectations are framed—in the direction of poetry?—by the look and feel of the volume in your hands.69 In present company I hardly need emphasize that we should be reading Pliny with an eye to poetry (that allusion to Ovid in Epistles 1.1 is only the tip of the iceberg).70 But there’s still work to be done in persuading our wider circles of friends that prose and verse do not inhabit quite such different worlds as many assume. In particular, modern reading culture is still catching up with the idea that variety might not be Pliny’s only structuring principle. Of course uarietas is integral to the Epistles and to the life its author parades:71 everyone who has been exposed to a dose of Pliny can tell you that. But, as Matthew put it, variety is ultimately a negative mode of arrangement, the avoidance of obvious groups and juxtapositions.72 What all those studies of Hellenistic and Augustan poetry books have amply demonstrated is that positive arrangement also plays a fundamental role in binding together individual poems to form a cohesive whole.73 The catch—and the reason that few of those studies command universal assent—is the subtlety of patterning that those poets adopt. So in the prose of our Epistles: ever-elusive, its patterns tease and evade, resisting capture and analysis by the scholar who tries to pin them down, and up, for display. All the same, let me make some suggestions about how cohesion plays its part amid the variety in Book 2, and air an idea about the collection as a whole. The frame makes an obvious place to start: it’s clear enough that 2.1 and 2.20 respond to each other. Similar (not identical) in length,74 both addressed to provincial equestrians,75 the grave 2.1 commemorates the death of 68

Pliny more courteously reminds us of their physicality: 1.20.5 uoluminibus ipsis auctoritatem quandam et pulchritudinem adicit magnitudo. 69 By the time of Isidore (Origines 6.2) and later Birt (1882: 288–9, quoting Isidore), epistolography is generically marked, together with poetry, by its shorter rolls. That is thanks not least, I suspect, to Pliny. On the question whether internal format (especially column width) varied by genre, see Johnson 2004: 34, 152–5 (on Greek material). 70 Addressed by both John (p. 21 n. 21, pp. 52–4) and Roy (pp. 192–3). 71 See p. 132. 72 Santirocco 1986: 7. 73 From the sea of bibliography, sample Gutzwiller 1998 and Krevans 2007 (Hellenistic epigram); Skutsch 1969 and Rudd 1976 (Eclogues); Lyne 2005 (Epodes); Santirocco 1986 (Odes); and don’t forget the ‘New’ Posidippus (Gutzwiller 2005). That last collection includes Barchiesi 2005, an important discussion of the poetic book, its (over-)determination, and its relevance to Pliny. But why am I telling you this (cf. p. 5)? 74 399 and 366 words respectively, or 120 and 108 lines on my imaginary roll (n. 62). 75 2.2, 2.3, 2.18, and perhaps 2.19 (cf. n. 78) are addressed to senators, which would make for a (very) subtle symmetry (Whitton 2013b: 14 n. 79). Addressees (at least Pliny’s) get short shrift in the present pages, I know—but one thing at a time.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

125

Verginius Rufus, exemplary senior statesman and true friend to Pliny, while the (purportedly) jovial 2.20 regrets the continued flourishing of Aquillius Regulus, counter-exemplary senator and false friend to the dying. The first letter moves from the public stage (Verginius’ funeral) to the private (intimacy with Pliny), the last, conversely, from the cubicula of Regulus’ victims to a climax of high oratorical indignation: multiple similarities and contrasts, then, generate closure for the volume between these book-ends.76 Does it go further than single letters, you ask? After all, John has shown how 9.1–3 makes a meaningful tripartite response to 1.1–3, and Roy has demonstrated both the framing effect of 6.1–3 and 6.32–4 (the end of Book 6), and now a scaled-up responsion of 1.1+3 and 9.38+40 bracketing the whole collection.77 Well, I find it hard to claim that 2.2~2.19 and 2.3~2.18 make thematic pairs. 2.2 is a mock-petulant note asking Paulinus for news, 2.19 debates with Cerialis whether Pliny should recite a speech which he calls ‘aggressive and almost argumentative’ (pugnax et quasi contentiosa, 2.19.5). 2.3 praises the performance-rhetor Isaeus, 2.18 undertakes to find a rhetor Latinus (though Pliny uses the Quintilianic term praeceptor) to educate the sons of Arulenus Rusticus (deceased). Thin material for a claim that 2.1–3 and 2.18–20 exhibit symmetry of theme, or even that they form distinct trios.78 But here’s a funny thing: the first three letters occupy 843 words, the last three 842; or in terms of my imaginary book-roll, just over 247 and 245 lines respectively.79 If this numerical (or spatial) responsion is not accident, it is thought-provoking: length seems here to function alongside theme as a significant structural device.80 At the centre of the book, meanwhile, is Pliny’s senatorial triumph in the Priscus trial (2.11), flanked at one remove by two complementary letters of recommendation (2.9 and 2.13), each addressed to a consul of 97 ce.81 That 76 Provisional closure, of course, since book 3 is not far away (Whitton 2013a: 47). It will open with another letter to Calvisius Rufus (addressee of 2.20), making a unique bridge, and is already advertised with a meta-epistolary pun in 2.20.9 sufficiunt duae . . . an . . . tertiam poscis? (Merwald 1964: 170 n. 31). 77 Respectively pp. 76–81 and 190–1 in this volume; also Gibson and Morello 2012: 39–43. 78 Though we may find a discreet thread of ‘Pliny and the (so-called) Stoics’ uniting the last three letters: 2.18 concerns the sons of Arulenus Rusticus; 2.19 is perhaps addressed to the Velius Cerialis whom 4.21 connects to the younger Helvidius, victim (like Arulenus) of the treason trials of 93/4 ce; 2.20 calumniates Regulus, familiar since 1.5 as a villain of those trials. On Pliny and the ‘Stoic opposition’ see e.g. Carlon 2009: 18–63; for the date of the trials, Whitton 2015. 79 That is (just for the record), 4,948 and 4,907 characters. The word-count, which abstractifies, excludes inscriptiones and vale; the character-count, as a proxy to visual reconstruction, includes them. If that seems vulnerably uarius of me, the consequence is slight. 80 Compare 6.1–3 and 6.32–4, at 492~511 words (140~155 lines). Or 3.1–3 and 3.19–21, at 794~837 words (230~248 lines). But no such (ap)proximity in book 1. 81 This time with quite different lengths (199~298 words, 57~83 lines).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

126

Christopher Whitton

starts to look systematic, and I could show you something comparable in Book 3,82 but the pattern soon runs out, with no obvious pairing 2.10~2.12 or 2.7~2.15, for instance. It’s true, there are hints of a comparable and more extensive system in the early part of the book. Here four odd-numbered letters hold up individuals for praise: 2.1 (Verginius), 2.3 (Isaeus), 2.7 (Spurinna and Cottius) and 2.9 (Clarus). The even-numbered letters, generally shorter, form a pattern too: 2.2 and 2.8 make a pair of otium-miniatures (Pliny at leisure in 2.2, longing for it in 2.8), while 2.4 and 2.6 each feature his frugalitas. This scheme was discerned by Günter, the keenest hunter of structure in the Epistles, who saw in it a series of concentric rings, 1~9, 2~8, 3~7, 4~6, with 2.5 at the centre.83 That seems a little too rigid for Pliny’s supple structures: 2.1, for instance, makes a better pair with 2.7 (obituary letters) than with 2.9, and it looks opportunistic to highlight only frugalitas in 2.4 (generosity to Calvina) and 2.6 (equality and inequality at dinner).84 Still, I think he was onto something, not least (though he barely mentioned it) because of the letter at the centre, 2.5. But more of that another time;85 for now, we can perhaps agree that there are clear hints of patterning,86 but hints are what they remain: as John has put it so well, the Epistles soon tangles us up in its ‘endless tease of disguised patterning and forsworn composition’.87 Did you notice my lazy reference to 2.11 ‘at the centre of the book’ just now? It’s easily said: the letter is obviously important, and 2.11 is more or less the centre. But we might think a little harder about that ‘more or less’. After all, 2.10 has an equal claim to be ‘the’ middle letter in a book of twenty, and

82

The two Classicus letters 3.4 and 3.9 wave, across 3.11, to the two Panegyricus letters 3.13 and 3.18, ninth and fourth from book’s end (as Merwald 1964: 69 also noticed). 83 Merwald 1964: 49–59, adding some small (too small?) verbal connections: 2.2.2 occupatior ~ 2.8.3 occupationum, 2.4.3 ne sit mihi onerosa ~ 2.6.5 non est onerosum. He sees Epistles 2 (Merwald 1964: 39–60) as two panels 2.1–9 and 2.11–20, with 2.10 as the ‘hinge’. 84 This tendency to tendentiousness has earned him scant notice in recent years (or is it just Anglo-Saxon insularity?), and makes his broader analysis of Epistles 1–9 a house of cards. But I found some shrewd comment on the way, as it seems did John (Chapter 1, passim). 85 Pp. 131–8. 86 Some other examples: the three shortest letters are smoothly distributed 2.2~2.8~2.15 (compare and contrast 1.1~1.11~1.21); shortest and longest letters are not quite juxtaposed (2.15 and 2.17; contrast 1.20–21); the sequence 2.16–17 (‘testamentary fairness’—villa) is chiastically reprised in 5.6–7. 87 Henderson 2002a: xi. Nice comments too in Merwald 1964: 154–8, especially p. 157 on ‘dieses Spiel, in dem die Bälle zwischen Leser und Autor hin- und hergeworfen werden’, and cf. Bauman 2011 (esp. 91–164) on the games between author and reader in another prose medley, Philostratus’ Imagines.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

127

indeed, as John remarks, in the triptych of Books 1–3.88 It’s a shorter letter in a lighter tone, as Pliny jovially prods Octavius to publish his poetry. But amid the levity is a weighty theme, immortalization through literature; and there’s good structural precedent in Horace Odes 2.10 with its aurea mediocritas, offering itself as centre-point in a twenty-poem book and three-book collection.89 One response, and I think a good one, is that 2.10 and 2.11 together comprise a meaningful diptych at the centre of Book 2, and of Books 1–3: thoughts of immortality are juxtaposed with Pliny’s own self-memorialization through the Priscus trial as statesman, orator, and epistolographer: a good example, then, of what I’m implicitly arguing throughout, that meaning in the Epistles is far from confined to the individual letter. But that’s only one answer, because of course 2.11 makes a more obvious diptych with the letter that follows it. Uniquely, 2.11 and 2.12 share both addressee (Maturus Arrianus) and theme, since 2.12 reports the debate on Hostilius Firminus that followed the Priscus trial—an ‘appendix’ letter for an ‘appendix’ case.90 Striking too that 2.11–12 together make a good match for the villa letter 2.17. Count the words and you get a remarkable correspondence of 1082~1083, though if my guess that words were not Pliny’s preferred unit is right, we had better observe the rough balance of 337 to 321 lines on my notional roll.91 As Roy has nicely put it, these ‘twin peaks’ span the book—or at least its second half—with the negotium and otium that make Pliny’s life whole.92

88 This volume, p. 68 with n. 144, following Merwald. A sense of books 1–3 as (provisional) closed unit (Whitton 2013a: 47) is unsurprising, given the two models intertextually flagged in 1.1: Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto, an expanded triad (Roy, this volume, p. 193), and Seneca’s Epistulae morales (1.1.1 collegi non seruato temporis ordine ~ Sen. Ep. 1.1 tempus . . . collige et serua, as alleged in Whitton 2010: 130 n. 74), another apparent three-book collection later expanded (Lana 1991: 280–1). More extended triads in Horace Odes and Statius Siluae (John, this volume, pp. 35–6, 54); not to mention epic, Tacitus also composes in threes (and sixes), and Quintilian marks the start of Inst. 4 as staging post (n. 141). 89 And don’t miss Ovid’s punning desire to die medium . . . inter opus (Ov. Am. 2.10.36, tenth poem of twenty, middle book of three). For equivocation on Odes 2.10 as middle of its book, see Santirocco 1986: 95 n. 35. Speaking of mediocritas, you may or may not be pleased to know that you just passed my own midpoint. 90 Three diptychs to compare and contrast are 2.20–3.1, bridging the book-divide as we saw, and 7.7–8 and 8.10–11, thematic pairs with different addressees (on the latter see Ruth, Chapter 3). That careful reader Sidonius (n. 46) seems to have spotted 2.11–12 and responded with a twist, addressing his Ep. 2.11 to Rusticus, 2.12 to Agricola (spotted in turn by Roy). 91 That is, 6,734 and 6,417 characters. Do take these numbers with a good pinch of salt (cf. p. 123, and ibid. for ‘my guess’). 92 Gibson and Morello 2012: 218; cf. Whitton 2010: 120 n. 13. On the negotium– otium Bilanz, see (in an earlier age) Bütler 1970: 41–57.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

128

Christopher Whitton

Now, I’m quite happy to let 2.11 look in all these directions, since multiplicity (another instantiation of our old friend uarietas) looks to me to be a hallmark of Plinian patterning. But while we’re circling the centre, I’d like to mention one more approach: the physical midpoint of the scroll. This has been a blind spot among all the attention (duly) paid to patterns by letter-numbering. Take Book 8. Some time ago I wrote to Greg about the much maligned (and misaligned) 8.14; advocating its importance, I said that ‘8.14 stands just off-centre amid its book’s twenty-four letters’.93 Had I thought a little harder about the meaning of ‘centre’, I could have made a much stronger claim. Take a scroll of Book 8—let’s say the one I conjured up earlier—and it would contain 1,786 lines, in 51 columns.94 Find the centre of the scroll, around line 893, and you’re reading the end of 8.14.14 as we now number it.95 Now here’s a funny thing: those very words fall exactly at the midpoint of the letter.96 Let’s not put too much weight on precision, since these statistics are meant primarily as substitute for experientality.97 Still, we can now see that 8.14, by far the longest item in its book and (I trust) an obviously important one, would occupy more or less exactly the middle columns of the scroll. Or take Book 3. Clearly 3.11 (Artemidorus), the numerical centre in this 21-letter book, is a significant letter, working hard on Pliny’s self-construction as martyr manqué.98 Yet by far the longest piece in the book, and in the Epistles so far, is 3.9, with its unending ‘multi-trial’ of Classicus (deceased).99 And—you’ve guessed it—this is the letter which occupies the centre of the scroll. Not this time with such (fantastic?) precision as Book 8: the middle line of Book 3 falls late in 3.9.21, about three-fifths of the way through the letter.100 Once again, though, that leaves 3.9 (now a little less exactly) occupying the middle columns of its scroll. A glance at other books shows that the physical centre of Book 4 (30 letters) is not in 4.15–16 but in 4.13 (to celebrity correspondent Tacitus), that Book 7 (33 letters) has one of Pliny’s

93

Whitton 2010: 119. Estimated from 35,721 characters, with dimensions as in n. 62. 95 The words displiceret quibus non idem placuisset have 17,843 characters before, 17,844 after. 96 Within the letter they are preceded by 3,231 characters, followed by 3,231 (sic: illusory exactness?). 97 So distancing me (or trying to) from numerologists who calculate golden ratios and other mysteries to three decimal places (e.g. Duckworth 1962 and Brown 1963, with such caustic responses as Clarke 1964, Halter 1964, Wimmel 1964). 98 Shelton 1987. 99 ‘Multi-trial’: cf. 3.9.2 fuit multiplex . . . plures actiones. ‘Unending’: see Gibson and Morello 2012: 240–1 and Whitton 2013a: 45–6 on the (false-)closural games. ‘Deceased’: 3.9.5 accusationem . . . morte praeuertit. 100 A cardinal point (n. 40). 94

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

129

key ‘martyr’ pieces, 7.19 (illness of Fannia), at its midpoint,101 and that the centre of Book 5 (21 letters) falls almost precisely in the crack between 5.7 and 5.8.102 STOP SKIP-READING for a minute, because this might be important: 5.8.1 suades ut historiam scribam reprises 1.1.1 neque enim historiam componebam at the very centre of the central scroll of Pliny, Epistles 1–9.103 Accident or design? We’re back to the familiar problem with Plinian patterning: among the ebbs and flows, it’s a bold critic who thinks she’s nailed the artistry. The remaining books don’t strongly confirm or deny the claim: Book 1 (24 letters) is centred around 1.12.10 (Corellius’ suicidal resolve, and roughly the middle by letter-number too), Book 6 (34 letters) around 6.19.4 (a few lines before the second instalment of ‘Vesuvius’ gets underway), Book 9 (40 letters) in the relatively unremarkable 9.21.4 (humanitas towards a freedman).104 And what about Book 2? Well, you could take it two ways. The middle of the scroll falls at the start of 2.11.23, the appendix that sets up 2.12. Taken loosely, you could see that, in these terms, it is 2.11–12, the unique diptych, that straddles the middle of the book. If you’re feeling more specific, you might observe that Regulus’ walk-on part, the bitter tail to the trial proper (2.11.22), is literally central. Connoisseurs of the early books are aware of how important Regulus is,105 and of course he will bring Book 2 itself to a close: perhaps it’s not by chance that he gets a dig dead-centre too. But who, you ask, would ever know about these physical centres? Here a sense of the Epistles’ original format comes in handy. I don’t mean to claim that this work, or any other, has no existence outside of its physical frame, but that mediality is one (more) important, meaningful facet of the text. In particular, holding a scroll gives you a tolerable, perhaps good, feel for where the centre comes, with half the roll in your left hand and half in your right— an altogether different experience from holding a codex, such as a modern edition, which contains all the books in one. How good a feel it’s hard to say,

101

Picked out by Roy for its opening echo of 7.1.1 (p. 205). To be (over-)precise, the notional central points by my count are in 4.13.9, 7.19.3, and the last few words of 5.7.6 respectively. 103 A test-case, I propose, for the status of Pliny’s nine books as a monumental collection. Your response to 5.8 is now joined, as you’ll know, by Tony’s (cf. Marchesi 2008: 153–71; Woodman 2012). The collection’s centre by letter-number (124th of 247 Epistles) is 6.8, a less fashionable piece of debt-collecting. Incidentally, is it mere chance that Epistles 10 has 124 letters (not 121, as so often stated: cf. Whitton 2013b: 1 n. 1) against the 247 of Epistles 1–9? 104 The centre of Pan. lies around §50, a few columns away from the stock-take and restart in §53. 105 Hoffer 1999: 55–91; Méthy 2007: 141–51; Lefèvre 2009: 50–60; Gibson and Morello 2012: 68–73; Ash 2013; Marchesi 2013. 102

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

130

Christopher Whitton

but Asconius’ commentary on Cicero (50s ce) might help us. He keys his notes to the text with references such as ‘around 620 lines from the start’, ‘a little further on’, ‘around the middle’, ‘around 820 lines from the end’.106 The implication of the numbers is that Asconius’ copies of the speeches contained a ‘stichic’ mark every tenth line; also that he counted forwards in the first half, backwards from the end thereafter.107 But if he had such marks, it’s all the more interesting that he doesn’t always give a line reference, but settles for ‘around the middle’ (or ‘around two-thirds through’, ‘around three-quarters through’).108 My guess is that Asconius judged those proportions, at least in part, haptically, so sparing himself (and his readers) the trouble of counting lines when it could be avoided. If so, we catch a rare but useful sight of a Roman reader feeling his way around the dimensions of a scroll. Still, Asconius seems not to have known or cared precisely where the centre was: ‘around the middle’ does duty, for instance, for In Pisonem §38 as well as §44.109 Is it wise even to speculate that any greater precision subtends Plinian design? Entre nous, I won’t rule it out yet. Of course if my letter should fall into the hands of a reader committed to seeing the Epistles as a lightly edited sheaf of documents, I wouldn’t count on a kind hearing. But of course it’s precisely the assumption that Pliny’s prose should be held far apart from the poetic books of a Horace or an Ovid that I know you will join me in challenging. It’s not that structure is the essential arbiter of meaning, of course, whatever that would mean. But as an (inevitable) element of any literary texture, it deserves our attention. How far we’ll put patterns down to authorial intent, how far to (misplaced?) readerly ingeniousness, is an open question, of course. But when was literary criticism ever objective?110 And to the old objection ‘but how many readers would really notice?’ the reply should hardly need stating: in literature as in any art, design stretches across an infinite range of recognizability, from the blindingly obvious to the vanishingly subtle. We shouldn’t be surprised to find plenty of the latter in the lines of an orator who well knew the old adage that art

106

Asc. on Pis. 10C cir. uer. a prim. DCXX, 11C paulo post and cir. medium, 14C cir. uer. a nouis. DCCCXX (references are to page numbers in Clark 1907). 107 Ohly 1928: 111–15; also Birt 1882: 175–8; Wendel 1949: 36–7. 108 Asc. on Scaur. 26C post duas partes orationis . . . post tres partes primo. ‘Around the middle’ also at Scaur. 25C, Corn. 71C. 109 One reason to doubt that Asconius had an opisthographic copy (so that the centre of the speech ended one side of the roll), as Birt 1882: 176–7 imagined (rejected also by Ohly 1928: 113–15; Wendel 1949: 37). The length of Pis., and so the location of the middle, is uncertain (Austin 1961: 51). 110 Cf. Fowler 1970: 204: ‘the risk of affective fallacies is inevitably bound up with the subjectivity of criticism’, in a thoughtful apology for literary number-crunching (pp. 198–205).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

131

disappears as soon as it is apparent.111 Pliny seems so inclusive112 that people forget just how hard he’s willing to make you work: he may flatter all his readers with fantasy access to his private world, but we would be dullards to deny artistry just because some (or most) of them might miss it. All bets are on. Yours, Chris

**** Dear Michael, The Tusci villa, Pliny’s longest letter (5.6), is 101st of the 247 letters in Books 1–9.113 Put another way, it comes two-fifths of the way through the collection. How odd, then, that the Laurentine villa (2.17), the winter warm-up act for the summer paradise, is the 41st letter, two-fifths of the way from 1.1 to 5.6. One more coincidence, or a(nother) flash of architecture? Yours, Chris

***** Dear Ruth, Never mind the Priscus trial, never mind the villa: one letter to which I think we should all be paying much more attention is the decidedly averagelooking 2.5. Because this mid-sized item has a great deal to tell us about the aesthetics of the Epistles, that particular combination of the fragmentary and the cohesive, with some remarkable games of miniaturization and metaepistolarity along the way. Let me try to explain.

111 Quint. Inst. 4.2.127 desinat ars esse si apparet; cf. Rhet. Her. 4.10 ne ars appareat and (of course) Ov. Met. 10.252 ars adeo latet arte sua, together with Merwald 1964: 155–6 and Calboli 1969: 285–6. For a parallel debate on ‘architecture’ in the Eclogues, see Van Sickle 1980b: 576–80. 112 So Morello 2007 on Pliny’s effacement of inuidia; but see also Woolf 2003 (to whom she is replying) on strategies of exclusion. In his ‘life’ as well as his ‘art’, Pliny presents himself for admiration from afar. If you’ve been needled in the present pages by any (staged) exclusivity among my circle of Plinian friends, you’re getting the point. 113 The loss of 4.26 from one manuscript family () rounded that to a tidy 100th, as one scribe perhaps noticed (F halts with the end of 5.6; see Mynors 1963: vii).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

132

Christopher Whitton

As you recall, this letter accompanies part of a speech which Pliny is sending Lupercus for comment. With customary equivocation he asks his friend to be a strict and yet complaisant reader: like a good dinner, a speech needs enough variety to contain something for everyone. Of course it will be difficult to judge, since Lupercus does not have the finished article before him, but like the limb of a statue, the fragment supplied should stand up to scrutiny on its own merits. Why else do books of prefaces circulate? But I’ve gone on too long (says Pliny)—I’ll stop now, before my letter overruns the limit I’ve set for the speech. Critical readers have homed in on the promise to delight readers with variety.114 They might have added that it falls in the middle of the letter:115 adnisi certe sumus ut quamlibet diuersa genera lectorum per plures dicendi species teneremus, ac sicut ueremur ne quibusdam pars aliqua secundum suam cuiusque naturam non probetur, ita uidemur posse confidere ut uniuersitatem omnibus uarietas ipsa commendet. Certainly I have tried to hold the attention of the full range of readers with several styles of speaking, and although I fear that any one section may not meet with the approval of some, depending on their tastes, nevertheless I think I can be confident that the whole will find commendation with everyone by dint of its very variety. (2.5.7) Pliny explicitly theorizes oratorical inventio,116 proving his credentials as a good pupil of Quintilian in the process.117 But these words are not just about oratory: to borrow your words, ‘there is a ready analogy with letters’,118 that parade of miscellaneity in which uarietas has been for modern readers so totemic a principle.119 The blurring of boundaries between oration and epistle is made quite clear at the end of the letter, with its play on ‘limits’: sed iam finem faciam ne modum quem etiam orationi adhibendum puto in epistula excedam (‘but now I will draw to a close, so that I don’t exceed in my letter the limit that I think should be applied even to a speech’, 2.5.13). Pliny will recycle the conceit at the end of several long letters, such as the Bassus trial (4.9) and the Helvidius pseudo-trial (9.13), a ready reminder that we 114 Peter 1901: 109–13; Goetzl 1952; Cova 1966: 37–8; Picone 1978: 65–6; Pausch 2004: 67–8 and—where else?—Gibson and Morello 2012: 244–5. 115 The middle phrase is strictly adnisi . . . teneremus, preceded by 178 words, followed by 180. 116 I pinch from Picone 1978: 63, discussing the related passage 1.20.12–13. The Lupercus of 2.5 returns as recipient of Pliny’s late, long tract on style, 9.26. 117 Cf. Inst. 12.10.69–72 plures igitur etiam eloquentiae facies . . . : utetur enim [sc. orator], ut res exiget, omnibus . . . Pliny as Quintilian’s pupil: p. 112. 118 Gibson and Morello 2012: 245 (on a different point). 119 e.g. Cova 1966: 126–36; Sherwin-White 1966 passim. But see p. 124.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

133

should never fail to confuse ‘speech-letter’ and ‘speech as letter’.120 But an odd thing about the apology here is that 2.5 has not been a particularly long letter: in fact this is one of the most average pieces in the book.121 The oddity catches the attention, and invites scrutiny: is there more packed into these lines than first meets the eye? Consider Pliny’s opening gambit: actionem et a te frequenter efflagitatam et a me saepe promissam exhibui tibi, nondum tamen totam: adhuc enim pars eius perpolitur. Here is the speech that you have often demanded and I have often promised, but not yet the whole thing: part of it is still getting the final polish. (2.5.1) The self-defensive displacement of responsibility—you asked for it—is a stock Plinian move.122 It’s also a stock prefatory move.123 In itself that counts for relatively little, but the word frequenter catches the eye: which reader of Pliny forgets frequenter hortatus es . . . (1.1.1)?124 Charles pointed out that Pliny inverts that phrase at the start of Book 9 (saepe te monui, 9.1.1);125 but it also surfaces already here in Book 2, not inverted this time, but varied with a new verb.126 And not just any verb. Efflagitare ‘demand insistently’ is quite rare,127 rare enough to make you wonder whether Pliny has Cicero in mind, opening a letter to Quintus: epistulam hanc conuicio efflagitarunt codicilli tui (‘your messages have demanded this letter with noisy reproof ’, Q. fr.

120 4.9.23 habebis hanc interim epistulam ut ææ [‘advance messenger’, a joke after so long a letter], exspectabis orationem plenam onustamque, 9.13.26 habes epistulam, si modum epistulae cogites, libris quos legisti non minorem; also 4.5.3–4. Cf. Henderson 2002a: 126 on the Classicus trial/letter (3.9): ‘handling [sc. events] in the story, and handling them as the story, fold into each other, and must double up as one’. 121 Just under 6% of the twenty-letter book (by any measure). sed iam finem faciam will resurface in 5.21.6 finem epistulae faciam: the shortest book of Epistles ends with the most obvious closural device of all. 122 e.g. 6.16.1 and 6.20.1, the ‘Vesuvius’ letters. 123 So John in this volume, p. 48, n. 96; also e.g. Prop. 2.1.1 quaeritis (with Fedeli 2005: 43–4), Plutarch The generation of the soul in Timaeus (Mor. 1012b), ps.Plutarch On fate (Mor. 568b–c). 124 exhibui tibi and the ‘revising’ motif might also remind us of the second letter (posing as the first ‘real’ letter) of Book 1 (1.2.1 librum . . . exhibeo). On the proemial marker ‘often’ see Barchiesi 2005: 333–4 with n. 24 (Call. Aet. 1.1 Pf. ºº ŒØ, Cat. 116.1, Cic. de Orat. 1.1, Tac. Dial. 1.1, Plin. Ep. 1.1), adding Xen. Mem. 1 ºº ŒØ. 125 Murgia 1985: 198, nuanced by John, p. 75, n. 167. 126 It slips under the radar because frequenter is not in first position. Interesting that 1.20.1 begins frequens mihi disputatio: that important discussion of oratory (cf. n. 4), fifth from the end of its book, has much common ground with 2.5. 127 Pliny usually has the simplex (1.8.1, 4.14.1, 9.2.1, 9.25.1).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

134

Christopher Whitton

2.10(9).1).128 A Ciceronian echo would be unsurprising.129 But I think a more recent orator is in Pliny’s sights: efflagitasti cotidiano conuicio ut libros quos ad Marcellum meum de institutione oratoria scripseram iam emittere inciperem. You have demanded with daily and noisy reproof that I finally start publishing the books that I wrote to my friend Marcellus on ‘The Orator’s Education’. (Quint. Inst. epist. 1) Here, surely, is the target: the very first word of the letter (n.b.) to Trypho that prefaces Quintilian’s Meisterwerk. It is even repeated a few lines later (si tanto opere efflagitantur quam tu affirmas, ‘if they are so widely demanded as you insist’, epist. 3).130 But, you’ll say, Quintilian too seems to remember that letter to Quintus (efflagistasti . . . conuicio ~ conuicio efflagitarunt). What makes me so sure Pliny is thinking of him, and not Cicero, in particular? Quite apart from the well-attested proximity of Quintilian and Pliny in life and letters,131 let me remind you of the cute codetta that ends our letter: longius me prouexit dulcedo quaedam tecum loquendi; sed iam finem faciam . . . What I might call the delight of talking to you has made me carry on too long. But now I’ll draw to a close . . . (2.5.13) Pliny makes his apology (a rather unnecessary one, you recall) with an evocation of the old epistolary cliché, ‘talking through letters’.132 He even ventures a metaphor, carefully softened: dulcedo quaedam, ‘what I might call the delight’ (literally the sugary attraction of ‘sweetness’).133 Softened—or

128 A letter now (and then?) famous for its judgement on Lucretius (§3 multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis). 129 On Cicero and the Epistles start with Weische 1989; Riggsby 1995; Lefèvre 1996 (= 2009: 111–22); Marchesi 2008: 207–40; Gibson and Steel 2010; Gibson and Morello 2012: 74–103; Whitton 2013b index s.v. ‘Cicero’; and let’s not forget Pflips 1973. 130 The shared motif was also observed by Janson 1964: 118 (where read ‘4.14’ for ‘4.4’). Efflagitare and conuicium recur in 5.10.1 appellantur cotidie, efflagitantur and 2 conuicio . . . extorqueant, another demand for publication (see Power 2010: 152–3, who focuses on allusion to Catullus 42 and the Suetonian Life of Virgil). 131 I consider this more fully elsewhere (Whitton forthcoming). In the meantime see e.g. Sherwin-White 1966: 86–9; Gamberini 1983: 12–55; Boccuto 1990; Cova 2003; Mastrorosa 2010 (bursting with bibliography) and Whitton 2013b index, s.v. ‘Quintilian’. 132 ‘For the letter is, as it were, half of a dialogue’ ( r ÆØ ªaæ c KØ ºc x  e æ F Øƺªı, Demetrius On style 223), e.g. Cic. Att. 12.39.2, Sen. Ep. 75.1; cf. Trapp 2003: 39–40 with n. 164. 133 OLD quidam1 3b.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

135

flagged? Because that metaphor should strike a chord with every would-be orator who has digested at least one book of Quintilianic didaxis: sed nos haec ipsa dulcedo longius duxit: hactenus ergo de . . . But this very delight has made me go on too long. So that’s enough about . . . (Quint. 1.12.19)134 So begins the very last sentence of his first book. Of course ‘going on too long’ is not a rare motif,135 and it had previously been combined with the dulcedo metaphor by the elder Seneca: longius me fabellarum dulcedo produxit (Suas. 1.8). In lexis and word-order, Seneca makes a closer match; but the marked position in Quintilian, and the efflagitatio we have already seen, conspire to tell a(nother) compelling story: Pliny’s letter began with the beginning of Quintilian’s preface, and ends with the end of Institutio 1. Now there is an ‘Institutio oratoria in a nutshell’:136 17,000+ words of pedagogy scaled down by a factor of fifty to a 371-word miniature.137 Not that we are concerned here with the education of infants (I think),138 but it is striking to find this letter—in Pliny’s second book—framed by Quintilian’s first book in particular. This is itself a cover-letter to the opening of a speech, or so at least Pliny intimates when he compares the enclosure specifically to the head of a statue

134 Exiting a mini-peroration on the superior pleasures granted by the noble pursuit of pure oratory. 135 e.g. Cic. Q. Rosc. 31 paulo longius oratio mea prouecta est, Fin. 3.74 sed iam sentio me esse longius prouectum quam proposita ratio postularet, Quint. 4.praef.4 prouecti quoque longius, 12.praef.2 uelut aura sollicitante prouecti longius. The last works a nautical metaphor (cf. OLD proueho 1b) which perhaps underlies all of them. 136 As Leeman 1963: 324 dubs 7.9, Pliny’s miniature tract for Fuscus (for detail see Boccuto 1991; Keeline 2013). That letter too apologizes for its length (7.9.16 tam immodice epistulam extendi, to the surprise of Sherwin-White 1966: 4–5), and is bound to 2.5 (and its own running intertext Inst. 10.5) by an unusually clear combination of inter- and intratextuality: compare 2.5.5 descriptiones locorum . . . non historice tantum sed prope poetice prosequi fas est with 7.9.8 non historica modo sed prope poetica descriptionum necessitas incidit . . . fas est et carmine remitti and Inst. 10.5.15 historiae nonnumquam ubertas in aliqua exercendi stili parte ponenda . . . ne carmine quidem ludere contrarium fuerit. 137 Inst. 1 is one of Quintilian’s longest books (matched by Book 5, surpassed only by Book 9; see Birt 1882: 331). You might compare the miniaturization of Uncle’s massive Natural History in 3.5 (Henderson 2002a: 80) and of Silius’ Punica in 3.7 (ibid. 105: ‘feeds in another marathon text’). In 7.26.4 Pliny pointedly shrinks plurimis uerbis, plurimis etiam uoluminibus of philosophy into a single sententia. 138 Commentators rightly reject a connection with the Comum speech (endowing a library and alimenta for local children) of 1.8, since this letter concerns a forensic oration (not that of 1.2, pace Sherwin-White 1966: 150, which was complete). Pliny is not at pains to specify/at pains not to specify: a reality effect, of course, but one that also (by my reading) keeps the focus trained on the epistle.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

136

Christopher Whitton

(2.5.11 auulsum statuae caput)139 and with his penultimate reference to ‘books of prefaces’ (2.5.12 principiorum libri) doing the rounds on the literary circuit. A nice fit, then, between speech and Quintilianic frame; but it seems crass to leave the epistle out of the equation. Is the letter itself a delayed preface to Book 2 (and/or to the Epistles)140—a Proem (if I may say so) Not Quite in the Middle?141 That might seem fatuous, but you’ll see there’s more to this letter yet. While 1.1 delivered an opening promise of minuteness through its slender form, 2.5 makes a playfully corresponding move: Quint. Inst. praef. + 1.fin. makes an exceptionally chunky frame for a small self-portrait, drawing the eye to the minute epistolary manifesto at its centre.142 Did you notice, by the way, that Pliny uses not one but two other images, more obtrusively inserted, to justify himself? He first compares oratorical (read: epistolary) variety to a dinner (§8), then figures the enclosed fragment as the limb of a statue (§11). Gottlieb, an often acute reader, thought Pliny was over-egging the pudding with the second analogy: ‘non erat, cur haec pluribus exponeret critico doctissimo, qui talia per se intelligebat’.143 Right: so what is it doing there? Quintilian provides one explanation: statue imagery adorns the galleries of his Institutio in abundance.144 But we could also try a little Homerum ex Homero: you don’t have to scan far along the scroll to find that the next letter concerns a dinner (2.6), and the letter after that a pair of statues (2.7, Vestricius Spurinna and his son Cottius). Pliny’s mini-tract on uarietas is thematically bound in to its epistolary context, and tightly—if

139 A natural choice of metaphor, given that heads were the parts of statues most liable to be exchanged (Stewart 2003: 49–59), but ‘head’ can do duty for ‘proem’ in the speech-as-statue analogy, at least for Lucian How to write history 23. 140 Epistles 2 is at one and the same time self-standing and the second instalment of Epistles 1–2 (try reading 2.1.1 post aliquot annos in terms of a collection): note the multiple ‘pairings’ of letters (Whitton 2013b: 18–19, extending the lists of SherwinWhite 1966: 54 and John, this volume, p. 67, n. 142). Epistles 3, in turn, will reframe Book 2 as the middle of a triptych (n. 76) . . . and so on. 141 On proems in the middle (e.g. Lucr. 4.1–25, Verg. Ecl. 6.1–13, G. 3.1–48), see Conte 1976; also Barchiesi 1997: 56 and 266 n. 6 on Ov. F. 4. Famous delayed proems (in the middle) are Verg. A. 7.37–45 and the ‘second preface’ of Tac. An. 4.32–3; we might recall Livy’s fresh start mid-pentad in 6.1, and in the present context Quint. 4. praef. (belated bows to Domitian in the first preface since Book 1) is worth a mention. 142 These thoughts on little and large surely stemmed in part from poring over proofs of another nutty (and much more massive) project (Squire 2011). 143 Gierig 1800: 126. No longer avant-garde, I grant, but himself a criticus doctissimus whose Latinity and acuity deserves far more attention than they have got in the last century. Both volumes are free to scroll through at www.archive.org. 144 Famously in Inst. 12.10.1–9, but in several smaller-scale analogies too (Aßfahl 1932: 54–6, adding e.g. 11.3.51). Of course statue metaphors were already well established in the critical discourse (e.g. Rhet. Her. 4.9 with Calboli 1969: 284–5; Cic. de Orat. 3.26 with Mankin 2011: 120).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

137

discreetly—so. The run of three will not surprise anyone who has taken John’s tour round the numerically corresponding triptych of portraits in the next book, 3.5–3.6–3.7 (Uncle Pliny—Pliny’s Statue—Silius Italicus).145 And speaking of structure, we won’t forget the full-frontal impact of 1.5, the first big letter of Book 1,146 followed swiftly by 1.6, the first letter to quiet Tacitus,147 and 1.7, where Pliny sets himself, qua Defender of the Provinces, on a Zeus-sized pedestal.148 A trio of triptychs? I won’t press that (it’s so easy to be tendentious);149 but I will press the claim that 2.5–6–7 evinces, in a rare and significant way, how Epistles solders letters into books. Not only do we have very clear ‘associative bridging’, linking sequential letters through common motifs,150 this leakage originates in what (I hope you’re starting to agree) is one of the most self-reflexive letters of the book, not only a manifesto for uarietas, then, but also a prime witness to its essential complement, the cohesion that binds these bits and pieces into something much more than the sum of their parts. I didn’t throw out ‘bits and pieces’ casually, because that is a big part of the point. I’ve talked about the middle of the letter, and its Quintilianic frame, but the statue analogy points to the crucial theme that tops and tails 2.5 before its codetta (§13): The Fragment.151 What Pliny encloses is unfinished: adhuc enim pars eius perpolitur (‘for part of it is still getting the final polish’, 2.5.1), plosives picked up in quia existimatur pars aliqua etiam sine ceteris esse perfecta (‘because it is held that one part is complete even without the rest’, 2.5.12). Of course he won’t let us see anything this side of polished

146 Henderson 2002a. On 1.5 see first Hoffer 1999: 55–91. ‘Quiet’: the Tacitus cycle runs from 1.6.2 silentium (Woodman 2009b: 32) to 9.14.2 e silentio protulit (Whitton 2012: 356). More fun with Tacitus’ name in Tertullian Apol. 16.2, Sidonius Ep. 4.22.2, Carm. 2.192, 23.153–4, and perhaps already Tac. Ag. 2.2 tacere, 3.2 silentium (Hedrick 2000: 144, 153; Whitmarsh 2007: 311). 148 1.7.1 uide in quo me fastigio collocaris, with quotation of Iliad 16.250. The Defender of Provinces theme (what a contrast with nasty Regulus!) will resound in Books 2 and 3 (Marius Priscus, 2.11–12; Caecilius Classicus, 3.4 and 3.9). Book 4 will flip the coin (defending Julius Bassus, 4.9). 149 Also because 4.5 threatens to extend the series 1.5–2.5–3.5: a short letter on a long speech, and an unusually bold (indirect) self-comparison to Aeschines and Demosthenes through reuse of the Rhodian anecdote already aired in 2.3.10. 150 For the term see Gutzwiller 1998: 10 (etc.) and, in her wake, Watson 2003: 23–6 on Horace Epodes; for the idea, also e.g. Maltby 2008 on Martial. Pliny generally applies the technique sparingly, lightly, and so (of course) only arguably: e.g. the burdens of 2.8.2–3 filter into the mood of 2.9.1 anxium me et inquietum, the Priscus trial (2.11–12) is followed by a letter to Priscus (2.13); the long letter of complaint (2.14) is followed by the very brief 2.15, where Pliny professes to cut short his complaints (2.15.2). But all this is just a less graceful way of talking about the ‘daisy chains’ you so nicely string from his eighth book (coming up in Chapter 3). 151 Cf. Marchesi 2008: xi and 16–27 on the tension of fragment and unity in Epistles. 145 147

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

138

Christopher Whitton

perfection. But this manifesto for the part (§1 pars . . . §6 partes . . . §7 pars . . . §10 partes . . . §12 pars) is a clear invitation to reflect on the Epistles themselves, fragments of dialogue, scraps of a life.152 Pliny will never give you the whole thing—this work, not unlike Quintilian’s fantasy orator,153 is eternally ‘getting the final polish’—but you can be satisfied with the paradox of a ‘complete . . . part’ (pars . . . perfecta). Was paulo ever so perfectly, pricelessly disingenuous?154 All of this adds up to a claim for exceptional meta-epistolary vigour in 2.5: in other words, to wield the cliché, a strongly programmatic statement. (Another claim, too, for reading these lines as intensely as I think they were crafted.) Here in a mid-sized missive, quarter of the way through the book, is a counterbalance to the massive weight of the villa letter in its second half, a reminder that long letters, short letters, first letters, and last letters by no means tell the whole story. This all-too-average fragment is a very loud manifesto—for those with ears to hear it—for the Plinian aesthetics both of variety and of the fragmentary, the whole framed by (I have claimed) signal allusion to that least fragmentary and—let me not say unvaried— single-minded blockbuster, Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria. Pressing reasons, I think, to take structure, size, and sequence in this second book very seriously. It has been such a pleasure talking to you. Yours, Chris

****** Dear Roy, You and Ruth have taught us a great deal about re-reading, and in the chapter I have just now in hand you draw our attention especially to the drawing-in of shadows in Book 9.155 As I re-read Epistles 2, I see a striking sequence of retreat which presages, in miniature, Pliny’s retirement to the Etruscan villa in the last book.156 A good chance to consider perhaps the 152 Arist. Poet. 1451a æ  Ø  e ººÆ N Ø , K z Æ P Æ ª ÆØ æAØ ‘a single man performs many actions, from which no single action is created’ (or: a man’s life cannot be reduced to a unity)—which is where fragments come in. You and Roy have shown us best how Pliny fragments his autobiography (Gibson and Morello 2012: 9–35). 153 For Quintilian the perfect orator remains an ideal, never yet incarnate (e.g. Inst. 1.praef.17–20, 12.11.25–30, bracketing his work). 154 I allude, of course, to 1.1.1 si quas paulo curatius scripsissem. 155 Gibson and Morello 2012 passim; this volume, Chapter 4. 156 ‘Retirement’: cf. 9.15.1 refugeram in Tuscos . . . That villa makes a recurrent stage for Epistles 9, explicitly in 9.15 and 9.36, and by easy association in (at least) 9.10,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

139

most obvious façade of any epistolary (or literary) architecture, and—to combine a particular interest of yours with a passing obsession of mine— the linearity of narrative as we progress along the scroll. It is abundantly clear that 2.11 is a triumph of Plinian advocacy, in senatu and in litteris. The letter is well enough known for it, as for its radiant optimism. Less well observed is the appendix 2.12, which extends and transforms it into a diptych.157 There Pliny is on equally feisty form, indeed reaches oratorical heights beyond anything in 2.11. The mode is indignation: Pliny attacks Hostilius Firmus,158 but he also, indeed primarily, attacks his fellow senators for their mildness in censuring him: Hostilius got away with no punishment beyond losing the right to future provincial office. How regrettable that ‘democracy’ gives equal votes to all senators, when their levels of prudentia vary so (2.12.5)! We have come a long way from radiant optimism, and fast. In fact, though it’s often forgotten, Pliny regularly expresses his disappointment with fellow senators.159 It’s part of a phenomenon—on which you comment within these covers—of darkening compeers to brighten the spotlight on himself. But, in this case, the darkness threatens to draw closer still. Halfway between the two long letters of Book 2 is the third-longest letter (2.14), Pliny’s notoriously bitter lament at current standards of oratory in the centumviral court, his principal sphere of civil litigation. With full Quintilianic vigour he decries the ignoble, effeminate practices of the speakers of today.160 If the letter begins on a note of frustration (uerum opinaris: distringor centumuiralibus causis, quae me exercent magis quam delectant, ‘you’re right: I am heavily occupied with cases in the centumviral court, which give me more trouble than pleasure’, 2.14.1),161 it ends with a remarkable descent into gloom. Pliny defends his own continued practice in such tainted territory—it would seem selfish to abandon his ‘friends’ in need of advocacy—but adds, sumus tamen solito rariores, quod initium est gradatim desinendi (‘yet I am there less often than usual, which is the beginning of a 9.16, 9.20, 9.37, 9.39 (see Sherwin-White 1966: 40 and ad locc.). Some of the following thoughts also found their way into Whitton 2013b: 15–17. 157 See p. 127. 158 So either violating the often-stated ‘rule’ that he does not attack living, highstatus individuals by name (John, this volume, p. 58), or implying that Hostilius died before Epistles 2 saw publication. 159 Cf. 3.20, 4.5, 6.5, 6.13, 9.13, Lefèvre 2003 (= 2009: 93–101); this chapter, n. 34. 160 Both through a narrative put into Quintilian’s mouth (2.14.9–11) and in the damning terms that follow (Whitton 2013b on 2.14.12–13). Let’s not forget that Quintilian wrote a lost De causis corruptae eloquentiae (cf. Brink 1989) as well as the blockbuster we have. 161 He continues, sunt enim pleraeque paruae et exiles, a phrase frequently taken as documentary evidence about the state of civil law at Rome; but (as I hardly need tell you) it’s always worth trying to contextualize individual letters in Epistles.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

140

Christopher Whitton

gradual cessation’, 2.14.14). The self-absorption is not rare, nor the metaepistolary touch,162 but this closing motif carries a degree of resignation which may surprise:163 Epistles 1 is well known for its ebullience, while Book 2, despite opening with a death (Verginius Rufus), has so far sustained a similarly upbeat outlook.164 That resignation is paralleled, however, by the end of the book as a whole. Pliny’s malicious, professedly jovial calumnies over Regulus’ alleged legacyhunting climax in a fit of oratorical rage: Iººa  ØÆ  ÆØ in ea ciuitate in qua iam pridem non minora praemia, immo maiora nequitia et improbitas quam pudor et uirtus habent? (‘but why do I get exercised in a town in which for a long time now wickedness and shamelessness have no lesser rewards— indeed greater rewards—than decency and honour?’, 2.20.12). Allusions to Demosthenes (On the crown 142) and Cicero (II Verrines 3.7)165 appropriate the auctoritas of the two greats of oratory, Greek and Roman, in opposition to the villainous Regulus. And in one sense Pliny’s letter is anything but defeatist, as he subjects his anti-hero to fierce (post euentum)166 characterassassination on the page. Besides, the re-reader of the collection knows that Regulus will be old by Book 4, dead by Book 6. Yet the first-time reader reaches the end of Book 2 with the bleak prediction that nasty Regulus will go from strength to strength, with no hint of a fight-back from nice Pliny: resignation rules the page, and the book ends far from triumph. In fact Regulus has appeared once before in Book 2, (almost) at the end of the Priscus trial. Pompeius Collega, whose proposal of milder punishment for Priscus was eventually defeated by the worthier severity of Cornutus Tertullus,167 complains that he was put up to it by none other than Regulus, who had persuaded him to make the proposal, only to jump ship when it looked set to 162 I mean the use of desinendi as last word. The same verb ends 7.27.16, longest letter of its book (too blatant a closural device, perhaps, for more frequent use). 163 Beutel 2000: 253–8, to me inexplicably, reads this letter as an ironic call to P.’s fellow senators not to give up on the centumviral court. 164 Of course you know that such characterizations must generalize, ‘averaging’ (as it were) across the varied moods and subjects of each letter; also that one reader (Hoffer 1999) has found anxieties lurking throughout Book 1. In present company I need hardly mention your own, fine reading of that book (Gibson and Morello 2012: 9–35). 165 Dem. Cor. 142  s ÆF’ KæÆÆØ ŒÆd Ø  Ø Å ø d çæH; and Cic. II Verr. 3.7 (addressing Hortensius) quod [‘the fact that’] ad tuam ipsius amicitiam ceterorumque hominum magnorum atque nobilium faciliorem aditum istius [i.e. Verris] habet nequitia et audacia quam cuiusquam nostrum uirtus et integritas? The exceptional Demosthenic allusion (Pliny usually quotes Greek verbatim) is to his most famous speech (see Whitton 2013b on 2.3.10), which will also feature in another Regulus letter (4.7.6). 166 Like John (p. 58), I trust Regulus was safely dead. 167 Cornutus is consul designate (2.11.19); his consular colleague-to-be—we later learn (5.14.5)—is Pliny.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

141

lose (2.11.22). Whatever the facts of the case, it is striking, in structural terms, to find Regulus, who will feature so prominently at the book’s close, skulking in this central edifice 2.11,168 where the senatorial scene thus—even before the addition of 2.12—ends169 on a note not (just) of triumph but darkness.170 Add to that your important insight about the intertwining of Regulus and centumviral themes in the collection—that Regulus’ death in 6.2 and Pliny’s greatest centumviral triumph in 6.33 (as well as the revival more broadly of the centumviral court in Epistles 4–6) are directly linked171—and it looks as if Regulus’ shadow falls over 2.14 too. In oratorical terms Regulus is marked as a modernist, P. as a traditionalist (1.5, 1.20), and it is specifically the (caricatured) modern style, with its associated moral failings, that P. so damns in 2.14.172 To sum up: we have observed triumph tainted by Regulus in 2.11, despondency about the centumviral court (with Regulus between the lines) in 2.14 and pessimistic resignation in 2.20 (with Regulus looming larger than life). Is a pattern starting to emerge? All we’re missing is the villa letter to make a run 2.11–2.14–2.17–2.20, featuring the book’s three longest letters, and the last.173 Can we resist the urge to join these dots, to construct a narrative? Pliny triumphs in the senate—Pliny announces his withdrawal from the civil courts—Pliny goes into retreat at Laurentum—Pliny impotently laments Regulus’ unending influence in Rome. Here is a tale of rise followed by fall, a descent from the apogee of 2.11 to the dark close of 2.20 accompanied by a move from the Roman centre to the suburban periphery. Seen in this light, the otium of the Laurentine villa starts to look a little less ideal and idealized than it did, not just an escape from the ‘slavery’ of negotium in Rome (2.8)174 but potentially the indictment of a Rome where Regulus rules.175 Of course this is no more than a fragmented narrative 168

At the very centre of the book, indeed (cf. p. 129). I chose my words carefully: Regulus’ appearance is followed by the appendix (§§23–4) introducing the Firminus of 2.12, and a rustic coda (§25). 170 Like 2.20, the cameo mocks Regulus, left here looking a fool and a coward (as 1.5.1 taught us to expect). But after 2.20 (if you see what I mean), 2.11.22 threatens to take on a more sinister air. 171 Gibson and Morello 2012: 68–73. 172 Cf. Winterbottom 1964 (esp. 95), arguing that Regulus represents specifically the ‘bad’ oratory against which Quintilian (Pliny’s teacher, and a notable presence in 2.14) militates. In 4.7.5 Pliny brands Regulus uir malus dicendi imperitus, the inverse of the canonically Catonian/Quintilianic good orator. 173 Admittedly the semi-detached 2.12 blurs the lines a little. 174 For ‘slavery’ see 2.8.2–3, developing a Senecan metaphor (Tranq. 10.1, etc.: Whitton 2013b: 139–40). 175 Pliny is too tasteful for such tawdry puns on kinglet Regulus, even if I, like Rhiannon, am not (Ash 2013: 215). This potential revision challenges, and complements, the recontextualization of the Laurentinum ultimately provided by 9.40, and by you (Gibson and Morello 2012: 219–20). 169

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

142

Christopher Whitton

(other letters, between this sequence, present Pliny playing his proper role in town society), but fragments, we remember, are the stuff of letters.176 And there is good reason to suppose—as if we could doubt it—that Pliny has not ordered these fragments ut quaeque in manus uenerat (1.1.1). That reason is chronology. From a historian’s point of view, the date of the Priscus trial is fixed without doubt to January 100.177 The date of 2.14, meanwhile, is established by A.N.’s thesis (a strong one) that Pliny did not practise in the centumviral courts during his time as prefect of Saturn and during his consulate, in other words between January 98 and October 100.178 Given the feel of Book 3 as the ‘consular’ book, complete with rousing Panegyricus (3.13 and 3.18),179 the reader is invited to construe Book 2 as accordingly ‘pre-consular’, thus establishing an ‘original’ date for 2.14 earlier than 98, rather than after 100.180 In other words, Pliny has placed 2.11 and 2.14, those two striking letters, in the ‘wrong’ chronological sequence. Of course he promised to do precisely that in his preface (non seruato temporis ordine, 1.1.1), and parallels are not far to seek.181 Besides, only a well-informed (re-)reader need notice this temporal inversion; but it does suggest that reason subtends the non seruatus ordo. Thanks to its position, 2.14 threatens to embitter the triumph of 2.11 (as 2.12 in its own already does) and to take centre stage in what we might identify as a fragmented narrative of withdrawal running through the second half of Book 2. How to reply? Let me make two brief suggestions. First, that this pseudoretreat to Laurentum foreshadows in miniature not only the retreat to Tusci,182 but also the onset of darkness at Epistles’ end that you so convincingly illuminate.183 Even this earlier, more ‘optimistic’ book can be read—if you want—as a narrative of decline. Second (conversely and complementarily), that this decline is a fall before a rise, the low that precedes the high of the consulate. Domitian is dead, shaky Nerva gone too, but Rome isn’t rebuilt

176

Pp. 137–8. Guaranteed by Cornutus Tertullus’ status as consul designate (n. 167): Sherwin-White 1966: 78, 166. 178 179 Sherwin-White 1966: 75–8, 181. Henderson 2002a: 132–4, 142–4. 180 That is, the purported date of the ‘original’ letter. Sherwin-White’s chronological studies (especially 1966: 20–65) are fundamental, but his term ‘letter-date’ perpetuates a (hollow, in my view) investment in pre-revision Epistles. 181 Notably 1.10, where Pliny is in harness as praefectus aerari Saturni (Gibson and Morello 2012: 22), setting an ‘original’ letter-date demonstrably later than 2.14 (and e.g. 2.1). Not to mention parallels outside Pliny (Catullus, Horace Epodes, and Vergil Eclogues are just three notorious battle-grounds for scholars attempting to unpick chronology from book-composition). 182 Cf. n. 156. Of course Pliny stages his final bow in the Laurentinum in 9.40 (n. 24). 183 This volume, Chapter 4. 177

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Grand Designs: Unrolling Epistles 2

143

in a day. The Reguluses of this world live on and flourish.184 A triumph over Priscus, yes, but that is no quick fix for society and senate whole. With the consulate Regulus will fall quiet and hopes will rise again.185 The question is, will they be fulfilled? Time for me to re-read . . . Yours, Chris

******* Dear John, Grand designs? Or the ‘over-determinedly unified simulacrum of an unhistorical, counter-generic, pseudo-organic final “design” ’?186 Your Gnomic intervention, as ever, is timely, provocative and necessary. My own recent letters have tended towards that over-determination, though I hope with due recognition of the fragmentary aesthetic alongside the cohesive, the miniature beside the monumental. From his Statue, and from so much since, one thing is sure: Pliny was nothing if not betting on posterity. Or am I putting words into your mouth? Yours, Chris

Or should I say ‘The Plinys of this world’? See (with varying degrees of mistrust) Giovannini 1987; Soverini 1989; Strobel 2003. 185 For studia if not for facta (3.7.14 and 3.20.10–12 with Lefèvre 2009: 96–77, 144–5). Regulus is a notable absence from Book 3. 186 Henderson 2011: 315. 184

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

3 Pliny Book 8 Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader Ruth Morello

BLAME OR MERCY: A CASE STUDY (8.10–11) This chapter takes its beginning from John Bodel’s discussion of 8.10 and 8.11, in which Pliny writes to his wife’s relatives about her convalescence from the miscarriage that has ended her first pregnancy.1 This pair is remarkable not only because juxtaposed letters on the same topic are very rare in Pliny, but also for eloquent differences in tone and emphasis. Both letters ascribe the unhappy event to Calpurnia’s youthful ignorance of proper care during pregnancy (10.1; 11.2), note the danger to her life (in summum periculum, 10.1; in summo periculo, 11.2), and hold out hope for successful pregnancies in the future (quorum spem certiorem, 10.2; ex qua sperari potest, 11.3). Nevertheless, the language of error and atonement suffuses 8.10’s brusque report to Calpurnia’s grandfather, Calpurnius Fabatus, and the verbs dwell upon Calpurnia’s responsibility for the event (neptem tuam abortum fecisse . . . nescit . . . omittit . . . facit; errorem . . . expiavit). Dynastic concerns are in the foreground; indeed, Pliny seems to console Fabatus not for personal grief over 1 I am particularly indebted in much of what follows to Whitton’s dazzling analysis of key letters of Book 8 (Whitton 2010), and to Bernstein 2008 on the discourse of paternity and ‘relatedness’ that runs throughout the book; in looking at the entirety of Book 8, rather than at a thematic selection, this chapter is intended to supplement their studies and to put the spotlight on the methods Pliny uses to knit his collection together. Translations of Pliny are taken or adapted from Delaware Lewis 1879.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 145 his granddaughter’s suffering, but for the effect of this personal tragedy upon the old man’s hopes for the future.2 The dominant tone of 8.11, by contrast, is one of affectionate concern for Calpurnia’s health. Pliny reverses the arrangement of his news (8.11.1) in order to reassure his addressee, Calpurnia’s aunt, about her niece’s health before any mention of her recent danger or of disappointed hope. Further, while still ascribing the miscarriage to inexperience, Pliny largely absolves Calpurnia from personal blame (nulla sua culpa, aetatis aliqua, ‘through no personal fault, rather through some fault due to her age’, 8.11.2). Finally, he begs the addressee to intercede with her father on Calpurnia’s behalf, on the grounds that uenia comes more easily to women in such circumstances. It may seem natural to adopt different tones in writing to an anxious aunt or a tetchy patriarch, but the juxtaposition of these two letters highlights anticipated differences in the addressees’ temperaments— specifically in their readiness to blame others.3 Bodel rightly sees these letters as ‘contrasting portraits’: ‘the effect of the juxtaposition, and surely part of its purpose, is to demonstrate the human capacity for different responses to the infirmity of others’. He notes, further, the significance of the ‘kinder’ letter’s position as the second in the pair (‘Pliny’s own compassion is not in doubt’).4 These two letters, then, offer a study of differing human viewpoints, made more poignant by the unhappy topic and by the familial relationships between all parties concerned. They form a diptych on contrasted themes of blame and mercy, in which the first letter focuses primarily upon the harm that has befallen Fabatus’ dynastic hopes, while the second brings the potential harm to Calpurnia herself into higher relief, and pleads for a gentle response. Both letters also illustrate Pliny’s own need—a normal human one— to define a position and explore his own attitude(s) to a complex and

2 The opening words, quo magis cupis, put the spotlight on the addressee’s emotions; cf. 4.1.1 (also to Fabatus) cupis . . . neptem tuam . . . uidere. For special concern for a grandfather’s posterity in Pliny’s letters, cf. 1.14.2 (grandchildren for Arulenus Rusticus) and 6.26.3 (on Servianus’ future grandchildren), with Gibson and Morello 2012: 146. 3 Other letters addressed to Fabatus elsewhere in the collection suggest that his was a difficult temperament; on friction between Pliny and his grandfather-in-law, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 63; on Fabatus’ harshness in 8.10, cf. Sherwin-White 1966: 459. 4 This is an epistolographical version of the ‘weighted alternative’ in which the preferred option tends to take final position in a discussion of alternative approaches: see e.g. Sullivan 1976: 319.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

146

Ruth Morello

highly emotional situation; he does not hide his less altruistic feelings about the miscarriage, and shows himself able to look at the situation simultaneously from the perspectives of a disappointed paterfamilias and of an anxious and loving relative.5 He portrays himself, in particular, as sharing some, at least, of Fabatus’ more selfishly motivated disappointment at the continuing lack of an heir (neque enim ardentius tu pronepotes quam ego liberos cupio, ‘not, indeed, can great-grandchildren be desired by you more ardently than are children by me’, 8.10.3), and assumes that Calpurnia Hispulla will be similarly disappointed that there is still no grandchild from her late brother’s bloodline (8.11.3). The shift in colour and tone between the two letters does not mask the real complexity of any human response to tragedy, although their juxtaposition seems designed to force us to consider the contrast between them; anyone might take either (or both) of the positions adopted in these letters, although we are guided towards the kinder, more nuanced one.6 Nevertheless, the reader is left wondering what to make of a situation in which uenia is sought for this kind of misfortune (8.11.3). An unexpected and rather shocking Ovidian parallel may help us to evaluate the function of these two letters as a diptych, and to cast new light on some of their apparent oddities. Pliny’s willingness to develop a point through idiosyncratic reinterpretation of Ovidian models has been discussed elsewhere,7 but this rare diptych of letters, written by a potential father about the loss of a baby, might be fruitfully compared with Ovid’s ‘dramatic pair’ on the aftermath of Corinna’s abortion (Am. 2.13–14).8 Like Pliny, Ovid depicts conflicting emotional responses in the speaker, who veers between terror at 5 Noted also by Shelton 2013: 126. On the unusually high concentration in Book 8 of themes of adoption, parental surrogacy, and anxiety about Pliny’s own posterity, see Bernstein 2008: 220–1. 6 For disappointment over the loss of a potential heir as an acceptable response to news of miscarriage between men, at least, we might compare Cicero’s blunt reaction to the news of Tertulla’s miscarriage in Att. 14.20. Cf. Cic. Clu. 11.32 on the Milesian woman who is to be executed for abortion (precisely on the grounds that she has dashed hopes for the continuation of a family line). 7 I am thinking here not only of the now famous allusion in 1.1 to the final lines of Ovid’s Pont. 3.9.51–4, but also of suggestions floated in Gibson and Morello 2012: 100 on the Ovidian qualities of Pliny’s pose as an exclusus amator in a letter to his wife (7.5) and (more extensively) on the Ovidian influence of Am. 3.1 upon Pliny’s villas letter at 9.7. 8 On these poems, see Davis 1977: 108–17; Due 1980; Gamel 1989; Damon 1990: 280, 284–5.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 147 Corinna’s peril, relief at her safety, and angry blame,9 but he also builds in hostile ‘readings’ of the situation attributable to outside observers. In Am. 2.13 he begins with the news that Corinna is gravely ill after her abortion, an act deserving of the anger that is temporarily eclipsed by fear for her life (ira digna mea, sed cadit ira metu, Am. 2.13.4); after abandoning reproach of the girl herself he begs the gods to whom women pray (Isis and Ilithyia) to bring her safely through the crisis. Conversely, poem 14 begins to develop an ‘angry reading’ of Corinna’s actions and situation, one that culminates in a vignette in which even ‘gentle’ girls who die after abortions are publicly condemned during their funerals: at tenerae faciunt, sed non impune, puellae: | . . . et clamant ‘merito’ qui modo cumque uident (Am. 2.14.37–40). Only in the final coda does Ovid change tack again, begging the gods to overlook this first offence and to suspend punishment until any subsequent transgression. Pliny’s miscarriage letters clearly share something of the Ovidian atmosphere and approach in the shift of emotional stance across the two poems, the struggle between loving fear and anger, and the climactic concern for merciful judgement. By contrast with Pliny, Ovid reserves an outsider’s condemnation and the speaker’s real anger for the second poem in his diptych, colouring the final plea for mercy with a fully developed study of the guilt to be attached to abortion.10 His address to female deities begging for help for the stricken girl and his final request for mercy become, in Pliny’s hands, a letter to a loving aunt asking for benign intervention against the wrath of the disappointed grandfather. The issue of fault, indeed, is the crucial element that makes a comparison between Pliny and his poetic predecessors especially worthwhile.11 For Propertius (2.28a–28b), Ovid’s own model, Cynthia’s illness is entirely her own fault; although the hot summer weather might

9 On the self-centredness of the speaker’s reaction in these poems, see Davis 1977: 116. 10 Ovid’s Propertian model, a diptych on Cynthia’s illness (2.28a–28b), also deals with issues of blame and forgiving anxiety, but, like Pliny, places the harsher view of the situation in the first of his paired poems; on Ovid’s changes to Propertius’ order of treatment, see Davis 1977: 108–9. For the shift of stance, cf. Davis 1977: 113. 11 On the oddness of Pliny’s emphasis on fault here, see Shelton 2013: 127, who dismisses (rightly) the possibility that Calpurnia may have deliberately aborted her child, but does not remark on the consequences for Pliny’s portrait of his addressee of the ambiguity in his treatment of the event.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

148

Ruth Morello

have been a factor, her condition is really a result of her neglect of the gods—here we might perhaps think of Pliny’s suggestion that Calpurnia has ‘atoned for’ (expiauit) her miscarriage by enduring the peril for her life. In Ovid’s version, Corinna deserves divine punishment (although he would rather she got away with it just this once) and the hostile views of outsiders are called into play. In Pliny the ambiguity in the ancient terminology inevitably assists in triggering thoughts of Ovid’s paired poems, since abortum facere signifies both deliberate abortion and accidental miscarriage.12 Although Pliny (as speaker) does not share the anger that he anticipates in the first of his addressees, nevertheless his concern to absolve Calpurnia of fault raises the spectres of guilty Cynthia and undeserving Corinna—intertexts that further emphasize his point that this innocent tenera puella should not be put in the same category as her poetic avatars: so inexperienced is she that she failed to recognize the signs of pregnancy in the first place. This very ‘girlishness’ might seem odd in a woman who has been married already for up to a decade,13 but Pliny’s marking of her as puella helps to point to the elegiac/amatory context, while simultaneously highlighting the distance between the Ovidian situation and the tragedy in Pliny’s own family. His concluding call for uenia calls to mind not only the hostility of those who see a young girl’s corpse after an abortion in Am. 2.14, but also the divine leniency that Ovid hopes for at the end. Fabatus, Pliny seems to assume, will be a poor ‘reader’ of the situation, but he should know better than to be one of those who cry ‘merito’ when young girls die in such circumstances, and he should take proper thought about the realities of the case and adopt a kinder attitude. In Pliny’s hands, then, a shocking quasi-Ovidian study of conflicting emotions of fear and anger that meditates upon guilt and forgiveness in the most personal of circumstances is embedded at the heart of a book that is driven by such conflicts in contexts both public and private;14 this rare adjacent pair serves, indeed, to trigger a reader’s reflections on questions of viewpoint and the conscious choice of a

12 Cf. 4.11.6 (on Domitian’s niece who allegedly died after having aborted the baby conceived in their incestuous relationship). Jones’ review (1968: 142) of SherwinWhite’s commentary ‘corrects’ the translation ‘abortion’ (Sherwin-White 1966: 742) to ‘miscarriage’. 13 14 See Shelton 2013: 125–6. Dickison 1973: 165.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 149 good moral or emotional position, issues that will be drawn to his attention many times over as the book develops.

SHIFTING VIEWPOINTS IN BOOK 8 Such shifts of viewpoint are characteristic of Pliny’s book design in general (although this chapter will suggest that they are put to special use in generating meaning in Book 8, in particular). Indeed, considerably more radical contrasts in topic, tone, and length between one letter and the next are common throughout the collection, giving an air of casual miscellaneity to each book;15 Book 8 itself builds towards one of Pliny’s most explicit statements of his commitment to variety of tone and mood in his writing.16 At the ‘local’ level, that variety is underpinned by subtle and cumulative effects that give dynamic cohesion to Pliny’s letter sequences and pairings, and careful attention to the interrelationships between adjacent letters often bears interpretive fruit, even when the links are less obvious than they are in 8.10 and 8.11.17 Juxtapositions of letters even on apparently different subjects become more eloquent as they are underpinned by Pliny’s habit of leaving subtle trails—such as unexpected vocabulary echoes, or recurring images and metaphors—to encourage the sequential reader to interpret adjacent letters in the light of one another.18 Pliny’s touch in making such links between letters is 15 Cf. Fitzgerald 2007a: 4–7 on the comparable balance between juxtaposition and uariatio in Martial. Effects achieved by juxtaposition of letters are reflected on a grander scale by juxtaposition of books dominated by contrasting topics. Reading two books as a contrasting pair, and seeing how Pliny shifts tone and emphasis between them, has become a fashionable game, and one that can be pleasurably illuminating (see e.g. Gibson and Morello 2012: 49–50 on Book 6 as predominantly the book of career and negotium in contrast to Book 7, which is preoccupied with otium). 16 8.21.1–2. On ‘dislocations’ in the tradition, whereby e.g. letters on Pliny’s hendecasyllables were re-positioned to adjacent positions, thus ‘correcting’ Plinian variety, see Bodel in this volume. 17 Compare Goetzl 1952: 268 on the effects of ‘small and hardly perceptible transitions’ in Pliny’s arrangement. 18 On such ‘daisy chain’ sequences in Book 7, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 188. For other equally understated (but powerful) links between adjacent letters see Whitton in this volume on 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7. Marchesi 2008 is essential reading on Pliny’s subtle use of literary allusion to link adjacent letters. On a comparable use of sustained and expressive networks of metaphor in Tacitus, see Woodman 2006 and 2010. For the comparable practice in Pliny of key words at beginnings and ends of

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

150

Ruth Morello

often impressively light, and the rewards for the sequential reader engaging and entertaining.19 Moreover, such local links, repeatedly deployed, can determine the character of the whole book. In the case of Book 8, Pliny uses the effects afforded by canny juxtaposition of letters to ‘walk all the way around’ some of the key issues of Book 8; the cumulative outcome of Pliny’s design of contrasting juxtapositions is a complex arrangement of interconnecting thematic cycles in which the writer explores how men handle social disparities of all kinds, how one should behave, in particular, towards dependents and social inferiors (both within one’s own household and in public life), how to balance justice and mercy, and what happens when ‘normal’ power and status structures are disrupted. The adjacent pair on Calpurnia’s miscarriage is a (tactically obvious?) call to the reader to be especially aware of shifting viewpoints and moral dilemmas; to recycle one of John Henderson’s images, Book 8 ‘wires energy’ from 8.10–11, and the two letters, taken as a pair, contain vital signals for how to read the whole book.20 This chapter’s reading is, then, a consciously ‘pedestrian’ one, which charts the experience of a reader of Pliny’s collection who starts at the beginning of the book and plods on, letter by letter (or, to redeploy Pliny’s introductory words, taking each letter ‘as it comes to hand’).21 It focuses in particular upon the steps (both within individual letters and between adjacent letters) by which Pliny establishes a relatively restricted set of dominant topics for the book, while simultaneously exploring different viewpoints. In so doing, I suggest that he is also setting up a fundamentally didactic programme to educate his readers not only in choosing proper moral positions in tricky social or emotional situations but also in acquiring one of the most important technical skills for reading the whole letter collection: the ability to reconsider one’s understanding of whatever one has read or thought, and the willingness to change one’s mind.

individual letters (typically conferring new significance upon a word when it reappears), see Saylor 1972: 48. 19 On sequential reading, see also Whitton 2010: 130–4; Gibson and Morello 2012: 53–68, 187–94; cf. Marchesi 2008: 16–27 (and passim); Ash 2003: 211–16. 20 Henderson 2002a: 36 (on Book 3’s special dependence upon 3.6). One should compare the effects of the other adjacent pair in the collection, 2.11–12 (see Whitton in this volume); that an ancient reader would have noticed an unusual pairing is demonstrated by Sidonius’ subtle allusion to the status of 2.11 and 2.12 as a pair, as Roy Gibson has pointed out (now noted in Whitton 2013b: 187). 21 On 1.1 see now Bodel in this volume.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 151 THEMATIC JUXTAPOSITIONS AND THE SEQUENTIAL READER (8.1–15) The book opens with the famous report in 8.1 that Pliny’s lector, Encolpius, has fallen ill during a dusty summer journey up to Pliny’s Tuscan properties. Pliny is distressed by Encolpius’ illness and hopes that rest and medical attention may effect a cure. The letter is typically read as evidence of Pliny’s gentleness to his slaves and his wish to care for their health as he would for that of his own closest family.22 It may also, however, contain a mischievous suggestion that Pliny is struggling against his own more selfish instincts, and it is certainly important that he focuses upon the reader in preference to the several other members of his household (quidam ex meis) who have been adversely affected by the heat.23 The heat and dust, it seems, have so irritated Encolpius’ throat that he has begun to cough blood. Pliny’s first response to this unfortunate condition in a dear companion is entirely focused upon his grief (apparently shared by Encolpius himself) over the suspension of his literary pursuits: Quam triste hoc ipsi, quam acerbum mihi, si is cui omnis ex studiis gratia inhabilis studiis fuerit! Quis deinde libellos meos sic leget, sic amabit? How sad this will be for himself, and how annoying to me, if one whose whole charm was derived from his literary pursuits, shall become unfitted for those pursuits! Moreover, who will there be to read my little books as he does, and to love them so?

The letter is cast in notably amatory terms:24 the meaning of the lector’s rather unexpected name, Encolpius (one ‘embraced’ or ‘in the e.g. recently Whitton 2010: 136 n. 114 on Pliny’s ‘repertoire of humanitas towards slaves and freedmen’. It is in the context of the ‘illness’ theme which dominates these two books that Bodel sets the two letters about Calpurnia’s miscarriage, as he notes the chiastic arrangement of letters on the illnesses of his slaves and his wife (1 slave, 10 wife, 11 wife, 16 slaves), as well as the further linkage of wife and slaves as objects of concern for Pliny in 8.19, 8.10, and 8.11, all of which suggests loose links between the motif of the ‘kindly husband’ and that of the ‘gentle master’. 23 On Pliny’s care in matching letter to addressee, and the value of thinking more widely about the implications in the collection of scattered letters to the same addressee, see below, and cf. Whitton 2010: 131 on Aristo’s special qualifications as the reader of both the literary and the legal aspects of 8.14. 24 Another instance of unexpectedly amorous language used by Pliny of such people or places as support his literary work may be found in his description of his private suite at the Laurentine villa (amores mei, re uera amores, 2.17.20; on this letter, see Whitton in this volume). 22

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

152

Ruth Morello

bosom/in the lap’) may conceivably be picked up by Pliny’s designation of Encolpius as his deliciae (‘darling’)—another rather unexpected expression from this straitlaced author?25 Indeed, expressions of love dominate 1.1, and Pliny seems almost to be suggesting a kind of literary love triangle (Encolpius is Pliny’s darling, but when Encolpius is ill, Pliny wonders ‘who else will love – my books?’).26 However, Encolpius’ illness has diminished his primary attraction for Pliny, namely his capacity to act as a skilful and sympathetic reader of Pliny’s own work.27 Readers might be expected to remember letter 7.21, where Pliny describes a disorder of his own that similarly obstructs his studies. There he writes that eye trouble prevents him from reading and writing while on the road, and so only aural study is possible: solisque auribus studeo (‘I study only through my ears’, 7.21.1). Nothing in 8.1 suggests that Pliny’s eyes remain weak (indeed he is reading and writing at his estate in 7.30.4), and even the end of 7.21 suggested improvement.28 Nevertheless, readers of this otherwise unremarkable vignette will be aware that Pliny has previously employed lectores on journeys like that of 8.1, and, prompted by Pliny’s apparently self-centred initial response to Encolpius’ illness, might wonder if Pliny’s excessive use (in adverse summer conditions) of the lector’s services as a human audiobook are Anderson 1981: ‘even the puritanical Pliny possessed a slave with the dubious pet-name Encolpius’ (131). Pliny’s reader might, perhaps, remember Petronius’ Encolpius and his picaresque adventures on his travels in Italy, particularly in the context of the ‘journeys’ motif that this letter inaugurates for the book. On Encolpius and other speaking names in the Satyricon, cf. Prag and Repath 2013: 1979–80. 26 For a different substitution of Pliny’s books for Pliny himself as the beloved object, see 6.7.1, where he says that Calpurnia has been keeping his books in his place in her bed. There may also be a reworking here of Verg. Ecl. 2.6 where Corydon, struggling with unrequited love for the slave boy Alexis (unfortunately unavailable since he is delicias domini, Ecl. 2.2) reproaches the object of his affections for caring nothing for his songs (o crudelis, Alexi, nihil mea carmina curas?). On this passage, see Hubbard 1995. 27 On Encolpius’ likely value as assistant in the process of editing and polishing draft work, see Johnson 2010: 58. Quis libellos meos sic amabit (amabit is not specifically remarked upon by Johnson) is productively ambiguous, suggesting Encolpius as ‘reader’ in both the sense that he reads aloud to assist Pliny and in the sense that he reads for enjoyment (as we are also ‘readers’). This is important in a book that will contain such letters as 8.13 on Genialis and his father as ‘readers’ of Pliny. Book 8, then, may be understood to begin with a question: ‘Encolpius loves my work—who else will love it as much?’ Book 9—dominated by letters expressing pleasure that Pliny’s work is being read (see Morello 2003: 208)—goes on to provide an extended answer to this question. 28 Cf. Du Prey 1994: 283. 25

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 153 at least partly responsible for his servant’s rough throat and bloodstained coughs. Has Pliny overworked the poor fellow?29 A churlish reading of 8.1 as a follow-up to 7.21 is in no way necessary, of course, to our understanding of its rhetorical structure and main point: Pliny’s initial play upon his selfishly studious instincts is sufficient foil to his more generous ‘second thoughts’, as he closes the letter with a more cheering report of Encolpius’ improving condition and an assurance of the attentiveness and concern of all those around the patient. Perhaps we can take the opening of 8.1, then, as a brief playful charade of selfishness and self-interest, (not quite) mocking Pliny’s studious habits and gesturing towards a view of slaves, however well-loved, as working tools whose value lies in their skills.30 Fitzgerald rightly observes that Pliny is always concerned to ‘scotch possible misinterpretations of his behavior’;31 in Book 8, the surprise is that we see him building opportunity for such misinterpretation into his own text, precisely in order safely to defuse it by positing a better viewpoint and (as becomes clear as the book unfolds) in order to begin to make a point about how one makes choices between right and wrong attitudes to the sufferings and weaknesses of others.32 There seems, as Bodel says, ‘no overt moral lesson’ in 8.1, but it may, nevertheless, be the first step in an extended epistolary study of the human and moral effects of a change in attitude and viewpoint. Just as Pliny shifts from self-interest in 8.10 (where he confesses that he

29 For an analogous situation in which a literary assistant is used on journeys even in extreme weather conditions, see Pliny’s account of his uncle’s practice of issuing such slaves (in his case notarii rather than lectores) with warm gloves so that they might continue to work during a freezing winter journey (3.5.15 with Starr 1991: 339). His uncle’s influence upon Pliny’s use of lectores may be important in the implied narrative of this letter, too: it was, after all, Pliny the Elder who insisted that his nephew make good use of journey time by having someone read to him (3.5.15–16; once again, in this passage, how a lector is treated is a topic of surprisingly detailed discussion). We can read this letter, then, as another instance of Pliny distancing himself from his uncle’s attitudes. For the uncle, the lector’s task is to get through text as quickly as possible (think of the anecdote in 3.5.12 about his reprimand to a friend who slowed things down by correcting the lector’s pronunciation); no love for the text read would be expected or admired. 30 On such coldly pragmatic attitudes in others, cf. 8.16.3. 31 Fitzgerald 2007a: 110. 32 We might compare this phenomenon, too, with Ovidian practice: Davis 1977: 116 notes ‘Ovid’s fondness for revealing all his weaknesses, his impatience, his selfishness, his thoughtlessness’.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

154

Ruth Morello

shares Fabatus’ concern for the continuation of the family line) to more altruistically expressed concern in 8.11, here a self-deprecating acknowledgement of selfish considerations is softened within the confines of a single letter by the assurance of the master’s affectionate concern for the patient (nos solliciti, 8.1.2). Furthermore, just to ensure that we dismiss the fleeting glimpse of Plinian selfishness as a self-deprecating joke, 8.2 describes Pliny’s fair dealing with those negotiatores who have been financially disadvantaged by the year’s poor vine harvest. Pliny begins by declaring that he likes to behave consistently in all situations (ut foris ita domi, ut in magnis ita in paruis, ut in alienis ita in suis agitare iustitiam, ‘as abroad so at home, as in great things so in small, as in things foreign so in one’s own, to be diligent in the practice of equity’, 8.2.2). He establishes the principle that some reimbursement is due to each of his disappointed purchasers, but his formula for calculating repayments depends upon the paradox that equal treatment for all may not coincide with true equitability, which lies not in treating all men alike, but in giving fair consideration to each individual (erat expeditum omnibus remittere aequaliter, sed non satis aequum, ‘the simple course was to make an equal remission all round; but this would have been hardly fair’, 8.2.2; cf. aequasset, aequari, 8.2.6); fairness here is judged not by comparison with other disappointed buyers, but in relation to the details of each business relationship with Pliny. Instead, therefore, of repaying an identical fixed sum to all, he makes the effort to reimburse each man according to the amount of his advance payment, thus rewarding and reciprocating friendly business practices and, of course, fostering a continuing business relationship. Equality for Pliny, then, does not mean eliminating the differences between men but in giving due weight to their separate business relationships with himself. In different ways, 8.1 and 8.2 both demonstrate Pliny’s commitment to kindness and fairness to his associates, even those who are his social inferiors and even in situations in which less honourable behaviour might incur relatively little censure.33 These letters lay foundations for multiple interlocking motifs which will reappear in 33

Pliny will contrast himself more explicitly with men who treat their slaves only as property in 8.16.3, and in 8.2.8 he openly asserts the novelty of his policy for reimbursing those third parties who would otherwise have lost heavily as a result of the poor harvest on his land.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 155 new forms throughout Book 8: slaves and how one should treat them; equality, equitability, and justice; ill health among Pliny’s friends and household; careful calculation of responses others have deserved from us; distractions from otium; and the lack of opportunity for and support in intellectual work. Just as letter 1 selected the lector for special consideration (as being particularly important to Pliny because of his professional services), so letter 2 extends the process of evaluating other people’s contributions to one’s own life into a new sphere. So Pliny here follows an expression of (exceptional?) concern for his hard-working slave with a summary of his (exceptional?) fairness towards his buyers. This opening pair, then, although dealing with two apparently separate topics, follows (in less emotionally charged fashion) the same psychological trajectory as the pair on Calpurnia’s miscarriage: part of the first letter subtly suggests selfish motives, but any misinterpretation on the reader’s part is earnestly smoothed away by the more generous-hearted conclusion, and by the extensive reflections in the follow-up letter upon the true difference between equitability and equality. Moreover, in line with the ‘journeys’ theme of the book, these two letters sketch an implied ‘there and back again’ narrative as a pair, as letter 1 takes Pliny towards otium in the healthy Tuscan villa and letter 2 begins with his return as a poorer man (alii in praedia sua proficiscuntur ut locupletiores reuertantur, ego ut pauperior, 8.2.1).34 34 We can also observe a Tuscan theme in the settings of several of the letters, as part of this broader interest in journeys and their effects: letter 2 outlines Pliny’s business practices at his Tuscan estate, Letters 8 and 20 both concern Etrurian/ Umbrian beauty spots within reach of the road to his Tuscan estate, but previously unknown to Pliny. The touristic interest in the peculiarities of Italian waterways such as the Clitumnus and the Vadimon lake (the latter explicitly in contrast to foreign marvels) is enriched (and complicated) in letter 17 by the account of quasi-Lucretian flooding on the Tiber and the Anio. See Sherwin-White 1966: 456; cf. Sherwin-White 1966: 39 on the selection of these routes as a favour to Calpurnius Fabatus, whose diminished capacity or inclination for travelling appears in an important series in Book 7 (Letters 16, 23, and 32). The neighbouring region of Perugia makes an appearance (not explicitly marked, but possibly the home of Terentius Iunior, the addressee) at letter 15. Nevertheless, the mix of letters about Tuscan and Umbrian journeys is leavened also by letters about the floods somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome (letter 17), the Pallas inscription on the road to Tibur (not, as Sherwin-White 1966: 438 points out, a route by which Pliny would have travelled to Tuscany, Campania, Comum, or Ostia). The final letter will mark the close of a book of Italian journeys by preparing its addressee for departure from Italy to take up the governorship of Achaia. Pliny has allowed a single region prominence in the book, but he has done so in an understated fashion and avoided overwhelming dominance of the motif.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

156

Ruth Morello

The next two letters, 8.3 and 8.4, present contrasting versions of an exchange of literary work between like-minded friends: in letter 3 Pliny playfully claims always to regard his latest speech (in this case still awaiting dispatch to Sparsus, the addressee) as absolutissima (‘the most perfect’, 8.3.2),35 but he encourages Caninius in letter 4 to show him even the fragmentary rough drafts of his new poem (prima quaeque ut absolueris, 8.4.6).36 Both letters show a concern with what will most please: in the first case, Pliny is pleased with his own most recent polished work and anticipates similar pleasure in his addressee and reader (maxime placere / tamquam placituram / placebit) when he finally ends the delay before he dispatches it, while the second letter imagines Caninius’ wish to delay sending Pliny any preliminary sections of his poem on the grounds that literary work is at its most pleasing when it has been completed: respondebis non posse perinde carptim ut contexta, perinde incohata placere ut effecta (‘you will reply that what is taken piecemeal cannot please equally with that which is continuous, or what is rudimentary like that which is complete’, 8.4.7).37 These fleeting redeployments of a single verb will have their strongest effect upon the sequential reader, who will notice all the more readily how the two letters build towards a message which is later to be more explicitly conveyed in the two miscarriage letters, namely that change of viewpoint and attitude should also alter behaviour. In 8.4.7 Pliny does not try to argue against the principle that polished work is best; he does, however, suggest that the attitude of the reader of a draft work can clarify or redefine the writer’s sense of literary friendship. Affection and trust should trump the more self-protective wish to show others only the very best and most polished version of one’s work:

35 One might compare Cic. de Orat. 3.25, where Crassus refers to the special pleasure afforded by whatever is the latest in a highly varied set of aural stimuli (tamen ita sunt varia saepe ut id quod proximum audias iucundissimum esse videatur). On this passage, see Fantham 1988: 277. 36 On Caninius, see Gibson in this volume. 37 We might note, too, the contrast between the reticence of 8.3 (in which Pliny gives no details about either of the highly polished works he mentions) and his lavish detail in his speculations about likely features of his friend’s inchoate poem in 8.4. On the similar descriptive abundance in an earlier letter to Caninius (1.3), which masks a contrasting reluctance to talk about his addressee’s serious work, see Marchesi in this volume.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 157 Scio. Itaque et a me aestimabuntur ut coepta, spectabuntur ut membra, extremamque limam tuam opperientur in scrinio nostro. Patere hoc me super cetera habere amoris tui pignus, ut ea quoque norim quae nosse neminem uelles. I know it. And therefore they shall be judged by me too as things merely begun; they shall be regarded as parts, and shall await your finishing touches in my desk. Suffer me to have this pledge, in addition to the others, of your friendship; that I be made acquainted even with such things as you would wish none to be acquainted with.

In the two miscarriage letters, Pliny does not attempt to change Fabatus’ interest in dynastic posterity (indeed, he shares the old man’s hopes and concerns), but the second letter considers a more affectionate perspective on the same issue. Similarly, in 8.4 the hope of perfection in a work is waived in favour of a pledge of friendship on both sides: Pliny will make sure that he takes an appropriately friendly (and forgiving) attitude to an inchoate work, and will love Caninius the more for his openness (ipsum te magis amabo). Caninius, for his part, is asked to treat the gift of unfinished work as a pignus amoris, and to eschew the kind of delay which Pliny has just (in 8.3) shown himself inflicting on Sparsus, who has already received one (excellent) piece of highly polished work and is being made to wait for another (even better) one.38 Letters 5 and 6 seem to differ from one another in topic, style, and length, as letter 5 announces the death of Macrinus’ exemplary wife (a graue uulnus incurred in the domestic sphere, to contrast with the war poetry of 8.4?) while letter 6 is a follow-up to 7.29, written to the same addressee and on the same topic, about the extravagant honours paid by the senate to Tiberius’ freedman, Pallas. Nevertheless, these letters, one about a recently deceased wife and the other about a long-dead freedman, are both presented, in their very different ways, as studies of dolor. In 8.5.2 Pliny notes the increased dolor in one’s heart for the loss of something that has previously brought great happiness:

38 Amabo and amoris pignus will also remind the reader of the curious question in 8.1, where Pliny asks ‘who else will love my libelli so?’ Pliny’s lector knows his work before it goes to the world (when it is still in need of further polish), and the loving interest of Encolpius in the work which it was his job to hear in its earliest stages is here echoed in a different context by Pliny’s own affectionate pleasure in Caninius’ verse.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

158

Ruth Morello

Habet quidem Macrinus grande solacium, quod tantum bonum tam diu tenuit, sed hinc magis exacerbatur quod amisit; nam fruendis uoluptatibus crescit carendi dolor. Macrinus indeed has one great solace, in that he retained so great a blessing for so long a time; and yet, for this reason, he is all the more embittered by the loss of it; for the enjoyment of pleasures increases the pain of being deprived of them.

For Macrinus the experience of a happy marriage—although potentially a consolation in his loss—merely sharpens his pain, which will abate only when satietas doloris (‘satiety of grief ’, 8.5.3) has set in. Letter 6, by contrast, closes with Pliny’s expression of relief that he had not lived through the miseries of the Tiberian period, after which he asks his addressee to understand the strength of his dolor that so unworthy a character had received such honours (ideo facilius est ut me, quamquam indignationem quibusdam in locis fortasse ultra epistulae modum extulerim, parum doluisse quam nimis credas, ‘hence you will be the more ready to think that, though I may have carried my indignation in certain places to a height unsuitable to a letter, yet my suffering is understated rather than excessive’, 8.6.17). The maxim that dolor might be increased by previous happy experience is now reworked to the effect that dolor may be engendered also by miseries not experienced. The two letters also offer contrasting commemorations of the dead. The brief and understated honour paid to Macrinus’ late wife in Pliny’s letter contrasts with his disgusted enumeration in 8.6 of the fawning tributes to the (then still-living) freedman and their inscription upon a public monument. Macrinus’ wife, Pliny says, lived up to old-fashioned standards (uxorem singularis exempli, etiam si olim fuisset, ‘a model woman, even if she had lived in old times’, 8.5.1), but she is commemorated in a short and appropriately restrained epistolary remembrance; Pallas, by contrast, exceeds the greatest heroes of Roman republican history in the fulsomeness of the senate’s tribute to him: conferant se misceantque, non dico illi ueteres, Africani Achaici Numantini, sed hi proximi Marii Sullae Pompei . . . infra Pallantis laudes iacebunt (8.6.2). I say nothing about those men from the old days, the Africani, the Achaici, the Numantini, but let the Marii, the Sullas, and the Pompeys

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 159 of recent times all come together as a group . . . their praises will fall below those accorded to Pallas.

The juxtaposition of old-fashioned wife (who combined—miscuit— many old-fashioned virtues in one person) and depressingly modern slave figure(s) (ironically contrasted with a ‘combination’ of hypothetical exempla—misceant) gives this pair increased depth and power. Whereas Pliny’s letters about his own household present a harmonious and internally consistent picture of his good relations with wife and freedmen alike, in discussion of third parties and the stormy past he plays up bleak contrasts between the virtue of Macrinus’ late wife and the praetorian honours improperly awarded to one of slave birth by those who should have acted as befitted their proper status (mitto quod Pallanti seruo praetoria ornamenta offeruntur [quippe offeruntur a seruis], 8.6.4).39 Letter 6, a quasi-historical study of senatorial failure, is followed quite naturally by a letter to a historiographical master in that very field, as 8.7 purports to reply to a request from Tacitus for comments on a new piece of work. In a familiar move, Pliny is showing himself Tacitus’ equal, and the reader is reminded that Pliny is an appropriate person for Tacitus to consult.40 Sequential effects are built in to these two letters in more subtle ways, too, and this time the link is forged by games of metaphor. Tacitus’ earlier letter to Pliny seems to have employed a scholastic image, in which his request for assistance was addressed to a fellow discipulus (by implication, his equal in learning and liberal training): Neque ut magistro magister neque ut discipulo discipulus (sic enim scribis), sed ut discipulo magister (nam tu magister, ego contra; atque adeo tu in scholam reuocas, ego adhuc Saturnalia extendo) librum misisti. (8.7.1) Not as one master to another, nor again ‘as one disciple to another’ (for so you write it), but as master to a disciple—for you are the master, I the opposite; more than that, you are recalling me to school, while I am still prolonging my holidays—have you sent your book to me.

39

Whitton 2010: 137. Cf. Roller 2001: 271–2. Whitton 2010: 133. On Pliny and Tacitus, Woodman 2009b is also essential reading; cf. Gibson and Morello 2012: 161–8. On the remarkable juxtaposition in four separate books of a letter to Tacitus with another on the subject of senatorial failings, see Whitton 2012: 357. 40

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

160

Ruth Morello

Pliny extends and develops Tacitus’ polite metaphor of shared and equal learning as fellow students,41 and explores the consequences of imaginary shifts in the (literary) power relationship between himself and the historian. We should read the opening lines as the beginning of a priamel, as Pliny muses upon the possibilities of two versions of an equal relationship (both men as fellow magistri or as fellow discipuli) before finally dismissing them both in favour of an unequal relationship, in which Tacitus takes the role of authority, recalling Pliny (as pupil) to the study which has been suspended during the Saturnalia.42 Although he is keen to demonstrate equal status with Tacitus, Pliny’s polite deference paradoxically destabilizes the friendly equality that Tacitus has posited, in favour of a relationship in which Pliny plays the weaker partner. The next sentence clouds the issue still further, as Pliny claims that his awkward style in this very letter marks him out as unfit to be either magister or discipulus to Tacitus (atque hoc ipso probare eum esse me qui non modo magister tuus, sed ne discipulus quidem debeam dici, ‘by this very means proving that I am one who ought not to be called, let alone your master, even your disciple’, 8.7.2). Before the final sentence of this clever, epigrammatic letter, then, Pliny has made sure that none of the possible situations on offer (fellow magistri, fellow discipuli, magister and discipulus) seem fully viable—leaving himself free to adopt whichever one best suits the joke towards which he is building.43 The December festival of the Saturnalia was most notorious for allowing a temporary reversal of the respective positions of master 41 On this letter’s dependence on games of metaphor, see Marchesi 2008: 108–9; Whitton 2010: 136 n. 115. On Pliny’s pose as ‘fallible fellow-pupil’ in 8.14, too, see Whitton 2010: 121. 42 One might recall the last time the Saturnalia festival was mentioned, at the end of 2.17, where, by contrast with 8.7, Pliny is ignoring the Saturnalia in favour of his literary work (2.17.24). In 8.7 it is Pliny who is (in the ironic and playful metaphor he has chosen) delaying the return to literary work and extending the ‘Saturnalia’. Pliny seems here to look back briefly to the Laurentine villa letter in a book otherwise dominated by his Tuscan property. We should note the earnestness of Pliny’s pursuits during the Saturnalia. Unlike Martial (who warns earnest-minded readers of works of moralizing history and grammatical study off the erotic epigrams which the holiday prompts him to write, Mart. 11.2), Pliny does not take advantage of the licentia of the festival as a spur to light verse; rather, he is to be found hidden away, playfully reading Tacitus (!) or revelling in quiet time for his own studia. 43 Note, too, the similar game with teacher/pupil roles in 8.14.24, where Pliny has taken on the kind of apprenticeship to an expert lawyer that is described in Tac. Dial. 34, but finds himself inappropriately lecturing his ‘teacher’.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 161 and slave;44 school pupils were also expected to be on holiday during the festival, the end of which was marked by the ‘recall’ of the student by the magister, as Martial 5.84 shows (iam tristis nucibus puer relictis / clamoso reuocatur a magistro, ‘now the boy, unhappy at leaving his playthings, is recalled by the roaring master’). In theory, at least, slaves might speak more freely to the master than at any other time of the year, without fear of punishment (a situation upon which Horace’s Satire 2.7, for example, plays at length).45 Notions of shifting power relationships underpin the whole of 8.7, and the very slipperiness of the relationships into which Pliny is imagining himself and his addressee allows him to introduce the metaphor of the Saturnalia and to act upon the liberty afforded by that holiday in order (temporarily?) to seize the role of magister after all and criticize his ‘teacher’s’ work (sumam tamen personam magistri, ‘however, I will take on me the part of master’). At the same time, Pliny retains the Saturnalian right to tease and joke, which he exercises in his closing declaration that Tacitus will get no revenge, since Pliny will send no reciprocal manuscript for him to savage (exseramque in librum tuum ius quod dedisti, eo liberius quod nihil ex me interim missurus sum tibi in quo te ulciscaris, 8.7.2).46 The epigrammatic punchline works precisely because Pliny spent the first part of the letter ostensibly sending himself to the back of the class but now seizes the controlling position at the front desk, refusing ever to give it up. The Saturnalia scenario, in which the positions of slave and master, pupil and magister are temporarily reversed, is relevant also to the situation which Pliny has only just finished outlining in 8.6. There he investigates the record of senatorial honours for a freedman, dwelling upon the senate’s humilitas (and the disgrace that they were as servile as their honorand, 8.6.4), and the insolentia of the freedman Pallas.

44

On the Saturnalia, see Dolansky 2011. For the inferior’s free criticism of his superior during the Saturnalia, see Horace, S. 2.7.4–5; Horace’s Satire 2.7 presents the slave’s criticism of the master, who is free but acts like a slave (and worse), a situation analogous to that of the slavish senate in Pliny’s 8.6. 46 On ultio more broadly as a crucial linking theme running throughout Pliny’s engagement with Tacitus, see Whitton 2012: 357. By 8.7.2, of course, we are already some distance from the friendly interaction envisaged for the exchange of draft work in 8.4—and Pliny is no longer merely delaying the dispatch of his own work (as he did in 8.3), but refusing outright to expose himself to criticism. 45

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

162

Ruth Morello

8.7, one might say, is a playful holiday version of the study in 8.6 of what happens when one reshuffles the social cards and comes up with a different relationship between the people involved in any situation; in 8.7 the status disparity is constructed in polite jest, but in 8.6 the disparity was real and the abandonment of appropriate behaviour genuinely troubling.47 The Saturnalian metaphor in 8.7 illustrates in retrospect (and in a safely amicable context) just how dysfunctional was the situation described in letter 8.6. This pair of letters provides us, then, with another instance of a typical Plinian phenomenon: a linkage between two very different letters by means of an image which is made central in one letter but only implied in another. Moreover, this Saturnalian scenario tempts the reader to reconsider the opening letter of the book. 8.1’s account of a journey to Pliny’s villa (with a named lector among the entourage) might have suggested that otium litteratum lay ahead of the great man for the summer; Book 7 was dominated by the theme of otium,48 and throughout the collection Pliny leads his readers to expect that a letter about his villa life will focus on the written work which is the product of such retreats.49 However, this first letter of the book gives notice that we are moving away from the world of Book 7, by showing Pliny in dire straits without the best assistant of his literary leisure. Indeed, in a quasi-Saturnalian reversal of positions, it is the slave’s turn for leisure (secessus quies tantum salutis quantum otii pollicentur, ‘the retirement and the rest give the same promise of good health as they do of leisure’, 8.1.3), at the time when he might have expected to be busiest.50 As for this master, 8.2 will indeed show Pliny not enjoying otium, but instead managing estate business. Once the sequential reader has noted the Saturnalia motif at its most explicit in 8.7, he begins to grasp the cumulative effects that Pliny has designed for him. Pliny’s reference to ‘extending the Saturnalia’ has further meaning for the design of the letter collection: he is ‘extending the Saturnalia’ not only in his status-shifting role-play in relation to Tacitus, but also 47

48 Cf. Whitton 2010: 137 n. 124. Gibson and Morello 2012: 169–70. 2.17.24. We should note, however, that even in the otium-rich atmosphere of Book 7 we find a suitable precursor to 8.2, as Pliny bemoans time spent dealing with the complaints of his tenants (7.30.3). 50 On the Elder Pliny’s habit of keeping a lector busy in all moments of otium, see 3.5.10–12; Pliny, by contrast, ultimately represents his days at the Tuscan villa as filled with greater variety, the lector’s services being specifically required only over dinner in the evening (9.36.4). On Pliny’s routines, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 117–23. 49

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 163 in adding another letter to a short sequence about disruptions in status or in the behaviour consonant with differences in status. In the bad old days of 8.6, the reversal of roles and power structures was a sign of the deleterious effects of intolerable tyranny; the modern, metaphorical subversion in 8.7 of normal patterns of authority and obedience merely underlines the stability of the polite relationship between two senators and equals. If one looks back now to the first letters of the book, in which Encolpius is promised otium at the country villa and Pliny shows himself distracted by estate business during the summer ‘holiday’, it seems even clearer that Pliny is developing an extended play within this book upon unusual role reversals and upon all matters relating to the interaction between those of differing status. Letter 8, on the Clitumnus spring, takes the holiday theme in a new direction. The letter begins with the emphasis on autopsy (vidistine . . . vide . . . proxime vidi), a motif which has been important in a different context in the opening of 8.6, too, and will be prominent again in 8.14; Pliny later details, moreover, a special feature of the banks of this spring, along part of which a collection of inscriptions is available for those who wish to pursue their studies even while on a pleasure jaunt: nam studebis quoque: leges multa multorum omnibus columnis omnibus parietibus inscripta, quibus fons ille deusque celebratur. (8.8.7) You will even be able to study, and will read a variety of productions by a variety of people, inscribed on every column and every wall in honour of the spring and the god.

This passage invites the reader to share in an exuberant celebration of reading which is here unexpectedly available during outdoor leisure time. The inscriptions on the banks of the water are presented as the crowning attraction of this beauty spot, providing an opportunity for studia and (especially) for variety in one’s reading. The tourist, after he has alighted from his rowboat, or perhaps even dried off after his swim, is expected to pay attention to the texts which surround him, some of which will be praiseworthy, some absurd or otherwise amusing.51 Crucially, although naturally the viewer of these monuments is still reading, he does so in a public place, and the texts with which he is

51

For strong reactions expected on discovery of an inscription, cf. 7.29.1.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

164

Ruth Morello

dealing are not meant to be read aloud after dinner, during the quiet morning’s study time at the country villa, or inside a curtained litter on a dusty journey. The contrast between reading contexts is not made in any way explicit, but it is nevertheless there, heightened by the juxtaposition of this outdoor holiday with the wintertime school image of 8.7. The shock of 8.9’s terse description of the overwhelming pressure of negotia then seems all the greater after the leisurely description of a locus amoenus, but it is elegant that Pliny chooses to highlight a change in his work patterns by stressing above all the absence of the usual material paraphernalia of literary endeavour indoors (olim non librum in manus, non stilum sumpsi, ‘for a long time I have taken neither book nor pen in hand’, 8.9.1). An interaction comparable to that between the important 8.6 and the apparently much lighter 8.7 (or, indeed, the similarly brief 8.5) may be observed in the cluster of 8.12, in which Pliny is taking a day off to hear Titinius Capito read his work, 8.13, on his satisfaction that Genialis has been reading Pliny’s books with his father, and 8.14, the major letter to Aristo on senatorial procedure in deciding the fate of the freedmen of the murdered Afranius Dexter. Like 8.5, 8.6, and 8.7, these letters differ in length and in weight of subject matter, and in juxtaposing them in this book Pliny demonstrates once again his commitment to variety. Nevertheless, each of these letters invites the reader to consider a related issue—that of learning from the example and the advice of sophisticated, experienced, and cultured elders—in radically different settings. Letter 13 sketches a private, familial environment in which father and son read and discuss contemporary works by an important figure (Pliny himself!), and the son learns a disertissimo uiro (‘a man of the greatest eloquence’) how to form good judgements.52 The opening of 8.14, by contrast, focuses on paternal guidance in the more public arena of the senate house—guidance in practical and procedural matters offered in a happier past, but unavailable to the young even of Pliny’s generation (8.14.7–9). Both letters, then, focus on how one 52 As one reads it becomes clear that on one level this is Genialis’ father acting as his moral and intellectual supervisor, but since it is Pliny’s books which are providing the intellectual material, one might initially take disertissimo viro as a reference (ironic and self-deprecating?) to Pliny himself. The only other time Pliny uses this notion of ‘treading in the footsteps’ of a senior exemplar, as Whitton 2010: 132 notes, is in 6.11.2, where Pliny rejoices that he is himself an exemplar for Fuscus and Quadratus. On 8.13, see Bernstein 2008: 216–18; Whitton 2010: 131–3.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 165 learns (or should learn) from a parent, in studia pursued in private settings as in more public, official contexts. In each case, Pliny himself furnishes the material for the educational exemplum, and both ‘respected elders’ are invited to judge his work, and in so doing to assist in the instruction of a new and happier generation: Genialis’ conversations with his father (disertissimo uiro) arise from their reading of Pliny’s oratory, while Aristo (peritissimus et priuati iuris et publici, ‘a man most expert in private and public law’) is asked for his views on Pliny’s own recent actions in the senate (so that Pliny may learn to correct his errors and repeat his successes in the future: 8.14.1).53 The tone for both these letters, combined with the interest in the exempla provided by learned elders and the great men of the past, has already been established by 8.12. Here Pliny declares he will take time off to hear Titinius Capito recite, partly out of a sense of obligation to one who has always himself been assiduous in attending Pliny’s own recitations, and partly because of the subject of Capito’s work: a series of accounts of the deaths of great men (here not the eminent Republicans to whom Capito was devoted in 1.17, but rather those who suffered under Domitian, and who were personally dear to Pliny). Capito is the friend who encouraged Pliny to write history (5.8), so it is fitting that the work of this historically minded hero-worshipper should kick off this mini-sequence of letters which take a variety of views of the importance of exempla in the life of all Romans (particularly the young). Praise of Capito’s commemoration of the honoured dead is followed immediately by Pliny’s approval of the young Genialis for taking seriously the choice of models. Here the distinction the young man is to draw between what is praiseworthy and what is to be criticized relates to questions of rhetoric and style, but it is framed in terms that are equally familiar in relation to the intelligent and engaged moralizing reading of history which was expected of a historiographer’s audience (quid laudandum, quid reprehendendum, ‘what deserves praise and what censure’, 8.13.1).54 This leads on 53 On the idiom of paternity in contexts where biological relationships are not involved, and the title of pater in particular, see Bernstein 2008: 227. Although teacher–pupil and father–son (as well as master–slave) relationships are important in this book, we should note Sherwin-White’s observation (1966: 49) that Patronage Letters (his Type III) are entirely missing from Book 8. 54 On history as offering similar opportunities to distinguish good from bad and choose the right action for oneself, see e.g. Livy Praef. 10; cf. Tac. Ann. 3.65.1–2 with Woodman and Martin 1996: 451–6. For a survey of approaches to historical exempla in historiographical writers, see Chaplin 2000: 16–29.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

166

Ruth Morello

naturally to Pliny’s idealizing nostalgia in 8.14 for the days when new generations emulated their elders’ practices in the senate. Once again, we have a sequence of adjacent letters, ostensibly quite different from one another in tone, topic, length, and style, which nevertheless cumulatively require the reader to look at different facets of a single topic (here varieties of exemplarity and of memory), shifting perspective with each new letter, moving from present to past and back again, and from public to private and back again, as various facets of the issue are turned before the mind’s eye. The main body of 8.14 contains an account of Pliny’s management of a senate vote, and it is in itself a study in dealing with different—and shifting—attitudes and viewpoints.55 The senate, he tells Aristo, disagreed on what action (if any) to take against the freedmen of the deceased Afranius Dexter, who were under suspicion of involvement in his untimely death. Pliny favoured acquittal (and he has already suggested in this letter that Afranius’ death might have been suicide), but both execution and relegation also had their supporters, depending, Pliny suggests, on whether Afranius’ freedmen were suspected of active criminality or passive collusion. It is no surprise, given the moderate and merciful persona that Pliny has developed for himself, to find Pliny giving the freedmen the benefit of the doubt (and indeed he suggests at 8.14.24 that if all three parties had voted separately—but in accordance with their true opinions—acquittal would have resulted). He also, however, recounts his part in ensuring that those inclined to harsher judgements did not temporarily switch their votes in order to manipulate the outcome of the trial. He insisted, he says, that the senate maintain the distinction between the three proposals, allowing a vote upon each one by one, in order to avoid a situation in which voting was conducted in two stages, allowing those in favour of any punishment to make common cause against those who would acquit altogether, before then deciding on relegation or death in the second stage (and possibly swelling the numbers of those who voted for death). Pliny expresses a qualified pride in the aequitas of his intervention (aequitate postulationis meae, 8.14.24), but seeks Aristo’s view on whether he was, in fact, right to have intervened. The end result was merely a different reshuffling of allegiances, as those in favour of the death penalty crossed the floor, as it were, to join the supporters 55 On the centrality of 8.14 within its book, see Whitton 2010: 119, and his further thoughts in this volume. On 8.14, see also Bodel in this volume.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 167 of relegation. 8.10–11 contrasted temperamental proclivities in a familial context, but here the inclination towards mercy or punishment is played out upon the public stage in the declaration of senatorial sententiae. The unusually lengthy account of Pliny’s arguments in the senate in the face of three distinct voting groups (which threaten to shrink to two, more radically opposed ones) is itself the point of the letter: it’s all about how you distinguish between right and wrong action or choose between mercy and severity. Indeed, even in his sketch of the process by which the three voting groups became two, Pliny closes with the choice between two (milder) alternatives that had to be made by the supporters of the death penalty: sic ex tribus sententiis duae factae, tenuitque ex duabus altera tertia expulsa, quae, cum ambas superare non posset, elegit ab utra uinceretur (8.14.26). So three proposals were reduced to two, and one of those two prevailed once the third proposal had been eliminated, which, as it could not overcome the two others, had to choose by which of the other two it would be defeated.

Further, Pliny plays with teacher/pupil personae, as he had in 8.7, as he pulls himself up (8.14.24) for writing at such length ‘as if delivering a lesson’ (when he really wanted to learn from the expert). Pliny explains his thinking (rationem iudicii mei, 8.14.16), and seeks Aristo’s advice so that he may know what to do in the future if any similar situation arises in the senate (ut in futurum si quid simile inciderit erudiar, ‘that I may be instructed . . . with a view to the future, should anything of a like kind present itself ’, 8.14.1); by implication the reader, too, is being equipped to choose between mercy and severity and to distinguish clearly between incompatible moral positions—and, of course, given further guidance on how to behave in situations involving slaves.56 Finally, one should note in 8.14.10 Pliny’s pairing of a request for uenia with a metaphorical plea for medical assistance, which may, like the unusual medical image in letter 24, be designed to reinforce and extend the book’s key theme of illness (peto primum ut errori . . . tribuas ueniam, deinde Whitton 2010: ‘a protreptic presentation of lawyerly discussion’ (121). We should note, too, Whitton’s observation that the only time Afranius Dexter appears alive in Pliny’s collection, he is speaking in favour of leniency for Tuscilius Nominatus (5.13.4–6; Whitton 2010: 118 n. 2). 56

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

168

Ruth Morello

medearis scientia tua, ‘first that you pardon my mistake . . . next that you apply to it your remedial learning’).57 Letter 15 is a neatly turned little letter, which seems, on the face of it, to contribute nothing to the development of this book’s dominant and interconnected motifs (slavery, authority, parental guidance, pain, illness, and death), and to have no obvious thematic links to the immediately preceding 8.14. However, structurally, the placement of two short notes as a ‘frame’ for the lengthy 8.1458 recalls a similar arrangement in which 8.5 and 8.7 frame the other long (and thematically weighty) letter of the book, 8.6.59 Moreover, it seems unlikely to be coincidence that the book’s central letter on the passing on of knowledge between the generations (8.14) is followed immediately by a letter to a man named Iunior (8.15), which is then itself followed by a letter to a Paternus (8.16).60 Once again, the briefest of suggestions appears fleetingly to recall important motifs of the book— Pliny’s light touch in evidence again. Here Pliny apologizes to Iunior for burdening him with reading matter,61 offering as excuse his addressee’s own letter complaining of thin pickings in the vineyards. Pliny hopes that Iunior’s time (normally occupied by the harvest) can now be devoted to gathering a different sort of harvest from Pliny’s own pages:

57 We should compare Pliny’s request for uenia for Calpurnia’s medical condition in 8.11.3. 58 Whitton 2010: 130. 59 On similar framing effects in a trio of letters in Book 3, see Henderson 2002a: x, 43 (on 3.5–7). Similarly, letters on closely related topics are often separated by an apparently unconnected third item: so, for example, letters 16 and 18—both about wills—are set off by the (quasi-digressive?) description of the Tiber floods in letter 17, while 8.22 (with its central exemplum of maximus Thrasea) and 8.24 (addressed to Maximus)—both about the value of mildness and humanity—are interrupted by the report of Avitus’ death in 8.23. 60 On the significance of Iunior’s name here, see Whitton 2010: 134. On Pliny playing with names, cf. Gibson and Morello 2012: 42, and Bodel and Gibson in this volume. One might also note the significant name of the dead Avitus (‘ancestral’— literally ‘grandfatherly’); Cicero uses the adjective auitus several times in a pair with paternus or patritus (e.g. Agr. 2.30.81; Cael. 14.34; Tusc. 1.19.45). The dead young man embodies the old-fashioned qualities suggested by his name. 61 A sequential reader might wonder if there is an implied apology also for the length of 8.14—possibly a quasi-closural gambit here as a major section of the Book is brought to an end? Whitton thinks so (2010: 133–4), and his pages on the allusive links between 8.13, 8.14, and 8.15 are essential reading for those interested in Pliny’s construction of chains of allusion in adjacent letters.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 169 Oneraui te tot pariter missis uoluminibus, sed oneraui primum quia exegeras, deinde quia scripseras tam graciles istic uindemias esse, ut plane scirem tibi uacaturum, quod uulgo dicitur, librum legere. I have laid a burden on you by the dispatch of so many volumes at once. However, I have burdened you, in the first place, because you had insisted on my doing so, and, in the next place, because you had written to me that the vintage was so slender in your parts as to make me see very clearly that you would have leisure (as the common phrase runs) ‘to take in a book’.

The metaphor of ‘gathering’ (usually dormant) in the phrase librum legere is brought back into action by Pliny’s self-conscious quod uulgo dicitur,62 but this is merely the first step towards expressing literary activity in economic terms, as Pliny turns to fresh account the concerns of letter 2 in this book: the poor harvest and the availability of an essential raw material for production of one’s usual goods. Pliny (unable in letter 2, as already noted, to devote himself to literary otium) settled his accounts fairly with the speculators who had contracted to buy the grapes from his estates, but here he is himself faced with a different supply problem: if he cannot find a source of blank writing material, he will be forced to ‘recycle’ old materials, potentially destroying his earlier work indiscriminately (quidquid scripserimus boni maliue delebimus, ‘whatever I have written, good or bad, I shall erase’, 8.15.2).63 This closing threat puts a new spin upon the questions of discrimination between good and bad (good and bad writing in Pliny himself in letter 8.13, and more generally between good and bad attitudes or behaviour) which have underpinned so many of the previous letters of this book. Here Pliny’s supply problem threatens to prevent him from choosing good work to save: good and bad alike will have to be erased in favour of the most recent.

ACCUMULATING FRESH PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILIAR PROBLEMS (8.16–24) Letter 16 returns us to the preoccupations of letter 1, and resumes Pliny’s meditations upon death, freedom, dolor, and generosity towards slaves. Illnesses and losses in his household have finished 62

Whitton 2010: 134.

63

For recycled writing material, cf. Cic. Fam. 7.18.2.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

170

Ruth Morello

him off (confecerunt me), he says, but he takes partial solace in two things: that he can manumit slaves before death, so that they die as free men, and that his slaves may make their own wills: permitto seruis quoque quasi testamenta facere, eaque ut legitima custodio. Mandant rogantque quod uisum; pareo ut iussus (‘I permit even my slaves to make quasi-testamentary dispositions, observing these just as though they were legal documents. They enjoin and request whatever they choose, and I obey as if under orders’, 8.16.2). No trace of Saturnalian fun here (nor of any reprehensible subservience to slaves or freedmen), but once again, in a more poignant context, a master allows the power relationship to be reversed, accepting his slaves’ wishes as commands to himself. This letter explicitly reminds us, too, of a now familiar theme in this book: the choice between kindness and severity. Some men, he says, see it as wisdom to count the death of a slave as merely a loss of property, for which grief is unnecessary; Pliny, by contrast, counts the capacity for dolor as an essential guarantee of a man’s character: Nec ignoro alios eius modi casus nihil amplius uocare quam damnum, eoque sibi magnos homines et sapientes uideri. qui an magni sapientesque sint, nescio; homines non sunt. hominis est enim adfici dolore sentire, resistere tamen et solacia admittere, non solaciis non egere. (8.16.3–4) Nor am I unaware that others count mishaps of this sort a pecuniary loss and nothing more, and hence seem to themselves great and wise men. As for these, whether they be great and wise, I cannot tell; men they are not. For it is the part of a man to be affected by grief, to feel, yet at the same time to bear up and to admit of consolation, not to be in no need of consolation.

This is the first time that we have seen Pliny himself in pain since 8.10’s hunc nostrum dolorem, and it is striking that the notion of uenia appears again among the list of possible responses to suffering, as Pliny closes the letter with a note that friends should be readier to praise or excuse expressions of grief (praesertim, si in amici sinu defleas, apud quem lacrimis tuis uel laus sit parata uel uenia, ‘particularly if you weep into the bosom of a friend who is prepared to bestow on your tears either his approval or his pardon’, 8.16.5).64 64

For this pairing of laus and uenia as degrees of positive response, cf. 3.7.13; 4.17.11; 9.19.3. Calls for uenia appear in this book at carefully balanced intervals: 8.11.3; 8.14.10; 8.16.5; 8.22.3.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 171 Tolerant understanding is once more presented as the better response to pain and troubles, just as it was at the end of 8.11, where uenia for Calpurnia’s troubles is said to come more easily to a woman than to a man. Letter 17, on the frightening floods of the Tiber and the Anio, is the book’s counterweight to Pliny’s description of the more benign waterway of the Clitumnus (8.8), with its lovely setting and its requirement that those who choose to enjoy its waters experience a mixture of effort and relaxation (laborem otio otium labore uariare, 8.8.4).65 Here the river’s effect upon everything around it is one of unrelenting terror and destruction.66 The pleasurable variety of the Clitumnus is counterbalanced by the picture of similar amenities being eradicated by nature’s fury. Where the inscriptions on walls and columns by the Clitumnus offer entertaining reading for the tourist, here the monumenta along the path of the floodwaters are damaged or destroyed (quassata atque etiam decussa monumenta, 8.17.5). The villas on the banks of the lovely Anio (Anio, delicatissimus amnium ideoque adiacentibus uillis uelut inuitatus retentusque, ‘the Anio, most charming of rivers, and which on that account had seemed as it were to be invited by and made to slacken its course near the villas on its banks’, 8.17.3), have now also suffered as the surrounding woodlands were swept away; their plight contrasts with the villas available for the tourist to view at the Clitumnus (nec desunt uillae quae secutae fluminis amoenitatem margini insistent, ‘nor is there a lack of villas, which, owing to the attractions of the river, stand on its border’, 8.8.6). This letter is, moreover, linked with its immediate predecessor by a common focus on human emotional responses to troubles.67 As usual in this book, thematic links between adjacent letters are supported by echoes of vocabulary: in letter 16 it was Pliny himself who was ‘broken’ (frangor), a state now echoed by the self-destruction of the natural world in letter 17 (fregit et rapuit, 8.17.3), while the loss of 65

On 8.17’s place in the architecture of Book 8, see Gibson in this volume. We might compare Pliny’s list of the key points of the Dacian war in 8.4. Both letters mention waters turned into unfamiliar channels over land (immissa terris noua flumina~Tiberis . . . alte superfunditur), and new building works intended to contain or manage waterways (nouos pontes fluminibus iniectos~fossa quam prouidentissimus imperator fecit exhaustus). 8.4, 8.8, 8.17, and 8.20 form a loose mini-cycle of aquatic motifs. 67 It also interrupts two letters on wills. 66

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

172

Ruth Morello

property (as incorrectly seen by harsher masters) in letter 16 is now further contextualized by the real loss and destruction of material property (buildings, livestock, farming equipment, etc.) in letter 17. Above all, though, the letter ends by revisiting the theme of dolor (so prominent in letter 16). Pliny seeks reassurance that his addressee (a Macrinus, perhaps—though not necessarily—the same man who has lost his wife in letter 5)68 has been unharmed by the floods, but wants to know even if he has been in danger: nam paruolum differt, patiaris aduersa an exspectes; nisi quod tamen est dolendi modus, non est timendi, ‘for the difference is but trifling between suffering misfortunes and anticipating them; except, however, that there is a limit to grief, while there is no limit to fear’ (8.17.6). The last letter about (a?) Macrinus predicted an end to his dolor in time; this one posits a Pliny relieved that he knows the worst and can put a limit to his own suffering—a blessing not available to those who are a prey to apprehension. This contrast between grief for a recent trouble and fear for the future also underpins letters 10 and 11; once again, we see that the miscarriage pair is, in effect, a microcosm of the emotional universe in this book.69 Letters 18–22 continue Pliny’s almost obsessive mulling over of the book’s central concerns. Sherwin-White was struck by an apparent compositional innovation in the gnomic letter openings that are rare in the earlier books, but appear in all three of the final books, noting this group together with a similar one at 7.25–7, and a rather more evenly distributed set in Book 9.70 Some of these letter openings, such as that of the Vadimon letter (8.20), extend beyond the initial sentence; letter 22, indeed, self-consciously fails to move from the general theme (the importance of lenitas) to the specific event (or person) that has triggered thought on the subject (nuper quidam—sed melius coram; quamquam ne tunc quidem, 8.22.4). Moreover, the generalizing or proverbial opening of these letters speaks precisely in each case to the concerns of this chapter, especially to the theme of changing viewpoints. Pliny, indeed, advertises these letters as studies in viewpoint, in which both opening maxim and specific detail/narrative are tailored towards training the reader (and perhaps also the would-be writer) in the value of shifts of perspective. 68

Birley 2000: 43. Cf. the account of Avitus’ death in 8.23.8, where Pliny’s dolor curtails timor about Avitus’ illness. 70 9.3, 23, 27, 29. Sherwin-White 1966: 10–11. 69

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 173 In letter 18, Domitius Tullus has been found to have left a most respectable will in favour of his grandchildren (and so shown himself a better man after death than he had seemed in his lifetime: longe melior adparuerit morte quam uita, 8.18.1). Moreover, opinions differ (Pliny says) on the deceased’s encouragement of legacy hunters during his lifetime, while outsiders’ judgements of his wife, too, have changed over time, as the marriage which was a source of opprobrium upon her at its beginning has brought her praise now that she has shown herself faithful and devoted to this most challenging (even revolting) of husbands (8.18.10). These two have lived down the worst aspects of their earlier selves, to become, in their turn, praiseworthy models for others. Moreover, Pliny specifies the most admirable feature of Domitius’ will: he remembered and acknowledged all those connected to him pro cuiusque officio (‘according to their several obligations’)—an approach reminiscent, of course, of Pliny’s own equitable arrangements in reimbursing his buyers in letter 2. Letter 19, although brief, is another important text on Pliny’s management of dolor—here specifically, once again, his pain over the ill-health of wife and slaves. Pliny begins with reflections upon literary work in times of sorrow and of joy, and explores the effect upon himself of his worry about the health of his household, and maps the limits of his ability to control his own distress: he can master his emotions sufficiently to be able to write (indeed studia are his sole consolation, unicum doloris leuamentum, 8.19.1), but not to write light-heartedly.71 Real studia, he concludes, bring joy to their practitioner, but they can themselves only really issue from a joyful heart (porro ut ex studiis gaudium sic studia hilaritate proueniunt, ‘now, as joy is the product of literary work, so do literary pursuits spring from cheerfulness’, 8.19.2). Here Pliny’s worry about his wife and household reworks a secondary topic of 8.18 (where it is wife and slaves who show care for the husband). He is also, incidentally, echoing, in his emphasis on hilaritas, the state achieved by Calpurnia herself in 8.11 (iam hilaris, iam sibi iam mihi reddita incipit refici, 8.11.2);72 this 71 Pliny reflects further upon the danger of falling into tristitia (the undesirable extreme of seueritas) in 8.21.1, as part of a now familiar dichotomy of seueritas and comitas (cf. 8.12.4 in summa seueritate dulcissimo on Titinius Capito’s ingenium). We might compare, too, the tristia (rather than seria) in the hapless senate’s decisions in 8.14.8. 72 On hilaris in consolatory contexts in Pliny, see Hoffer 2006: 76.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

174

Ruth Morello

letter looks at the polarized emotional states of distress and gaiety, and also offers yet another view, from a different perspective, of the circumstances and the effects of Calpurnia’s illness and convalescence. Letter 20’s principal topic is a description of lake Vadimon, which Pliny has recently seen for the first time during a visit to Calpurnius Fabatus’ estate in Ameria. The opening of this letter highlights once again the difference made by an individual’s attitudes and point of view. Human nature drives us to curiosity about distant wonders, Pliny says: we ignore things which are close by and easily accessible which could just as well be counted as wonders, if only we allowed ourselves to regard them as we do the showpiece landmarks of foreign countries: permulta in urbe nostra iuxtaque urbem non oculis modo sed ne auribus quidem nouimus, quae si tulisset Achaia Aegyptos Asia aliaue quaelibet miraculorum ferax commendatrixque terra, audita perlecta lustrata haberemus. (8.20.2) There are a quantity of things in our city, and the neighbourhood of the city, which we do not even know by hearsay, let alone eyesight. Yet if Achaia, Egypt, Asia, had produced these, or any other land fruitful in marvels, and giving them repute too, we should have heard all about, and read all about and explored them.

This is, then, the second instance in this book in which local terrain, which should have been both familiar to Italians and a source of wonder, has been overlooked because of careless attitudes. Once again, the reader is encouraged to adopt a fresh perspective. Letter 21 reminds us of Pliny’s commitment to variety in literary composition and in life, as he describes his recitation of a book of pieces in assorted metres and genres (liber fuit et opusculis varius et metris, 8.21.4). His interest in miscellaneity will be no surprise to his reader, but it manifests itself here not only in profusion of metres and (light) genres but also in polarity of tone, an oscillation between darker and lighter moods which mirrors the mixture within a literary career of serious genres (such as oratory) and more frivolous ones: Ut in uita sic in studiis pulcherrimum et humanissimum existimo seueritatem comitatemque miscere, ne illa in tristitiam, haec in petulantiam excedat. Qua ratione ductus grauiora opera lusibus iocisque distinguo. (8.21.1–2) As in life, so in literature, I deem it most attractive and most civilized to mingle the serious with the light-hearted, lest the former should

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 175 degenerate into melancholy and the latter into wantonness. Led by this consideration, I punctuate more serious works with playful and amusing ones.

Life and art intersect, and the balance here between seueritas and comitas is perfectly designed to fit into a book in which we find the two letters about Calpurnia’s miscarriage in which Pliny uses the temperaments and family relationships of his addressees to illustrate how such differing approaches might manifest themselves in one’s personal and domestic life. Moreover, the opening of the letter provides another self-referential commentary on Pliny’s arrangement of these very letters, since at letter 20 he has interrupted a sequence on deaths and sorrows with a showpiece on a pleasing and instructive leisure outing. Pliny moves away, however, from praise of variety to justification of his rigorously comprehensive recitation practices: he recites any work whole and at length, he says, because he wants to improve all of it: lego enim omnia ut omnia emendem (‘indeed I read the whole that I may improve the whole’, 8.21.4). Pliny promises to send his book to his addressee—but only the thoroughly revised version (leges, sed retractatum), not the raw first pressings, as it were (adhuc musteum librum), which he anticipates that a friendly addressee will wish to see.73 Once again we are in the Plinian summertime with which this book began, and memories of the grape harvest are buried in the image of the ‘raw’ literary material. Pliny here converts the winemaking motif into a familiar metaphorical approach to his own work: even light literature, like wine, needs time and expert attention if it is to mature into something memorably palatable, and one needs to pay careful attention to all aspects of it, good and bad. This also recalls 8.3 and 8.4, in which, as we have seen, Pliny first promises to send a copy of a speech he regards as absolutissima (while also sending another work with which he is particularly pleased and which has garnered praise), and then encourages Caninius to send him even his rough drafts as a mark of trusting affection. He repeats at the end of 8.21 that the version Arrianus eventually sees will be emendata, although 73 Although one should note that Pliny has his cake and eats it, since he says that some items in the new work will be familiar to his addressee (et tamen non nulla iam ex eo nosti, ‘yet you are already acquainted with many parts of it’, 8.21.6), implying that he has at some stage shown Arrianus not the whole work, but only whichever parts were in decent draft form at the time.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

176

Ruth Morello

this promise is made with some self-deprecation (haec emendata postea uel, quod interdum longiore mora solet, deteriora facta quasi noua rursus et rescripta cognosces, ‘these, subsequently either improved, or—which occasionally happens through long delay—altered for the worse, you will discover again, in a new form as it were, and rewritten’, 8.21.6). In 8.22 Pliny returns to the question of what one’s attitude should be to the failings and vices of others.74 He encapsulates in a single letter the choice between harshness and gentleness, a choice which also, as we have seen, characterized the pair of miscarriage letters, and which echoes the inclusive and balanced approach taken to seueritas and comitas at the opening of 8.21. However, the term he uses to characterize the more humane choice is eloquent in the context of the immediately preceding letter on the seemingly unrelated topic of literary recitation: lenitas is, in Pliny’s opinion, optimum atque emendatissimum (‘the most excellent and the most faultless’, 8.22.2)—the behaviour of a cultivated and improved person, who has revised and corrected his own temperament, we might say, as a writer would his manuscript.75 These two letters, although ostensibly about very different subjects, are joined together here for the sequential reader in a relatively understated way, and the linkage prompts further reflection upon how the variety in Pliny’s collection actually adds up to a coherent (and cumulative) programme for human life. The motif of self-improvement continues into 8.23. Avitus, Pliny says, treated him almost as a teacher (ita uerebatur, ut me formatore morum, me quasi magistro uteretur, ‘he so revered me that he treated me as the moulder of his character – as his teacher, so to speak’, 8.23.2), respecting Pliny’s greater age and experience and behaving as if Pliny’s help and advice were always effective (semper ita recedebat

74

Cf. 9.17 on tolerance for the tedious pastimes of others. For the human temperament as subject to quasi-literary polishing and emendation, cf. the instruction to Attius Clemens in 1.10.11 to put himself into the philosopher Euphrates’ hands to be ‘polished up’ (illi te expoliendum limandumque permittas), with Gibson and Morello 2012: 178–9. For the language of critical evaluation used of the education of a young man who is learning to distinguish between good and bad (writing), cf. 8.13.1 with Bernstein 2008: 218; in 8.13 the blurring between criticism of life and criticism of work is handled in a single letter, whereas in 8.21 and 8.22 the same issue is suggested by a subtle linkage between two adjacent letters. 75

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 177 ut melior factus, 8.23.4).76 We should note, incidentally, that the sole example of such instruction to Avitus in Pliny’s collection is letter 2.6, on catering for one’s dinner parties along politely egalitarian principles. There Pliny says that rather than serve different wine to different classes of guest, reserving the finest vintages for himself and his peers, he chooses instead to drink the same wine as would be offered to the freedmen in the room. It is characteristic of Pliny’s understated approach that the obituary for an addressee on this issue should appear in the very book in which he deals most consistently with the topic of how to behave in socially unequal relationships—a question which is then placed in high relief in the immediately following (and final) letter of the book.77 The final letter, 8.24, turns from Pliny’s dolor at Avitus’ untimely death to the amor which prompts him to write to Maximus (amor in te meus cogit, ‘affection for you compels me . . .’, 8.24.1), as this final letter in the book reworks its immediate precursor’s interest in instruction and exemplary relationships. Pliny tactfully recuses himself as praeceptor to Maximus,78 while still advising him to treat his Greek province (not, in this instance, Pliny himself) with the respect due to old age: reuerere gloriam ueterem et hanc ipsam senectutem, quae in homine uenerabilis, in urbibus sacra (‘respect their ancient glory, and their very age itself, venerable in the case of men, sacred in the case of cities’, 8.24.3). In an echo of the Pro Flacco, Pliny reminds Maximus that the Greeks were the inventors of humanitas, litterae, etiam fruges (‘civilization, letters, and even the fruits of the earth’, 8.24.2)—all important topics in this very book, of course.79 This letter also contains the unexpected medical metaphor which reminds the reader once again of the book’s very first letter, as Pliny urges Maximus to remember that he will be dealing with free city states whom one should not deprive of their last vestiges of liberty 76 It is no coincidence that this letter appears at the end of a book in which we see Pliny playfully testing his relationship with Tacitus in terms of a teacher–pupil scenario, and providing the teaching materials for Genialis’ sessions under his father’s tutelage. Once again, motifs from earlier in the book recur in new guise. On 8.23, see Bernstein 2008: 218–20. 77 Cf. the address of 8.14, on a question of legal procedure, to Aristo, who was established in 1.22 as an expert in such matters (see Bodel in this volume). 78 Pliny’s epistolary demonstrations that other young men have taken his advice seriously establish the background for this letter; on the establishment of Pliny’s implied pedagogical competence by 8.13 and 8.23, see Bernstein 2008: 223. 79 Pro Flacco 61–2; Sherwin-White 1966: 477.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

178

Ruth Morello

(quibus reliquam umbram et residuum libertatis nomen eripere durum ferum barbarum est, ‘to rob these of the shadow still left them, and the remnants of their liberty, would be harsh, cruel and barbarous’, 8.24. 4),80 and then notes, by way of illustrative analogy, that free men are treated better than slaves during illness. This is, as Bodel demonstrates, an important image in the final letter of a book which began with a master’s loving treatment of a sick slave and which has looked from so many different angles at the choice between gentleness and harshness in relation to others (both among one’s own blood relatives and in relation to the slaves and freedmen of others).81 8.24 further explores this ‘shadow and leftover name of liberty’ which is all the Greeks have left of their noble past, thus composing a fitting end to a book in which so many varieties of slavishness and of the management of authority have been on display (and so often viewed through the lens of an addressee’s own temperament). Here Maximus— although himself the holder of authority—must remember that a civilized and humane man will not assert such authority in crudely overt fashion, and that he should treat his political inferiors—even those whose great days of liberty are behind them—with humane reverence, as if they were really respected elders. The advice Pliny gives—potentially unpalatable and unwelcome, as advice so often is—is softened and contextualized by Pliny’s positioning of this final letter immediately after the positive exemplum of the recently deceased Avitus.82 The enumeration in 8.24.8 of Maximus’ earlier public posts echoes that of the career of the late Avitus in 8.23.5–6, while also making a poignant contrast between the two cases. The dead man did not live long enough to fulfil the promise of his earlier public service or to put into action as a senior public figure the lessons of Pliny’s letter of advice to him (2.6); Maximus, however, can crown his achievements with an exemplary mission, showing himself cultivated and humane to those under his protection—prove himself, in other words, a man who has been, to use the terms of 8.22, 80 This thought is echoed in the second letter of Book 9, in which Pliny bemoans the restrictions of his own contemporary world, which deprives a writer of the capacity to produce any but scholasticas atque . . . umbraticas litteras, ‘letters of the school exercise kind, and. . . from the shade of the closet’, 9.2.3. 81 See Bodel in this volume, who notes that the ‘variable practice of physicians’ is adduced as a negative exemplum; cf. Whitton 2010: 136–7. 82 On the ‘deceptive move’ Pliny makes in adding a further letter after 8.23 (which could have served as an apt closural letter for the book), see Whitton 2013a.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 179 polished and improved as a human being. The praise of Avitus for always leaving Pliny as if melior factus (‘made better’, 8.23.4) is here crowned by the call to Maximus to balance his behaviour, so that he does not acquire the reputation of being humanior melior peritior (‘more humane, . . .’, 8.24.9) only according to his location and circumstances.83 The good man is good in all company. Finally, the assertion that Pliny cannot possibly ‘go too far’ in acting upon his affection for a friend brings the letter to an apt close with a very understated pun upon the addressee’s name: neque enim periculum est ne sit nimium quod esse maximum debet (‘nor, seeing that affection should be at maximum strength, is there any danger of its being excessive’, 8.24.10).84 Local and global effects are carefully matched and intertwined in a triumph of letter and book design, and 8.24 plays upon another version of the choice laid before the reader in 8.22 (and even more subtly in so many of the earlier letters of the book): ‘what kind of man do you want to be?’85

CONCLUSION: MISCELLANEITY AND THE SEQUENTIAL READER We search for images to describe a miscellaneous collection, usually in an effort to illuminate how we can understand it as a whole work, to make sense of it by taking a bird’s eye view. Pliny’s collection has been described as a mosaic, for example, and as a kaleidoscope, and such images do convey something of the experience of encountering so variegated a text; they are, however, inadequate to account for the local effects described in this paper, since restricting the eye so that it moves only from one coloured speck to another would reveal next to nothing about the larger picture. We might compare a thought experiment offered by Elbow, who asks us to imagine an ant crawling around on the surface of Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks, 83 We might compare Pliny’s praise of Aristo’s consistency in dealing alike with problems old and new, rare and common, from different branches of law, 8.14.10. 84 Whitton 2010: 132. 85 As Bodel notes, there is also a conscious irony in Pliny’s designation of the Bithynians as a slavish population, given Pliny’s own appointment to provincial office in Bithynia; in a sense, Pliny has devoted the entirety of Book 8 to demonstrating his humane suitability for such a posting.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

180

Ruth Morello

unable to see the whole picture because it can take in only a little section at a time.86 For the images of mosaic or kaleidoscope to be really helpful in this context, we have to imagine an immensely detailed assemblage of tiny pictures—like a photomosaic—each of which is carefully placed among its neighbours to create further messages and structures within the grand design. This may more accurately represent the experience of the sequential reader who works his or her way through the book roll.87 This is not, of course, to suggest that sequential readers fail, like the cattle at Lake Vadimon (or Peter Elbow’s ant), to understand the broader layout of their literary surroundings as they step from one letter to its neighbour, and sequential reading is certainly not the only way of reading the collection, as others in this volume demonstrate;88 nevertheless, there are important cumulative effects built into the collection, many of which depend upon thorough sequential reading, and Pliny has made ample provision for sequential readers as well as for those who take a larger, architectural view. Local effects achieved by canny juxtapositions of letters are an important part of Pliny’s design, as echoes and correspondences between adjacent letters and then across the book (and the wider collection) cumulatively determine the colour and thematic structure of the entire book.89 The miscellaneity which is fostered by Pliny’s habit of oscillating dramatically between different moods and topics is put to subtly didactic use in this book, in particular, in teaching readers how to assess differences of viewpoint at the local level, between pairs of juxtaposed

86 Elbow 2006: 621. Elbow asks ‘how might we organize paintings for ants?’ and, by extension, ‘how should we organise texts for readers?’ 87 On doubt expressed with regard to the capacity of an ancient reader (whose ‘cross-referencing’ inclinations might have been discouraged or inhibited by the format of the ancient scroll) to appreciate ‘architectural’ correspondences within a miscellaneous collection—in this case, that of Catullus—see Skinner 2011: 44. Clearly, larger architectonic patterns were an important feature of the ancient miscellany (poetic or prosaic), and expert readers (particularly those to whom a text was no longer new) would be expected to enjoy them, but such patterns operated in counterpoint with the more sequential, local effects that would have been much easier to follow for the reader of a scroll. On the book roll, see Van Sickle 1980a. 88 As Bodel says (in this volume), ‘Pliny was perfectly capable of overlaying multiple patterns, defined by various principles of organization, across the same raw material’. Cf. Brink 1963: 248 on this phenomenon in Augustan poetry. 89 On the apparent shift in literary priorities in the final books of the collection, see Bodel in this volume.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 181 letters within a book; the wider lesson, of course, teaches how to reach humane decisions oneself. Much of Book 8 is, broadly considered, a delicate study in the management of authority and social disparity of all kinds—in relation to one’s social peers, as well as to one’s family and household dependents, or, finally, to the citizens of one’s gubernatorial province.90 This chapter began with Bodel’s analysis of the different human responses anticipated in 8.10 and 8.11, a letter pair which, as he notes, may fruitfully be read as part of a mini-cycle on Pliny’s relations with wife and with the slave members of his household. In the remainder of Book 8, we find that the study of gentleness or harshness to wife and slaves is extended outwards also to lessons about appropriate behaviour in political life, with particular interest in situations requiring decisions about how to handle those in a subordinate or (broadly considered) servile position. Decisions taken and attitudes adopted in private life form lessons and models for the behaviour of the public man, too—a thematic thread which suggests that Pliny is going some way towards counterbalancing the sense that the narrowness of scope for a public man of his generation has stifled any possibility for contemporary letters of power and vast import.91 The motif of equal and humane treatment of people dominates, but it appears in so many guises that the book remains reassuringly miscellaneous. Such miscellaneity is anchored to a serious agenda by Pliny’s skill at putting before the sequential reader an ever-changing set of approaches to the themes which dominate the book, inspiring meditations upon correct behaviour in many different situations and relationships. The reader may perhaps begin to anthologize for

90 Given all this, it is odd that letters of patronage, in particular, are missing from this book, as they are from Book 9. 91 We should note that although domestic topics appear to dominate in Book 8 (Sherwin-White 1966: 49), its early part, in particular, is freighted with some of the most ‘historiographical’ letters in the entire collection: 8.4, on Caninius’ attempts to elevate Trajan’s Dacian war to heroic status in a ‘Homeric’ epic; 8.6. and 8.7, another pair of seemingly unconnected letters, which cumulatively display Pliny’s engagement in historiography as practitioner and consumer and critic; 8.12 on Titinius Capito’s studies of the deaths of great men; and 8.14, which, as Whitton has demonstrated, shows clear signs of sustained engagement with Tacitus’ Agricola: on Tacitus’ ‘covert star role’ in 8.14, see especially Whitton 2010: 127. We should note that Titinius Capito is also the addressee of the famous (and pivotal) letter on why Pliny himself is not writing a work of history (5.8).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

182

Ruth Morello

himself, constructing a ‘slavery’ selection (or one on ‘education of the young’) inside his head, even without physically re-sorting the material into a new book roll.92 Nevertheless, the book never loses a sense of the discipline and economy in its variety that is fostered at least partly by Pliny’s light touch in engineering small links between adjacent letters. Pliny’s contemporaries will have been familiar with the variety built into the design of—especially—collections of short pieces, including Augustan poetry books, the Catullan collection, the epigrams of Martial, and even, to a somewhat different degree, the collected letters of Cicero. Readers’ expectations may have been further conditioned to respond to Pliny’s brand of repetition-withvariety by common declamatory procedures and topics, many having experienced occasions in youth or adulthood on which several declaimers competed with one another over hours, or even days, to work up a set topic, each seeking to give fresh colour to the topic, reversing viewpoints offered by other speakers, and adjusting persona and attitude according to his desired effects.93 Indeed, many characteristic and recurring elements in our surviving evidence for declamation—such as a marked interest in the sometimes incompatible claims of ius and aequitas,94 for example, or a focus upon wills, inheritance, and the relationships between young and old—resonate with what Pliny is doing in this book. We might also, perhaps, see the influence of declamatory practices in the disposition of ‘descriptive’ pieces (such as the letters on the Clitumnus and Lake Vadimon, to say nothing of the letter on the Tiber floods) to lighten the tone and please the audience. Above all, we might recognize the didactic purpose of declamation, in which even the most outlandish or absurd scenarios could provide potentially useful ‘test cases’ in how to set out an argument.95 In his repetitive and sometimes agonistic or contradictory meditations upon a restricted set of themes in Book 8, we might say that Pliny has combined a quasi-declamatory situation with

92 For the expectation that ancient readers of ‘miscellaneous’ collections (however well-designed) might also choose to cherry-pick and re-order favourite individual items for themselves (Hutchinson’s ‘do-it-yourself element’), see Hutchinson 2003: 206–7; Barchiesi 2005: 336. On the consequences of taking Pliny’s collection as a ‘doit-yourself kit’, cf. Henderson 2003: 119. 93 See e.g. Seneca Con. 1.7.13–14; Bonner 1949: 56. Cf. Gunderson 2003: 1. 94 95 Bonner 1949: 24, 46–7, 57. Bonner 1949: 83.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Pliny Book 8: Two Viewpoints and the Pedestrian Reader 183 the template of the poetry book, in order to construct a new form of didactic volume.96 The design of this book, then, with its tight sequences of important juxtapositions and its relentless, thoughtful revisiting of a relatively small nexus of problems, provides a concentrated training in reconsidering one’s positions and an experimental library of (often polarized) approaches to important human questions.97 Bodel’s observations about the ‘contrasting portraits’ in letters 10 and 11 turn out to be apt to the entirety of Book 8 as well, as so many of its letters consider fresh aspects of ‘the human capacity for different responses to the infirmity of others’. This training in re-thinking has special value in this book above all, coming in advance of the surprises of Book 9 that Gibson outlines in this volume and elsewhere. Pliny teaches his reader to consider alternative viewpoints within the boundaries of a single book—or just in one or two letters—before guiding him in Book 9 to reconsider what he thinks he has learned or understood in the entirety of the earlier collection up to the end of the ninth book. It is important that the book’s opening letter about Pliny’s lector is addressed to Septicius Clarus, the recipient not only of the dedicatory letter at the opening of Book 1, but also of the famous invitation to hear comoedos uel lectorem uel lyristen (‘a comedian or a reader or a lute player’,) over a simple dinner (1.15.2). This addressee might be expected not only to understand Pliny’s affectionate concern for Encolpius, but also to share his concern at the loss of a skilled reader in particular. Moreover, in positioning this significant addressee at the beginning of the final pair of books, the designer of the collection has implicitly ‘re-started’ the narrative drive from Clarus to Fuscus,98 creating a new symmetry between Pliny’s failure to achieve otium in the Tuscan villa in summer (8.1) against the Tuscan ‘summer routine’ letter (including ‘readings’ during dinner, followed by comoedia aut lyristes, 9.36.4) and its Laurentine winter counterpart (with no place for comoedia aut lyristes, but plenty of work implied for readers and notarii, 9.40.2). 8.1 prompts us to think of Pliny’s daily routines at his

For Pliny’s didacticism cf. Morello 2007 on his ‘curriculum’ of friendship. Compare Gunderson 2003: 107 on Cicero ‘trying on for size a variety of ideas’ about a relatively restricted set of topics (all concerning the proper actions of a principled individual under tyranny) by performing private declamations (Att. 9.4.2). 98 Barchiesi 2005: 330–1; Marchesi 2008: 248–50; see also Gibson in this volume. 96 97

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

184

Ruth Morello

country villa, routines (including a lector’s involvement) that will only be fully detailed in the final letters of Book 9, to Fuscus. Our job as readers in a different sense is also at issue in this book, in which cues on how to read/listen (and, by extension, how to write) abound: think of the reader/addressee’s response of 8.3, a reader’s appreciation of early drafts in 8.4, Pliny’s ‘reading’ of the documents relating to Pallas in 8.6, and of Tacitus’ work in 8.7, reading at the Clitumnus (8.8), not reading in Rome (8.9), the proper tribute to be paid to Capito’s work on the deaths of great men, Genialis reading Pliny with his father (8.13), Iunior’s time to read (8.15). Above all, we should note the coexistence of principles of variety and of comprehensiveness in 8.21, where Pliny declares that at a recitation of his own literary work (composed in a variety of different modes), he reads a whole work in order to improve the whole work—an opportunity lost to those who recite only selections—a manifesto, indeed, that could serve as epigraph for this chapter. In Book 8 Pliny shows us many times over that emendatus or melior factus apply not only to the literary efforts of Pliny and his friends, but also to the work that the educated and conscientious carry out upon themselves; moreover he delivers this message many times over, from constantly shifting perspectives, and in a consistent and sequentially unfolding design that sits comfortably alongside the symmetrical architecture that both Gibson and Bodel discuss in this volume. His persistent invitations to ‘look again, read again, and think again’ spur on a reader’s intellectual engagement not only with the world around him/herself, but with Pliny’s own collection; given suitably attentive readers, Pliny might thereby expect substantially to shorten the odds for the longevity of his Letters, as such readers would expect to return to these carefully designed books many times over, in order to learn new things both about themselves and about Pliny.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

4 Not Dark Yet . . . Reading to the End of Pliny’s Nine-Book Collection Roy Gibson

Book 9 of Pliny’s Letters has a key role to play within the work.1 First, the book provides further—and final—confirmation that the ‘private’2 letters have been arranged and designed as an artistic collection (and are not a haphazard gathering of randomly accumulated letters).3 Secondly, the same book also has an important revisionary role to play within the collection. For the provision of long-delayed, but somewhat troubling, information at the end of the collection demands that a reader return to Book 1 and start re-reading the somewhat sunnier early books afresh. Arguments to the first effect have been powerfully made by several critics, including contributors

1 Warm thanks are offered to Ilaria Marchesi, Chris Whitton, Alice König, and the anonymous readers for the Press, whose comments have greatly improved this chapter. Gratitude is expressed also to audiences in Stanford and Manchester, and especially to Andrew Morrison, who offered substantial food for thought. Translations of Pliny are variously taken or adapted from the editions of Lewis 1879, Radice 1969, and Walsh 2006. 2 For the role of Book 10 within the collection—differentiated formally, at least, from Books 1–9 through the address of the letters solely to Trajan (largely on official business)—see Gibson and Morello 2012: 251–64; also Stadter 2006; Woolf 2006; Norena 2007. For a different view of Book 10, see Coleman 2012. 3 Competing theories about the precise manner in which Books 1–9 constitute a designed collection are, of course, the subject of Bodel’s contribution to this volume.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

186

Roy Gibson

to this volume. Arguments to the second effect were made in Gibson and Morello (2012).4 I review both arguments in the course of this chapter, with the addition of fresh supporting evidence and new developments in each case. In the present chapter, however, these arguments are ultimately a prelude to an entirely new thesis about the role of Book 9 and the character of Pliny’s letter collection as a whole. I contend that the supply of significant and rather dark material in Book 9—allied to the close of the collection in letter 9.40 with the onset of night—licenses and encourages the reader to detect a broader thematic movement in the Letters from light to dark. It is shown that after Book 6, and the return of Trajan from Dacia in 106–7 ce, the collection in fact becomes progressively darker and more pessimistic in both subjectmatter and tone.5 I end the paper with the suggestion that it is no accident that the sombre mood of Books 7–9 coincides with Trajan’s longest period of extended residence in Rome, in the years after 107 ce. If the thesis is accepted, it requires the revision of some long-held assumptions about the nature and constancy of Pliny’s (lightweight) cheerfulness and optimism.6

BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS: BOOK 1 AND BOOK 9 Nearly fifty years ago, Sherwin-White was able to read Book 9 as a ragbag collection, a disappointing miscellany, evidence largely of declining powers and a diminishing supply of material:7 4 The opening section of the present chapter brings together the scattered and somewhat briefer treatment of Gibson and Morello 2012: 43, 237–8, 260, 261, but with the addition of extensive new material and further reflections. 5 For an argument that Pliny’s late antique imitator Sidonius Apollinaris both understood and imitated the arc of Pliny’s collection in this regard, see Gibson 2013b. See also Strunk 2012, who looks at Pliny’s more overtly pessimistic—but routinely overlooked—opinions on literature, oratory, and politics. 6 For a critical study of the optimism assumed to be characteristic of Pliny, see Wolff 2003. For a different approach to the subject, see Hoffer 1999: 1, with particular reference to Book 1: ‘[Pliny’s] cheerful and confident picture is designed to wish away the basic tensions and contradictions of his upper-class Roman life.’ 7 Sherwin-White 1966: 39–40, 49–50. This is not to deny that Book 9 may show signs of editorial haste (or that it contains material from a period earlier than Books 7–8); see Bodel in this volume.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

187

This collection differs notably from the earlier books. The forty letters include only 12 of any substance. The rest are in the main short letters of thanks or advice, often very formal . . . at first sight IX might seem to contain a miscellany of letters from Pliny’s files covering the whole period from I to VIII . . . From the peculiarities of its contents Book IX might contain the remnants of Pliny’s literary files from the whole period of the Letters. He certainly seems to have published in IX every scrap that his optimistic nature considered worthy of immortality.

In a ground-breaking article published around two decades later, Charles Murgia rightly took Sherwin-White to task for giving Pliny ‘insufficient credit for artistry’, and showed that Book 9 displayed a series of deliberate links with Book 1,8 where Pliny’s evident purpose was ‘to give a sense of unity and completeness to the collection by resuming in Book 9 themes of earlier books’.9 Key here is letter 9.1, which presents a ‘virtual mirror-image of the situation at the beginning of Book 1’. The opening injunction from Pliny that the addressee should publish his work (9.1.1 Saepe te monui, ut libros . . . maturissime emitteres, ‘I have often advised you to publish as quickly as possible the books . . . ’) recalls one of a tiny handful of epistles to open with a word for ‘often’, i.e. letter 1.1, which itself refers to the encouragement given to Pliny by his addressee to publish the Letters (Frequenter hortatus es ut epistulas . . . colligerem publicaremque, ‘You have frequently urged me to collect and publish . . . my letters’).10 Letters 1.6 and 9.10—both addressed to Tacitus on the subject of hunting and studia—likewise present a mirror image of one another.11 A series of incidental details is systematically reversed, so that (e.g.) in the first letter Pliny has caught three boars and been successful at his writing, while in the second letter there is both a shortage of boars and a lack of progress with his literary efforts—and so on. Furthermore, letter 9.26, an extensive meditation on rhetorical 8

Murgia 1985: 197–200. Murgia 1985: 198, source also of the immediately following quotation. Contra Murgia’s insistence that these are the only letters to begin with ‘often’, Bodel in this volume (n. 167), adds 4.7.1 Saepe tibi dico inesse uim Regulo, and 9.23.1 (of success in court) Frequenter agenti mihi euenit; cf. 1.20.1 (of rhetorical style) Frequens mihi disputatio est. For the significance of frequenter near the start of 2.5, see Whitton in this volume. 11 There is an extensive bibliography on this pair of letters: see Edwards 2008; Marchesi 2008: 118–35; Woodman 2009b: 32–4, with further references. For a strong argument that the links between 1.5–6 and 9.13–14 (where 1.6 and 9.14 are both addressed to Tacitus) are of equal significance, see Whitton 2012: 356–9. 9

10

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

188

Roy Gibson

style laden with quotation from Greek, recalls two earlier letters on the same theme in Book 1, namely 1.2 and particularly 1.20, which also quote extensively from Greek sources.12 (Lest the connection seem fortuitous, it should be noted that, 9.26 aside, letters discussing oratorical style are confined to Books 1–2.) Despite the discovery of this remarkable series of parallels between the first and last books of the ‘private’ letters, Murgia disclaims the possibility of symmetry: ‘If Pliny was at all concerned with arranging letters in patterns, it certainly was not a dominating concern.’13 But this statement requires qualification and revision in the light of the discoveries of others. For, as John Bodel shows, letters 1.2–3 and 9.2–3 follow the model established by Murgia for 1.1 and 9.1, since they too systematically reverse one another’s themes.14 For example, in 9.2 Pliny insists that he cannot emulate Cicero’s letters, since he lacks Cicero’s material (9.2.1 praeterea nec materia plura scribendi dabatur, ‘then, too, no subject offered itself for further writing’); while in 1.2 Pliny describes a speech where Ciceronian ornament and embellishment are appropriate to material which otherwise demands restrained ‘Attic’ treatment in the style of Calvus (1.2.3 nec materia ipsa huic . . . aemulationi repugnauit, ‘the subject itself did not . . . militate against such rivalry’, 1.2.4). Letters 1.3 and 9.3, furthermore, deal with the same subject matter: ‘profound leisure, ephemeral endeavours, and immortal achievement— . . . only the relations between them are scrambled and the concept of retirement occupies a new position in the equation: in 9.3 the life of leisure is wholly inimical to the pursuit of fame; in 1.3 it is a prerequisite’.15 12 For the strength and importance of the links between 1.20 and 9.26, see Whitton 2012: 362–4, who also argues persuasively for chiastic links between 1.5–6 and 9.27–8; cf. Whitton in this volume. Murgia 1985: 199 also suggests that letter 9.13 (on the attempted censure of Publicius Certus for his part in the execution of Helvidius Priscus) ‘balances, and in effect answers Ep. 1.5, where Pliny ponders prosecuting Regulus, in part because of Regulus’ attacks on the memory of Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio’. For this key letter in Book 9, see later in this chapter. For other suggested thematic links between Books 1 and 9, see Leach 2003: 162–3. 13 Murgia 1985: 200; hence the disavowal of anything ‘so formal and regular as ring composition’ (198). 14 Bodel in this volume. 15 Bodel in this volume. For evidence likewise of chiastic links between Books 2 and 8, particularly in the relationship between letters 2.11 and 8.14 (both devoted to senatorial trials), see Whitton 2010: 119–20, 138–9; also Whitton 2013b, introduction to 2.1 (on links between 2.1 and 8.23); also 2.2.2 n. plurimas (on links between 2.2 and 9.2).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

189

There is clear evidence, then, of a concern to establish links between Pliny’s first and last books through symmetry and thematic reversal. Further credence has been lent these links by an important discovery which focuses on connections between the first letter of Book 1 and the last letter of Book 9.16 As Alessandro Barchiesi has pointed out, it is clearly significant that the opening letter of Book 1 is addressed by Pliny to one Septicius Clarus, while at the other end of the collection the closing letter is addressed to one Fuscus Salinator (9.40).17 Barchiesi’s insight has been taken up and developed by Ilaria Marchesi, who notes the emphasis in 9.40 on darkness and the dimming of light.18 The letter sets out Pliny’s routine in winter at his Laurentine villa—to form a pair with a nearby description of his summer routine at the Tuscan villa (9.36)—and vividly evokes the crepuscular atmosphere of the winter months.19 The closing in of darkness is a common literary device for closing a poem or a collection, as famously at the end of Vergil’s first and tenth Eclogues (and more allusively at the conclusion of the Aeneid).20 In Pliny, the context is enriched by a play on the name of the addressee and the subject of the letter, since ‘Fuscus’ has obvious links with the dimming light evoked in the letter. But there is clearly also a contrast intended with the daylight associations of the name of the addressee 16

I have underlined the significance of this discovery elsewhere in connection with Sidonius Apollinaris (Gibson 2013a, 2013b), and treat it only briefly here. 17 Barchiesi 2005: 330–1. While the letter headings would have preserved only a single name, the double names of both addressees would have been on display in the ‘indexes’ which prefaced each book; see Whitton 2013b: 39–41; also Gibson 2014. Note that the MSS for 1.1 identify the addressee only as Septicius—as also at 7.28 and 8.1; cf. 2.9.4. The fuller designation Septicius Clarus is provided by the MSS only in 1.15. Nevertheless, for the argument that a play on names beginning with C and F in the first and last letters of Sidonius Apollinaris guarantees that Clarus was found in the earliest MSS for Pliny Ep. 1.1, see Gibson 2011b. 18 Marchesi 2008: 248–50. 19 9.40.1–3 quid . . . hieme permutem . . . multumque de nocte uel ante uel post diem sumitur . . . quae frequens hieme . . . habes aestate hieme consuetudinem; addas huc licet uer et autumnum, quae inter hiemem aestatemque media, ut nihil de die perdunt, de nocte paruolum adquirunt (‘what . . . I change in winter . . . utilize the hours of darkness before dawn or after dusk . . . as is frequent in winter . . . So now you know my routine in summer and winter; to these you can add spring and autumn, the seasons lying between them, since they lose none of the daylight, and they appropriate little from the hours of darkness’). 20 Cf. Verg. Ecl. 1.83 maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae; 10.77 ite domum saturae, uenit Hesperus, ite, capellae; Aen. 12.952 uitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras. Likewise, poets regularly end books with ‘allusions to the genre most associated with finality and death’, i.e. epitaph; see Peirano 2014.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

190

Roy Gibson

of the first letter of Book 1.21 The result is the creation of a move from the light of Clarus to the gathering darkness of Fuscus. In the formulation of Marchesi, ‘Evoked by contrast at the end of the collection, and thus retrospectively, Clarus’ name becomes a signpost for the work’s (and day’s) inception.’22 At a later stage in the present chapter, this broad movement across the nine books of letters from light to darkness will be shown to have interpretive consequences for how we read the collection as a whole. Fresh symmetrical links between the opening of Book 1 and the close of Book 9 can be added to those discovered by Barchiesi and Marchesi. For there is evidently a connection between the numerical third letter of Book 1 and the third-last letter of Book 9. In letter 1.3, Pliny urges his addressee, Caninius Rufus, to dedicate himself— despite the pleasures of his villa on the shores of lake Como—to the production of some immortal literary work (1.3.3):23 hoc sit negotium tuum hoc otium; hic labor haec quies; in his uigilia, in his etiam somnus reponatur. effinge aliquid et excude, quod sit perpetuo tuum. This is what should be both business and pleasure, work and recreation, and should occupy your thoughts awake and asleep! Create something, perfect it to be yours for all time.

Later, in the letter which lies in third place from the end of the ninebook collection, Pliny writes to a friend celebrating the long-awaited completion of a literary work by their mutual friend ‘Rufus’ (9.38): Ego uero Rufum nostrum laudo . . . legi enim librum omnibus numeris absolutum . . . I do indeed congratulate our friend Rufus . . . I have read his book, a finished performance in every way . . .

The temptation to identify this ‘Rufus’ with the Caninius Rufus of 1.3 is overwhelming.24 Nor should we resist. For the urging of Rufus to 21 For clarus of daylight, see OLD s.v. 2a; for fuscus of dim light, cf. e.g. Mart. 3.30.3, and the transferred usages of Verg. A. 8.369 nox ruit et fuscis tellurem amplectitur alis, and [Tib.] 3.4.55–56 et cum te fusco somnus uelauit amictu, / uanum nocturnis fallit imaginibus. 22 Marchesi 2008: 250, who also notes a further reference here to the Albius and Fuscus who are the addressees of the fourth and tenth letters in Horace, Epistles 1. 23 On letter 1.3 (within the sequence 1.1–3), see Marchesi in this volume. 24 The identification is made by Sherwin-White 1966: 522, and accepted by Birley 2000: 47. Syme 1968: 143 (= RP 2.707) also accepts it, before expressing a passing doubt at 1985a: 341 (= RP 5.458). The addressee of 9.38, [Pompeius] Saturninus,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

191

give himself to the production of an immortal work in 1.3, followed much later by the celebration of its consummation in 9.38, clearly traces the progress of Pliny’s own epistolary project from inception in Book 1 to completion in Book 9.25 In other words, Rufus is in part a symbol for Pliny himself and his Letters.26 The symmetrical placing of the two letters is a clue to their fuller significance.27 Direct and indirect comments on the progress of one’s work or collection are a familiar feature of the productions of early imperial poets. But, in order to preserve the documentary status of his own letters, Pliny must confine himself strictly to implicit comment28—as also in the opening words of the final letter of Book 9. Here, as Barchiesi has argued, the seemingly innocent remark ‘You write that you were much pleased with my letter(s)’ (scribis pergratas tibi fuisse litteras meas, 9.40.1) is easily broadened to take in ‘the entire corpus, considering that we are reading the ending of Pliny’s collected letters’.29 To be fair, Pliny had already given broad warning, in the opening letter of Book 1, that readers ought to be on the lookout for features of a sort more normally associated with poetry. And he had done so in such a way as to highlight the importance of beginnings and endings in letter collections—the very aspect of the Letters on which this chapter has been focusing so far. For in letter 1.1—with its notorious insistence that Pliny’s letters have been arranged in a random

appears not to be from Comum (Birley 2000: 81 s.v. Pompeius Saturninus 1, 2); but this has no bearing on the significance of Rufus noster, since the possessive adjective ‘usually means my or our mutual friend, and cannot be pressed for origins’ (SherwinWhite 1966: 118). 25 Complete symmetry is avoided, for there is no discernible link between 1.2 (on a recent speech of Pliny’s) and 9.39 (instructions for the rebuilding of a shrine to Ceres), unless the unidentified speech mentioned in 1.2 is in fact the one given on the occasion of the dedication of the library at Comum (as later described at 1.8). But for the stronger links instead between 1.2 and 9.2, see above, in this section. 26 For Caninius Rufus as a cipher for Pliny in 1.3, see Henderson 2002a: 107. 27 In line with the larger argument about increasing pessimism hinted at earlier and developed later in this chapter, it is worth noting that where 1.3 exudes literary optimism, 9.38 ends with the awareness of a possibly malignant readership for the finished item: neque enim soli iudicant qui maligne legunt. 28 Contrast the willingness of Sidonius Apollinaris (mentioned earlier, n. 16) to rupture the documentary illusion of his letter collection through the provision of explicit comment on the progress of the work and its constituent books; cf. esp. 9.1.1; also 4.10.2, 5.1, 7.12.1, 7.18, 8.1, 8.16, 9.11, 9.16. 29 Barchiesi 2005: 330–1.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

192

Roy Gibson

order30—the author makes clear allusion to similar claims made in the closing lines of the third book of Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto.31 The deliberate reference here to Ovid was first detected by H. Froesch in 1968, and given apparently independent endorsement by Sir Ronald Syme in 1985.32 Yet, as Marchesi remarks, the allusion has attracted remarkably little interest from readers of Pliny, despite the fact that it must be regarded as a ‘clear signal that Pliny’s corpus is meant to be read in connection with the poetic branch of the epistolary tradition’.33 (What such reading might look like in practice is the subject of Whitton’s contribution in this volume.) At any rate, the Ovidian allusion has a precise purpose. Just as Ovid’s claim to random order is comprehensively undermined by the careful arrangement of poems in the preceding three books of the Pontic epistles,34 so Pliny invites his readers to anticipate that this renewed assertion of random disposition of individual letters is likely to be proven false. 30 1.1.1–2 collegi non seruato temporis ordine (neque enim historiam componebam), sed ut quaeque in manus uenerat. superest ut nec te consilii nec me paeniteat obsequii. ita enim fiet, ut eas quae adhuc neglectae iacent requiram et si quas addidero non supprimam (‘I have collected them, without preserving the order of dates (since it was not a history that I was compiling), but just as each came to hand. It remains that you should have no cause to repent your advice, nor I my compliance. The result, in that case, will be that I shall hunt up such other letters as still lie neglected, and if I write any fresh ones, I will not withhold them’). On this key letter and its literary contexts, see Bodel in this volume. 31 Pont. 3.9.51–6 nec liber ut fieret, sed uti sua cuique daretur / littera, propositum curaque nostra fuit. / postmodo conlectas utcumque sine ordine iunxi: / hoc opus electum ne mihi forte putes. / da ueniam scriptis, quorum non gloria nobis / causa, sed utilitas officiumque fuit (‘Not that a book might come out of it, but to send the appropriate letter to each person—this was my project and my care. These letters I later collected, put them together somehow, without order—please don’t think this work involved any choice by me! Pardon my writings, whose purpose was not my fame, but expediency and service,’ trans. P. Green, adapted). 32 Froesch 1968: 51; Syme 1985b: 176 (= RP 5.478). (For Syme’s love of the Pontic epistles, see the preface to Syme 1978.) On Pliny’s Ovidian allusion, see also Bodel in this volume. 33 Marchesi 2008: 21. As she goes on to remark (21–2), Pliny does not necessarily sustain references to the Ovidian collection throughout his own letters, in such a way as to elevate them into his privileged model. Rather, Ovid possesses ‘semiological relevance’ over ‘philological primacy’. 34 Cf. the useful summary of Gaertner 2005: 2, ‘Contrary to Ovid’s claim . . . the first three books of the Epistulae ex Ponto are carefully designed as a unit. The poems are organized around an imaginary axis of symmetry that runs between 2.5 and 2.6 . . . The collection is framed by poems to Brutus (1.1 and 3.9, both about the nature and purpose of the collection . . . ) and Fabius Maximus (1.2 and 3.8). Moreover, Pont. 1.5 and 1.9 correspond to Pont. 3.2 and 3.5 (all addressed to Cotta Maximus)’. The first book of Horace’s Epistles likewise displays evidence of symmetry, e.g. between 1.1 and 1.19, and between 1.2 and 1.18; for brief analysis, see Mayer 1994: 48–51.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

193

It can be further added that the point at which Pliny issues his implicit invitation, and the location of the Ovidian passage to which he is alluding, are highly significant. For it is at the very beginning of his collection that Pliny chooses to refer to what are in fact the final six lines of the carefully designed three-book ex Ponto collection.35 Part of the purpose of the allusion may be to alert us to the fact Pliny’s Letters will close with the same kind of symmetries evident in the Ovidian work. And so it proves. Just as the first two poems of ex Ponto 1 share their addresses with the closing two poems of ex Ponto 3 (Brutus and Fabius Maximus), so letters 1.1 and 1.3 of Pliny show strong thematic links with the corresponding letters in final and third-last position in Book 9. Pliny, in other words, appears to be playing a very deliberate game with the beginnings and endings of letter collections.36

THE FUNCTION OF ENDINGS (AND BEGINNINGS) It is important to emphasize that the symmetries evident in the first and last books of Pliny’s Letters are not simply ornamental. Rather, they have a particular purpose and point. Both the play on Clarus– Fuscus in 1.1 and 9.40, and the references to Rufus’ literary work in 1.3 and 9.38, track the arc of the collection. Where Ovid repeats the opening addressees of ex Ponto 1.1–2 in the closing poems of Book 3—a fairly routine kind of closural ‘ring composition’—Pliny opts for symmetries which create a narrative about the course of the collection. Pliny’s letters move from light to darkness, and, through Rufus, tell a story about their progress from inception to completion. No less importantly, by the simple fact of their existence, these ‘narrative’ and other documented symmetries place a hermeneutic burden on the reader.37 If it is only at the very end of Pliny’s Letters 35 For the fourth book of the Pontic collection as likely published after the poet’s death, see Froesch 1968: 53–4. 36 For the different argument that the reference to the ex Ponto passage in Pliny Ep. 1.1 is matched by chiastic allusion to Tristia 1 in Pliny Book 10, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 260–3. 37 So far as can be told from surviving letter collections in prose prior to Pliny, no previous author had attempted to create such a thoroughgoing set of links between the opening and closing books of a letter collection, other than in verse. Nevertheless, for evidence of symmetry within individual books of prose letter collections prior to Pliny,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

194

Roy Gibson

that we receive final—albeit long-expected and well-prepared— confirmation that the work as a whole is the product of deliberate artistic design, then we are required to return to the beginning and start reading again in the light of our new knowledge.38 However, a further claim can be made about the function of the links between Books 1 and 9 of Pliny’s Letters. Namely, that the connections between the two books encourage the reader to return to Book 1 for a very specific purpose: to re-read the sunny and optimistic picture of life under Nerva–Trajan offered in Book 1 (and in letter 2.1) under the auspices of some rather dark and troubling statements and belated revelations contained in Book 9. That is to say, Book 9 carries within itself a revisionist agenda for the content and tone of the early books of the collection that is connected to the formal and artistic encouragement given the reader to return to Book 1. This claim for a ‘revisionist’ agenda in Book 9 is ultimately a prelude—as underlined in the introduction to the present chapter— to a fresh claim which forms the main subject of the present paper. Namely, that the passage of the collection from light to dark—implicit within the play on Clarus and Fuscus—is not just a trope for marking the beginning and ending of the work. Rather, both the ending of the work in darkness and the provision in Book 9 of material which retrospectively darkens Books 1–2 license and encourage the reader to detect a broader movement within the Letters from sunny optimism to darker and more realistic hues of thought. This darkening of mood, it will be argued, is related to the return of Trajan to Rome for the most extended stay of his reign in the capital.

THE REVISIONIST AGENDA OF BOOK 9: LETTERS 9.13, 9.19, AND 9.27 In our recent book on Pliny, Ruth Morello and I emphasized the extent to which the practice of re-reading is central to a full understanding see Beard 2002: 126–7 on ad Atticum 3; Richardson-Hay 2006: 23–9 on Seneca Book 1; Inwood 2007: 362, 376 on Seneca Book 20. 38 Cf. the concluding sentence of Marchesi 2008: 251 ‘Having reached the end of his book, we are finally prepared to read it again from the start’; compare Barchiesi 2005: 331–2.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

195

and appreciation of the Letters.39 At various points in the collection Pliny reveals information which has the potential to formalize, transform, or revise our understanding of earlier books or letters. In order to realize that potential, a reader must return to those earlier books and, armed with the new information, begin reading anew. And we suggested that the book with the strongest revisionary potential for the reading of the collection was, in fact, Book 9. The present chapter emphasizes a more specific phenomenon. For the strong series of connections between Books 1 and 9, outlined in the opening section of this chapter, may be interpreted as an insistence on the particular need to go back and re-read Book 1. That is to say, the links, symmetries, and reversals between the first and last books are not only a valediction to the nine-book collection or evidence of its overall purpose and design. Rather, these links also contain an indication that Book 9 is specially connected to Book 1. What might that special connection be? The answer lies in three letters positioned with rough symmetry at the heart of Book 9, namely 9.13, 9.19, 9.27. Letter 9.13, at just under five OCT pages, is the longest piece in a book of letters whose length rarely exceeds a single page.40 Marked out for special attention in this way, 9.13 contains a series of incendiary revelations which radically revise our understanding of Book 1 of the collection. In this section of the chapter, I go on to link the revelations of 9.13 to Book 9’s repeated insistence on a close connection with Book 1, and show how the revisionary thrust of 9.13 is augmented and strengthened by further revelations in letters 9.19 and 9.27. The revisions imposed on a reading of Book 1 by letter 9.13 will be rehearsed here as briefly as the material allows, since I have covered them elsewhere.41 First, some historical context. The dramatic dates for Book 1 appear to cover the reign of Nerva and a little beyond, i.e. from the assassination of Domitian in September 96 to the first

39 Gibson and Morello 2012, esp. chs. 1, 7, and 8. For (e.g.) the revisions imposed on the great villa letters (2.17 and 5.6) by 9.36 and 9.40, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 205–7, 219–20. On the villa letters themselves, see Marchesi in this volume. 40 Only letters 9.26 (c. four OCT pages) and 9.33 (c. two OCT pages) are significantly longer than a single page. For a catalogue of the contents of Book 9, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 290–2. 41 Gibson and Morello 2012: 27–33.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

196

Roy Gibson

months of Trajan’s reign in early 98 ce.42 The most significant event in Pliny’s own life during this time was his attempt to force the censure of Publicius Certus. The latter had been, under Domitian, an (alleged) accessory to the prosecution of a prominent member of the so-called ‘Stoic opposition’, namely Helvidius the Younger. At some point in 97 Pliny launched an attack in the senate on this Certus and later published the speech as the De Heluidi ultione.43 The surprise is that Pliny makes no explicit reference to the event in Book 1 (and only passing mention in later books). Full narration is in fact reserved for letter 9.13, where Pliny replies to a request from a young orator, who has been reading the published speech, for provision of the fuller context.44 In the course of Pliny’s fulfilment of this request, two facts emerge which are incidental to the attempted censure of Certus, but both of which possess revisionary implications for a reading of Book 1— alongside incidental remarks on the fear and paranoia of the times (also with consequences for Book 1). The two facts, briefly stated, are that Pliny’s wife died shortly before the start of the Certus affair, and that Pliny did not consult his patron Corellius about the wisdom of an attack on Certus, owing to the limitations of Corellius as an adviser. Of this wife, there is no mention in Book 1 nor at any point later in the collection,45 prior to Pliny’s belated assertion in 9.13 that ‘although I was at the time particularly sad, having lately lost my wife, I sent to Anteia (the widow of Helvidius), and asked her to come to me, since my still recent bereavement kept me within doors’.46 As for Corellius, Pliny blandly asserts in the same letter: ‘On this occasion . . . I was content with my own judgement, fearing that

42 For book dates, see Syme 1958: 660–4, 1985b (= RP 5.478–89), Sherwin-White 1966: 20–41, Gibson and Morello 2012: 19–20, 51–3, 266, Whitton 2013b: 15–17. 43 For the characters involved, and the historical context for the event, see RP 7.564–5, 579; Carlon 2009: 58–67, 95–8. 44 9.13.1 postulas ut perscribam tibi . . . totum denique ordinem rei cui per aetatem non interfuisti, ‘you demand that I should write to you . . . in short on the whole process of an affair which you were too young to be personally involved in’. 45 A socrus (mother-in-law), Pompeia Celerina, is the addressee of 1.4, and is subsequently mentioned at 1.18.3, 3.19.8, 6.10.1, and 10.51.1. She is evidently the mother of the deceased wife, but Pliny makes no mention of the latter prior to 9.13. 46 9.13.4 quamquam tum maxime tristis amissa nuper uxore, mitto ad Anteiam (nupta haec Heluidio fuerat); rogo ut ueniat, quia me recens adhuc luctus limine contineret.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

197

Corellius would put his veto on it, since he was rather hesitant and cautious.’47 These two ‘passing’ revelations demand that Book 1 be re-read in their light. In that book Pliny records the heroic suicide of the chronically ill Corellius, and asserts ‘I have lost a witness to my life, a guide and a master. In sum . . . I fear I may live more carelessly for the future.’48 In Book 9, however, we learn that Pliny was quite prepared to ignore this paragon, in view of Corellius’ habitual inclination towards cautiousness. If this revelation tells us that all in Book 1 was not quite as it seems, the effect is amplified by the revelation of the death of his then-wife during the same period of time. The opening book of the collection paints a notably optimistic and sunny picture of Pliny’s public and private lives. The keynote of the book is encapsulated by the opening sentence of 1.10, where Pliny avers Si quando urbs nostra liberalibus studiis floruit, nunc maxime floret (‘If ever the liberal arts flourished in our city, they are particularly flourishing at the present time’, 1.10.1). The emphasis is largely on re-birth and hope for the future after the death of Domitian, where even the suicide of Corellius is a kind of victory, since he achieved his ambition to outlive the tyrant (1.12.8). Yet this bright picture of the times in Book 1 is now retrospectively darkened by the revelation in Book 9 of a previously concealed fact. If the revelation about the death of Pliny’s wife demands a revised reading of his private life in Book 1, then a further aspect of 9.13 encourages a new understanding of Pliny’s public life in the same book. Significantly, the special emphasis placed by Pliny on this fresh aspect makes plain his desire to convey the message that the times were significantly less rosy than he had made them seem in Book 1. For he inform us, at some length, of the private warnings he received in the senate about the risks he was running in attacking Certus (9.13.10–11): interim me quidam ex consularibus amicis, secreto curatoque sermone, quasi nimis fortiter incauteque progressum corripit reuocat, monet ut

47 9.13.6 in hoc . . . contentus consilio meo fui ueritus ne uetaret; erat enim cunctantior cautiorque. It may well be that with vocabulary such as cunctantior cautiorque, Pliny means to play the role of Scipio Africanus to Corellius’ Fabius Cunctator. For the cultural resonance of these figures (and their significance in the relationship between Ennius and Livy), see Elliott 2009a, 2009b. 48 1.12.12 amisi uitae meae testem rectorem magistrum. in summa . . . uereor ne neglegentius uiuam.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

198

Roy Gibson

desistam, adicit etiam: ‘notabilem te futuris principibus fecisti’ . . . rursus alter: ‘quid audes? quo ruis? quibus te periculis obicis? quid praesentibus confidis incertus futurorum? lacessis hominem iam praefectum aerarii et brevi consulem, praeterea qua gratia quibus amicitiis fultum!’ nominat quendam, qui tunc ad orientem amplissimum exercitum non sine magnis dubiisque rumoribus obtinebat. Meanwhile one of my friends of consular rank deeming me to have proceeded with too much daring and rashness, reproved me in some private and anxious words, recalling me and warning me to stop. He went so far as to add, ‘You have made yourself a marked man in the eyes of future emperors’ . . . Then another said ‘What daring is this? Where are you heading? What dangers are you throwing yourself in the way of? Why trust to the present state of things, while still uncertain about the future? You are attacking a man who is already prefect of the treasury, and who will shortly be consul; a man, besides, supported by such influence and such connections!’ He named a certain person, who at that time commanded a powerful army in the East—not without strong and suspicious rumours being connected with him.

Here Pliny carefully conveys the fear and paranoia that must have characterized much of the reign of Nerva. As the passage strongly hints, civil war was threatening to erupt once more, after the manner of 68–9 ce.49 An elderly, weak, and childless emperor was struggling to meet and contain the competing demands of the senate, the army, and the praetorian guard—not all of whose members were pleased that Domitian had been assassinated—as well as to deal with his various scheming generals.50 Of such an atmosphere and such events, needless to say, there is little or no hint in Book 1.51 All the (alleged) enemies of order and good government are broken and defeated individuals, like Regulus described in the opening sentence of 1.5: Vidistine quemquam

49 As an anonymous reader points out to me, 10 quo ruis? may contain an (appropriate) echo of the beginning of a Horatian poem on civil war: Quo, quo scelesti ruitis? aut cur dexteris / aptantur enses conditi (Epod. 7.1–2). 50 For a fuller narrative of events and critical reflection on the sources, see CAH 112: 84–96, Syme 1958: 1–18, 627–36. For the crisis specifically surrounding the question of who was to succeed Nerva (and on the virtual coup d’état which brought Trajan to power), see RP 7.518–19; Berriman and Todd 2001; Eck 2002; Hoffer 2006: 74–7; cf. Collins 2009 on the troubled accession of Nerva himself to power. 51 In the Panegyricus, by contrast, Pliny does not gloss over the Nervan crisis, but rather seeks to use it to legitimize the accession of Trajan; cf. e.g. Pan. 5.6–9. On the political narratives of the Panegyricus, see Roche 2011; cf. Hoffer 1999: 143.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

199

M. Regulo timidiorem humiliorem post Domitiani mortem? (‘Have you ever seen anyone more cowed and abject than Marcus Regulus, since the death of Domitian?’).52 In 9.13, by contrast, Pliny effectively lifts the veil on the events, and is clearly inviting readers to draw the conclusion that Book 1 does not give a complete (or even completely accurate) picture of his public and private lives in 96–7 ce. To get the full story, readers must now return to Book 1, armed with the new information supplied them in Book 9, and produce a revised reading for themselves. The revisionist agenda of 9.13 is strengthened by consideration of two fresh letters in Book 9, namely 9.19 and 9.27. As hinted earlier, together these letters are positioned with rough symmetry across the book, with 9.19 occupying a near-centre position in this forty-letter unit, and 9.13 and 9.27 positioned twelve and thirteeen letters from either end of the book respectively. The middle member of the trio, letter 9.19, ostensibly seeks to defend the reputation of Verginius Rufus from attack. But a further purpose of the letter, arguably, is to acknowledge controversies and complexities surrounding Verginius which Pliny had previously skated over in the early books of the collection. At any rate, it appears that the addressee, Ruso,53 has compared Verginius’ chosen epitaph unfavourably with the example set by Iulius Frontinus,54 who left instructions that no monument was to be erected to his memory (9.19.1). Verginius, now dead for well over a decade (cf. 6.10.3), had been one of Pliny’s patrons (2.1.8) alongside Corellius Rufus, and his self-composed epitaph made reference to his role as an army general in the events of 68–9 c.e.: hic situs est Rufus, pulso qui Vindice quondam | imperium adseruit non sibi sed patriae (‘Here lies Rufus, who once defeated Vindex and claimed the imperial power not for himself, but for his country’, 6.10.4, 9.19.1). In fact, Verginius appears to have played a rather 52

For Regulus, see later in this chapter. Ruso may be Calvisius Ruso, perhaps a nephew of Frontinus, but others argue for identification with the Cremutius Ruso of 6.23.2–4; see Birley 2000 s.vv. 47, 54. 54 Iulius Frontinus, author of De Aquaeductu Urbis Romae and the Strategemata. As Alice König points out to me, Frontinus undergoes interrogation and revision in 9.19 in parallel with the revision of Verginius Rufus. Earlier in the collection Pliny had been more straightforward in his praise of Frontinus (e.g. 5.1.5 adhibui in consilium duos quos tunc ciuitas nostra spectatissimos habuit, Corellium et Frontinum), and positively fulsome in the Panegyricus on the occasion of Frontinus’ third consulship (ch. 61). For Frontinus as a figure to ‘think with’ in Nervan and Trajanic Rome, see König 2013. 53

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

200

Roy Gibson

ambiguous role in the revolt against Nero and accession of Galba in 68, and had even been proclaimed emperor by his own troops (Tac. Hist. 1.8.2, 1.52.4, 2.5.1), before making the ‘great refusal’.55 For the next three decades, this controversial individual lived in quiet retirement, before being awarded a third consulship during Nerva’s notorious gerontocracy. Verginius passed away during the reign of Nerva (2.1.4–5), and Pliny’s obituary letter for him belongs by rights in Book 1. However, in order to ensure that the death notices for Corellius and Verginius Rufus receive comparable treatment, Pliny spreads them out across two books, with the obituary for Verginius reserved for opening position in Book 2. In that letter, no hint is given of any controversies attaching to Verginius as a result of his actions in the year of the four emperors. Pliny simply asserts (2.1.2): triginta annis gloriae suae superuixit; legit scripta de se carmina, legit historias et posteritati suae interfuit. He survived his glorious deeds by thirty years; he read poems, he read histories written about himself; he was a witness to his own fame with posterity.

In the Book 9 letter, however, a more complex scenario is allowed. Here, as part of his demonstration of the ultimate modesty of his patron, Pliny retails the single anecdote which Verginius passed on to him in connection with the revolt against Nero. Verginius told Pliny of his encounter with the historian Cluvius Rufus, who was composing his account of the fateful years (9.19.5):56 . . . ita secum aliquando Cluuium locutum: ‘scis, Vergini, quae historiae fides debeatur; proinde si quid in historiis meis legis aliter ac uelis rogo ignoscas’. ad hoc ille: ‘tune ignoras, Cluui, ideo me fecisse quod feci, ut esset liberum uobis scribere quae libuisset?’ . . . Cluvius once addressed him in these terms: ‘You know, Verginius, the truthfulness which is owed to history; accordingly, if you should read anything in my histories different from what you would wish, pray forgive me.’ To which he replied: ‘Are you ignorant, Cluvius, that I did what I did precisely so that it might be free to you authors to write what you chose?’ 55

See Hainsworth 1964; Shotter 1967; Levick 1985; RP 7.513ff.; Shotter 2001. On Cluvius and his history, see Syme 1958: 178–80, 289–94; also Sherwin-White 1966: 143–4, 366, 503–4. On Verginius’ encounter with Cluvius in 9.19, see Marchesi 2008: 146–7. 56

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

201

Both 2.1 and 9.19 include the idea of reading history written about oneself. But where the early letter implies that this history was virtually a panegyric (in the mould of the poems written about Verginius), the letter in Book 9 acknowledges greater complexity and controversy. It now appears that Verginius may not necessarily have liked what he found in those histories: no doubt they probed (e.g.) Verginius’ failure to aid the revolt against Nero unambiguously (despite his later claims to have done so). At any rate, it is now for a second time that we find a letter in Book 9 lifting a veil on events glossed over in the early books of the collection (in a letter whose natural home would in fact be Book 1). Just as Pliny failed to reflect the true atmosphere and course of events during the reign of Nerva in Book 1, so at the time of Verginius’ death in 97 he failed to acknowledge the complexities of Verginius’ behaviour during the evidently parallel events of 68–9 ce. In both cases, revision is offered in letters located in Book 9.57 A new willingness to reflect the darkness of the past is confirmed as a theme in Book 9 by the third member of our sequence, namely letter 9.27. Here Pliny tells the recent story of an unnamed author who was asked not to continue with a public reading of his history, in order to spare the sensitivities of a particular member of his audience (9.27.1–2): recitauerat quidam uerissimum librum, partemque eius in alium diem reseruauerat. ecce amici cuiusdam orantes obsecrantesque, ne reliqua recitaret. tantus audiendi quae fecerint pudor, quibus nullus faciendi quae audire erubescunt. Someone had been reciting a most truthful account, and he had held back a part of it for another time. Would you believe it, but friends of a certain individual came begging and pleading with him not to read out the rest. Such great shame do men feel at hearing the account of their actions, though they felt none at doing things which make them blush to hear.

In the event the unnamed historian accedes to the request, although Pliny points out that the incident will only increase interest in the silenced work (9.27.2). Significantly, the historian has been (plausibly) 57 Nevertheless, for the Cluvius Rufus anecdote also as an attempt to make the point that the unflattering portrait of Verginius Rufus found in Tacitus’ Histories is— in fact—in accordance with Verginius’ own wishes (me fecisse quod feci, ut esset liberum uobis scribere), see Whitton 2012: 351–2.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

202

Roy Gibson

identified with Tacitus.58 If the identification is correct,59 then the temporarily silenced work must be the Histories60—a work to which Pliny has already contributed material both requested (6.16, 6.20: on the death of the Elder Pliny) and unasked (7.33: on Pliny’s role in the prosecution of Baebius Massa under Domitian). In its original form, the Histories covered events from the year of the four emperors in 69 ce down to the death of Domitian in 96. Pliny’s letter 9.27 is most easily understood as recording the embarrassment of a figure— towards the end of the first decade of the second century61—about his record under Domitian (rather than under the now rather distant figures of Nero or Vespasian). In 9.27 Pliny may be understood as sympathizing—and even identifying himself—with the unillusioned viewpoint characteristic of the Histories. In the process he is perhaps highlighting his own greater willingness to adopt this mode in nearby letters in Book 9 (and, as will be seen shortly, in Book 8). Such Tacitean qualities had not been strongly in evidence in Pliny’s own earliest books. As a result, it can be suggested that the special connections engineered by Pliny between Books 1 and 9—outlined at the beginning of this paper—constitute an invitation to revisit Book 1, so that this difference in treatment and in tone becomes more obvious to the reader. In addition, the darkening of tone evident in Book 9—at least so far as political events of the recent past are concerned—can be related to the ‘narrative’ which Pliny creates for the nine-book collection. For, as shown in the opening section of this paper, Pliny assimilates the collection to a journey from light to dark.62 It is now time to show

58 Suggested first by Fabia 1895: 8; cf. Syme 1958: 120; Birley 2000: 53; also Ash 2003: 217 on the parallels between Pliny’s sentiments on the futility of suppressing history and Tacitus on the burning of the work of Cremutius Cordus, at Ann. 4.35.5. 59 For the series of symmetries between 9.26–8 and Book 1 which appear to guarantee the identification, see Whitton 2012: 363–4. 60 No doubt there is a typical Plinian play on names here: the author of the work is now truly tacitus (‘silent’). For further Plinian plays, including examples involving Tacitus/tacitus, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 42 n. 14, Whitton 2013b: 67. 61 For book dates, see n. 42. 62 Comparison with another work whose ending provokes a return to the very start may help to clarify the particular character of the Letters. It is often argued (e.g. by Gale 2000: 23) that the conclusion of Lucretius’ poem with the deadly Athenian plague may cause readers to return to Book 1 of the poem in search of consolation; and that such a return is for readers who have not successfully assimilated the Epicurean indifference to death which the earlier parts of the poem teach. In Pliny,

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

203

how this descent into darkness begins already in Book 7, after a last burst of optimism in Book 6.63

DESCENT INTO DARKNESS: BOOKS 6 AND 7 Book 6 is a highpoint in the collection.64 Not only does it contain two of Pliny’s most brilliant letters, on the eruption of Vesuvius and the death of the Elder Pliny (6.16, 6.20), but within its confines Pliny carefully fosters the image of a renaissance in his legal career. Key here is the report in the second letter of the book of the death of Regulus—Pliny’s old rival in the Centumviral courts, who was also (at least according to Pliny) a compromised agent of the emperor Domitian.65 Letter 6.2 is twinned with the symmetrically positioned 6.33 (the second-last letter in the book), where Pliny announces the delivery of his greatest ever speech, the pro Attia Viriola, recently delivered in the Centumviral courts. The deliberate pairing of the death of Regulus with this ‘greatest ever’ speech in the courts that were his rival’s old stamping ground is accompanied by a pointed reversal in 6.33 of the sentiments of a letter in Book 2. In 2.14, Pliny had reflected gloomily on the degraded condition of the formerly prestigious Centumviral courts, to the point of threatening to retire from them (2.14.14). Letter 6.33 reverses the unusually pessimistic sentiments of 2.14 about these courts, and allows the reader to infer that the reason for the change of heart is directly related to the death of Regulus announced in letter 6.2.66 In between these two letters at however, it is successful readers who will return to the beginning of the work, eager to revise their reading of the text in the context of late revelations of a dark nature. 63 My own reading of Books 7–9 in this chapter is largely consistent with either of the two main hypotheses about their composition and publication: either compiled and published as a unit (so, broadly, Sherwin-White 1966: 34, 38–9, 41, 56), or in a block of Books 7–8, soon followed by Book 9 (so Bodel in this volume). 64 For an orienting catalogue of the contents of Books 6–7, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 283–8. 65 For the key figure of Regulus, see further Whitton and Bodel, in this volume; also Hoffer 1999: 55–92; Lefèvre 2009: 50–60; Marchesi 2013. 66 Cf. 2.14.1 and 6.33.1–3; for the full argument, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 39–43 (on the symmetry between 6.1–3 and 6.32–4), and 71–2 (on the relationship between 2.14 and 6.33). On letter 2.14 as itself part of a story of increasing gloom within Book 2—an early instance of the phenomenon which the present chapter seeks

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

204

Roy Gibson

either end of the book, Pliny offers a series of letters devoted to court cases big and small (6.5, 6.12, 6.13, 6.18, 6.22, 6.23, 6.31), and in letter 6.11 introduces two young orators who represent hope for the future of the legal profession in Rome, since (of course) they model themselves on Pliny.67 Alongside this apparent personal renaissance and burgeoning optimism, Pliny allots an unusually prominent role to Trajan in Book 6. In 106 ce the emperor had brought the second Dacian war to a successful conclusion, before returning to Italy at some point in 107. Book 6 appears to reflect this state of affairs,68 with Trajan intervening in absentia—on the invitation of the senate—to decisively resolve various disputes (6.13, 6.19; cf. 6.5.5), before making a personal appearance in Rome to conduct a trial (6.22). In 6.27 Pliny then advises a consular correspondent on his speech of thanks to the emperor, where the recent military successes abroad are emphasized as a possible topic (6.27.5). Finally, in 6.31 Pliny reports his recent visit to the imperial villa at Centum Cellae, in order to serve on a legal panel alongside the emperor. Among the emperor’s other qualities, Pliny particularly celebrates the humanitas of Trajan (14–15), and closes the letter with a description of the imperial port at Centum Cellae (15–17), where the newly constructed mole is clearly a metaphor for the emperor’s protective role in society.69 In contrast to the personal and political sunshine of Book 6, the tone of the collection darkens markedly thereafter. Syme noted that ‘illnesses seem to pile up in the period covered by Books VII and VIII’, and suggested as explanation ‘a sequence of unhealthy seasons’ (cf. 8.1.1) or ‘an epidemic supervening in the train of second war against the Dacians’.70 A plague resulting from foreign wars is not unlikely in the year 107 and after: something similar had happened under Domitian and would do so again under Hadrian. However, the gloom in Books 7–8 of the Letters spreads far beyond the personal or domestic.71 to identify in Books 7–9—see Whitton in this volume; cf. Whitton 2013b: 19–20, 201–2. 67 See Gibson and Morello 2012: 70. 68 For the dramatic date of Book 6, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 51–2. 69 See Saylor 1972. 70 Syme 1985b: 182 (= RP 5.486); cf. Veyne 1967: 751. 71 For a complementary reading of the illnesses (and medical analogies) in Books 7–8, see Bodel in this volume.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

205

Book 7 opens in unusually dramatic fashion with the words Terret me haec tua tam pertinax ualetudo (‘The obstinacy of this illness of yours terrifies me’).72 A friend, Geminus, has fallen ill, and Pliny writes with advice based on how he himself has dealt with serious illness in the past. After this opening letter on severe illness, Book 7 continues at first in the mode of Book 6, with various letters on friendship, literature, and continuing court business, alongside the tying up of a number of loose ends from Book 6.73 However, just over halfway through this book of thirty-three letters, the note struck at the start of 7.1 is sounded again in the opening words of 7.19: Angit me Fanniae ualetudo (‘The illness of Fannia torments me’). Fannia—wife of Helvidius Priscus the Elder (a Stoic senator executed by Vespasian in 74) and an exile herself under Domitian—is clearly not expected to survive her illness. Pliny admits to writing while still in the midst of his grief and upset (7.19.11, quoted later in this chapter), and the letter contains some strongly pessimistic sentiments. In particular, alluding to the deaths of two of Fannia’s step-children reported in letter 4.21, Pliny declares ‘For my part, it seems to me as if her very house is tottering and about to fall torn from its foundations, even though she still has descendants.’74 Further illness and deaths follow. Pliny writes of troubles with his eyes in 7.21 (where the detail of a bath recently taken recalls the story of his own earlier and more serious illness recounted in 7.1), announces the death of Ummidia Quadratilla in 7.24 (albeit without the grief accorded Fannia in 7.19), and laments the death of his friend Genitor’s pupil in 7.30. In between these last two letters, Pliny reflects in 7.26 on our greater aspiration to virtue when we are ill and realize we might die: a thought brought on by the recent illness of an unnamed friend (Nuper me cuiusdam amici languor admonuit, 7.26.1). Not every letter in the second half of Book 7 has a gloomy tone. Indeed 7.29, on the ridiculous honours showered on the freedman Pallas under Claudius, opens with the assertion (to the addressee) that ‘you will laugh, then you will be indignant, then you will laugh

72 For separate studies of Book 7 of the Letters—where otium dominates as a theme—see Fitzgerald 2007b, Gibson and Morello 2012: 187–96. 73 e.g. in letters 5 (to Calpurnia; cf. 6.4, 7), 6, and 10 (on the prosecution of Varenus Rufus; cf. 6.5, 6.13), and 16 (on Calestrius Tiro’s appointment as governor; cf. 6.22). 74 7.19.8 ac mihi domus ipsa nutare, conuulsaque sedibus suis ruitura supra uidetur, licet adhuc posteros habeat.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

206

Roy Gibson

again’.75 And, in purely thematic terms, a series of deaths and illnesses is hardly unfamiliar in Pliny’s Letters. In Book 5, for example, Pliny reported the passing of the author Gaius Fannius (5.5) and the tragic early deaths of both the daughter of Minicius Fundanus and the writer Iulius Avitus (5.16, 5.21), not to mention the illness of Pliny’s own ‘literary’ slave, Zosimus (5.19). Nevertheless, in Book 5, while frequently acknowledging his grief, Pliny seems determined to master his emotions. As he insists in the last two sentences of the book, ‘But why indulge in grief, to which everything furnishes the richest material, if you once abandon the reins to it? I must make an end to my letter, so as to make an end at the same time to the tears which the letter has called forth.’76 In Book 7, by contrast, Pliny presents himself as caught up in his emotions. He is ‘terrified’ and ‘tormented’ by the news of the illness of others (7.1.1 Terret me, 7.19.1 Angit me), and has evidently not yet worked his emotions through. Significantly, in 7.19.11 he confesses of his reaction to Fannia’s decline: ‘such are the cares amidst which I have written to you’ (in his eram curis, cum scriberem ad te). Furthermore, this is the first time in the collection that Pliny has introduced the topic of his own illnesses and afflictions, whether past or present, serious or merely chronic (7.1.3–6, 7.21, 7.26). A severe illness in 97 ce, the probable subject of allusion in 7.1.4 (quin etiam cum perustus ardentissima febre, ‘indeed, once I did have a high temperature from a raging fever’),77 had been concealed in Book 1, only to be admitted in Book 10 (just as the death of his wife was concealed in Book 1 for future revelation in Book 9).78 Illness and the prospect of death now touch Pliny personally and directly as never before in the Letters. Concomitantly, readers for the first time are confronted with the fact that Pliny’s open-ended promise to keep adding to the Letters (si quas addidero non supprimam, ‘if I write any

75

7.29.1 Ridebis, deinde indignaberis, deinde ridebis, recalling 1.6.1 Ridebis, et licet rideas; for the reminiscence as one of a series of references back to Book 1 made by letters in Book 7, see Bodel in this volume. 76 5.21.6 sed quid ego indulgeo dolori? cui si frenos remittas, nulla materia non maxima est. finem epistulae faciam, ut facere possim etiam lacrimis quas epistula expressit. 77 Sherwin-White 1966: 402–3. 78 Cf. 10.5–7, 10–11, with Sherwin-White 1966: 573 on 10.8.3 for the date of the illness.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

207

fresh ones, I will not withhold them’) might itself be rendered void by the death of the author, and the collection come to an abrupt end.79 To return to the contrast between the treatment of death in Book 7 and in its predecessors, it is worth noting first that any pall cast by tragic fatalities over Book 5 is soon relieved by the personal and political optimism of Book 6. In Book 6 Calpurnia may be evacuated to Campania to recuperate from an illness (6.4, 6.7); but the only contemporary to die is the egregious Regulus: bene fecit Regulus quod est mortuus: melius si ante (‘Regulus did well to die, and he would have done better if he had died sooner’, 6.2.4).80 In Book 6, death—for once—is a welcome visitor. By contrast, Book 7 has as its successor the most sombre book of the entire collection—as will become clear later—so that the sense of gloom hanging over the second half of Book 7 is deepened rather dispelled by reading on. A contrast with Book 6 is evident also in the fading of the emperor from Book 7. After some early references to Trajan in letters 7.6 and 7.10, in connection with the continuing trial of Varenus Rufus, Domitian begins to cast an increasing shadow over the book. He enters Book 7, in fact, at the same moment that illness first recurs as a theme. For, as Pliny notes in 7.19.4–6, the now mortally ill Fannia had been exiled by Domitian in connection with asking Herennius Senecio to write the biography of her dead husband (who had also been the cause of her two previous exiles). Domitian’s next appearance is in another letter permeated by death, namely 7.27, where Pliny (famously) tells three stories of ghosts or apparitions. The first story concerns an (accurate) prediction of death made by an apparition to a future governor of Africa, while the second tells the story of a ghost seeking proper burial from the philosopher Athenodorus. The climactic anecdote—from Pliny’s point of view the most important one—concerns the visitation of ghostly figures to Pliny’s familia, where the hair of a freedman and a slave is shorn by these figures. In the event the omen is a good one, as it presaged the fact that Pliny would escape the indictment that he was destined to suffer under

79 Cf., in this connection, Whitton 2013a on the series of ‘false’ endings in the late books of the collection. 80 The unidentified Robustus of 6.25 is missing, but not yet confirmed dead. The other deaths in Book 6 are those of a decade and more previously: Verginius Rufus (6.10), the Elder Pliny (6.16, 6.20), and the unidentified elderly couple from lake Como (6.24).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

208

Roy Gibson

Domitian had that emperor avoided assassination in September 96 (7.27.12–14).81 In 7.27 images of death (and ghosts) coalesce with an archetypal Bad Emperor to create a chilling atmosphere quite different from that found in Book 6. That book indeed had ended with a prolonged stay in the sunshine of Trajan’s reassuring presence at the imperial villa in Centum Cellae. Book 7, by contrast, builds on the Domitianic ghost story of 7.27 to end in 7.33 with an episode from 93 ce. In that year Pliny found himself entangled in the political manoeuvring which initiated the downfall at Domitian’s hands of Herennius Senecio (mentioned earlier in connection with Fannia). By his own account, Pliny acted well on this occasion—hence he sends his account of the episode to Tacitus for inclusion in the Histories. But that Trajan has faded from the collection—at the same moment that death has made its presence most powerfully felt—can hardly be gainsaid.82 And the tone of the collection is about to become darker still.

INTO THE BLACK: BOOK 8 In Book 5, Pliny had concluded his description of the Tuscan villa with two sentences on the salubriousness of the place for his slaves (5.6.46): mei quoque nusquam salubrius degunt; usque adhuc certe neminem ex iis quos eduxeram mecum, (uenia sit dicto) ibi amisi. di modo in posterum hoc mihi gaudium, hanc gloriam loco seruent! Vale. My slaves too are nowhere in better health. Up to the present, at any rate, I have not lost a single one of those I brought here with me (may no harm come of my saying so). May the gods continue to make this the pride of the place and a joy to me. Farewell.

Book 8 opens with the terrifying possibility that no uenia is to be granted to Pliny for his earlier bold speech (8.1.1):83 81 On Pliny’s attempt to control his reputation in this important letter, see Baraz 2012: 116–30. 82 However, some might maintain the line that to evoke (and so, of course, criticize) Domitian is always necessarily to praise Trajan. 83 For sustained readings of Book 8, see above all Morello in this volume; also Whitton 2010, who emphasizes the theme of slavery, and Bernstein 2008, who

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

209

Iter commode explicui, excepto quod quidam ex meis adversam ualetudinem feruentissimis aestibus contraxerunt. I had an easy journey [to the Tuscan villa],84 apart from the fact that some of my slaves were taken ill in the intense heat.

The letter continues with the news that Pliny’s ‘reader’, Encolpius, has been coughing up blood—although strong hopes for his recovery are expressed (8.1.3). (In fact Encolpius will not be named again in the course of the correspondence.) This revision of the formerly paradisical scene of the Tuscan villa is an ominous start to Book 8. In Book 7, further instalments of illness and death are reserved for the second half of the unit; but the same pattern does not hold for Book 8. For letter 8.5 soon announces that Pliny’s friend Macrinus has lost his ‘model wife beyond compare’ (uxorem singularis exempli, 8.5.1). In two nearby letters misfortune spreads to Pliny’s own wife.85 The health of Calpurnia—encountered convalescing in Book 6 (6.4, 6.7; cf. 7.5)—has in Book 8 taken a decided turn for the worse. According to Pliny, ‘her life was in the greatest danger’ (in summum periculum adducta, 8.10.1). The reason is that Calpurnia did not know she was pregnant, and she suffered the tragedy of an unwitting miscarriage (8.10.1). Pliny, disappointed in his own hope of children (and now married to Calpurnia for up to a decade),86 writes in selfconsciously exemplary mode to his wife’s (reliably irascible) grandfather, to urge him to be thankful for the survival of Calpurnia rather than to lament the loss of an heir to the line. Pliny rarely places two letters on the same subject side by side, but an exception is made in the present instance. For in 8.11 he writes to Calpurnia’s aunt Hispulla to assure her of her niece’s recovery. A more sympathetic hearing is evidently expected in this case, although Pliny emphasizes once more how close Calpurnia came to dying: fuit alioqui in summo discrimine, ‘at one time her life was in the greatest danger’ (8.11.2).

concentrates on discourses of paternity. For an orienting catalogue of the contents of Book 8, see Gibson and Morello 2012: 288–90. 84 The Tuscan villa is virtually guaranteed as destination by Pliny’s later reference to salubritas caeli (8.1.3; cf. 5.6.46 salubrius, quoted earlier); see Sherwin-White 1966: 448. 85 On this pair of letters, see Morello in this volume. 86 Calpurnia is first introduced to the reader of the Letters in 4.1, but Pliny may well have married her not long after the death of his first wife, c.98; see Hoffer 1999: 229–33.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

210

Roy Gibson

The deceased wife of Macrinus, mentioned earlier, was evidently mature in years when she died, since she is said to have passed away after thirty-nine years of happy marriage (8.5.1). However, the death of a young person finally enters the pages of Book 8 in letter 16, where he reports that confecerunt me infirmitates meorum, mortes etiam, et quidem iuvenum, ‘illnesses and also deaths among my slaves, some of them young, have finished me off ’ (8.16.1). This is clearly a sequel to the opening letter of the book, where infirmities had been reported among Pliny’s familia. Pliny consoles himself, as best he can, with the fact that he readily grants dying slaves their freedom, and allows them to make a will (8.16.1–2). But this is not to be the book’s final instalment on this theme. For letter 19 brings together the theme of death and illness as it affects both his slaves and his wife. Here the isolation of literary studies brings the only relief that Pliny can find: et infirmitate uxoris et meorum periculo, quorundam uero etiam morte turbatus, ad unicum doloris leuamentum studia confugi, ‘in the anxiety caused by my wife’s sickness and by the life-threatening maladies of my slaves, and indeed the deaths of some of them, I have had recourse to my studies as the sole alleviation of my distress’ (8.19.1). In fusing together two of the book’s most prominent features so far, one of the closing sentences of letter 8.19 can perhaps be understood as a comment on the gloomy poetics of Book 8: imperare enim dolori ut scriberem potui; ut uacuo animo laetoque, non potui, ‘I was able to master my grief sufficiently to write, but not with a mind unpreoccupied and serene’ (8.19.2). Certainly, as will be seen later, Book 8 gives many further causes for despondency—not least in its penultimate letter. For here Pliny, having already suffered disappointment in his hope for children and sickness and loss amongst his family members, must now report the death of his young protégé Iunius Avitus. As in letter 7.19 (discussed earlier), Pliny emphasizes that he writes in the midst of his grief: in tantis tormentis eram cum scriberem haec scriberem sola; neque enim nunc aliud aut cogitare aut loqui possum, ‘I am in such torment as I write this that my letter contains this news alone, for I can neither think or speak of anything other at present’ (8.23.8). Unlike in Book 5, where he was able to master his emotions even in the context of the death of a young man (5.21.6, analysed earlier), Pliny cannot do so now, and is condemned to experience once more the despondency felt in the context of the death of Fannia in Book 7. For a second time, Pliny expresses a sense of futility that

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

211

would be out of place in the early books of the collection. Of young Avitus Pliny declares ‘his pointless labours, his fruitless pleadings pass before my eyes’ (obuersantur oculis cassi labores, et infructuosae preces, 8.23.6), and reflects that ‘so many hopes, so many joys, have become their opposite in a single day’ (tot spes tot gaudia dies unus in diuersa conuertit, 8.23.7). The experience is the more galling for Pliny since—by his account—Avitus, in contrast with the most of the aspiring young political elite of the day, was willing to learn from elders such as Pliny himself (8.23.2; cf. 2.6). Pliny ends the book deprived of an heir in both family and senate.87 If I have emphasized the gloom of Book 8 to the extent of laying it on rather thickly, there is a good reason for this. In the popular imagination, as hinted at the beginning of this paper, Pliny is often associated with shallow and unreflective optimism of a kind that can make even those who write about him somewhat defensive about their object of study. The issue is well encapsulated in the questioning title of a classic 1993 article on Pliny: ‘Pline épistolier, écrivain superficiel?’88 This reputation, in fact, can make it hard for readers to see the darker moments in Pliny. The opening books of the collection appear hardly undeserving of a reputation for sunny optimism, as my earlier remarks on the apparent absence of ‘realistic’ political fear and paranoia from Book 1 may suggest.89 However, in the present volume Chris Whitton shows that Book 2 traces an arc from personal triumph tainted by Regulus (2.11), through gloomy sentiments about Regulus’ stamping ground, the Centumviral court (2.14), to withdrawal to the Laurentine villa (2.17) and a concluding impotent lament over Regulus’ influence (2.20).90 Book 2’s early pessimism is soon ‘redeemed’, of course, by the consular triumph of Book 3. But the present chapter argues that the later books of the collection both offer a more unrelieved species of

87

For Plinian pseudo-paternity in 8.23, see Bernstein 2008. For Pliny’s concern, in letter 8.14, with the broken line of succession between Rome’s elder and younger generations in a political sense, see later in this chapter. 88 Jal 1993; cf. the title of Wolff ’s monograph: Pline le jeune, ou le refus de pessimisme (2003). 89 Nevertheless, Hoffer 1999 has made clear the extent to which Book 1 both conceals and (on further investigation) embodies a series of personal and political anxieties. 90 Whitton in this volume; cf. Whitton 2013b, 19–20, 201–2, 269–70.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

212

Roy Gibson

pessimism, and even consciously seek to revise the meaning and import of the earlier books with their habit of the late revelation of disturbing material. Books 7–8 of the collection, it should be added, are less often read or studied by comparison with their brighter and more up-beat predecessors.91 One of the reasons for this state of affairs is that these books perhaps contain fewer letters of the stature of the great villa letters in Books 2 and 5 or the Vesuvius letters in Book 6—although the ghost stories of 7.27, the Clitumnus fons of 8.8, and the egregious dolphin of 9.33 are as well read and familiar as any other letters in the collection. Another reason is surely that these books are apt to appear uncharacteristic or unrepresentative of the general tone of the Letters. But what, in fact, is ‘characteristic’ of the Letters? The (apparent) optimism of the early books? Or the greater pessimism of the later books and their attempts to shroud the earlier books in some of their enveloping gloom? To return to Book 8, there are some undeniably happy moments in this instalment of the Letters. Letter 8.3 deals with a well-received literary effort from Pliny; 8.7 celebrates a literary exchange with Tacitus; 8.13 reflects on the news that a young correspondent is reading Pliny’s works in company with his father; and 8.18 greets with pleasure and surprise the contents of the will of Domitius Tullus, who appears to have acted therein somewhat better in death than in life. Above all there is a famously graceful letter, mentioned earlier, devoted to a detailed description of the idyllic source of the Clitumnus river and its associated temple. This letter is found seven letters from the beginning of the book (8.8), and is thereby placed in symmetric relations with another letter on a river, found seven letters from the end of this book of 24 letters (8.17).92 As has become clear in the course of the present chapter, the symmetrical placing of letters often is a sign that the two epistles must be read in relation to one another.93 In this instance in Book 8, it is tempting to infer that Pliny means the second letter to cancel out the effects of the first, since 8.17

91 For recent book-length studies and commentaries on earlier instalments in the Letters, see Ludolph 1997 and Hoffer 1999 on Book 1; Whitton 2013b on Book 2; Henderson 2002a on Book 3; and Gibson forthcoming on Book 6. 92 On this pair of letters, see also Morello in this volume. 93 On the ability of the ancient indices to individual books to allow the reader to spot symmetries of this kind with relative ease, see Gibson 2014. On the indices, see also Whitton 2013b.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

213

deals with a highly destructive episode of the flooding of the Tiber.94 The Clitumnus, of course, is ultimately a tributary to the Tiber via the river Tinia.95 And in 8.17 Pliny notes the destructive effect which the Tiber has had on lands some distance away—far beyond its own immediate inundation—precisely via its own tributaries.96 The locus amoenus of 8.8 is trumped, as it were, by the apocalyptic flood of 8.17.97 That the effect has been planned by Pliny is suggested by his decision to place these two particular letters in significant relation. He might as easily have chosen to place 8.8 (on the Clitumnus) in symmetrical relation with 8.20 (on the mirabilia of Lake Vadimon), so as to create a pairing of wonders of the natural world. But this opportunity appears to have been refused, since 8.20 is found an asymmetrical four letters from the end of the book. The letter on the flooding of the Tiber is suggestive of the character of Book 8 in other ways too. Trajan, in keeping with his fading from the second half of Book 7 (see earlier), is also absent from the text of the vast majority of Book 8. In fact, he makes only two direct appearances in the book, the second of which is found in the Tiber letter (8.17.2): quamquam fossa quam prouidentissimus imperator fecit exhaustus, premit ualles, innatat campis, quaque planum solum, pro solo cernitur. Although the force of the Tiber is weakened by an outlet which the emperor, in his great forethought, has constructed, the river still covers the valleys and pours over the fields, and where the surface is flat it presents itself to the eye in place of the surface. 94 The agricultural devastation which follows in the wake of the flooding of the Tiber can be added to the tale of personal agricultural woes (poor harvests, etc.) which Pliny constructs in Book 8; cf. 8.2, 8.15 (continued in 9.10, 9.15–16, but with better news in 9.20). 95 Sherwin-White 1966: 457. 96 8.17.2 inde quae solet flumina accipere et permixta deuehere, uelut obvius retro cogit, atque ita alienis aquis operit agros, quos ipse non tangit, ‘Hence [the Tiber] forces backwards, as though it went to meet them, the streams which it usually receives and carries down in combination, and by this means covers, with waters not its own, a country which [the Tiber] does not itself touch’. Historically, the Clitunno (Clitumnus) river was in fact subject to sudden flooding, before being successfully banked with levees in the nineteenth century. 97 Pliny ramps up the effect of the Tiber flood with colour and details borrowed from descriptions of flooding in the Odes of Horace and in Lucretius; see Guillemin 1929: 120–1, citing e.g. Hor. Carm. 1.2, Lucret. 2.553–5. She also notes possible resemblances to Tac. Hist. 1.86 and Ann. 1.76 (where the flooding of the Tiber also possesses symbolic significance for reigning emperors).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

214

Roy Gibson

Trajan has shown the imperial virtue of foresight;98 but the effects of his intervention nevertheless appear somewhat limited, at least to judge from the Tiber’s inundation of the countryside. This partial success at home with taming rivers sets up a contrast with the only other passage to include mention of Trajan in Book 8. In letter 8.4, Pliny greets with enthusiasm the news that his friend Caninius Rufus has begun an epic poem on the emperor’s recent victories in Dacia. The letter commands attention in as much as Pliny is mostly silent on the lengthy Dacian campaigns elsewhere in the Letters—largely with the idea of shifting emphasis away from Trajan the military man to Trajan the ciuilis princeps.99 Pliny describes some of the subject matter which Caninius Rufus might include in his poem (8.4.2): dices immissa terris noua flumina, nouos pontes fluminibus iniectos, insessa castris montium abrupta . . . super haec actos bis triumphos . . . You will tell of new rivers set flowing over the earth, new bridges thrown over rivers, mountain precipices occupied by camps . . . besides these of triumphs twice celebrated.

Pliny refers to two famous episodes or features of the Dacian wars. In the first, Decebalus, king of the Dacians, diverted the course of a river in order to bury his treasure, only for Trajan to re-divert the river and recover the treasure. In the second, Trajan—thanks to his engineer, Apollodorus of Damascus—managed to throw a miraculous stone bridge over the Danube (among other riverine conquests).100 In his two appearances in Book 8, the emperor’s complete success with rivers abroad contrasts with his partial success (and relative failure) in controlling Rome’s river at home. The metaphorical potential of the contrast hardly needs spelling out. And this at a time when Pliny might instead have turned his gaze on Trajan’s building programme, which was currently transforming Rome in a manner and to an extent that would still impress visitors to the city two and a half centuries later.101 98 For evidence of the measures taken by Trajan to control the Tiber, see SherwinWhite 1966: 468. The whole subject was of some interest to Pliny himself, of course, since in 104–6, a few years before the dramatic date of Book 8, Pliny had been curator aluei Tiberis et riparum et cloacarum urbis. 99 See Syme 1964 (= RP 6.142–9). 100 Cf. Dio 68.13, 14, also Sherwin-White 1966: 451. For a narrative of Trajan’s Dacian wars, see CAH 112: 109–13; Bennett 2001: 85–103. 101 For Trajan’s building programme, which began after his victorious return from Dacia, see the brief overview provided by Jenkyns 2013: 345–64. The Forum of Trajan was the highlight of the visit of the Emperor Constantius II to Rome in 357 ce (Amm. Marc. 16.10.15).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

215

Pliny, it should be added, has outlined some material that Caninius might find it particularly tricky to treat in an epic poem. Ever since Herodotus, the diversion of rivers had been associated with the behaviour of tyrants (3.117, 7.129–30); while the building of a bridge over the Danube had been one of the most egregious signs of the tyrannical nature of Darius and very nearly the occasion of his death (4.89, 97–8, 133–42). How Caninius is to avoid implying that Trajan might also be exhibiting hubris, Pliny does not say.102 But the notion of tyrannical behaviour has perhaps been planted.103 These dark hints about the imperial house cohere not only with the generally pessimistic tone of Book 8, but also with the particular political pessimism of the longest and most important letter in Book 8. This is letter 8.14,104 which recounts the debate in the senate over the sentencing of the freedmen of the consul Afranius Dexter, who had been (doubtfully) suspected of involvement in their master’s death. Normally a celebrity trial, especially a trial before the senate, provides a focus for Pliny’s celebration of his own existence and a highpoint of personal optimism in any given book. This had certainly been the case with the senatorial prosecution of Marius Priscus in Book 2 (2.11–12) and of Caecilius Classicus in Book 3 (3.4, 3.9), as well as with the senatorial defence of Iulius Bassus in Book 4 (4.9) and the Centumviral victory on behalf of Attia Viriola triumphantly described in Book 6 (6.33).105 But the legal matter before the senate

102 Intriguingly, similar issues cluster at 3.7.13–15, a letter also addressed to Caninius Rufus (on the death of Silius Italicus). Here, after making reference to another famous river crossing found in Herodotus (namely Xerxes at the Hellespont and the review there of his troops: Hdt. 7.45–6), Pliny drops dark hints about the limitations placed by ‘someone else’ on the achievement of fame through deeds: non datur factis (nam horum materia in aliena manu) (3.7.14). On the end to this letter, see also Lefèvre 2009: 144–5. 103 In describing the construction of the new mole for the imperial harbour at Centum Cellae in letter 6.31, Pliny himself potentially faces the risk of implying that Trajan is acting tyrannically. But in that more ‘optimistic’ book, Pliny staves off such thoughts by emphasizing that the mole augments and imitates natural features (6.31.15, 17), alongside making reassuring references to the bays and sturdy rocks of the Aeneid (1.159–61, 7.586–90). See further Guillemin 1929: 118; Saylor 1972; Gibson forthcoming, ad loc. 104 On the position of this letter in the midpoint of Book 8, see Whitton in this volume; cf. Morello, also in this volume. 105 The senatorial defence of Varenus Rufus is rather more inconclusive in its narration across Books 5–7 (5.20, 6.5, 6.13, 6.29.11, 7.6, 7.10); but the source of professional pride and pleasure it provides to Pliny is unmistakeable.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

216

Roy Gibson

in Book 8 elicits some of the most pessimistic—most Tacitean— sentiments from Pliny in the entire collection. The main subject of the letter is Pliny’s dissatisfaction with the behaviour of many of his colleagues in the senate. The senate had three main proposals to consider in relation to the accused freedmen: execution, relegation, or acquittal. Pliny favoured the third, but found—to his anger and dismay—that proponents of the first two were prepared to set aside their differences in order to ensure the defeat of the proposal to acquit. These facts we learn only in the body of the letter;106 but Pliny’s unhappiness with his colleagues in these respects is the impulse behind his opening—and notably mordant— salvo (8.14.2): priorum temporum seruitus ut aliarum optimarum artium, sic etiam iuris senatorii obliuionem quandam et ignorantiam induxit. quotus enim quisque tam patiens, ut uelit discere, quod in usu non sit habiturus? adde quod difficile est tenere quae acceperis nisi exerceas. itaque reducta libertas rudes nos et imperitos deprehendit; cuius dulcedine accensi, cogimur quaedam facere ante quam nosse. The slavish situation of former days casts a kind of forgetfulness and ignorance over senatorial procedures as over other most honourable pursuits, for how few of us have the patience to wish to learn what we shall not apply in practice? Then too it is difficult to retain what you have learnt unless you practise it. So the resumption of freedom has found us ill-educated and ignorant, but, fired by the sweetness of that freedom, we are compelled to perform certain duties before we are acquainted with them.

On a first reading of the letter, it is Pliny who is ‘ignorant of senatorial procedure’: hence this letter to the legal expert Titius Aristo for advice and reassurance (8.14.1). But on a second reading, the deeper ignorance clearly belongs to the numerous senators who wished to combine support for the otherwise incompatible motions in order to defeat Pliny’s proposal. There is nevertheless satisfaction here, of course, with the return of libertas, much as Pliny had celebrated the return of the artes liberales after the death of Domitian in 1.10.1 (quoted earlier) and the humiliation of Regulus in 1.5. But it would have been unthinkable in Book 1 of the Letters for Pliny to have added

106 For the unity of the letter (often doubted by previous scholarship), see Whitton 2010: 121–8.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

217

that the return of freedom had found most senators unfit or unable to use their libertas either responsibly or knowledgably. Such acerbic points of view are more often associated with the pessimistic Tacitus, as at Agr. 3.1–2, where the consequences of liberty are assessed before ever they are celebrated. And it is no coincidence that, as Chris Whitton has shown, letter 8.14 features a sustained series of allusions to Tacitus, above all to the Agricola.107 As argued earlier of letter 9.27 (on the silencing of the unnamed historian), Pliny had belatedly highlighted his sympathy with the willingness of Tacitus to confront the bleak reality of the recent past. The major pay-off for this retrospective warning is found in some paragraphs in 8.14, in which Pliny reflects on the collective guilt of the Domitianic senate (8.14.8–9): . . . quid didicisse iuuit, cum senatus aut ad otium summum aut ad summum nefas uocaretur, et modo ludibrio modo dolori retentus numquam seria, tristia saepe censeret? eadem mala iam senatores, iam participes malorum multos per annos uidimus tulimusque; quibus ingenia nostra in posterum quoque hebetata fracta contusa sunt. . . . what point was there in having learnt such things, when the Senate was summoned to be wholly idle or wholly wicked, and, detained now for the purposes of exciting laughter, now for inflicting pain, pronounced decisions which were never serious, though often sad? Once we became senators, for many years we witnessed and endured the same evils in which we then took part, so that our talents were blunted, broken, and bruised by them, affecting even our later days.

In earlier books (even as recently as letter 7.33), Pliny was more inclined to underline his heroic difference from compromised members of the senate, or to stress his links with the ‘Stoic opposition’. Here, however, Pliny is clearly echoing Tacitus’ emphasis on the corporate guilt of the senate in the concluding paragraphs of the Agricola: mox nostrae duxere Heluidium in carcerem manus; nos Maurici Rusticique uisus ; nos innocenti sanguine Senecio perfudit, ‘A little while and our hands it was which dragged Helvidius to his dungeon; it was we who were put to shame by the look which Mauricus and Rusticus gave, we who were soaked by the innocent blood of Senecio’ (Agr. 45.1).108 The effect of Pliny’s admission of 107 108

Whitton 2010, esp. 122–8. For an analysis of Pliny’s engagement with this passage, see Whitton 2010: 126.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

218

Roy Gibson

such (corporate) guilt ought to encourage a revisionist reading of earlier books of the Letters every bit as much as letter 9.13 on the De Helvidii ultione (analysed earlier). Nor is this the only piece of revisionism to take place in letter 8.14. Near the start of the letter, Pliny sets up a contrast with former times when erat autem antiquitus institutum, ut a maioribus natu non auribus modo uerum etiam oculis disceremus, quae facienda mox ipsi ac per uices quasdam tradenda minoribus haberemus, ‘the custom was that, not merely by listening, but also by observing, we used to learn from our elders the procedures which we were next to follow, and then in our turn we were to pass them on to the younger generation’ (8.14.4).109 The exact date of these former times is unspecified, but Pliny goes on to make it clear that those times were not his to participate in. For not only was there no military authority or discipline in his youth (8.14.7), but the senate provided no example that could be followed: iidem prospeximus curiam, sed curiam trepidam et elinguem, cum dicere quod uelles periculosum, quod nolles miserum esset. quid tunc disci potuit . . . ?, ‘We then trained our gaze on the Senate, but a Senate which was fearful and speechless, for it was dangerous to express your convictions, and humiliating to repress them. What was it possible to learn at that time . . . ?’ (8.14.8). This scathing sentiment has profound revisionist implications for Pliny’s own earlier letters in praise of such senatorial patrons as Corellius Rufus and Verginius Rufus, hailed there as uitae meae testem rectorem magistrum (1.12.12) or as a father who ‘when I stood for office honoured me with his vote’ (ille mihi tutor relictus adfectum parentis exhibuit. sic candidatum me suffragio ornauit, 2.1.8). In letter 8.14, it is Corellius and Verginius who—by implication—were in no position to teach Pliny anything. At the very least, these general revisionist sentiments must prepare the reader for the more explicit revisions of the reputations of Corellius and Verginius in Book 9, where the former is revealed as too hesitant and cautious to be of use, and the latter as caught up in some unresolved political ambiguities of the most recent era of civil war. It is possible to discover some more redemptive or optimistic notes in letter 8.14, particularly if it is read alongside the next longest item in Book 8. This is letter 8.6, which in true Tacitean fashion excoriates

109

Cf. 8.14.6.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

219

Claudius’ senate for the honours it cravenly heaped on the emperor’s freedman, Pallas.110 Chris Whitton argues for a clear contrast between the pair: ‘In the Claudian letter we see the total failure and inversion of social hierarchy. 8.14 holds up the spectre of more recent trauma, but answers it with a senatorial scene to be proud of. When the senate legislates over freedmen under Trajan it is not to fawn on them, but to determine their fate. Power is back where it belongs.’111 But a more pessimistic reading can be suggested. After all, in letter 8.14 it is not necessarily the senate as a body which acts well. Pliny awards it no acclamation such as that found in Book 6, where, after some poor senatorial behaviour in 6.5, he is relieved to be able to announce in 6.13.3 ‘the senate itself was magnificent’ (senatus ipse mirificus). Rather, the person who acts well, at least on his own account, is Pliny. He—thanks to his legal skills—is able to prise apart the joint support for the incompatible motions of execution and relegation, and to force the supporters of the death penalty to drop their proposal altogether (8.14.24–6). If the senate acts well, it is because Pliny forces it to so act. Hence his complaints in the opening of the letter about how ‘the resumption of freedom has found us ill-educated and ignorant’.

BACK TO BOOK 9 Earlier in this chapter it was emphasized that Book 9 carried at its heart three letters which demanded that the reader revisit Book 1, in order to re-read its sunny and optimistic letters afresh after the revelation of some rather dark and troubling political information. It is now time to briefly reconsider Book 9 as a whole, so as to grasp the peculiar nature of its pessimism. For many of the letters in Book 9 as a whole show a revival in optimism, of a kind that had not been seen in the collection since Book 6. But it is optimism of a particular kind, namely personal rather than public or political optimism. For Pliny looks confidently to the future, willing to anticipate in letter after letter a bright future in terms of his reception by posterity above all as a writer and literary figure (9.2, 9.6, 9.8, 9.11, 9.14, 9.18, 9.23, 110 111

For the Tacitean indignatio of this letter, see Whitton 2010: 138. Whitton 2010: 138.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

220

Roy Gibson

9.25, 9.31). In this context, Pliny is once more able to rise above the tragedy of death among younger generations (9.9), hails the recovery of friends from illness (9.22)—no one recovers in Books 7 and 8—and treats agricultural disappointment with notably better equanimity than in previous books (9.20). If the optimism of Book 9 is markedly personal, its pessimism—as displayed above all in letters 9.13, 9.19, and 9.27 (analysed earlier in this chapter)112—is reserved for political matters, and shows strong continuities with the political pessimism expressed in Book 8, above all in letter 8.14. If anything, the revived personal optimism of Book 9 throws the continuing political pessimism into higher relief. Furthermore, of the emperor there is still no trace in this final book (although his wife, Plotina, is mentioned in passing in 9.28). In addition, in the final five letters of Book 9 we find Pliny almost exclusively concerned with matters on his private country estate (the short 9.38 is the only exception). Here—as he says in an earlier letter in Book 9—he can ‘arrange everything to my own inclination’ (omnia ad arbitrium meum facerem, 9.15.1). In letter 9.37, in fact, Pliny does something virtually unthinkable earlier in the collection: he writes to turn down an opportunity to see a friend installed as (suffect) consul in order to attend to pressing matters of arrangements for dealing with debt arrears on his country estates. Again, the metaphor hardly needs spelling out. This concluding retreat to his personal domain is perhaps political pessimism expressed through indirection—as it had been already in Book 2, where Pliny’s retirement to the Laurentine villa perhaps expressed disillusionment with a Rome where Regulus still flourished.113 Regulus would die in due course, and ground for optimism return. But there is no time, and no opportunity for a second renaissance here at the very end of Book 9. If the nine-book collection traces a journey from light to dark, it is political darkness which is sustained to the very end of the collection. 112 Cf. also the dark hints of e.g. 9.2.3 (of the impossibility of imitating Cicero’s letters) nos quam angustis terminis claudamur etiam tacente me perspicis, ‘You realize even without my mentioning it within what narrow boundaries we are circumscribed’; also the coded warnings in 9.11 against giving offence. Both of these letters deal with what can and cannot be said: some things have evidently not changed in essence since the Nervan crisis of letter 9.13 (where Pliny was also warned against saying certain things openly). 113 See Whitton in this volume.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Not Dark Yet . . .

221

CONCLUSION There are some obvious analogies for the trajectory of Pliny’s letters (and life), above all in Cicero.114 The speeches and letters of the latter offer—in more dramatic terms—a journey from early optimism and political success to a sunless epilogue, blighted by personal loss (in the death of his daughter Tullia) and the imposition of political autocracy (by Caesar). As in Books 7–9 of Pliny’s letters, Cicero’s correspondence between the fall of the republic and the last year of his life displays outbreaks of personal optimism against a (much) darker background of increasing political pessimism and disillusionment. Likewise, Book 10 of Martial’s epigrams, written in Rome towards the end of the poet’s life, shows significant disenchantment with life in the capital, reflects gloomily on death and ageing at various points, and announces the (politically compromised) poet’s intention to return home to Spain.115 (It also contains an encomium for Pliny himself at 10.19, duly quoted in the letter-writer’s muted obituary notice at the end of Book 3.) But literary and biographical analogies with Cicero and Martial are surely parallels rather than models for Pliny. More significant, in terms of reaching an overall or concluding view of the arc of Pliny’s collection, is the person of the emperor. For Trajan, largely absent from Pliny’s collection since Book 6, was—almost unusually—continuously present in Italy during the dramatic time covered by Books 7–9 (107–9 ce). Appointed emperor in January 98, Trajan had not entered Rome until September 99, and was soon off to conduct the first Dacian campaign in March 101, returning only in December 102. A relatively lengthy interval of two and a half years intervened before the start of the second Dacian war and the departure of Trajan in June 105. Upon returning in June 107, he would then be continuously present in Italy until the Parthian war of September 113. Is the coincidence between the political pessimism of Books 7–9 and this sustained sojourn of the emperor in Italy merely an accident? The absence of the emperor from those books, and their sometimes disturbing political content, suggests the opposite. No doubt the residence of an emperor on the distant borders of 114 On parallels between the literary careers of Cicero and Pliny, see Gibson and Steel 2010. 115 For a brief critical overview of Martial’s tenth book, see Sullivan 1991: 44–52.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

222

Roy Gibson

the empire, away from Rome and Italy, brought its own problems. But contact with Trajan in the capital and its environs—where he would be visibly subject to the competing demands of a range of interest groups,116 and his attitudes to senators and the senate could be judged on a daily basis—might more readily strain relations. In his journey from light to dark over nine books of letters, Pliny has traced in a smaller compass the political journey that Tacitus himself would later undertake across his corpus as a whole, from the pro-Trajanic enthusiasms of the Agricola to the pointed silences and increasing imperial disillusionment of the Annals.117

116 117

On this issue, see Seelentag 2011: 77–81. On this Tacitean journey, see esp. Woodman 2009b.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

5 Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts Pliny’s Villas as Editorial Places Ilaria Marchesi

For one who knows something about Japanese things, the inside of my mother-in-law’s home suffices to indicate in her a sophisticated person. Bareness is absolute: two or three standing screens, a teapot here or there, a vase containing lotus flowers, nothing else. Pierre Loti, Mrs. Chrysanthemum

Letters are objects. As they are composed, sent, and received, they become objects which are produced, distributed, and consumed. Letters are also made to be set in circulation and eventually fall out of it. In theory, they serve a particular purpose and are made to be discarded after serving it. Insofar as they are objects, then, letters are objects of daily life. When they are recovered and collected, arranged according to a specific plan, re-edited for content and form, given a more stable support and published, letters change their nature. They cease to be quotidian objects, since they have been made to shirk the process of contingent and ad hoc production, carefully managed exchange, and eventual decay. Once they are a book, made strong by their new collected identity, letters become objects at once indifferent to material circulation in the present and confident in their endurance against the passing of time. This, at least, is the foundation myth which defines their new life as individual components of a published work. There is a chance, however, that this is just a myth, and the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

224

Ilaria Marchesi

letter’s transient and mundane quality, its original identity marker, has become the blind spot of the epistolary book.1 Pliny does not refrain from talking about the publication of many of his works, but he comments only once about the process that made his letters acquire the status of epistles. As Bodel has noted, preliminarily and in passing in this volume, Pliny’s comments are made just as preliminarily and just as in passing in Epistle 1.1. The editorial attitude of the author of the texts to which we have devoted our collective attention does not come as a surprise, given the traditions evoked in his prologue letter, all prescribing a nonchalant attitude toward the editorial process. And yet, if gauged against the layered process that brought about the nine-book edition of his letter, as Bodel has reassessed it, Pliny’s reticence is striking. What motivates it? Is there a psycho-social anxiety behind this silence about the making of the book? Or is it the simple unfolding of literary as well as social conventions upon which everybody may be assumed serenely to agree? Pliny’s collection of letters offers itself as a text that, while obsessing on the circumstances and mechanics governing the production, circulation, and consumption of other texts, shies away from the Urszene, the primal scene of its own making as a book.2 This chapter investigates this strategic authorial silence and proposes to consider it a central feature of Pliny’s culture—that is, of the complex of literary conventions, political strategies, and social attitudes he shared with his audience—a culture in which objects in general, and objects of daily life in particular, had a distinct and somewhat limited status. In practical terms, I will attempt in the following pages to tease out some indications about the cultural 1 On the materiality of the epistle, see Thraede 1970; Cugusi 1983 and 1989; Williams 1992; Rosenmeyer 2001: ch. 1; Radicke 2003; Fitzgerald 2007b; Ebbeler 2010. On social concerns and practices, Johnson 2010: 32–62. On the linguistic aspects of the letter’s quotidian quality, Halla-aho 2009: 37–42. On the vexed issue of ‘authenticity’, for Pliny and beyond his collection, Gamberini 1983: 130–61 and Bell 1989 well balance Sherwin-White 1966 and 1969. See also the next note on rhetorical and authorial self-fashioning. 2 On the alternative between an anxiety-ridden and a complacently conventional author in Pliny’s relationship with his immediate audience, see the interplay between Hoffer 1999 and Henderson 2002a, both pertinent to this exploration of Pliny’s discourse on publication. In socio-cultural terms, see Flower 2011 (interesting beyond the Pliny section at 280–2). Ludolph 1997 and Radicke 1997 belong to this area of Pliny studies as well.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

225

perception of the objects of daily life from Pliny’s descriptions of two of his villas and connect these suggestions with the question of epistolary collection. My argument starts by exploring the lexical fabric of letter 1.3, in which I detect in concentrated form (because in nuce) and in clearer light (because of its textual proximity) the same connection between composing and publishing a work of literature and a specific way of thinking about and putting into words one’s own estate. Though more indirectly and in extended form, this nexus will also be at work, as we shall see, in the accounts Pliny gives of his own villas in later books of the collection. From this preliminary analysis, my essay will move to the letters about Tusculum and Laurentinum and note how, in them too, Pliny removes from sight and consigns to silence the objects of daily life which were certainly present on his estates, favouring a laborious description of the villa spaces and their functions. In the central analytical section of the chapter I will contrast the conspicuous absence from Pliny’s letters of the objects of daily life with the correspondingly overwhelming presence of those objects in a different and apparently unrelated corpus, that of Martial’s epigrams. The immediate result of the comparison is one of contextual relevance: Pliny’s oversight will become all the more palpable when set side by side with his contemporary’s attention to and insistence upon visibility of the same class of objects. The final point that will be advanced, however, is not simply contextual, since I will argue that the distance Pliny and Martial maintain on the issue of representing that particular class of objects in literature is the same we can register in their attitudes toward disclosing or glossing over their strategies of publication. Ultimately, what I will try to suggest in the final section is that all these phenomena—villa descriptions, literary treatment of furniture and other household goods, cultural visibility of daily-life objects—are actually interconnected. I propose, that is, to link the palpable differences in the way Pliny and Martial’s texts treated the materiality of the world around them with the differing presentations of their shared interest in publication of their own texts—qua material objects. Pliny’s shyness and Martial’s transparence about the facts of their books’ daily life is part of the larger cultural codes they were at once endorsing, relying upon, and in no small part indirectly policing as well.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

226

Ilaria Marchesi EDENDUM EST: PUBLISH OR PERISH, PLINY-STYLE (EP. 1.1–1.2–1.3)

My choice of object for gauging Pliny’s activity as bookmaker may be surprising. Letters have, as a rule, apparently very little to do with villas. Yet there is something in Pliny that at the very least justifies, if not actually invites this procedure. The first three epistles he collects, in fact, all deal with the textual clustering together of the three main themes of this investigation, since they are concerned in turn with Pliny’s publication of his own texts (1.1), the dynamics of socio-literary obligations (1.2), and the description of a villa in which literary production should take place (1.3). The three thematic strands are not just clustered together—they are carefully interwoven to form a clear, if subtle, discourse on publication, of which the final architectural element is an integral part. Taken together, these letters form a response to the cultural expectations that Pliny’s readership might perceive as imposed by the act of publishing one’s own work, and the description of a friend’s villa on Lake Como is, I maintain, neither a matter of coincidence nor a rhetorical embellishment on Pliny’s part. Rather, it is through that description that Pliny weaves his text into the cultural fabric of perceptions and expectations concerning the process of publication of one’s own work. The first layer of interconnection is clearly thematic. Epistle 1.1 presents Pliny’s collection as a response to repeated exhortations from a friend to publish and presents the book in which it appears as potentially the first in a series. The series will consist either of replicas, each edition encompassing more than the previous one, or of serially released instalments of an overarching collection of epistolary books. Epistle 1.2 presents itself as a cover letter for a manuscript of a speech by Pliny, for the editing and eventual publication of which the author enrols another friend (and some of his peers), since the speech is apparently a text for which there is some demand on the book market. The last epistle in the series opens with a fond description of the architectural amenities in a friend’s villa and soon evolves into an exhortation to compose and publish works of substance and literary quality, which are deemed the only something that one may ever claim as one’s own in an enduring way.3 3

On the sequential quality of the block 1.1–3, see Ludolph 1997: 89–98; Marchesi 2008: 16–34; Gibson and Morello 2012: 9–35.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

227

The interconnections between the three epistles are not merely entrusted to their ‘plots’, but extend to the lexical level as well. Each letter reflects on the literary, social, and technical dynamics of literary production and publication, and does so by mobilizing loaded terms in the technical vocabulary of each area. They do not, however, all do it in the same way. Actually, the distribution of the three lexical complexes may be used to reveal something about the discursive field that they construct. Whereas the language of social contract is common to all letters, constantly in association with the theme of publishing, the technical language of the editorial process connects Epistles 1.1 and 1.2, but remains underdeveloped in Epistle 1.3, if it may be said to be present at all. This particular distribution may be more than just coincidental, in particular because any selection principle based on the rhetorical necessity of maintaining a non-technical diction in literature would fail to account for the restraint with which Pliny addresses the technical side of the production process in 1.3, in conjunction with the flourishing of the Fachsprache of architecture design. In adding the new theme of villa description, the third epistle inserts into the lexical fabric of the collection a new set of technical terms, just as specific and concrete as the ones used in 1.2 for editorial activity. Even a cursory reading of the three epistles gives a sense of the marked distribution of lemmas. From the language of social obligations, Pliny has mobilized terms such as hortor, consilium, obsequium, perhaps also paenitere (from Ep. 1.1), promitto, rogo, consuetudo, uereor, aemulatio, uenia, postulo, contubernales, blandior, commendo (from Ep. 1.2), and res familiaris, auoco, cura, mando, negotium, otium, dominus, hortor (Ep. 1.3). The distribution, given the different lengths of the letters, is strikingly uniform. The same may not be said, however, in the case of the other lexical side of the question of publication. From the meta-language of edition and publication come terms such as epistula, scribo, colligo, publico, compono, requiro, addo, supprimo (from Ep. 1), liber, scribo, lego, emendo, imitor, perhaps aemulatio, editio, and edo, libelli, emitto, in manibus esse, nouitas, bibliopolae, studia (all from Ep. 2), and finally studia, effingo, and excudo (from Ep. 3). Whereas all three epistles are about the same topic, publication, and they all similarly frame that topic in social terms, the third item in the collection markedly differs from the second in that it still uses the language of social contracts and obligations and yet it does

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

228

Ilaria Marchesi

not contain technical language of publication. Studia is such a widereaching term that it can hardly be limited to signify editorial practices and both effingere and excudere are commonly accepted metaphorical terms, drawn respectively from the language of plastic arts and of forging. On the other hand, the third epistle in this micro-section on publication parades an impressive series of architectural terms: suburbanum, porticus, platanon, euripus, lacus, gestatio, balineum, triclinium, cubiculum. More importantly, in Epistle 1.3 the density in which these lemmas are made to appear is rhetorically emphasized. If the villa is one, its manifestation is manifold, and while all these terms relate to the individual object of the villa, they are incorporated into the text as a plurality—as parts in a whole, which can ‘take apart’ the subject who inhabits them, as Pliny’s text coyly puts it: Possident te et per uices partiuntur? (Ep. 1.3.1). This mode of representing the villa space verbally is not culturally neutral and was perhaps still liable to bear a certain stigma in Pliny’s time. In the opening of his second Book of De re rustica, Varro had attacked precisely the kind of sumptuous building style that his contemporaries had endorsed, and he had done it, in satirical vein, through a catalogue of Grecisms: Nec putant se habere uillam, si non multis uocabulis retinniat Graecis, quom uocent particulatim loca, procoetona, palaestram, apodyterion, peristylon, ornithona, peripteron, oporothecen. (De re rustica 2.proem)

Varro’s xenophobic lexical and architectural attitude, though certainly old, had perhaps not fully waned in Pliny’s times. Even as a relic of an imagined past caught in the process of imagining in turn its own golden age, Pliny is not a writer who would lightly disregard such morally classicizing fantasy. Yet his text in praise of his friend’s villa does indeed ‘resound with Greek terms’ that indicate distinctly individual spaces, precisely along the lines that Varro proscribed. What is more, the same will be true of his villa descriptions in 2.7 and 5.6. If not simply a rhetorical restriction, what made the activities connected to the production and dissemination of a text inappropriate for a detailed rehashing in Epistle 1.3? And what allowed architectural technicalities in the same text? The answer is not simply rhetorical, but more generally cultural. While they occupy structurally neighbouring and thematically contiguous letters, the language of editorial activity and that of villa-dwelling are unable to be part of the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

229

same one. Rather, they are accurately and politely (dis)placed onto different objects: Pliny talks in direct editorial terms about his own work as a published author, while about the work of a friend he allows himself only to talk metaphorically, and in a circuitous argument that starts with a villa description and ends with a contrast between that estate, which will naturally be handed over from heir to heir, and the fruit of literary work, the only thing that will forever be one’s own. Pliny’s hortatory statement reads: Effinge aliquid et excude, quod sit perpetuo tuum. Nam reliqua rerum tuarum post te alium atque alium dominum sortientur, hoc numquam tuum desinet esse si semel coeperit.

The diction in the passage is indicative of the tension that the topic at hand appears to impose on the epistle’s language about objects. On the one hand, the thing-ness of the literary work is elided: whatever Pliny’s friend is invited to produce is a gnomic aliquid (or a hoc tuum). On the other hand, the objectual quality of the literary product is suggested by way of semantic association, since that same quod is opposed to ‘all the rest of your things’, reliqua rerum tuarum, a circumstance that makes it a thing as well. On the fact that villas are things there can be little doubt, but the same should be said about literary works. Yet, about the former Pliny appears to be allowed to talk in emphatic and strictly defined terms, thus producing the first long list of amenities in a villa description to which will be joined the later accounts of his own main estates in 2.17 and 5.6. About the latter, conversely, Pliny says nothing. In 1.2 and 1.3, two letters dealing with the same theme of editorial exhortation, thus, Pliny’s insistence on precise nomenclature and technical features of the villa’s gardens and buildings can be seen as a compensation for the (over-technical) quality of the preceding letter about publishing one’s own work. The topos of the rhetorical villa description works as a socially acceptable discursive field for cultural production that is equivalent to, but incompatible with, that of the technical language of editing and publication. The relationship between the two discursive fields is neither symbolic nor allegorical. It is not the case that Pliny talks about his friend’s villa in order to talk about literary production in a veiled manner. Quite the contrary, in letter 1.3 Pliny talks about the villa because he cannot talk about his friend’s literary production in the same terms as he has done in letter 1.2 about his own. Pliny muses on his friend’s estate in Como because

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

230

Ilaria Marchesi

villas—in the guise of estate accounts as much as of estate planning— are what one may talk about in relation to literary production. The language of villa architecture appears as the terrain, one may say ‘the cultural code’, in which Pliny feels allowed to talk about material reality in association with the production of literary objects. Villas and their language are linked to the work of literature because they are material objects and, at the same time, they are not. The coexistence of villas and literary objects in carefully separated, neighbouring texts is possible because villas and their literary representations have undergone a cultural treatment that has endowed them with a peculiar status. They have been made to join a ‘less material’ category of objects. These are the objects that, as we are about to see in a clearer light in the next section, are made to be unaffected by the passing of time and the transience of possession. Of course, there are degrees in this process, as Epistle 1.3 points out rather bluntly, when it pits against each other the works of literature and the Como estate. When villas are located in discursive proximity to the production of literary texts, that is, their potential shortcomings become evident. But it is only when they are compared with the even more stable and permanent compound of literary works that they appear open to transience. The literary treatment of villas is in itself designed to remove precisely this potential stigma and reinforce the opposite sense of endurance. The next section will take as its object the cultural mechanisms that may have triggered and sustained the process, reuniting in one discursive field the immaterial quality of literature and the space of the villa.

TOTAM VILLAM: LISTS IN PROGRESS (EP. 2.17 AND 5.6) Inaugurated in letter 1.3, the topos of the villa description appears twice more in Pliny’s letters, in both cases in association with the same stylistic constant noted above, the enumeration of architectural components. In addition to several brief mentions of other villas he owned (or used) at some point in his life, Pliny devotes two substantial, famous, and much-studied epistles to a thorough description of two of his estates that he makes central to his collection: Ep. 2.17, in

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

231

which he surveys his estate at Laurentum, and Ep. 5.6, in which he describes his Tusci villa. Pliny’s letters are so detailed that they have been used to produce several architectural renditions over the centuries, either as plans or in more speculative perspectival form.4 Inspiring as it is, the architectural detail that Pliny achieves in his description depends on a rhetorical and compositional strategy. His descriptions are offered as an imaginary guided tour, hardly a set of building instructions, rich in spatial indications. Rhetorically, each letter develops a double set of lists: directional indicators and spatial points of reference are equally abundant and similarly organized in enumeration form. Just a sample of this technique may suffice, a passage in which spatial modifiers are highlighted: Villa usibus capax, non sumptuosa tutela. Cuius in prima parte atrium frugi, nec tamen sordidum; deinde porticus in D litterae similitudinem circumactae, quibus paruola sed festiua area includitur. [ . . . ] Est contra medias cauaedium hilare, mox triclinium satis pulchrum [ . . . ]. Undique ualuas aut fenestras non minores ualuis habet atque ita a lateribus a fronte quasi tria maria prospectat; a tergo cauaedium porticum aream porticum rursus, mox atrium siluas et longinquos respicit montes. Huius a laeua retractius paulo cubiculum est amplum, deinde aliud minus quod altera fenestra admittit orientem, occidentem altera retinet [ . . . ]. (2.17.4–6)

When moving mentally or graphically through Pliny’s spaces, we react to the instant directions spelled out in the text. The motion is constant: in the first section, then, on the opposite side, then/next, on all sides (immediately specified as: on the sides, at the front, at the back), then, on the left, beyond that, etc. What these directional indications place on the mental map of Pliny’s house are the many single-purpose rooms that make up his villa: here the list could go on longer. Pliny’s Laurentinum is an extensive complex, in which numerous rooms are listed, each with some highlighted functional or descriptive feature: atrium, porticus, triclinium, cubiculum #1,

4 In the vast literature on the topic of Pliny’s villas, gardens, and their descriptions, one may want to consider at least D’Arms 1970; Lefèvre 1977 (and again 2009: 223–51); Salza Prina Ricotti 1983 and 1987; Littlewood 1987; Ackerman 1990; Bergmann 1991 and 1995; Förtsch 1993; du Prey 1994; McEwen 1995; Bodel 1997; Riggsby 1997 and 2003; Métraux 1998; Wallace-Hadrill 1998; Hoffer 1999: 29–44; Mielsch 2003; Henderson 2004: 80–91; Nevett 2010 (esp. ‘Seeing the domus’); Gibson and Morello 2012: 200–33.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

232

Ilaria Marchesi

(aliud minus) cubiculum #2, cubiculum in hapsida curuatum #3, dormitorium, cubiculum #4, cubiculum uel cenatio [ambiguous: #4a], cubiculum cum procoetone #5, aliud (cubiculum #6) et procoeton, cella frigidaria, unctorium, hypocauston, propnigeon, balinei, duae cellae, calida piscina, sphaeristerium, duae diaetae, totidem (diaetae), cenatio, cubiculum #6, apotheca, horreum, triclinium, cenatio, duae diaetae, cryptoporticus, diaeta, heliocaminus, cubiculum #7, zotheca, cubiculum #8, procoeton, cubiculum #9. The list goes on and on, and the final effect of this enumeration is that the epistle reads as a catalogue of directions, rooms, details about their layout and the section of landscape they take in; then more directions, more rooms, more details about their various usages, and so on. The same principles apply to his description of the villa Tusci: spatial connectors structure the enumeration of rooms and of their purposes. The description we have for this second villa is just as precise and just as rich in detail as the one in Laurentum. A sample may suffice to introduce a more detailed argument on a particular room: A capite porticus triclinium excurrit; ualuis xystum desinentem et protinus pratum multumque ruris uidet, fenestris hac latus xysti et quod prosilit uillae, hac adiacentis hippodromi nemus comasque prospectat. Contra mediam fere porticum diaeta paulum recedit, cingit areolam, quae quattuor platanis inumbratur. Inter has marmoreo labro aqua exundat circumiectasque platanos et subiecta platanis leni aspergine fouet. Est in hac diaeta dormitorium cubiculum quod diem clamorem sonum excludit, iunctaque ei cotidiana amicorumque cenatio: areolam illam, porticus alam eademque omnia quae porticus adspicit. Est et aliud cubiculum a proxima platano uiride et umbrosum, marmore excultum podio tenus, nec cedit gratiae marmoris ramos insidentesque ramis aues imitata pictura. Fonticulus in hoc, in fonte crater; circa spicunculi plures miscent iucundissimum murmur. In cornu porticus amplissimum cubiculum triclinio occurrit; aliis fenestris xystum, aliis despicit pratum, sed ante piscinam, quae fenestris seruit ac subiacet, strepitu uisuque iucunda; nam ex edito desiliens aqua suscepta marmore albescit. Idem cubiculum hieme tepidissimum, quia plurimo sole perfunditur. (Ep. 5.6.19–24)

Once again, the rhetoric of the letter is dominated by a long sequence of spatial connectives and of room labels. Pliny’s skill in implementing the variety principle in his writing is perhaps at its best here. Metaphors and immediate directional indicators are deftly mixed. Pliny’s text starts at the top of a portico, with one of these metaphors

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

233

(evoking perhaps the traditional top-to-bottom rhetorical mode of description), then moves to a distance indicator far away, proceeds to use the anti-climactic (but redoubled) on this side . . . on that, and finally entrusts more deictic propositional expressions with the task of rendering space on the page: among these, in this, close by, in the end, in this, around, in one wing, before. With all the rhetorical variety that Pliny achieves in his descriptions, one has the sense of being presented with a long list of something—actually, with a long and detailed list of things. All possible rhetorical artifices cannot dispel a sense of satiety that accompanies our reading. This is not a modern, insensitive reaction: Pliny is even at pains to justify his descriptive tour de force. He appeals to a rhetorical principle, that of commensuration of object to text, and in so doing reveals something about the nature of the things he has treated so far in his text: Vitassem iam dudum ne uiderer argutior, nisi proposuissem omnes angulos tecum epistula circumire. [ . . . ] In summa—cur enim non aperiam tibi uel iudicium meum uel errorem?—primum ego officium scriptoris existimo, titulum suum legat atque identidem interroget se quid coeperit scribere, sciatque si materiae immoratur non esse longum, longissimum si aliquid accersit atque attrahit. [ . . . ] Similiter nos, ut ‘parua magnis’, cum totam uillam oculis tuis subicere conamur, si nihil inductum et quasi deuium loquimur, non epistula quae describit sed uilla quae describitur magna est. (Ep. 5.6.41–4) I should long since have been afraid of boring you, had I not set out in this letter to take you with me round every corner of my estate. . . . In short—for there is no reason why I should not be frank with you, whether my judgements are sound or unsound—I consider that it is the first duty of a writer to select the title of his work and constantly ask himself what he has begun to write about. He may be sure that so long as he keeps to his subject matter he will not be long winded, but that he will bore his readers to distraction if he starts dragging in extraneous matter to make weight . . . It is the same with myself, if I may ‘compare my lowly efforts . . . ’. I have been trying to set the whole of my villa before your eyes, and if I have introduced no extraneous matter and have never wandered off my subject, it is not the letter containing the description which is large, but rather the villa that is described.

As modern readers, we tend to respond to Pliny’s claim of commensuration (if not co-extension) of object and literary treatment with a conditioned cultural reflex, that of ‘reality-effect’. Detailed descriptions

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

234

Ilaria Marchesi

and lists of objects or their features become for us an index of literature’s asymptotic approach to providing a replica of the world we may experience outside the book. Of course, our reaction is only natural insofar as it has become habitual. A long literary tradition, summarized in Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis, has trained Western readers to associate details, detailed descriptions, and the list-form that accompanies them with realism, that is, with the ‘representation’ (Darstellung) of reality in surrogate form to the mind of the reader. It is a process that Pliny’s letter certainly suggests is at work on his authorial side, when he claims that he intended ‘to lay down the whole villa before his reader’s eyes’ (5.6.44).5 And yet, there are elements both in Pliny’s brief review of authorities and in his strongly stated claim to ‘totality’ (totam villam), that are difficult to square with our modern sensibility: Vides quot uersibus Homerus, quot Vergilius arma hic Aeneae Achillis ille describat; breuis tamen uterque est quia facit quod instituit. Vides ut Aratus minutissima etiam sidera consectetur et colligat; modum tamen seruat. Non enim excursus hic eius, sed opus ipsum est. (5.6.43) You see how many verses Homer uses to describe the arms of Achilles, how many Vergil the arms of Aeneas—yet in both cases the description is short, because the author only carries out what he intended to. You see how Aratus hunts down and collects even the tiniest stars—yet he does not exceed due limits. For his description is not an excursus, but the goal of the work itself.

We may agree that Achilles’ or Aeneas’ shields are not exactly what we consider now likely candidates for a ‘realistic’ representation; nor are the connections among the stars which become Aratus’ ‘objects’. There is something about Pliny’s ‘realism’ that makes him choose peculiar objects as counterparts for his long, serial descriptions. By extension, the ‘objectivity’ that he implements in his descriptions is of a particular kind. Something, and something very objective, is actually missing from Pliny’s ‘total experience’ of his villa. The rooms he describes are seemingly all empty. In the many thousand square feet of his residence at Laurentum, organized in a staggering number of rooms (thirty-eight, to be precise), Pliny doesn’t seem to host a single piece of furniture. Put in a different way, with more awareness of the

5 For the largest spectrum of the phenomena involved in the literary construction of the reality effect, see Auerbach 1953 and Orlando 2006; for historicizations, Gebauer and Wulf 1996: 217–32; for a survey of theorizations, Halliwell 2002: 344–81.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

235

topographical fallacy of any argument on literary texts, we may say that in his villas Pliny did not seem to find anything worth mentioning beyond what was made of bricks and mortar. There are two exceptions that may confirm this general rule. When we concentrate on one particular room in each house, which Pliny himself isolates as the affective highlight, we realize that the absence of furniture in the epistles is not the reflex of an alleged hyperminimalist taste in interiors indulged in by their author and owner, but a feature of his literary design. Let us start again with Laurentum, with a room that Pliny admits he particularly cherishes: In capite xysti, deinceps cryptoporticus horti, diaeta est amores mei, re uera amores: ipse posui. In hac heliocaminus quidem alia xystum, alia mare, utraque solem, cubiculum autem ualuis cryptoporticum, fenestra prospicit mare. Contra parietem medium zotheca perquam eleganter recedit, quae specularibus et uelis obductis reductisue modo adicitur cubiculo modo aufertur. Lectum et duas cathedras capit; a pedibus mare, a tergo uillae, a capite siluae: tot facies locorum totidem fenestris et distinguit et miscet. Iunctum est cubiculum noctis et somni. Non illud uoces seruolorum, non maris murmur, non tempestatum motus non fulgurum lumen, ac ne diem quidem sentit, nisi fenestris apertis. Tam alti abdicitque secreti illa ratio, quod interiacens andron parietem cubiculi hortique distinguit atque ita omnem sonum media inanitate consumit. (Ep. 2.17.20–2) At the head of the terrace and then of the portico and garden is a suite of rooms, my favourite spot and well worthy of being so. I had them built myself. In this is a sun-chamber which commands the terrace on one side, the sea on another, and the sun on both; besides an apartment which looks onto the portico through folding doors and onto the sea through a window. In the middle of the wall is a small recess, which by means of windows and curtains can either be joined to the adjoining room or cut off from it. It contains a couch and two chairs, and as you lie on the couch you have the sea at your feet, the villa at your back, and the woods at your head, and all these views may be looked at separately from each window or blended into one prospect. Adjoining is a chamber for passing the night in or taking a nap; here you do not hear a sound either of your slaves talking, or the murmur of the sea, or the raging of the storms and flashes of the lightning, or even know that it is day, unless the windows are open. This deep seclusion and remoteness is due to the fact that an intervening passage separates the wall of the chamber from that of the garden, and so all the sound is dissipated in the empty space between.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

236

Ilaria Marchesi

The letter makes us cross again into enumeration territory. We have the same double listing of directional and architectural connectives and of rooms to which we have been exposed above: at the top, thereafter, therein, on the opposite side; at the feet, behind, at the top, and then adjectives with a quasi-adverbial quality, (in connection) with, (lying) in between. Again, we also have a list of rooms. One element is added, though, as if in passing: one of the many cubicula of the villa contains a bed and two chairs. Once our reading stumbles into these two pieces of furniture, we realize how lonesome they are. If we take up the reading of the text from the start, we actually realize that they are the only household property listed in the whole epistle.6 This strange phenomenon can be found in the Tusci epistle, on an even smaller scale. Let us once again narrow our focus to one specific room, once again a somewhat recessed and isolated one in the vast expanse of Pliny’s literary grounds. We are in the area of the hippodrome, among pleasant meadows, grown trees, and artful topiary. In the midst of all this tamed and refined nature, we run into a small building, a stibadium. Here is what Pliny has to say about it: In capite stibadium candido marmore uite protegitur; uitem quattuor columellae Carystiae subeunt. [ . . . ] Contra fons egerit aquam et recipit; nam expulsa in altum in se cadit iunctisque hiatibus et absorbetur et tollitur. E regione stibadii aduersum cubiculum tantum stibadio reddit ornatus, quantum accipit ab illo. Marmore splendet, ualuis in uiridia prominet et exit, alia uiridia superioribus inferioribusque fenestris suspicit despicitque. Mox zothecula refugit quasi in cubiculum idem atque aliud. Lectus hic et undique fenestrae, et tamen lumen obscurum umbra premente. At the upper end is a couch of white marble covered with a vine, the latter being supported by four small pillars of Carystian marble . . . Facing this is a fountain which receives back the water it expels, for the water is thrown up to a height and then falls down again, and the pipes that perform the two processes are connected. Directly opposite the couch is a bed-chamber, and each lends a grace to the other. It is formed of glistening marble, and through the projecting folding doors you pass at once among the foliage, while both from the upper and lower windows you look out upon more foliage. Then comes a little 6

The only other piece of furniture is an armarium in 2.17.8. It is a wooden bookcase, though it seems built into a recess of the wall: parieti eius in bibliothecae speciem armarium insertum est. Immovability seems to balance perishability in this case.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

237

nichette which seems to belong at once to the same and yet another bedchamber. This contains a bed and it has windows on every side, yet the shade is so thick without that but little light enters.

It is curious and perhaps symptomatic that McEwen defines the Tusci as ‘relatively well furnished’ (p. 20) in comparison with the Laurentum villa, although we have only one bed to fill up twenty-eight rooms. By its isolated presence, this sole object draws our attention to its uniqueness in the epistolary space. It is perhaps not meant to do so, and yet it is difficult not to take note of it. In Pliny’s inventory, there seem to be only one bed and two chairs in one villa and a single bed in the other, all hidden away in the most intimate recesses. If Pliny’s villa is ‘realistic’, there is something pathological about the uncluttered quality of his ambience. But what may we do with this awareness? Can we dispel the eerie feeling of having noticed something culturally inappropriate by invoking the material side of cultural history? The extremist approach that Pliny takes to furnishing is particularly striking when compared to less literarily filtered accounts of what a villa unit may contain or with archaeological evidence. Cato’s De re rustica 10, for instance, gives a short list of the necessary furniture for an olive yard of 240 iugera: abacum I, orbes aheneos II, mensas II, scamna magna III, scamnum in cubiculo I, scabilla III, sellas IIII, solia II, lectum in cubiculo I, lectos loris subtentos IIII et lectos III. Compared to this catalogue, which was certainly conceived as frugal, two chairs and a bed in one whole villa and one single bed in the other can only sound like very little.7 Of course, there is something stereotypically classical about the image Pliny gives us of the spaces he inhabits; and this classical quality is perhaps what makes the great emptiness of his spaces almost imperceptible to us. We scarcely sense that there is something missing in his description of each villa, until we walk into one special room and actually bump into one of those beds or chairs. In our naturalized perception of what is supposed to be taken as classical, however, we might suffer from the same stereotypical habit in which we indulge when we think about Japanese architecture, an imaginary field where buildings like the seventeenth-century Katsura palace

7 For the remark on relative density of furnishings in the two villas, see McEwen 1995: 20. On archaeological data for Roman interior design, see Budetta and Pagano 1988; Mols 1999; De Carolis 2007; Ulrich 2007: 213–34.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

238

Ilaria Marchesi

have acquired a canonical as well as iconic status that has naturalized their emptiness. After all, already in the second half of the nineteenth century, Pierre Loti was able to read in the ‘Japan-ness’ of his morganatic mother-in-law’s house a semiotic status that is perhaps akin to the way Pliny characterizes the life of leisurely cultivation of the self that he leads in his villas. The quotation at the top of this essay, at least, suggests as much. An uncluttered dwelling, as empty as Pliny loves to make us think his house was, can actually mean something; it can be entrusted with a message about its owner and his daily life, his tastes and stance in society. Emptiness, by way of an absence of signs, can still signify. Whether the humility and self-control of its inhabitants, or their algid clear-mindedness, or something else altogether, it will depend on the culture using that sign. But self-presentation of a social subject or self-fashioning of the author’s persona is perhaps not all there is to the vast emptiness that Pliny presents to his readers. Pliny’s subtle but pervasive association of villa spaces (and villas themselves) with literary pursuits, in particular with the more mundane and yet essential activities surrounding the actual production of literary works as material objects, accompanies this palpable emptiness now as it did the first villa description in Epistle 1.3. The architectural blind spot concerning mobile elements of interior design is motivated by a set of cultural assumptions that are as much sociological as they are literary, and a contrastive comparison with philologically unrelated and yet pointedly oppositional intertexts may help to gather a sense of the implied norms of the code for representation that Pliny adopts. At the same time as his epistolary villas were so scantily furnished, other dwellings in other genres were crowded with objects of precisely the kind that do not make it to the level of visibility in his texts. By pointedly disregarding objects of use, Pliny’s letters actually invite a counter-reading and find a counter-model in the lists of household objects that Martial did indeed produce and insisted in making visible in his epigrams.

HIC UBI ROMA SUAS AUREA VEXAT OPES: MARTIAL’S LISTS IN THE OPEN There are two famous examples of object-enumerations that may serve particularly well as literary counterpoints to Pliny’s texts. They

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

239

are both celebrated poems, coming from two of the later books of Martial’s epigrams. Based on a deft use of the topos of the list, and resulting each in a literary parade of distinctively abject or distinctively precious objects, they offer a sense of what alternatives in the area of literary treatment of household objects were available to Pliny’s contemporary audience. Let us begin with a reading of epigram 12.32, which deals in harshly satirical tones with the eviction of a certain Vacerra for not having paid his rent: O Iuliarum dedecus Kalendarum, uidi, Vacerra, sarcinas tuas, uidi; quas non retentas pensione pro bima portabat uxor rufa crinibus septem et cum sorore cana mater ingenti. Furias putaui nocte Ditis emersas. has tu priores frigore et fame siccus et non recenti pallidus magis buxo Irus tuorum temporum sequebaris. Migrare cliuom crederes Aricinum. ibat tripes grabatus et bipes mensa, et cum lucerna corneoque cratere matella curto rupta latere meiebat; foco uirenti suberat amphorae ceruix; fuisse gerres aut inutiles maenas odor inpudicus urcei fatebatur, qualis marinae uix sit aura piscinae. nec quadra deerat casei Tolosatis, quadrima nigri nec corona pulei caluaeque restes alioque cepisque, nec plena turpi matris olla resina, Summemmianae qua pilantur uxores. Quid quaeris aedes uilicesque derides, habitare gratis, o Vacerra, cum possis? haec sarcinarum pompa conuenit ponti.

5

10

15

20

Oh disgrace of the Calends of July, I saw, Vacerra, I saw your chattels, which, refused by the landlord in lieu of two years’ rent, were carried away by your wife, distinguishable by her seven carroty hairs, your hoary-headed mother, and your giantess of a sister. I thought at first they were Furies emerging from the shades of Pluto. They went before, while you, wasted with cold and hunger, and paler than a piece of old box-wood, the very Irus of your day, followed. People might have

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

240

Ilaria Marchesi

thought that the Aricine Hill was migrating. There went in procession a three-legged bed, a two footed table, a lamp, a horn cup, and a cracked chamberpot, taking a leak through its side. Close to these was a rusty stove, the neck of a wine-vessel, and a jar, which its disgusting smell proved to have contained pilchards and decayed herrings, a smell like that wafted by the breeze from a pond of stagnant water. Nor was there wanting a slice of Toulouse cheese; a garland, four years old, of black pennyroyal; a rope of bald garlic and onions; or a pot belonging to your mother, full of offensive resin, which the easy dames of the Suburra use at their toilette. Why are you looking about for a house and deluding agents, when you may live for nothing, Vacerra? This pompous train of baggage is just right for the bridge.

The central section of the poem is particularly pertinent to the argument advanced here.8 After the physical and moral portrait of Vacerra’s familia (now reduced to his ‘family’) and before the catalogue of his meagre victuals, the poem inserts a list of the objects that the evicted protagonist is hauling through the streets of Rome. Three distinctive features in them are worth noting. First, and most important, these objects are made visible. Martial’s insistence on their display and evidence is marked in line 2 by the reduplication of the verb uidi. They are a grotesquely impoverished interior design turned inside out, the entrails of a house laid bare and violently brought out in the open. Second, all that Vacerra’s family carries with them is preemptively classed as a heap of worthless objects. All household items they still own have been discarded by Vacerra’s landlord, who must judge them so obsolete and useless that he even refuses to retain them as payment for the two years’ rent he is owed. Vacerra’s goods suffer, thus, from a primary loss of functionality, which makes them liable to become the object of representation in a satirical text. Third, all objects in the epigram are marked by some connotation of disgrace: they are missing some parts (three legs when the design called for four, two when it called for three); they are cracked or otherwise mutilated (the chamber-pot is vindictively urinating as it passes by, the neck is all that was left of a wine jar, the stove is rusted); the fish-jar stinks. In their accumulation and in the accumulation of defects by which they are marked, Vacerra’s things also appear to a modern reader somewhat realistic. At least, they appear more realistic than 8 In what follows, I develop observations and deploy methods first advanced by Orlando 2006: 76–80.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

241

the literary object Pliny had proposed as rhetorical counterpart to his villa description. Again, we should be aware that it may be the training we have received from modern literature—in particular the novel—that dictates this reaction. It is not their ‘realism’ that unites these objects in one general category. Rather, it is the fact that they all belong to a distinct cultural category. The apparent variety of physical misfortunes that have left their mark on Vacerra’s household objects rests on an underlying factor: the passing of time and the very concrete effect that it has on material things. What unites Martial’s characterization of Vacerra’s belongings is that they all, in different ways, and yet compactly, display the signs of their usage: they are cracked and worn out, tested by fire and found lacking, proved friable by the repeated use that has been made of them. If these are the things that may be expected to belong to a social and cultural pariah, someone defeated in the struggle for life that is Rome’s daily existence in Martial’s times, it will surprise no one that such objects don’t find their way into Pliny’s texts. Pliny certainly does not own anything of that sort. What is more, social and literary decorum would perhaps never allow others to catch a glimpse of him using or describing them in the open. These objects belong in the literary genre of satire, in the category that Francesco Orlando defined as the threadbare-grotesque. But sociological factors alone cannot explain the exclusion of all objects, not only low-grade ones, from Pliny’s villa descriptions. If, that is, their social and cultural humility makes tattered objects unsuitable for description in the high-brow account of Pliny’s villas, the same could not be said about the much more valuable, even precious, objects that make up another of Martial’s catalogue-epigrams, 9.59. Epigram 9.59 again stars a familiar character in Martial, Mamurra. Not unlike Vacerra, Mamurra too obtains considerable screen time in Martial’s collection, and for much the same reasons. The objects with which he associates himself show, in his case by his not being able to acquire them, what he really is. In the vignette of the epigram, Mamurra is portrayed as an avid shopper who tends to forget what his budget really is. And this is his satirical side. The objects with which he comes into contact, however, are all valuable, even precious. Mamurra’s shopping list, in other words, does not suffer from any primary lack of functionality or value, and yet its contents cannot make it outside the confines of the epigram. They are of a kind that

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

242

Ilaria Marchesi

few would object to finding in Pliny’s environment, and yet they are not there: In Saeptis Mamurra diu multumque uagatus, hic ubi Roma suas aurea uexat opes, inspexit molles pueros oculisque comedit, non hos quos primae prostituere casae, sed quos arcanae seruant tabulata catastae et quos non populus nec mea turba uidet. inde satur mensas et opertos exuit orbes expositumque alte pingue poposcit ebur, et testudineum mensus quater hexaclinon ingemuit citro non satis esse suo. consuluit nares an olerent aera Corinthon, culpauit statuas et, Polyclite, tuas, et turbata breui questus crystallina uitro murrina signauit seposuitque decem. expendit ueteres calathos et si qua fuerunt pocula Mentorea nobilitata manu, et uiridis picto gemmas numerauit in auro, quidquid et a niuea grandius aure sonat. sardonychas uero mensa quaesiuit in omni et pretium magnis fecit iaspidibus. undecima lassus cum iam discederet hora, asse duos calices emit et ipse tulit.

5

10

15

20

Mamurra, after having walked long and anxiously in the squares, where golden Rome ostentatiously displays her riches, viewed the tender young slaves, and devoured them with his eyes; not those exposed in the open shops, but those which are kept for the select in private apartments, and are not seen by the people, or such as I am. Satiated with this inspection, he uncovers tables square and round, and asks to see some rich ivory ornaments which were displayed on the top shelf.9 Then, having four times measured a dinner-couch for six, wrought with tortoise-shell, he sorrowfully regretted that it was not large enough for his citrus-wood table. He took a good sniff to see whether the bronzes had the true Corinthian aroma, and criticized the statues of Polyclitus! 9 Perhaps a better translation, ‘more remote’ (as in ‘more deeply hidden’) for alte, is suggested by the appearance of the same lemma in Pliny. On pingue and altum in the letters, see the interplay in letters 1.3 and 9.3 between the language used for the circumstances of production and publication of literary work and the villas. On the issue, see Hoffer 1999: 39–40; Leach 2003; Fitzgerald 2007b: 198.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

243

Next, complaining that some crystal vases had been spoiled by an admixture of glass, he marked and set aside ten myrrhine cups. He weighed ancient bowls, and inquired after goblets ennobled by the hand of Mentor. He counted emeralds set in chased gold, and examined the largest pearl ear-pendants. He scoured every counter for real sardonyxes, and haggled some large jaspers down. At last, forced by fatigue to retire at the eleventh hour, he bought two cups for a dime— and carried them home himself.

There is really nothing wrong with the primary aesthetic value of any of the objects that Mamurra handles and bargains for in the market. Young slaves, of the kind Martial says his likes don’t see, tables, ivories, tortoise-shell dining couches, big enough to seat six, bronze objects, statues, crystal cups, antique bowls, artist-signed goblets, gemstones of different kinds are all worthy objects, displaying no apparent shortcoming. Quite the contrary, they are all pricey and even precious, refined or even artistic. With the exception, perhaps, of the molles pueri,10 they would not be out of place in any one of Pliny’s villas. Yet they are nowhere to be found in his household catalogue. If these objects are left out of the picture, this is not because of their varied, incidental worth (either monetary or artistic), but because of their potential for rapid decay. Furniture is intrinsically transient, and archaeological evidence has actually proved Pliny right: if it were not for the particular way Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried under ash, we would have very few material examples of the actual furnishing in Roman dwellings. In this very general, almost ontological sense, Mamurra’s treasured goods are only one step away from Vacerra’s heap of broken junk. In the case of Mamurra’s shopping list, however, it might not just be their perishable nature that makes his treasured objects inappropriate. Martial’s epigram, with its insistence on bringing all these objects into the open space of the market and of the text, isolates a different feature in them. The intrinsic ‘problem’, from the point of view of a writer like Pliny, that affects all objects might be exactly what makes them liable to be described in Martial’s epigram: their market availability. We should keep in mind how Martial insists on this facet of the objects of daily life, even the most refined ones, when we bring our investigation full circle in the next section and reflect on the one 10 In Pliny the term deliciae, common shorthand for this kind of slave, refers instead to real estate (Ep. 1.3).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

244

Ilaria Marchesi

peculiar object, for which the ability to withstand the passing of time is also paradoxically determined by its availability on the market. For now, we should use Martial to go back to the question of villas and their literary accounts one more time. Epigram 12.50 is a brief poem in which Martial targets the inhabitable and inhospitable quality of an ancient owner’s trophy-house: Daphnonas, platanonas et aerios pityonas et non unius balnea solus habes, et tibi centenis stat porticus alta columnis, calcatusque tuo sub pede lucet onyx, puluereumque fugax hippodromon ungula plaudit et pereuntis aquae fluctus ubique sonat; atria longa patent. Sed nec cenantibus usquam nec somno locus est. Quam bene non habitas!

5

You are distinguished for possessing laurel-groves, avenues of planetrees, towering cypresses, and baths too big for a single man like you. Your lofty portico stands on a hundred columns, and polished marble gleams under your feet. The swift-footed horse makes your dusty hippodrome resound with his hoofs, and the murmur of running water is heard on every side. Your halls are spacious and extensive; but there is no place anywhere for dining or sleep. How pleasantly you do not live!

Rhetorically, we have seen all of this before, and on a larger scale, in Pliny. Not for nothing, villa description is a recognized topos. Martial and Pliny agree with one another on what makes a house beautiful, worth looking at and visiting. They agree on what makes a house, if not a home, at least a statement. One might even get an eerie feeling of having already seen this villa of Martial’s, with its gardens, baths, colonnades, hippodrome, and omnipresent fountains. If it is not Pliny’s villa—and philology tells us that it cannot be—it certainly is a dwelling that is ‘Plinian’ in quality. Once again, it is not a metaprosopographical argument that should be pressed here, but rather a meta-literary one—and neither in isolation. Martial’s text is not an epigram about Pliny or his peers as villa owners. Rather, this epigram is a swing against Pliny and his peers as writers about villas and about what these villas should, and do in fact, contain. On a first level, and explicitly, the epigram is a ridiculing response to the vastly empty descriptions of places in which human beings are made to live by their chosen life of luxury. The response is articulated in the contrast between the space of display and that of cultural (and

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

245

natural) necessities. Its meta-literary quality consists in its taking up the formal constant of the orderly enumeration and applying it to the permanent ‘objects’ typical of Pliny’s villas, only to remark that ‘real living’ cannot take place in the spaces thus constructed. As it stands, in sum, it is a satirical take on a social habit. On a different level, however, the meta-literary attack coming from Martial cuts into Pliny’s literary strategy and targets directly his literary object-avoidance. Martial’s text could have closed with something to the effect of: ‘You have all of the above, but no table or chair or bed—how badly you live there, my friend!’ In so doing, however, his poem would have fallen into an epigrammatic listing of objects that the monumental house does not have. In saying ‘and you have no tables or chairs or beds’, that is, it would have inscribed these objects into the text, albeit negatively. It would have poetically furnished the uncluttered literary spaces of literary villas, which is exactly the rhetorical and cultural feature that we detected in Pliny’s villa descriptions and that the epigram attacks now, by insisting that it is not the way to do things. The fact that a linguistic and rhetorical figure, the affirmative value of negatives, may undo the main thrust of the text suggests that this poem’s focus is not simply social but at least as much literary. In epigram 12.50, we are not offered only a satire of ostentatious real-estate investments, nor it is only the objectless genre of building description, with its emptied-out spaces, that Martial is interested in debunking. By producing an objectless poem—by slyly substituting ‘dining and sleeping’ for ‘tables and beds’—Martial targets a literary habit, a whole mode of writing, a cultural attitude in which the objects of daily life (and the social subjects that they represent) are simply made to be invisible. He targets, in short, Pliny’s and his own culture.

BIBLIOPOLAE: ON HITTING THE SHELVES—OR NOT Two different sets of arguments may be developed at this point. The first reads the indirect dialogue between Pliny and Martial on representing or not the objects of daily life in a personal vein, as an exchange between authors, who use their texts to make or to score points of a literary kind. The second proposes to see the dialogue between the Epistles and the Epigrams as an impersonal dissent between

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

246

Ilaria Marchesi

two modes of conceiving the social world and the role of literature in it. In the former line of argument, the names of Pliny and Martial need to be taken as referring to the authorial personae each writer entrusts to his texts; in the latter, the same names are to be taken as shorthand for two differing, if complementary, traditions or attitudes within a shared culture. It is often more advisable to opt for this second way of understanding the textual traces of dialogues of this kind in ancient literatures. After all, what may seem as a pointed evocation of a precise text might have been intended or perceived as a reference to other, perhaps unspecific, texts that have not come down to us. In the case of Pliny and Martial, however, even the first kind of argument is at least legitimate. After all, Martial dedicates one of his epigrams to Pliny and Pliny addresses to a friend an epistle lamenting the death of Martial and citing that epigram. It is with a cursory reading of this last—and philologically sole—point of direct contact between Martial’s and Pliny’s texts that the argument advanced in this paper will finally reach back to its inception, and we will be able to revisit the question of how objective Pliny may have been in representing the creation process for his literary work. Martial will be pertinent, indeed central, to this last exploration.11 Pliny’s diverted gaze and Martial’s obsessively focused attention to objects do not indicate a simple divergence on a point of style. What is at stake in their dissent is a larger approach to the representation of socially marked objects in literature. The phenomena that their differing attitudes produce in their respective texts make them belong to different and competing optical systems. From the point of view of Pliny, Martial’s objects, no matter whether refined or sordid, are systematically the transient and decaying objects with which his literary villas may well dispense. From the point of view of Martial, the same disregard that Pliny manifests for the representation of what is precisely transient and decaying is purely avoidance behaviour, a sterile exercise that turns a blind eye to what should, instead, require 11 On Martial as bookmaker, there is ample evidence and no dearth of commentary. See, with differing degrees of pertinence, Gold 1982; Saller 1983; White 1993; Fowler 1995; von Uwe 1998; Nauta 2002: 91–141; Citroni 1995 and 1996; Holzberg 2004/5; Fitzgerald 2007a; Hedrick 2011. Pliny’s negative attitude may be measured by his evoking Regulus as a counter-paradigm of editorial activity in 4.7.2, on the 1,000 copies of the memorial he writes for his own dead son, to be contrasted with 3.10.4, Pliny’s single-copy commemoration of Spurinna’s son (cf. also the uncanny proximity of 4.7.1 and 2.7.3).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

247

attention. Once again, the argument may be phrased to reflect the different social milieus that these authors address and the literary quality of their dissent, but it is wider in scope than either. This entanglement emerges perhaps most clearly in relation to the only ‘object’ that one may say Pliny and Martial really share: their books. As we saw in the first two sections of this chapter, in Pliny’s epistles villas are a space in which it is possible to monumentalize one’s own social standing, political reputation, and ethical character. They are, however, also made to serve as the self-reflexive space to address, albeit obliquely, the book’s own crafting as literary text. Pliny’s empty villas are the embodiment of his literary classicism: solid and stripped of all that is accessory, the epistolary villas are models that aspire to endure indefinitely in the future for their intrinsic worth. Though material, they have no part in the materiality of daily life. On the other hand, as we have had an opportunity to sense, in Martial Vacerra’s belongings are not simply the alien objects of a ridiculed and impoverished human being, to which the satirical poet turns his malevolent eye. In the way they manifest themselves on the page, they are also part of the tools of Martial’s trade as writer of social commentary, and a metonymy for his works. By adhering to a point of view from which the objects marked by the onslaught of time are visible, the epigrammatist cannot dispense with them when it comes to his own books. Unlike Pliny, Martial often commented on the material circumstances of the production and circulation of his poetry volumes, qua volumes of collected poetry. One particular case in which the material circumstances of the circulation of one of Martial’s books are brought into the foreground is epigram 10.19 (20), the poem that constitutes the only explicit tangency of Pliny’s and Martial’s collections. As we know, Martial’s poem to Pliny has a double philological life. It exists in complete form in Martial’s epigrams, and Pliny incorporates it into his exitus letter about Martial at the end of Book 3. He does so, however, only after having elided the first few lines, the content of which he summarized briefly in his prose for the benefit of Cornelius, the letter’s addressee: Quaeris, qui sint uersiculi, quibus gratiam rettuli? Remitterem te ad ipsum uolumen, nisi quosdam tenerem; tu, si placuerint hi, ceteros in libro requires. Alloquitur Musam, mandat, ut domum meam Esquiliis quaerat, adeat reuerenter.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

248

Ilaria Marchesi

You ask what were the verses for which I was grateful? I would have to refer you to the scroll itself, except I can cite some from memory. If you like these, you will find the rest in his book. He tells his Muse to go look for my house on the Esquiline and accost it with tact.

The address-bearing lines from Martial have undergone a double erasure. They are missing not only from Pliny’s memory—they don’t belong with the quosdam he remembers—but also from the book he publishes now. More than one suggestion may be and has been advanced to account for the lacuna, and it may be difficult to credit one over the other with particular power of explanation.12 What we may say with some degree of confidence is that the image of Martial’s poem as a pedestrian strolling the streets of Rome carried some unwanted political, social, or literary association. I have explored some of the literary, political, and social reasons for Pliny’s censorship elsewhere, connecting the silencing of Martial’s incipit to the antitypical relation with Regulus that Pliny’s letters strive to construct on multiple levels in the first four books of the collection. Here I would like to focus on the cultural stigma that seems to be associated with the book as a material object, brought out in the open, and caught in itinere between two points on the map of the city of Rome. For this is actually the image that is being created in the opening gambit of Martial’s poem: Nec doctum satis et parum seuerum, sed non rusticulum tamen libellum facundo mea Plinio Thalia i, perfer: breuis est labor peractae altum uincere tramitem Suburae. Go, my Thalia, and take to eloquent Pliny this little book, not very accomplished and not very serious, but still not clownish. Once through Subura, the effort of climbing the uphill path doesn’t take long.

It should be noted that in 3.21 the issue at hand is as much hodological as it is editorial. Pliny poses as ‘editor’ of the collection in which he is given a role as subject of praise: in epigram 10.19(20), Martial talked about the delivery of a book for which the epigram may have acted as cover letter, and Pliny confirms the book’s availability to his

12

On the issue, see Henderson 2002b; Edmunds 2015; Marchesi 2013.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

249

addressee.13 As Bodel has convincingly argued in this volume, Pliny’s letter may actually have been even more precise in targeting the editorial profile of Martial’s book, by containing an indication that Cornelius may find the missing line and the missing context for the laudatory poem in the (new edition) of Martial 10. If it is Martial’s book on its way to Pliny’s house that is made invisible in Pliny’s letter, the cluster of issues that prompted that invisibility is addressed at the end of the epistle. Subjection to time in the form of decay is, as we have suggested above, what makes Pliny’s pieces of furniture invisible to his literary gaze. Subjection to time, exactly in the form of decay, is what makes Vacerra’s objects visible to Martial. And it is again subjection to time that Pliny correctly sees in Martial’s poetry as its potential destiny, and makes him speculate about its cultural endurance. The way Pliny phrases its final envoy to Martial contains a clear statement of the perspective from which he writes: Dedit enim mihi, quantum maximum potuit, daturus amplius, si potuisset. Tametsi, quid homini potest dari maius quam gloria et laus et aeternitas? At non erunt aeterna, quae scripsit; non erunt fortasse, ille tamen scripsit, tamquam essent futura. He gave me the very best he had to give, and would have given more, had he been able to. And yet, what can a man be given which is greater than honour, praise, and eternity? ‘But his poems will not be eternal.’ Maybe not; yet he wrote them as if they were going to be.

In the hint of dialogue contained in the last line, Pliny allows his text to consider both sides of the argument about the endurance of literature and its subjection to time. Martial’s poems will not be eternal, as someone may say. Perhaps so, replies the text. And yet, even though they will not be eternal, their author wrote them as if they were going to be. What Martial wrote is destined to perish, but in the way Martial wrote it, it is undeniable that his work stakes a claim

13 Issues of publishing are not far from this context as well. The occasional quality of the cited poem is meant to be counteracted by the more stable and trustworthy textuality conferred upon it by Pliny’s own edition and publication of his private letters. Cf. Ep. 4.27. The quoted poem contains a potential reference to a published letter by Pliny: compare 4.27.4 (et meus Catullus et Caluus ueteresque), on and by Sentius Augurinus, which parallels and recycles Pliny’s 1.16.5 for Saturninus (uersus quales Catullus meus aut Caluus).

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

250

Ilaria Marchesi

to cultural endurance. Beyond the resigned, sceptical, or bitter tone in which we should read Pliny’s final statement, what the text makes clear is how difficult it is for Pliny himself to disentangle a reflection on his own material work of literary production, care, and dissemination in the present from Martial’s evident, easily achieved, and yet precarious success precisely in the same arena. Pliny’s investment of energy in marketing his own literature cannot be acknowledged, that is, without admitting the objective quality of his work—without admitting that all books are, after all, threatened by the passing of time. Martial’s strategy to secure success, in the form of wide and immediate market availability, on the other hand, cannot be articulated without entailing the notion that this is precisely what constitutes the main, if not the only, strategy to win cultural longevity. It is in this doubly binding necessity to avoid confrontation with books as objects of daily life that Pliny’s editorial reticence accrues. If the call to ensure permanence for their texts is admittedly the same in Pliny and Martial, Pliny postulates a difference in the way in which their products reach the book market. To the effectiveness in the present of Martial’s work, based on its hands-on approach to the objects of daily life—literary works included— Pliny decides to contrast his own emptying-out and extreme refinement of the literary product, in itself an assumed guarantor of cultural endurance. Two complementary small-scale paradoxes are at work in the way Pliny frames the production, circulation, and eventual consumption of his books. On the one hand, the example of Martial shows that a book cannot downplay the importance of garnering success (in the form of public display, patron approval, and imperial endorsement) to secure its own survival. On the other hand, and this is the complementary paradox, Pliny cannot let himself be caught taking material care of the present editorial fortunes of his work, since about these aspects of cultural life a dignified reticence is assumed. In the letters, the compromise is reached, provisional and tentative as it might be, in the interlacing and cross-purpose working of the material aspects of Pliny’s work as careful and ultimately perhaps frantic editor of his own epistolary corpus, and the classicizing literary content and ultimately nonchalant cultural message of his texts. The need to deny the former in order to substantiate the latter, one may say, is Pliny’s literary and editorial blind spot. This is perhaps one of the reasons why he decided ultimately to hold his peace and leave the

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

Uncluttered Spaces, Unlittered Texts

251

work of reflecting on and reconstructing the salient features of the publication process of his letters to someone else: to his contemporary readers no less than to his more distant ones. Appreciating what went into Pliny’s making of his book and understanding what it meant to have it reach eventual completion, thus, is a task that we have to undertake, as we have collectively done here, if not e tenebris, at least mostly e silentio.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References Ackerman, J. S. 1990. The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses, Princeton. Acosta-Hughes, B. 2002. Polyeideia: The Iambi of Challimacus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition, Berkeley. Acosta-Hughes, B. 2011. Callimachus in Context: From Plato to the Augustan Poets, Cambridge. Ahlheid, F. 1983. Quintilian: The Preface to Book VIII and Comparable Passages in the Institutio Oratoria, Amsterdam. Alföldy, G. 1977. Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter den Antoninen, Bonn. Anderson, G. 1981. ‘¸˙˚¨ˇ˝ and `ˇ¸˙˚¨ˇ’, The Journal of Hellenic Studies 101: 130–2. Anderson, W. 1986. ‘Poetic Arrangement from Virgil to Ovid’, in N. Fraistat, ed., Poems in Their Place: The Intertextuality and Order of Poetic Collections, Chapel Hill and London: 44–65. Appel, B. 1914. Das Bildungs- und Erziehungsideal Quintilians, Donauwörth. Asbach, I. 1881. ‘Zur Chronologie der Briefe des jüngeren Plinius’, Rheinische Museum 36: 38–49. Ash, R. 2003. ‘Aliud est enim epistulam aliud . . . historiam scribere (Epistles 6.16.22): Pliny the Historian?’, in Gibson and Morello, eds: 212–25. Ash, R. 2013. ‘Drip-Feed Invective: Pliny, Self-Fashioning, and the Regulus Letters’, in A. Marmodoro and J. Hill, eds, The Author’s Voice in Classical and Late Antiquity, Oxford: 207–30. Asper, M. 1997. Onomata allotria: Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos, Stuttgart. Aßfahl, G. 1932. Vergleich und Metapher bei Quintilian, Stuttgart. Aubrion, E. 1975. ‘Pline le Jeune et la rhétorique de l’affirmation’, Latomus 34: 90–130. Aubrion, E. 1989. ‘La “correspondence” de Pline le Jeune’, ANRW II.33.1: 304–74. Auerbach, E. 1953. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, Princeton. Austin, R. G. 1948. Quintiliani Institutionis Oratoriae Liber XII, Oxford. Austin, R. G. 1961. Cicero: In L. Calpurnium Pisonem Oratio, Oxford. Baldwin, B. 1979. ‘The Acta Diurna’, Chiron 9: 189–203 (reprinted in Studies on Greek and Roman History and Literature, Amsterdam, 1985: 459–73). Baldwin, B. 1992. ‘The Career and Work of Scribonius Largus’, Rheinisches Museum 135: 74–82.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

254

References

Baraz, Y. 2012. ‘Pliny’s Epistolary Dreams and the Ghost of Domitian’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 142: 105–32. Barchiesi, A. 1997. The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse, Berkeley. Barchiesi, A. 2001. Speaking Volumes: Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin Poets, London. Barchiesi, A. 2005. ‘The Search for the Perfect Book’, in Gutzwiller, ed.: 320–42. Bardon, H. 1952. La littérature latine inconnue, vol. 1: L’époque républicaine, Paris. Barnes, T. D. 1986. ‘The Significance of Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 90: 225–44. Barwick, K. 1936. ‘Zwei antike Ausgaben der Pliniusbriefe?’, Philologus 91: 423–48. Bauman, M. 2011. Bilder schreiben: Virtuose Ekphrasis in Philostrats ‘Eikones’, Berlin. Beard, M. 2002. ‘Ciceronian Correspondences: Making a Book Out of Letters’, in T. P. Wiseman, ed., Classics in Progress, London: 103–44. Becker, A. S. 1995. The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis, Lanham, MD. Bell, A. A. 1989. ‘A Note on Revision and Authenticity in Pliny’s Letters’, American Journal of Philology 110: 460–6. Bennett, J. 2001. Trajan: Optimus Princeps, 2nd edn, London. Bergmann, B. 1991. ‘Painted Perspectives of a Villa Visit: Landscape as Status and Metaphor’, in E. K. Gazda, ed., Roman Art in the Private Sphere: New Perspectives on the Architecture and Décor of the Domus, Villa, and Insula, Ann Arbor, MI: 49–70. Bergmann, B. 1995. ‘Visualizing Pliny’s Villas’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 8: 406–20 (reprinted in Gibson and Whitton 2015). Bernstein, N. W. 2008. ‘Each Man’s Father Served as his Teacher: Constructing Relatedness in Pliny’s Letters’, Classical Antiquity 27.2: 203–30. Berriman, A. and M. Todd. 2001. ‘A Very Roman Coup: The Hidden War of Imperial Succession’, Historia 50: 312–31. Beutel, F. 2000. Vergangenheit als Politik: Neue Aspekte im Werk des jüngeren Plinius, Frankfurt. Birley, A. R. 2000. Onomasticon to the Younger Pliny, Munich. Birt, T. 1882. Das antike Buchwesen in seinem Verhältniss zur Litteratur, Berlin. Blanck, H. 1992. Das Buch in der Antike, Munich. Bloomer, W. M. 1992. Valerius Maximus & the Rhetoric of the New Nobility, Chapel Hill. Boccuto, G. 1990. ‘Sulle idee retoriche di Plinio il Giovane’, in La fortuna e opere di Plinio il Giovane. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Città di Castello/San Giustino: 111–37.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

255

Boccuto, G. 1991. ‘Plinio Ep. VII, 9, 11. Un’affermazione letteraria in distici elegiaci’, Atene e Roma 36: 26–36. Bodel, J. 1997. ‘Monumental Villas and Villa Monuments’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 10: 5–35. Bonner, S. 1949. Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire, Liverpool. Booth. J. 2009. ‘The Amores: Ovid Making Love’, in P. E. Knox, ed., A Companion to Ovid, Malden, MA: 61–77. Bright, D. F. 1980. Elaborate Disarray: The Nature of Statius’ Silvae, Meisenheim. Brink, C. O. 1963. Horace on Poetry: Prolegomena to the Literary Epistles, Cambridge. Brink, C. O. 1989. ‘Quintilian’s De Causis Corruptae Eloquentiae and Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus’, Classical Quarterly 39: 472–503. Brink, C. O. 1994. ‘Can Tacitus’ Dialogus be Dated? Evidence and Historical Conclusions’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 96: 251–80. Briscoe, J. 1998. Valeri Maximi Facta et Dicta Memorabilia, 2 vols, Stuttgart and Leipzig. Brown, E. L. 1963. Numeri Vergiliani: Studies in ‘Eclogues’ and ‘Georgics’, Brussels. Bruère, R. T. 1954. ‘Tacitus and Pliny’s Panegyricus’, Classical Philology 49: 161–79. Budetta, T. and M. Pagano, eds. 1988. Ercolano: legni e piccoli bronzi (catalogue of the exhibition), Rome. Bütler, H.-P. 1970. Die geistige Welt des jüngeren Plinius: Studien zur Thematik seiner Briefe, Heidelberg. Cain, A. 2009. The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity, Oxford. Calboli, G. 1969. Rhetorica ad C. Herennium. Introduzione, testo critico, commento, Bologna. Cameron, A. 1965. ‘The Fate of Pliny’s Letters in the Late Empire’, Classical Quarterly n.s. 15: 289–98 (revised version in Gibson and Whitton 2015). Cameron, A. 2011. The Last Pagans of Rome, Oxford. Cancik, H. 1967. Untersuchungen zu Senecas Epistulae morales, Hildesheim. Carlon, J. 2009. Pliny’s Women: Constructing Virtue and Creating Identity in the Roman World, Cambridge. Castagna, L. and E. Lefèvre, eds. 2003. Plinius der Jüngere und seine Zeit, Munich. Champlin, E. 2001. ‘Pliny’s Other Country’, in Peachin, ed.: 121–8 (revised version in Gibson and Whitton 2015). Chaplin, J. D. 2000. Livy’s Exemplary History, Oxford. Chinn, C. M. 2007. ‘Before Your Very Eyes: Pliny Epistulae 5.6 and the Ancient Theory of Ekphrasis’, Classical Philology 102: 265–80.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

256

References

Citroni, M. 1975. M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton Liber Primus, Florence. Citroni, M. 1988. ‘Pubblicazione e dediche dei libri di Marziale’, Maia 49: 3–39. Citroni, M. 1989. ‘Marziale e la letteratura per i Saturnali (poetica dell’intrattenimento e cronologia della pubblicazione dei libri)’, Illinois Classical Studies 14: 201–26. Citroni, M. 1995. Poesia e lettori in Roma antica: Forme della comunicazione letteraria, Bari. Citroni, M. 1996. ‘Pubblicazione e dediche dei libri in Marziale. Gli epigrammi di fronte a imperatori, amici, lettori’, in M. Citroni, ed., Marziale, Epigrammi I, Milan: 5–106. Claes, P. 2002. Concatenatio Catulliana: A New Reading of the Carmina, Leiden. Clark, A. C. 1907. Q. Asconii Pediani orationum Ciceronis quinque enarratio, Oxford. Clarke, M. L. 1964. ‘Virgil and the Golden Section’ (review of Duckworth 1962), Classical Review 14: 43–5. Clausen, W. 1976. ‘Catulli Veronensis Liber’, Classical Philology 71: 37–43. Clauss, J. T. 1988. ‘Virgil and the Euphrates Revisited’, American Journal of Philology 109: 309–20. Coleman, K. M. 1988. Statius Silvae IV, Oxford. Coleman, K. M. 2006. Martial: Liber Spectaculorum, Oxford. Coleman, K. M. 2012. ‘Bureaucratic Language in the Correspondence Between Pliny and Trajan’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 142: 189–238. Collins, A. W. 2009. ‘The Palace Revolution: The Assassination of Domitian and the Accession of Nerva’, Phoenix 63: 73–106. Colson, F. H. 1924. M. Fabi Quintiliani Institutionis Oratoriae Liber I, Cambridge. Conte, G. B. 1976. ‘Proemi al mezzo’, Rivista di cultura classica e medioevale 18: 263–73 (translated as Conte, ‘Proems in the middle’, in F. M. Dunn and T. Cole, eds, Beginnings in Classical Literature, Cambridge, 1992: 147–59). Courtney, E. 1990. P. Papini Stati Silvae, Oxford. Cova, P. V. 1966. La critica letteraria di Plinio il Giovane, Brescia. Cova, P. V. 1972. ‘Arte allusiva e stilizzazione retorica nelle lettere di Plinio’, Aevum 46: 16–36. Cova, P. V. 2003. ‘Plinio il Giovane contro Quintiliano’, in Castagna and Lefèvre, eds: 83–94. Crook, J. A. 1967. Review of Sherwin-White 1966, Classical Review 17: 311–14. Cugusi, P. 1983. Evoluzione e forme dell’epistolografia latina nella tarda repubblica e nei primi due secoli dell’impero, con cenni sull’epistolografia preciceroniana, Rome.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

257

Cugusi, P. 1989. ‘L’epistolografia. Modelli e tipologie’, in G. Cavallo et al., eds, Lo spazio letterario di Roma antica, vol. 2: La circolazione del testo, Rome: 379–419. Cugusi, P., ed. 1992. Corpus Epistularum Latinarum Papyris Tabulis Ostracis Servatarum (Papyrologica Florentina 23), Florence. Cugusi, P. 2003. ‘Qualche riflessione sulle idee retoriche di Plinio il Giovane: Epistulae 1,20 e 9,26’, in Castagna and Lefèvre, eds: 95–122. Dain, A. 1946. Histoire du texte d’Élien le tacticien des origines a la fin du moyen age, Paris. Damon, C. 1990. ‘Poem Division, Paired Poems and Amores 2.9 and 3.11’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 120: 269–90. D’Arms, J. 1970. Romans on the Bay of Naples: A Social and Cultural Study of the Villas and Their Owners from 150 B.C. to A.D. 400, Cambridge. Davis, J. T. 1977. Dramatic Pairings in the Elegies of Propertius and Ovid (Noctes Romanae 15), Bern and Stuttgart. De Carolis, E. 2007. Il mobile a Pompei ed Ercolano: Letti, tavoli, sedie e armadi, Rome. Dettmer, H. 1997. Love by the Numbers: Form and Meaning in the Poetry of Catullus, New York. Dickey, E. 2002. Latin Forms of Address from Plautus to Apuleius, Oxford. Dickison, S. 1973. ‘Abortion in Antiquity’, Arethusa 6.1: 159–66. Dolansky, F. 2011. ‘Celebrating the Saturnalia: Religious Ritual and Roman Domestic Life’, in B. Rawson, ed., A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford and Malden, MA: 488–503. Doody, A. 2001. ‘Finding Facts in Pliny’s Encyclopaedia: The Summarium of the Natural History’, Ramus 30: 1–22. Doody, A. 2010. Pliny’s Encyclopaedia: The Reception of the Natural History, Cambridge. Duckworth, G. E. 1962. Structural Patterns and Proportions in Vergil’s Aeneid: A Study in Mathematical Composition, Ann Arbor, MI. Due, O. S. 1980. ‘Amores und Abtreibung: Ov. Am. II 13 & 14’, Classica et Mediaevalia 32: 133–50. Du Prey, P. 1994. The Villas of Pliny from Antiquity to Posterity, Chicago. DuQuesnay, I. and T. Woodman. 2012. Catullus: Poems, Books, Readers, Cambridge. Ebbeler, J. 2010. ‘Letters’, in A. Barchiesi and W. Scheidel, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies, Oxford: 464–76. Eck, W. 1970. Senatoren von Vespasian bis Hadrian, Munich. Eck, W. 1982. ‘Jahres- und Provinzialfasten der senatorischen Statthalter von 69/70 bis 138/39’, Chiron 12: 281–360. Eck, W. 2002. ‘An Emperor is Made: Senatorial Politics and Trajan’s Adoption by Nerva in 97’, in G. Clark and T. Rajak, eds, Philosophy and Power

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

258

References

in the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin, Oxford: 211–26. Edmunds, L. 2015. ‘Pliny the Younger on his Verse and Martial’s Nonrecognition of Pliny as a Poet’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 108. Edwards, R. 2008. ‘Hunting for Boars with Pliny and Tacitus’, Classical Antiquity 27: 35–58. Elbow, P. 2006. ‘The Music of Form: Rethinking Organization in Writing’, College Composition and Communication 57: 620–66. Elliott, J. 2009a. ‘Ennius’ Fabius Cunctator and the History of a Gerund in the Historiographical Tradition’, Classical Quarterly 59: 531–41. Elliott, J. 2009b. ‘Livy’s L. Papirius Cursor and the manipulations of the Ennian past’, Classical Quarterly 59: 650–3. Emonds, H. 1941. Zweite Auflage im Altertum: Kulturgeschichtliche Studien zur Überlieferung der antiken Literatur (Klassisch-philologische Studien 14), Leipzig. Erb, G. 1981. Zu Komposition und Aufbau im ersten Buch Martials, Frankfurt. Evans, H. B. 1983. Publica Carmina, Lincoln. Fabia, P. 1895. ‘Les Histoires de Tacite réussirent-ils auprès des contemporains?’, Revue de Philologie 19: 1–10. Fantham, E. 1988. ‘Varietas and Satietas: De oratore 3.96–103 and the Limits of ornatus’, Rhetorica 6: 275–90. Farrell, J. 1991. Vergil’s Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic: The Art of Allusion in Literary History, Oxford. Fedeli, P. 2005. Properzio, Elegie libro II: introduzione, testo e commento, Cambridge. Fitzgerald, W. 2007a. Martial: The World of the Epigram, Chicago. Fitzgerald, W. 2007b. ‘The Letter’s the Thing (in Pliny, Book 7)’, in Morello and Morrison, eds: 191–210. Flower, H. 2011. ‘Elite Self-Representation in Rome’, in Peachin, ed.: 271–85. Follet, S. 1997. ‘Dedicataire et destinataires des Letters des Philostrates’, in Fredouille, Goulet-Cazé, Hoffman, and Petitmengin, eds: 135–47. Förtsch, R. 1993. Archäologischer Kommentar zu den Villenbriefen des jüngeren Plinius, Mainz. Fowler, A. 1970. Triumphal Forms: Structural Patterns in Elizabethan Poetry, Cambridge. Fowler, D. P. 1995. ‘Martial and the Book’, Ramus 24: 31–58. Fraenkel, E. 1957. Horace, Oxford. Frazer, A., ed. 1998. The Roman Villa: Villa Urbana, Philadelphia. Fredouille, J.-C., M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, P. Hoffman, and P. Petitmengin, eds, 1997. Titres et Articulations du Texte dans les Oeuvres Antiques: Actes du Colloque International de Chantilly, 13–15 décembre 1994, Paris.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

259

Friderici, R. 1911. De Librorum Antiquorum Capitum Divisione atque Summariis. Accedit de Catonis de Agricultura libro Disputatio, Marburg. Friedländer, L. 1886. M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammata, Leipzig. Froesch, H. 1968. Ovids Epistulae ex Ponto I–III als Gedichtsammlung, diss. Bonn. Fruyt, M. 1997. ‘Sémantique et syntaxe dest titres en latin’, in Fredouille, Goulet-Cazé, Hoffman, and Petitmengin, eds: 9–33. Gaertner, J. F. 2005. Ovid: Epistulae ex Ponto, Book 1, Oxford. Gale, M. R. 2000. Virgil on the Nature of Things, Cambridge. Gamberini, F. 1983. Stylistic Theory and Practice in the Younger Pliny, Hildesheim. Gamel, M.-K. 1989. ‘Non sine caede: Abortion Politics and Poetics in Ovid’s Amores’, Helios 16.2: 183–206. Gebauer, G. and C. Wulf. 1996. Mimesis: Culture-Art-Society (trans. Don Reneau), Berkeley. Genette, G. 1982. Palimpsestes: la littérature au second degré, Paris. Gibson, B. 2006. Statius: Silvae Liber 5, Oxford. Gibson, R. K. 2000. ‘Book Endings in Greek Poetry and Ars Amatoria 2 and 3’, Mnemosyne 53: 588–91. Gibson, R. K. 2003. Ovid: Ars Amatoria Book 3, Cambridge. Gibson, R. K. 2011a. ‘Elder and Better: The Naturalis Historia and the Letters of the Younger Pliny’, in R. K. Gibson and R. Morello, eds, Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts, Leiden: 187–206. Gibson, R. K. 2011b. ‘ confirmed? Pliny, Epistles 1.1 and Sidonius Apollinaris’, Classical Quarterly 61.2: 655–9. Gibson, R. K. 2012. ‘On the Nature of Ancient Letter Collections’, Journal of Roman Studies 102: 56–78. Gibson, R. K. 2013a. ‘Pliny and the Letters of Sidonius: from Constantius and Clarus to Firminus and Fuscus’, in B. J. Gibson and R. Rees, eds, Pliny the Younger in Late Antiquity (Arethusa 46.2), Baltimore: 333–55. Gibson, R. K. 2013b. ‘Reading the Letters of Sidonius by the Book’, in J. van Waarden and G. Kelly, eds, New Approaches to Sidonius Apollinaris, Leuven: 195–219. Gibson, R. K. 2014. ‘Starting with the Index in Pliny’, in Jansen, ed.: 33–55. Gibson, R. K. Forthcoming. Pliny: Letters Book 6, Cambridge. Gibson, R. K. and R. Morello, eds. 2003. Re-Imagining Pliny the Younger (Arethusa 36.2), Baltimore. Gibson, R. K. and R. Morello. 2012. Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction, Cambridge. Gibson, R. K. and C. Steel. 2010. ‘The Indistinct Literary Careers of Cicero and Pliny the Younger’, in P. Hardie and H. Moore, eds, Classical Literary Careers and Their Reception, Cambridge: 118–37.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

260

References

Gibson, R. K. and C. L. Whitton, eds. 2015. Pliny the Younger, Epistles. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies, Oxford. Gierig, G. E. 1800. C. Plinii Caecilii Secundi Epistolarum libri decem, Vol. 1. Leipzig. Giovannini, A. 1987. ‘Pline et les délateurs de Domitien’, in Oppositions et résistances à l’empire d’Auguste à Trajan (Entretiens Tome XXXIII, Fondation Hardt), Geneva: 219–48. Goetzl, J. 1952. ‘Variatio in the Plinian Epistle’, The Classical Journal 47: 265–8 and 299. Gold, B. K. 1982. Literary and Artistic Patronage in Ancient Rome, Austin, TX. Grewing, F., ed. 1998. Toto Notus in Orbe: Perspektiven der MartialIntepretation, Stuttgart. Groag, E. 1924. ‘Prosopographische Beiträge VI: Sex. Quinctilius Valerius Maximus’, Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes in Wien 21–2, Beiblatt: 425–78. Groag, E. 1939. Die römischen Reichsbeamten von Achaia bis auf Diokletian, Vienna. Guillemin, A.-M. 1927–28. Pline le Jeune: Lettres I–IX, vols 1–2 (1927), 3 (1928), Paris. Guillemin, A.-M. 1929. Pline et la vie littéraire de son temps, Paris. Gunderson, E. 2003. Declamation, Paternity and Roman Identity, Cambridge. Gunderson, E. 2007. ‘S.V.B.; E.V.’, Classical Antiquity 26: 1–48. Gutzwiller, K. J. 1998. Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context, Berkeley. Gutzwiller, K. J., ed. 2005. The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book, Oxford. Habinek, T. N. 1985. The Colometry of Latin Prose, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London. Hainsworth, J. B. 1964. ‘The Starting Point of Tacitus’ Histories – Fear or Favour by Omission?’, Greece and Rome 11: 128–36. Halfmann, H. 1979. Die Senatoren aus dem östlichen Teil des Imperium Romanum bis zum Ende des 2. Jahrhunderts n. Chr., Göttingen. Halla-aho, H. 2009. The Non-Literary Latin Letters: A Study of Their Syntax and Pragmatics, Helsinki. Halliwell, S. 2002. The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems, Princeton. Halter, T. 1964. Review of Brown 1963, Gnomon 36: 580–2. Hanslik, R. 1955. ‘Valerius, no. 290’, RE 8.A: 175. Hardie, A. 1983. Statius and the Silvae: Poets, Patrons and Epideixis in the Graeco-Roman World, Liverpool. Harris, J. R. 1883. ‘Stichometry’, American Journal of Philology 4: 133–57.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

261

Harrison, S. J. 2004. ‘Lyric Middles: The Turn at the Centre in Horace’s Odes’, in Kyriakidis and De Martino, eds: 81–102. Häussler, R. 1986. ‘Aktuelle Probleme der Dialogus-Rezeption: Echtheitserweise und Lückenumfang’, Philologus 130: 63–95. Häussler, R. 1987. ‘Abermals: Plinius’ Eberjagden’, Philologus 131: 82–5. Hedrick, C. W. 2000. History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity, Austin, TX. Hedrick, C. W. 2011. ‘Literature and Communication’, in Peachin, ed.: 167–90. Helm, R. 1955. ‘Valerius Maximus’, RE 8A.1: 97–115. Henderson, J. G. 2002a. Pliny’s Statue: The Letters, Self-Portraiture and Classical Art, Exeter. Henderson, J. G. 2002b. ‘On Pliny on Martial on Pliny on Anon . . . (Epistles 3.21 / Epigrams 10.19[20])’, Ramus 30.1: 56–87. Henderson, J. G. 2002c. ‘Columella’s Living Hedge: The Roman Gardening Book’, Journal of Roman Studies 92: 110–33. Henderson, J. G. 2003. ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Figure of Style: P.L.I.N.Y’s LETTERS’, in Gibson and Morello, eds: 115–25. Henderson, J. G. 2004. Morals and Villas in Seneca’s Letters: Places to Dwell, Cambridge. Henderson, J. G. 2011. Review of Lefèvre 2009, Gnomon 83: 313–17. Hennig, D. 1978. ‘Zu Plinius Ep. 7,33’, Historia 27: 246–9. Henriksson, K.-E. 1956. Griechische Büchertitel in der römischen Literatur, Helsinki. Hershkowitz, D. 1995. ‘Pliny the Poet’, Greece and Rome 42: 168–81. Heurgon, J. 1969. ‘Les sortileges d’un avocat sous Trajan’, in J. Bibaw, ed., Hommages à Marcel Renard I, Brussels: 443–8. Heurgon, J. 1978. Varron: Économie Rurale Tome I. Livre I. Paris. Hiltbrunner, O. 1979. ‘Prisce iubes . . .’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 96: 40–2. Hoffer, S. 1999. The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger, Atlanta, GA. Hoffer, S. 2006. ‘Divine Comedy? Accession Propaganda in Pliny, Epistles 10.1–2 and the Panegyric’, Journal of Roman Studies 96: 73–87. Holford-Strevens, L. 2003. Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Scholar and his Achievements, 2nd edn, Chapel Hill. Hollis, A. S. 1977. Ovid: Ars Amatoria Book 1, Oxford. Holzberg, N. 2002. Martial und das antike Epigramm, Darmstadt. Holzberg, N. 2004/5. ‘Martial, the Book, and Ovid’, Hermatema 177–8: 209–24. Howell, P. 1980. A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial, London. Hubbard, T. K. 1995. ‘Allusive Artistry and Vergil’s Revisionary Program: Eclogues 1–3’, Materiali e Discussioni 34: 37–67.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

262

References

Hutchinson, G. O. 2003. ‘The Catullan Corpus, Greek Epigram, and the Poetry of Objects’, Classical Quarterly 53: 206–21. Hutchinson, G. O. 2008. Talking Books: Readings in Hellenistic and Roman Books of Poetry, Oxford. Inwood, B. 2007. Seneca: Selected Philosophical Letters, Oxford. Irigoin, J. 1980. ‘Les Pontiques d’Ovide: La composition des trois premiers livres’, Revue de Philologie 54: 19–26. Irigoin, J. 1997. ‘Titres, sous-titres, et articulations du livre d’Héraclite d’Éphèse’, in Fredouille, Goulet-Cazé, Hoffman, and Petitmengin, eds: 127–34. Jal, P. 1993. ‘Pline épistolier, écrivain superficiel? Quelques remarques’, Revue des études latines 71: 212–27. Jansen, L., ed. 2014. The Roman Paratext: Frame, Text, Readers, Cambridge. Janson, T. 1964. Latin Prose Prefaces, Stockholm. Jenkyns, R. 1993. ‘Virgil and the Euphrates’, American Journal of Philology 114: 115–21. Jenkyns, R. 2013. God, Space and City in the Roman Imagination, Oxford. Johnson, W. A. 2004. Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus, Toronto. Johnson, W. A. 2010. Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities, Oxford. Johnson, W. A. 2011. ‘Teaching the Children How to Read: the Syllabary’, The Classical Journal 106: 445–63. Jones, B. W. 1974. ‘Martial’s Norbanus’, La parola del passato 29: 189–91. Jones, C. P. 1968. ‘A New Commentary on the Letters of Pliny’, Phoenix 22: 111–42. Jones, F. 1991. ‘Naming in Pliny’s Letters’, Symbolae Osloenses 66: 147–70. Jones, F. 1993. ‘The Role of the Addressees in Horace, Epistles’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 18.1: 7–11. Kaster, R. A. 1992. Studies on the Text of Suetonius ‘De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus’, Atlanta. Kaster, R. A. 1995. C. Suetonius Tranquillus: De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, Oxford. Kay, N. M. 1985. Martial Book XI: A Commentary, New York. Keeline, T. 2013. ‘The Literary and Stylistic Qualities of a Plinian Letter: a Commentary on Ep. 7.9’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 107: 189–224. Kempf, C. 1888. Valerii Maximi Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium libri novem, 2nd edn, Leipzig. Kennedy, G. 1969. Quintilian, New York. Kennedy, J. B. 2010. ‘Plato’s Forms, Pythagorean Mathematics, and Stichometry’, Apeiron 43: 1–31. Kenney, E. J. 1982. ‘Books and Readers in the Roman World’, in E. J. Kenney and W. V. Clausen, eds, The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, vol. 2: Latin Literature, Cambridge: 3–32.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

263

Klein, R. 1970. ‘Die Kaiserbriefe des Ambrosius. Zur Problematik ihrer Veröffentlichung’, Athenaeum 48: 335–71. Knox, P. E. 1993. ‘The Epilogue to the Aetia: An Epilogue’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 96: 175–8. König, A. 2013. ‘Frontinus’ Cameo Role in Tacitus’ Agricola’, Classical Quarterly 63: 361–76. Krevans, N. 2007. ‘The Arrangement of Epigrams in Collections’, in P. Bing and J. S. Bruss, eds, Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram, Leiden: 131–46. Kyriakidis, S. and F. De Martino, eds. 2004. Middles in Latin Poetry, Bari. Lana, I. 1991. ‘Le Lettere a Lucilio nella letteratura epistolare’, in B. L. Hijmans et al., eds, Sénèque et la prose latine (Entretiens Hardt 36), Geneva: 253–311. Lang, F. G. 1999. ‘Schreiben nach Mass: Zur Stichometrie in der antiken Literatur’, Novum Testamentum 41: 40–57. Lausberg, H. 1998. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study (trans. M. T. Bliss et al., ed. D. E. Orton and R. D. Anderson), Leiden. Leach, E. 2003. ‘Otium as Luxuria: Economy of Status in the Younger Pliny’s Letters’, in Gibson and Morello, eds: 147–66. Lease, E. B. 1919. ‘The Number Three, Mysterious, Mystic, Magic’, Classical Philology 14: 56–73. Leeman, A. D. 1963. Orationis Ratio: The Stylistic Theories and Practice of the Roman Orators, Historians and Philosophers, 2 vols, Amsterdam. Lefèvre, E. 1977. ‘Plinius-Studien I. Römische Baugesinnung und Landschaftsauffassung in den Villen Briefen’, Gymnasium 84: 519–41. Lefèvre, E. 1978. ‘Plinius-Studien II: Diana und Minerva. Die beiden JagdBillette an Tacitus 1,6; 9,10’, Gymnasium 85: 37–47. Lefèvre, E. 1987. ‘Plinius-Studien III. Die Villa als geistiger Lebensraum’, Gymnasium 94: 247–62. Lefèvre, E. 1996. ‘Plinius-Studien VII: Cicero das unerreichbare Vorbild (1,2; 3,15; 4,8; 7,4; 9,2)’, Gymnasium 103: 333–53. Lefèvre, E. 2003. ‘Plinius’ Klage um die verlorengegangene Würde des Senats (3, 20; 4, 25)’, in Castagna and Lefèvre, eds: 189–200. Lefèvre, E. 2009. Vom Römertum zum Ästhetizismus: Studien zu den Briefen des jüngeren Plinius, Berlin and New York. Lepper, F. A. 1970. Review of Sherwin-White 1966, Gnomon 42: 560–72. Levick, B. 1985. ‘L. Verginius Rufus and the Four Emperors’, Rheinisches Museum 128: 318–46. Lewis, J. D. trans. 1879. The Letters of the Younger Pliny Literally Translated, London. Liberman, G. 2010. Stace Silves: Edition et commentaire critiques, Paris. Lilja, S. 1970. ‘On the Nature of Pliny’s Letters’, Arctos 6: 61–79.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

264

References

Lindsay, W. M. 1903. The Ancient Editions of Martial, Oxford. Littlewood, A. R. 1987. ‘Ancient Literary Evidence for the Pleasure Gardens of Roman Country Villas’, in MacDougall, ed.: 7–30. Lowe, D. 2013. ‘Women Scorned: A New Stichometric Allusion in the Aeneid’, Classical Quarterly 63: 442–5. Lowe, E. A. and E. K. Rand. 1922. A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger, Washington. Ludolph, M. 1997. Epistolographie und Selbstdarstellung: Untersuchungen zu den ‘Paradebriefen’ Plinius des Jüngeren, Tübingen. Lyne, R. O. A. M. 2005. ‘Structure and Allusion in Horace’s Book of Epodes’, Journal of Roman Studies 95: 1–19 (reprinted in Collected Papers on Latin Poetry, Oxford, 2007: 314–40). MacDougall, E. B., ed. 1987. Ancient Roman Villa Gardens, Washington, DC. Maltby, R. 2008. ‘Verbal and Thematic Links Between Poems and Books in Martial’, Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 13: 255–68. Mankin, D. 2011. Cicero De Oratore Book III, Cambridge. Marchesi, I. 2008. The Art of Pliny’s Letters: A Poetics of Allusion in the Private Correspondence, Cambridge. Marchesi, I. 2013. ‘Silenced Intertext: Pliny on Martial on Pliny (on Regulus)’, in Y. Baraz and C. van den Berg, eds, Intertextuality (AJP 134.1), Baltimore: 101–18. Masson, J. 1709. Plinii Secundi vita ordine chronologico digesta, Amsterdam. Mastrorosa, I. G. 2010. ‘La pratica dell’oratoria giudiziaria nell’alto impero: Quintiliano e Plinio il Giovane’, in P. Galand, F. Hallyn, C. Lévy, and W. Verbaal, eds, Quintilien Ancien et Moderne, Turnhout: 125–52. Matthews, J. F. 1974. ‘The Letters of Symmachus’, in J. W. Binns, ed., Latin Literature of the Fourth Century, London: 58–99. Maurach, G. 1970. Der Bau von Senecas Epistulae morales, Heidelberg. Mayer, R. 1994. Horace: Epistles Book I, Cambridge. Mayer, R. 2001. Tacitus: Dialogus de Oratoribus, Cambridge. Mayer, R. 2003. ‘Pliny and gloria dicendi’, Arethusa 36: 227–34. Mazzoli, G. 1989. ‘Le ‘Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium’ di Seneca. Valore letterario e filosofico’, ANRW II.36.3: 1823–77. McEwen, I. K. 1995. ‘Housing Fame: In the Tuscan Villa of Pliny the Younger’, Anthropology and Aesthetics 27: 11–24. McKeown, J. C. 1987. Ovid: Amores, vol. 1, Liverpool. Mehrlein, R. 1959. ‘Drei’, in T. Klauser, ed., Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, vol. 4, Stuttgart: 269–310. Merwald, G. 1964. Die Buchkomposition des jüngeren Plinius (Epistulae I–IX), diss. Erlangen–Nuremberg. Méthy, N. 2007. Les lettres de Pline le Jeune: Une représentation de l’homme, Paris.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

265

Métraux, G. P. R. 1998. ‘Villa Rustica Alimentaria et Annonaria’, in Frazer, ed.: 1–19. Mielsch, H. 2003. ‘Traditionelle und neue Züge in den Villen des Plinius’, in Castagna and Lefèvre, eds: 317–24. Millar, F. 1965. ‘Epictetus and the Imperial Court’, Journal of Roman Studies 55: 141–8. Mols, S. T. 1999. Wooden Furniture in Herculaneum: Form, Technique and Function, Amsterdam. Mommsen, T. 1869. ‘Zur Lebensgeschichte des jüngeren Plinius’, Hermes 3: 31–136 [= Gesammelte Schriften 4. Berlin 1906: 366–468, to which pages citations refer]. Mommsen, T. 1887–88. Römisches Staatsrecht, Berlin (vols 1 and 2 [3rd edn], 1887; vol. 3, 1888). Morello, R. 2003. ‘Pliny and the Art of Saying Nothing’, in Gibson and Morello, eds: 187–209. Morello, R. 2007. ‘Confidence, Inuidia, and Pliny’s Epistolary Curriculum’, in Morello and Morrison, eds: 169–89. Morello, R. and A. D. Morrison, eds. 2007. Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography, Oxford. Morgan, L. 1993. Patterns of Redemption in Virgil’s Georgics, Cambridge. Moritz, L. A. 1968. ‘Some “Central” Thoughts on Horace’s Odes’, Classical Quarterly 18: 116–31. Müller, R. W. 1964. Rhetorische und syntaktische Interpunktion: Untersuchungen zur Pausenbezeichnung im antiken Latin, Tübingen. Murgia, C. 1980. ‘The Date of Tacitus’ Dialogus’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 84: 99–125. Murgia, C. 1985. ‘Pliny’s Letters and the Dialogus’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 89: 171–206 (partly reprinted in Gibson and Whitton 2015). Murphy, T. 2004. Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia, Oxford. Mynors, R. A. B. 1963. C. Plini Caecili Secundi Epistularum libri decem, Oxford. Nauta, R. R. 2002. Poetry for Patrons: Literary Communication in the Age of Domitian, Leiden. Nelis, D. P. 2007. ‘«Et maintenant, Erato —»: à propos d’Enéide VII, 37 ’, Revue des études anciennes 109: 269–71. Nevett, L. C. 2010. Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge. Newlands, C. E. 2011. Statius: Silvae Book II, Cambridge. Newmyer, S. T. 1979. The Silvae of Statius: Structure and Theme, Leiden. Nisbet, R. G. M. and N. Rudd. 2004. A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book III, Oxford. Norden, E. 1915. Die antike Kunstprosa, 3rd edn, 2 vols, Leipzig.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

266

References

Noreña, C. 2007. ‘The Social Economy of Pliny’s Correspondence with Trajan’, American Journal of Philology 128: 239–77. Ohly, K. 1928. Stichometrische Untersuchungen, Bonn. Oliver, J. H. 1973. ‘Imperial Commissioners in Achaia’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 14: 389–405. Oliver, J. H. 1980. ‘Achaia, Greece, and Laconica’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 21: 75–81 (reprinted in The Civic Tradition and Roman Athens, Baltimore, 1983: 147–53). Orlando. F. 2006. Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination: Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures, New Haven. Otto, W. 1919. Zur Lebensgeschichte des jüngeren Plinius, Munich. Pagán, V. 2010. ‘The Power of the Epistolary Preface from Statius to Pliny’, Classical Quarterly 60: 194–201. Parker, H. N. 2009. ‘Books and Reading Latin Poetry’, in W. R. Johnson and H. N. Parker, eds, Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome, Oxford: 186–229. Parkes, M. B. 1993. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West, Berkeley. Pausch, D. 2004. Biographie und Bildungskultur: Personendarstellungen bei Plinius dem Jüngeren, Gellius und Sueton, Berlin. Pavlovskis, Z. 1967. ‘From Statius to Ennodius: A Brief History of Prose Prefaces to Poems’, Rendiconti Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere 101: 535–67. Peachin, M., ed. 2001. Aspects of Friendship in the Graeco-Roman World, Portsmouth, RI. Peachin, M., ed. 2011. The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World, Oxford. Peirano, I. 2014. ‘Sealing the Book: The Sphragis as Paratext’, in Jansen, ed.: 224–42. Peter, C. 1872. ‘Plinius der Jüngere’, Philologus 32: 698–710. Peter, H. 1901. Der Brief in der römischen Literatur, Leipzig. Pflaum, H.-G. 1960. Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le HautEmpire romain, Paris. Pflips, H. 1973. Ciceronachahmung und Ciceroferne des jüngeren Plinius: ein Kommentar zu den Briefen des Plinius über Repetundenprozesse (epist. 2, 11; 2, 12; 3, 9; 4, 9; 5, 20; 6, 13; 7, 6), diss. Bamberg. Phillips, J. E. 1978. ‘Roman Mothers and the Lives of their Adult Daughters’, Helios 6: 69–80. Picone, G. 1978. L’eloquenza di Plinio: teoria e prassi, Palermo. Posch, S. 1983. ‘Eine Eberjagd mit Gänsefusschen (Zu Plinius, Ep. I,6)’, in P. Händel and W. Meid, eds, Festschrift für R. Muth, Innsbruck: 375–83. Power, T. 2010. ‘Pliny’s Letter 5.10 and the Literary Career of Suetonius’, Journal of Roman Studies 100: 140–62.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

267

Prag, J. and I. Repath, eds. 2013. Petronius: A Handbook, Oxford. Prete, S. 1948. Saggi Pliniani, Bologna. Purves, A. C. 2010. Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative, Cambridge. Radice, B. trans. 1969. The Letters of the Younger Pliny, London. Radicke. J. 1997. ‘Die Selbstdarstellung des Plinius in seinen Briefen’, Hermes 125: 447–69. Radicke. J. 2003. ‘Der öffentliche Privatbrief als “Kommunizierte Kommunikation” (Plin. Epist. 4.28)’, in Castagna and Lefèvre, eds: 23–34. Raepsaet-Charlier, M.-T. 1987. Prosopographie des femmes de l’ordre sénatorial (Ier–IIe siècles), Louvain. Reynolds, L. D., ed. 1983. Texts and Transmission, Oxford (pp. 316–22 reprinted in Gibson and Whitton 2015). Richardson-Hay, C. 2006. First Lessons: Book 1 of Seneca’s Epistulae Morales, Bern. Richter, W. 1972. Der Liber de arboribus und Columella, Munich. Riggsby, A. M. 1991. ‘Hiatus and Elision in Latin Prose’, Classical Antiquity 10: 328–43. Riggsby, A. M. 1995. ‘Pliny on Cicero and Oratory: Self-Fashioning in the Public Eye’, American Journal of Philology 116: 123–35. Riggsby. A. M. 1997. ‘Public and Private in Roman Culture: the Case of the Cubiculum’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 10: 36–56. Riggsby, A. M. 2003. ‘Pliny in Space (and Time)’, in Gibson and Morello, eds: 167–86. Riggsby, A. M. 2007. ‘Guides to the Wor(l)d’, in J. König and T. Whitmarsh, eds, Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire, Cambridge: 88–107. Rizakis, A. 1989. ‘T. Prifernius Sex. f. proconsul d’Achaie’, Epigraphica 51: 21–7. Robbins, F. E. 1910. ‘Tables of Contents in the MSS of Pliny’s Letters’, Classical Philology 5: 476–87. Roberts, C. H. and T. C. Skeat. 1983. The Birth of the Codex, London. Roche, P. 2011. ‘Pliny’s Thanksgiving: An Introduction to the Panegyricus’, in P. Roche, ed., Pliny’s Praise: the Panegyricus in the Roman World, Cambridge: 1–28. Roda, S. 1981. Commento storico al libro IX dell’epistolario di Q. Aurelio Simmaco, Pisa. Rogers, R. H. 2010. L. Iuni Moderati Columellae Res Rustica. Incerti Auctoris Liber de Arboribus, Oxford. Roller, M. 2001. Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in JulioClaudian Rome, Princeton. Roman, L. 2001. ‘The Representation of Literary Materiality in Martial’s Epigrams’, Journal of Roman Studies 91: 113–45. Römer, F. 1987. ‘Zum Vorwort des Scribonius Largus: literarischer Schmuck einer Rezeptsammlung’, Wiener Studien 100: 125–32. Römer, F. 1990. ‘Zum Aufbau der Exemplasammlung des Valerius Maximus’, Wiener Studien 103: 99–107.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

268

References

Rosenmeyer, P. A. 2001. Ancient Epistolary Fictions: The Letter in Greek Literature, Cambridge. Rudd, N. 1976. ‘Architecture. Theories about Virgil’s Eclogues’, in N. Rudd, Lines of Enquiry: Studies in Latin Poetry, Cambridge: 119–44 (reprinted in P. Hardie, ed., Virgil: Critical Assessments of Classical Authors, I: General Articles and the Eclogues, London, 1999: 91–115). Rudd, N. 1989. Horace: Epistles Book II and Epistle to the Pisones (‘Ars poetica’), Cambridge. Russell, D. A. 1974. ‘Letters to Lucilius,’, in C. D. N. Costa, ed., Seneca, London: 70–95. Russell, D. A. 2001. Quintilian: The Orator’s Education (Loeb Classical Library), 5 vols, Cambridge, MA. Saenger, P. 1997. Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, Stanford. Saller, R. 1983. ‘Martial on Patronage and Literature’, Classical Quarterly 33.1: 246–57. Salomies, O. 1992. Adoptive and Polyonymous Nomenclature in the Roman Empire (Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 97), Helsinki. Salza Prina Ricotti, E. 1983. ‘La Villa Laurentina di Plinio il Giovane. Un’ennesima ricostruzione’, Lunario Romano 12: 229–51. Salza Prina Ricotti, E. 1987. ‘The Importance of Water in Roman Garden triclinia’, in MacDougall, ed.: 137–84. Santirocco, M. 1986. Unity and Design in Horace’s Odes, Chapel Hill. Saylor, C. 1972. ‘The Emperor as insula’, Classical Philology 67: 47–51. Schanz, M. and C. Hosius. 1935. Geschichte der römischen Literatur, 4th edn, 2 vols, Munich. Scherf, J. 1998. ‘Zur Komposition von Martials Gedichtbüchern 1–12’, in Grewing, ed.: 119–38. Scherf, J. 2001. Untersuchungen zur Buchgestaltung Martials, Munich. Schmidt, P. L. 1997. ‘Paratextuelle Elemente in lateinischer Fachprose’, in J. C. Fredouille et al., eds, Titres at articulations du texte dans les ouvres antiques: Actes du Colloque International de Chantilly 13–15 Décembre 1994, Paris: 223–32. Schröder, B.-J. 1999. Titel und Text: zur Entwicklung lateinischer Gedichtüberschriften, Berlin. Scodel, R. F. and R. Thomas. 1984. ‘Virgil and the Euphrates’, American Journal of Philology 105: 339. Sconocchia, S. 1976. ‘Novità mediche latine in un codice di Toledo’, Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica 104: 257–69. Sconocchia, S. 1983. Scribonii Largi Compositiones, Leipzig. Seelentag, G. 2011. ‘Imperial Representation and Reciprocation: The Case of Trajan’, The Classical Journal 107: 73–97. Shackleton Bailey, D. R. 1965–70. Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, 7 vols, Cambridge.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

269

Shackleton Bailey, D. R. 1977. Cicero: Epistulae Ad Familiares, 2 vols, Cambridge. Shelton, J.-A. 1987. ‘Pliny’s Letter 3.11: Rhetoric and Autobiography’, Classica et Mediaevalia 38: 121–39. Shelton, J.-A. 2013. The Women of Pliny’s Letters, Routledge. Sherwin-White, A. N. 1966. The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary, Oxford. Sherwin-White, A. N. 1969. ‘Pliny, the Man, and His Letters’, Greece and Rome 16.1: 76–90. Shotter, D. C. A. 1967. ‘Tacitus and Verginius Rufus’, Classical Quarterly 17: 370–81. Shotter, D. C. A. 2001. ‘A Considered Epitaph’, Historia 50: 253–5. Sijpesteijn, J. 1979. ‘Flavius Josephus and the Praefect of Egypt in 73 A.D.’, Historia 28: 117–25. Sivan, H. 1992. ‘The Dedicatory Presentation in Late Antiquity: The Example of Ausonius’, Illinois Classical Studies 17: 83–101. Skeat, T. C. 1982. ‘The Length of the Standard Papyrus Roll and the CostAdvantage of the Codex’, Zeitschrift fur̈ Papyrologie und Epigraphik 45: 169–75. Skinner, M. B. 2003. Catullus in Verona: A Reading of the Elegiac libellus. Poems 65–116, Columbus, OH. Skinner, M. B. 2011. ‘Authorial Arrangement of the Collection: Debate Past and Present’, in M. B. Skinner, ed., A Companion to Catullus, Maiden, MA: 35–53. Skutsch, O. 1969. ‘Symmetry and Sense in Virgil’s Eclogues’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 73: 153–69. Soverini, P. 1989. ‘Impero e imperatori nell’opera di Plinio il Giovane. Aspetti e problemi del rapporto con Domiziano e Traiano’, ANRW II.33.1: 515–54. Squire, M. J. 2011. The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae, Oxford. Squire, M. J. 2013. ‘Ecphrasis at the Forge and the Forging of Ecphrasis: The “Shield of Achilles” in Graeco-Roman Word and Image’, Word & Image 29.2: 157–91. Squire, M. J. 2014. ‘The Order of Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of Order’, in J. Elsner and M. Meyer, eds, Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture, Cambridge: 353–417. Stadter, P. A. 2006. ‘Pliny and the Ideology of Empire: The Correspondence with Trajan’, Prometheus 32: 61–76. Stangl, Th. 1886. ‘Zur Kritik der Briefe Plinius des jüngeren’, Philologus 45: 642–79. Starr, R. J. 1987. ‘The Circulation of Literary Texts in the Roman World’, Classical Quarterly 37: 213–23.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

270

References

Starr, R. J. 1991. ‘Reading Aloud: Lectores and Roman Reading’, The Classical Journal 86: 337–43. Stewart, P. 2003. Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response, Oxford. Stout, S. E. 1954. Scribe and Critic at Work in Pliny’s Letters, Bloomington. Stout, S. E. 1958. ‘The Origin of the Ten-Book Family of Pliny’s Manuscripts’, Classical Philology 53: 171–3. Stout, S. E. 1967. ‘Pliny’s Own Manuscript’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 98: 481–2. Strobel, K. 2003. ‘Plinius und Domitian: Der willige Helfer eines Unrechtssystems? Zur Problematik historischer Aussagen in den Werken des jüngeren Plinius’, in Castagna and Lefèvre, eds: 303–14. Strunk, T. E. 2012. ‘Pliny the Pessimist’, Greece and Rome 59: 178–92. Sullivan, D. 1976. ‘Innuendo and the “Weighted Alternative” in Tacitus’, The Classical Journal 71: 312–26. Sullivan, J. P. 1991. Martial: The Unexpected Classic. A Literary and Historical Study, Cambridge. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus, Oxford. Syme, R. 1960. ‘Pliny’s Less Successful Friends’, Historia 9: 362–79 [= RP 2.477–95]. Syme, R. 1964. ‘Pliny and the Dacian Wars’, Latomus 23: 750–9 [= RP 6.142–9]. Syme, R. 1968. ‘People in Pliny’, Journal of Roman Studies 58: 135–51 [= RP 2.694–723]. Syme, R. 1977. ‘The Enigmatic Sospes’, Journal of Roman Studies 67: 38–49 [= RP 3.1043–61]. Syme, R. 1978. History in Ovid, Oxford. Syme, R. 1981. ‘The Travels of Suetonius Tranquillus’, Hermes 109: 105–17 [= RP 3.1336–49]. Syme, R. 1983. ‘Eight Consuls from Patavium’, Papers of the British School at Rome 51: 102–24 [= RP 4.371–96]. Syme, R. 1984a. ‘Hadrian and the Senate’, Athenaeum 62: 31–60 [= RP 4.295–324]. Syme, R. 1984b. ‘P. Calvisius Ruso, One Person or Two?’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 56: 173–92 [= RP 4.397–417]. Syme, R. 1985a. ‘Correspondents of Pliny’, Historia 34: 324–59 [= RP 5.440–77]. Syme, R. 1985b. ‘The Dating of Pliny’s Latest Letters’, Classical Quarterly 35: 176–85 [= RP 5.478–89]. Syme, R. 1985c. ‘Curtailed Tenures of Consular Legates’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 59: 265–79 [= RP 5.499–513]. Talbert, R. J. A. 1980. ‘Pliny the Younger as Governor of Bithynia-Pontus’, in C. Deroux, ed., Studies in Latin Literature and History II, Brussels: 412–35. Talbert, R. J. A. 1984. The Senate of Imperial Rome, Princeton.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

271

Tatum, J. 2011. ‘The Late Republic. Autobiographies and Memoirs in the Age of the Civil Wars’, in G. Marasco, ed., Political Autobiographies and Memoirs in Antiquity, Leiden: 161–88. Thomas, R. 1983. ‘Virgil’s Ecphrastic Centrepieces’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87: 175–84. Thomas, R. 2004. ‘ “Stuck in the middle with you”: Virgilian middles’, in Kyriakidis and De Martino, eds: 123–50. Thomas, R. 2011. Horace: Odes Book IV and Carmen Saeculare, Cambridge. Thraede, K. 1970. Grundzüge griechisch-römischer Brieftopik (Zetemata 48), Munich. Tod, M. N. 1939. ‘The corrector Maximus’, in W. M. Calder and J. Keil, eds, Anatolian Studies Presented to William Hepburn Buckler, Manchester: 333–44. Townend, G. B. 1959. ‘The Date of Composition of Suetonius’ Caesares’, Classical Quarterly n.s. 9: 285–93. Trapp, M. 2003. Greek and Latin Letters: An Anthology with Translation, Cambridge. Traub, H. W. 1955. ‘Pliny’s Treatment of History in Epistolary Form’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 86: 213–32 (to be reprinted in Gibson and Whitton 2015). Ulrich, R. B. 2007. Roman Woodworking, New Haven. Usener, H. 1903. ‘Dreiheit’, RhM 58: 1–48, 161–208, 321–64 (reprinted as Dreiheit: Ein Versuch mythologischer Zahlenlehre, Hildesheim, 1966). Ussani, V. 1970. ‘Leggendo Plinio il giovane, I (Historia – nomen inertiae)’, Rivista di cultura classica e medioevale 12: 271–348. Ussani, V. 1971. ‘Leggendo Plinio il giovane, II (Oratio – historia)’, Rivista di cultura classica e medioevale 13: 70–135. Uwe, W. von. 1998. ‘Soziale Normen in den Epigrammen Martials’, in Grewing, ed.: 220–42. Van Dam, H.-J. 1984. P. Papinius Statius, Silvae Book II: A Commentary, Leiden. Van Sickle, J. 1980a. ‘The Book Roll and Some Conventions of the Poetic Book’, Arethusa 13: 5–42. Van Sickle, J. 1980b. ‘Reading Virgil’s Eclogue Book’, ANRW II.31.1: 576–603. Vessey, D. W. T. C. 1982. ‘Flavian epic’, in E. J. Kenney and W. V. Clausen, eds, The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, vol. 2: Latin Literature, Cambridge: 558–96. Veyne, P. 1967. ‘Autour d’un commentaire de Pline le Jeune’, Latomus 26: 723–51. Vidman, L. 1981. ‘Die Namengebung bei Plinius dem Jüngeren’, Klio 63: 585–95. Vidman, L. 1982. Fasti Ostienses, 2nd edn, Prague.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

272

References

Vollmer, F. 1898. P. Papinius Statius, Silvarum Libri, Leipzig. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1983. Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars, London. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1998. ‘The Villa as Cultural Symbol’, in Frazer, ed.: 43–53. Walsh, P. G. trans. 2006. Pliny The Younger: Complete Letters, Oxford. Wardle, D. 1998. Valerius Maximus: Memorable Deeds and Sayings. Book I, Oxford. Watson, L. C. 2003. A Commentary on Horace’s Epodes, Oxford. Weische, A. 1989. ‘Plinius d. J. und Cicero. Untersuchungen zur römischen Epistolographie in Republik und Kaiserzeit’, ANRW II.33.1: 375–86. Wendel, C. 1949. Die griechisch-römische Buchbeschreibung verglichen mit der des vorderen Orients, Halle. White, P. 1974. ‘The Presentation and Dedication of the Silvae and the Epigrams’, Journal of Roman Studies 64: 40–61. White, P. 1975. ‘The Friends of Martial, Statius, and Pliny, and the Dispersal of Patronage’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 79: 265–300. White, P. 1993. Promised Verse: Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome, Cambridge, MA. White, P. 2010. Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic, New York. Whitmarsh, T. J. G. 2007. ‘ “This In-Between Book”: Language, Politics and Genre in the Agricola’, in B. McGing and J. M. Mossman, eds, The Limits of Biography, Swansea: 305–33. Whitton, C. L. 2010. ‘Pliny, Epistles 8.14: Senate, Slavery and the Agricola’, Journal of Roman Studies 100: 118–39. Whitton, C. L. 2011. ‘Pliny the Aesthete’ (review of Lefèvre 2009), Classical Review 61: 147–9. Whitton, C. L. 2012. ‘ “Let Us Tread Our Path Together”: Tacitus and the Younger Pliny’, in V. E. Pagán, ed., Blackwell Companion to Tacitus, Malden, MA: 345–68. Whitton, C. L. 2013a. ‘Trapdoors: The Falsity of Closure in Pliny’s Epistles’, in F. Grewing, B. Acosta-Hughes, and A. Kirichenko, eds, The Door Ajar: False Closure in Greek and Roman Literature and Art, Heidelberg: 43–61. Whitton, C. L. 2013b. Pliny the Younger: Epistles Book II, Cambridge. Whitton, C. L. 2015. “Pliny’s Progress’, Chiron 45. Whitton, C. L. Forthcoming. ‘Quintilian in Brief: Aspects of Intertextuality in Pliny’s Epistles’. Williams, G. 1992. ‘Representations of the Book-roll in Latin Poetry: Tr. 1,1,3–14 and related texts’, Mnemosyne 45: 178–89. Wimmel, W. 1964. Review of Duckworth 1962, Gnomon 36: 56–60. Winniczuk, L. 1975. ‘The Ending-phrases in Pliny’s Letters’, Eos 63: 319–28. Winsbury, R. 2009. The Roman Book: Books, Publishing and Performance in Classical Rome, London.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

References

273

Winterbottom, M. 1964. ‘Quintilian and The Vir Bonus’, Journal of Roman Studies 54: 90–7. Winterbottom, M. 1974. The Elder Seneca: Declamations, 2 vols, Cambridge, MA. Wiseman, T. P. 1985. Catullus and his World: A Reappraisal, Cambridge. Wolff, E. 2003. Pline le jeune, ou le refus de pessimisme, Rennes. Woodman, A. J. 2006. ‘Mutiny and Madness: Tacitus Annals 1.16–49’, Arethusa 39: 303–29. Woodman, A. J. 2009a. The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, Cambridge. Woodman, A. J. 2009b. ‘Tacitus and the Contemporary Scene’, in A. J. Woodman, ed.: 31–43. Woodman, A. J. 2010. ‘Community Health: Metaphors in Latin Historiography’, Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 14: 43–61. Woodman, A. J. 2012. ‘Pliny on Writing History: Epistles 5.8’, in A. J. Woodman, From Poetry to History: Selected Papers, Oxford: 223–42. Woodman, A. J. and R. Martin. 1996. The Annals of Tacitus Book 3, Cambridge. Woolf, G. 2003. ‘The City of Letters’, in C. Edwards and G. D. Woolf, eds, Rome and the Cosmopolis, Cambridge: 203–21. Woolf, G. 2006. ‘Pliny’s Province’, in T. Bekker-Nielsen, ed., Rome and the Black Sea Region: Domination, Romanisation, Resistance (Black Sea Studies 8), Aarhus: 93–108 (revised version in Gibson and Whitton 2015). Yardley, J. C. 1972. ‘Prisce iubes Again’, Classical Review 22: 314–15. Zelzer, K. 1964. ‘Zur Frage des Charakters der Briefsammlung des jüngeren Plinius’, Wiener Studien 77: 144–61. Zetzel, J. E. G. 1981. Latin Textual Criticism in Antiquity, Salem, NH. Zucker, F. 1929. ‘Plinius epist. VIII 24—ein Denkmal antiker Humanität’, Philologus 84: 209–32.

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 13/6/2015, SPi

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

General Index addressees 145 in Cicero’s correspondence 28 distribution of 18, 21, 53–5, 65 female correspondents in Pliny 65–7 list of 23–8 names of 189–90 Afranius 59–61 Ambrose 22 Arrianus Maturus 64 Asconius 130 Aulus Gellius 30–1 Baebius Massa 72, 90, 202 Bithynia 16, 21, 57, 98–103 book-marke 32, 39, 248–50 Callimachus 110–11 Calpurnia (Pliny’s wife) 65, 144–50, 155, 209 Calpurnius Fabatus 24, 144–8, 154–7, 174 Calpurnia Hispulla 144–6 Caninius Rufus 79–80, 90–1, 156–7, 190–1, 193, 214–15 Catullus 5, 42, 180, 182 Cicero 21, 28, 44, 52–3, 76–8, 88–90, 123, 134, 140, 182, 188, 221 Clarus, see Septicius Clarus Columella 31–2, 34, 50 Corellius Rufus 65, 129, 195–6, 199–200, 218 dedications (of literary works) 18, 36–48, 246 death (in letters) 14, 59–61, 63, 68–73, 83, 93, 96–8, 112, 124, 140–1, 157, 165–84, 200–9, 212, 215, 220–1, 246 De Heluidi ultione 196 Demosthenes 140 Diodorus Siculus 32 Domitian 196–208, 216–17 ecphrasis 113–16 Encolpius (Pliny’s slave) 93, 112, 151–3, 157, 163, 183, 209

friendship literary 156, 160–1, 165 history/historiography 27, 51, 89, 165, 181, 192, 200–1 Horace 18, 53, 84, 116, 121, 123 hunting 55, 75–6, 187 indices, ancient 23–5, 28–34 Larcius Macedo 14–15, 59–60, 70 length, of Pliny’s books 66, 122–3, 127 letters: arrangement 13–14, 55, 68, 74–5, 124–8, 130, 134 by theme 15–16, 55–6, 93, 124, 162, 171 circulation 34, 57–81 cycles/series of 59, 62, 65, 71, 73, 82 datation 57–64, 103–4, 142 length 110–14, 125, 127, 195 pairing 16, 18, 54–5, 59, 65, 69, 75–6, 87, 96, 114, 125–7, 139, 144–84, 212–13 Licinius Nepos 64 literary production 44, 48, 225–30, 249–51 manuscripts 2–23 Martial 14, 26, 36–40, 45–6, 54, 68, 70, 84, 182, 221, 238–50 Merwald, G. 86–7 Murgia, C. 16–19, 59, 63–4, 76–8, 86–8, 94, 104, 187–8 negotium 21, 80–1, 127, 141 Nerva 198–200 Panegyricus 44, 100, 142 patrons/patronage 35, 39, 54, 77, 165, 180, 199, 218 Pompeius Saturninus 54, 87, 91, 190–1 Pliny the Elder 29–31, 34, 45, 153, 202–3 Priscus (Marius) 110, 113, 117–18, 125, 127, 131, 140–3, 215 Propertius 147–8

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

276

General Index

otium 21, 83, 116, 126, 141, 155, 162–3, 183 Ovid 21, 52, 146–9 Amores 41, 84 Ars Amatoria 41, 51 Epistulae ex Ponto 52–4, 123, 192–3 poetry/poetics 43, 47, 53, 110, 121–4, 182, 191, 247–51 poetic books design 182, 124, 191 centres and other significant placements in poetry 121 prefaces, epistolary prose 43–7 pro Attia Viriola 203 immortality (literary) 71–3, 79, 81–4, 103, 143, 187, 190, 219 recitations 165, 174–6, 184, 201 Quintilian 33–4, 45–6, 112, 134–5 Regulus (Marcus Aquillius) 38, 56, 58–61, 63–4, 125, 140–1, 203, 220, 248 Saturnalia 160–2, 170 Seneca 41, 53, 68, 123 Septicius Clarus 42–6, 49–50, 54–5, 87–8, 183, 189–90, 193–4 Scribonius Largus 30 Sidonius Apollinaris 22, 119, 189 Silius Italicus 14, 70 Suetonius 26, 34, 43, 46 slaves 151–5, 170, 243; see also Encolpius Statius 35–6, 45–6, 48, 54

stichometry 120 Symmachus 22 table of contents, see indices, ancient Tacitus 16–17, 54–5, 72, 75–6, 159–62, 202, 217, 222 Titius Aristo 60–1, 216 trials 72–3, 80, 90, 110, 113, 117–19, 125, 131–40, 166, 204, 207, 215 Trajan 21, 186, 194, 204–8, 213–15, 221–2 Epistulae Book 10, 21–5, 27, 185 Valerius Maximus 29–30 Valerius Paulinus 78–80 Valerius Soranus 29 Varenus Rufus 65, 73 variety 132, 136, 149, 162–4, 171, 182, 184 in design of Pliny’s collection 14–15, 52, 70, 73, 85, 122–4, 138, 164, 182 in design of Martial’s collection 54, 18 in literary composition 85, 174–6, 232 Varro 36, 44 Vergil 115–16, 121 Verginius Rufus 124–5, 199–201 Vestricius Spurinna 25, 83, 126, 136 villas 162, 225–38 analogy between villas and letters 19, 114, 226–30 Laurentum 82, 111, 113–14, 121, 131, 141–2, 160, 183, 189 Tusci 82, 114, 131, 138, 142, 155, 160, 183, 189

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

Index of Passages Discussed Cato Agr. 10 237 Cicero Fam. 5.12 89–90 9.8 44 Flac. 61–2 90, 177 Or. 147 122 Q. fr. 1.1 89–90 2.10.1 133 Gellius 12.7.8 30 13.18.2 43 Horace Carm. 1.1 84 3.30 84, 116 4.8 84 Epist. 1.14 18 1.10 18 Martial 9 Epist. 26 1.2 37, 41 2.8 38 2.93 37–8 3.5 38 4.72 38 4.82 38, 41 6.1 38 7.11 38 7.17 37–8, 41 9.59 241–3 9.84 38 9.99 38 10.1 37 10.2 37–8 10.19(20) 40, 248 12.4(5) 37

12.32 239–41 12.50 244–5 Ovid Amores 2.13–14 146–8 Epistulae ex Ponto 1.1–2 193 3.9.53 52 Pliny the Younger Epistles 1.1 13, 18, 27, 42, 49–54, 68, 75, 124, 133, 142, 183, 187–9, 191, 224–30 1.2 78, 91–2, 188, 226–30 1.3 79–81, 91–2, 188, 193, 225–30 1.6 75–6, 187 1.7 26 1.8 46 1.10 197 1.12 197 1.20 188 1.22 60–1 2.1 124, 194, 200–1 2.5 46, 131–8 2.6 177 2.10 34, 68, 126–7 2.11 113, 117–21, 126–7, 129, 139–41 2.12 127, 129, 139–41 2.14 139–41, 203 2.15 111–13 2.17 82, 113–16, 131, 160, 230–7 2.20 59, 124 3.9 128 3.11 128 3.13 44, 46 3.21 68, 248–51 4.14 46–7 4.15 101 5.6 79, 82, 110, 131, 208, 230–7 5.8 129 5.19 95–6 6.2 203 6.16 27, 50 6.25 27–8

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/6/2015, SPi

278

Index of Passages Discussed

Pliny the Younger (cont.) 6.33 203 7.1 94–5, 102, 205–6 7.2 92 7.3 92 7.21 94–5, 152–3 7.26 95 7.27 206–8 7 33 72, 89, 91 8.1 95–6, 151–5, 162, 209 8.2 155, 162 8.3 156–7 8.4 156–7, 214 8.5 157–8 8.6 157–63 8.7 159–63 8.8 163, 171, 212–13 8.10 96, 144–50, 153, 181, 209 8.11 96, 144–50, 154, 181, 209 8.12 164 8.13 164–5 8.14 16, 59–61, 128, 164–8, 215–19 8.15 168–9 8.16 169–70, 210 8.17 171–2, 212–13 8.18 173 8.19 173, 210 8.20 174 8.21 174–76 8.22 172, 176 8.23 176–77 8.24 90, 97–102, 167, 177–9 9.1 75, 133, 187–9

9.2 77–8, 91, 188 9.3 78–81, 92, 188 9.4 18–19 9.10 75–76, 187 9.13 195–9 9.19 195, 199–201 9.26 187–8 9.27 195, 199, 201 9.28 42, 101 9.33 91 9.36 82–3, 114, 183, 189 9.38 190, 193 9.40 18, 82–3, 114, 183, 189, 193 Quintilian Institutio Oratoria Epist. ad Tryph. 1 33, 134 1 Pr. 33 1.12.19 135 7.2.24 33 9.4.39 38 Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.27 113 Statius Silv. 1–3 41 Tacitus Agr. 3.1–2 217 45.1 217 Varro Rust. 2.proem 228