Pliny's Praise: The Panegyricus in the Roman World

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PLINY’S PRAISE

Pliny’s Panegyricus (100 ce) survives as a unique example of senatorial rhetoric from the early Roman empire. It offers an eyewitness account of the last years of Domitian’s principate, the reign of Nerva and Trajan’s early years, and it communicates a detailed senatorial view on the behaviour expected of an emperor. It is an important document in the development of the ideals of imperial leadership, but it also contributes greatly to our understanding of imperial political culture more generally. This volume, the first ever devoted to the Panegyricus, contains expert studies of its key historical and rhetorical contexts, as well as important critical approaches to the published version of the speech and its influence in antiquity. It offers scholars of Roman history, literature and rhetoric an up-to-date overview of key approaches to the speech, and students and interested readers an authoritative introduction to this vital and under-appreciated speech. p a u l r o c h e is Senior Lecturer in Latin at the University of Sydney. He has published a number of articles and chapters on the literature and history of the early Roman empire, and has a particular focus on politics and public imagery in Domitianic and Trajanic Rome. He is the author of Lucan, De Bello Civili Book 1: A Commentary (2009) and the editor (with W. J. Dominik and J. G. Garthwaite) of Writing Politics in Imperial Rome (2009).

PLINY’S PRAISE The Panegyricus in the Roman World

edited by PAUL ROCHE University of Sydney

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S˜ao Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107009059  c Cambridge University Press 2011

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2011 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Pliny’s praise : the Panegyricus in the Roman world / edited by Paul Roche. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. isbn 978-1-107-00905-9 1. Pliny, the Younger. Panegyricus. 2. Pliny, the Younger – Literary style. 3. Speeches, addresses, etc., Latin – History and criticism. 4. Praise in literature. 5. Rome – Politics and government – 30 b.c.–284 a.d. – Historiography. I. Roche, Paul. II. Title: Panegyricus in the Roman world. pa6640.z5p58 2011 876 .01 – dc22 2011005727 isbn 978-1-107-00905-9 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of contributors Preface 1

page vii ix

Pliny’s thanksgiving: an introduction to the Panegyricus

1

Paul Roche

2

Self-fashioning in the Panegyricus

29

Carlos F. Nore˜na

3

The Panegyricus and the monuments of Rome

45

Paul Roche

4

The Panegyricus and rhetorical theory

67

D. C. Innes

5

Ciceronian praise as a step towards Pliny’s Panegyricus

85

Gesine Manuwald

6

104

Contemporary contexts Bruce Gibson

7

Politics and the sublime in the Panegyricus

125

G. O. Hutchinson

8

Down the Pan: historical exemplarity in the Panegyricus

142

John Henderson

9

175

Afterwords of praise Roger Rees

189 204 206

Bibliography Index locorum General index v

Contributors

bruce gibson is Professor of Latin at the University of Liverpool. As well as his Statius, Silvae 5: Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford 2006), he has published articles and book chapters on a range of Latin authors in verse and prose, including Ovid, Pliny, Statius, Silius Italicus, Tacitus and Apuleius. He is currently writing a commentary on Pliny’s Panegyricus, and jointly editing with Thomas Harrison a volume of papers on Polybius in memory of Frank Walbank. john henderson is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King’s College. He has written wicked books and weird essays across the range of classical topics, usually reacting enthusiastically to Roman texts, with quirky books on Pliny’s Letters (Pliny’s Statue: The Letters, Self-Portraiture, and Classical Art (Exeter 2002)) and on Plautus, Seneca, Statius, Juvenal, Isidore, plus (in)famously storming articles on Latin poetry and history, e.g. collected in Fighting for Rome: Poets and Caesars, History and Civil War (Cambridge 1998) and in Writing Down Rome: Satire, Comedy and other Offences in Latin Poetry (Oxford 1999). g. o. hutchinson is Professor of Greek and Latin Languages and Literature at Oxford University. He works on Greek and Latin, poetry and prose. He has written: Aeschylus, Septem contra Thebas: Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford 1985); Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford 1988); Latin Literature from Seneca to Juvenal: A Critical Study (Oxford 1993); Cicero’s Correspondence: A Literary Study (Oxford 1998); Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces (Oxford 2001); Propertius, Elegies Book iv (Cambridge 2006); Talking Books: Readings in Hellenistic and Roman Books of Poetry (Oxford 2008). doreen innes is Emeritus Fellow of St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford. Her research interests are in classical literary criticism. She coauthored Sopatros the Rhetor (London 1988), edited the Loeb edition of vii

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Demetrius On Style (Cambridge, Mass. 1995), and has published articles on, among others, Gorgias, Aristotle, Cicero and Longinus. gesine manuwald is Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Literature at University College London. Her research interests include Roman epic, Roman drama, Roman rhetoric and the reception of the classical world. She has published widely on all those areas, most recently a commentary on Cicero’s Philippics 3–9 (Berlin 2007), a revised Loeb edition of the Philippics (Cambridge, Mass. 2009, co-edited with John Ramsey) and a Roman drama reader (2010). carlos f. nore na ˜ is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on the political and cultural history of the Roman empire. He is the author of Imperial Ideals in the Roman West: Representation, Circulation, Power (Cambridge forthcoming) and co-editor, with Bjoern C. Ewald, of The Emperor and Rome: Space, Representation, and Ritual (Cambridge 2010). roger rees is Reader in the School of Classics, St Andrews University. He wrote Layers of Loyalty in Latin Panegyric 289–307 ad (Oxford 2002) and Diocletian and the Tetrarchy (Edinburgh 2004), and edited Romane memento: Vergil in the Fourth Century (London 2004) and Ted Hughes and the Classics (Oxford 2009). He is currently preparing a commentary on Pacatus’ panegyric to Theodosius, and co-editing with Bruce Gibson an Arethusa volume on the reception of Pliny the Younger in late antiquity. paul roche is Senior Lecturer in Latin at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Lucan, De Bello Civili Book 1 (Oxford 2009) and coeditor (with W. J. Dominik and J. G. Garthwaite) of Writing Politics in Imperial Rome (Leiden 2009); he has previously published on political history, public imagery and Latin literature in the early imperial period.

Preface

This volume was conceived in the belief that Pliny’s Panegyricus deserves and will reward more concentrated scholarly attention than it has traditionally received. Neglect is a natural topos in scholarly prefaces, but it has genuine substance here; in fact, neglect of the speech has not infrequently sharpened into antipathy, but neither is justified. A professed cultural disdain for formal praise threatens to alienate us from a speech whose survival makes it for us a unique specimen of early imperial senatorial oratory, whose multiple agendas so easily and obviously (indeed explicitly: Pan. 4.1) transcend the mere delivery of praise, and whose political outlook ranks it variously as a senatorial manifesto and a classic locus of imperial public-image making. But this same aversion would likewise alienate us from a vital witness to an emperor who self-consciously styled himself as a kind of epitome of imperial rule, who occupies in more ways than one a crucial liminal phase between the principates of the first and second centuries, and whose early years as emperor would otherwise be almost completely occluded to us. The Panegyricus is a key document in the evolution of imperial leadership ideals, but it is also a key text more generally for comprehending early imperial Rome. The original idea for this volume was to have represented in one place examinations of the Panegyricus’ various historical and rhetorical contexts, as well as studies offering critical engagement with the literary fabric of the Latin text as we have it. I am very grateful to all of the contributors to this volume: for agreeing to write for this project in the first place, for the outstanding quality and care invested in their chapters, and for their patience as the overall book took shape. I am equally grateful to Michael Sharp for his constant encouragement over the course of the book’s development, from the initial proposal through to the final form of the manuscript. The two anonymous readers from the press offered a wealth of advice, observations and encouragement which have improved the quality and direction of the volume; it is a pleasure to thank them for ix

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Preface

their careful reading of the manuscript. In production, both the book and the editor have benefited greatly from the assistance of Elizabeth Hanlon and that of Christina Sarigiannidou, who has been a wonderfully helpful production editor, and the acute copy-editing of Fiona Sewell, who has eliminated many errors from the typescript and sharpened its clarity and consistency throughout. Finally I would like to thank my colleagues in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney for their warmth, collegiality and good humour: to work with them here is a great pleasure.

chapter 1

Pliny’s thanksgiving: an introduction to the Panegyricus Paul Roche

precursors and predecessors On 1 September 100 ce, Pliny the Younger rose in the senate to deliver the oration we know as the Panegyricus. This was a gratiarum actio, a ‘vote of thanks’, offered up to the emperor Trajan (98–117). It was given on the occasion of Pliny’s attainment of the consulship, the prime goal of regular senatorial ambition and the highest rung, albeit of suffect status, on the normal cursus honorum.1 Pliny claims as the pretext for his speech a senatus consultum which had recommended that a vote of thanks be rendered to the emperor by the consuls (Pan. 4.1, cf. 90.3; Ep. 3.18.1, 6.27.1). In the speech and in his letters, Pliny immediately subjoins to this recommendation a normative aim: to demonstrate through praise the behaviour and characteristics expected of a good princeps (Pan. 4.1; Ep. 3.18.2). In offering praise to his emperor on this occasion, Pliny was participating in a vibrant rhetorical tradition. Its tropes and themes reflect a vital and continuous contemporary culture,2 while its roots extended a very long way back into republican culture and politics on the one hand, and on the other into Greek traditions of praise which had been crystallized to a certain extent by Isocrates in the mid-fourth century bce, but had predated him considerably.3 Special emphasis falls upon the laudatio funebris, or funeral oration, in Polybius’ account of the aristocratic funeral (6.53–4). He recounts this institution to illustrate the republic’s capacity to induce its youth to perform acts of bravery and to endure danger for the sake of reputation.4 The oration was given from the rostra in the Forum on the occasion of both public and private funerals. The laudand could be of either sex, although women are 1 2 4

And more: ‘the pinnacle of the Roman social and political order’, as Pliny constructs it in the speech; see Nore˜na, p. 38 in this volume. 3 See e.g. Braund (1998) 53–4. See Gibson, pp. 104–24 in this volume. On which: Vollmer (1925); Crawford (1941); Kierdorf (1980).

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more commonly encountered as subjects of a laudatio in the last century bce.5 A second oration might also be delivered before the senate in the case of an exceptionally important individual.6 The practice of delivering a funeral oration was apparently very early, and (naturally tendentious) claims were made for the venerable antiquity of the practice. Plutarch asserts, for instance, that P. Valerius Poplicola delivered the laudatio for L. Junius Brutus the liberator (Plut. Pub. 9.7.102). Likewise, Dionysius of Halicarnassus claimed that the Roman laudatio predated the Athenian funeral oration, the epitaphios logos (5.17.3). The epitaphios logos was in any case a distinct phenomenon on a number of counts. It had as the subject of its praise a collective of fallen warriors and its exclusive context was the public funeral. There was moreover a civic dimension to the epitaphios logos which was muted by comparison within the laudatio funebris. In the Athenian funeral oration, the virtues of the dead came before the achievements of the city. The speech also offered consolation to living relatives and an exhortation to the audience to imitate the virtues of the dead.7 In the laudatio funebris, the orator would be the son of the deceased, or another suitable relative. A serving magistrate within the family would be an especially appropriate choice (Polyb. 6.53.2). The speech would comprise two parts: praise of the individual’s achievements, followed by praise of his or her ancestors. Sources underscore the simple and unadorned nature of the speech. This was an ideal which was in tension both with the practical political utility of the speech and with panegyric’s broader tendency to embellish and adorn (i.e. to be laeta et magnifica et sublimis; Quint. Inst. 11.3).8 The object of a laudatio funebris was to locate and measure the contribution of the deceased to the reputation of his ancestors. In the imperial period, the emperor was eulogized by his successor, in accordance with a decree of the senate (Quint. Inst. 3.7.2). After the delivery of the laudatio funebris, it was preserved by the family of the deceased, and could be published more widely. Cicero writes of the enjoyment derived from reading laudationes (Orat. 11.37; Brut. 16.61–2). There were other Roman precursors. The year 63 bce saw Cicero’s inaugural consular speech before the public assembly, the second De Lege Agraria. In it, he states that the first contio of a new consul was by tradition 5 6 7 8

See Crawford (1941) 21–2. Cf. Augustus, praised by Tiberius in the Temple of Caesar and by Drusus from the rostra (Cass. Dio 56.34; Suet. Aug. 100.3). On this see Loraux (1986) 1–3, 42–3. On the style of the encomium, see Innes, pp. 69–70 and Hutchinson, pp. 125–41 in this volume.

Pliny’s thanksgiving

3

devoted to (a) rendering thanks to the people in return for their beneficium, and (b) praising the consul’s own family (Agr. 2.1). A similar function to that of the laudatio funebris thus emerges in Cicero’s formulation, in that the type and measure of the contribution made by the speaker to his family’s dignity were at issue.9 One significant departure from the funeral oration is that the praise in this context was explicitly self-reflexive. This custom was adapted in the imperial period. Now the new consuls rendered thanks, ex senatus consulto (Pan. 4.1, cf. 90.3), both to the gods and to the emperor, in essence, for the latter’s gift of their office.10 This new manifestation of the consular thanksgiving was in place by the end of Augustus’ principate,11 and it endured throughout the early imperial period. This was, for example, the type of speech (it seems) that Verginius Rufus was rehearsing for his third consulship of 97 when he slipped and broke his thigh (Plin. Ep. 2.1.5). Each year of the imperial period, then, every ordinary and suffect consul – or perhaps a representative from each pair – delivered a speech in the senate whose basic form, theme and intent would have been identical to those of the Panegyricus. But we are not permitted to imagine that the published version of Pliny’s speech is representative of this proliferation of thanksgiving speeches. Pliny’s speech is, self-consciously, a radical extension of the generic norms obtaining in the first century ce. Formally prescribed discourses of praise were not, of course, unique to the Romans. Isocrates makes a claim to being the original author of a prose encomium in his Evagoras (c.370 bce). The most important axes on which his claim rests are that his praise is expressed in prose rather than poetry, and that its subject is a human being rather than a mythological figure (Evag. 8).12 He also qualifies his claim on primacy by a clause in which he claims to have anticipated ‘those who devote themselves to philosophy’. Others then may have anticipated these men in authoring prose encomia. In any case, Isocrates’ claim is almost demonstrably false. Aristotle writes of an encomium of Hippolochus of Thessaly (Rhet. 1368a17) and Isocrates’ own Busiris displays through its tropes and methods that encomia were clearly subject to prescription by professional rhetoricians.13 In fact, the restrictive concessions that Isocrates has to establish in order to make a claim on 9

10

11 12

Cf. Agr. 2.1: Qua in oratione non nulli aliquando digni maiorum loco reperiuntur, plerique autem hoc perficiunt ut tantum maioribus eorum debitum esse videatur, unde etiam quod posteris solveretur redundaret. See further Manuwald, pp. 96–7 in this volume. Cf. Talbert (1984) 227–9; Millar (1993) 14: ‘the Emperor is the auctor of the honor, and the consulship itself is a gift (res data) which partakes of the maiestas of the giver’ (on the language of Ov. Pont. 4.9.65–70). Cf. Ov. Pont. 4.4.23–42 on the consul of 13, and Pont. 4.9.41–52, 65–70 on the consul of 17. 13 Hunter (2003) 14. A good, succinct overview at Hunter (2003) 13–15.

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primacy in the Evagoras are indicative of the rich poetic and cultural traditions of epideictic praise feeding into prose encomia in his day. A close rhetorical and thematic nexus obtains between archaic (and especially Pindaric) praise poetry and the Athenian epitaphios logos. Isocrates’ true claim to generic primacy might more helpfully be seen as his fusion of the two strands.14 The Panegyricus was thus the inheritor of a number of important cultural, political, rhetorical and literary contexts which had been developing in specific modes and circumstances in both Greece and Rome for over five hundred years prior to its delivery. The various functions and nuances attending these precursors do make their presence felt within the rhetorical fabric of Pliny’s speech in the contexts of its delivery, and in its modes of production. But we are liable to mislead if we promote the importance of these similar but distinct genres at the expense of the specific cultural, social and political circumstances informing the moment of the speech itself.15 Each speech in the epideictic mode both constructs its own response to the immediate circumstances informing its delivery and signals its own relationship with its perceived or declared precursors.16 It is the function of this volume to examine Pliny’s Panegyricus against precisely these tendencies. significance The Panegyricus is an exceptionally important speech. This is a fact more often conceded than celebrated in modern scholarship.17 It is ‘our best example of imperial eloquentia’.18 It is the only complete speech to survive to us from the last of Cicero’s Philippics in 43 bce to the celebration of the emperor Maximian’s birthday in 289 (Pan. Lat. x(2)), a speech which itself draws upon the language and imagery of Pliny’s praise.19 We can also assign importance to the Panegyricus irrespective of the accident of its survival. It is innovative. Pliny’s is apparently the first of the consular 14

15 16 17

18 19

Braund (1998) 54: ‘Like Pindar in his epinician hymns, Isocrates praises an individual; as in the funeral oration, his subject is dead’; cf. Hunter (2003) 15. On Isocrates and Pindaric encomium see Race (1987). Braund (1998) 55. For a concrete illustration of this tendency see Rees, pp. 175–88 in this volume. The expressed disappointment of Syme (1938) 217–24 (here endorsing and transmitting the aesthetic criteria of his nineteenth-century predecessors), Syme (1958a) 114, 94–5 and Goodyear (1982) 660 has become totemic of the speech’s modern reception. For two representative examples see Seager (1983) 129 and Kraus (2000) 160. Gowing (2005) 120. Although the overall impact of the Panegyricus upon the XII Panegyrici Latini must not be overstated: see Rees, p. 187 in this volume.

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5

gratiarum actiones to be revised, expanded and published.20 The reason for this revision and unusually wider dissemination is alluded to in a number of places within the speech and the letters which mention it. In a letter to Vibius Severus (Ep. 3.18) Pliny claimed that he believed it his duty as one of the boni ciues to publish the speech in order to encourage Trajan along what he saw as the right path, and to offer instruction to future emperors through the content of this document (3.18.2). We might also add as an influence the Trajanic innovation of publishing senatorial acclamations in the acta diurna (Pan. 75, 95.1): publishing the Panegyricus was a decision very much in step with the spirit of its age. The immediate reception of the speech and its publication is difficult to gauge accurately, since all of the evidence for it comes from Pliny himself. One might tentatively consider as indices of the speech’s perceived contemporary relevance the small clique of Pliny’s friends who were not satisfied with two days of recitation of the Panegyricus and asked for a third (3.18.4). The success of the speech is unlikely to be unrelated to the fact that Vettenius Severus wrote to Pliny for advice on how to compose a related species of gratiarum actio, that delivered by the consul designate (Ep. 6.27). Finally, one aspect of Pliny’s achievement can be measured by the fact that the literary genre of the prose panegyric was established by the 140s.21 pliny’s programme The notion found in rhetorical treatises and endorsed by Pliny, that praise ought to persuade the recipient to a desirable course of action (Arist. Rhet. 1.9.36; cf. Plin. Ep. 3.18, Pan. 4.1), prompts a summary consideration of Pliny’s programme of advice for his emperor. In Pliny’s formulation, the speech was delivered ‘so that good rulers should recognize what they have done and bad ones learn what they ought to do’ (ut . . . boni principes quae facerent recognoscerent, mali quae facere deberent). Indeed, a consistent programme of advice is recoverable from the specific loci of praise within the speech. Viewed through this lens, the Panegyricus emerges as a manifesto in the true sense of the word. It offers admonitory guidance to Trajan not only on issues which were central to the concerns of the senatorial aristocracy, but on many other aspects of the principate besides. It is important, both because it offers a prominent senator’s totalizing view of what an ideal 20 21

Durry (1938) 3–8; see too Nore˜na, pp. 40–1 in this volume. For the immediate generic impact of the speech, see Rees, p. 176 in this volume.

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emperor should be, and because it embodies the values which a newly ennobled member of the senate wished to be seen to endorse. The following suite of advice has been assembled from those moments in the Panegyricus when Pliny either commends Trajan’s actions – whether real, alleged to have happened, predicted, or claimed for Trajan by Pliny – or is explicitly prescriptive regarding the ideal behaviour of the princeps. In order to arrive at this programme, Pliny’s varying statements of approval have been recast into simple and impersonal admonitions. The following duties of the good emperor emerge. The emperor ought to sustain the notion of his own social parity with his peers (2.3, 2.4, 22.1–2, 23.1, 24.2, 42.3, 48, 49.5, 60.4, 64.4, esp. 71, 78.4). His supremacy ought not to diminish or impair the dignitas of his subjects (19.1–2, 22.2, 24.5, 77.4). The emperor ought to be accessible (23.3, 24.3–4, 47.4–5). He ought to be prompt and present in his help (80.3). The emperor ought to prefer simplicity of appearance or taste, and cultivate the appearance of his former status as a private citizen; he ought to disdain artifice (3.5, 3.6, 20.1, 23.6, 24.2, 24.3, 43.2, 49.7–8, 81) and the extravagant blandishments of previous emperors (7.3, 82.6, 82.9). The emperor ought to refuse, or remain reluctant to accept, further powers and titles (2.3, 3.5, 7.1, 9.4, 10.4, 11.4, 21.1, 55.9, 65.1) – for himself or for his family (84.6) – or an excessive number of consulships (56.3, 57.1–5, 58, 79); he ought to discourage extravagant praise (54.3–4, 55), or praise offered in or on inappropriate media, occasions, genres and contexts (54.2). He must not descend into tyranny (45.3, 55.7) or corruption (53.1–5) or inspire fear (46.1, 46.7). The emperor’s words and promises ought to be trusted (66.5); he ought to be constant (66.6, esp. 74). He ought to bind himself to the laws (65). The emperor ought to participate fully in civic and political functions, ceremonies and rituals (60.2, 63.1–3, 64, 77, esp. 77.8, 92.3). He must take the consulship seriously (59, 93.1) and observe constitutional regulations about the consulship (60.1, 63–77, 76). He ought to allow the senate a sensible and dignified function (54). He ought to listen to the senate’s opinion; his choices and emotions ought to be mirrored in theirs (62.2–5, 73); he ought not to promote his own favourites against the senate’s choice (62.6). He ought to encourage the senate to be free and to participate in the running of the state (66.1–2, 67, 69, 76, 87.1, esp. 93.1–2); he ought to treat the senate with respect (69.3, reuerentia); he ought to allow ex-consuls to assist him freely and fully with their aid and counsel (93.3). The emperor must attend to and accommodate senatorial requests or prayers (2.8, 4.3, 6.4, 33.2, 60.4, implied at 78.1, 86–7), and prayers in

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general (79.6): this is an earthly reflection of the gods’ accommodation of human prayers (3.5). Conversely, he must not accommodate the ‘insinuating counsel’ of self-interested parties, such as delatores (41.3): the emperor ought not to permit delation (34, 36, 37–9, 42, 62.9). The emperor ought to embody selfless and unceasing service to the state (5.6, 7.1, 7.3, 21.1–4, 67.4, 68, 79.5). He ought to behave and administer the empire with maximum transparency and visibility (20.5, 21.4, 49.5, 56, 62.9, 83.1). The emperor ought neither to buy peace, nor to claim undeserved triumphs, but should increase the empire in the best tradition of the middle republic (12.1–4, 16–17, 56.4–8). The emperor ought to be personally active with the army (13.1–5); he ought to increase their discipline (18.1, 19.3–4, 23.3), but not value them over the civilian population (25.2). The emperor ought to recognize and commend the good deeds of his subordinates (15.5, 18.1 military; 44.5–8, 60.5–7 civilian), and not reward uitia (45.3); he ought to advance the good (61–2, esp. 62.10, esp. 70, esp. 88.3, esp. 91.2 (Pliny and Tertullus)) and protect against the impact of the bad (46.8). The emperor ought to show respect to the genealogical claim to pre-eminence of the nobility, and he ought to advance them accordingly (69.5–6), but promote new men according to merit (70.1–2). The emperor ought to be scrupulous in the delivery of his largesse (25–6, congiarium). He ought to care for the poor as much as the proceres (26.6). The emperor’s generosity ought not to be dependent upon the deprivation of others, or serve as a distraction from or recompense for any vice (27.3–4, 28); he ought not to expect remuneration via wills (43.5). The emperor ought to embody financial propriety and self-control (29.4, 36.3, 50, 55.5; implicitly criticized at 41). The emperor ought to ensure libertas (27.1, 58.3, 78.3) and securitas (27.1, 29 for the corn supply, 30.5–32 for Egypt, 35.4 from delation, 36.4 for the working of the court, 43 for wills, 44.5, 48.2 at court). He ought to allow freedom of expression at the games (33.3). The emperor ought not to be overly prescriptive in his guidance of morality (45.4–6). He ought to support the liberal arts (47). He ought to cultivate the continuing love of his subjects (49.3). He ought to discharge the functions of friendship as well as those of imperial rule (85). The emperor ought to have simple piety towards the gods (52). His justice ought not to be compromised by a desire for self-enrichment (80.1– 2). He ought to keep close control over his family (83.2–84.8) and freedmen (88.1).

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A related matter is the abstraction of such behaviour into virtues.22 It has long been recognized that a fundamental characteristic of these imperial virtues is their celebration of differing nuances of the emperor’s ability to moderate his own absolute power and to observe self-imposed limitations.23 Trajan’s virtues in the Panegyricus constitute the largest cluster of these abstractions attaching to a single human being in the early imperial period.24 Many of them overlap in basic meaning or at least share nuances. They delineate, as it were, Pliny’s view of the appropriate arenas in which an emperor should aspire to pre-eminence. Consider the most commonly invoked virtues in the speech. Those appearing over ten times in the Panegyricus are modestia (16), moderatio (16), fides (16), uirtus (16), reuerentia (15), cura (14), labor (14), liberalitas (13), securitas (12), pudor (11), pietas (11), benignitas (10) and maiestas (10). It is completely consistent with Trajan’s public imagery that humanitas and diuinitas (7 times each) receive the same emphasis within the speech.25 We can clearly see Pliny’s programme reflected in nuce in this emphasis. Modestia and moderatio form the bedrock of Pliny’s prescription: synonymous terms treating Trajan’s basic self-restraint (TLL s.v. moderatio 1206.5–9). Pudor is the inner quality which (positively put) compels such moderatio, or (negatively) prevents Trajan from transgressing it. The property of reuerentia extends this basic notion of Trajan’s self-regulation into an observable demonstration of it in his behaviour. This is the deference with which he chooses to treat august bodies such as the senate (Pan. 69.4); it also pertains to the deference owed to his standing as emperor, his dignitas, his maiestas (Pan. 95; TLL s.v. maiestas 156.1–52). Securitas (public security) is, in essence, the benefit accruing to the community as a result of both the emperor’s self-moderation and his deferential treatment of his peers.26 Fides speaks to another aspect of this interpersonal dynamic. This is Trajan’s maintenance of good faith in his relationships (TLL s.v. fides 675.10–676.45). But fides also has a civic dimension, by which magistrates 22 23 24

25

For an overview see Charlesworth (1937) 105–38; Weinstock (1971) 228–59; Fears (1981) 827–948; Wallace-Hadrill (1981) 298–323. Wallace-Hadrill (1981) 316: ‘These are all social virtues, qualities of self-restraint. The focus is not on the possession of power, but on the control of it in deference to other members of society.’ There appear to be fifty-one; some of the abstractions in the following list may not meet everyone’s definition of a virtue. They are abstinentia, auctoritas, benignitas, bonitas, candor, castitas, clementia, comitas, consilium, continentia, cura, diuinitas, facilitas, familiaritas, felicitas, fides, fortitudo, frugalitas, grauitas, hilaritas, humanitas, indulgentia, iucunditas, iustitia, labor, liberalitas, magnanimitas, magnitudo, maiestas, mansuetudo, moderatio, modestia, munificentia, opes, patientia, pietas, prouidentia, pudor, reuerentia, sanctitas, sapientia, securitas, seueritas, simplicitas, suauitas, temperantia, tranquillitas, uerecundia, ueritas, uigilantia, uirtus. 26 See Braund (2009) 180 on Sen. Clem. 1.1.8. See Roche (2003).

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and judges equitably discharge their responsibilities (TLL s.v. fides 679.4– 70).27 Liberalitas and its near synonym, benignitas, encompass the personal generosity of the emperor (TLL s.v. benignitas 1899.21–1901.32),28 while cura and labor speak to his industry. Pietas pertains to various aspects of his mediating role between the Roman state and the gods, his respectful devotion and attention to the duties owed to the gods and state, as well as his relationship with his family. All of these virtue terms are manifestations of his basic, all-encompassing excellence, his uirtus. The density as well as the variety of virtue terms in the Panegyricus is noteworthy and instructive: these 13 most frequent virtues appear a total of 174 times throughout the 95 chapters of the speech. A comparison with other prominent documents which are patently concerned with promoting or evaluating imperial ideals – the Res Gestae (c.13), the Senatus Consultum de Pisone Patre (abbr. SCPP, 20 ce), Seneca’s De Clementia (55–6 ce), and Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum (early second century ce) – will assist both in offering context to the imperial ideals featured in the speech and in measuring the degree to which Pliny’s choice of virtues is either typical or idiosyncratic. Of the four virtues claimed for Augustus on the clupeus uirtutis of 27 or 26 bce (ILS 81; RGDA 34.2) – uirtus, clementia, iustitia and pietas – both uirtus (sixteen times) and pietas (eleven times) are frequent in the Panegyricus, but neither could have been omitted in praise of any emperor (and pontifex maximus). Consider their frequency in the SCPP (pietas nine times; uirtus twice), in De Clementia (pietas twice; uirtus fifteen times) and Suetonius (pietas eleven times; uirtus twelve times). This would especially be the case for uirtus – in its military dimension (OLD 1b) – in one who self-consciously cultivated the image of himself as a uir militaris. It may surprise that clementia and iustitia occur with relative infrequency in the Panegyricus (three times each), but the discretionary and judicial nuances of moderatio,29 benignitas (TLL s.v. benignitas 1899.21–1901.32) or liberalitas, upon which Pliny does place a great deal of emphasis, may have obviated the need for stressing clementia. Virtues which appear in Pliny as well as in the biographies of his friend and contemporary Suetonius, but do not appear in these earlier documents, are reuerentia (15), labor (14), pudor (11), grauitas (5), facilitas (4), opes (4), sapientia (3), simplicitas (3), fortitudo (3), abstinentia (1), castitas (1), comitas (1) and munificentia (1). Virtues which Pliny mentions in the speech but which do not rate a mention in Suetonius are benignitas (10), frugalitas (5), 27 29

28 See Nore˜ See too Hellegouarc’h (1963) 23–40. na (2001) 160–4. For which see Braund (2009) 189 on Sen. Clem. 1.2.2.

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uigilantia (4), mansuetudo (4), temperantia (2), magnanimitas (2), bonitas (2), prouidentia (1), suauitas (1), candor (1), iucunditas (1) and diuinitas (1). The only virtues mentioned by Pliny which are absent from all of these documents are familiaritas (2) and continentia (1). The wide semantic nuances of each of these terms would ensure that the basic meaning of each item is represented in one related virtue term or another in many of Pliny’s predecessors. His innovation in terms of political thought is not at issue. But the fragmenting of these into an unprecedented array of properties and the heaping of them onto the emperor in (as far as we can see) unparalleled quantity is both a significant reflection of Pliny’s rhetorical agenda and strategy in the Panegyricus, and a powerful index of the public centralization of all virtuous behaviour into the person of the emperor. The totalizing expression of these various virtues and the moral and ethical axes along which they are measured find form at 4.5: Enituit aliquis in bello, sed obsoleuit in pace; alium toga sed non et arma honestarunt; reuerentiam ille terrore, alius amorem humilitate captauit; ille quaesitam domi gloriam in publico, hic in publico partam domi perdidit; postremo adhuc nemo exstitit, cuius uirtutes nullo uitiorum confinio laederentur. At principi nostro quanta concordia quantusque concentus omnium laudum omnisque gloriae contigit! Vt nihil seueritati eius hilaritate, nihil grauitati simplicitate, nihil maiestati humanitate detrahitur! (Plin. Pan. 4.5) One man may have been eminent in war but fallen into torpor in peace; another man may have been adorned with honour by the toga but not by weapons of war; one gains respect through fear, another gains love through pandering to the base; one man destroys in public the reputation he acquired at home, while another loses his public reputation through his private life. In sum, there has been no one whose virtues were not dimmed by the close proximity of his vices. But what great harmony, what a symphony of all praise and of every glory has fallen to our princeps! Nothing is detracted from his sternness by his good humour, nothing from his gravity by his lack of pretension, nothing from his majesty by his essential humanity!

The metaphor of the emperor’s virtues existing in concordia within his person mirrors his exemplary function to his family (see esp. 83–4), the senate and the state as a whole. pliny on the negative example Trajan’s superlative qualities are sharply offset by the negative example of previous emperors, especially (but not exclusively) Domitian. Pliny’s Domitian is, very clearly, a rhetorical construction and a product of the persuasive

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agenda of his speech.30 It is instructive to compare the criticisms levelled against him by Pliny with the traditional loci of Ciceronian invective as established by Christopher Craig.31 Of the seventeen standard loci isolated by Craig,32 eleven are present in Pliny’s remarks regarding Domitian.33 This is a relatively high proportion by comparison with Ciceronian speeches: Cicero’s In Pisonem has thirteen, his second Philippic features fifteen.34 Thus, Pliny’s description of Domitian locked away in the palace (Pan. 48.3–5) illustrates three set pieces of Roman invective: Domitian’s hostility towards his own family, his cruelty towards his citizens, and his physical instantiation of his own vices (e.g. his arrogant brow, the ira in his eyes, the womanish pallor spreading across his body, and the blush indicating his impudentia). Consider also that the image (at Pan. 49.6) of Domitian’s lonely gluttony (distentus solitaria cena), yielding to menacing surveillance and insults heaped upon his guests, before subsiding once more into secret feasting and unspecified private excesses, draws directly upon a standard generic marker of invective.35 Pliny harps on Domitian’s hypocrisy under a number of headings and nuances: that he deified Titus only to be a brother of a god (11.1); that his congiaria were offered up only to cover his uitia (28.1–2); that his attitude of respect before the senate was a show and that he cast off his consular obligations once outside the senate house (76.5). Pliny repeatedly returns to the notion of Domitian’s avarice (41.2–3, 42, 43, 50.5 on his detestanda auaritia) and is expansive on the related topos of the plundering of private and public properties, whether en route to or from the provinces (20.4), in the areas around the city (50.1), or in the capital itself in abuse of his position as judge (80.1). Domitian is surely 30

31 32

33

34 35

For further comments on Pliny’s Domitian, see Hutchinson, pp. 128–31 in this volume, who also locates him within a rhetorical context (in the failed attempt at the sublime), and Henderson, pp. 158 and 161–2 in this volume, who discusses the figure of Domitian against the backdrop of historical exemplarity in the speech. See Craig (2004) 189–92, who draws on Nisbet (1961), S¨uss (1975) and Merrill (1975). Viz. embarrassing family origin; unworthiness of one’s family; physical appearance; eccentricity of dress; gluttony or drunkenness possibly leading to cruelty and/or lust; hypocrisy for appearing virtuous; avarice; bribe-taking; pretentiousness; sexual misconduct; hostility to family (misophilia); cowardice; financial embarrassment or the squandering of one’s patrimony; aspirations to tyranny or regnum; cruelty to citizens and/or allies; plundering of private and public property; oratorical ineptitude. Traditional loci of invective appearing in Pan. (first instances only follow in brackets): (1) physical appearance (48.4); (2) gluttony leading to cruelty (49.6); (3) hypocrisy for appearing virtuous (11.1); (4) avarice (41.2); (5) pretentiousness (24.5); (6) sexual misconduct (52.3); (7) misophilia (48.3); (8) cowardice (11.4–5); (9) aspirations to tyranny or regnum (2.3–4); (10) cruelty to citizens and/or allies (18.3); (11) plundering of private and public property (20.4). Craig (2004) 191. It is worth noting the comparable length of all three speeches: Cic. Mil.: 105 chapters; Pis.: 99 chapters; Plin. Pan.: 95 chapters. See too the vaguer references made at Pan. 63.3.

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meant to be among those emperors who, in their scorn for the citizenry, were carried on the shoulders and bent backs of slaves to tower above their peers (22.1, 24.5): an index of the emperor’s pretentiousness as well as his aspirations to tyranny. So too, the emperor’s sexual misconduct, in the form of his incestuous relationship with his niece, is referred to explicitly and repeatedly (52.3, 63.7). There are three loci upon which Pliny spends most space and time in the speech. Domitian’s cowardice is illustrated with regard to foreign enemies (11.4–5, 12); rebellious governors (14.5); the citizens of the capital, in terror of whom he locked himself away in the palace (49.1); and even amid the otium of his retreat at Alba Longa (82.1). Domitian’s aspirations to tyranny are likewise illustrated under a number of diverse headings: his appropriation of divine status (2.3–4, 52.3); the servitude of the senate (2.5); the adulation he demanded through shows (54.1); his extravagant honours (54.4, 58). Domitian’s cruelty receives the most frequent attention in the speech: he unpredictably turned on and assaulted audience members at the games (33.3–4); maiestas trials filled the coffers of the fiscus and aerarium, the latter of which was a repository for the blood-soaked spoils of citizens (42.1); he was surrounded by delatores (45.1); he massacred the citizen body (48.3); he was armed with terror (49.3); he plotted exile and death for the consuls (63.3); he threatened Pliny and Tertullus and massacred their friends (90.5). Pliny’s process of selection and his agenda in the Panegyricus emerge more clearly in the light of those traditional invective loci appearing in Suetonius’ Domitian and Cassius Dio book 67. In Suetonius’ biography and in the other Flavian lives, fifteen of the seventeen loci are deployed. Suetonius notes the obscurity of Domitian’s family origin (Vesp. 1.1) and his early poverty (Dom. 1.1). He is completely explicit that he was unworthy of his family (Vesp. 1.1: gens Flauia, obscura illa quidem ac sine ullis maiorum imaginibus, sed tamen rei p. nequaquam paenitenda, constet licet Domitianum cupiditatis ac saeuitiae merito poenas luisse). He notes eccentricities of Domitian’s dress at the agon Capitolinus (Dom. 4.4). Suetonius also claims that Domitian’s letters, speeches and edicts were composed for him by others (Dom. 20.1), which can be classified under the locus of oratorical ineptitude. Two notable divergences occur between the Panegyricus and the Life of Domitian. Pliny develops the notion of his menacing gluttony, while Suetonius insists upon and illustrates his culinary moderation (Dom. 21). Perhaps most striking of all is Suetonius’ use of the locus of financial embarrassment and the squandering of one’s patrimony: he asserts that his inopia had made Domitian rapax (3.2). The nearest Pliny comes to availing

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himself of the same locus is directed not at Domitian, but at Trajan, when he wonders whether the resources of the empire can cope with Trajan’s refusal of gifts of money, his disbursement of donatives and congiaria, as well as his remission of taxes and dismissal of informers (Pan. 41). It is as close to criticism of Trajan as Pliny comes in the speech, and it is directly related to Pliny’s own career and reputation as an expert at the treasury.36 Because of his greater remoteness in time from the end of the first century and the epitomized state of his work, it is less significant that Cassius Dio also treats eight of the loci featured in the Panegyricus.37 He cites the locus of gluttony leading to cruelty via an elaborate anecdote regarding Domitian’s funereal dinner party, and widens the horizons of his sexual misconduct to include debauching aristocratic women, but he is otherwise consistent with the loci of invective found in Pliny. Of all seventeen loci, only bribery is unmentioned in all three sources; in fact Suetonius notes the lengths to which Domitian went to suppress it (Dom. 8.1–2, 9.3). It is of course likely that the range of invective loci might have expanded beyond the limits of the seventeen found in the practice of Cicero a century and a half earlier. But most of Pliny’s choices of invective loci in the Panegyricus are easily understood. His most insistently emphasized issues – cruelty, tyranny and rapacity – are obvious polar opposites of an ideal emperor. Perhaps Domitian’s oratorical ineptitude was deemed to be not antithetical enough to the simple manner affected by the new emperor: one thinks of the well-publicized, well-meaning ignorance promoted in Trajan’s exchange with Dio of Prusa (Philostratus VS 1.7.488). Also there was little scope in denigrating the Flavians as a family without drawing a comparison with the even more obscure gens Ulpia. Arguably the most important issue to arise from this discussion – but ultimately the least easily answered – is that of sincerity and belief.38 Craig assembled this list of invective loci in order to demonstrate the potentially marginal nature of credibility in Ciceronian invective. By invoking a critical number of these traditional loci, Cicero might well have expected his audience to recognize the formal rhetorical elements of an invective exercise. In key speeches where the veracity of the charges is very much at 36 37

38

For more on this moment in the speech and on Pliny’s programme of self-definition in the Panegyricus, see Nore˜na, pp. 30–1 in this volume. Gluttony leading to cruelty (67.6.3); hypocrisy for appearing virtuous (67.1.3–4, 67.2.6–7, 67.3, 67.12.1–2); avarice (67.5.5); sexual misconduct (67.3.2, 67.12.1–2); misophilia (67.2.1–2, 67.2.5, 67.15.2–4); cowardice (67.4.1, 67.6.3, 67.7.2); aspiration to tyranny (67.4.3, 67.5.7, 67.7.2); cruelty to citizens (67.1.1, 67.2.5, 67.3.31 , 67.8.3–4, 67.9.1–6, 67.11.2–4, 67.13.2–3, 67.14.1–3). A different aspect of the issue treated so well by Bartsch (1994) 148–87.

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issue,39 the absence of these loci seems also to suggest a desire to steer his audience away from conceiving the abuse as rhetorically informed rather than authentically reported. Where, then, does this leave us with Pliny’s Domitian? Should we conceive of Pliny’s audience as simply relishing the vigorous application of rhetoric’s lash to the last of the Flavians? Or think of Pliny’s rhetorical training as facilitating and framing his authentic memory of the Domitianic principate? Obviously this presentation of the issue self-consciously polarizes it; but it is well worth considering the difficulty of locating where along this spectrum a convincing compromise or combination of these two reactions might be constructed. The nature of the speech’s relationship with rhetoric and reality naturally prompts a consideration of its more general evidentiary value. the panegyricus and trajan’s rome Pliny’s Panegyricus has always been considered both a very important document for recovering Trajanic Rome, and at the same time an immensely problematic source of information on the events it purports to relate.40 It provides us with a precious eyewitness report of a period which is documented with an almost singular poverty, and offers up a wealth of information – albeit immersed in an obscuring and often misleading rhetorical context – on Roman society, politics and public affairs. The following survey is representative rather than exhaustive. Pliny alludes to Trajan’s developing career in the emperor’s service. This is in accordance with the emphasis upon biographical or chronological approaches to praise suggested in treatises and found in earlier examples of the genre.41 We learn in the Panegyricus of the triumphal ornaments of Trajan’s father for service in Syria the mid-70s (14.1; attested but without context on ILS 8970); of Trajan’s own military tribunate under his father; of the movement in January 89 from Spain to Germany of the VII Gemina (of which Trajan was legate) in response to the revolt of Saturninus (14.2). Note that we are misled by Pliny on Domitian’s inertia during this crisis (cf. Cass. Dio 67.11.5). Enigmas, omissions and distortions remain. That Trajan spent ten years as a military tribune (15.3) is an astonishing claim: 39 40

41

Such as Cat. 1: see Craig (2007) 335–9. See, most succinctly, the remarks of Edward Gibbon (ed. Bury) (1909–14) 1.82: ‘we are reduced to collect the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an abridgement [i.e. Cassius Dio], or the doubtful light of a panegyric’. See Innes, p. 78 in this volume.

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unparalleled and patently untrue.42 Pliny suppresses mention of Trajan’s ordinary consulship in 91 and says that he was ‘found worthy of campaign upon campaign’ after 89 (14.5 cum aliis super alias expeditionibus . . . dignus inuenireris): he later appears to refer to Trajan living in the capital during the mid-90s (44.1). This may allude to operations in the aftermath of 89,43 or else to an unknown proconsular appointment. It would have been noteworthy in the context of the Panegyricus had Trajan been passed over for proconsular service.44 On the other hand, it is an extreme and unlikely solution to posit continuous commands from 92 to 96.45 One of the speech’s most valuable contributions is its adumbration of the events of the years 96–8, covering the reign of Nerva and the accession and reign of Trajan to 100. From the Panegyricus we learn of the full scale of the mutiny of the praetorian guard in 96 (5.6–6.4; cf. Cass. Dio 68.3.3). From Pliny we also have our best look at the actual mechanics of Trajan’s adoption by Nerva (8.1–5): the ceremonial details of the public act; the crisis to which it formed a response; the contemporary association of this adoption and Galba’s adoption of Piso in 69; and most tantalizingly of all, Nerva’s motivation in choosing Trajan as his heir, including comments which may suggest coercion (e.g. 9.2). Beyond the adoption, Pliny provides information on Trajan’s status, roles and actions under Nerva. Regarding Trajan’s nomenclature and the public framing of his role, we learn that he took the titles Caesar, imperator, Germanicus, was consors tribuniciae potestatis, and that his role was compared to that of Titus under Vespasian (8.6; cf. 9.1 successor imperii, particeps, socius; 9.3). Pliny’s speech offers information on Trajan’s official response to Nerva’s death: deification and priesthoods (11.2–3: the temple is uncorroborated; 89.1), both in high contrast to the unmistakably cool reception of Nerva by Trajan generally and his total absence from Trajan’s early coinage.46 Pliny is our best source on Trajan’s decision to remain absent from Rome until late 99, and is easily our most detailed source of information on the early policies of Trajan’s principate: e.g. his Danubian tour and diplomatic activities in 98–9 (12.2–4, 16.2) and his publication of his travelling accounts in 99 (20.5–6). Pliny is a brilliant witness to the ceremony attending Trajan’s first entry as emperor into Rome (22.1–6), including the 42 44 45

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43 So Bennett (1997) 43. The nearest precedent is service in three legions: Syme (1938) 220. Bennett (1997) 44–5; see below, p. 21. Bennett (1997) 43–6, relying upon the contemporary view of Trajan as a uir militaris, suggests either Germania Inferior or Superior in 92 or 93, followed by Pannonia in 95 or 96 (contra Cass. Dio 68.3.4). See Roche (2002) esp. 52–4.

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triumphal nuances obtaining in the emperor’s urban itinerary (23.4–6). We also observe court ceremonial and its political currency through the eyes of an ambitious contemporary outsider (24.2).47 Pliny documents Trajan’s gifts to the citizens and soldiers in his first years. We learn that the soldiers were paid their donative in instalments, but that the citizens received their congiarium in one payment (25.2), and that both the congiarium and alimenta were paid from the emperor’s own funds (27.3). We know from Pliny that 5,000 new citizens were enrolled for the congiarium (28.4), that public works helped facilitate the influx of grain to the city (29.2), and that Trajan helped alleviate an Egyptian drought with shipments of grain from Rome (30–2). Pliny documents Trajan’s public actions against informers, as well as the precursors to this action under Titus and Nerva (34.1–35.5). He also states that Trajan discouraged charges of maiestas (42). Pliny offers copious detail on tax reform under Trajan, its antecedent in Nerva’s reign (37–41),48 and the abolition of debt-collection under Trajan for sums accrued before his accession (40.5). We also know from the speech that Trajan was selling the property of the fiscus to augment the treasury in this period (50.5), and that public building had effectively ceased (51.1). Information on Trajanic policy aimed at moderating the emperor’s veneration is problematically entwined with the persuasive agenda of the speech, but we note Trajan’s refusal to place his statues in the inner sanctum of temples (52.2), his refusal of prayers to his genius (52.6), and his banning of laudes imperatoris at games (54.1–2). Pliny’s remarks on the imperial family and their own publicly demonstrated moderation are relevant to this theme (83–4).49 We note also the condition of his own public utility which Trajan added to public vows for his safety (67.4, 94.5), and a similar prerequisite underwriting his protection by the praetorian guard (67.8). Pliny misleads on Trajan’s refusal of the title pater patriae (21.1; cf. 57.5). On the senate and the emperor’s relationship with it, Pliny is at once invaluable and problematic. Pliny overstates the newfound importance of topics for senatorial debate (54.4–7; cf. Ep. 5.4, 4.12, 3.20). He is detailed in his coverage of Trajanic consular policy, regarding both the emperor’s own refusal and acceptance of that honour (56.3, 60.4, 78.1) and his distribution of it to supporters (60.4–7, 61.7). Pliny naturally misleads on the importance of the Nervan commission to reduce public expenditure and 47 48 49

See Nore˜na, pp. 31–2 in this volume. On some implications of this, see Nore˜na, pp. 30–1 in this volume. For example in Plotina’s rejection of the title ‘Augusta’; for other items, see Roche (2002).

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its influence on Trajan’s choice of consuls of 100 (62.2). On the emperor’s relationship with the senate as a body, the Panegyricus is outstanding. Pliny records Trajan patiently enduring the various ceremonies associated with the consular elections (63–5, 77), that he took the regular consular oath (64–5, 71, 72) and urged candidates to court the favour of the senate (69). Pliny provides information on acclamations and political buzzwords (e.g. 74), and notes that these acclamations were now for the first time recorded in the acta diurna (75, 95.1). Incidental information abounds. Trajan suppressed pantomimi, and thus resumed a Domitianic policy discontinued by Nerva (46.1–8). We naturally have details on the careers of Pliny and Cornutus Tertullus, and on their roles as praefecti aerarii (90–2). A terminus ante quem for the death of M. Ulpius Traianus is provided by references in the Panegyricus (89.1). We know that Attius Suburanus’ colleague in the praetorian prefecture retired upon Trajan’s return to Rome (86). Amid the sustained excoriation of Domitian, we glimpse inter alia his negotiation with Decebalus in 89 (11.4; cf. Cass. Dio 67.7), the conservative reaction to his exotic court personnel (49.8), his execution of Epaphroditus (53.4), and the enactment of his damnatio memoriae (52.4–6). Pliny fabricates entirely the circumstances of Domitian’s assassination (49.1–4). As a final consideration, Pliny publicly unpacks the resonances of the epithet ‘Optimus’, particularly its associations with Jupiter Optimus Maximus (2.7, 88.4, 88.8). The Panegyricus regularly acts as a distorting mirror upon the events that it reflects for its various audiences (in the senate, at the recitation or in modern scholarship). Its inaccuracies, exaggerations and omissions are, however, (usually) easy to note, but we should bear in mind that this catalogue and its implications are continuously evolving, and that there is no total consensus on the value of Pliny’s information on some key issues.50 Atypically unhelpful as a control on this is the public nature of the delivery of the speech. Some of Pliny’s audience in the senate in September 100 will have known differing and more accurate versions of the events he expounds upon. But the nature of the immediate post-Domitianic period, and the collective and explicit decision both to remember and to forget Domitian in a particular mode, render moot some of the expected controlling factors obtaining between a speech and the experience of its audience. There do, however, remain some controls for us, which can help us to understand and contextualize Pliny’s motivation for misrepresenting an event, but 50

Consider e.g. the nature of Trajan’s career under Domitian, as reconstructed from the Panegyricus in the works of Bennett (1997), Birley (2000) and Eck (2002).

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these do not extend to offering a corrected version of the content of the speech: the execration of Domitian’s memory (impacting upon e.g. the revision of both Pliny’s and Trajan’s career); Pliny’s ‘aspirational selfrepresentation’ (explaining e.g. the prominence of Nerva’s commission on public expenditure and his comments on Trajan’s court);51 and the generally admonitory nature of his praise (e.g. the senate’s importance and role).52 In sum, for the historian of the early imperial period, the Panegyricus is an extremely valuable source of information, and yet it remains variously tantalizing, problematic and disquieting. domitian, trajan and pliny Ten years separate the three men at the centre of the Panegyricus.53 Domitian was born on 24 October 51 in his family home on the Quirinal in Rome (Suet. Dom. 1.1). Trajan was born on 18 September (Plin. Pan. 92.4) – in either 53 (Eutr. 8.2)54 or 56 (Cass. Dio 68.6.3) – in Italica in Spain. Pliny was born in 61 or 62 (Plin. Ep. 6.16.4, 6.20.5). The three respective biological and adoptive fathers had been closely associated with each other. M. Ulpius Traianus and C. Plinius Secundus had been highly prominent at the courts of the emperors Vespasian and Titus. The Elder Pliny was an amicus of both emperors.55 He served with Titus, probably in Germany in 57.56 His career was advanced through the agency of Licinius Mucianus and the favour of Vespasian and Titus, whom he served as a courtier until his death in 79. His adoption of his nephew was apparently testamentary (Ep. 5.8.5). It is possible that M. Ulpius Traianus was the brother-in-law of Titus through his marriage to the sister of Marcia Furnilla.57 In 67 he commanded the legio X Fretensis under Vespasian in the Jewish War (Joseph. BJ 3.7.31): the same war in which Titus commanded the XV Apollinaris. Traianus was suffect consul in the crucial year 7058 and was adlected to patrician status by Vespasian and Titus in their censorship of 73–4 (Plin. Pan. 9.2). He may have governed the newly amalgamated Cappadocia-Galatia before his tenure of Syria, which brought him triumphal ornaments for a victory (perhaps diplomatic) over Parthia. His final appointment was the crowning achievement of the senatorial career, governance of Asia, in the late 70s. 51 52 53 54 56 58

On which see Nore˜na, pp. 29–32 in this volume. See above, pp. 5–10, on Pliny’s programme. On Pliny’s relationship with Domitian, and Trajan see Soverini (1989). 55 See Crook (1975) 179 with references. Syme (1958a) 1.31; Eck (2002) 214 n. 12. 57 See Champlin (1983) 257–64; Jones (1992) 11, 59. See M¨unzer (1899) 106; Jones (1984) 15–16. See Morris (1953) 79–80.

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Galba’s adoption of Piso in January 69 was an unavoidable point of comparison for Nerva’s adoption of Trajan in late 97. The failure of that earlier event to quell mutiny was the natural counterpoint for Nerva’s successful averting of a civil war (Pan. 8.5), and Galba’s failure set in train the events which would see Domitian as Caesar and princeps iuuentutis in the last days of December 69. Throughout the 70s, Domitian’s role within the regime would be highly visible but junior to his brother, and solely honorific.59 He was suffect consul in 71, 75, 76, 77 and 79; he was ordinary consul in 73, the year in which Vespasian and Titus would hold the censorship; and he held various priesthoods. Despite his best efforts, he was thwarted in his attempts to gain first-hand military experience in 69 and again in 75. In the same period, the first steps of Trajan’s career coincided with the spectacular success of his father in Syria.60 Trajan was military tribune of one of the Syrian legions in the period in which Traianus accrued ornamenta triumphalia (Pan. 14). After this post, Trajan may have taken the unusual step of a second military tribunate, in one of the Rhine legions in the last years of the decade (Pan. 14).61 His quaestorship ought to have been held when Trajan was around 25 years old, and so should be placed either in this same period in 78, or else in 81. During the 70s Pliny the Younger was in Rome under the tutelage of Verginius Rufus (Ep. 2.1.8), who had been offered the principate twice by his troops in 68–9, and was relegated to political obscurity during the Flavian period. Upon the death of Vespasian in 79, Domitian’s designated suffect consulship for 80 was upgraded by Titus to an ordinary consulship, and he was furthermore designated consul ordinarius for 82. Despite his expectations (Suet. Dom. 2.3), his brother bestowed neither tribunician power nor imperium upon Domitian: only the assurance of being his successor (Suet. Tit. 9.3). Domitian remained princeps iuuentutis (CIL 3.223), as he had been since 70, until the death of Titus on 13 September 81. Pliny the Younger’s career at Rome begins under Titus. Now an adopted son of a prominent equestrian and Flavian amicus, he began to speak in the Centumviral Court in 80 or 81 (Ep. 5.8.8); at the same time it is probable that he held a post on the decemvirate stlitibus iudicandis.62 The nature of Trajan’s career under Domitian in the 80s turns on the date of his birth. If he was born in 53, and therefore held his quaestorship 59 60 61

See Jones (1992) 18–21. For Trajan’s early career, see Houston (1971) 279–81 with references; Eck (2002) 213–17. 62 So Birley (2000) 7. Eck (2002) 214 n. 10 doubts this.

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in around 78 and his praetorship in 83 or 84, the fact that he did not hold the consulship until 91 is noteworthy. It would normally have been due to fall to him as a patrician a few years after his praetorship.63 It may indicate a comparative cooling of affection between Domitian and the family of Trajan, especially by contrast with his father’s spectacular career under Vespasian.64 On the other hand, if he was born in 56, was quaestor in 81 and praetor in 86 or 87 (he was a praetorius uir by 87: SHA Hadr. 1.4), the appointment to the consulship of 91 came to him at 35 and thus would seem about right for a patrician praetorius. He was appointed as legate of the legio VII Gemina in Spain in 88, an appointment which could not have been expected to accrue him much glory.65 In 89 he was summoned by Domitian to Germany to suppress the rebellion of Saturninus (Pan. 14). Saturninus had been killed and his mutiny dismantled by the time Trajan arrived. Nevertheless, his conspicuous loyalty earned him the ordinary consulship of 91, with M.’ Acilius Glabrio. If we accept an earlier dating for Trajan’s birth, 89 may then mark a turning point in Trajan’s career under Domitian. Pliny is certainly careful to delineate his own career under Domitian into two phases. In the first phase he claims that it prospered, but only before that emperor ‘demonstrated his hatred for good men’ (Pan. 95.3). After this moment, Pliny claims that he halted his own advancement, preferring a slower ascendancy over the short cuts to honores which were then on offer (Pan. 95.4). In the early years of Domitian’s reign, Pliny served as military tribune in the legio III Gallica, stationed in Syria. By about 84 he was back in Rome, and serving as a seuir equitum Romanorum: an appropriate post for a young and well-connected prospective senator.66 From the midto late 80s (perhaps as early as 8667 ), Pliny’s career shows evidence of Domitian’s favour. Pliny now held the quaestorship as the emperor’s own candidate. This was an honour which, it seems, was restricted to only two of the twenty annual candidates (the other man in Pliny’s year was his friend, Calestrius Tiro).68 Pliny retrospectively and inevitably sanitized the honour as quaestor Caesaris (Ep. 7.16.2). After a few more years had elapsed, Pliny ceased his activity in the court to be tribune of the plebs (in 88 at the earliest). Note that his rise was steady rather than fast: his friend Calestrius 63 65 66 67 68

64 Thus Eck (2002) 214. See Birley (1981) 24–5. Eck (2002) 214: ‘commanders of this legion, so far as we can make out, had subsequent careers of no great significance’. Birley (2000) 8. Birley (2000) 14; he dates Pliny’s career three to four years earlier than does Vidman in PIR2 P 490. On the significance of being the emperor’s candidate, see C´ebeillac (1972); Eck (1996) 88; Birley (2000) 8–9.

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anticipated him by one year owing to the ius trium liberorum (Ep. 7.16.2). Nevertheless, with Domitian’s favour and by his special dispensation, Pliny had closed the gap again in order to be praetor in the same year as Calestrius (in 89 at the earliest). After Trajan’s consulship of 91, it is possible that he held a further appointment as a consular governor. One of the provinces of Moesia or Pannonia have been proffered as options,69 but no evidence supports such an appointment,70 and Eck is right to stress that Trajan’s credentials in the 80s belie the notion that he was, in any sense of the word, a uir militaris.71 Pliny seems explicitly to indicate that Trajan lived in Rome in the mid-90s, when he states uixisti nobiscum, periclitatus es, timuisti, quae tunc erat innocentium uita (‘you lived with us, you were in danger, you feared: things which at that time were the life of innocent men’, Pan. 44.1). On the other hand, he speaks of ‘campaign upon campaign’ for Trajan after 89 (Pan. 14.5).72 It is difficult to see how the two statements can accommodate each other. During the 90s Pliny served as prefect of the aerarium militare, the military treasury, although whether he did so under Domitian (i.e. from 94 to 9673 ) or under Nerva (from 96 to 9774 ) is not completely certain. The dating of this post is of the utmost importance for understanding Pliny’s repeated claims to have been in danger in the last years of Domitian’s reign. Pliny asserts that, with seven of his friends executed or banished, he could foresee the same fate for himself (Ep. 3.11.3); that he had been informed on by the delator Mettius Carus, and that Domitian would surely have tried him had he survived longer (Ep. 7.27.14); that he was in danger after the trial of Baebius Massa (Ep. 7.33.3); and that, in the evil years, he was counted among those who grieved and feared (Pan. 95.5). While his promotion to the prefecture of the military treasury need not necessarily be mutually exclusive with Domitian’s displeasure, the earlier dating of this post would seem to point to Pliny’s transparent revision of an earlier, successful career under Domitian. The very transparency of this public revision might give us pause. It seems simply not to have mattered (to 69 70 71

72 74

Moesia: Syme (1958a) 33–4; Pannonia: Bennett (1997) 43–6. SHA Hadr. 2.2–4 is circumstantial. For the term, see Campbell (1975) 11–31. On Trajan’s proconsular appointments, cf. Eck (2002) 215–16: ‘Why should Domitian have entrusted this province [Pannonia], in which four legions were stationed, to a patrician without the necessary experience in provincial administration? There were other loyal senators with better qualifications.’ 73 Sherwin-White (1966) 75; Vidman PIR2 P 490. See above, p. 15. Birley (2000).

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Pliny) – if we accept the earlier dating – that his contemporaries could see that this danger to which he laid claim was a fabrication.75 Following the death of Domitian, Trajan is attested as governor of Germania Superior (when he was adopted by Nerva) in October 97 (SHA Hadr. 2.5; Cass. Dio 68.3.4). His appointment is as remarkable as his adoption, given his career in the 80s and 90s. Several factors help to explain it. The immediate political catalyst for the adoption was the inherent instability of Nerva’s rule, specifically the escalating tension between Nerva and his praetorian guard (who would mutiny against him in the autumn of 97), and the pressure being exerted by Cornelius Nigrinus, the governor of Syria, who was emerging as a potential successor to Nerva. The two groups may have colluded.76 Clearly exerting contrary pressure on Trajan’s behalf at this time were the consular senators Sex. Iulius Frontinus (cos. ii with Trajan in February 98; cos. iii ordinarius with Trajan in 100) and L. Iulius Ursus (cos. ii with Trajan in March 98; cos. iii with Trajan in January 100).77 Pliny alludes to their services to Trajan bene ac fortiter sed in toga (‘well and bravely, but as civilians’) at Pan. 60.5. After his adoption, throughout his second ordinary consulship in 98, and even after the death of Nerva on 28 January of that same year, Trajan remained in the north with the armies. He toured Pannonia and Moesia, and only returned to Rome as sole emperor in late 99. In this period at Rome, Pliny was prefect of the treasury of Saturn, along with Cornutus Tertullus: from the first months of 98 until he delivered the Panegyricus as suffect consul on 1 September 100 (cf. Pan. 92.1–2). this volume The following studies have emerged in response both to the importance of the Panegyricus and to a modern neglect of the speech that is disproportionate to this importance. The chapters in this volume address three broad areas of concern: the historical context of the speech; the rhetorical and generic contexts informing both this speech and panegyric more generally; and what might be styled its interpretative potential and literary fabric. These three categories are not to be conceived as hermetically sealed off from each other. Naturally any one of the following discussions may contribute to more than one of these areas or to other avenues of inquiry. 75 76 77

For more on this revision see Nore˜na, p. 39 and refs there at n. 26 in this volume. The thesis of Schwarte (1979) 149–55. Eck (2002) 219 rightly draws attention to the speed of the iterated second and third consulships, unparalleled for persons outside the imperial family.

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Under the aegis of these three broad headings, a wide range of critical approaches is represented. It is hoped that they collectively prompt further consideration and discussion of this key text. The volume begins, appropriately, with the construction of the author himself. Carlos Nore˜na argues that the written text of the Panegyricus should be seen as an instrument for Pliny’s own self-representation.78 He underscores Pliny’s role as an innovator in the sphere of self-representation, and lays emphasis upon the implication throughout the speech that he is an insider, close to the centre of power, and qualified to pass judgement on both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emperors. A number of important dynamics within this programme of self-definition emerge. One is the display of technical expertise and the promotion of the illusion of intimacy with the emperor and the imperial court. Another is Pliny’s subtle and flexible use of the first person plural, ‘the rather fluid “we”’.79 This is deployed to identify Pliny with various exclusive and politically prestigious groups: the highly cultured, landowning and (as Pliny constructs them) ‘good’ or ‘innocent’ groups (i.e., in both cases, those claiming opposition to Domitian) within the senatorial order. He thereby claims, along with membership of these various groups, the cultural authority and economic pre-eminence as much as the political, social and cultural capital attaching to them. Another key dynamic isolated by Nore˜na is Pliny’s representation of the consulship itself to develop and lay claim to a particular kind of political authority and status within the city as consul, a role which is developed from Trajan’s own shifting status as citizen, senator, consul and emperor. Through developing this trope, Pliny can suggest equivalency between the emperor and the consul, and more: that, in high contrast to the emperor’s social obligation to remain ciuilis, it falls to the consul to embody true pre-eminence over the citizen body. Most simply and most urgently, the Panegyricus offered to its author the opportunity to revise his own personal history, and to realign the association of his own flourishing career from the now excoriated Domitian to the new emperor Trajan: the comparandum offered in Tacitean posturing of independence underscores the options available to Pliny in this respect. In the light of this agenda, the Panegyricus can be seen as operating alongside other classic Plinian loci of public self-definition, such as Ep. 3.11, 7.33 and book 10.80 We proceed from the author to his urban context. The reception of contemporary urban monuments in the Panegyricus offers the editor a 78 80

79 See p. 35. Nore˜na, pp. 29–44. The public utility of this last item was established by Nore˜na himself (2007).

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significant and discrete locus for examining the nature of Pliny’s engagement in the speech with the public messages disseminated by Trajan and his government in their first years.81 In the period 96–100, Nerva, Trajan and his family made a number of public claims on Domitianic monuments in the city, since they could neither physically destroy the structures of Domitian’s building programme, nor eclipse him as builder with public works of their own. Pliny unsurprisingly endorses the claim of his emperor on these structures. But my discussion draws attention to both the manner of his endorsement and its essential conditionality upon Trajan fulfilling and allaying a number of senatorial expectations and concerns. The rhetorical tradition in which Pliny was operating set the value of self-promotional monuments beneath both the subject’s own inner qualities and the immortalizing potential of praise. Pliny extends, amplifies and innovates within this generic tradition by merging encomium’s generic relationship with monuments with the specific political context of the period 96–100. His rhetorical reception of the city allows him to move beyond the mere commemoration of the emperor, and to widen the focus of his concern to encompass senatorial anxieties, such as the new emperor’s continuing accessibility, moderation and social parity with his subjects. Next, a sequence of chapters locates the speech in its various rhetorical and generic contexts. Initiating this sequence, Doreen C. Innes examines the correlation of the content and themes treated in the Panegyricus with the precepts espoused in rhetorical treatises and with rhetorical theory more generally.82 In the first half of her chapter, Innes tracks encomium’s constituent elements, objectives and dominant style from its place in the educational curriculum, via the progymnasmata (elementary exercises from the school syllabus) and school texts, through to early exponents of encomium: Plato, Isocrates and Xenophon. Quintilian’s prescriptions receive a detailed analysis, in keeping with both his own status as a teacher of Pliny, and encomium’s greater profile in the socio-political culture and discourse of the period in which he wrote.83 Quintilian’s adherence to schoolroom examples stands in high contrast to the increasing profile of its use in Roman public life. Context is also supplied via the third-century theorist Menander II and a (perhaps) near-contemporary exponent of encomium, Pseudo-Aristides 35. In the second half of her chapter, Innes maps the organization of Pliny’s speech against this theoretical backdrop and his creative engagement with the tradition of encomium. Pliny’s foregrounding of moral qualities in the speech is completely consistent with what Innes 81

Roche, pp. 45–66.

82

Innes, pp. 67–84.

83

See pp. 70–4.

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terms ‘the central core of panegyric theory’. A key notion emerging from this chapter is Pliny’s judgement: his flexible adaptation of the precepts of rhetorical theory to suit his own specific context and agenda. This versatility is utterly in keeping with rhetorical theory’s own insistence upon the pre-eminence of the orator’s discretion. Gesine Manuwald next examines the context offered by Ciceronian praise, and thereby isolates key material for assessing Pliny’s Panegyricus as a successor to the epideictic culture of late republican Rome.84 As the political landscape altered around him, Cicero’s varied negotiation of his own position vis-`a-vis the dominant political figures of his day represents an important transitional stage in the genre at Rome and exerts a structural influence on Pliny, who further develops and adapts Ciceronian methods and strategies within his own more stable, imperial context. De Lege Manilia comprises fulsome praise of a third party who does not yet possess but is to receive unlimited powers. It aims to motivate to action not the laudand himself, but the audience of the contio, who can ratify his wide-ranging powers. Pro Marcello marks a further step towards Pliny’s own context. Now the laudand is already in power and the persuasive agenda of the speech turns on motivating Caesar to a course of action. Even in the Philippics, basic strategies of praise are continued, although the goal of dispensing power, the absence of the laudand, and the authorizing role of the audience return us to the rhetorical strategies of De Lege Manilia. The liminal nature of these moments in the evolution of panegyric emerges from their form, application and underlying ideology. Cicero’s career began with praise of individuals in clearly defined contexts (such as court cases); these were well within established Roman conventions. As he became more involved in political life, praise became for him a powerful political tool. When it met with his own political objectives, he did not demur at praising individuals in order to help endow them with power which transcended the limits of the republican framework, and to influence their wielding of this power. The rhetorical contexts of the Panegyricus extend to more than a continuation of republican strategies and tropes. As Bruce Gibson demonstrates,85 the Panegyricus must be located not only within the flourishing and evermutable contexts of praise and blame in the early imperial period but, more precisely and more urgently, within its more specific, Trajanic moment as praise oratory. The ubiquity of praise and blame in a very wide variety of genres and discourses speaks to its centrality at the turn of the first century. 84

Manuwald, pp. 85–103.

85

Gibson, pp. 104–24.

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Tacitus’ pessimistic appraisal of the vitality of oratory after Cicero (Dial. 1) must be weighed in the balance both with Tacitus’ own repute as an orator, particularly of praise (laudator eloquentissimus, Plin. Ep. 2.1.6), and with the testimony of contemporary and later sources which indicate a concern with maintaining the standards of oratory and its prestige. Contemporary counterparts to the Panegyricus drawn from historiography, technical writing and oratory resonate consistently with the trends and strategies deployed by Pliny. Above all, this was a rhetorical culture of periodization, of demarcating the evil past from the benign present. Gibson now interrogates the notion of the contemporary in Trajanic praise. So far from the new modes of praise claimed by Pliny and his contemporaries, Gibson demonstrates, through examples drawn from Domitianic literature and from authors who were active continuously from the late Flavian period into that of Nerva and Trajan, that a significant continuity of discourse inevitably bridged the divide between past and present, and condemned any claims of a truly new beginning to failure. The final sequence of chapters in this volume examines the aesthetic, literary and rhetorical fabric of the Panegyricus itself. Gregory Hutchinson interrogates the notion of the sublime in Pliny’s master work.86 Pliny’s artful realization of aesthetic ideas within the speech is inextricably bound up with the political and ethical ideas expressed there. The sublime – and the nexus it frequently shares with history and politics in ancient thought – is marked early and often as the dominant aesthetic principal operative within the Panegyricus. Terms of height, size and divinity cue the reader/listener to the attempted rhetorical elevation, but this very attempt on the part of the orator to achieve sublimity is itself possessed of the sublime. Pliny’s Domitian’s own failed attempt to achieve sublimity stands out against both Demosthenes’ Philip and, naturally, his own Trajan, for whom, paradoxically, the denial of his own grandeur – his ‘self-effacing greatness’87 – serves as its most basic guarantee. Hutchinson further offers up a close reading of an extended extract of the speech (Pan. 27.3–29.5) to illustrate how the ever-undulating presence of the sublime informs Pliny’s prose, and its continuous dialogue with other modes and registers of speech. John Henderson next examines Pliny’s treatment of historical exemplarity in the Panegyricus.88 Pliny almost continually invokes the past and figures from Roman history to underwrite his vision of an ideal present, actualized or prescribed. In the course of the speech Pliny’s exempla extend backwards in time to the beginnings of the free republic and through to 86

Hutchinson, pp. 125–41.

87

See p. 137.

88

Henderson, pp. 142–74.

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the living memory of his audience. Particularly dense clusters of figures are drawn from the crisis of the Punic Wars and the last generation of the republic. But Pliny also provides a sequence – carefully edited in the selective mode of such imperial documents as the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani (CIL 6.930 = ILS 244) and Trajan’s own, later (c.107) numismatic sequence of imperial commemorative or restoration issues89 – of JulioClaudian and Flavian emperors. Henderson concentrates upon the rhetorical work invested in these appeals to the name in their context, as aspects of encomiastic propriety and technique. He attends with especial care to implied continuities and ruptures between the various pasts assembled in the speech. The notable absences within the speech are often as significant as presences invoked by Pliny. This is exemplarity in and by ‘irreference’.90 Henderson’s chapter, in effect a reading of the whole speech, highlights the unusually vast horizons of historical exemplarity in the Panegyricus, to pursue with equal vigour the ‘disappearing’ of the proper name and its role within the speech as an index of Pliny’s power as panegyrist to bestow or to withhold reification. As a fitting epilogue to the volume, Roger Rees examines the afterlife of the Panegyricus in antiquity, and thereby decisively modifies commonly held scholarly assumptions regarding the degree of Pliny’s influence over the XII Panegyrici Latini.91 By the middle decades of the second century, prose panegyric as a literary form was established, but Fronto maintains an evidently informed silence about Pliny’s role in this establishment. Likewise it was Fronto and not Pliny who in 297 was lauded by the panegyrist of Constantius as ‘the other ornament of Roman eloquence’ (i.e. along with Cicero, Pan. Lat. viii(4)14.2–3), an omission at odds with the transmission of Pliny’s speech as the first of the XII Panegyrici Latini. In contrast, by 389, Pacatus had not only collected together what was for him the canonical group of panegyrics, and had placed Pliny’s speech as the first item within that canon, but had alluded in a number of places within his own speech to Pliny’s and had evidently intended his own oration to be understood against the backdrop of Pliny’s. Trajan’s pre-eminent status in late antiquity, and the Spanish heritage he shared with Theodosius, may have helped galvanize Pacatus’ reassessment of Pliny’s speech. Nevertheless, the various allusions to the Panegyricus within the speeches of 289, 307 and 310 (Pan. Lat. x(2), vii(6) and vi(7)) share time and space with a host of other Latin authors of the classical period, and the overall ‘Plinian character’ of these speeches is subdued. A total absence of allusion occurs in the works of orators who 89

See Mattingly (1926) 232–78; Roche (2006) 204–8.

90

See p. 143.

91

Rees, pp. 175–88.

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demonstrably knew Pliny’s work, and Pliny (in contrast to Cicero and Hortensius) is never cited by name in the collection. Pliny in fact never attained the status of ‘a canonical archetype which demanded emulation’ in late antique Gaul;92 rather his legacy was in the creation of a literary form out of imperial protocols. In Rees’ summative formulation, Pliny’s Panegyricus became in late antiquity ‘a model example of what imperial panegyric could be, but not what it had to be’.93 92

See p. 185.

93

See p. 188.

chapter 2

Self-fashioning in the Panegyricus Carlos F. Nore˜na

Implicit in any formal speech in praise of a ruler is the putative authority of the speaker. To extol the ruler’s background and lineage properly, to characterize his virtues in appropriate terms, to celebrate his accomplishments in convincing detail and to place them in the most impressive contexts – to offer a public verdict, in a word, on the legitimacy of the ruler’s power – is not for everyone to do, and indeed stands as an ambitious assertion of one’s own knowledge about, and capacity for judgement on, complex matters of state and high politics. And so it was with Pliny’s gratiarum actio. By delivering a speech that pronounces on everything from the deeper meaning of Trajan’s adoption by Nerva and the legacies of Domitian’s reign to the fiscal impact of the emperor’s policy on inheritances and the current state of senatorial opinion on this or that issue, Pliny leaves little doubt that he is both close to the centre of power and well qualified to assess it. That the original speech was given on the occasion of his accession to a suffect consulship (100 ce) only underlines this impression.1 He goes even further, however, systematically (and often superfluously) displaying ‘insider’ knowledge, characterizing the nature of political authority in imperial Rome to his own advantage, and reciting a number of carefully chosen chapters from his own biography. Though addressed to the current emperor, Trajan, and alluding constantly to previous emperors, especially Domitian, the speech is not really about emperors or imperial rule. It is ultimately, I will argue, about Pliny himself. Speaking as a consul, and as one who had already held a number of administrative posts spanning several imperial reigns, Pliny could assume that his credentials as an authority on Roman government would be taken 1

For the ‘publication’ of the text and the relationship between the written and spoken versions, including both the original actio and subsequent recitations of it to friends, see below, p. 40; in what follows, I will refer to the text as a ‘speech’, but will treat it primarily as a written document addressed to a community of readers.

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for granted.2 Indeed, the very context of the gratiarum actio, in which those taking up the office of consul thanked the emperor for his support, will have obviated the need to trot out such credentials.3 But trot them out Pliny does. Note, for example, his insistence both at the beginning and at the end of the speech that he is, in fact, speaking as consul, a reiteration to which we will return. Equally telling is his evident concern to demonstrate possession of the sort of knowledge that would only be available to true insiders. Administrative and fiscal expertise constitutes one such body of knowledge. Consider the extended discussion of Trajan’s policies on taxation and inheritance (37–41). The regulations concerning the liability of new citizens to the uicesima hereditatum were no doubt important, but Pliny goes into greater detail, and at greater length, than this subject, in this context, would seem to demand.4 It was an opportunity for self-display that was just too good to pass up. As a former prefect of the aerarium militare, he could freely pontificate on the fiscal implications of Trajan’s generosity in this matter, even going so far as to lecture his senatorial audience on its underlying rationale – prefaced by the claim that he was actually magnifying the emperor’s benefaction in so doing (augeo, patres conscripti, principis munus, cum ostendo liberalitati eius inesse rationem, 38.4). Towards the end of the discussion he draws further attention to his proficiency in the subject of the state’s finances. Commenting to Trajan that he is simply showing ‘consular concern and apprehension’ (cura et sollicitudo consularis, 41.1) – a typical reminder of his own grave responsibilities over such matters – Pliny notes the emperor’s refusal to accept monetary gifts (collationes), his monetary distributions to soldiers and the urban plebs, his banishment of informers and his reduction of taxes, and then, after wondering aloud whether Trajan has properly added up the empire’s revenues, asks a potentially provocative question: an tantas uires habet frugalitas principis, ut tot impendiis tot erogationibus sola sufficiat? (‘Does the emperor’s thrift by itself have enough resources to cover so many expenses and payments?’, 41.1).5 Embedded in a long section of the speech on Trajan’s generosity and prudence, this question is surely not meant to be alarming. In fact, Pliny explicitly assures his readers that the state’s finances are in good order (41.2). But that assurance 2 3

4 5

Pliny’s career: PIR2 P 490 (L. Vidman), with Birley (2000) 5–17. See briefly Talbert (1984) 227–9 for the speeches of thanks, addressed to the emperor and delivered in the senate, given by incoming consuls and, on occasion, by other officials, such as provincial governors. In general on the uicesima hereditatum, a 5 per cent inheritance tax levied on Roman citizens (but only within certain degrees of kinship), see Neesen (1980) 135–41. Calculation of revenues: interrogandus uideris, satisne computaueris imperi reditus, 41.1.

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only carries weight because he has just made such a virtuoso display of his own competence in this complicated subject. Access to the exclusive world of the imperial court represents a different body of insider knowledge, the possession of which Pliny is especially insistent on demonstrating. Sometimes he pursues this goal in an oblique manner, by drawing contrasts between Trajan and Domitian in a way that implies his familiarity with their daily routines. His ostensible purpose in comparing everyday court life under Trajan and Domitian (48), for example, is to praise the former at the expense of the latter, but only a daft reader would have missed the point that such a comparison could only be made by a regular visitor to the Palatine complex. He underscores this point by noting, in passing, that he and his friends now spend a lot of time in the imperial palace, ‘as if in a communal house’ (ut in communi domo, 48.3).6 The contrast between the two emperors’ dining habits (49.4–8) functions in a similar way. Because dining practices were felt to be sensitive indicators of taste, status and character, the details of Trajan’s banquets were not only not trivial, but could also serve, once again, to imply that Pliny was one of the emperor’s regular companions.7 So, too, the long discussion of the two emperors’ very different leisure activities (81–2). The picture of Trajan’s recreation is patently stereotyped, to be sure, and most readers would have recognized in it the standard markers of ideal character – hunting as an indication of uirtus, private visits to sacred groves as a reflection of sincere pietas, etc. – but this particular perspective on the emperor’s character is nevertheless focalized by Pliny, which inevitably draws attention to his putative familiarity with the emperor.8 It should be noted that this section on imperial leisure is followed by extended praise of the emperor’s wife, Plotina, and his sister, Marciana (83–4), a detailed (if again stereotyped) exposition that further enhances Pliny’s status as one close to the inner circle of the imperial regime. This whole tactic reaches a crescendo of sorts in the celebration of Trajan’s capacity for friendship (85). Following a scathing critique of the blanditiae and amoris simulatio (‘flattery’ and ‘feigned loved’, 85.1) that 6 7

8

On Pliny’s treatment of this theme, see Roche, p. 61 in this volume. Cf. Ep. 6.31.13–14 for another representation of Trajan’s dining habits. For the dinner party (conuiuium) in early imperial Rome as an arena for the display of aristocratic values, see Roller (2006) with references. Pliny insists (82.8) that the emperor’s ‘amusements’ (uoluptates) are good indicators of his virtues (grauitas, sanctitas, temperantia). It was perhaps risky to emphasize Trajan’s prowess as a hunter, since it was precisely under Domitian, it seems, that hunting emerged as a marker of imperial uirtus; see discussion in Tuck (2005) drawing primarily on visual evidence.

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prevailed in Domitian’s company, Pliny unleashes a series of laudatory observations about Trajan as friend: habes amicos quia amicus ipse es . . . diligis ergo cum diligaris . . . descendis in omnia familiaritatis officia, et in amicum ex imperatore submitteris, immo tunc maxime imperator cum amicum agis. (Plin. Pan. 85.2–5) you have friends because you are yourself a friend . . . you love just as you are loved . . . you descend to every courtesy of an intimate acquaintance, and humble yourself from being an emperor to becoming a friend, you are never more an emperor than when you are a friend.

Such tributes were less platitudinous than most of the praise in the Panegyricus. Friendship, in fact, was never a prominent theme in the extensive Greek and Roman literary tradition on monarchy, and only seems to emerge as a part of the discourse on good kingship in the early second century ce.9 So Pliny appears to be innovating in this passage. In any case, the implication of his own friendship with Trajan is very close to the surface here. For how else could one praise the emperor as a friend? And this gives added significance to a comment made earlier in the speech, that Trajan chooses his friends ex optimis (‘from the “best men”’, 45.3). That Pliny belongs to that group goes without saying (but he will say it anyway, as we are about to see). These rather different displays of knowledge served to enhance Pliny’s insider credentials in at least two ways. Recent work on the sociology of knowledge in the early Roman empire has stressed the numerous connections between knowledge and power during this period, as well as the cultural authority that different kinds of technical knowledge could bestow.10 It is not unreasonable to see in Pliny’s lengthy demonstration of administrative and financial expertise a public claim to a body of knowledge that was not only vital to the functioning of the central state, but also confined to its most experienced administrators.11 The motives behind 9

10

11

See esp. Dio Or. 3.86–116 with Konstan (1997); cf. M. Aur. Med. 1.16.10, 6.30.13 (on Antoninus Pius). The theme was also picked up in some of the later panegyrics (e.g. Pan. Lat. x(2) 16.1, xi(3) 18.4, 21.2). For affection as a bulwark of royal power, see also Sen. Clem. 1.13.4–5, 1.19.6. See e.g. the essays collected in K¨onig and Whitmarsh (2007). See also Wallace-Hadrill (2005) – an updated and revised version of a chapter first published in 1997 – a concise discussion of the increased autonomy, and cultural authority, of various bodies of knowledge, some technical, in the period of the Augustan ‘revolution’; for further elaboration of these points, see now Wallace-Hadrill (2008) ch. 5, esp. 231–58. Other efforts to display administrative or technical knowledge include the reference to the senatus consultum that provides for the delivery of a gratiarum actio (4.1) and the analysis of drought conditions in Egypt (30–2). The published correspondence, of course, is also filled with implicit claims to administrative and legal expertise.

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the insinuation of his own proximity to the emperor’s inner circle, and the further implication of social intimacy with Trajan, are even more transparent. Because aristocratic participation in the world of the imperial court necessarily conferred both social prestige and political power, Pliny could effectively elevate his place in the social and political hierarchy by demonstrating his regular access to Trajan, his family and his courtiers.12 In Roman imperial society, in fact, familiarity with the emperor’s domestic and ‘private’ life was perhaps the ultimate form of insider knowledge. But what sort of ‘insider’ was Pliny really claiming to be? That he was a wealthy, landowning aristocrat and member of the senatorial order was, after all, a given, and did not really need to be communicated in this speech, especially since his initial audience, and many of his potential readers, belonged to the same class. Yet there are multiple indications throughout the speech that Pliny was not content to represent himself in it as merely another senator – many of whom could naturally claim similar bodies of insider knowledge for themselves. One of his principal goals, I would like to suggest, was to highlight his own distinction within Rome’s social and political elite, which was highly stratified and still very competitive.13 Two broad strategies are employed to this end. The first is the use of the first person plural, ‘us’ or ‘we’, woven throughout the speech in a subtle and flexible manner that ultimately casts Pliny in a positive light. The second strategy, more innovative, is the articulation of a typology of political authority in imperial Rome in which the consulship – now held, of course, by Pliny himself – is revealed as the true linchpin of the civic community. ‘He thinks he is one of us’, Pliny announces near the beginning of the speech, ‘and in this he is all the more conspicuous and remarkable, since he thinks that he is one of us’ (unum ille se ex nobis – et hoc magis excellit atque eminet, quod unum ex nobis putat, 2.4). The larger group to which both Trajan, as addressee, and Pliny, as speaker, are here alleged to belong is rather ambiguous. For in the next clause, Pliny lauds the emperor for realizing that he is simply a man who governs other men (hominibus praeesse), suggesting that the ‘us’ in this passage refers to mankind in general; at the beginning of this passage, however, he characterizes how a consul and a citizen should 12

13

Spawforth (2007) offers various perspectives on the nexus between social participation and political power in the monarchic courts of the ancient world; for the emergence of a court society in the Roman world, under Augustus, see discussion in Wallace-Hadrill (1996). For the Roman imperial court in general, see Winterling (1999). Our understanding of senatorial competition and self-representation under the early empire has been transformed by a series of seminal studies by Eck, e.g. (1984, 1997, 2005, 2010; cf. Eck and Heil (2005); further discussion and references below, pp. 38–42.

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speak about the emperor (2.1), suggesting two other collectivities, consulars and Roman citizens, to which both Trajan and Pliny belong. Perhaps he was referring to the senatorial order. That is certainly the impression one gets from a number of passages in the speech: the reference to the struggle between ‘us’ and Trajan’s modesty over the title ‘Father of the Fatherland’ (21.2); the declaration that, following the banishment of the informers, ‘we ourselves’ and not ‘our slaves’ are the emperor’s friends (42.3), or that ‘we’ gather around the emperor, ‘safe and happy’, no longer fearing the slaughter of the ‘most renowned citizens’ (48.1–3); the observation that the emperor, refraining from the confiscation of wealthy estates, shows moderation with ‘us’ and with the treasury (55.5).14 In these passages and others like them, context leaves little doubt that ‘us’ and ‘we’ refer to the community of Roman senators, and that Pliny is self-consciously identifying himself as a member of that group. This is consistent with the markedly senatorial perspective that pervades the entire speech, frequently noted by modern scholars.15 The logic of some passages, however, implies broad differentiation within the senatorial order as a whole. Praise for Trajan’s banishment of the informers (delatores), for example, may be read as thinly veiled criticism of ‘bad’ senators: quantum diuersitas temporum posset, tum maxime cognitum est, cum isdem quibus antea cautibus innocentissimus quisque, tunc nocentissimus adfigeretur, cumque insulas omnes, quas modo senatores, iam delatorum turba compleret; quos . . . in aeternum repressisti. (Plin. Pan. 35.2) Then indeed we knew how times had changed; the real criminals were nailed to the very rocks upon which many an innocent man had been nailed; the islands where senators were exiled were crowded with the informers whose power you had broken for all time.16

The sharp contrast drawn here between the informers (‘real criminals’), on the one hand, and the senators (‘innocent men’), on the other, though rhetorically effective, is, of course, tendentious, since many of the most prominent informers active under Domitian were themselves senators.17 14

15 16 17

21.2 nobis cum modestia tua pugna; 42.3 non enim iam serui nostri principis amici sed nos sumus; 48.1 sed securi et hilares cum commodum est conuenimus; Trajan does not behave like Domitian, who used to emerge from his hiding places in the palace to destroy high-status visitors (se ad clarissimorum ciuium strages caedesque proferret, 48.3); 55.5 quo temperamento et nobis et aerario. For the Panegyricus as representative of a specifically senatorial outlook, see e.g. Durry (1938) 21–4; Radice (1968) esp. 166–7; Leach (1990) 37; Seelentag (2004) 214–96; Flower (2006) 264. Translation Radice (1969) (modified). See discussion in Rutledge (2001) 129–35; cf. 27–30 for senatorial delatores in early imperial Rome.

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Pliny was surely conscious of this overlap, and probably assumed that most of his readers were conscious of it, too – and that they would take the point that he was to be associated not with these ‘bad’ senators, but with the ‘good’ ones. That there were some senators who were indeed superior to the rest could also be made explicit. Describing Trajan’s ceremonial arrival in Rome, to take just one example, Pliny observes that the new emperor ‘was surrounded by the flower of the senatorial order’ (senatus . . . flore, 23.3). The whole tenor of the speech conveys the impression that it was this select subset of the senatorial order for which Pliny was speaking. Equally illuminating are those comments, usually made en passant, that strategically demarcate certain informal groupings within the Roman imperial aristocracy. Pliny reports both on the attitudes of those who are devoted to culture (quisquam studia humanitatis professus, 47.3), for example, and on the expenditures of those sufficiently wealthy and well connected to purchase estates in Rome’s suburbs (hortos . . . suburbanum licemur, emimus, implemus, 50.6–7). In characterizing the outlook and experience of such groups, each of which connotes a type of achieved status – cultural authority, on the one hand, economic pre-eminence on the other – he effectively identifies with those groups. Contrast the treatment of those who belong to the old nobility (69.5–6), an ascribed status to which he had no claim. The passage concludes with the statement that Trajan not only preserves, but also ‘creates’, the nobiles.18 Even the nobles, in other words, depend ultimately on the emperor’s favour – which Pliny, as consul, already has. In general, then, Pliny speaks in several complementary voices throughout the speech, associating himself in a flexible manner with the imperial aristocracy in general, with the senatorial order in particular, and, more particularly still, with several informal subsets within Rome’s political and social elite: the ‘good’ senators, the lovers of culture, the owners of suburban estates, and the like. In each case, the implicit identification with an exclusive and high-status group adds to his political, social and cultural capital. And what emerges over the course of the speech as a whole is the impression, carefully crafted through the deployment of the rather fluid ‘we’ for whom he claims to speak, that he belongs to the uppermost tier of Roman imperial society. One of the principal ways in which Pliny underlines his distinction is by drawing attention to the importance, prestige and unique character of the 18

69.6 sunt in honore hominum et in ore famae magna nomina ex tenebris obliuionis indulgentia Caesaris, cuius haec intentio est ut nobiles et conseruet et faciat. It is worth noting that Trajan, like Pliny, was not a member of the old nobility – yet another way in which the group memberships of emperor and senator align (as Dylan Sailor pointed out to me).

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consulship. Because this office remained beyond the reach of most senators, the very fact of delivering a speech on the occasion of his accession to the suffect consulship was enough to advertise his political prominence and high social status.19 Repeated reference to the fact that he was speaking as consul, especially at the beginning and end of the speech (1.2, 2.1, 93.3, 94.1), keeps his own consulship in the foreground, and anchors the otherwise shifting identity that he assumes. But he goes well beyond this reiteration of his new consular rank, developing a typology of political authority and civic status in imperial Rome that is not only arresting and novel, but also patently self-serving. The main vehicle employed to develop this typology is the formal addressee of the speech, Trajan, whose composite status as citizen, senator, consul and emperor provides Pliny with an opportunity for subtly redefining his own status and identity. The long section in the middle of the speech devoted to Trajan’s consulships (56–62) – his acceptance of a second and then a third consulship; his moderate and respectful behaviour as consul; his consular colleagues – is the axial moment in this rhetorical programme. Prior to this section, Trajan is mainly identified, and praised, as a private citizen. Though he left Rome as a priuatus and returned an imperator, Pliny writes, he remains the same person, equal to everyone else, but nevertheless ‘greater because better’.20 He has not changed his habits since becoming emperor (24.2, 43.2), and walks, metaphorically and literally, amongst ‘us’ (24.5). Just like everyone else, he lived through the terror of Domitian’s tyranny (44.1). In such passages, the emperor’s personal character, behaviour and experience are very much those of the priuatus he was before becoming emperor.21 By the end of the section on Trajan’s consulships, by contrast, he is increasingly identified either as a fellow senator (e.g. 62.4, 63.6) or, more to the point, as a consul. In presiding over the senate, for example, he behaves as if only a consul (ille uero ita consul, ut si tantum consul foret), rightly thinking himself no higher than a consul (76.6), while those who approach him as he dispenses justice in the Campus Martius are told that he is not an emperor, but a consul (77.3). At one point he is even likened to candidates for the consulship (princeps aequatus candidatis, 71.4). These passages do not simply celebrate Trajan’s ciuilitas. They imply a virtual equivalence between emperor and consul. 19 20 21

On competition for the consulship in the high empire, Alf¨oldy (1977) is still fundamental. 21.4 ut reuersus imperator, qui priuatus exieras, agnoscis agnosceris. Eosdem nos eundem te putas, par omnibus et hoc tantum ceteris maior quod melior. See briefly Nore˜na (2009) 277–8 for the trope of the ‘good’ emperor whose character is unchanged by his accession to the imperial purple.

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The normative identification of Trajan as consul, which slowly emerges over the course of the speech, can only enhance Pliny’s own status, of course, since he is now a consul, too. He does reserve special praise for Trajan’s second consulship, held not in peaceful Rome but on the war-ravaged frontier (56.4–8), implicitly downgrading his own ‘civilian’ consulship, but the adamant celebration of Trajan’s consulships in general, a leitmotif of the speech as a whole, indirectly casts Pliny’s own consulship in a positive light. But it is in Pliny’s articulation of the relationship between consulship, emperorship and citizenship that the real innovation lies. The key passage comes in the middle of the long section on Trajan and the consulship: nam praeter id quod est arduum, duas easque summas potestates simul capere, tum inest utrique non nulla diuersitas, cum principem quam simillimum esse priuato, consulem quam dissimillimum deceat. (Plin. Pan. 59.6) For in addition to the challenge of exercising two types of supreme power simultaneously, there is quite a contradiction between them: for while an emperor ought to be as much as possible like a private citizen, a consul ought to be like him as little as possible.22

The emperor-as-citizen conceit is common enough. Quite striking, by contrast, is the claim that imperial and consular power are equivalent (duas summas potestates) and ‘contradictory’, which puts a somewhat unsettling spin on the representation of Trajan as consul. Are a good emperor and a good consul actually the same thing, as Pliny asks (59.5)? What really stands out here is the notion that it is specifically the consul, and not the emperor, who should be distinguished from the rest of the citizen body. For if the emperor is just like everyone else, so the logic would seem to go, it is left to the consuls to exercise the sort of ‘supreme power’ that sets them apart from (and above?) the average citizen – and his equal, the emperor. Later in the speech Pliny returns to the principle that consuls in particular stand apart from private citizens, noting that they should regard themselves, publicly more than privately, as especially bound to the emperor.23 And in another 22

23

It should be noted that some manuscripts omit the phrase quam simillimum esse priuato, consulem quam; cf. the app. crit. of Mynors (1964), who prints this passage, which does have support from other manuscripts. 90.1 scio, patres conscripti, cum ceteros ciues, tum praecipue consules oportere sic adfici, ut se publice magis quam priuatim obligatos putent. Note that in distinguishing between the public and private capacities of those who hold the consulship, Pliny is segregating two categories, the public and the private, that he normally seeks to conflate, both in this speech – cf. Bartsch (1994) 150–3 – and in the letters – cf. Riggsby (1998) 83; Nore˜na (2007) 245–51, 254–7, 269–70.

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passage, one with important implications for our understanding of Pliny’s rhetorical aims in the Panegyricus, he proposes an additional distinction between an emperor and a consul: quo iustius senatus ut susciperes quartum consulatum et rogauit et iussit . . . ut enim ceterorum hominum ita principum, illorum etiam qui sibi di uidentur, aeuum omne et breue et fragile est. itaque optimum quemque niti et contendere decet ut post se quoque rei publicae prosit, moderationis scilicet iustitiaeque monimentis, quae prima statuere consul potest. (Plin. Pan. 78.1–2) Very justly did the senate ask you and bid you to take up a fourth consulship . . . Because both for other men and for emperors – even those who see themselves as gods – life is short and fragile. It is fitting, then, that each best man should labour and exert himself to leave something behind that will be useful to the state after his death, above all monuments of temperance and justice. And these monuments, the foremost things, a consul is able to construct.

The message is clear: life is short for all men; among men, it is only the ‘best’ who should aim to leave their mark on posterity; and among optimi, it is not the emperor, but the consul, who is truly able to do so. Though this argument is ostensibly mobilized to persuade Trajan to accept a fourth consulship, it is difficult to overlook the way in which it constructs the consulship, which Pliny now holds, as the pinnacle of the Roman social and political order. Pliny’s rightful place on that pinnacle stands confirmed. There are several concrete ways, then, in which Pliny engages in rhetorical self-fashioning in the Panegyricus. The display of technical expertise and the illusion of intimacy with Trajan and the world of the imperial court both serve to demonstrate insider knowledge and underline his position close to the centre of power. Strategic identification with ‘good’ senators and other exclusive subsets among the imperial elite elevates his social and political status. And while the putative equivalence of imperial and consular authority effectively aligns Pliny, the consul, with Trajan, the emperor/consul, the subtle hints about the superiority of the consulship go further, endowing Pliny’s office with an honour and status all of its own.24 These are all specific examples of how he takes advantage of the gratiarum actio to project a carefully crafted literary representation of himself. But there is a much simpler and ultimately more significant way in which this 24

Note, however, that when it suits his case, Pliny can openly acknowledge the emperor’s power to grant the consulship (59.2, 63.2, 77.7–8); he also says that the consulship is ‘elevated’ and ‘becomes greater’ (attolli et augescere) when Trajan holds it (57.5).

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speech – or, rather, the publication of it – served Pliny as a useful instrument of literary self-fashioning.25 Because his political career had flourished under Domitian, universally condemned as a ‘bad’ emperor (but only after his death, it is worth noting), it was very much in Pliny’s interests to be associated by contemporaries, and in the judgement of posterity, with a different emperor, a ‘good’ one.26 Having reached the consulship under Trajan, the occasion of the gratiarum actio presented him with a golden opportunity not only to cement his notional association with Trajan, but also to contribute actively to the positive construction of the new emperor’s public image, an image from which he himself stood to benefit. The idealized literary portrait of Trajan that Pliny painted in the speech, and then put into circulation in its written version, should be seen mainly in this light. That Pliny had enjoyed imperial favour and political advancement under Domitian, and that after the emperor’s death he sought through his writings to distance himself from the legacy of the hated tyrant, downplaying the rapid progression of his career during Domitian’s regime and even more or less concealing his tenure of specific posts, is now well understood.27 Analysis of this rhetorical effort has focused almost exclusively on Pliny’s literary self-representation in his correspondence, and in particular on the ‘literary’ letters collected in books 1–9. There is no question that these letters were the primary vehicles used by Pliny for the purpose of public self-fashioning, addressing a wide range of topics including the trajectory of his political career and the character of his friends and enemies.28 This self-fashioning was not, however, limited to the first nine books of his correspondence. In a previous study I suggested that book 10 of the correspondence, the collection of ‘official’ letters sent between Trajan and Pliny during the latter’s governorship of Bithynia and Pontus, was also exploited

25 26

27

28

The argument that follows was adumbrated in Nore˜na (2007) 268–9, and is further developed here. Under Domitian, Pliny was an imperial quaestor (in 89 or 90), tribune of the plebs (90 or 91), praetor (93) and prefect of the aerarium militare (from 94); evidence and dates in PIR2 P 490. For two different approaches to the problem of Domitian’s contemporary vs. posthumous reputation, see Saller (2000) and Wilson (2003); see also Flower (2006) 234–66 for sanctions against Domitian’s memory. In general on Pliny’s relationships with Domitian and Trajan, see Soverini (1989). See e.g. Syme (1958a) 75–85, esp. 82 on the failure to mention anywhere in the letters the prefecture of the aerarium militare, a post which came unusually quickly after the praetorship – and wholly at odds with the claim in the Panegyricus (95.3–4) that he called a halt to his career under Domitian; Giovaninni (1987a); Shelton (1987) esp. 129–32; Leach (1990) 18, 36; Bartsch (1994) 167–9; Ludolph (1997) 44–9; Hoffer (1999) 5–8; Strobel (2003); Flower (2006) 263–70. In addition to the works cited in n. 23 above, see Riggsby (1995, 1998); Ludolph (1997); Roller (1998); Henderson (2002); Morello and Gibson (2003); Marchesi (2008).

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by Pliny for the purposes of literary self-representation.29 In brief, I argue that in the letters to Trajan, Pliny employs several techniques, especially the use of the address ‘domine’, to create the impression that he is not merely a bureaucratic functionary of the emperor, but rather his personal friend. I further argue that Pliny’s letters to the emperor, though necessary for the administration of his province, and therefore originally utilitarian in function, were nevertheless composed with a view to their eventual publication, above all because they successfully fostered the illusion of friendship with Trajan, the ‘good’ emperor. Together with several key letters in books 1–9 of the correspondence, especially 3.11 and 7.33, book 10 may be seen, then, as one part of a large-scale rhetorical programme designed to place Pliny’s own career in the most positive light, above all through the assertion or implication of detachment from Domitian and adherence to Trajan. And it was this programme, I would like to suggest, that the publication of the Panegyricus was intended to advance. Central to this argument is the fact that Pliny indeed took the step – unprecedented, it seems – of publishing a written version of his gratiarum actio.30 The significance of this innovation has not been sufficiently emphasized. The process may be reconstructed as follows. After composing the speech and delivering it in the senate, Pliny sent a text of the speech to friends for comment and criticism (Ep. 3.13.5). He then wrote up an expanded version (spatiosius et uberius uolumine, Ep. 3.18.1), which he recited to friends over several days. How, precisely, this longer, written version differed from the shorter, spoken one cannot be discerned.31 Presumably the original speech and the subsequent written version underwent several revisions. Then, finally, the finished written version was ‘published’, which is to say that authorized copies were circulated beyond Pliny’s circle of friends, amongst an imagined community of readers, present and future.32 That was the key step. Why he took that step demands more scrutiny than it has received. In the letter in which he discusses the publication of the speech (3.18), he states explicitly that he sought both to 29 30 31 32

Nore˜na (2007); for two other recent studies sensitive to the rhetorical and ideological currents in book 10, see Stadter (2006) and Woolf (2006). We know of earlier gratiarum actiones, but there is no indication that any of Pliny’s predecessors had published their speeches. Evidence and discussion in Durry (1938) 3–8. For some informed speculation, see Mesk (1910); cf. Syme (1938) 217. Pliny discusses these three stages of production – actio (speech), recitatio (recitation) and oratio (published text) – in Ep. 1.20.9; see discussion in Picone (1977) 122–3. For the Panegyricus in particular, see also Fantham (1999), detecting some residue of ‘orality’ in the written version; cf. Picone (1977) 129–32. On the nature of ‘publication’ in the Roman world in general, see Starr (1987); Fedeli (1989b).

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recommend Trajan’s virtues and to provide his successors with an ethical model that would conduce to their fame.33 Scholars have been quite content to take these statements at face value, only adding that the vocabulary of praise was mostly prescriptive in nature.34 Surely, though, we should be more alert to how publication promoted Pliny’s individual interests. After all, Pliny was not only a successful player in the world of imperial politics and aristocratic competition, but also an innovator in the sphere of selfrepresentation – the published correspondence is enough to show that.35 He may well have believed that his gratiarum actio was a useful guide to imperial behaviour. But it would be naive to assume that he did not intend to benefit by its publication. It should be noted that the speech was delivered very early in Trajan’s reign, and seems to have been published several months thereafter.36 If the argument of this chapter is correct, then Pliny was taking quite a risk in linking himself to a new emperor who could easily have degenerated into a tyrant.37 Circumstances dictated Pliny’s choice. He had achieved great success under Domitian, whose reputation was now beyond rehabilitation, and had reached the consulship under Trajan, who had at least begun as a ‘good’ emperor. For Pliny’s goal of associating himself with an emperor, in other words, it was either Trajan or no one. That Pliny in fact chose to associate himself closely with an emperor is also worth stressing, since this was not the only rhetorical avenue open to him. His contemporary Tacitus, who also faced the challenge of balancing a successful political career under Domitian with the construction of a positive literary persona, chose a very 33

34

35 36

37

Ep. 3.18.2 primum ut imperatori nostro uirtutes suae ueris laudibus commendarentur, deinde ut futuri principes non quasi a magistro sed tamen sub exemplo praemonerentur, qua potissimum uia possent ad eandem gloriam niti. He also shows some pride in the literary and stylistic qualities of the speech (3.18.8–10), suggesting another possible reason for publication. In general on Ep. 3.18, see Marchesi (2008) 199–203. E.g. Durry (1938) 21–4; Radice (1968) 166–7, 169; Leach (1990) 37; Braund (1998) 58–68; Fantham (1999) 231. See also Seelentag (2004) 214–96, arguing that the speech served mainly as a mechanism of symbolic communication between emperor and senate, expressing a specifically senatorial statement of ‘consensus’ in Trajan’s rule. Pliny’s practice of poetic recitation and publication, and the epistolary valuation of this type of negotium, was also an innovation for a senator; see discussion in Roller (1998). The latest secure reference is to the first Dacian War of 101–2 (Pan. 16.3). There is also an apparent allusion to the Dacian triumph, held in winter 102–3, but this may be proleptic; see briefly Syme (1938) 217–18. Woytek (2006) argues, on linguistic grounds, that the speech post-dates the publication of Tacitus’ Dialogus and Histories, and should be dated to the second half of 107. Though plausible, the argument is ultimately subjective. There were, in fact, troubling signs about the potential of a military autocracy, including the manner in which Trajan was adopted (Eck 2002), and the unsettling delay in his coming to Rome from the frontier, which hindered the senate’s role in legitimating the emperor’s power: Seelentag (2004) 48–53, 113–29.

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different path, using his historiographical works, especially the Annals, to underline his personal ‘autonomy’, his fundamental independence from the autocratic regime of any emperor.38 In this respect Pliny’s practice is closer to that of early modern European aristocrats, who also shaped their own identities and literary personae in close relation to some external authority. As Greenblatt writes in a now classic study, self-fashioning in sixteenthcentury England normally ‘involve[d] submission to an absolute power or authority situated at least partially outside the self – God, a sacred book, an institution such as church, court, colonial or military administration’.39 For Pliny, that ‘absolute power outside the self’ was the figure of the emperor, and in the Panegyricus he shows how this type of authority could be turned to his own advantage. In conclusion, let us return to the text of the Panegyricus. When the speech is read primarily as an instrument for Pliny’s self-fashioning, as I propose that it should be read, one feature of it that is quite conspicuous is the extended personal ‘biography’ with which the speech concludes (90– 3, 95). In these sections, which function as the structural and thematic peroration of the speech as a whole, the principal themes related to his selffashioning are given a final plug. He opens with the requisite statement that he and his consular colleague, Cornutus Tertullus, suffered terribly under Domitian, the optimi cuiusque spoliator et carnifex (‘pillager and executioner of each best man’), and only just escaped his ‘thunderbolt’ (90.5). Later he makes his much-ridiculed claim that, of his own accord, he arrested the progress of his career under ille insidiosus princeps (‘that most treacherous emperor’, 95.3).40 Such assertions serve as final reminders of his detachment from, and rejection of, the memory of Domitian. Reference to Nerva’s intention to promote Tertullus and him, ‘honourable men’ (boni, 90.6), marks the transition to the decisive role played by Trajan in his elevation to the apex of Roman imperial society. What follows is nothing less than a full catalogue of evidence demonstrating the emperor’s active support for the new consuls (in which Pliny speaks for his colleague Tertullus, more or less eliding him in the process). Trajan offered them the consulship even before the end of their joint prefecture of the aerarium Saturni, and so ‘added to the highest honour the glory of rapid promotion’ (ut ad summam honorem gloria celeritatis accederet, 91.2). The 38

39

See Sailor (2008) 6–50 and passim, esp. 9–11, 24–35 on the nexus between ‘autonomy’ (personal and literary), prestige, imperial power and elite self-representation. This was a later development, though; note that the preface to Agricola, written at around the time that Pliny delivered his gratiarum actio, also seeks to imply distance from Domitian and adherence to the new order: Sailor (2008) 71–2. 40 See above, n. 27. Greenblatt (1980) 9.

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emperor was so keen on appointing them to the consulship, in fact, that he did not even bother to name their successors to the treasury post first (92.1). In putting Pliny and Tertullus up for the consulship, we are told, Trajan’s recommendation compared them favourably to the consuls of the distant past (illi prisci consules, 91.3). And in advancing their careers, the emperor relied in particular on the trust he put in their moral purity (integritatis nostrae fiducia, 92.2). Pliny then changes course, emphasizing the various symbolic associations that now obtain in his relationship with Trajan. Because the consulships of Pliny and Tertullus are held in the same year as Trajan’s, all of their names will always appear together on the consular fasti (92.2). Trajan did not merely submit Pliny’s name for the consulship, but personally presided over the election, administering the oath of office and announcing the outcome in the campus (92.3). As if that were not enough, Pliny also notes that he and Tertullus were named consuls during the very month in which the emperor celebrates his birthday: ‘how beautiful this is for us!’, he gushes (quam pulchrum nobis, 92.4). And so when he rounds off this profusion of self-serving observations with the declaration, addressed to Trajan, that ‘we will always remember that we were consuls, your consuls’ (semper nos meminerimus consules fuisse et consules tuos, 93.3), he has not ‘blinded himself ’ to any ‘paradox of autocracy’.41 Rather, he is putting the finishing touch to his elaborate effort to associate himself as closely as possible with the new emperor. There remained, however, at least a hint of independence from monarchic power. In the course of his gratiarum actio, as we have seen, Pliny had also embraced his status as a high-ranking senator, and he returns to this theme, too, in these climactic sections. After noting that the consulship itself has brought him respect and honour (93.3), and following a ritual prayer to Jupiter Capitolinus (94), delivered as consul on behalf of humanity (consul pro rebus humanis, 94.1), he addresses his senatorial colleagues directly (95), thanking them for the honour they paid him for the tranquillity of his tribunate, the sober conduct of his praetorship, and his steadfastness as an advocate for ‘our allies’.42 In this final section of the speech, Pliny is reminding his listeners and readers of the main stages in his cursus honorum and his service in the courts, and leaving them with the impression of an important and respected statesman who is honoured by his peers. And it is for these peers, his fellow senators, that he reserves 41 42

Fantham (1999) 236. 95.1 uos mihi in tribunatu quietis, in praetura modestiae, uos in istis etiam officiis, quae studiis nostris circa tuendos socios iniunxeratis, cum tum constantiae antiquissimum testimonium perhibuistis.

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his final comment: ego reuerentiae uestrae sic semper inseruiam, non ut me consulem et mox consularem, sed ut candidatum consulatus putem (‘I will always submit to the respect due to all of you – not, however, thinking myself a consul or a consular, but rather a candidate for the consulship’, 95.5). Only a consul could say something like that.

chapter 3

The Panegyricus and the Monuments of Rome Paul Roche

The paired issues of discontinuity and renewal were hot topics in the years following Domitian’s assassination. Both Nerva and Trajan had been intimately connected with the Flavians and with Domitian in particular,1 but because of Domitian’s uncompromising treatment of the senatorial aristocracy, it was expedient for his former courtiers to advertise a break from Domitianic policy, however distant this pretence was from political reality;2 and the emperor’s subjects were keenly observing the public maintenance of this pretence. We have a partial glimpse of this phenomenon in an anecdote preserved from after 97 ce: Idem apud imperatorem Neruam non minus fortiter. Cenabat Nerua cum paucis; Veiento proximus atque etiam in sinu recumbebat: dixi omnia cum hominem nominaui. Incidit sermo de Catullo Messalino, qui luminibus orbatus ingenio saeuo mala caecitatis addiderat: non uerebatur, non erubescebat, non miserebatur; quo saepius a Domitiano non secus ac tela, quae et ipsa caeca et improuida feruntur, in optimum quemque contorquebatur. De huius nequitia sanguinariisque sententiis in commune omnes super cenam loquebantur, cum ipse imperator: ‘Quid putamus passurum fuisse si uiueret?’ Et Mauricus: ‘Nobiscum cenaret.’ (Plin. Ep. 4.22.4–6) He [Junius Mauricus] spoke no less bravely in the presence of the emperor Nerva. Nerva was dining with a few companions. Veiento was nearest to him and virtually reclining in his lap. I said it all, really, when I named that man. Catullus Messalinus came up in our conversation. He had been deprived of his eyesight, and this handicap of blindness had intensified his savage inclination. He was unafraid, unashamed, unpitying: for that reason he was often launched by Domitian – not unlike spears which themselves are hurled blindly and with no sense of 1 2

Both were prominent amici of Domitian: Champlin (1983) 257–64; Jones (1992) 52–4, 59; Murison (2003) 148–50. On administrative continuity: Waters (1969) 385–405; Jones (1992) 196–8: ‘if we separate the reality of the Nervan senate from the fac¸ade created by the official propaganda, we are left, as far as most people were concerned, with a Domitianic senate inefficiently led’ (197); Grainger (2003) 52–65. On rhetorical continuity, especially within formal discourses of praise, see Gibson, pp. 104–24 in this volume, who also considers the following anecdote from Pliny at p. 123.

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forethought – against all the best men. Everyone at the table was discussing his evil nature and his bloody influence, when the emperor himself asked ‘What do we think he would have suffered had he survived?’ Mauricus replied ‘He’d be dining with us.’

In this letter, there is no mention of a specific location, although we might infer from Veiento’s position next to the emperor and from his hostile reception that this took place at Nerva’s residence (whether the Domus Flauia or another). But Mauricus’ rejoinder to Nerva is instructive. It hits at the perceived continuity between the associates of Domitian and those of the new emperor, and it makes clear the anxiety and disappointment felt in some senatorial circles at Nerva’s failure to mark a more effective break from the least popular aspects of his predecessor’s reign. Mauricus’ exchange with Nerva incidentally also demonstrates that aspects of the topic were potentially unavoidable for the emperor,3 and that claims made of discontinuity from Domitian were being critically evaluated by the emperor’s peers. The expression of this concern manifested itself with particular energy with regard to the physical monuments of the city. After Domitian’s assassination, the political meaning of those public monuments with strong Flavian connotations became, in a very specific sense, contested spaces. Domitian had been arguably the greatest single influence on the city’s physical fabric since Augustus. One estimate claims in excess of fifty major structures built, restored or claimed by him.4 Many smaller-scale monuments, such as statues and inscriptions, were destroyed or effaced by his former subjects as part of the damnatio memoriae passed after his death in September 96 (Plin. Pan. 52.4–5; Suet. Dom. 23.1).5 But this destruction was impossible in the case of larger-scale monuments, and so it was imperative that their meanings be reinvented. Thus, there was a concerted attempt to divest them of their Domitianic associations and to impose upon them more of the desired aspects of his successors’ identity. This attempt began almost immediately, and so the treatment of the monuments of Rome in Pliny’s Panegyricus offers an important and self-contained locus for considering the relationship of Pliny’s speech to the messages emanating from both Trajan and his cabinet in the first years of his power. 3

4

I leave aside whether Nerva was looking for this answer, as suggested by Syme (1958a) 6: ‘the truth may be, not that Mauricus was brave and Nerva innocent, but that the Emperor, more subtle than some of the company, quietly laid a trap, elicited the answer he wanted, and extinguished a conversational topic that had often been heard before’. 5 See Griffin (2000) 84–96; Grainger (2003) 45–51; Varner (2004) 111–35. Jones (1992) 79–98.

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Monuments were moreover a traditional subject to be treated in panegyric. The genre had from its beginning enjoyed a natural, and naturally adversarial, relationship with physical monuments. It was natural, in that architecture had been both a long-standing metaphor for literary production6 and a perennial expression of the ruler’s benefaction. It was naturally adversarial, in that panegyric and physical monuments were competing modes of permanent commemoration. Monuments built by, or in honour of, or associated with the laudand are present in prose panegyric from its inception onwards. Thus, for example, Isocrates in the Evagoras mentions the Panhellenion built in Aegina to honour Aeacus (15).7 Evagoras’ equipping of Salamis with walls and further structures in such a manner that it was inferior to no other city in Greece is also recounted (47), but note that Isocrates claims Evagoras’ inner qualities, his principles, as a precondition of the physical amplification of his city (48). The statues erected to Conon and Evagoras in Athens are also celebrated, and styled memorials to the men, their friendship and the greatness of their benefaction (57). But these notices compete with a concern to devalue the physical monument in favour of panegyric as a means of commemorating the laudand. Nicocles’ honouring of his father’s tomb is presented as being less desirable than an encomium, since a fine speech would make his excellence immortal (1–5). Statues are likewise acknowledged as fine memorials, but less effective at conveying images of the deeds and character of the laudand than a well-composed speech (73). Isocrates ultimately argues that a speech of praise is better than a statue on the grounds that (a) honourable men are revered more for their deeds and intellect than their physical beauty; (b) statues remain in the city, but encomia can be published abroad; and (c) it is easier to imitate the character and thoughts represented in speech than the physical beauty captured in statues. This tendency resonates throughout later prose encomia. Xenophon’s Agesilaus illustrates the king’s rejection of wealth as an index of power by the simplicity of his house: its ancient and unimproved doors at once prove his moderation and affirm his Herculean genealogy (8.7). Note again the emphatic devaluation of statues here. Agesilaus would not allow statues to be erected in his honour, despite the desire of many, but worked unceasingly on the ‘monument of his mind’ (tv yucv . . . mnhme±a, 11.7). This tradition is also detectable in the Latin laudatory tradition at certain 6 7

Cf. e.g. Pind. Ol. 6.1–4; Pyth. 6.7–14; possibly Callim. Aetia fr. 118 Pf.; Verg. G. 3.13; Hor. Carm. 3.30; Wilkinson (1970) 286–90; Thomas (1983) 97–9. For the generic importance of Isocrates’ Evagoras, see Introduction pp. 3–4.

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points: note Cicero’s urging of Caesar in the Pro Marcello to consider the gradual erosion of his physical trophies and monuments in contrast to the immortality of his praise (Marc. 11–12, discussed below); so too the notion in the Laudes Messallae that the laudand will have no titulus beneath his portrait capable of containing his deeds, but reams of verse singing his praise (33–4); and the conclusion of Tacitus’ biography of Agricola, wherein he positions physical statues of Agricola in relation to his facta dictaque (presumably as they are recorded in the Agricola) and his eternal fame (Agr. 46). By the time Pliny had come to panegyric, the monuments were a standard topic in the repertoire.8 Nerva, Trajan and his family members all made varying claims on prominent Domitianic structures throughout the city in the period 96–100. They had to, since they could neither destroy the monuments, nor eclipse Domitian as builder by means of a significant programme of their own public works. Trajan’s accession was only two years prior to the delivery of the speech, and although some building activity in general predates the end of the Dacian Wars,9 the vast majority of his expenditure on the monuments in the city post-dates the year 106.10 This absence is itself something that had to be negotiated in the Panegyricus.11 When Pliny turns to Trajan’s building activity in Rome in general terms, he makes a virtue of necessity, and celebrates his emperor’s restraint, by calling him parcus in aedificando (51.1). There is quite a difference here between the fact that not much was happening in the city and Pliny’s goal of illustrating Trajan’s virtue. This difference is immediately bridged by calling Trajan diligent in the upkeep of pre-existing buildings (diligens in tuendo, 51.1). In this last claim, Pliny could appeal to the paradigm of Augustus’ own image as founder or restorer of all temples (templorum omnium conditor aut restitutor, Liv. 4.20; cf. Hor. Carm. 3.6.1–4) and his assertion at Res Gestae 20.4 that he restored eightytwo temples within the city.12 Trajan’s own role as a restorer of the city’s monuments lay in continuing Domitian’s restoration work after the fire of 80. This had erupted in the Campus Martius and caused destruction both in the middle and southern areas of the Campus and on the Palatine (Suet. Dom. 5; Cass. Dio 66.24.2). Beyond this role as restorer, there appears to have been a cessation of or decline in building activity at Rome, and this is 8 9 11

12

For contemporary responses to civic euergetism in praise literature, see Gibson, pp. 119–20 in this volume. 10 See Paribeni (1926–7) 2.23–58; Bennett (1997) 143–8. Syme (1930) 55–70. Note the near-total absence of contemporary monuments from Pliny’s letters; this in high contrast with e.g. their abundance in Ciceronian epistolography: see Clark (2007). I am grateful to one of the Press’s anonymous readers for drawing my attention to this paper. On the republican contexts for Augustus’ assertion see Cornell (2000) 50.

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strongly intimated by Pliny when he claims a safer Rome, now free from the dangers of building materials being transported through the city: Itaque non ut ante immanium transuectione saxorum urbis tecta quatiuntur; stant securae domus nec iam templa nutantia. (Plin. Pan. 51.1) The walls and roofs in the city have stopped shuddering as they did at the passage of huge blocks of stone; our houses stand safe and secure and the temples are no longer threatened with collapse.

This essentially apologetic mode of praise is extended and transformed in order to celebrate the financial virtue of Trajan, here rendered an instance of his moderatio: Satis est tibi nimiumque, cum successeris frugalissimo principi; magnum reicere aliquid et amputare ex his, quae princeps tamquam necessaria reliquit. Praeterea pater tuus usibus suis detrahebat quae fortuna imperi dederat, tu tuis quae pater. (Pan. 51.2) There is enough, and more than enough for you despite your following an extremely careful emperor. It was a great thing too to have cut back expenditure even on those projects which he bequeathed to you as though they were essential items. Besides, your father was denying himself personal enjoyment of what the fortune of empire had brought him, you deny yourself enjoyment of what your father made yours.

Perhaps Pliny is drawing here an implicit distinction between public works and imperial building activity for private purposes, since his transition from this passage commences with the exclamation at quam magnificus in publicum es! (‘but how magnificent you are in public [sc. building]!’, Pan. 51.3). If he is, however, this is no less problematic. The Domus Flauia seems to have been complete by 92,13 and there is no evidence for further private building activity by any of the emperors in the intervening eight years. Even in this section of the Panegyricus, Pliny’s rhetorical picture of public structures emerging with miraculous speed is both at odds with the above quoted comments which immediately precede at 51.1–2, and to a certain extent betrayed by his own qualifications: Hinc porticus inde delubra occulta celeritate properantur, ut non consummata sed tantum commutata uideantur. (Pan. 51.3) Here rises a portico, there a shrine by some secret speed (occulta celeritate), such that they seem remodelled rather than completed (non consummata sed tantum commutata). 13

So, at least, Gsell (1894) 95 n. 3; cf. also the terminus offered in Martial books 7 and 8, containing between them three poems on the structure, dated to 92 and after 93 respectively: Gal´an Vioque (2002) 1–8 (December 92); Sch¨offel (2002) 29.

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Non consummata sed tantum commutata is the key: the unavoidable fact was that Trajan’s building activity had borne very little fruit in the period of the speech’s composition. Pliny names what dedicated structures he does see around him in the city. The list reduces to a single item: the Circus Maximus, itself a restoration and continuation of a Domitianic project. In the following discussion I consider Pliny’s engagement with the city’s monuments in the Panegyricus. That he endorses the claim of his emperor on these structures is of course unsurprising. But much can be revealed by both the manner of his endorsement and its essential conditionality upon Trajan fulfilling and allaying a number of senatorial expectations and concerns. The rhetorical tradition in which Pliny was operating set the value of self-promotional monuments beneath both the subject’s own inner qualities and the immortalizing potential of praise. In the Roman imperial context this formulation was advantageous, in that this praise was the preserve of the emperor’s subjects rather than the emperor himself. We will observe that Pliny extends, amplifies and innovates within this generic tradition by merging encomium’s generic relationship with monuments with the specific political context of the period 96–100. His rhetorical reception of the city allows him to move beyond the mere commemoration of the laudand and to widen the focus of his concern to encompass senatorial concerns, such as the new emperor’s accessibility, moderation and social parity with his subjects. The structures of Trajan’s Rome are invested with both positive and negative metaphorical and symbolic content. This invested content (more easily than the structures themselves) could then be both periodized – discontinued or initiated at the death of Domitian in 96 or of Nerva in 98 – and made conditional upon Trajan’s continuing policy of deference and moderation towards his subjects. the metaphorical monument One strategy that Pliny pursues in relation to pre-existing monuments is to depict them as casting off the specious semblance of themselves and assuming their true nature as a result of sound Trajanic policy. Thus, speaking from the vantage point of a former prefect of the treasury, Pliny opines that the aerarium in the Temple of Saturn had been restored to that version of itself current in the days before delation had become widespread (36.1), because it was now no longer a repository of the goods of the condemned. These goods are framed by Pliny as pollutants, as bloodsoaked plunder (spoliae ciuium, cruentae praedae). Trajan’s banishment of informers, emphatically treated by Pliny immediately preceding his

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remarks on the aerarium (34–5), effects a transformation of the aerarium. It no longer preserves its perverted former status as a receptaculum, but is now a true temple, a true locus of the god (nunc templum illud nunc uere dei <sedes>, 36.1). This emphasis upon things realizing their true nature under Trajan is an obsessively frequent motif of the Panegyricus, and one amplified well beyond the concerns of earlier examples of the genre.14 Returning to the aerarium, Nerva’s failure to make the same break unequivocally is adumbrated by Pliny’s comment that the aerarium was the unique place in the world where – even under the best of emperors (optimo principi, used only of Trajan and Nerva in the speech; of Nerva at e.g. 7.4, 10.4, 38.1) – the good could fear the evil. In what may be considered an extension of the same strategy, the physical monuments themselves are in many instances devalued in favour of the metaphorical monument to be had in Trajan’s personal qualities and in the devotion of his subjects. And so, because of Trajan’s moderation – exemplified in his reluctance to encourage panegyric15 – his name is inscribed not on beams of wood or blocks of stone (another glance at the paucity of dedicated buildings in this period), but in monuments of eternal praise (54.7). This was a topic exploited by Cicero in the Pro Marcello, as he attempted to persuade Caesar to value civic virtue over military dominance: quae quidem tanta est ut tropaeis et monumentis tuis adlatura finem sit aetas – nihil est enim opere et manu factum quod non conficiat et consumat uetustas – at haec tua iustitia et lenitas florescet cotidie magis. Ita quantum operibus tuis diuturnitas detrahet, tantum adferet laudibus. (Cic. Marc. 11–12) [The restoration of Marcellus] is so great that though time will bring an end to your trophies and monuments – for nothing exists made by human hand which age will not eventually bring to its end and consume – but your justice and mildness will flourish more each day! Thus whatever eternity takes from your works, it will deliver to your praise. 14

15

Cf. 1.6 omnibus quae dicentur a me, libertas fides ueritas constet; 16.3 [Trajan] imperator ueram ac solidam gloriam reportans; 33.4 [Domitian] demens ille uerique honoris ignarus; 49.7 sincera omnia et uera et ornata grauitate; 54.5 tua ueritas; 55.3 ingeniosior est enim ad excogitandum simulatio ueritate, seruitus libertate, metus amore; 55.8 scis enim ubi uera principis, ubi sempiterna sit gloria; 63.4 O praua et inscia uerae maiestatis ambitio; 67.1 [Trajan’s] inadfecta ueritas uerborum; 71.4 [the senate’s] uera acclamatio (again at 75.5); 73.4 lacrimarum tuarum ueritas; 74.1 uera felicitas; 80.3 O uere principis atque etiam dei curas; 84.1 tua ueritas; 84.8 uerus honor; 91.4 Trajan’s estimation of the senate. On the true nature of things to be aspired to or achieved under the influence of the laudand, cf. e.g. Cic. Marc. 19 uera laus; Cic. Man. 10 uera laus. Itself a trope of the genre and of contemporary and late Flavian examples of panegyric: see Innes and Gibson in this volume.

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Pliny again amplifies the sentiment found in his generic predecessors: he dwells longer on the paradox, and ties it explicitly to the emperor’s wisdom, made manifest in his self-control: Ac mihi intuenti sapientiam tuam minus mirum uidetur, quod mortales istos caducosque titulos aut depreceris aut temperes; scis enim ubi uera principis, ubi sempiterna sit gloria. Hi sunt honores in quos nihil flammis, nihil senectuti, nihil successoribus liceat. Arcus enim et statuas, aras etiam templaque demolitur et obscurat obliuio, neglegit carpitque posteritas: contra contemptor ambitionis et infinitae potestatis domitor ac frenator animus ipsa uetustate florescit, nec ab ullis magis laudatur quam quibus minime necesse est. (Plin. Pan. 55.9) But to me as I contemplate your wisdom, it seems less amazing that you reject or moderate those ephemeral and perishable titles; for you know where an emperor’s true, immortal glory lies. These are accolades over which flames, age or successors have no power whatsoever. For oblivion wears away and buries in darkness not only arches and statues, but altars and temples: posterity neglects and gradually despoils them all. On the other hand, a spirit which disdains ambition, which conquers and controls the desire for unlimited power, flourishes in the very act of ageing, and is praised by none more than those who are uncompelled to offer it.

Pliny then completes the logical implications of his paradox: physical monuments are essentially superfluous to the emperor, who is by definition assured of an eternal legacy. What is at stake for him is the nature of his later reputation (55.9). Posterity’s esteem can be guaranteed not by statues, but by uirtus ac merita (‘excellence and benefactions’, 55.10), the emperor’s interior essence and its exterior manifestation: the prerequisite quality as well as the ongoing justification of his holding supreme power. Neither gold nor silver can preserve the emperor’s transitory physical appearance as much as the favour of his subjects: Quod quidem prolixe tibi cumulateque contingit, cuius laetissima facies et amabilis uultus in omnium ciuium ore oculis animo sedet. (Plin. Pan. 55.11) You enjoy this in overflowing abundance: your beatific face and beloved appearance dwell in the heart, in the eyes, in the soul of every citizen.

Elsewhere in the speech, gold and silver are emblematic of the unsuccessful claims to supremacy and respect made by Domitian via physical monuments and objects, in high contrast to the easy security and love Trajan achieves through his innate qualities and accessibility. At 49.7, gold and silver plate served at public banquets are outshone by Trajan’s own suauitas and iucunditas, and by the fact that the occasion is marked by sincerity, truth and dignity. So far from Pliny’s picture of Domitian carefully noting down the behaviour of his guests and of exotic and low-born court

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personnel crowding the emperor’s table (49.6, 8), Trajan’s table is characterized by its open access and its freedom of speech (benigna inuitatio et liberales ioci et studiorum honor, 49.8). Note too how ritual is thus made to assume its true form under Trajan, as a result of this inclusivity. At 52.3, the gold and silver statues of the incestuous Domitian had comprehensively polluted the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, in contrast to the few – and bronze – statues which Trajan permits to stand (only) in the vestibule of the temple (52.3): a reflection of his simple veneration, and the fact that he does not aspire to divine status (52.3). The central paradox of the speech – that by moderating his claims on power and status, Trajan will enjoy them all the more effectively – is then illustrated by the prediction that these few images of Trajan will enjoy an existence which (like Horace’s Odes at 3.30) will be co-terminal with the Capitolium itself. On the other hand, Domitian’s countless golden images have already been gleefully destroyed by his quondam subjects (52.4). At 55.6–8, bronze images of Trajan in secular contexts invoke his similarity to republican paradigms of tyrannicide. Here Pliny elides out of existence Trajan’s former friendship with the Flavians. The mere fact of Trajan’s accession after Domitian’s death is airbrushed into a picture of Trajan actively ridding Rome of Domitian’s tyranny: illi enim reges hostemque uictorem moenibus depulerunt, hic regnum ipsum quaeque alia captiuitas gignit, arcet ac summouet, sedemque obtinet principis ne sit domino locus. (Plin. Pan. 55.6–7) For they [Brutus and Camillus] expelled kings and a victorious enemy from the walls of Rome, he [Trajan] dispels and keeps away tyranny itself and what captivity begets: he occupies his imperial seat to prevent it being a tyrant’s place.

Note here Pliny’s public codification of the antithesis separating Trajan from tyranny. In September 100 Trajan was an unknown quantity as emperor: he had been adopted while away from the city only two years prior, and had been present in Rome for only eight months. Pliny’s formulation deftly expresses what must have been a prevalent, contemporary anxiety. Who knew at that stage whether Trajan would be able or willing to preserve his current, palatable habit of muting the realities of his imperial power without descending into overtly expressed autocracy? Soon after this point in the speech, Pliny all but countenances the possibility of Trajan’s transformation as emperor, when he declares, multum in commutandis moribus hominum medius annus ualet, in principum plus (‘the interval of a year is able to transform a man’s habits greatly, so much more an emperor’s’, Pan. 59.4).

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paul roche the circus maximus

Trajan restored and extended the Circus Maximus (Suet. Dom. 5; Cass. Dio 68.7.2). This project was – with almost absolute certainty – Domitianic in origin,16 but its completion was claimed by Trajan in 103 in a number of media. Two separate coin issues of that year feature the new Circus (BMCRE 3.827, 853–6): one with the emperor addressing the people therein, and another as viewed from the Palatine residence. The political exploitation of this project considerably predates these coin issues. The removal of stone materials from Domitian’s Naumachia somewhere iuxta Tiberim for the later stages of the Circus restoration is noted by Suetonius (Dom. 5). That the biographer knew the source of the material speaks to its deliberate dissemination. Either this publication, or the spectacle of this transferral, may have played its own role within a wider Trajanic attempt to dissociate the Circus restoration project from Domitian, by the destruction of a public structure possessed of strong associations with that emperor.17 A glimpse at the unpopular public sentiment attaching to the Domitianic Naumachia survives in Cassius Dio, and this may help contextualize Trajan’s destruction of the edifice in the service of the Circus restoration: kaª –n kain tini cwr© naumac©an –pet”lese. kaª ˆp”qanon –n aÉt p†ntev m•n ½l©gou de±n o¬ naumacžsantev, sucnoª d• kaª –k tän qewm”nwn· ËetoÓ g‡r polloÓ kaª ceimänov sjodroÓ –xa©jnhv genom”nou oÉdenª –p”treyen –k tv q”av ˆpallagnai· ˆll’ aÉt¼v mandÅav ˆllass»menov –ke©nouv oÉd•n e­ase metabale±n· kaª –k toÅtou –n»shsan oÉk ½l©goi kaª –teleÅthsan. –j’  pou paramuqoÅmenov aÉtoÆv de±pn»n sjisi dhmos© di‡ p†shv tv nukt¼v par”sce. (Cass. Dio 67.8.2–4) and in a new place he produced a naval battle. At this last event practically all the combatants and many of the spectators as well perished. For, though a heavy rain and violent storm came up suddenly, he nevertheless permitted no one to leave the spectacle; and though he himself changed his clothing to thick woollen cloaks, he would not allow the others to change their attire, so that not a few fell sick and died. By way, no doubt, of consoling the people for this, he provided for them at public expense a dinner lasting all night.

The anecdote distils Domitian’s lethal self-interest, and may preserve traces of the gradual embellishment of the story, as it proceeds from the original day of the event itself and the emperor’s lack of concern for his subjects’ welfare, to the later consequences of this absence of interest in the deaths of 16 17

Humphry (1986) 102–3, who understates the likelihood of a Domitianic origin. Cf. Colledge (2000) 972 on the ‘burst of building in and around Rome, skillfully targeted to please the public, [intended to] dim . . . memories of Domitian’s architectural self-indulgence’.

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those exposed to bad weather, to the emperor’s attempt later still to remedy indignation via public largesse. Later in his reign, Trajan would build his own Naumachia. The Circus restoration was promoted as a significant gesture, and the ‘public transcript’ of this event was made unmistakably clear:18 it embodied Trajan’s liberalitas. In the same year as the numismatic advertisement of the restoration, the dedicatory inscription of a statue in honour of Trajan explicitly tied this work to Trajan’s personal liberalitas:19 IMP. CAESARI DIVI NERVAE F. NERVAE TRAIANO AUG. GERMANICO DACICO, PONTIFICI MAXIMO, TRIBUNIC. POT. VII, IMP. IIII, COS. V, P. P., TRIBUS XXXV, QUOD LIBERALITATE OPTIMI PRINCIPIS COMMODA EARUM ETIAM LOCORUM ADIECTIONE AMPLIATA SINT. (ILS 286) TO THE EMPEROR CAESAR, SON OF THE DIVINE NERVA, NERVA TRAJAN AUGUSTUS GERMANICUS DACICUS, PONTIFEX MAXIMUS, IN THE SEVENTH YEAR OF HIS TRIBUNICIAN POWER, HAILED IMPERATOR FOUR TIMES, CONSUL FIVE TIMES, FATHER OF THE FATHERLAND, THE THIRTY-FIVE TRIBES [DEDICATE THIS] BECAUSE, THROUGH THE LIBERALITAS OF THE BEST OF EMPERORS, THEIR PRIVILEGES HAVE BEEN MADE GREATER BY THE ADDITION OF PLACES.

Cassius Dio records that another inscription on the monument declared that Trajan had made the Circus adequate to the Roman people (Âti –xarkoÓnta aÉt¼n t tän ëRwma©wn džm –po©hsen, 68.7.2): perhaps a deliberate, democratizing echo of Nero’s bon mot to be at last living like a human being in the Domus Aurea (hactenus comprobauit, ut se diceret quasi hominem tandem habitare coepisse, Suet. Nero 31.3).20 The immediate context for Dio is Trajan’s high-mindedness (megal»jrwn kaª megalognÛmwn). Pliny’s treatment of the Circus Maximus in the Panegyricus engages with themes that had been accreting around the project since Domitian’s assassination. For example, Pliny’s description of the crowd in the newly restored Circus transparently evokes the language of the Trajanic inscription of 103: 18 19 20

On public transcripts see Scott (1990) 1–4; applied to the Panegyricus by Bartsch (1994) 148–87, esp. 148–54. On which see Nore˜na (2001) 160–4. Elsewhere Trajan would frame his dissimilarity to Nero in explicit terms: ‘Nec ille Polyclitus est nec ego Nero’ (Plin. Ep. 6.31.9). Trajan was patently interested in Nero’s principate (cf. Aurelius Victor, Epitome 5.2).

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Auxeras . . . numerum eius congiarii facilitate maioremque in posterum suscipi liberalitatis tuae fide iusseras. (Plin. Pan. 51.5) . . . you had grown their number by the open-handedness of your congiarium, and had bidden it to increase further in future by the pledge of your generosity.

For the consul there was a ready causal link waiting to be exploited between Trajan’s accommodation of 5,000 further seats in the Circus Maximus and the distribution of largesse which had marked Trajan’s accession and was distributed towards the end of 99: Nullam congiario culpam, nullam alimentis crudelitatem redemisti, nec tibi bene faciendi fuit causa ut quae male feceras impune fecisses. Amor impendio isto, non uenia quaesita est, populusque Romanus obligatus a tribunali tuo, non exoratus recessit. Obtulisti enim congiarium gaudentibus gaudens securusque securis; quodque antea principes ad odium sui leniendum tumentibus plebis animis obiectabant, id tu tam innocens populo dedisti, quam populus accepit. Paulo minus, patres conscripti, quinque milia ingenuorum fuerunt, quae liberalitas principis nostri conquisiuit inuenit adsciuit. Hi subsidium bellorum ornamentum pacis publicis sumptibus aluntur, patriamque non ut patriam tantum, uerum ut altricem amare condiscunt; ex his castra ex his tribus replebuntur, ex his quandoque nascentur, quibus alimentis opus non sit. (Plin. Pan. 28.4) You were trying to redeem no fault by your congiarium, no cruelty by your alimenta, nor did you intend that this kindly act buy you immunity from former crimes. You sought your people’s love by this expense, not their pardon; the people of Rome were beholden to your tribunal, they did not withdraw from it exhausted by prayers. For rejoicing and secure you bestowed the congiarium upon them in their joy and security; and what previous emperors used to cast before the swelling anger of their people in order to lessen their hatred, you gave to your people and they received, both in innocence. Senators, there were just short of 5,000 freeborn children which the liberalitas of our princeps sought out, found and enrolled. These children are raised at public expense to be a bulwark in war and an ornament in peace; they learn to love their country not so much as a fatherland, but as a wet nurse; from these the camps and tribes will be replenished, from these will be born children who have no need of alimenta.

Trajan’s first congiarium was recorded on a sestertius of the year 99 (BMCRE 3.712). On it a togate Trajan sits on the curule chair on an elevated platform; his right arm extends into an open-handed gesture. Nearby and on a lower level, two citizens stand before a seated official; one holds out the folds of his toga, the other mounts the official’s platform. In the background of the composition the personified Liberalitas holds an abacus. Pliny’s framing of

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the congiarium in terms of liberalitas is no innovation,21 but his positing of a causal link between the congiarium of 99, the alimenta programme and the appearance of 5,000 new spectators in this way transforms the demographic impact of the scheme to make it immediate, and participates in the speech’s wider thematic presentation of Trajan as a superhuman sponsor of fertility.22 If the inscription is a ‘fausse evergesie’,23 Pliny’s amplification is nothing short of miraculous. When Pliny describes the Circus itself, he commences with its fac¸ade’s evocation of the beauty of the city’s temples, and with the notion that it is now worthy of the Roman people in their aspect of conquerors of the world (immensum latus circi templorum pulchritudinem prouocat, digna populo uictore gentium sedes, 51.3). Here he clearly takes his cue from Trajan’s celebrated statement that he had made the Circus adequate to the Roman people (Cass. Dio 68.7.2 –xarkoÓnta t tän ëRwma©wn džm; cf. Pan. 51.3 digna populo uictore gentium). The allusion to temples may well have been a convenient or standard point of comparison for a large expanse of marble or tufa, but here paired in apposition with the notion of the Roman people as world conquerors, it may also evoke the function of temples as victory monuments, of the use of the Circus as a route for the triumph, and of its embellishment with triumphal arches under various emperors. Elsewhere in the speech – and particularly in the first twenty-three chapters – Trajan’s adoption and return to the city from Germany are glossed in terms which suggest the triumphal return of a victorious general.24 Pliny then focuses upon the figure of the emperor himself at the games, in a passage that orbits around the notion of the emperor’s visibility and his parity with his subjects: nec minus ipsa uisenda, quam quae ex illa spectabuntur, uisenda autem cum cetera specie, tum quod aequatus plebis ac principis locus, siquidem per omne spatium una facies, omnia continua et paria, nec magis proprius spectanti Caesari suggestus quam propria quae spectet. Licebit ergo te ciuibus tuis inuicem

21 22 23

24

Cf. TLL 7.2.1298.33–50 for liberalitas and its easy attachment to congiaria; Nore˜na (2001) 163–4 establishes the connection between liberalitas issues and congiaria in the period 117–235. Cf. esp. 26.3–27.4, 29.1–32.4. Cf. Nore˜na (2001) 162 (applying the terminology of Veyne (1976) 621–42): ‘This [ILS 286] is the first securely dated inscription to commemorate this particular imperial virtue, and a prime example of what Veyne calls a “fausse evergesie”, a routine administrative decision of the Roman state for which the emperor automatically receives credit simply by virtue of being emperor.’ Cf. esp. 5.3–4, 8.2, 9.2, 11.5, 16.1–3, 17.1–4, 22.2, 23.4 Trajan after he advents mounts the Capitol, 23.6 evoking the conclusion of the triumph.

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contueri; dabitur non cubiculum principis sed ipsum principem cernere in publico, in populo sedentem, populo cui locorum quinque milia adiecisti. (Plin. Pan. 51.3–5) itself [the Circus] no less to be seen than those things which will be seen there, but equally to be seen is the fact that there is an equal place for plebs and princeps. There is but one appearance for the whole arena; all things continuous, equal; the seating is no more Caesar’s as he looks on than the things which he observes. Therefore it will be permitted to your citizens to look upon you in turn; it will be possible to behold, not the emperor’s couch, but the emperor himself, in public, seated among the people, the people for whom you have added five thousand seats.

That this is alluding to the emperor’s box, the puluinar, and to some modification of it in the Trajanic reconstruction is apparent from Pliny’s mention of the cubiculum principis in the subsequent sentence of the speech (51.5). But the specific nature of the change to the emperor’s seating arrangement is couched in language which is very far from clear. Some commentators take this innovation to mean that Domitian favoured watching the races from the Domus Flauia; Humphry suggests that cubicula principis was the name of the apartments in the Domus Flauia, south of the Hippodrome, from where (he posits) Domitian was accustomed to view the races in the Circus Maximus.25 But when Suetonius recounts Domitian’s habits in relation to the spectacula (e.g. Suet. Dom. 4), he omits to mention the viewing area from the palace (a habit not passed over in the case of other bad emperors26 ), and if we locate his questioning of a puerulus about the Egyptian prefecture of Mettius Rufus (4.2) within the Circus Maximus, Domitian’s presence and visibility amid the people are more readily understood than his absence; Martial 8.11 is explicit on the entry of Domitian into the Circus (and cf. 7.7.9f. on the malaise of the spectators in the Circus when Domitian is absent from Rome). Trajan’s reconstruction of the puluinar does not automatically lend itself to the egalitarian interpretation favoured by Pliny. In fact, Trajan seems to have moved the puluinar further up into the seating from the Augustan position of ground level (in fronte prima spectaculorum, Suet. Cl. 4.3), i.e. at the very front of the grandstands fronting onto the arena itself. Either under Augustus or (perhaps less likely) by Trajanic innovation, the puluinar was in essence a small temple: it was hexastyle; it had a gabled pediment; 25

Humphry (1986) 80.

26

Suet. Cal. 18.3; Barrett (2000) 207.

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it had its own staircase distinct from the seating arrangements in front of it; its side walls recessed back to the inner wall of the fac¸ade.27 Pliny’s response is basically sophistry: the emperor was now no more or less visible than before. The visibility of the Augustan puluinar’s occupants is apparent from Augustus’ concern that Claudius not watch the races from it: spectare eum circenses ex puluinari non placet nobis; expositus enim in fronte prima spectaculorum conspicietur. (Suet. Cl. 4.5) that he should view the games in the Circus from the puluinar does not meet with my approval; for he will be conspicuous if exposed to full view in front of the spectators.

In Pliny’s formulation, the further elevation of a temple for the imperial family becomes a symbol for the parity of emperor and subject. It is not that Trajan now towers over his senatorial peers in a structure that explicitly lays claim to the superhuman status of the emperor and anticipates his apotheosis,28 but that the seating for the lower class and the podium of the temple share the same architectural foundation: ‘all things continuous, equal’. The physical material of the Circus, transmuted through Pliny’s praise into a metaphor for the emperor’s own accessibility, becomes a permanent, architectural embodiment of the first half of the dual tradition preserved in Cassius Dio: kaª t te džm met’ –pieke©av suneg©neto kaª t gerous© semnoprepäv Þm©lei, ˆgapht¼v m•n psi, jober¼v d• mhdenª plŸn polem©oiv ßn. (Cass. Dio 68.7.3) his association with the people was marked by affability and his intercourse with the senate by dignity, so that he was loved by all and dreaded by none save the enemy.

The consul is complicit in the Trajanic branding of the Circus, but deftly woven into the fabric of the public script is his concern to foreground the emperor’s presence among his subjects and his open accessibility. Pliny is careful to read straight past the potentially self-aggrandizing interpretation of the restoration of the puluinar to render it a symbol of parity. 27

28

See Humphry (1986) 80. The archaeological evidence for the Trajanic puluinar consists of frag. 8g of the Severan Marble Plan; the mosaic from Luni; and a third-century gem from Geneva, all cited in Humphry (1986) 81 figs. 35a and 35b, 123 fig. 55, 243–4. See Van Den Berg (2008) 257–66; at 265: ‘The Puluinar was understood not only as a site to worship traditional state gods during a religious festival, but also as a place intended for worship of state consecrated diui, both present and future.’

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paul roche the domus flavia

Plotina’s will to remain immune to the morally corrupting influence of power was expressed publicly upon her entry into the Domus Flauia: ‘I enter here such a person as I wish to be when I depart’ (toiaÅth m”ntoi –ntaÓqa –s”rcomai o¯a kaª –xelqe±n boÅlomai, Cass. Dio 68.5.5). Her ‘official’ entry into the palace was presumably made in 98 at some point after the death of Nerva on 28 January, and so independent of Trajan, who returned in late 99, perhaps in October.29 The residence had naturally been a lightning rod for rumour concerning Domitian and his family30 and the locus of late Flavian court intrigue; it was moreover the scene of the assassination of the emperor himself and (evidently) the praetorian guard’s mutiny against Nerva (cf. Plin. Pan. 6.1 imperator et parens generis humani obsessus captus inclusus).31 The combination of time, place and the sentiments expressed by Plotina cast the imperial residence itself as figuratively invested with the potential to corrupt, and she was of course not the first person to attempt to reinvent the potential meaning of the palace. Nerva had himself utilized the Palatine residence to advertise his discontinuity with Domitianic inaccessibility by inscribing the words aedes publicae on its exterior (Plin. Pan. 47.4). Pliny often alludes to the Domus Flauia in the Panegyricus. The consul devalues Nerva’s publicly inscribed gesture of accessibility by making it conditional upon Trajan’s own ability to open the palace freely to his subjects: frustra tamen, nisi adoptasset qui habitare ut in publicis posset (‘all in vain though had he not adopted someone who could inhabit it as though it were a public place’, 47.4). This for Pliny is the fundamental message to inscribe onto the palace: that Trajan’s senatorial peers have complete, open and voluntary access to the emperor at court. He returns to this theme again in an extended passage at 47.4–49.4. Trajan lives in harmony with the Nervan inscription to such an extent that it is virtually Trajan’s own inscription (47.5).32 The actual behaviour Pliny is prescribing for his emperor is then made explicit. Trajan has made court life at the palace as open of access as the Forum, the temples and the Capitoline: he has 29 30

31 32

For the date: Plin. Ep. 10.8 (July–August 99: Sherwin-White (1966) 573) with Seelentag (2004) 198 n. 2 for discussion. Particularly the rumours surrounding his divorce of Domitia and his incestuous relationship with his niece: cf. Juv. 2.29–33; Tac. Hist. 1.2; Suet. Dom. 22.1; Cass. Dio 67.3; Plin. Pan. 53; Philostr. VA 7.7; Griffin (2000) 62; Roche (2009) 378–80. Roche (2002) 41, 60. On this tendency to centralize all achievements within Trajan’s family to Trajan himself see Roche (2002) 44–6.

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removed (i.e. reconfigured) the admissiones, the degrees of access which were humiliating for the many who may have been granted access to the Aula Regia for the salutatio, but were debarred from the emperor’s private chambers (47.5).33 And not only is greater access extended, Pliny claims, but the emperor himself is present and visible for generous sections of each day: Ipse autem ut excipis omnes, ut exspectas! (‘But you yourself, how you receive everyone, how you await everyone!’, 48.1).34 The clear point is that access to Trajan is and ought to be unmediated through palace personnel, and later in the speech this image is extended to encompass Trajan’s reception of foreign emissaries: adeunt statim, dimittuntur statim, tandemque principis fores exclusa legationum turba non obsidet (‘they are admitted and dismissed with no delays, finally an excluded crowd of delegates does not besiege the doors of the palace’, 79.6). The resulting image is of the emperor surrounded by and integrated with his peers. Trajan’s complete instantiation of Pliny’s conditional acceptance of Nerva’s inscription – nisi adoptasset qui habitare ut in publicis posset – is echoed in the consul’s description of the happy and secure throng surrounding the emperor in his palace: remoramur resistimus ut in communi domo (‘we delay, we linger as if in a communal house’, 48.3). The model is illustrated by contrast in Pliny’s bestial image of Domitian, fortified inside the palace as though it were a cave (belua . . . uelut specu inclusa, 48.3), lurking in silence, emerging only to destroy relatives and the clarissimi ciues. In contrast to Plotina’s declared intention to remain unchanged by the palace, the figure of the emperor himself has the capacity to transform the building. Under Domitian the doors of the palace were guarded by horrifying abstractions (48.4) and the emperor was himself abstracted into a grotesque caricature of terror, arrogance, anger and shamelessness: a product and an agent of desolation (48.5). This is in complete contrast to the transparency of Trajan’s occupancy, and contravenes the necessity for emperors of exposing to public view even the private areas of their houses: Habet hoc primum magna fortuna, quod nihil tectum, nihil occultum esse patitur; principum uero non domus modo sed cubicula ipsa intimosque secessus recludit, omniaque arcana noscenda famae proponit atque explicat. (Plin. Pan. 83.1) Great power has this as its primary characteristic: that it suffers nothing to be covered, nothing to be hidden; it opens up not only the homes of the principes, 33 34

Turcan (1987) 132–9; Wallace-Hadrill (1996) 285; Eck (2000) 212. Cf. Trajan at 48.2 as the admittens princeps.

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but even the cubicula and the most hidden recesses, it exposes and unfolds to rumour every secret for her knowledge.

Pliny is prescribing for Trajan a means of conceiving of the physical house which had its roots in late republican treatises and in aristocratic conceptions of unending public scrutiny. Velleius recounts Drusus (tr. pl. 91 bce) instructing an architect to build him a house in which all of his actions would be visible to the public (Vell. 2.14.3), and Cicero boasted that his house was on view to the whole city (in conspectu prope totius urbis, Cic. Dom. 100). Consider Pliny’s complete elision of Vitruvius’ architectural dichotomy between public and private space: animaduertendum est, quibus rationibus priuatis aedificiis propria loca patribus familiarum et quemadmodum communia cum extraneis aedificari debeant . . . nobilibus uero, qui honores magistratusque gerundo praestare debent officia ciuibus, faciunda sunt uestibula regalia alta, atria et peristylia amplissima, siluae ambulationesque laxiores ad decorem maiestatis perfectae . . . (Vitr. 6.5.1, 2) consider on what principles to build those parts of the individual’s house which are exclusively for the paterfamilias, and those which are shared with visitors . . . . For the nobility, who by holding public posts and offices ought to extend services to their fellow citizens, lofty entrance courts befitting a king, expansive atria and peristyles, wide gardens and walkways made worthy of the dignity of their office . . .

Domitian’s use of the palace, on the other hand, had been an aberration (49.1). He had fortified himself inside, but locked in with him were the seeds of his own destruction: deception, conspiracy and vengeance against his own crimes. When Pliny alludes to the assassination of Domitian within the palace in terms of a personified Poena, he repeatedly emphasizes that emperor’s isolation from his peers, in terms both of his pretensions to divinity and of his withdrawal to those parts of the palace which Vitruvius considered propria loca patribus familiarum, and which were, in an imperial context, debarred to all but court insiders: Dimouit perfregitque custodias Poena, angustosque per aditus et obstructos non secus ac per apertas fores et inuitantia limina irrupit: longe tunc illi diuinitas sua, longe arcana illa cubilia saeuique secessus, in quos timore et superbia et odio hominum agebatur. (Plin. Pan. 49.1) Vengeance displaced and smashed through the guard, and flew through those narrow hallways and barriers just as if through open doors and inviting thresholds: no help to him then his divinity, no help then those secret chambers and savage recesses into which he was driven by his fear, his arrogance and his loathing of humanity.

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This description has specific relevance to the private chambers of the palace to the southeast of the main peristyle, where the assassination transpired (Cass. Dio 67.17.1).35 Pliny’s account distorts the facts of Domitian’s assassination, in that nobody breached the guard, or swept through the halls: the emperor was killed by members of his own court (Suet. Dom. 17.10–12; Cass. Dio 67.15–18).36 Domitian’s death had actually nothing whatsoever to do with living life in the public eye or his treatment of senatorial peers, and everything to do with isolating members of his own household. But to Pliny it is a useful counterpoint with which to promote his vision of the Trajanic court: safer, more secure, built on love rather than cruelty (reprised at 85.1), and above all rejecting the solitude of the cubiculum for the crowded gatherings in the public rooms of the palace (49.2). Pliny now extends the lesson from accessibility to benevolence: Discimus experimento fidissimam esse custodiam principis innocentiam ipsius. Haec arx inaccessa, hoc inexpugnabile munimentum, munimento non egere. Frustra se terrore succinxerit, qui saeptus caritate non fuerit; armis enim arma irritantur. (Plin. Pan. 49.3) We learn by experience that the most reliable guard of the emperor is his own guiltlessness. This is the impenetrable citadel, this is the unstormable rampart: to need no rampart. He surrounds himself with terror to no effect who has not been surrounded by affection; for arming oneself merely provokes a response of arms.

The paradoxical conclusion to this scene condenses and recasts Seneca’s meditation on the difference between tyranny and kingship in De Clementia (1.11.4–13.5).37 Consider especially the following sentiments: Clementia ergo non tantum honestiores sed tutiores praestat ornamentumque imperiorum est simul et certissima salus. Quid enim est, cur reges consenuerint liberisque ac nepotibus tradiderint regna, tyrannorum execrabilis ac brevis potestas sit? (Sen. Clem. 1.11.4) So clemency does not just bring rulers more honour but greater safety too. It is the glory of empires at the same time as being their surest means of protection. After all, why does it happen that kings get to grow old and to hand on their kingdoms to their children and grandchildren, but that the power of tyrants is accursed and short-lived? 35 36 37

For further remarks on Pliny’s treatment of Domitian’s assassination, see Hutchinson, this volume pp. 128–9. See Murison (2003) 153; Collins (2008) 392. I am very grateful to one of the Press’s anonymous readers for drawing my attention to De Clementia here.

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Placido tranquilloque regi fida sunt auxilia sua, ut quibus ad communem salutem utatur, gloriosusque miles (publicae enim securitati se dare operam videt) omnem laborem libens patitur ut parentis custos; at illum acerbum et sanguinarium necesse est graventur stipatores sui. (Sen. Clem. 1.13.1) For a calm and peaceful king, his own guards are reliable, since he uses them for the protection of the community. In their eagerness for glory, the soldiers, because they see that they are working for the security of the state, willingly endure all kinds of toil as the protectors of their Father. But the ruler who is harsh and bloodthirsty inevitably finds that his own bodyguards resent him.38

In the Panegyricus, the sentiment is further leveraged by the Domus Flauia itself. Pliny returns insistently to the vision of an accessible emperor, in which the physicality of the palace’s defences are now collapsed into a metaphor for the emperor’s own physical safety: the suggestion of assassination is still current from Pliny’s description of Domitian’s death, and it resides in this passage in its own right, existing in the notion of the good emperor’s invulnerability and made conditional upon Trajan’s continued capacity to inhabit the palace ut in publicis. Pliny’s hand in reinventing the meaning of the Domus Flauia is connected to and reflected in Trajan’s restoration to private ownership of the houses of the ancient nobility. While the emperor has made his own residence common property with his peers, Pliny reasserts the limitations of imperial interest in domestic residences (50.1), and is absolutely precise in his delineation of authority and ownership: Est quod Caesar non suum uideat, tandemque imperium principis quam patrimonium maius est. (Plin. Pan. 50.2) Things exist which Caesar sees and does not own: finally the emperor’s realm exceeds his personal property.

This policy has a kind of regenerative effect upon the nobility. Pliny presents it as an architectural reflection of the restoration of appropriate dignity for the upper orders of society. Just as the decay of the houses of the old nobility is a physical manifestation of the social inappropriateness of being owned by freedmen (habitator seruus, 50.3), so too their newfound lustre reflects a restoration of social ordering and of Trajan’s affinity with the original builders of these great houses:

38

Translations of De Clementia are from Braund (2009).

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Datur intueri pulcherrimas aedes deterso situ auctas ac uigentes. Magnum hoc tuum non erga homines modo sed erga tecta ipsa meritum, sistere ruinas solitudinem pellere, ingentia opera eodem quo exstructa sunt animo ab interitu uindicare. Muta quidem illa et anima carentia sentire tamen et laetari uidentur, quod niteant quod frequententur, quod aliquando coeperint esse domini scientis. (Plin. Pan. 50.4) It is possible to look upon those splendid houses – now that their site has been cleansed – growing and thriving. This is a great service of yours, not just for the owners, but for the houses themselves: to halt this ruination, to drive off this solitude, to save these great works from destruction, is to exhibit the same spirit with which they were erected. And those inanimate, insensate houses nevertheless seem to understand this, seem to rejoice, because they gleam, because they are frequented again, because at last they are the possessions of appreciative owners.

This is more than conservation. Pliny recasts freedmen owning these properties in terms used exclusively elsewhere in the speech of the bad emperor’s self-imposed isolation from his peers (solitudo, 50.4; cf. 34.1 of Domitianic informers, 48.5 both Domitian in the palace and the destruction he causes when he emerges, 49.2 the haunts of the Domus Flauia which Trajan rejects for its public spaces). Just as surely their purchase by members of the aristocracy is cast in terms evoking Trajan’s transformation of the palace (frequentare, 50.4; cf. 48.2 on senators eager to visit Trajan in the palace, 49.5 the crowd accompanying Trajan in his leisure hours). This is a domestic, personal, urban manifestation of Trajan’s reform of the imperial court. Both Trajan and Pliny were surrounded by monuments whose bricks were stamped with the name of Domitian; and this could function as an appropriate metaphor for the men themselves. In each of the individual monuments, Pliny works hard to delineate a positive or potentially positive Trajanic meaning to offset against their Domitianic legacy. In the case of the Circus Maximus, Pliny exploits Trajan’s own claims to liberalitas in order to deflate the potentially offensive claims made by Trajan’s restoration of the puluinar. The emperor’s own residence is collapsed into a metaphor for the emperor himself – open and accessible rather than fortified and secluded – and establishes the preconditions of his continuing safety. And the wider community of aristocratic houses is reinvigorated under their newly appropriate owners after their sad existence under the tenure of freedmen. In the Panegyricus, the monuments of Trajan’s Rome are viewed shimmying beneath a spectrum of varying metaphorical and literal content: now clearly discernible under a light film, now almost completely abstracted

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into the superlative virtues Pliny would prescribe for his emperor. In each case, and taken collectively, the physical environment housing the people, senate and princeps is transformed into an exemplary metaphor of the integration of all three, and for the benefit of an emperor who at the moment of its delivery was very much an unknown quantity; after all, who could have predicted two years into his reign that the exemplary relations between Domitian and the senate would sour?39 39

For the harmonious relationship between Domitian and the senate in the period 81 to September 87, see Eck (1980) 55; Syme (1977–91) 7.560.

chapter 4

The Panegyricus and rhetorical theory D. C. Innes

Pliny regularly calls the Panegyricus a gratiarum actio, insistently so in the opening sections, and that is pretty certainly its title.1 Its traditional title, Panegyricus, has no support from Pliny and is too Greek for an occasion which Pliny emphatically presents as an old Roman custom in his opening words (he appeals to maiores and mos in the first two sentences).2 In Pliny’s description of the senatorial decree, his remit was to let good emperors review their actions (quae facerent recognoscerent, 4.1), bad emperors their duty (cf. 75.3). But praise was what was expected and given, and in the published speech, a richly expanded version (spatiosius et uberius, Ep. 3.18.1), praise of the emperor is paramount (e.g. 3.3, 53.6 and 56.1). In a letter, Pliny rejects any advisory role; his aim is to praise the emperor for his excellence (laudare optimum principem, Ep. 3.18.2–3) and present him as a model for any successors. The speech is thus a prime example of classical panegyric and our only extant such speech in Latin from the early imperial period. Together with invective,3 encomium constitutes the genre of epideictic, one of the three traditional genres of oratory alongside forensic and deliberative.4 But unlike them the audience of epideictic does not have 1 2

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4

The repeated use in the opening section acts as a marker to identify the speech: 1.2, 1.3, 2.3, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3; cf. Ep. 3.13.1, 3.18.1. The Greek term panhgurik»v originally described a speech given at a public festival, panžguriv, but was also used more widely as a synonym of encomium, –gkÛmion, to describe a formal speech of praise. Neither term is fully naturalized in Latin. Cicero uses panegyricus only as the title of Isocrates’ speech (De Orat. 37), and Quintilian only to identify the title of speeches at 2.10.11, 3.4.14 and 10.4.4 (in the latter two cases referring to Isocrates’ speech). Invective is the mirror image of encomium, sharing the same headings and topics but reversing the content (e.g. Cic. De Orat. 2.349; Quint. Inst. 3.7.19). Panegyric exploits topics of invective in comparisons, as in Pliny’s contrast of Trajan with Domitian. The division is Aristotelian (Rhet. 1.3) and is the standard later theory. Quintilian, for example, supports it on the grounds of logic and best authority (3.4.11). But we know of broader definitions of epideictic, even to the point of including all literature except forensic and deliberative (Hermog. Id. 404 Rabe). Modern discussions also rightly emphasize the flexibility and intermingling of the three genres of oratory from the beginning: see Carey (2007) 237–52. The forensic De Corona of Demosthenes, for example, includes extensive self-praise, while Isocrates’ Panegyricus was formally

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to take a decision (a judge or jury to acquit or condemn, a deliberative body to accept or reject a proposal). Its aim, Quintilian tells us, is to please the audience (3.4.6; cf. 2.10.11); it should amplify and embellish its subject (res amplificare et ornare, 3.7.6);5 it was associated with long-established patterns of structure, topics and style.6 Like every educated person of his time Pliny will have been familiar from an early age with the basic prescription of a simple encomium since it had a regular place in the school syllabus among the progymnasmata, the preliminary exercises which prepared the pupil for the later stage of composing declamations.7 Encomium was among the more advanced: e.g. inde paulatim ad maiora tendere incipiet, laudare claros uiros et uituperare improbos (‘He will next gradually progress to more demanding pieces, encomia of the famous and invective against the wicked’, Quint. Inst. 2.4.20). Pliny provides a brief example in a letter, where he recommends the merits of a potential son-in-law (Ep. 1.14).8 He begins and ends with his own personal ties to the young man, but in the middle he gives an encomium, as he acknowledges in the final word of the letter, laudibus (‘praises’). He recommends the young man for the worth and respectability of his hometown and relatives on both the father’s and the mother’s side; he praises his virtues of energy, application and modesty in pursuing a successful public career; and he notes his attractive appearance and considerable wealth. This little eulogy echoes the basic headings of encomium, as we find them in school texts like Theon and throughout the ancient theory of rhetoric. For example, in Cicero’s De Oratore we find origins, physical qualities such as beauty and strength, external qualities such as wealth, and, most important of all, virtue (2.342). Similar lists go back at least

5

6

7

8

deliberative but in practice a panegyric of Athens (Quint. Inst. 3.4.14, Nicolaus 48 Felten). Eulogy was useful in all forms of oratory (e.g. Cic. De Or. 2.349). Cf. Plin. Ep. 2.5.3 ornare patriam et amplificare (in praise of his home-town Comum). For Ar. Rhet. 1368b26–9 amplification (aÎxhsiv) is particularly suited to epideictic since the content is uncontroversial, so you need only invest it with grandeur and beauty. Basic rhetorical texts: Ar. Rhet. 1.3, 9; Rhet. Alex. 35; Rhet. Her. 3.10–15; Cic. De Inv. 2.177–8, De Orat. 2.43–7, 341–9, Part. 70–82; Quint. Inst. 2.4, 3.7; Theon, Progymnasmata 8 (see next note); Pseudo-Dionysius, Art of Rhetoric 1–7; Menander I and II, On Epideictic Speeches. General surveys: Russell and Wilson (1981) x–xxxiv; Pernot (1986, 1993); Russell (1998); Rees (2007a). For Theon see Patillon and Bolognesi (1997), conveniently keeping Spengel’s pagination. It has the original order of the exercises and substantial additional content from the Armenian. For English translation of Theon and others, see Kennedy (2003). Theon is very probably the earliest extant Greek author of progymnasmata, roughly contemporary with Quintilian (but for a much later date, in the fifth century, see Heath (2003) 141–9). On progymnasmata see Bonner (1977) 250–76; Cribiore (2001) 220–30; Reinhardt and Winterbottom (2006) 74–7. Hoffer (1999) 177–93; Rees (2007b). This letter of recommendation is the closest to a formal eulogy, but 2.9, 2.13, 3.2 and 7.22 suggest a template of family, money and qualities of character and a greater amount of detail than is found in Cicero (so Rees (2007b); cf. also Hor. Ep. 1.9, 12, 22–4).

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as early as Rhet. Alex. 35 and draw on still earlier speeches which served as models. Particularly influential were Agathon’s praise of Love in Plato’s Symposium (194e–197e) and two speeches in praise of a recently dead king, Isocrates’ Evagoras and Xenophon’s Agesilaus.9 Agathon’s speech is clearly articulated into separate headings, including the four cardinal virtues of justice, modesty, courage and wisdom, and runs riot with a richness of style said to echo Gorgias (Symp. 198c).10 Isocrates claims to be the first to write a prose encomium of a contemporary (8), begins with Evagoras’ origins and early life, shapes much of the praise to show his virtues, and sets him up as a model for his son to imitate. Isocrates also established the panegyric style, a style characterized by pleasing elaboration and richness, especially in sentence structure. It has a smooth flow (hiatus between words is avoided) and an abundance of prose rhythm, rounded periods and clearly patterned assonance and antithesis. Again our sources agree, as in Cic. Orator 37–42 and already Ar. Rhet. 3.12, where epideictic suits the l”xiv grajikž, the style for written texts (cf. Quint. Inst. 3.8.63). But such a style might readily become flat and monotonous and was not suited to emotion, as Dionysius warns (Dem. 20). So too for Longinus (On the Sublime 9.3), panegyric may be grand and sublime but for the most part it lacks emotion. It is a style which needs to be varied, as is stressed by Pseudo-Dionysius (260 U-R), for example by simplicity for narrative and grandeur for emperors or gods.11 Richness, grandeur and sublimity also characterize the delivery advised by Quintilian (11.3.153 specifically including the gratiarum actio). Pliny echoes this tradition in his two letters on the revision of the Panegyricus. In Ep. 3.18.8–10 the genre of epideictic supports his own preference for a richer style (laetioris stili), even if others admire his passages in a plainer style (which he may someday come to appreciate). And in Ep. 3.13.3–4, he complains that there can be no originality in content and the reader will therefore concentrate on style (elocutio).12 But he hopes 9 10

11

12

See Russell and Wilson (1981) xiv–v; Pernot (1993) 19–25; for Evagoras: Braund (1998) 56–8. Prose encomium began with the fifth-century sophists, who were in turn influenced by earlier poetry of praise, as Gorgias implicitly acknowledges (Helen 2). Poetic encomium continued: for praise of a ruler see e.g. Stat. Silv. 4.1 on Domitian’s seventeenth consulship (with Coleman (1988) esp. 62–5); and Gibson in this volume. Cic. Orator 96 is only an apparent exception in categorizing it under the middle style. It aims to please (cf. Orator 37) and that is why it has been rejected by the grand style, which Cicero has defined in terms of exciting emotion. He makes obvious use of the traditional five parts of rhetoric (cf. e.g. Quint. Inst. 3.3.1). He ignores memory but refers to content (inuentio), structure (dispositio), style (elocutio) and delivery (pronuntiatio).

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his structure, transitions and figures will also attract attention.13 After all, even the uneducated can sometimes find good material and deliver it impressively (inuenire praeclare, enuntiare magnifice), whereas skilled expertise is needed for appropriate arrangement and a varied use of figures (disponere apte, figurare uarie). Variety of style is also needed: it cannot always be grand and sublime (an indication it mostly will be) but needs some lower tones just as light needs some shadow. Pliny clearly prided himself on his mastery of style and organization. I shall focus on the latter and say little on style.14 Since he was Pliny’s teacher (Ep. 2.14.9, 6.6.3), it is natural to look more closely at Quintilian’s discussion of epideictic (3.7). Within a dialogue setting of 91 bce Cicero had seen panegyric as essentially Greek (De Orat. 2.341), and for Rhet. Her. 3.15 it was rarely found in real life. But by Quintilian’s time epideictic was a regular feature of Roman public life and he begins by recognizing this change, emphasizing that Roman custom (mos Romanus) has found a practical use (3.7.2). The senate may, for example, assign a magistrate to give a funeral oration, as Pliny illustrates in a letter describing the funeral of Verginius Rufus in 97: the oration was given by the consul Tacitus, ‘a most eloquent eulogist’ (laudator eloquentissimus, Ep. 2.1.6). Speeches, Quintilian continues (3.7.3), do exist which are purely for display, such as the praise of gods and heroes of the past. But even here he refers to a conspicuous and recent Roman example, the praise of Jupiter Capitolinus at the sacred contest (which Domitian established in 86).15 He does not mention gratiarum actiones, though there might be up to a dozen each year by consuls elect and consuls entering office: it was indeed while he stood rehearsing one that Verginius Rufus fell, broke his hip and never recovered. Yet within his actual analysis of encomium Quintilian scarcely touches on real oratory. In his main account, on praise of men (3.7.10–18), he notes only that ‘sometimes we praise the living’ (3.7.17; so too in invective 3.7.22).16 But the final item, honours after death, is unusually long and the initial group of examples, deification, decrees and statues at public expense, suggests real public oratory (3.7.17–18).17 This may then recall the end of the preceding section, praise of gods, where he refers to mortals who were deified because of their virtue and pays a cautiously worded compliment 13 14 15 16

On the skilful use of transitions in epideictic see Pernot (1993) 315–19. On Pliny’s style see Hutchinson in this volume and Gamberini (1983) 337–448. Praise of Domitian may well have been the main theme: Bartsch (1994) 270 n. 115; Coleman (1986) 3097–100. 17 Cf. Pernot (1993) 176. Theon 109 Sp. similarly lists it without discussion.

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to the piety of the current emperor (3.7.9). This overt flattery of Domitian is itself parallel to the earlier allusion when he cited the sacred contest at the end of his introductory section on Roman public oratory (3.7.4). If we include the examples of honours after death we have three closural allusions to imperial panegyric, a subject under Domitian much too sensitive for the schoolroom. One further example is from real oratory, within the brief account of praise of places (3.7.26–7). Quintilian cites Cicero’s praise of Sicily (Ver. 2.2–8), and since Cicero cites this very passage (Orator 210) to prove the usefulness of the epideictic style within real (i.e. forensic) oratory, Quintilian can expect his readers to recall that context. It proves an earlier point (2.1.11): that encomium and invective are useful within forensic oratory. He also terms it a digression at 4.3.13 and 11.3.164. With these exceptions Quintilian keeps to the usual schoolroom menu of Greek and Roman gods and heroes, the type of encomium he described as composed for show and not practical use (3.7.3). This disjunction between adult use in Roman public life and schoolroom training recurs in his more extensive account of deliberative oratory (3.8). The analysis and examples are again geared to the schoolroom, but Quintilian explicitly draws attention to its usefulness in later life: his pupils will be able to apply what they have learnt cum aduocari coeperint in consilia amicorum, dicere sententiam in senatu, suadere si quid consulet princeps (‘once they begin to be called into consultations by friends or deliver an opinion in the senate or advise the emperor if he consults them’, 3.8.70). The same will be true for epideictic, and since it is a simpler genre, it is suitably studied before the student progresses to deliberative and forensic. This may be why in 3.7 Quintilian does not mention the proem or the style of epideictic, reserving them till he turns to deliberative and can compare the differences (3.8.7–9, 63).18 The basic form of eulogy, the default case as it were, is the praise of famous men (3.7.10–18), and this includes praise of kings and emperors (ut in regibus principibusque, 3.7.13).19 I will compare especially Quintilian’s main source, Cic. De Orat. 2.342–8, and Theon.20 I have already 18 19 20

Theon 111 Sp. mentions the proem but gives no details. Cf. Patillon and Bolognesi (1997) 152: ‘il sert de mod`ele a` tous les autres’. It is the only type listed in Suet. Gram. et Rhet. 25.8–9: ac uiros illustres laudare uel uituperare. Differences in detail serve only to reinforce the impression of a homogeneous body of tradition. Since it is so important in Pliny, take comparison: Quintilian omits it from 3.7 but he had already linked it to encomium at 2.4.21 (it may be relevant that in 3.7 it does not fit easily into his three chronological periods). Theon omits it from encomium, though he noted its usefulness at 61 Sp., but his next exercise is comparison, and that is said to use the topics of encomium (113 Sp.). At De

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summarized Cicero’s list at 342, and all three share the same standard headings of origins and other external circumstances, things to do with the body and things to do with the mind. This trio appears already in Ar. Rhet. 1360b24–8, and Pliny deploys it at Pan. 82.6. But Quintilian adds an overarching structure of a different set of three headings: things before, during and after the person’s life. This is unusual in extant texts, though hardly original;21 it usefully recognizes that the standard list of separate items is in its skeleton a biographical approach, a laudatory or invective review of a life from beginning to end.22 Quintilian lists the following: (a) things before birth (i.e. origins): the traditional items of country, parents and ancestors;23 (b) things during life, listed under three headings: (i) qualities of the mind (‘courage, justice, modesty and all the other virtues’), (ii) qualities of the body (e.g. beauty and strength), and (iii) external circumstances (luck, power, wealth and influence); (c) things after death (this is rarely available): honours such as deification, decrees and public statues, the verdict of posterity and fame from descendants.24 He emphasizes, as do Cicero and Theon, that we will praise origins, qualities of the body and external circumstances not for their possession but as a test of character in how they are used (so already Ar. Rhet. 1367b28–30; Rhet. Alex. 35). Praise of the mind, virtue, is the true praise. In later writers particularly this is often treated under the four cardinal virtues of courage, justice, modesty and wisdom (the four already used by Agathon in Plato’s Symposium), but this was not universal. Quintilian lists three of them but implies a longer list. Theon 110 Sp. lists the four cardinal virtues but then adds others, ‘piety, generosity, greatness of mind and the like’. Cicero, in De Oratore 343–7, discusses a long and varied list. For this, the most important part, praise of the mind, Quintilian outlines two approaches. Neither is intrinsically better than the other; the

21 22 23

24

Orat. 2.348 Cicero may list it either as a standard heading of eulogy in standard position at the end (so already Isoc. Evag. 65–9) or as the next independent item as in Theon. He shares some common source with Menander II (see below on 413 and 435 Sp.). See Pernot (1986) on this crucial point. He includes omens of birth: cf. e.g. Isoc. Evag. 21; Menander I 371.9 Sp. Omens and the like are also among the embellishments (ornamenta rerum) in Cic. Part. 73. Pliny uses this topos in the omens surrounding Trajan’s rise to power: see below. Honours after death: already Isoc. Evag. 70–2; Ar. Rhet. 1367a1–2. But it is not in De Oratore and gets only brief mention at Part. 82, Rhet. Her. 3.14, Theon 110 Sp. On Quintilian’s unusually lengthy treatment, see above, p. 70.

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choice depends on who is being praised and what the audience will find most congenial. There may be a chronological narrative, beginning with the early years, another standard item (cf. Isoc. Evag. 22; Cic. Part. 82), or alternatively there may be a list of separate individual virtues, each in turn supported by acts from the person’s life. Division by virtues is more usual, but Theon is aware of the alternative, rejecting narrative as more appropriate to history, and Cicero (Part. 75) gives two chronological methods as well as division under the virtues: we may move forward from the past or move back from the present. Cicero had himself chosen a chronological structure only a few years earlier in Philippics 2.44–119, an invective against Antony from boyhood onwards (a puero, 44). He used the alternative, a list of virtues, in the inset praise of Pompey at De Lege Manilia 28: the ideal general has four qualities, namely knowledge of military matters, courage (uirtus), authority (auctoritas) and good luck.25 Quintilian’s emphasis on flexibility is repeated in Pliny’s advice to the consul elect Severus (Ep. 6.27) on how Severus might handle his gratiarum actio. Pliny recalls his own (never published) gratiarum actio as consul elect. Trajan’s virtues give abundant material for praise, and Pliny chose to highlight Trajan’s hatred of flattery (a key theme also in the Panegyricus). But there can be different approaches, to suit personal taste and changed circumstances, and Severus may find scope for new material in Trajan’s recent exploits (the conquest of Dacia). Pliny chose from the emperor’s personal nature, Severus might choose deeds of war. The importance given here to different approaches is a useful corrective to any over-reliance on the lists of theory. The need to adapt to the audience is also important, and is again something Pliny will have learned from Quintilian: in Sparta, for example, an interest in literature will be less honoured than in Athens, and endurance and courage will appeal more (cf. Ar. Rhet. 1367b7–11); and there are similar differences between individuals (Quint. Inst. 3.7.23–5). When he discussed the progymnasmata, Quintilian postponed the treatment of encomium and invective (2.4.20–1), and he gives the promised fuller account when he discusses the whole epideictic genre (3.7). At the end of his general preface (61 Sp.) Theon conversely calls his account of encomium a simplified schoolroom version, reserving a precise technical analysis, tecnolog©a, to its appropriate place.26 Yet the shared links 25 26

See Steel (2001) 130–5; Rees (2007a) 140–1. The Aristides Prolegomena (161.12–262.6 Lenz) claim that, at the end of his Progymnasmata, ‘Theon the technical writer’ (tecnogr†jov) referred to an example of a subtype or partial class (merik¼n e²dov), like those of encomium, ‘kingship, wedding and funeral speeches and many others’. This does not appear at the end of our text (now known from the Armenian), but it may be truncated. Or

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between Quintilian and Theon indicate that the basic theory of encomium was already learnt at the earlier stage. Quintilian also cites no sources in his treatment of the headings of encomium and invective (3.7.6–22), a sign that the content was uncontroversial and unoriginal.27 What then was this more advanced tecnolog©a? The obvious answer is the detailed handling of specific types of encomia. This is strongly supported by a passage in a fifth-century Greek writer of progymnasmata, Nicolaus (49 Felten).28 He notes that the elementary schooling did not tackle the headings for individual subtypes (e­dh), speeches suitable for occasions such as ‘weddings, address to a provincial governor, praise of Apollo at the Sminthia festival, or any other festival speech or hymn to a god’ (–piqal†miov £ prosjwnhtik¼v £ sminqiak¼v £ Šllov Âlwv –pª —orta±v leg»menov l»gov £ Ìmnov qeän, Nicolaus 49 Felten). Such treatises survive only much later than Quintilian and Pliny, in Menander I and II (third century) and Pseudo-Dionysius (not earlier than the late second century). But similar texts will have been known already by the time of Pliny and Quintilian. Quintilian in fact already gives a separate analysis of two of these later subtypes, the hymn and praise of places.29 For both, he is our earliest extant source but he was hardly the originator. He begins with the praise of gods (3.7.7–9), a topic with abundant comparative material from the conventions of hymns in poetry and Agathon’s praise of Love in Plato’s Symposium.30 He also outlines how to praise places like cities (3.7.26–7), and some common Greek source will lie behind the essential similarity with the later accounts of Menander I 344–67 Sp., Menander II 382–8 Sp. and Pseudo-Dionysius 257 U-R.31 Quintilian tells us that it is handled on similar lines to the praise of men, except that it has its own individuating characteristics (illa propria), its position and its buildings. Significantly, he already knows the principles underlying the subtypes found in the later critics: identify the individuating topics (t¼ ­dion or t¼ «di†zon . . . kej†laion), then adapt them as appropriate to the basic

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there may be a garbled memory of Theon’s reference to the funeral speech (109 Sp.) and his promise of a more technical work; Heath (2003) 152–3 is cautious. Even so, the subtypes of encomium need not be attributed to Theon. Elsewhere, on the nature and audience of epideictic, he does cite sources: 3.7.1, 23, 25, 28. See Russell and Wilson (1981) xxxvi and Heath (2004) 220. Inclusion of the Sminthia festival suggests Nicolaus knows or shares a common tradition with Menander II, who ends with this example (437–46 Sp.). But Quintilian need not know praise of place as an independent speech, since his example is an inset praise, that of Sicily at Cic. Ver. 2.2–8 (see above). On prose hymns see Pernot (1993) 216–38 and Russell (1990a) esp. 207–15. Full discussion in Pernot (1993) 178–215.

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encomiastic structure for praise of men. Compare the claim in Menander I 332 Sp. that he will show ‘how the same headings underlie them all’. We may have to wait for Menander II (368–77 Sp.) for the specific praise of a ruler as such, the basilik¼v l»gov, but he was not original and earlier theory was in any case influenced by Isocrates’ Evagoras and Xenophon’s Agesilaus, each an example of a basilik¼v l»gov.32 Menander II sets out the following list of headings: proem; country; family; birth; early years; physical appearance (jÅsiv); upbringing, education and accomplishments; deeds (pr†xeiv), illustrated according to the four cardinal virtues of courage, justice, modesty and wisdom; good fortune (tÅch); final comparison; epilogue, ending with prayers for his safety, long life and succession by his descendants. The headings for origins and early years will be adapted or omitted to fit the case. Deeds of war precede deeds of peace, and for both there must always be division according to the virtues, each of which must have an explicit introduction. Each heading should include a comparison, and the final comparison should review the whole reign with that of predecessors, not criticizing them but presenting the current ruler as perfect.33 The headings are presented in a fixed order, and phrases such as ‘next’, ‘add after this’, ‘then divide’ and ‘link this with’ abound, sometimes with advice on how to provide a link. Menander II gives a longer and more prescriptive list than Quintilian but these are the familiar headings for the wider category, praise of famous men. To produce a basilik¼v l»gov the basic scheme is just amplified with details on how each heading is handled to fit an emperor. It is Menander II’s first subtype and he presents a straightforward, full-scale model with no specific context or occasion. In the case of the other subtypes the occasion itself is important (as in Pliny) and brings with it a greater flexibility since each has its own appropriate features and individuating heading (t¼ «di†zon . . . kej†laion). For example, if there is a festival, start with that since it is the primary theme (424 Sp.). A speech of arrival must express joy, while its other headings are the usual ones (385 Sp.). In the invitation speech the reason for the invitation is central and you must keep repeating 32

33

Menander II is made much of in the influential study of Cairns (1972) 100–20. He analyses Theocritus 17 (the ‘Encomium of Ptolemy’), a poem in praise of a living ruler, in terms of acceptance or rejection by Theocritus of Menander’s headings. Against his over-schematic and anachronistic approach, see Hunter (2003) 8–24 and Russell and Wilson (1981) xxxi–xxxiv. Compare the speech on the arrival of a new governor: any comparison of the situation under his predecessor should not criticize him but simply describe the previous suffering (378 Sp.). But what is prudent for a Greek (cf. Dio 3.12) is different for Pliny, who openly compares Trajan and Domitian, a contrast sanctioned by Domitian’s damnatio memoriae and its use a few years earlier in Tac. Agr. 44.5–45.2.

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it (429 Sp.), and in the speech of an envoy pleading before the emperor a single virtue, his moderation (jilanqrwp©a), will be amplified throughout (423 Sp.).34 The advice of such repeated themes is an interesting parallel for Pliny. The order of the headings may also vary. The informal speech (lali†) lacks the regular textbook structure (t†xiv . . . –k t”cnhv, 392 Sp.), and on any theme you can order the virtues as you see fit and as suits the sequence of your argument (380 Sp.). Strikingly, in the consolation speech and the funeral monody (413, 435 Sp.), the need for emotion changes the usual order and the sequence of the four virtues is replaced by the three chronological periods, past, present and future.35 You should begin with the present since it will be more emotive to start with the age or manner of death (435 Sp.). Clearly the very conspicuous fourfold division under the virtues is too overtly artificial for such emotion. Panegyric also has its own brief inset encomia, such as praise of a city (396, 417 Sp.), praise of the emperor within the praise of a provincial governor (379, 415, 426, 429 Sp.), or praise of the emperor’s wife (376 Sp.). Compare Pliny’s praise of Trajan’s wife and sister at Pan. 83–4. The choice of speaker and the reason for that choice can also be significant. There is little in Menander II, mostly on the more private occasions of departures, weddings and funerals (399, 407, 419, 434 Sp.). But the envoy bringing a golden crown to the emperor or pleading before him for a city in trouble represents his city (179, 181 Sp.). The speaker issuing an invitation to a governor will begin ‘The city has sent me’, and if he is a man of some distinction (ˆx©wma) he will refer to himself (424, 426–7 Sp.). Pseudo-Dionysius is more interested in the choice of speaker and says that in addressing a governor you should explain at the beginning why you have been chosen and come back at the end to add some personal note (273, 276 UR). It is a common topos in Greek panegyric proems, as often in Aristides, and Pliny makes significant use of his own role as consul in the proem and epilogue. A relatively close following of Menander’s advice is found in PseudoAristides 35.36 Like Pliny, the unknown author praises an emperor who 34

35 36

Filanqrwp©a is also variously translated as generosity and humanity. It is the virtue of a superior who treats others fairly, and it covers much of the same range as Latin moderatio, including accessibility. It is listed under justice at 385 Sp., perhaps also at 374 Sp. (but see Russell and Wilson (1981) 279). See above on chronological structure allowed by Quintilian and Cicero. Author and date are disputed. Aristides can be excluded on linguistic grounds, and it is most often dated to the third century (K¨orner 2002). Librale (1994) links it to Trajan, but Trajan had no son and the address to a son at the end cannot plausibly refer to Trajan himself, as Librale suggests (1276–8).

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has become emperor by acclamation after a time of disasters. The proem is conventional, with a setting at a sacred feast and general topoi on the greatness of the theme and the speaker’s inadequacy (1–4). No details are given of origins (country, family, birth) or physical appearance, and the praise begins with his accession and life before he became emperor (5– 13).37 He achieved a smooth succession unmarked by the bloodshed of predecessors, and he is a ruler worthy of ruling as one would expect from his character, and as fits (11–13) his education and earlier career. He has all the virtues (15). These are then treated in turn: justice (16–20), moderation (jilanqrwp©a, 21–6), modesty (27–9) and courage combined with wisdom (30–7). Each has its comparison: he surpasses Rhadamanthus and Aeacus in justice (17), is unlike Pausanias in moderation (25), unlike Agamemnon and Achilles in modesty (27–9) and like Themistocles defeating Xerxes (both unnamed) in wisdom in war (33). Courage is the virtue which most reveals an emperor (Menander II, 372 Sp.);38 it is delayed from its usual initial position to show the true exemplar of Homer’s praise of ‘the good king and mighty spearsman’ (basileÅv t’ ˆgaq¼v krater»v t’ a«cmhtžv, Hom. Il. 3.179) and provide a climax in exalted style as the emperor triumphs over Germans and Parthians. The epilogue (38–9) is brief, praising his good fortune and distinction (he surpasses all in wisdom, bravery, piety and good fortune), and telling his son to follow his father’s example. If we turn now to consider Pliny in the light of all this background, epideictic theory encouraged rather more flexibility than Pseudo-Aristides 35 might suggest.39 What it could give was a checklist of headings and topoi, but an orator of Pliny’s standing and experience will then exercise his own judgement.40 Knowledge of that theory also lets us in turn form a better understanding of Pliny’s strategy and the reasons behind the organization of his material. I stress organization since Pliny himself drew attention to its structure and transitions (see above on Ep. 3.13.3–4).

37 38 39 40

A striking lack of specific detail makes it impossible to identify any specific emperor, and I incline to see it as a real speech pruned or adapted to provide a generic model, and this pruning would explain the clumsiness of the abrupt beginning and end. The setting is baldly ‘a feast and sacred festival’ (1), but near the end it is clearly a festival to Demeter: ‘now festivals are more splendid and feasts dearer to the gods, now the fire of Demeter is brighter and more sacred’ (37). Pliny and Pseudo-Aristides both use a preliminary narrative to show that the emperor deserved to become emperor, following the model of Xen. Ages. 1.5–2. Cf. Tac. Agr. 39.2: military leadership is the imperial virtue (imperatoriam uirtutem). There is also considerable variety in the panegyrics of Aristides: see Pernot (1993) esp. 321–31, a comparison of Aristides 1 (Panathenaicus) and 26 (To Rome). Quint. Inst. 6.5.1–2 notes the impossibility of teaching judgement. All he can do is guide judgement by his advice on what to do or not do in specific cases. For Pseudo-Dionysius 363.11–20 U-R (of argumentation), it shows a schoolmaster (grammatik¼v ˆnžr) to follow the traditional headings from alpha to omega.

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To anticipate, he deploys significant manipulation of the epideictic headings to produce a closely interwoven web of key themes. These run through the whole speech and are carefully prepared in the proem and brought together at the end. Trajan is the ideal best emperor, optimus princeps, and as such he has all the virtues. He shows courage in war, and among his civic virtues particularly moderation. A series of antitheses dominate the praise. He is not a god or tyrant but a fellow-citizen, ‘one of us’, sharing and respecting the values of the senate (e.g. Pan. 2.3–4). He is favoured by Jupiter but behaves like a traditional senator and consul. He is the best, Domitian the worst of emperors. These various antitheses have been well treated elsewhere,41 and I will not rehearse them all here, but they concern the central core of panegyric theory: the moral qualities. Instead I shall focus on how Pliny helps build up that portrayal of Trajan as the ideal emperor by his use of the other panegyric headings, proem and epilogue, family, physical qualities, comparisons and good fortune. Pliny chooses a roughly chronological structure (the alternative structure we saw allowed by Cicero and Quintilian).42 This allows greater flexibility for repeating and interweaving key points at various stages of the narrative, and it fits the constant antithesis of present and past, Trajan and Domitian.43 I would also suggest that it seems more natural and straightforward. Had Pliny chosen carefully separated individual headings and a formal parade of specific virtues, his speech would have been overtly artificial and instantly recognizable as panegyric. This might weaken his claim to tell the truth without flattery to an emperor who dislikes flattery. Apparent spontaneity is desirable (Pan. 3.1). In an important and stimulating study, Bartsch discusses Pliny’s repeated emphasis on truth and flattery in terms of a problem whether praise can ever be distinguished from flattery after the excessive and hypocritical adulation of Domitian.44 But literature of praise was too normal and acceptable a literary form for such public anguish.45 Pliny does not, I think, reveal a credibility gap but simply exploits the contrast of truth and flattery to 41 42

43 44 45

See Fears (1981); Wallace-Hadrill (1981, 1982); Braund (1996, 1998) 58–68; Levene (1997); Rees (1998, 2001). Add a wish to emulate Tacitus’ Agricola? Biography was a genre strongly influenced by epideictic, and after the shared opening headings of origins and early life the main account was essentially chronological, as in the Agricola and Plutarch’s Lives, or a list of independent headings, as in Suetonius. Similarly (see above, p. 76) present sorrow and happy past shape the structure of funeral speeches in Menander II. Bartsch (1994) 148–87. For contemporary contexts of praise, see Gibson in this volume.

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serve his own rhetorical purposes. The content of imperial praise is, as Pliny recognizes, conventional and banal (nota uulgata, Ep. 3.13.2), and his problem is to find an original twist or color. A new and very different emperor allows him to emphasize sincerity and lack of flattery, and by the choice of this particular color, truthful speech is made a proof of Trajan’s worth.46 For example, Trajan’s refusal to allow private gratiarum actiones (Pan. 4.2) is no mere detail: Pliny uses it to turn to address the emperor for the first time, and he does so in a significant juxtaposition with what will be Trajan’s prime virtue, moderation, Caesar Auguste, moderate (Pan. 4.3). A standard proem topos becomes a major theme, and this is why Pliny repeats it, deploying it later to mark out important transitional points (53–5, 71–5). The proem begins from the occasion, audience and speaker: an address to the senate by the consul as its representative. Pliny emphasizes the traditional Roman nature of his initial prayer, and links speaker, senate and the whole state in offering thanks to the best of emperors, optimus princeps (1.1–2).47 The proem introduces many of the major themes, the role of Jupiter, the contrast of truth and flattery, and particularly the emperor’s virtues. Right from the beginning he is set up as optimus princeps (1.2) and contrasted with the unnamed Domitian: his courage and a sense of duty, clemency and moderation entitle him to be called optimus (2.6), and, in a longer list of virtues and contrasting vices (3.4), he earns honest praise for civic virtues like moderation and, in final position, energy and courage. These two lists of virtues also serve a structural purpose. Courage is first and singled out on its own at 2.6, and it ends the list at 3.4.48 Pliny begins his narrative with Trajan’s military career, with particular emphasis on his courage and energy (5–19).49 Only then does he turn to Trajan’s civic virtues, especially moderation, as Trajan arrives in Rome. The consulship is another major theme introduced in the proem and used in the overall structure. It serves as a linking thread throughout 56– 79, particularly the extended treatment of Trajan’s third consulship. Trajan shows moderation by his respect for the consulship (and by extension for the senate and good constitutional government) in his behaviour both as consul himself and towards those he appointed consul. But it is particularly 46 47

48 49

See above, p. 73 for the same strategy in another gratiarum actio (Ep. 6.27); for Trajan’s dislike of flattery cf. Cass. Dio 1.26, 3.2. Prayer also ends the speech. Compare Dem. De Cor. 1 and 324 for this conventional topos, and for concluding prayers e.g. Menander II 377 Sp. Pliny’s initial prayer also echoes Cicero, who as consul similarly began his Pro Murena. Courage is also set apart from the rest in the epilogue, optime principum fortissime imperatorum (‘best of emperors and most courageous of generals’, 91.1). But also moderation: see 16.1–2.

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prominent at the end (90–5) when Pliny returns to his own role as consul in a double epilogue, first (90–3) the traditional personal debt of the two consuls and then (94.1–95.5) a final prayer to Jupiter for the emperor’s safety (94) and a final address to the senate with his personal pledge of service as consul (95). Yet even in the more personal details of his career Pliny emphasizes that things are no longer as they were under Domitian (90.5–6, 92.4, implicitly at 93.1), and at the very end of the speech he links himself to his recurrent contrast of the best and worst of emperors: ‘I love the best of emperors as much as I was hated by the worst’ (95.4). A proem alerting us to the main themes of the speech seems unusual for epideictic.50 Pliny may have been influenced by Cicero’s invective Philippic II, which followed his usual forensic and deliberative practice. As Cicero advised in De Oratore, you should begin from the very entrails of the case, ex ipsius uisceribus causae (2.318–19). After the proem we might expect origins, physical appearance and early years. Pliny follows rhetorical theory in showing that it is their use, not their possession that matters, and the only true praise is praise of the mind. But he avoids the usual series of independent early sections, weaving them instead into his wider narrative. On physical appearance Pliny is very brief,51 but places it conventionally enough near the beginning (4.7).52 Trajan is a consistent whole, embodying the inner qualities but also the outer qualities of a true emperor. He is tall and dignified, he has a fine head and noble face, he has the strength and vigour appropriate to his age, and his premature white hairs add a dignity which shows divine favour. But his strength then becomes a recurrent theme, both literal and symbolic. Thus after his adoption the elderly Nerva leans on him, putting the weight of empire on his shoulders, drawing on his youth and strength (8.3–4), and these symbolically strong shoulders recur in the speech (at 10.6, 57.5, 82.6). 50

51

52

It is not in the relatively detailed list of proem topoi in Rhet. Her. 3.11–12, and Pernot (1993) 303 cites only Menander II 378 Sp. There a speech welcoming a new governor may begin ‘You have arrived with favourable omens from the emperor, brilliant like a ray of the sun sent down from on high.’ Pernot takes this to anticipate a tripartite structure: the occasion, praise of emperor, praise of governor. But this gives too much weight to a simple proem topos, a conventional comparison between governor and emperor. Quint. Inst. 3.8.7–9 notes only that epideictic proems can be very loosely relevant. Menander II 372 Sp. is also brief and mentions only beauty at birth. But beauty fits a young man (cf. Isoc. Evag. 22), and when at 2.6 the unnamed Domitian is acclaimed for beauty and Nero for his actor’s gestures and voice (cf. Dio 3.134), these are inappropriate for an emperor. Bartsch (1994) 276 n. 18 wrongly sees a contradiction between 2.6 and 4.7: Trajan has the right physical qualities, Domitian (and Nero) the wrong. Cf. e.g. Plut. Cic. 3.7, Ant. 4.1–3. In biography it may appear late, as in Tac. Agr. 44.2 and regularly in Suetonius (except for Titus 3), but in early position, as in Pliny, it seems to be linked to character. Cf. Wardman (1967).

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Since Trajan displays courage in military service in his rise to becoming emperor, Pliny’s narrative follows the traditional order of placing war before peace and praising courage first of the virtues (9–13).53 His narrative of Trajan as a soldier neatly picks up on his physical qualities. Height, strength, vigour and stamina mark him out (13.1–2), and, deftly introducing the traditional topic of early years (14–15), Pliny records Trajan’s military career as a youth when he already displayed the same characteristics of strength and energy.54 On the march he was always in the lead, forcing speed on all, and stuck in camp he would gallop off for exercise (14.3). Towards the end of the speech, his courage, vigour and stamina are again displayed in his recreations of dangerous hunting and sailing (81–2). Trajan’s energetic recreations show his moral worth, in contrast to the gambling, sexual licence and luxury of so many of his predecessors (81.9). At this point, within the wider topic of the modesty of Trajan’s private life (81–4),55 Pliny makes explicit the panegyric topos that physical strength and external qualities (luck and wealth) do not deserve praise unless the mind is in control (82.6). Outer and inner strength, private and public life all match and contribute to present the ideal emperor. Domitian, in careful contrast, is a coward afraid even of calm waters (82.1), he is pale as a woman and the red colouring on his face only masks his shamelessness (48.4),56 while Trajan shows his sincerity with tears and a modest blush (2.8, 73.4). Family is also made a unifying thread. If there was no distinguished ancestry, the whole topic could be omitted (Menander II 369–71 Sp.; cf. Pseudo-Aristides 35), and Pliny ignores Trajan’s Spanish origins: it was no basis for praise that Trajan was the first emperor to come from outside Italy. Pliny is also brief in praise of Trajan’s birth-father, noting only in passing at 9.2 that he had noble birth, was of consular rank and won a triumph (the same points recur at 58.3).57 Instead Pliny highlights Trajan’s peaceful accession by adoption and divine favour (5.1). Nerva is the father who provides the usual heading of family, and two sets of omens take the place of the conventional omens of birth, confirming the favour of Capitoline Jupiter (invoked already in the proem). Omens from Jupiter surround Trajan’s departure to war (5.2–4) and he is adopted by Nerva in 53 54 55 56 57

The date of delivery excludes Trajan’s Dacian triumph but Pliny introduces it as an imagined future (16.3–17.4). Cf. Menander II 372 Sp., which cites Isoc. Evag. 22–3. See Braund (1996) and Rees (1998) 79–83. Accessibility and even humility mark out the good ruler, as in Trajan’s modest entry into Rome for the first time as emperor (Pan. 22–4). Cf. Tac. Agr. 45.2. Red colouring is an attractive feature of the proposed bridegroom cited at p. 68 in Plin. Ep. 1.14. They are also what Agricola achieved (Tac. Agr. 44.3).

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the Temple of Jupiter, supported by a further omen, the arrival of laurels of victory (7–8). At the end Pliny returns to this same topic of omens and adoption, invoking Capitoline Jupiter to give Trajan a son or guide him to adopt a son similarly worthy to be adopted in his temple on the Capitoline (94.4–5). Pliny does not use Trajan’s family name until the very end of his praise of the emperor, when it appears twice in closely following significant positions. At 88.4–10 the senate confers the new title of optimus (‘the best’), and with it the family name Traianus joins and surpasses the aristocratic senatorial families of the republic, Piso Frugi, Laelius Sapiens and Metellus Pius.58 The title also outdoes that of the emperor Augustus, since optimus is the title of Jupiter Optimus and can be the true title only of the good emperor. Then at 89.1–2 Pliny turns to invoke the adoptive father, ‘deified Nerva’ (diue Nerua), alongside the birth-father, ‘father Trajan’ (pater Traiane), in friendly rivalry over the glory he gave them: the son won a triumph for one (a detail picking up 14.1) and deified the other. This best of emperors is thus presented in a dual role, a Traianus who recalls the heroes of the Roman past, and son of a god, a quasi-divine figure of glory. Comparisons are regular in panegyric (cf. Menander II), sometimes in isolated single references, as in Pseudo-Aristides 35, and sometimes a major theme, as in Isocrates’ Panathenaicus. In Pliny’s presentation of Trajan two are particularly important, and both highlight Trajan as optimus princeps, the parallel with Jupiter Optimus and the contrast with Domitian, pessimus princeps (Pan. 92.4, 94.3, 95.5).59 Pliny even draws attention to its traditional use with the comment that panegyric is insufficiently pleasing without comparison (53.2). He also shows selective care in his less conspicuous comparisons. Thus the comparison of Trajan to three republican families near the end (88.6) balances a list of three near the beginning (13.4), where Trajan displays the same courage as the families of Fabricius, Scipio and Camillus, re-embodying Roman ancestral tradition and courage (patrio more patria uirtute, 13.5). Pliny also avoids naming Greek heroes, perhaps to link Trajan closely with true Roman values, but he compares Trajan to the unnamed Heracles near the beginning and again at the end (14.5, 82.7), a delicate hint that Trajan too will earn deification. 58

59

The three families embody three virtues, modesty, wisdom and piety: the title optimus embraces these and every virtue. For more on historical exemplarity in the speech, see Henderson in this volume. For comparison with Zeus/Jupiter, cf. e.g. Theocritus 17.1–4 (Ptolemy), Cic. Pro Rosc. Am. 131 (Sulla) or Hor. Carm. 3.5.1–4 (Augustus).

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One final panegyric heading: good fortune, felicitas, traditionally placed towards the end of a speech (Menander II 376 Sp.), and an example of the external qualities like wealth, which, along with physical qualities, rhetorical theory subordinated to the moral virtues, as Pliny himself asserts at 82.6 (see above). Similarly at 74.1 the senate’s acclamation of Trajan as felix recognizes not an external benefit but his mind, and at 88.5 the title of optimus is superior to felix, since felix recognizes luck, not character (non moribus sed fortunae). Yet again Pliny openly manipulates a conventional topic of praise to present Trajan as the ideal emperor with the right moral character to be optimus. As optimus princeps Trajan has an exemplary advisory role for the future, warning future emperors in advance (53.5 praemonere; cf. 20.6, 59.2, 63.1, 73.6, 75.5). This is what Pliny claimed for his speech (Plin. Ep. 3.18.3 praemonerentur); it is a standard epideictic point (e.g. Isoc. Evag. 73–7); and again it is a theme woven through the speech. But does Pliny also advise Trajan? This whole issue is complicated by the multiple addressees, whether Trajan (the object of praise), the senate (the formal addressee) or the wider readership of the published speech (Plin. Ep. 3.18.9 omnibus scripsi). If Gorgias and Isocrates praise pan-Hellenism at a Greek festival, the underlying message to their audience is the need for Greek unity against a background of disunity. Pliny’s portrayal of a princeps with divine sanction and all the right moral qualities indicates there has been a need for such an emperor after the rule of Domitian. It does not tell us if Pliny intends advice for Trajan’s future behaviour, and Pliny denies any advisory role (Ep. 3.18.2). He does use verbal forms of advice, but only in the form of encouragement to continue similarly (43.3, 45.6, 61.10, 62.9). This can be a form of advice that conceals criticism; it might be the proper caution required in advising rulers;60 and the speech has also been interpreted as a tactful way of telling Trajan what the senate would like from him in the future.61 But it is at least equally likely that Pliny knew and made public what the emperor himself wished to be said by way of reassurance.62 Imperial ideology and senatorial advice are not 60

61 62

On indirect advice and covert criticism see Ahl (1984); Schouler (1986); Bartsch (1994) on Pliny. Basic ancient texts: Demetrius, On Style 287–95, Quint. Inst. 9.2.66 (writing under Domitian, he is significantly silent on contemporary politics) and Pseudo-Dionysius 295–358 U-R. E.g. Syme (1958a) 31–42, 57–8 ‘a senatorial manifesto’; Braund (1998) 66. Fears (1981) 910–24 notes the close links between Pliny and the reliefs on the arch of Trajan near Beneventum, such as Trajan’s arrival on foot in Rome and the figures of Freedom, Concord and Moderation. Fears argues also that the use of the title optimus is aired and tried out first in Pliny before it appears on coins.

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easily distinguished and I see no cogent internal evidence.63 Pliny himself gives only praise, and I have analysed the speech as such, highlighting his adaptation of traditional panegyric theory to the praise of a very Roman ideal ruler. 63

Katherine Clarke reminds me of the varying interpretations of the senate’s praise of the emperor in the Tiberian decrees (e.g. Cooley 1998). I should like to thank her and Donald Russell for their helpful comments.

chapter 5

Ciceronian praise as a step towards Pliny’s Panegyricus Gesine Manuwald

The Panegyricus is rightly regarded as an important specimen of early imperial panegyric: it is frequently singled out as a special text, defined as the only extant oration from ancient Rome between Cicero’s Philippics and the imperial panegyrics of the third and fourth centuries.1 As it is the only surviving example of a panegyric oration from the early empire, it is sometimes even seen as inaugurating a new literary genre in that this speech became a paradigmatic model that started off a series of imperial prose panegyrics.2 The claim to novelty with respect to Pliny’s Panegyricus is certainly true in the sense that, obviously, imperial panegyric did not exist prior to the establishment of the principate and Pliny’s text is the earliest extant specimen in prose dating to this period. However, this focus on new features and later developments may not be sufficient for a full assessment of Pliny’s Panegyricus. For it is a priori unlikely that any social and cultural customs or the corresponding literary texts in this period were entirely new creations rather than developments of conventions already established in Rome. Indeed, panegyric seems to have existed in Roman society from its inception, appearing in a variety of contexts that are not even restricted to the spoken or written word (cf. e.g. ancestors’ masks, triumphal processions). In textual form panegyric may feature in self-contained pieces or as an element in almost any literary genre in both poetry and prose. The best-known examples from early Rome are perhaps the laudationes funebres and the shadowy carmina conuiualia; from later periods praise of patrons or dedications of poetic works come to mind. Above all, panegyric acquired a generic identity in separate, selfcontained prose texts as a form of epideictic oratory (according to ancient

1 2

See Roche, pp. 4–5 in this volume. Cf. e.g. K¨uhn (1985) 1–2; Morford (1992) 578; Fantham (1999) 229; and Rees in this volume.

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rhetorical theory), which is perhaps best regarded as including any discourse, oral or written, that does not aim at a specific action or decision but seeks to enhance knowledge, understanding, or belief, often through praise or blame, whether of persons, things, or values.3

Numerous examples of such panegyric can be found in the Ciceronian corpus: although there are hardly any Ciceronian speeches that could be classified as ‘epideictic/panegyric’ in their entirety, elements of praise are contained in most of his speeches even if they would primarily be defined as ‘judicial’ or ‘deliberative’. This result is not entirely surprising since in Rome arguments in both court cases and political conflicts tended to depend not only on the presentation of facts, but also on that of the characters of the people involved. Cicero’s precedent must be borne in mind when one turns to Pliny the Younger: in addition to influences outside the sphere of Roman oratory and rhetoric, Cicero’s methods of applying praise and the ideals he tried to propagate thereby were certainly among the foundations on which Pliny could build when he delivered his inaugural speech as suffect consul. As his letters reveal, Pliny had enjoyed a thorough rhetorical education, counting Quintilian among his teachers (e.g. Ep. 2.14.9, 6.6.3), and was used to discussing questions concerning oratory with his literary acquaintances (e.g. Ep. 1.20, 5.8); above all, he regarded Cicero as his primary model in the fields of both oratory and epistolography.4 This chapter, therefore, will try to provide the background for assessing Pliny’s Panegyricus as the result of a preceding development of epideictic rhetoric at Rome, focusing particularly on the situation in the Ciceronian period and the impact of Cicero’s works on Pliny.5 Only after looking at earlier examples can it become entirely clear what Pliny’s novelty or radical changes could consist in or how he might have developed generic traditions and adapted them to new circumstances.6 Hence some aspects 3 4

5

6

Cf. Kennedy (1997) 45. See below, p. 98, and cf. generally Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 2–3: ‘with the rise of powerful individuals at Rome in the first century b.c.e. came praise of the living, and Cicero himself turned his talents to this field. His Pro Lege Manilia (De Imperio Cn. Pompei) and Pro Marcello exercised a great influence on subsequent Latin oratory.’ Still, Pro Marcello was certainly not designed as a model for Pliny (but so K¨uhn (1985) 2). Obviously, for both Cicero and Pliny, all that survive are the written (and reworked) versions of orations actually delivered, with revisions presumably being less extensive in Cicero than in Pliny (cf. Plin. Ep. 3.13, 3.18). But as the situation is the same for both authors, and they will have published speeches they thought appropriate for the respective occasions in terms of style and content, this problem may be disregarded in this context. In the context of research on forerunners of Pliny’s Panegyricus, Braund (1998) calls Cicero’s Caesarian speeches ‘proto-panegyrics’ (55) or ‘earliest Roman imperial panegyrics’ (68) or ‘prototypes of Roman

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and examples of panegyric in Cicero will be discussed here, leading to suggestions on ways and contexts in which he used this mode of expression and on how he might have developed it over time and according to varying situations. In the context of the present volume, this chapter does not aim at a comprehensive overview of Ciceronian panegyric; instead it will focus on examples from Cicero’s oratorical and rhetorical works that seem particularly relevant to Pliny’s Panegyricus with respect to occasion, aim or topics.7 On this basis the chapter will go on to discuss possible similarities and connections between the Ciceronian examples and Pliny’s Panegyricus, closing with a brief conclusion on Cicero’s role in the development of Roman prose panegyric.8 panegyric in cicero Cicero’s attitude to praise in public life Being praised for achievements, winning glory and being remembered among one’s contemporaries and eventually by posterity was one of Cicero’s chief concerns for himself throughout most of his life. That is one of the reasons why, for instance, he wrote works on his consulship and its aftermath, while he wished that accomplished writers would do the same (e.g. Fam. 1.9.23, 5.12, Arch. 28). Although Cicero might have been more concerned about his renown than other Romans, consideration of this issue must have been an established and acceptable feature of society;

7

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imperial panegyric’ (71) and Cicero’s De Lege Manilia ‘proto-imperial panegyric’ (74–5). She thereby highlights similarities between these speeches and later imperial ones, while they are not placed within a broader development or related to their republican context. That Cicero’s Pro Marcello was an important source for Pliny’s Panegyricus had already been observed by Suster (1890), even though he interpreted this relationship as the great Cicero having unwittingly inaugurated the decline of Roman oratory. On the other hand Morford (1992) 578–9 denied that Pro Marcello was a true forerunner of the Panegyricus, while other scholars have confirmed this relationship: Fantham (1999) 228 sees Pro Marcello as ‘a double precedent, being both a speech of thanks given in and for the senate, and the first such speech to an autocrat’. Radice (1968) 170 thinks that ‘the prototype for the treatment of the subject is that of Cicero in the Pro Marcello’. Levene (1997) esp. 82–3 observes a ‘continuity of theme between Pro Marcello and Pliny: more than a century of the development of Roman ruler-cult does not seem to have made a fundamental difference to the way in which rulers are praised’. The rhetorical genre of epideictic includes both ‘praise’ and its opposite, ‘blame’ (e.g. Rhet. Her. 3.10; Quint. Inst. 3.7.1). Since what is at issue in this context is the possible effect on Pliny’s Panegyricus, this chapter will focus on ‘praise’ and ‘panegyric’, which ancient rhetoricians regarded as the more important element (on the relationship between epideictic and panegyric cf. Cic. De Orat. 2.341–9, Part. 10, 70; Quint. Inst. 3.3.14, 3.4.12–14). For some aspects of praise and blame in Roman oratory cf. Smith and Covino (2011). It is hoped that this study might thereby also make a contribution towards a history of ancient epideictic oratory, which does not yet exist (cf. Carey (2007) 250: ‘A dedicated study of the evolution of epideictic oratory is still awaited’). For an overview of Greek epideictic oratory, cf. Carey (2007).

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otherwise it would have been even more difficult for Cicero to talk about his successes and his desire for them not to be forgotten. Yet Cicero not only voiced such intentions for himself, but also presented the desire for glory, defined as ‘someone’s widespread reputation combined with praise’ (Inv. 2.166 gloria est frequens de aliquo fama cum laude), as a general aim, using it as an argument in various public contexts: on several occasions he identified winning glory in exchange for virtuous achievements as a main goal (e.g. Arch. 14, 26). Cicero even described praise and glory as the only reward sought by virtue and the sole motivation for outstanding achievements, possibly involving great dangers (e.g. Arch. 28–9, Rab. Perd. 29, Phil. 5.35). His engagement with the issue is also demonstrated by a treatise De Gloria, written towards the end of his life, which has not survived (cf. Att. 15.27.2, 16.2.6, Off. 2.31). This brief selection shows that Cicero regarded being praised and winning glory as important elements in public life, which spur people on and may function as arguments and influences.9 This raises the questions of how these features materialized in the context of the Roman republic and what role they played in republican oratory. An attempt at approaching these on the basis of Cicero’s preserved orations will be preceded by a brief look at the theoretical background, since in the case of Cicero, who was a versatile and prolific orator as well as a writer of rhetorical treatises, praise/panegyric makes its appearance in both theory and practice. Discussion of praise and rhetoric in Cicero Given the importance that Cicero attached to praise as a motivation in public life, it may come as a slight surprise that he gave less space to the discussion of its rhetorical equivalent, the epideictic or demonstrative genre of oratory, than one might expect.10 But this seems to agree with the conventions of both ancient rhetorical theory and Roman society. In what he says about epideictic, Cicero basically followed the ancient rhetorical tradition first attested in Aristotle (cf. Arist. Rh. 1.3; cf. also Rhet. Alex. 1.1, 1.3). In this tradition, there are three types of oratory; the third of these is the demonstrative/epideictic, also called the 9

10

However, Cicero’s position became more qualified towards the end of his life, when he, probably influenced by contemporary political conditions, acknowledged that glory could be misunderstood and that an individual’s passion for glory might ruin the republic (cf. Cic. Off., esp. 1.68; on this issue cf. Long (1995)). Cf. e.g. Cic. De Orat. 2.43–7, 2.341–9, Inv. 2.177–8, Part. 69–82, Orat. 37–42; cf. also Rhet. Her. 3.10–15; Quint. Inst. 3.7.

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eulogistic/laudatory/encomiastic after its most noteworthy element (e.g. De Orat. 2.43, 2.65, 3.109, 3.211, Orat. 37, Part. 10, 70, Inv. 1.7; cf. Quint. Inst. 3.4).11 Yet elements of all three forms may occur in the same speech; in particular, praise and deliberation could come close together, differing only in the form of expression (e.g. Arist. Rh. 1.9; Quint. Inst. 3.7.28). When the subject of epideictic oratory comes up in Cicero’s main rhetorical treatise, De Oratore (55 bce), the discussion is rather brief (De Orat. 2.43–7, 2.341–9) and regarded as unnecessary by the speaker, the orator M. Antonius, since this type of oratory presents no difficulties and is not much used. Still, Antonius proceeds to list features that might be mentioned in laudatory speeches: less emphasis should be placed on characteristics that are bestowed by fortune; instead the judicious use of these features and the presence of virtues should be highlighted, with particular, appropriate praise for each virtue and great deeds (cf. also Inv. 2.177–8). The general rule is that: sumendae autem res erunt aut magnitudine praestabiles aut novitate primae aut genere ipso singulares. (Cic. De Orat. 2.347)12 [t]he accomplishments we choose to speak about ought to be either outstanding in importance, or unprecedented in their novelty, or unique by their very nature.

Elsewhere it is added that laudatory speeches demand a particular style, as all oratorical genres require different styles (De Orat. 3.211). As the epideictic genre is not concerned with proving things, but rather with narrating achievements and influencing emotions, its style must be particularly elaborate and copious (Part. 69, 71–3, Orat. 37–8). Hence it is clear that Cicero was fully aware that there existed such a rhetorical genre as epideictic oratory and that certain topics and styles were especially suitable for it. Since he also suggested that this type of oratory was rarely practised on its own in Rome and less important in Roman public life than other forms, it is all the more revealing to see when the epideictic genre was used in republican oratory and what functions it fulfilled. Forms and functions of Ciceronian praise in practice Among the Ciceronian speeches preserved and the titles and contexts known for his lost or fragmentary ones, there is none that could 11 12

On the genres of rhetoric cf. e.g. Kennedy (1997); on rhetorical theory and panegyric, see Innes in this volume. Translation: May and Wisse (2001).

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unreservedly be called ‘epideictic’ in its entirety.13 And as for other orators from the republican period, there are a number of fragments and testimonia pointing to funeral orations,14 but none that clearly indicates laudatory orations in other contexts. This does not mean that epideictic was non-existent in practice. In fact, it occurs rather frequently in speeches that would primarily be assigned to the judiciary or deliberative genres, yet include epideictic aspects or passages (cf. also Rhet. Her. 3.15; Quint. Inst. 3.4.11).15 This fusion of oratorical genres might already suggest that in Roman society the employment of panegyric tended to be political and rarely merely celebratory.16 The Ciceronian speech that is mentioned most frequently as an oration exhibiting markedly epideictic features and even some imperial characteristics is Pro Marcello, delivered in the senate in 46 bce (cf. Fam. 4.4.4, 4.11).17 Despite its title, this oration is not a forensic, but rather a deliberative speech in terms of setting and addressees:18 Cicero thereby expressed his and the senate’s gratitude to Caesar for having saved and reinstituted M. Claudius Marcellus (cos. 51 bce). As the decision had already been made by the time of Cicero’s speech, he praised the person affected only marginally (Marc. 4). 13

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16 17

18

Cicero’s lost and fragmentary speeches include examples of the limited type of epideictic, mentioned by Antonius in De Oratore, namely character evidence (Testimonium in P. Clodium Pulchrum, Testimonium in A. Gabinium). His speech In Senatu in Toga Candida contra C. Antonium et L. Catilinam Competitores could be regarded as an oration of self-praise and blame of others. Further, there are addresses to citizens or rulers of foreign towns or nations (Ad Ciues Hennae, In Concilio ad Ariobarzanem III, Regem Cappadociae), which could be classified as ‘epideictic’ in a broad sense; yet they seem not to have been focused on extensive praise of the people addressed or other individuals involved. Cf. Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator, Laudatio Funebris Quinti Filii; M. Claudius Marcellus, Laudatio Funebris M. Claudii Marcelli Patris; Q. Caecilius L. f. Metellus, Laudatio Funebris L. Caecilii Metelli Patris; Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, Laudatio P. Scipionis Africani Minoris; Q. Lutatius Catulus, Laudatio Funebris Popiliae Matris; T. Pomponius Atticus, Laudatio Funebris Caeciliae Matris; C. Iulius Caesar, Laudatio Iuliae Amitae, Laudatio Corneliae Uxoris; M. Iunius Brutus, Laudatio Ap. Claudii Pulchri, Laudatio M. Porcii Catonis Uticensis; M. Antonius triumvir, Laudatio Funebris C. Iulii Caesaris. See the conspectus operis in Malcovati (1976). For some thoughts on Cicero’s exploitation of the epideictic mode for forensic and political purposes cf. also Dugan (2001). Standard formulae of praise in referring to people and institutions (e.g. uir clarissimus) have been disregarded here since they have become conventional and do not carry a particular meaning. Cf. also Braund (1998) 55: ‘Moreover, it [i.e. Latin panegyric] is characteristically rooted in highly specific socio-political occasions.’ Cicero’s other ‘Caesarian speeches’ (Pro Ligario, Pro Rege Deiotaro) are similar to some extent in that Caesar’s reaction is crucial, but they do not contain as much obvious panegyric because of their different aims and circumstances. Hence Pro Marcello will serve as the most significant example in this context. On these speeches cf. Gotoff (1993, 2002). Cf. e.g. Gotoff (1993) 11–12, (2002) 219; Levene (1997) 67.

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Instead, Cicero used the occasion for a return to politics after an enforced withdrawal during the preceding civil war (e.g. Marc. 1–3, Fam. 4.4.3–4), to make a political statement and to commit Caesar to a ‘republican’ policy.19 For these purposes Cicero praised Caesar for his military achievements, exclusively due to Caesar’s outstanding abilities (e.g. Marc. 5–10, 28), and for a variety of moral and intellectual virtues, including humanity, clemency, moderation, generosity, magnanimity, prudence and wisdom (e.g. Marc. 1, 19).20 Thus Cicero tried to ensure a positive reception of his speech and to establish a favourable attitude to his own future activities on the part of Caesar (cf. Fam. 4.4.4).21 This provided the basis for a more wide-reaching political aim: Cicero could not deny that Caesar had become all-powerful in Rome, and he therefore did not argue, for instance, for a complete return to ‘preCaesarian republican conditions’. Instead, Cicero pointed out that the republic depended on Caesar’s welfare and efforts or, in other words, that its survival was guaranteed by Caesar. He emphasized that Caesar had preserved Marcellus for the res publica, that this action was brought about by Caesar together with the senate, that Caesar aimed at keeping the constitution and that he placed the authority of the senate and the dignity of the res publica above personal resentments (e.g. Marc. 3, 9, 13). Cicero thereby tried to commit Caesar to being active for the benefit of all citizens rather than for his personal advantage, while he insisted on the important role of the senate, argued for maintaining the republican constitution as governing even Caesar, and outlined expectations for the future in a reunited community under Caesar’s leadership (e.g. Marc. 18, 20, 21–6, 27–32).22 19 20

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22

Cf. also Gotoff (2002) 219, 234–5. Generally, Caesar’s clementia is highlighted as the virtue emphasized by Cicero in this oration. Rochlitz (1993) 104, 113, however, argues that this may be the case for the other two Caesarian speeches, but that in Pro Marcello Caesar’s sapientia is more important. Yet it seems problematic to single out one virtue to the exclusion of others, while it is true that Cicero also stresses Caesar’s sapientia, as the underlying aim of the speech is to argue for a comprehensive policy (cf. Gotoff (2002) 226, 229). Ancient scholia on this oration mention that many interpret it as figurative, i.e. as expressing blame rather than praise, which the scholiast rejects (cf. Schol. Gronov. D ad Cic. Marc., pp. 295–6 Stangl). There are indeed no indications in the text that suggest such a reading, and praise combined with protreptic is more conducive to Cicero’s cause in the situation (see also n. 22 below). Cicero’s aim of exerting political influence on Caesar in Pro Marcello is obvious (on this issue cf. e.g. Cipriani (1977); Rambaud (1984); Gotoff (2002) esp. 219, 226, 234–5); whether Cicero was even voicing a clear summons to tyrannicide, however, seems more doubtful (but so Dyer (1990); cf. also Morford (1992) 578; contra Dyer’s ironic reading cf. Levene (1997) 68–9; for some critical thoughts cf. also Gotoff (2002) 223).

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So this speech is epideictic as it praises an individual, but at the same it is highly political. Cicero used thanks and praise for a past deed, which he presented as paradigmatic of Caesar’s attitude to the senate (e.g. Marc. 13, 33), in order to induce Caesar to follow a policy in future which Cicero approved of. Paradigmatically, praise is thus combined with protreptic, providing a kind of ‘speculum principis’.23 Yet, while accepting Caesar’s superior position, Cicero’s speech remains republican in outlook and aims; this is evident, for instance, in the terminology he uses to talk about the senate and the republic as well as in his attitude in addressing himself formally to the senators.24 At the same time it is true that this speech exhibits a high level of praise directed to a single individual who is to be influenced and that it shares these features with ‘imperial epideictic speeches’. Yet, apart from the fact that such a description does not give a full characterization, this frequently highlighted oration is not an isolated example, but can rather be placed within a continuous development, which may shed light on some of its particular characteristics. From its earliest beginnings Roman oratory had known epideictic elements, for instance in funeral orations. Although scholars have argued that praise in such orations operates differently and Cicero’s Antonius disregards them as not being proper oratorical occasions (De Orat. 2.341),25 the basic structures and the role in public life are similar: even praise of the deceased can be exploited in everyday politics. As for standard types of orations, praise of individuals can be found in almost every Roman speech. In forensic speeches, for instance, orators praise their client’s character and behaviour and denigrate the opponent. This type of praise is intended to influence the jury and not the person praised, and it is not to spur on the people praised before or after the event, but to ensure their standing in society. 23 24 25

Cf. also Gotoff (1993) xxviii; Rochlitz (1993) 79, 95. Cicero, however, was aware of the fact that power had passed to one man, who was unlikely to follow any counsel except his own (cf. Fam. 4.9.2 [to Marcellus, c. September 46 bce]). Cf. Braund (1998) 55: ‘It might be expected that Roman prose panegyric emerged from the highly developed tradition of funeral orations, significantly different from the Athenian practice, in that funerals were occasions for panegyric of individuals. Similarly, Roman gravestones bore encomia of the dead. But these orations and epitaphs do not constitute or even belong to the genre of Latin panegyric. The chief differentiation is that Latin panegyric takes as its subject someone living. Moreover, it is characteristically rooted in highly specific socio-political occasions’; contrast Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 2: ‘Praise of individuals formed an important class of epideictic oratory, and once again it was Isocrates who provided the model (Evagoras). The speech in praise of a ruler . . . was a particularly prominent phenomenon in the Hellenistic world. But formal praise of rulers or public figures is likely to take place wherever rhetoric flourishes, and Rome had its own independent tradition of laudationes funebres, or speeches of praise, pronounced at the funerals of great men.’

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An interesting example of praise in a judicial speech is Cicero’s speech Pro Archia Poeta (62 bce), dealing with the question of whether the Greek poet Archias should be given Roman citizenship. Cicero claims that the case itself is fairly obvious (Arch. 8); he also regards his statement on the actual issue as brief and straightforward (Arch. 32). Yet he uses the occasion to insert an extended eulogy of his client’s genius and of literature more generally, and he comments on and apologizes for this new and unconventional kind of speaking in a court case at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the speech (Arch. 3, 18, 32).26 Hence this speech becomes rather a panegyric of a poet and of literature, while the statement on the actual case is almost negligible. Cicero the politician did not make these modifications without a purpose: the praise of Archias is meant to prove that Archias actually deserves the honour of Roman citizenship. This is essential from Cicero’s personal point of view, since he is eager to be praised in Archias’ literary works (Arch. 28) and also wishes to justify literary aspirations more generally. Cicero’s praise of Archias concludes with the claim that the poet deserves the honour of citizenship since he has always praised the Romans in exquisite terms and continues to do so (Arch. 31). Thus Cicero basically runs the argument that praise is so important and universally desired that delivering praise counts as an accomplishment. At the same time this presentation amounts to a panegyric of literature more broadly and to an acknowledgement of its political function in Rome. This praise is intended to support Archias and to do him a favour by demonstrating his accomplishments to the audience and thereby getting Roman citizenship for him. Beyond this immediate purpose it is also geared towards the long-term effect of establishing the role of literature in society. In the case of Archias, Cicero praised an individual because he wished to convince the audience that this person deserved to be awarded a particular distinction. Cicero acted similarly, but in far more extended form and with more serious and immediate political consequences, in his first political speech, De Lege Manilia or De Imperio Cn. Pompei (66 bce). In order to prove that Pompey should be given a superior military command, Cicero describes him as outstanding in every respect, having unique and extraordinary merits, having surpassed everyone else in glory, possessing all the highest qualifications and offering too much material for 26

This ‘new style of speaking’ probably does not refer to the fact that Cicero introduces epideictic or laudatory elements (so Dugan (2001) 43), since these had become common by his time; it rather describes the fact that Cicero is talking extensively about literature and the accomplishments of a poet in a court of law (see n. 27 below; on the style of this speech cf. Gotoff (1979) esp. 81).

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praise to the orator (e.g. Man. 3, 13, 27–8, 36–42, 51).27 Pompey is said to possess the four attributes of a perfect general (Man. 28: scientia militaris, uirtus, auctoritas, felicitas), of which his previous achievements provide ample testimony. And what is more, he has all the other qualities that are required for a commander and any outstanding individual besides. There is some praise of the proposer of the bill, C. Manilius, and the audience, who are to vote on the bill (Man. 69), so as to bring them round to Cicero’s assessment of the matter. The audience is the entity to be influenced; yet this is achieved mainly by heaping praise on the object rather than on the addressee. Technically, De Lege Manilia would have to be classified as a deliberative speech, since Cicero was trying to persuade the assembly of the Roman people to vote for a particular law. Cicero, however, did not attempt to achieve this aim by rational, political argument: instead, he praised the young Pompey elaborately in order to prove that he was qualified for an extraordinary command, which was in fact unconstitutional. Cicero thereby eschewed discussion of this delicate political issue (Man. 60–4), while the overwhelming qualities of Pompey made his cause seem convincing. The speech is therefore a prime example of laudatory oratory used in politics, and it also demonstrates that at this early stage in his career Cicero was already willing to assign great power to private individuals if he approved of them and thought that the measure was in the interest of the republic (e.g. Man. 67–8). In an even more sophisticated way Cicero argued for conveying farreaching powers to individuals at the end of his life, in the corpus of the Philippics. In these speeches, delivered in 44–43 bce after Caesar’s assassination, Cicero tried to make clear distinctions between the two sides confronting each other and to spur the senate and the Roman people to decisive action by, on the one hand, praising the young Octavian and others who were working for the republic, in Cicero’s view,28 and, on the other hand, denigrating the opponents, the later triumvir Marcus Antonius and his followers. 27

28

The phrase in hac insolita mihi ex hoc loco ratione dicendi (Man. 3) does not point to the epideictic elements of this speech and define them as unusual for Cicero; instead it indicates that this is Cicero’s first speech as a magistrate in front of the Roman people (see n. 26 above). The qualities attributed to Octavian in the Philippics and the language used (e.g. Phil. 3.3, 4.3, 4.4, 5.23, 5.43, 5.47, 5.50, 13.18–19; cf. Ad Brut. 1.3.1) are reminiscent of De Lege Manilia (e.g. Man. 28, 33, 36, 49). Like Pompey in that speech (e.g. Man. 41, 48, 61–2), Octavian is presented in the Philippics as a promising young person sent by the gods who unexpectedly saves the republic from a crisis (Phil. 5.23, 5.43, 12.9, 13.18, 13.46, 14.25).

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Again praise is uttered not in the presence of the individuals concerned, but before other bodies in order to persuade them to make decrees in favour of these individuals; besides, there is the expectation that the individuals would learn of this praise and thereby be influenced to carry on with their activities and policies. This can be inferred from the speeches themselves; additionally Cicero’s letters make it clear that he used panegyric as a weapon in this political fight to influence people and to endow them with powers beyond the constitutional. Later on, therefore, Cicero had to justify his policy in the fight against M. Antonius in response to M. Brutus’ criticism (cf. Ad Brut. 1.15, July 43 bce). Another individual that Cicero frequently praised, particularly from his consular year (63 bce) onwards, is of course himself; he famously omits no occasion to highlight his services for the welfare and the survival of the republic. This panegyric is designed to justify his measures, to maintain or reclaim his position in Roman politics and to recommend himself for future tasks of this kind. This is obvious in the Philippics, where Cicero frequently reminds audiences of his success in fighting Catiline, compares M. Antonius to Catiline and thereby suggests that, if this new cause were entrusted to him or if one followed the policy proposed by him, one would be equally successful again and be able to save the republic (e.g. Phil. 2.1, 2.11–20, 4.15, 6.17). What emerges from these examples is that Cicero frequently used praise of individuals for political and tactical purposes, in order to support the policy he approved of and to contribute to what he regarded as the welfare of the republic by influencing political developments, occasionally including egotistical elements. Such a type of panegyric may be directed to a person who is present and is to be influenced in a certain way, or concern people not present in order to move the audience to make specific decrees about them which would be politically expedient in the orator’s view. For the individuals concerned it means that praise awarded or to be awarded does not spur them on to particular actions, but rewards them for deeds already done, showing them that their efforts have been recognized by their fellow citizens; it is the expectation of gaining this renown according to contemporary social conventions that may incite them to embark on further exceptional, virtuous deeds. Another function of this type of praise is to enshrine noble deeds in people’s memories and thereby possibly to motivate others to similar deeds. In daily political life this kind of praise may be used to justify people’s deeds (if controversial) with hindsight and confirm them in their attitudes. Generally, however, this application of praise goes

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beyond the recognition of individuals and pursues more comprehensive goals. Examples of oratorical panegyric connected with Cicero’s biography Just as Pliny’s Panegyricus was Pliny’s inaugural speech as consul, so Cicero’s first two speeches De Lege Agraria, given on 1 January 63 bce before the senate and the Roman people respectively, are his speeches in the same situation.29 Although the situations and aims of these orations are widely dissimilar from that by Pliny, they too contain praise and gratitude triggered by the occasion. Unfortunately, the opening of Cicero’s speech to the senate is lost, but the speech to the people is almost equally revealing, both in terms of the tradition of such speeches and with respect to Cicero’s particular case. Cicero started his speech to the Roman people by stating that the inaugural speeches of consuls typically combined gratitude for the people’s favour with praise of the incoming consul’s ancestors (apparently designed to enhance and safeguard the position of the new consul); but as this option was not available to him as a ‘new man’, he could only talk about himself and the people (Agr. 2.1–2). Claiming that he did not wish to appear immoderate or arrogant by speaking about himself, Cicero went on to heap praise on the people, who had elected him, and thanked them for their confidence, while details of the voting process and comparisons with other men previously in the same position emphasized Cicero’s achievements (Agr. 2.1–7). This presentation reveals the role of the people in the political process (which Cicero may exaggerate), the dependence of individuals appointed on the respective bodies, and Cicero’s aim to appear as a ‘popular consul’ (popularis consul) from the start (Agr. 2.6, 2.9, 2.15). So this praise 29

After the customary religious ceremonies at the start of a new year, the new consuls used to hold a senate meeting on 1 January, which was dedicated to the general political situation and during which they made their inaugural speeches. Only in a few instances was a specific issue dealt with on these occasions as it was in 63 bce (cf. Cic. Red. Pop. 11–15, Sest. 72–5 for 1 January 57 bce, Phil. 5 for 1 January 43 bce). At any rate the tradition that consuls made inaugural speeches is not an imperial invention, but goes back to republican times, while there is, of course, a difference in the bodies responsible and the actual power of the consul (cf. Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 3: ‘For example, it is clear that the gratiarum actio became panegyrical at an early stage. In the republic, it was customary for consuls to deliver a speech of thanks to the senatus populusque Romanus for their consulship. By Augustus’ day the incumbent thanked the gods, and Caesar (Ov. Pont. 4.4.35– 39). Pliny’s Panegyricus merely happens to be the first of such speeches to have survived’). Pliny remarks that both institution and topics had become hackneyed by his time (cf. Ep. 3.13.2, 3.18.1, 3.18.6).

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serves as an appreciation of the voters, and it tries to include them in the administration of this office and to establish good relations with the electorate from the beginning. Overall, Cicero basically offered a programme for an ideal consulship, almost a ‘speculum consulis’, which at the same time indicated that he was able, willing and ideally suited to realizing it: he was to be a consul concerned for the people’s welfare, guaranteeing liberty, peace and tranquillity. Cicero clearly used this introductory speech to present himself in a favourable light and to ensure a good relationship with the people. At the same time, as a particular question was at issue, the second half of Cicero’s speech deals with the proposal of a new agrarian law by the tribune of the people, Rullus. In this section Cicero’s oration develops into a speech of blame, since he accuses the tribune of inconsiderateness and mocks his alleged concern for the people, pointing out that his proposed measures would actually harm the people. Cicero thereby also employed the speech to convince the people of a particular decision, which they might not regard as advantageous to them at first, but which is in fact, as he set out to prove. A similar, albeit less official and formal situation is behind Cicero’s pair of speeches delivered after his return from exile, Post Reditum ad Senatum and Post Reditum ad Quirites (57 bce).30 Here too Cicero praised and thanked both groups and some individuals for their efforts on his behalf, thus again trying to establish a good relationship with the major political bodies from the point of his return and opening up the possibility for him to play a dominant role in Roman politics again. Hence Cicero praised himself and thus justified his actions during his consulship and outlined the policy he was determined to follow now that he was back in Rome. So these speeches could be regarded as ‘inaugural speeches’ as it were, expressing gratitude for the status achieved and marking the start of Cicero’s political activities after his return from exile. These two instances show that praise can be closely connected to thanks and that on those occasions such speeches may be used for sketching a political programme for the future.

30

Levene (1997) 67–8, 77 seems to have been the only one so far to connect Cicero’s speeches after his return from exile with his Pro Marcello and Pliny’s Panegyricus in the sense that all of them can be regarded as gratiarum actiones, while at the same time rightly distinguishing between praise for the people and that for individual rulers.

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Pliny mentions Cicero several times in his letters and compares himself to this model in a variety of respects.31 For instance, besides the obvious issue of writing, he notes that they were both consuls, augurs and patrons of poets (Ep. 3.15.1, 4.8.4–5). In these areas Cicero is Pliny’s model as he is for his writing in general (Ep. 4.8.4–5). More precisely, Pliny justifies his making of verses, which apparently had been criticized by contemporaries, by the fact that, in addition to practising other, more serious genres, Cicero also produced verses (Ep. 5.3.5, 7.4.3–6). In letter writing, Pliny as well as his correspondents regard Cicero as a model, even though Pliny thinks that his situation is so dissimilar that Cicero’s standard is unattainable for him (Ep. 9.2). In oratory too Cicero is among Pliny’s major stylistic models (Ep. 1.2.4, 1.5.11–13, 1.20, 9.26.8). Yet, as regards oratory, Pliny talks only about style with reference to Cicero, but not about topics, genres or occasions. Nevertheless, it is clear that he was thoroughly familiar with Cicero’s works and composed his own oratory in relation to them. So it would hardly be surprising if in the Panegyricus, his sole extant speech, some influence of Cicero’s oratory was detected.32 The evidence on Cicero presented so far suggests some conclusions on the relationship between Pliny’s Panegyricus and Ciceronian praise: just as Cicero had done at the start of his consular year (and again after his return from exile), Pliny gave an inaugural speech as consul and praised the body that had appointed him. Obviously, election and appointment practices as well as the actual political influence of consuls had changed by imperial times. Therefore Cicero as the incoming magistrate was able 31

32

On Pliny’s relationship to Cicero (with respect to the letters) cf. e.g. Wolff (2004); Marchesi (2008) 207–40. In this context one must bear in mind the cautionary remarks of Riggsby (1995) 132 n. 19: ‘The potential for conflict over just what “Cicero” stands for points up the fact that Pliny’s model is a particularly early second-century construct which need not correspond to either ours or Cicero’s own versions of “Cicero” (note particularly Pliny’s Cicero’s commitment to neoteric-style poetry), nor even to other possible contemporary versions. The study of such versions, or the earlier ones reflected in Quintilian or Seneca the Elder, are the topic of another essay. Similarly, the reconstruction of Catullus and the neoterics implied in Pliny would be an interesting, but again distinct, area of study.’ But if one concentrates on issues comparable in Cicero and Pliny without putting too much focus on Pliny’s evaluation of his model, the problem is perhaps sufficiently sidestepped. Another, non-political epideictic speech by Pliny is his funeral oration on the son of his friend Spurinna. Therein he follows the Roman tradition, albeit adapted to imperial conventions, in that such speeches were written up and recited on occasions distinct from the actual event (cf. Ep. 3.10; cf. Fantham (1999) 227). For some examples of epideictic in Pliny’s letters cf. Aubrion (1975). For an attempt at distinguishing between different types of panegyric or propaganda in the epistles and in the Panegyricus cf. Hoffer (2006).

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to outline his political programme for his time in office and to ask the audience to contribute to it by praising them. This option was not open to consuls in Pliny’s time even though in his speech Pliny retained the senate as his primary addressee33 and thereby kept to republican conventions on a formal level. As for the role of panegyric in the area of contents, Pliny instead praised the emperor, i.e. the individual who had appointed him and who was the only one who actually influenced politics. By this strategy Pliny tried to commit the emperor to a policy of which he approved and which he regarded as beneficial to the political community. Hence this praise basically has a hortatory function and gives the speech the character of a ‘speculum principis’ (e.g. Pan. 4.1, 45, Ep. 3.18.2–3).34 Cicero had used a similar strategy of praising people to trigger certain actions in De lege Manilia, Pro Marcello and the Philippics. These were not the inaugural speeches of a consul, but they were given in contexts in which Cicero accepted that powerful individuals were needed or that powerful individuals made decisions. Therefore he followed a strategy later used towards emperors: as he had identified empowering and influencing these people as the only way to shape politics, he did so by means of praise. Both orators, therefore, combine praise and political purposes in particular speeches and use praise as a tool in politics when other methods fail to promise success, because of the distribution of power and the role of the orator in the political framework. Pliny’s political strategy is similar to Cicero’s procedure in particular speeches: Pliny too accepts the existence and pre-eminent position of a single powerful individual (cf. also Ep. 3.20.12); at the same time he makes requirements of this individual as to his morals and behaviour. His political concept also overlaps with Cicero’s, since he attempts to integrate the emperor into a constitutional framework and tries to retain elements of the republican constitution in emphasizing the role of libertas and the important position of the senate; if the ruler does not strive towards his own personal advantage, but acts for the common welfare and subjects himself to the needs of the community and the constitution, the res publica and its ideals can continue, as it were

33 34

Cf. e.g. Molin (1989) 790, 796. Cf. Ep. 3.18.2–3: primum ut imperatori nostri uirtutes suae ueris laudibus commendarentur, deinde ut futuri principes non quasi a magistro, sed tamen sub exemplo praemonerentur, qua potissimum uia possent ad eandem gloriam niti. nam praecipere, qualis esse debeat princeps, pulchrum quidem, sed onerosum ac prope superbum est; laudare uero optimum principem et per hoc posteris uelut e specula lumen, quod sequantur, ostendere, idem utilitatis habet, adrogantiae nihil. Cf. also Rochlitz (1993) 87.

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(e.g. Pan. 62–6, 76, 93).35 Just as Cicero does in the Philippics in view of Caesar’s preceding dictatorship, Pliny welcomes the regained freedom of speech and the opportunities for political intervention after the reign of Domitian (esp. Pan. 66.4–5). The powerful men’s virtues that are highlighted in the Ciceronian speeches and in the Panegyricus necessarily change according to the occasion, and the rhetorical style of such political speeches of praise develops according to the conventions of each period and each orator’s preferences. Yet the functional use of praise as an influence on a single powerful individual and the attempt thereby to pursue one’s own political agenda with a republican background are the same. Cicero thus prepared the way for Pliny’s Panegyricus not only by providing a paradigmatic example of sophisticated political oratory, but also by showing strategies of employing panegyric as a political tool within a political framework dominated by individuals. conclusion Overall, therefore, the examples of Ciceronian panegyric discussed suggest that Pliny’s Panegyricus is not something radically new, but rather a logical further development of an existing oratorical genre under altered circumstances. This concerns both the circumstances of the speech and the political strategy employed: while basic occasion and function remain similar, the ‘republican gratiarum actio’ of a new consul has developed into a vote of thanks to the appointing emperor combined with praise; and presenting one’s own policy has changed into an attempt at influencing the emperor’s policy. Hence in Pliny’s Panegyricus the element of praise of individuals for political purposes comes to the fore; still, the ideal of the republican constitution is not completely abandoned, and therefore, in this respect too, there is a logical development from republican speeches praising individuals. This means not merely that there are single speeches that could be regarded as forerunners of imperial panegyric, but that all these instances have to be placed within a wider context and a broader development. Even the earliest forms of panegyric at Rome are rarely dissociated completely from a political context: if someone’s ancestors or a deceased member of the family are praised at a funeral, this is advantageous to the 35

Cf. also Radice (1968); K¨uhn (1985) 6; Morford (1992); Fantham (1999) 230–1; Ramelli (1999); Barbu-Moravov´a (2000).

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living; if an accuser or defendant is praised who has or may potentially have an influential political position, the lawyer tries to be on good terms with him and to safeguard his client’s standing. Hence, a political and tactical use appears to have been a characteristic of Roman panegyric from the start. Even though the panegyric seems to have a general tendency to merge with the protreptic, its political application turns out to be a dominant feature in Roman society. As a result, out of the various aspects available for praise mentioned by rhetoricians (e.g. Rhet. Her. 3.10), it is not external circumstances or physical attributes that dominate in these speeches; instead the orators’ praise focuses on qualities of character, since this is what can be influenced and is vital to governing a community properly. De Lege Manilia, then, is Cicero’s first political speech and therefore the first extant example of an obvious tactical use of panegyric in a clear political context (which is one feature of imperial panegyric). Cicero’s speech consists of extensive praise of one individual who is to be endowed with unlimited powers, while this praise is addressed not to the person concerned in order to motivate him to a particular action, but to the Roman people, who should endow this person with wide-ranging powers. In the sense that a speech is mainly devoted to praising one individual to achieve a specific purpose, Cicero’s Pro Marcello can be regarded as a further step. Even though the republican institution of the senate is maintained, the orator targets one powerful individual on whom decisions rest. The significant difference from earlier speeches, where the praise is intended to convince the audience of the worth of the person concerned, is that in Caesar’s case the object of praise is already in power and the success of the orator’s plea depends on the effect on the sole ruler who is to be motivated. This difference could be seen as indicative of the contrast between republic and principate and of the gradual development towards powerful individuals determining politics during Cicero’s lifetime. Although Cicero’s Caesarian speeches perhaps mirror the situation in imperial times most closely, they are not the latest of his speeches or the latest ‘republican’ speeches to be preserved: chronologically, they are followed by the corpus of the Philippics. One might argue that in these speeches circumstances have returned to a republican framework: Cicero is speaking in the senate or before the popular assembly in order to persuade the respective groups of a particular policy. Yet he tries to achieve his aim of preserving the republic by assigning great power to individuals: just as he had done more than twenty years earlier in the case of Pompey, Cicero now praises Octavian in order to justify investing him with superior power

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to fight M. Antonius and thus save the republic (in Cicero’s view). The difference in the Caesarian speeches is, of course, that the individuals talked about are not present and the praise is designed to move the audience to authorize their deeds, which rather reminds one of De Lege Manilia. Yet the argument itself and the qualities Cicero praised in individuals are reminiscent of imperial categories: by singling out individuals and by claiming that those who were active in the best interest of the republic (as judged by Cicero) needed to be given unlimited powers and had the right to act independently without constitutional backing, he prepared (perhaps unknowingly and unwittingly) the ideology of the principate (esp. Phil. 11.26–8). So one might venture to conclude that in the speeches of Cicero, whose lifetime coincided with the beginnings of the gradual change from the republican to the imperial period, ‘a transition from republican panegyric to imperial panegyric’ can be seen, both in form and application and in the underlying ideology. Cicero began with praise of individuals in clearly defined contexts such as court cases, well within established Roman conventions. By the time he started to become more involved in political life, he used praise as a political tool, and when he regarded it as politically expedient, he did not hesitate to praise individuals to endow them with superior power beyond the republican framework and to influence their wielding of this power. Cicero therefore proved to be an influential model for later orators since he had not only become a canonical and paradigmatic representative of the genre, but also showed ways to develop and adapt the traditional (originally Greek) conventions of oratorical panegyric to a changing environment, to use the genre of epideictic as a political tool and to pursue one’s political goals, if one relies on others, by exploiting praise. Therefore it is not surprising that Pliny, as a diligent reader and excerptor of previous writers, could not only find a precedent for this type of speech in Cicero (his inaugural speeches as consul), but as an attentive student could see paradigmatic ways to participate in politics under monarchical conditions by means of praise. It therefore does not come as a real surprise that his oration’s sincerity in comparison with other texts of the period has been stressed:36 Pliny does not just deliver obligatory praise, but pursues a serious aim as he tries to influence politics in imperial times. Some of Cicero’s speeches on the threshold of the principate can therefore be seen as an important step in the development of political panegyric at 36

Cf. Bartsch (1994) 148–87, esp. 148–9.

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Rome and thus as a structural influence on Pliny. Living at the time of a fully established principate, Pliny further developed the methods indicated by Cicero and applied them successfully to contemporary circumstances. As he thereby completed the development inaugurated by Cicero and adapted the typological model established by Cicero to the altered conditions, his speech could become a convenient and ready-made model for later Latin writers.

chapter 6

Contemporary contexts Bruce Gibson

Pliny’s Panegyricus in praise of Trajan stands alone as the only significant piece of Latin prose epideictic to have survived from the early empire. This should not, however, obscure the fact that we do have other evidence for praise literature in Pliny’s time. The issue of how to define Pliny’s own era is also something which needs consideration. Not only Pliny’s Panegyricus, but also the tenth book of the Letters, dealing with Trajan (reigned 98–117), provide of course an irresistible and powerful impulse to consider Pliny as part of the great age of Trajan, what his contemporary Tacitus was to describe at the opening of his Histories as a fortunate time, ubi sentire quae uelis et quae sentias dicere licet (‘when you can think what you want, and say what you think’, Hist. 1.1.4). This chapter will accordingly begin with a brief glance at the culture of praise and blame, especially praise, in the early empire, before examining oratorical praise under Trajan, and then will move to consider how any inquiry into the contemporary contexts of the Panegyricus is not such a straightforward process, especially as the nature of what is and what is not contemporary is itself so important a theme in Pliny’s treatment of Trajan. the culture of epideixis Antiquity presents a mixed picture of epideictic, the discourse of praise and its opposite, blame. On the one hand, the epigraphic habit of the Graeco-Roman world leaves behind a vast repertory of honorary decrees, suggesting that praise was ubiquitous throughout the ancient world, and important enough to be given the chance of surviving for posterity in the form of inscriptions carved on stone. On the other hand, if we think of the classic divisions of oratory in antiquity, then praise and blame seem to have only a slight presence in the manuals on rhetoric, which have far I am indebted to Kathleen Coleman, Roger Rees, Paul Roche, Robin Seager and Tony Woodman for their invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

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more to say about forensic and deliberative oratory. From Pliny’s own time, Quintilian, for example, is very clear on the place of epideictic as the third part of oratory (Inst. 2.4.21), and this is reflected in the scarcity of coverage which is found in other rhetorical manuals of a whole range of periods (compare for instance the brief treatment of epideictic in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, 3.10–3.15). However, in spite of the slight emphasis on epideictic as a separate form in rhetorical treatises, it is important to bear in mind that praise and blame very regularly spill out of pure epideictic into other types of oratory, as noted in the Rhetorica ad Herennium (3.15).1 It is also the case that praise and blame might be felt to have a central role in genres outside oratory, such as epic or historiography, especially as they are genres where the representation of speech is a significant feature.2 Hence we find in the late antique commentator on Virgil, Servius, the assertion that Virgil’s intention in writing the Aeneid was to imitate Homer and to praise Augustus. From Pliny’s own time, there is much material which points towards the importance of praise and blame in discourses and genres of all types. The pervasiveness of epideictic influence in the Greek world has been demonstrated by Alex Hardie, in his work on Statius and the culture of professional poetry, especially in Greek-speaking areas of the empire.3 And in the culture of the Latin world, we can note that Quintilian believed that it was appropriate for those learning to speak to be trained in exercises consisting of praise and blame (Inst. 2.4.20).4 Quintilian also emphasizes the fact that epideictic speeches could be regarded as setting a high value on entertainment of the audience, which might well be achieved through extra stylistic flourishes:5 nam et in iis actionibus quae in aliqua sine dubio ueritate uersantur sed sunt ad popularem aptatae delectationem, quales legimus panegyricos totumque hoc demonstratiuum genus, permittitur adhibere plus cultus, omnemque artem quae latere plerumque in iudiciis debet non confiteri modo sed ostentare etiam hominibus in hoc aduocatis. (Quint. Inst. 2.10.11) 1 2

3 4 5

For further discussion of epideictic, including its capacity to blend with other types of discourse, see Innes and Manuwald in this volume. Note too that historiography more generally might be viewed in terms of praise: thus Tacitus, commenting on the remoteness of the Second Punic War as subject matter, remarks that it does not matter whether one praises Carthaginians or Romans more (Tac. Ann. 4.33.4): for the possibility that Tacitus is referring to Silius Italicus here, see Woodman (2009a) 37. For the general association of praise and blame with historiography, see Woodman (1988) 41–5, 95–8. Hardie (1983). See Reinhardt and Winterbottom (2006) 199–100 ad loc. for further examples. For more discussion of the place of encomium in school training, see Innes, p. 68 in this volume. Reinhardt and Winterbottom (2006) 172–3 ad loc. offer useful discussion of this passage; cf. Quint. Inst. 3.4.14.

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For even in those speeches which are certainly involved in some aspect of real life, but are designed for the people’s pleasure, such as are the panegyrics that we read and the whole of this kind of epideictic writing, it is permissible to bring to bear more of one’s stylistic qualities, and not only to own up to all that skill that one should generally keep hidden in forensic speeches, but even to put it on display for those summoned for the purpose.

Equally, one should not ignore other types of examples from outside oratory. The Letters of Pliny himself are an important place to see how this diffusion of praise and blame operates on the ground, with Pliny regularly seeking to praise his friends and sometimes also casting aspersions on his enemies. The Letters also contain evidence for the way in which epideictic concerns could affect other types of literary work: thus we hear of C. Fannius’ three books on the deaths of famous men (Plin. Ep. 5.5.3–4), where what is at stake is clearly laudation of those who have died.6 The centrality of praise as a feature of public life in Rome, even under the republic, is also something which needs to be noted. As early as the second century bce, Polybius noted the effects of laudatory oratory on listeners at the funerals of distinguished public figures (6.53.2–3, 6.54.1–2).7 With regard to praise of the living, the late republic furnishes an example such as the Pro Marcello of Cicero, where Caesar, already very close to the role that would later be occupied by the emperors, is praised for his unique qualities and his role as the healer of the problems of the Roman state.8 And it should not be forgotten that Pliny’s Panegyricus is part of a tradition whereby the holder of a consulship would express his thanks (gratiarum actio). This is a custom which goes back to the time of Augustus, since, as Marcel Durry noted in his commentary, the earliest certain evidence is in Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto at 4.4.35–42, which suggests that the practice was already in place around the end of Augustus’ reign.9 oratory in the age of trajan Though Tacitus’ Dialogus (usually dated to the period in which Pliny’s speech was delivered and then written up for publication10 ) famously 6 7 8 9 10

See further Coleman (2000) 22–4; Ash (2003) 222–3; Marchesi (2008) 158, 171–89 on the obituary letters in Pliny, and the wider tradition of biographies and literature on the deaths of famous men. On the tradition of funerary oratory in Rome, see Kierdorf (1980). For Ciceronian praise and blame, see e.g. Levene (1997) 68–77; Manuwald, pp. 87–97 in this volume. Durry (1938) 3–4. The precise chronological relationship between the two works has generated a lively controversy: on the dating of the Dialogus and the publication of the Panegyricus, see e.g. Murgia (1985); Brink

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begins with the aim of investigating the idea that oratory was in decline after its heyday in the time of Cicero, there are more positive testimonies with regard to the standard and quality of contemporary oratory. The anecdote in a later biography of the emperor Hadrian (SHA Hadr. 3.1) to the effect that he was laughed at for rustic pronunciation of Latin in the senate, whilst holding office as quaestor during the reign of Trajan, points to an underlying concern that standards should not deteriorate. More concretely, we can note Pliny’s interest in his letters in giving an account of oratorical performances, both in a courtroom setting and elsewhere.11 Pliny’s letters (Ep. 2.11 and 12) on the trial of the notorious Marius Priscus in 100, before the delivery of the Panegyricus later in the same year, illustrate well how important forensic oratory was to Pliny and his readers;12 the fact that Trajan is reported to have presided as judge in public cases (Cass. Dio 68.10.2) will have increased the prestige available to orators. The gloomy picture of oratory evoked by Tacitus’ Dialogus must therefore be treated with some caution. But the importance of praise too should not be underestimated. One example of the kind of evidence which we have (which also reflects the significance of discourses of praise in the elite culture of the early empire) is Pliny’s Ep. 2.1, relating to the death of Verginius Rufus, who, remarkably, held the consulship three times in the course of an extraordinary career which had seen him refusing the throne offered him by his own legions in the aftermath of Nero’s death in 68. Pliny strikingly goes on to note in this letter how Verginius was praised after death: laudatus est a consule Cornelio Tacito; nam hic supremus felicitati eius cumulus accessit, laudator eloquentissimus (‘his encomium was delivered by the consul Cornelius Tacitus, for this final pinnacle was added to his great fortune, that he had a most eloquent encomiast’, Ep. 2.1.6). It is striking that it is Tacitus, whose own work on oratory had pointed to decline, whom Pliny declares to be at the forefront of contemporary oratory.13 Furthermore, the detail at Ep. 2.1.5 that Verginius died as a result of complications arising from an accident sustained whilst preparing a speech of thanks for his third consulship in 97

11 12 13

(1994); Mayer (2001) 22–7; most recently, Woytek (2006) has argued powerfully for publication of the Panegyricus in 107 ce. For Pliny’s own account of the process of revision of the speech, Ep. 3.18 is a key text, on which see now Marchesi (2008) 198–203. Mayer (2003) is a key treatment of the importance of oratory and Pliny’s use of his letters as a means to emphasizing his own role as an orator. Coleman (2000) 25 suggests that the role of Pliny and Tacitus in this trial may be comparable to the activities of the delatores under Domitian. On Ep. 2.1, see Marchesi (2008) 189–99.

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under Trajan’s predecessor, Nerva (reigned 96–8), perhaps hints at the prestige accorded to such praise oratory, and the expectation that even such a venerable and respected figure as Verginius was nevertheless supposed to put in a high-quality performance, however frequent such speeches of thanks must have been. Praise of Trajan is also at stake elsewhere in the letters of Pliny, as in Ep. 6.27, where Pliny, safe in the glory of his own panegyric of Trajan, responds to advice on how his correspondent Vettenius Severus as consul designate should speak in praise of Trajan. While the occasion of this speech is likely to be different from the timing of the Panegyricus, which Pliny delivered on his actual assumption of the consulship, it is striking how Pliny in his letter evokes themes also found in his panegyric: he explains how he had wanted to draw a contrast between good and bad emperors (Ep. 6.27.3), but then, significantly, adds that perhaps the times have changed, and there is therefore scope for praising new achievements of Trajan (Ep. 6.27.4–5; cf. Pan. 2.3). This letter therefore points again not only to the importance of imperial praise, but also to the difficulties involved in covering suitable material. It is also a reminder that, even within a narrow span of years (Severus held the consulship in 107, only seven years after Pliny), Pliny was prepared to acknowledge that the conditions for imperial panegyric might well have changed, suggesting that panegyric, far from being a stale and fossilized mode of utterance, was constantly having to adapt itself and change in order to be viable. Given the prestige still accruing to oratory which Pliny’s letters attest, speakers of imperial panegyric, one of the most conspicuous types of speech made by the senatorial class, had to do everything to avoid giving the impression of a stale and predictable discourse. A generation or so later, we can observe the excitement with which Fronto contemplates the prospect of his speech in praise of Antoninus Pius, and the possibility that it will not lie forgotten in the archives of the senate (Ep. 2.4.1 Van Den Hout).14 other writing in the age of trajan It is also important to recognize that Pliny’s praise of Trajan has other counterparts elsewhere, not only in oratory, but also in other genres. Prefaces are one place where we can get an idea of prevailing trends. Tacitus’ celebration in the preface to the Histories of the liberty of thought and expression which characterized the reigns of Trajan and his predecessor Nerva we have already 14

See Van Den Hout (1988) 25.

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seen, but the preface to his Agricola is also a text which, like the Panegyricus, draws attention to the chronological divide separating itself off from the prior Flavian era that had come to an end with the murder of Domitian (reigned 81–96).15 As well as constructing the antithesis between good rule (Trajan) and bad (Domitian) that is familiar from the Panegyricus, Tacitus strikingly sees the earlier period in terms of a failure of utterance (and perhaps even memory) in response to the tyranny of Domitian (Ag. 2.3–4), who had not hesitated to persecute literature which was deemed offensive (Ag. 2.1–2). This in turn allows Tacitus to present his work on Agricola as part of a new process of slow and hesitant literary revival under more favourable political conditions, non tamen pigebit uel incondita ac rudi uoce memoriam prioris seruitutis ac testimonium praesentium bonorum composuisse (‘it will not, however, be displeasing even with an unformed and rough voice to have composed a memoir of prior servitude and a testimonial to present good fortune’, Ag. 3.3). And so, in the opening chapter of the Histories, Tacitus regards Nerva and Trajan as appropriate and agreeable subjects for him to work on in his old age. The sense of literary revival is of course closely bound up with the concept of intellectual freedom, a topic which Pliny in the Panegyricus makes much of, reporting that the need for flattery of the emperor in both private and public discourse has gone (Pan. 2.1–3), whilst acknowledging as well the way in which Trajan has done much to enhance rhetorical and philosophical studies (Pan. 47.1–3).16 A perhaps somewhat unexpected, but nevertheless important, parallel for the Panegyricus is also provided by the monograph by Julius Frontinus, consul for the second and third time in 98 and 100,17 in two books on aqueducts.18 This text is most likely to have been begun under Nerva, but to have been completed after Trajan’s accession,19 and gives a flavour of how praise of the emperor might be presented even in a highly specialized context. In the preface, for instance, we can note Frontinus’ initial emphasis on the delegation of authority by the emperor (Fron. Aq. praef. 1–2), which is perhaps of a piece with Pliny’s emphasis on Trajan’s desire not to trespass 15 16

17 18

19

Woodman (forthcoming a) offers a full treatment of the Agricola’s preface and its treatment of time. For a positive view of Trajan’s intellectual capacities, see Moles (1990) 300–1 and n. 15. For the rhetoric of literary revival under Trajan, cf. Pliny’s remarks on Titinius Capito at Ep. 8.12.1, though, as Coleman (2000) 37 notes, this kind of thing can be found in the era of Domitian as well: see the praise of Manilius Vopiscus at Stat. Silv. 1. praef. 23–5. Frontinus’ first consulship is probably to be dated to 73: see Rodgers (2004) 1. On the flurry of technical writing which is likely to have been composed under Trajan, see Coleman (2000) 27–8. Key recent studies of Frontinus include the commentaries of Del Chicca (2004) and Rodgers (2004), as well as Peachin (2004) and K¨onig (2007). For the date, see Rodgers (2004) 5–8, K¨onig (2007) 179 and n. 17.

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on the authority of other magistrates (note for instance the discussion of Trajan’s encouragement and reward for good provincial government in Pan. 70). Emphasis on the successful independent conduct of office holders also strikes a chord with contemporary concerns about the role of freedmen. Though the clich´e that the Flavians were overly fond of allowing authority and responsibility to be devolved on imperial freedmen needs to be treated with caution, both Frontinus and Pliny can be seen, in more or less subtle ways, to engage with this perceived issue: thus Pliny allots the theme of Trajan’s freedmen, and the contrast with past practice, a prominent position (Pan. 88.1–3),20 right before the discussion of Trajan’s claim to be called Optimus.21 Frontinus also offers us a valuable comparandum for the way in which Trajan’s civic achievements are spoken of in the Panegyricus. The requirement to offer praise to emperors for their peacetime achievements was an acute concern for anyone seeking to praise the princeps under the empire;22 contrast Tacitus’ sour remarks at Ann. 4.32.2 on the failure of emperors to continue the process of Roman expansion that had characterized the Roman republic. Trajan had of course had an earlier military career (Pan. 14–15),23 but the highlights of the reign in military terms, the subjugation of the Dacian kingdom and the victories against the Parthians, were yet to come when Pliny gave his speech in 100.24 Thus the need to provide praise of emperors that was based on other kinds of achievement was a strong one. In Frontinus, we accordingly find the emperor praised for his improvements to the water supply of Rome, for acting with foresight in preventing fraudulent private appropriations of the water supply, preventing drought by allowing various areas to have access to more than one supply source, and generally enhancing the palatability of Rome’s water (Fron. Aq. 87–9). These kinds of benign intervention, even to the extent of alleviating potential natural calamities, find their parallel in the section of Pliny’s Panegyricus dealing with Trajan’s improvements to the corn supply of 20 21

22 23 24

Though note that in fact Domitian too appointed the equestrian Titinius Capito to the post of ab epistulis (which he would continue to hold in the succeeding reigns): see further Saller (2000) 11. On the use of the title optimus in the Panegyricus, see e.g. Rees (2001) 160–2; Seelentag (2004) 240–7; Gibson (2010) 130–3. For optimus as a title given to earlier emperors, see Woodman (1977) 245 on Vell. 2.126.5. See e.g. Woodman (1977) 241 on Vell. 2.126.3. For Trajan’s earlier career before becoming emperor, see Roche, pp. 18–22 in this volume. Though note that if Woytek (2006) is right to put the publication of the speech as not before 107, the audience of the published speech would therefore have been familiar with Trajan’s final conquest of the Dacians.

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Rome,25 and his response to the failure of the Nile to flood in Egypt (Pan. 29–32). Similarly, when Frontinus discusses the economics of how the workforce of the city’s aqueducts is paid, great emphasis is laid on how there is a clear distinction between the civic treasury (the aerarium) and the emperor’s own funds (fiscus) with regard to the sources from which emoluments are drawn, but Frontinus is also careful to emphasize how the emperor funds material expenses as well (Aq. 118).26 In the same section, Frontinus also makes it clear that funds accruing through payments for water-rights, which had previously gone to Domitian, were remitted to the people by Nerva. These two strands, a transparent distinction between imperial and private funds, and the euergetism of the emperor, illustrate the kinds of rhetoric which were possible about the domestic achievements of Nerva and Trajan. In the Panegyricus, they find their counterpart in chapters 36–41, where Pliny speaks first of the absolutely clear distinction between the state treasury and Trajan’s private funds, and then of Trajan’s measures to reform taxation. Frontinus, it is true, does not include Pliny’s emphasis on the manner in which the privy purse obtained much of its funding under Domitian as a result of confiscations (Pan. 42), but the focus in both texts on imperial benevolence and the distinction between different kinds of funds is an important one. We can see too, as we take our leave of Frontinus, how the signature keyword of Pliny’s speech, optimus (‘best’), is also a gambit used, though less expansively, by Frontinus at the start of book 2 (Aq. 64) when referring to the foresight of the ‘best and most diligent’ emperor (prouidentia optimi diligentissimique Neruae principis).27 A quite different kind of praise literature is represented by the Greek oratory of Dio Chrysostom, most notably in the four celebrated kingship orations (Or. 1–4).28 These speeches are certainly from the period after Domitian’s death,29 but have a different series of approaches and emphases. In one sense, the career of Dio of course represents a very different path from that of Pliny, since he typified the Greek-speaking elites of the eastern 25 26

27

28 29

Vell. 2.126.3 similarly notes the benign pricing of corn under Tiberius: see further Woodman (1977) 241 ad loc. Of course such claims relating to an emperor’s use of his personal funds may also reflect (or indeed be reflected in) a regime’s own rhetoric: cf. ILS 293, from North Africa and dating from 112, referring to a new bridge built by Trajan: [pon]tem nouum a fundamentis [op]era militum suorum et pecunia sua [p]rouinciae Africae fecit. Rodgers (2004) 227 deletes optimi and -que here, comparing prouidentia diligentissimi principis at Aq. 87.2, but even in the Panegyricus Pliny uses the word optimus of Nerva (together with Trajan) at Pan. 7.4. Moles (1990) is an essential treatment of these speeches; see also the discussion in Swain (1996) 192–6. Desideri (1978) 297 suggests that the Third Oration may refer to Nerva, rather than to Trajan.

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empire, being a member of a leading family at Prusa in Bithynia in northwest Asia Minor. On the other hand, Dio offers some striking intersections with the world of Pliny the Younger. Perhaps the least significant aspect of this, oddly, is Dio’s own encounter with Pliny, recorded in Ep. 10.81 and 82, which deal with a dispute involving Dio which is presented before Pliny, with the orator being blamed for not presenting due account of his management of a public building project and being accused of having located a statue of Trajan in the same place where members of his family were buried.30 Trajan’s reply emphasizes the need not to press the charge of maiestas. Though the juxtaposition of Pliny and Dio may appeal to those who pursue literary prosopography, Dio’s career is of more importance to the Panegyricus if we reflect that he too had had a difficult time under Domitian, having been exiled at an early point in the reign for offending the emperor;31 while his likely connections with the earlier Stoic Musonius Rufus,32 who had been exiled under Nero, remind us furthermore of the way in which philosophy could sometimes fall foul of imperial circles. It is interesting that Fronto includes the philosopher Euphrates, lauded by Pliny in Ep. 1.10, alongside Dio himself in a list of pupils of Musonius Rufus.33 On the other hand, the presence of philosophy in Dio’s kingship orations is much more marked than anything remotely comparable in Pliny’s Panegyricus. This can be seen, for instance, in the presence of philosophic myth as a means of writing political theory: thus the First Oration has a long section (1.56–84) in which the god Hermes takes Heracles to see the twin female personifications of Kingship and Tyranny, in a manner which directly recalls the tradition going back to Prodicus that reported a choice made by Heracles between Virtue and Vice.34 Even less directly about Trajan is the Second Oration, which is cast as a conversation between Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great about Homer, which then leads into a discussion of kingship which is largely conducted through 30 31 32 33

34

On this episode, see Desideri (1978) 1–2; Jones (1978) 103. On Dio’s exile, see Desideri (1978) 187–260; Jones (1978) 45–52; Sidebottom (1996). See Jones (1978) 12–16. Fronto, Epistulae ad M. Antoninum de Eloquentia 1.4 (Van Den Hout (1988) 135): quid nostra memoria Euphrates, Dio, Timocrates, Athenodotus? quid horum magister Musonius? nonne summa facundia praediti neque minus sapientiae quam eloquentiae gloria incluti exstiterunt? For discussion of Fronto and Dio, see Desideri (1978) 6–16. Xen. Mem. 2.1.21–34. See Desideri (1978) 314–16, with notes; Moles (1990) 322–30; Trapp (1990) 143 n. 2, who provides a wide range of references to this legend. It is worth noting here that there is in fact crossover of these ideas into more straightforwardly non-philosophical texts in Latin in the period: note the encounter between Scipio and Virtus and Voluptas at Silius, Punica 15.18–128, on which see Ripoll (2000) 165–70.

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appeal to Homeric exemplars.35 Similarly remote in setting are the opening and conclusion of the Third Oration, which begins with Socrates calling into question the supposed happiness of the Persian king.36 Yet it should not be assumed that Dio’s approach is entirely one of avoidance of more contemporary resonances.37 For example, we can note in the Third Oration how Dio engages with the issue of flattery, but uses the device of a Socratic setting as a means of broaching the subject, by referring to the story of how Hippias tried to blame Socrates for telling the truth, which then prompts Dio to explain that he is unable not to tell the truth. This then allows for an extended discussion of kolake©a (‘flattery’, 3.14–28),38 which does, however, afford an important crossover with Pliny’s Panegyricus, where the importance of sincerity under Trajan (and insincerity on the part of associates of Domitian) is a major theme. Dio indeed takes a particularly forthright line on this issue, eschewing retreat into apologetics for past silence under the tyranny of Domitian, and instead pointing out that he had in fact engaged in open discourse under the preceding reign (3.12–13), so that his claim to be taken as truthful under Trajan is supported by his previous open and truthful approach under Domitian, even though it led to his exile.39 Dio thereby positions himself in such a way as to be more immune to the critique of Pliny implicit in the modern scholarship of e.g. Bartsch, who has pointed out how claiming that past praise of Domitian was insincere whereas present praise of Trajan is genuine is a position which can be liable to collapse.40 Two other areas of Dio’s Kingship Orations also illustrate the intellectual thought of the Panegyricus well. First, the treatment of the gods, though wrapped up in a classicizing and Hellenized mode of presentation, does reflect the way in which representations of Trajan seem to have avoided the excesses of the Domitianic period in terms of the relation between emperor and gods. Regardless of whether or not Domitian did expect always to be 35

36 37

38 39 40

Though the references to Alexander should of course be understood as complimentary to Trajan: on this speech see Desideri (1978) 316–18, who argues that the presentation of Philip and Alexander here is a complimentary allusion to the dead Nerva and to Trajan, who surpasses his adoptive father; cf. Moles (1990) 337–47. On the use of Socrates here, see Desideri (1978) 298–9; Moles (1990) 350. It is notable that in the case of another contemporary figure, Plutarch, there is some debate within the scholarship as to the extent to which Plutarch’s writings reflect direct engagement with the Trajanic world: the conference volume edited by Stadter and Van Der Stock (2002) contains contributions which adopt a range of positions on this issue. On this section of the speech, see Moles (1990) 353–5. On this passage, see Desideri (1978) 299; Moles (1990) 353–4; Bartsch (1994) 178–9. For sincerity as a key theme of the speech, see Bartsch (1994) 149.

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addressed as dominus et deus, as is alleged in Suet. Dom. 13.2 (the issue is not straightforward),41 we can note the way in which Zeus is a present force in the orations, just as a role is given to Jupiter in the Panegyricus of Pliny.42 In both cases, we can see the role of the traditional Olympian as reflective of the desire to pull back from the way in which Domitian had too obviously assumed various aspects of Jupiter in his self-presentation. Assuredly, there are complexities to the presentation of Domitian in earlier periods, but what is important here is the way in which Jupiter and Zeus are brought back to prominence in Pliny and Dio. In Pliny it might be argued that there are some disquieting moments in the treatment of Jove and Trajan. Thus Jupiter’s cult title of Optimus Maximus, used by Pliny at the start of the speech, is perhaps made problematic in the rest of the speech, since the title optimus is so relentlessly used of Trajan himself, even though at the time of delivery optimus was only an unofficial part of Trajan’s titulature. When Pliny invokes Jupiter at the end of the speech through his Capitoline title, it is almost as if the model of the emperor as an equivalent of Jove, already something with a long history in the poets, is somehow creeping back in, with the hint that optimus is Trajan’s title now, especially as Pliny has already suggested that Trajan is somehow acting for Jupiter (Pan. 80.4–5).43 By contrast, in Dio the distinction between Zeus and the good king is portrayed with a much clearer hierarchy: thus, in the Second Oration, a discussion of the bull simile applied to Agamemnon in Iliad 2.480–3 leads to the not unexpected comparison between a bull and a king (Or. 2.65–72), but this pattern of rulership is made more complex by the way in which Dio adds a further dimension, suggesting that the relationship between Zeus and a king is analogous to that between herdsmen and bull, with the salutary additional reminder that the herdsmen do not allow a bad bull to continue to cause trouble (Or. 2.73–8).44 The second area of overlap between Dio’s orations and Pliny’s Panegyricus is the taste for the antithesis of good and bad king. To some extent this is of course a traditional theme, and Dio’s treatment in the Third Oration (3.42–9) of the basic three types of government (kingship, aristocracy and democracy) and the corrupt forms that often ensue may be felt to evoke Polybius’ celebrated treatment of the mixed constitution in book 6, even 41 42 43 44

See e.g. Jones (1992) 108–9; Nauta (2002) 382–3; Gibson (2006) 92–3. Levene (1997) is a fundamental treatment of divinity in the context of imperial panegyric. Cf. Bartsch (1994) 163–4 on divine comparisons in the Panegyricus; Levene (1997) 81–2; Rees (2001) 164; Gibson (2010) 126. On this section of Oration 2, see Moles (1990) 345–6. Oration 1.37–49 is a further treatment of Zeus and the issue of kingship; cf. Moles (1990) 316–18.

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though it takes a different turn with Dio’s very un-Polybian preference for kingship (3.50–7).45 However, the taste for contrast, whilst obviously presenting certain rhetorical advantages in terms of the opportunities for brilliant antithesis, should be seen as something which was especially available to those who wanted to set up Trajan and Domitian as a contrasting pair. In Pliny, this pairing tends to be ad hominem, and linked to the specific virtues of Trajan and the vices of Domitian, who is only mentioned by name twice in the Panegyricus (11.1, 20.4), but very clearly indicated as the negative example. If there is a generalizing tendency, it is in fact one that singles Trajan out as the example that all subsequent emperors, whether good or bad, have to be matched against. In Dio, the strategy is different in that a balanced antithesis of generalized good and bad kings is presented in the speeches. Specific details in Dio tend to be used not in relation to the emperor, but within the historical or quasi-fictional settings: thus in Oration 1, the speech is framed with details relating to Alexander the Great and Timotheus at the beginning (Or. 1.1–3), and to a story of Dio meeting an old woman on the banks of the Alpheus later on (Or. 1.50–8), who then tells him the story of Heracles’ choice; but the meat of the speech, the discussion of the qualities that make the good king, does not display anything like this level of specific detail. Certainly Dio’s speeches do not offer any parallel for the way in which Pliny offers discussion of Trajan’s measures on taxation and inheritance (Pan. 37–41, 43). The taste for antithesis in relation to Trajan and bad emperors, then, is something which the two orators share, but the use made of specific contemporary detail by Pliny is very different from the generalized views of kingship which are offered by Dio. Indeed, one might ask the question, to what extent do the speeches of Dio actually constitute panegyric? The answer will probably be ‘Not very much.’ It is true that there are passages in the speeches which do deal directly with the emperor, such as the statement at Oration 1.9 that the words need to be appropriate to Trajan, or the discussion of the emperor’s virtues at Oration 3.2–5 (though even that passage is cast in surprisingly general terms).46 But, if looked at overall, the speeches aim to praise Trajan through suggestive discussion of what an ideal king might be, with the implicit suggestion that the ideal king and Trajan might correspond in many ways. For Pliny, however, the details of Trajan’s achievements are what go together to make him an ideal princeps, one who will become 45 46

See further Moles (1990) 355–7. On this passage, see Moles (1990) 351–2.

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exemplary and ideal for those who are to come. Hence the greater emphasis on directness of praise in Pliny, whereas in Dio the philosophic guise in which the speeches are couched creates distance, and a sense of something generalized, which nevertheless is – in spite of all Dio’s protestations – generally favourable and even flattering towards Trajan. a new kind of praise? The way in which Pliny, as we have seen, cannot help evoking the equation of emperor and Jupiter which Dio is much more successful at controlling should remind us that Trajanic praise may not always be so straightforwardly innocent when set alongside its Domitianic predecessor. To this extent, it is useful to consider what the nature of the contemporary context itself is, as a means of seeing how far the divide set up by Pliny between the age of Domitian and that of Trajan is actually successful. Dio’s remark, mentioned above, that he was someone who told the truth both in the past and in the present under Trajan (Or. 3.12–13), is a useful passage to bear in mind when probing the extent to which Trajanic rhetoric may or may not succeed in its anxious task of self-definition against the previous age. Pliny in particular wants to see a clear divide. This comes through most clearly when he establishes a link between the nature of the age and the type of discourse which it produces: discernatur orationibus nostris diuersitas temporum, et ex ipso genere gratiarum agendarum intellegatur cui quando sint actae (‘let the different quality of the age be marked out in our speeches, and from the very type of thanks that are to be expressed, let it be understood who is being given them, and when’, Pan. 2.3).47 At a stroke Pliny conveys how Trajan leads to new kinds of utterance (cf. Tac. Hist. 1.1.4, quoted above). Inevitably, given the damnatio memoriae which was applied to Domitian after his death,48 there are no surviving examples of oratory from his reign, though we do at least hear of the trials that are documented as having taken place under him; examples include the trials of figures such as Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio mentioned by Tacitus in the Agricola (2.1, 45.1). What we do have, however, is evidence of various types of writers who bridge the gap between Domitian and Trajan. For the orators, we should note that the contemporary context includes Pliny and Tacitus, 47 48

On this passage, see Bartsch (1994) 157. On which see further Varner (2004) 111–135. The term damnatio memoriae itself is of course modern, but its uses are recognized by Varner (2004) 2 and n. 5.

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who practised oratory during Domitian’s reign as well as during that of Trajan.49 But there are also other figures who carried on their work from Domitian’s reign into the new age. If we turn to poetry, the career of Martial is illustrative as well of the way in which neither Trajan’s accession in early 98 nor even the dramatic moment of Domitian’s assassination in September 96 in fact marks a decisive and irrevocable watershed moment – at least in terms of literature.50 A figure such as Silius Italicus, who may have continued working on his Punica into the time of Trajan, is an even more instructive case in point, since his oratorical exploits (or failures) took place under Nero (reigned 54–68), when he appears to have acted as a delator, only for him to survive the entire Flavian period, into the time of Nerva and Trajan. The question asked in Tacitus’ Dialogus, as to where one might draw the line in relation to where ancient and modern literature begin and end (see e.g. the speech of Aper at Tac. Dial. 16.4–18.1), is a relevant parallel here, so that, even on simple chronological grounds, the issue about what is and what is not contemporary to Pliny’s Panegyricus is not a straightforward one. If viewed from the perspective of ideology, the impression Pliny strives to give in the Panegyricus is that modes of contemporary praise have completely changed.51 Thus, Pliny praises Trajan for directing thanks being offered for his qualities towards Jupiter Optimus Maximus, rather than to his own genius: simili reuerentia, Caesar, non apud genium tuum bonitati tuae gratias agi, sed apud numen Iouis optimi maximi pateris: illi debere nos quidquid tibi debeamus, illius quod bene facias muneris esse qui te dedit. (Plin. Pan. 52.6) With similar reverence, Caesar, you do not allow thanks to be offered for your goodness in the name of your genius, but in the name of the divinity of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, on the grounds that we owe to him whatever we owe to you, and that whatever you do well is through the gift of him who gave you to us.

Pliny’s point can be borne out here if we contrast it with a passage from Domitianic literature. In Silv. 5.1, a poem addressed to an imperial freedman, Abascantus, who has lost his wife, Statius imagines the dead woman instructing Abascantus on what he should do in the light of her death: 49 50 51

For the suggestion that Tacitus’ fame as an orator goes back to Domitian’s reign, see Syme (1958a) 66, though Tacitus’ extremely successful public career will in any case have required oratorical expertise. Coleman (2000) is a crucial treatment of the continuities and differing shadings of emphasis that characterize the literary output that follows on from Domitian’s death. Cf. Bartsch (1994) 150–2 on Pan. 2.1–2.

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tu limite coepto tende libens sacrumque latus geniumque potentem inrequietus ama. (Stat. Silv. 5.1.186–8) Go gladly on the path you have started, and tirelessly adore the sacred presence and the powerful godhead.

The way in which the Statius passage blatantly includes an instruction to Abascantus to love the genius of Domitian may be felt to confirm the point made by Pliny in Pan. 2.3 that the praise he offers really is something different from what had gone before. Other passages in the speech, however, illustrate a more nuanced kind of overlap with the past. To take a small instance first, we can observe how the emperor’s exertions on the battlefield are described through reference to the emperor’s sweat. The orator imagines a time when posterity will long to know about the sites of Trajan’s military achievements: ueniet ergo tempus quo posteri uisere uisendumque tradere minoribus suis gestient, quis sudores tuos hauserit campus, quae refectiones tuas arbores, quae somnum saxa praetexerint . . . (Plin. Pan. 15.4) The time will therefore come when posterity will want to see and hand over to its descendants to see, what field soaked up your sweat, what trees sheltered your moments of refreshment, what rocks sheltered your sleep . . .

This image of sweat as an index of exertion can be paralleled with reference to Domitian: at Silv. 5.1.134, Statius imagines Abascantus’ wife wanting her husband to stand by Domitian in battle, sprinkled by sweat from his great spear. A more significant example is Pan. 30–1, where Pliny records, with some pleasure, the circumstances of a failure of the Nile flood in Egypt, and Trajan’s actions in response in order to help the Egyptians. The generally negative attitude towards Egypt that emerges here is part of a long tradition in Latin literature,52 but again Silv. 5.1 furnishes a parallel for the idea that an emperor might be concerned with the condition of the Nile, when Statius imagines Abascantus’ concerns on behalf of Domitian about whether the Nile has flooded or not (Silv. 5.1.99–100). Even the theme of how praise itself is to be received, something where Pliny is so anxious to draw distinctions, presents a Domitianic parallel: thus Ruurd Nauta has shown how Pliny’s desire not to offend Trajan with too much praise (Pan. 3.2) can be paralleled in the preface to Martial’s eighth book, where 52

See Gibson (2006) 359 for examples.

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Martial is keen that Domitian should not be worn down by too much laudation:53 quam [sc. materiam] quidem subinde aliqua iocorum mixtura uariare temptauimus, ne caelesti uerecundiae tuae laudes suas, quae facilius te fatigare possint quam nos satiare, omnis uersus ingeret. (Mart. 8 praef. 6–9) this material at least I have from time to time attempted to vary with a certain leavening of jests, lest every verse heap upon your heavenly modesty its praises which could more easily tire you rather than sating me.

Similarly, the idea of the emperor actively restraining praise, one that is so important in Pliny (see e.g. Pan. 4.2, where Trajan is praised for preventing private expressions of thanks, and only allowing public thanksgivings because they are at the behest of the senate), can in fact be found in Statius’ Silvae, where he describes the people’s acclamations for Domitian:54 tollunt innumeras ad astra uoces Saturnalia principis sonantes et dulci dominum fauore clamant: hoc solum uetuit licere Caesar. (Stat. Silv. 1.6.81–4) They raise countless voices to the stars that ring out the emperor’s Saturnalia, and they shout out that he is their master with sweet expression of favour: this is the only thing that Caesar forbade them to be allowed.

Whilst it is true that the occasion is the Saturnalia, which might have some relevance to this incident, it is nevertheless the case here that Domitian’s action in refusing and moderating praise, even if it may only have been momentary, is seen as praiseworthy in the context of the poem. Another disconcerting (from a Plinian perspective) example of Domitianic modesty is found at Silv. 4.2.42–3, where Statius describes being present at a banquet given by the emperor and having the chance to see the emperor ‘modestly lowering the standards of his own fortune’ (summittentemque modeste / fortunae uexilla suae).55 The example is particularly striking as it comes from a significant Domitianic grouping, the first three poems of Silv. 4. For reasons of space I shall confine my remarks here to the first two poems, but it should be noted briefly that the third poem, 53 54

55

Nauta (2002) 412–13. Thompson (1984) offers an important treatment of this passage, arguing that the reticence ascribed to Domitian here may be genuine. See also Bartsch (1994) 163; for discussion of the whole poem, see Nauta (2002) 396–402. Though note that Domitian’s modesty would of course be criticized subsequently as being hypocritical: see Coleman (1988) 97 on this passage, who cites Suet. Dom. 2.2 simulauit et ipse mire modestiam.

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on Domitian’s Via Domitiana in Campania, fits into the pattern of praise for imperial euergetism of the kind which we have encountered before in this chapter, both in relation to Nerva and in relation to Trajan. In the first poem, Statius praises the seventeenth consulship of Domitian. The poem affords opportunities for interesting comparison both in terms of the theme of imperial consulships and as a version of a formal utterance of praise to the emperor. On the surface, Statius presents something very different, with most of the poem being given over to a speech from the god Janus (Domitian’s consulship naturally was held at the start of the year in question, 95). All the same, there are points of contact: thus the reference to the delight felt by those in Rome (Silv. 4.1.25–7) can be compared to scenes such as Plin. Pan. 22, where Pliny recounts Trajan’s entry into Rome for the first time after his accession in absentia.56 Similarly, the emphasis on the hope that the emperor will hold more consulships is perhaps not so different from the way in which Trajan can be praised by Pliny. Thus Statius’ suggestion that Domitian repeatedly refuses and rejects honours that are offered to him (Silv. 4.1.33–5) has clear parallels with the situation with Trajan, who is habitually presented as keen to reject honours.57 But when Statius refers to Domitian’s reluctance to hold the consulship at the outset of his poem, the parallels with Pliny may turn out to be uncomfortable: precibusque receptis, curia Caesareum gaudet uicisse pudorem. (Stat. Silv. 4.1.9–10) and when their prayers have been accepted, the senate rejoices to have overcome Caesar’s sense of modesty.

At much greater length, Pliny describes Trajan’s desire not to be consul for a third time in 99 and then in 100 ce (Pan. 57–60), and the appeals that were made to him to reconsider. Within this passage, Pliny even points out that the manner in which Trajan refused the consulship was different from the way others had done so, since others rejected the office as being too unimportant, whereas Trajan rejected it as if it were the greatest thing

56 57

For such scenes of the return of a leading figure to a city, see Woodman (1977) 130–1 on Vell. 2.103–104.1. See Bartsch (1994) 164. Coleman (1988) 68 on Silv. 4.1.10 rightly points out that feigned refusal to hold honours was characteristic of numerous Roman rulers; cf. Woodman (1977) 213 on Vell. 2.122.1.

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(Pan. 59.1). But when Pliny describes how Trajan changed his mind, the parallel with Statius’ language of victory over a modest emperor is striking:58 His tot tantisque rationibus quamquam multum reluctata uerecundia principis nostri tandem tamen cessit. (Plin. Pan. 60.4) Though it had struggled greatly with these reasons that were so many and so important, all the same the modesty of our princeps at last gave in.

The passage dealing with the request for Trajan to hold a fourth consulship in 101 is similar (Pan. 78–9), and one can note there how Pliny places the emphasis on the fact that it is the senate which is putting pressure on Trajan to hold the office, just as Statius had referred to the curia in connection with Domitian (Silv. 4.1.10). Within the same poem, we can also note how Statius uses the device of comparison with predecessors in relation to their conduct whilst holding consulships, just as Pliny does. Thus at Silv. 4.1.27– 33, Statius says that there has been nothing to compare with Domitian’s consulship before, and then challenges Vetustas (Antiquity) to produce examples worthy of Domitian: Augustus is then dismissed with the remark that he only came to deserve his consulships late on (sero, 32). Pliny offers something similar in Pan. 57, where he describes first how two consuls nominated in Nero’s final year, 68, were deprived of the consulship, so that Nero could hold it himself (Pan. 57.1–2), and then mentions how even under the republic in its heyday there were those who held the consulship five or six times, before then mentioning Augustus and Caesar (admittedly without the note of censure of Augustus imparted by Statius). If we turn to Silv. 4.2, dealing with Statius’ presence at a banquet given by Domitian, it might appear on the surface that there is little in common between Statius’ poem, which might seem an easy target for criticism as servile flattery, and Pliny’s speech. When Statius claims that the experience of dinner in Domitian’s palace makes him think that he is reclining in the presence of Jupiter (Silv. 4.2.10–12), we might seem to be very far from Pliny’s picture of the more modest Trajan, especially when Statius asks whether he is even able to look at Domitian, when he is reclining at his table: tene ego, regnator terrarum orbisque subacti magne parens, te, spes hominum, te, cura deorum, cerno iacens? (Stat. Silv. 4.2.14–16) 58

Cf. Vell. 2.124.2.

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Is it you that I see as I recline, ruler of the earth and great father of the conquered world, you, the hope of men, you, who are a care to the gods?

There is of course nothing in the Panegyricus comparable to Statius’ expression of wonder at his ability to look at Domitian.59 However, the other elements of Statius’ praise of Domitian here can be paralleled in the speech: Pliny refers to Trajan in terms of universal rule at Pan. 12.1 (at nunc rediit omnibus terror et metus et uotum imperata faciendi, ‘but now terror and fear has returned to all, and the prayer that they may do what they are ordered to’), in the context of a general discussion of how barbarian nations are obedient to Rome. Pliny also calls Trajan parens, noting indeed that parens is a word that can be used of Trajan whereas before Domitian was accustomed to be called dominus: nusquam ut deo, nusquam ut numini blandiamur: non enim de tyranno, sed de ciue, non de domino, sed de parente loquimur (‘nowhere let us flatter him as a god, nowhere as a divinity: for we are not speaking of a tyrant, but of a citizen, not of a master, but of a parent’, Pan. 2.3).60 This usage, however, to which Pliny so frequently has recourse, can be uncomfortably paralleled in Statius and Martial, but with reference to Domitian:61 it is of course even more striking that Pliny’s general point in Pan. 2.3, that the old flatteries are no longer needed, is also a move made by Martial 10.72 (note especially dicturus dominum deumque non sum, ‘I am not about to speak of a lord and god’, 10.72.3). Similarly, the incentive for citizens to have children under Trajan is marked out with a quadruple repetition of spes at Pan. 27.1,62 where Trajan gives parents hopes of sustenance, donatives, liberty and freedom from care; comparable too is the end of the Panegyricus, where, without using the word spes, Pliny makes his closing prayer to the gods for Trajan’s continued well-being, remarking that simplex cunctaque ista complexum omnium uotum est, salus principis (‘everyone’s prayer is simple and embraces all those things, the safety of the 59

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For Pliny’s experience of dining with Trajan, see Ep. 6.31.13, emphasizing Trajan’s modest habits. Other sections of this letter (2, 13–14) are, however, more lavish in their praise of the days spent by Trajan’s consilium with the emperor at Centum Cellae; see further the suggestive discussion of Nore˜na (2007) 255. Durry (1938) 86 on Pan. 2.3 laconically but rightly (‘pourtant Pline, dans ses lettres, dit a` Trajan domine’) notes the manner in which Trajan is addressed as dominus in Pliny’s Bithynian correspondence in book 10: see e.g. Ep. 10.2.1, where Sherwin-White (1966) 557–8 perhaps over-anxiously explains that dominus also had a function in social usage, and ‘was a natural term of address from the equestrian procurators to the Princeps, and easily adopted by the legates’, and see also Bartsch (1994) 166 and n. 41. For parens applied to the emperor, cf. Mart. 7.7.5, 9.5.1; Stat. Silv. 1.2.178, 4.1.17; Pan. 4.2, 6.1, 10.6, 21.4, 26.3, 29.2, 39.5, 53.1, 67.1, 87.1, 87.3, 94.4. For this topos, see the references collected by Woodman (1977) 135 on Vell. 2.103.5.

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princeps’, Pan. 94.2). And the allied idea of the emperor as a concern for the gods, a cura deorum, as Statius phrases it in the passage above, is also found in Pliny’s speech, when Pliny opens the Panegyricus with the observation that Trajan’s accession resolves the question of whether or not rulers are given to the earth by chance or by fate, since Trajan was chosen with the active involvement of Jupiter (Pan. 1.4–6).63 This passage is incidentally the opposite of Tacitus’ bleak observation at the outset of the Histories that the events of the civil war demonstrated that the gods were concerned not for human safety, but for taking vengeance on mortals (Tac. Hist. 1.3.2).64 Thus even a passage in Statius which appears to contain a flagrant example of the kind of flattering hyperbole which Pliny is so anxious to distance himself from in the Panegyricus nevertheless contains a number of elements which can all be paralleled in Pliny’s speech. What emerges from a consideration of the kinds of crossover that are illustrated here between Domitianic literature and the Panegyricus is that the Plinian attempt to control and define notions of what is contemporary and what is past is doomed to failure. However much Pliny attempts to differentiate present and past modes of discourse, the sheer intertextuality of language itself and the commonplaces of praise mean that his praise of Trajan cannot help but recall praise of Domitian. And of course, more widely, the attempt to draw a line under the Domitianic age at 96 ce, popular not only in antiquity but in much scholarship too until only very recently, was not likely to work. K. M. Coleman has rightly noted how the anecdote in Pliny’s Ep. 4.22.6 of the emperor Nerva asking where the notorious Catullus Messalinus would be if he was still alive, and getting the answer from one of his companions that he would be having dinner with them, points to the personal continuities,65 but the story may be seen as reflecting other kinds of continuity as well, that one emperor might well act or be treated in the same way as another would be. Ultimately, if we are thinking of the contemporary contexts of the Panegyricus, we have to 63

64 65

Compare too the reference at Pan. 94.3 to the cura which is already attributed to Jupiter in respect of Trajan: nec uero nouam tibi iniungimus curam. tu enim iam tunc illum in tutelam recepisti. At Pan. 80.3, Pliny suggests an overlap between imperial and divine cares: O uere principis atque etiam dei curas, reconciliare aemulas ciuitates, tumentesque populos non imperio magis quam ratione compescere; intercedere iniquitatibus magistratuum, infectumque reddere quidquid fieri non oportuerit; postremo uelocissimi sideris more omnia inuisere omnia audire, et undecumque inuocatum statim uelut adesse et adsistere! Damon (2003) 97 ad loc. compares Pan. 35.4 diuus Titus securitati nostrae ultionique prospexerat ideoque numinibus aequatus est. The anecdote is quoted in full by Roche, pp. 45–6 in this volume. Coleman (2000) 27. On Pliny’s own career under Domitian, see e.g. Syme (1958a) 75–85; Sherwin–White (1966) 73–5; Bartsch (1994) 167–9.

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reflect that the process of drawing the line which determines what is and what is not contemporary was an ideological one in Pliny’s time, and that to some extent we are unable to escape from that contingency. Thus Pliny’s attempts to suggest that the literature of the new age is something different from what has gone before are perhaps to be treated with some caution.

chapter 7

Politics and the sublime in the Panegyricus G. O. Hutchinson

How does the thought of the Panegyricus relate to the aesthetics that underlie it? The question has been little explored; but what we have is a version of the speech which Pliny circulated partly as a work of art. Oratorical art involves aesthetic ideas; in seeing how those aesthetic ideas are realized, we will see in turn how the political ideas are realized, in an ill-comprehended achievement of Roman prose. 1 Nec uero adfectanda sunt semper | elata et excelsa | (‘nor should one strive perpetually for lofty and exalted effects’, Ep. 3.13.4). So Pliny on this speech. The passage indicates that elevation is important, even dominant, in the speech. Formally Pliny is emphasizing his artful variety, a value that matters to him (cf. 3.13.4 with e.g. 5.17.2); likewise he stresses his expression and technique rather than his speaking magnifice ‘grandly’ (3.13.2–3). But we need not be very experienced readers of Pliny or students of negatives to see that Pliny is with modest indirectness pointing our attention precisely to the sublime element in his speech (we shall return to the word ‘sublime’). Other letters make it clear that sublimity in oratory is a vital concept for Pliny. Its permissibility is the focus of controversy; but the controversy is in Pliny another indirect mode of self-display. There is every reason, then, to explore the nature of sublimity in the Panegyricus.2 It will give some useful pointers if we begin from modern ideas of the sublime, not to import anachronism, but for stimulation and contrast. The 1

2

I am grateful for help from Mr H. Day, and Professors P. Cheney, P. R. Hardie, A. Laird, C. Martindale and J. I. Porter. Because of space, this chapter will concentrate on Pliny’s approach, not its context in controversy (cf. Gamberini (1983) 12–26); there Cicero and the Atticists, Quintilian and the Senecans, play parts in oratory’s perpetual tug-of-war between restraint and daring. On the Panegyricus’ style more technically, see Gamberini (1983) 377–448. This chapter also omits epideictic and panegyric traditions, dealt with by other contributors. Within this chapter, the symbol | denotes a rhythmical close: i.e. one of ¯ x ¯ ¯˘¯, ¯˘¯¯, ¯˘¯˘¯, ¯˘¯¯; a final ¯ may be replaced by a breuis in longo, any other ¯ by ˘˘.  denotes overlapping rhythmical closes. For more detail see Hutchinson (1995); cf. Fedeli (1989a) 420–1. Ep. 3.13.4 on shade commending light suggests the superior importance of elevation there.

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idea has been loaded with vast, and shifting, significance from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. Some overlapping sources of sublime experience have been: art; nature; historical events; human nobility; the divine. Events have become particularly important in recent discussion, with huge and spectacular atrocities creeping into the place of nature, so important in the eighteenth century; overwhelming shock and horror at these extraordinary events are seen as sublime emotions. Events and nobility are combined in the question of the sublime in politics. So National Socialism is held to have aimed at a sublime and anti-rational effect. It has been argued that for Michelet in the nineteenth century the Terror of the French Revolution produced a false sublime. Less a matter of projected image is the sublimity for Schiller of freedom and struggles for freedom. All this will prove of interest for the Panegyricus.3 A relation between politics, history and sublimity is evident in much ancient discussion. Longinus, whenever he is writing, introduces a philosopher to argue that sublimity requires the great men whom democracy can nurse: freedom encourages both ‘the aspirations of the great-minded’ (t‡ jronžmata tän megalojr»nwn) and competition for oratorical eminence. Imperial rule is contrasted, so the reference (44.3, 5) to ‘just slavery’ suggests; competition perhaps especially evokes the fourth century bce. Maternus in Tacitus’ Dialogus presents a related view. The tumult of the Greek fourth, or the Roman first, century bce is formally viewed as undesirable; but it kept Demosthenes (?) from any low utterance (36.1), and left oratory tanto altior et excelsior | (‘all the higher and loftier’, 37.8). The amplitudo (‘importance’) of events made Demosthenes and Cicero great (37.6; cf. Ann. 4.32). Cicero implies the Philippics show a semn»terov et politikÛterov (‘grander and more politically minded’) Demosthenes than his law-court speeches (Att. 2.1.3; cf. Orat. 111, Ad Brut. 2.3.4). A relation between politics and sublimity in a speech on the emperor who allegedly restored freedom seems eminently plausible.4 This is the moment to look more closely at the idea of sublimity in Pliny. He uses terms of height, size and divinity to express what we might call an 3

4

The sublime and Nazism: Hoffmann (2006) 252–3; Michelet: Peyrache-Leborgne (1997) 394–5; Schiller: Barone (2004) esp. 215–19. Events: Ray (2005) e.g. 5, 10; Shaw (2006) 120–30. More widely ˇ zek (1989); Ashfield and de Bolla (1996); Hartmann (1997); (often with discussion of Longinus): Ziˇ Frank (1999); Zima (2002); Gilby (2006); Till (2006). Bartsch (1994) 204–6 discusses the relation of Longinus 44 and Maternus; but Heath (1999) radically places Longinus in the third century ce. Hermog. Id. 1.9 pp. 266–7 Rabe involves political freedom in the splendour (lampr»thv) of Dem. 18.208; cf. Long. 16.2. For Tac. Dial. 36.1, cf. G¨ungerich (1980) 156, and note Quint. Inst. 10.1.76–80. Panegyricus and Dialogus: Bru`ere (1954); G¨ungerich (1956); Brink (1994) 265–9; Mayer (2001) 23–5; Woytek (2006) 115–56; but Tacitus’ priority has not in my view been established.

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elevated element in oratory. Ep. 9.26 contains his longest discussion. Here it seems that he is particularly concerned with expression: the quotations from Demosthenes are not all marked by elevation of content. But the magnificence of Demosthenes’ political stance, and to some degree of Aeschines’, is not readily excluded; and the aesthetic risk run by the orator is also seen as sublime. Sublimity contains an element that goes beyond merely grandiose utterance: it involves an artistically triumphant trespassing of boundaries. Demosthenes’ and Cicero’s daring (8 audeat, 9 audacia; contra 13 timidum) is not simply daring to be like poetry (cf. 8 minus audeat: ‘as if Cicero dared less than poets!’). Since the risk is of aesthetic disaster, fine judgement is relevant, as it would not be in nature: the focus of the ancient category is particularly on art. But it is clear that within art nobility and events are sources of the sublime for Pliny. So in Ep. 8.4 the elata . . . materia (‘exalted subject matter’), which requires the poet Caninius to rise high, is Trajan’s Dacian campaign; its greatness includes the king pulsum regia, pulsum etiam uita . . . nihil desperantem (‘driven from his court, driven from his life, but never despairing’, Ep. 8.4.2). This moral elevation in the midst of external collapse, captured too in Trajan’s Column, will translate into sublime poetry, if Caninius can match its level and vastness. The idea of daunting challenge shows that more than mere dignity of language is required.5 Demosthenes is central in Ep. 9.26, and a crucial model for Pliny: cf. 1.2 (other end of the series), 6.33.11, 7.30.5. Demosthenes 18, like Cicero’s Second Philippic and In Pisonem, must be a significant overall model for a speech contrasting a good and a bad figure, even if the Panegyricus’ detailed intertextuality is built mainly from Latin, as often in this period. At all events, Demosthenes 18 makes a rewarding comparison with Pliny’s strategy of the sublime, especially in its treatment of Aeschines. Demosthenes’ Aeschines to some degree embodies attempts at grandeur which are aesthetically unsuccessful and politically deceptive: he is toÓ semnol»gou toutou© (‘this speaker of grand words’, 18.133, cf. 19.255), followed by log†ria dÅsthna meletžsav (‘having practised your wretched little speeches’; cf. also 18.258). His words are –pacqe±v (‘ponderous’ as well as ‘tiresome’, 18.127), full of tragic and moral bombast (127), from the 5

On the Dacian War and its context see Stefan (2005); more briefly: G˘azdac (2002), 20–2. The death of Decebalus is scene cxlv on Trajan’s Column (Lepper and Frere (1988) 176–7; Settis (1988) 526; Coarelli (2000) 215); the theme is widely diffused on pottery, including lamps (Stefan (2005) 692). For sublimity and elevation in Ep. 9.26 and elsewhere, cf. Quadlbauer (1958) esp. 107–9 (I could not see Quadlbauer (1949), but cf. Fedeli (1989a) 418); Cova (1966) esp. 37–47, 141–5; Picone (1977) esp. 72–83; Armisen-Marchetti (1990); Hutchinson (1993) esp. 12–15; Cugusi (2003); Delarue (2004).

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par†shmov çžtwr (‘counterfeit speaker’, 242). But he is above all an embodiment of lowness and mikroyuc©a (‘little-mindedness’, 279), striving maliciously and jealously (121, 279, 303) against the noble and upright policies and character of Demosthenes. Demosthenes’ policies are not, unlike Aeschines’, tapein»n or tv p»lewv ˆn†xion (‘low’ or ‘unworthy of the city’, 18.108, cf. 178).6 Pliny’s Domitian is a very different figure. Not that he has Philip’s megaloyuc©a (‘greatness of mind’, Dem. 18.67). He presents, within the speech, a substantial and false attempt to attain sublimity. He aimed at a fearsome divinity; 52.7 shows sacrifices of (a large part of ) ingentes hostiarum greges | (‘mighty herds of victims’), intended for Jupiter’s temple, at Domitian’s statue: cum saeuissimi domini | atrocissima effigies | tanto uictimarum | cruore coleretur | quantum ipse humani sanguinis  profundebat. | (Plin. Pan. 52.7) since the appalling statue of the savage master was worshipped with as much gore of victims as he himself used to shed the blood of humans.

He is here monstrous, not absurd. But his truces horrendasque imagines | (‘fierce and terrible images’, 52.5) were physically deconstructed in the public attack. Their terrore et minis | (‘terror and threats’) were metamorphosed by fire. His building plans in their vast exploitation of nature falsely resemble the true sublimity with which Trajan overcomes nature: non . . . omnem etiam saltum immensa possessione circumuenis, | nec unius oculis | flumina montes maria deseruiunt | (‘you do not enclose every wood with limitless ownership, nor do the rivers, mountains and seas devote themselves to one master’s eyes’, 50.1; cf. 16.5: Trajan overcoming sea, rivers and mountains). Under Trajan non ut ante immanium transuectione saxorum | urbis tecta quatiuntur | (‘the buildings of the city are not shaken as before by the transportation of mighty rocks’, 51.1): the image has a suggestion of grandeur, but verges on the parody of a military campaign or an earthquake.7 Particularly notable is the climactic passage on Domitian’s palace, quam nuper illa immanissima belua | plurimo terrore munierat, | cum uelut quodam specu inclusa | nunc propinquorum sanguinem lamberet, | nunc se ad 6

7

Overall models: even on Cicero’s Philippics cf. Manuwald (2007) 135–6. For Demosthenes’ reputation cf. Drerup (1923) 104–13; Pernot (2006) esp. 206–20 for sublimity; Kremmydas (2007). For the aesthetic element in Demosthenes’ encounter with Aeschines, cf. e.g. Cic. De Orat. 26; Dion. Hal. Dem. 55–8. Caecilius had written a work comparing them (Suda k 1165.9 Adler; Ofenloch (1907) 1). For Demosthenes’ depiction of Aeschines cf. Dyck (1985); Easterling (1999); Worman (2008) 260–72. Domitian in Pliny: e.g. Orentzel (1980); Molin (1989) 787–8; Soverini (1989) esp. 539–40; Strobel (2003).

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clarissimorum ciuium strages caedesque proferret. | . . . ad hoc ipse occursu quoque uisuque terribilis: | superbia in fronte, | ira in oculis, | femineus pallor in corpore, | in ore impudentia multo rubore suffusa. | . . . ille tamen, quibus sibi parietibus et muris | salutem suam tueri uidebatur, | dolum secum et insidias | et ultorem scelerum deum inclusit.| dimouit perfregitque custodias Poena, | angustosque per aditus et obstructos | non secus ac per apertas fores | et inuitantia limina irrupit: | longe tunc illi diuinitas sua, | longe arcana illa cubilia saeuique secessus, | in quos timore et superbia et odio hominum agebatur. | (Plin. Pan. 48.3–49.1) Not long ago that most monstrous beast had fortified it with the greatest terror: as if shut in some cave, the beast would now lick the blood of its family, now bring itself out to slaughter illustrious citizens. . . . He himself was there too, fearful even to meet or see; there was arrogance on his brow, anger in his eyes, a womanish paleness in his body, a wantonness and redness all over his face. . . . He thought he was protecting his safety with the walls of rooms and house; but within those walls he had shut in with himself deceptive attack and a god to avenge his crimes. The watch was dispersed and broken through by Punishment; she burst through the narrow and blocked entrances as if they were open doors and welcoming thresholds. Being divine did not help him then; nor did those secret bedrooms and savage retreats, into which he was driven by fear, arrogance and hatred of mankind.

The immanissima belua | is Ciceronian language, and a subhuman entity; but the image is developed with a kind of grandeur unlike depictions of Aeschines, or even Antony or Clodius. The image of licking blood recalls Polybius on the tyrant Philip V (7.13.6) or Lucan’s ironic picture of Caesar’s picture of a Sulla-like Pompey (1.327–32; Cic. Phil. 2.71 is much less developed). The sequence of description after uisuque terribilis | brings out the less sublime fall into effeminacy. In 49 the tyrant’s own fear becomes apparent, with Demosthenic suggestions of a trust in walls and a cowardly confinement to the house (18.299, cit. Plin. Ep. 9.26; 97 k‹n –n o«k©skwi tiv aËt¼n kaqe©rxav thri ‘even if one shuts oneself in a room and guards oneself’, cf. 217). Real divine agency (ultorem . . . deum, Poena) undoes Domitian’s false divinity. Pliny’s language and the events deconstruct Domitian’s false sublimity. The events themselves become grimly sublime through Pliny’s language, which here powerfully draws on the poetry quoted by Dem. 19.255, Solon fr. 4.26–8 West. Throughout the speech Domitian’s attempt at political sublimity is exposed and undone.8 8

For Poena cf. esp. Hor. Carm. 3.2.31–2; also Aesch. 1.190–1. The speech presents Domitian’s image of himself as his own creation. This chapter does not discuss actual resemblances between Pliny’s praise of Trajan and earlier writers’ praise of Domitian, for which see Gibson’s excellent discussion above, pp. 104–24. In my view, within the speech any consciousness of that earlier praise will be turned to account: either the speech will encourage a selective and distorted impression

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Trajan’s sublimity is authentic and unsought; it is more profound even than the sublimity of terrible events. The most straightforward element is nature (always mediated through Pliny’s art). The Rhine, Danube and Nile, standard objects of wonder, are sources of magnificence for Demetrius (Eloc. 121), and connected with the sublime by Longinus (35.4). Cicero uses them in lauding Caesar’s deeds (stupescent posteri . . . Rhenum, Oceanum, Nilum, ‘posterity will be amazed at the Rhine, the Ocean, and the Nile’, Marc. 28). These, and the grandeur of distance (Kant’s mathematical sublime), are surpassed or undone by Trajan, both through action and through the mind: cum . . . Rhenumque et Euphraten | admirationis tuae societate  coniungeres | (Plin. Pan. 14.1) when you joined Rhine and Euphrates to unite in wonder at you omnia haec tam prona tamque cedentia uirtutibus tuis sentiet, | ut subsedisse montes, | flumina exaruisse, | interceptum mare, | inlatasque sibi non classes nostras sed terras ipsas arbitretur. | (Plin. Pan. 16.5) [such a king] will perceive all these things yielding so readily to your powers that he will think the mountains have sunk, the rivers have dried, the sea has been diverted, that not our ships but our very land has been brought against him. magnificum, Caesar, et tuum | disiunctissimas terras | munificentiae ingenio uelut admouere, | immensaque spatia liberalitate contrahere . . . | (Plin. Pan. 25.5) It is a magnificent action, and your kind of action, Caesar, to move most remote lands here, as it were, by your brilliant generosity, and to draw huge spaces together by your munificence . . . post haec, si uolet, Nilus amet alueum suum | et fluminis modum seruet. | (Plin. Pan. 31.4) From now on, the Nile, if it chooses, can hug its channel and keep the limits expected of a river.9

Divinity is in antiquity a fundamental source of the sublime. Longinus is particularly interested in the sublime infringement of the boundary between mortal and god (1.2, 8.2, 9.7, 16.2 (quoting Dem. 18.208)). Pliny

9

of that praise, or it is to be seen as making truly points which earlier praise had made falsely (cf. p. 135 below). Danube and Euphrates on Trajan’s coinage: RIC nos. 100, 642 (plates 8.142, 11.191); BMCRE nos. 395–9 (plate 15.6), 1033–40 (plate 42.4); Belloni nos. 108, 466 (plates 5 and 24), Banti (1983) nos. 28–31; Richier (1997) 601–2, 605 (plates 3.2, 3.4). Rhine on Domitian’s coinage: RIC no. 362 (cf. Stat. Theb. 1.19 on Rhine and Danube). Cf. also Opp. Hal. 2.678–9. For Pan. 12.3–4 note the paradoxographical [Arist.] Mir. 846b29–32.

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himself presents an approach to that boundary as sublime in Ep. 9.26.4, 13 dis maris proximus | (the helmsmen who masters stormy seas is held to be ‘very close in rank to the gods of the sea’). This takes us at once to the beginning of the Panegyricus (quod . . . pulchrius munus deorum | quam castus et sanctus | et dis simillimus princeps? | ‘what lovelier gift of the gods is there than a pure and upright princeps, very like the gods?’, 1.3; cf. 7.5). The last phrase strikingly advances and complicates the thought; the jump from the preceding adjectives hints at an important point. Trajan does not assert his own divinity; Domitian falsely asserted his own divinity; Pliny truly asserts Trajan’s near-divinity, and implies his future divinity. It is through Pliny’s language that Trajan sublimely reaches the border; but Trajan’s own restraint attains a special kind of sublimity through denying sublimity. Nusquam ut deo, nusquam ut numini blandiamur | . . . hoc magis excellit atque eminet, | quod unum [sc. se] ex nobis putat | nec minus hominem se quam hominibus praeesse meminit | (‘under no circumstances let us flatter him as if he were a god or divine power . . . he excels (rises above) us all the more because he thinks he is one of us and remembers he is a mortal no less than he remembers it is mortals he is in charge of’, 2.3–4). Excellit atque eminet | suggests elevation (cf. 24.4).10 Pliny’s words and Trajan’s thoughts play artfully around the theme, but also suggest sublimity. In chapter 11 – tu sideribus patrem intulisti | non . . . non . . . non . . . sed quia deum credis. | minus hoc est cum fit ab iis qui et sese deos putant. | sed licet illum aris puluinaribus flamine | colas, non alio magis tamen deum et facis et probas quam quod ipse talis es. | (Plin. Pan. 11.2–3) You brought your father to the stars not to . . . or . . . or . . . but because you think he is a god. This is of less account when done by those who think themselves gods too. But though you worship him with altars, gods’ couches and a priest, nothing you do makes and proves him a god more than you being as you are.

– quia deum credis | has an almost humorous simplicity; the swipe at Domitian that follows uses simple language with aggressive irony. But after the religious pomp of aris puluinaribus flamine |, the final talis es through simple words conveys Trajan’s supreme greatness of character (cf. 27.1). In 52.6, after the destruction of Domitian’s impious magnificence, we learn that Trajan piously has thanks for his bonitas ‘kindness’ directed to Jupiter, not his own genius: illi debere nos | quidquid tibi debeamus, | illius 10

On Trajan and divinity in the Panegyricus cf. Bartsch (1994) 1–4; Braund (1998) 63–4; M´ethy (2000) 397–400. For the divine and the sublime (and semn»thv ‘grandeur’) cf. Hagedorn (1964) 30–3.

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quod bene facias muneris esse qui te dedit | (‘you say that it is it to him we owe whatever we owe to you: it is thanks to him who gave you that you do well’). The indicative dedit at the end suggests a move from Trajan’s thought into Pliny’s. The simple language of te dedit, with no nobis, rises into grandeur, made more sublime by the preceding renunciation and Trajan’s understated bene facias. We can see the grandeur from 80.5, where te dedit comes again, of Jupiter, but in an exalted passage where Trajan is made Jupiter’s earthly equivalent, and likened to a swift star (cf. 35.5 of the sun, and also 19.1). In this passage Pliny pushes sublimely at the limits he sets himself: o uere principis atque etiam dei curas | (‘ah! these are truly the concerns of a princeps and even a god’, 80.3). The uere in theory applies to dei too, though etiam marks the stretching; the genitive permits a mere comparison with a god, though the parallel with principis hints towards an assertion. The exclamation connects the utterance to a surge of emotion; the talia esse crediderim | (‘such things, I would think’) comparing Trajan’s actions to Jupiter’s (80.4) locates the comparison in Pliny’s subjectivity.11 Events and nobility together take us to the heart of the paradoxical sublime which Trajan embodies, a sublime based on his denial of the sublime.12 It is part of this paradox that apparently slight occurrences, as well as historically momentous happenings, can be full of importance. We may start, however, with Trajan’s crucial entry into Rome in 99 ce. In the background stand Horace’s depictions of Augustus’ returns, and Cicero’s proud portrayal of his own return and contrast with Piso’s (Pis. 51–5, moving into attack on Piso’s philosophical defence of his modestly avoiding a triumph). Pliny exploits the imagery of height often used for the sublime. Trajan, unlike other principes, was not carried in on men’s shoulders.

11

12

Cf. Pan. 4.3–4. In 78.4 it is the whole senate’s subjectivity; Pliny has just set noble action against the brevity of life (78.2, cf. Dem. 18.97), and contrasted the false belief of some principes in their own divinity. As to Jupiter, Trajan actually takes over Domitian’s most extreme coin-type, in which he holds a thunderbolt: BMCRE2 Domitian nos. 381, 410 (plates 75.8, 77.5), Trajan no. 825 (plate 30.4); Carradice (1983) 114, 144 (plate 10.4). For neither princeps will the type suggest identity with Jupiter (there seem to me problems with the traditio fulminis alleged on the Beneventum arch, left attic panel, city side (De Maria (1988) 131 and plate 11.1) and RIC Trajan no. 249–50, BMCRE 493–7 (plate 17.16)). For Jupiter as CONSERVATORI PATRIS PATRIAE protecting Trajan see RIC nos. 619, 643; BMCRE nos. § p. 959, ∗ p. 1013, ∗ p. 1016; Belloni (1973) no. 130; Banti (1983) nos. 39–41; Fell (1992) 77–8 (cf. IOVI CONSERVATORI at e.g. BMCRE2 Domitian no. 354 (plate 73.10)). Poetry referring to Domitian figuratively as Jupiter should be read with an awareness of genre and tradition (cf. esp. Ovid’s exile poetry). Cf. p. 131 above.

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tu sola corporis proceritate | elatior aliis et excelsior | non de patientia nostra | quendam triumphum, | sed de superbia principum egisti. | (Plin. Pan. 22.2) It was only the tallness of your body that made you higher and loftier than others; you held a triumph, as it were, not over our passivity but over the arrogance of principes.

His own natural height, without display, gives him a symbolic elevation; he vanquishes pride, but in doing so gains a mental triumph.13 Trajan’s rising above others is like that of allegorical abstractions, quasidivine but not separated from men: emines excellis ut Honor, ut Potestas, | quae super homines quidem, hominum sunt tamen | (‘you rise above us like Honour or Power, which, while they are above men, yet belong to them’, 24.4). Pliny has already brought in the laws as a comparison (for the personification, cf. Dio Chrys. Or. 1.75, and note megal»jrwn, ‘greatminded’). The final thing that raises Trajan ‘above’ the principes is libertas (‘freedom’, 24.5): politics and the republic are deeply involved in his elevation. The concluding clause plays on apotheosis, with finely concrete paradox: te ad sidera tollit humus ista communis | et confusa principis uestigia (‘you are lifted to the stars by this ground which you share, and by the footprints of the princeps mixed with those of others’, 24.5). Joining himself with humanity raises him to near-godhead. We may contrast the Horatian uirtus (‘Virtue’) which stands for Augustus and spernit humum (‘scorns the ground’, Hor. Carm. 3.2.24; cf. Virg. G. 2.473–4). The passage is also set against the triumph in which Trajan will be raised sublimem (‘aloft’, 17.2) over conquered enemies: but these are not Romans, and the triumph is still (within the speech) in the speaker’s imagination. Trajan has done something magnum . . . , magnum (‘great . . . , great’, 16.2) precisely by refusing to cross the boundary of the Danube and win a triumph.14 The theme of height is similarly exploited in an incident which appears of much less historic significance. When Trajan had named the consular candidates, he got down from his curule chair to ground level and kissed 13

14

Cf. proceritas corporis | (‘tallness of body’) in 4.6–7. On the right attic panel, city side, of the arch at Beneventum, Trajan is taller than the consuls, and the same height as the gods (De Maria (1988) 232, plate 11.2). This is evidence, as other panels show, not for the physical stature of Trajan but for the symbolic significance of height. On Trajan’s arrival cf. Roche (2003) 433–4; it is depicted on the Beneventum arch, city side, bottom pair of panels, De Maria (1988) 232, plate 10. For Pliny’s treatment of Trajan’s ciuilitas cf. Braund (1998) 58–68. Great battles are Demetrius’ first instance of magnificence (t¼ megaloprep”v) in subject matter (Eloc. 75). On the last passage, cf. Belloni (1974) 1114–16. Pliny’s speech as it develops plays down (cf. Picone (1977) 180–1) the militarism so conspicuous in Trajanic sculpture. Despite Pan. 59.2, see De Maria (1988) 295 and Palombi (1993) for the arch of RIC Trajan nos. 419–20; BMCRE Trajan no. † p. 733; Banti (1983) nos. 332–3 (100 ce).

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them (71.1); the whole senate’s paradoxical cry tanto maior, tanto augustior | (‘that makes you all the greater, all the more august’, 71.4) is developed by Pliny: nam cui nihil ad augendum [augescendum coni. Hutchinson15 ] fastigium superest, | hic uno modo crescere potest, si se ipse summittat | securus magnitudinis suae. | (Plin. Pan. 71.4) He who has got no summit left for growth can grow in only one way: lowering himself, without fears for his greatness.

For principes need have no fear of humilitas (‘lowness’; contrast 4.5, and cf. Dem. 18.108, 178). The paradox is made vivid by the image in se ipse summittat |; a grandiose ethos is imbued into it by securus magnitudinis suae | (cf. 19.1–3). The senate’s cry recalls Nerva when he adopts Trajan: repente solito maior augustiorque | (‘suddenly greater and more august than usual’, 8.3). The speech characteristically draws greatness from seemingly limited material.16 In 61 Pliny again focuses on a meaningful moment; he stresses his subjective impression: equidem illum antiquum senatum | contueri uidebar | (‘I, at least, thought I was beholding the famed senate of old’, 61.1). A consul designate awaiting his third consulship was asked his opinion when another third consul (Frontinus) was present as well as Trajan. The moment embodied Trajan’s generosity to others with the consulship: quanti tunc illi quantusque tu! | (‘how great they were then, and how great were you!’, 61.1). In 61 the language of size and of height again mingle. Trajan’s figurative height could have made others’ look less, like corpora quamlibet ardua et excelsa procerioribus admota (‘bodies, however high and lofty, when brought next to loftier ones’, 61.2): illos tamen tu, | quamquam non potuisti tibi aequare  cum uelles, | adeo in edito collocasti | ut tantum super ceteros | quantum infra te cernerentur. | (Plin. Pan. 61.3) 15

16

The imagery and superest require a point the person could grow to, not a fastigium that could be grown (so translators). An intransitive augeo is unlikely in Pliny: Sall. Hist. fr. 77.6 M; TLL 2.1357.47–56. For a raised chair indicating Trajan’s exalted status cf. e.g. (curule) RIC nos. 380–1; BMCRE nos. 712, 767, 769 (plates 25.4, 27.11); Belloni (1973) no. 194; Banti (1983) nos. 42–5, 47–50. On Nerva in the Panegyricus (and Trajanic coinage) cf. Soverini (1989) 548–52; Roche (2002) 44–6, 52–4. He naturally appears, with many other imperial figures, on the attic fac¸ade of the East Colonnade in the Forum of Trajan (Packer (1997) 103 fig. 57, 380–1). On the kiss, cf. Roche (2003) 435; even if Trajan explicitly asked Pliny to mention these aspects, their role in the aesthetics of the speech is not diminished.

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But although you could not put them on a level with yourself, despite wanting to, you put them in such an exalted position that it could be seen they were as much above all others as they were beneath you.

The wish for the quasi-physical elevation of others is proof of his own ingentis animi | (‘mighty spirit’, 61.4): it is characteristic of greatness uelle quantum possis (‘to want nothing less than one can do’). It is further and paradoxical proof of Trajan’s greatness that he cannot make others match him. Earlier, magnanimitas (‘greatness of mind’) is expetito semper honore abstinere | (‘abstaining from an honour that people always seek’, 58.5); striving for perpetual honour as consul is liuor (‘jealousy’, 58.4). The beginning of the republic is explicitly recalled (58.3).17 Trajan’s principate as an event is the restoration of liberty, which his specific actions renew: it thus returns Rome almost to the republic, and at the same time repeats the great moment when the kings were expelled. A more weighty event in Roman history could not be found. It is deployed in urging Trajan to take a fourth consulship (reciperata libertas |, ‘freedom when it was just recovered’, 78.3). The sublime implications of freedom have already been seen. Pliny paints an exhilarating picture (66) of Trajan’s restoration of liberty in his first appearance in the senate as consul. Intriguingly, the moment is externally a repetition of the usual deceit from emperors (66.3); what makes this different is Trajan’s mind. In turn, his action elevates the mind of the Romans. From an inglorious if excusable state of terror et metus et misera . . . prudentia (‘fear, dread, and wretched caution’) the senate is returned to caring and speaking about the res publica (66.4–5; a Demosthenic and Ciceronian source of elevation). The paradox in iubes esse liberos:  erimus | (‘you bid us be free; we will be’) should not at first be pressed too hard; iubeo can have the sense ‘bid’, and another clause follows. But the idea is turned round when the senate iussit ‘told’ Trajan to take his fourth consulship: imperi hoc uerbum, | non adulationis | (‘this is a word of command, not flattery’, 78.1). Such is their freedom, and such is

17

Cf. with magnanimitas megal»jrwn (‘great-spirited’) used by Cass. Dio (Xiph.) 68.7.2 of Trajan’s restrained inscription on the Circus Maximus. Trajan’s and Frontinus’ names as consuls both followed by ‘ii’ or ‘iii’ will have made a striking sight: cf. e.g. CIL 6.2222, 13.7711, 16.42 (L¨orincz (2001) 155); Frontinus’ second consulship began 1 February 98 (Fast. Ost. Fj; Vidman (1957) 45, 93, plate 7). For Trajan’s treatment of Frontinus, see Fein (1994) 205–6; Bennett (1997) 108. But one may doubt arguments to Domitian’s own contempt of fellow-consuls from omissions on inscriptions by others (Carradice (1983) 144, 151): see esp. CIL 12.2602 (post-Domitianic; Vespasian also named without colleague, Nerva without his colleague Domitian).

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the noble action and mind of Trajan, whose plan is ut libertatem reuoces ac reducas | (‘to call, and bring, Freedom back’, 78.3).18 The return of the Romans from an unelevated mentality is taken on to the level of personal relationships (85). Again, what seems less momentous historically and politically is no less important a source of elevation for Pliny. After flattery and peior odio | amoris simulatio | ‘the pretence of love, worse than hatred’ (85.1), amicitia ‘Friendship’ like libertas has been brought back by Trajan: tu hanc pulsam et errantem  reduxisti | (85.1–2 ‘you have brought her back; she had been driven away and was wandering’). Friendship is described in exalted and physical terms, and linked with freedom and a readiness to make demands: neque est ullus adfectus | tam erectus et liber | et dominationis impatiens, | nec qui magis uices exigat | (‘no other emotion stands so upright and free, or will so little tolerate masterlike despotism; none insists more on a return’, 85.3). Trajan should not think such closeness to others humile (‘low’), as it is implied Domitian would have (85.7). Demosthenes emphasizes in himself and his speech the absence of falsehood, and the presence of straightforwardness (e.g. 18.58 ‰pläv ‘simply’; contrast 159, 276). In Pliny, Trajan’s simplicitas (‘simplicity’) is more paradoxical, a quality one might expect to clash with grauitas (‘weightiness’, 4.6). His simplicitati . . . ueritatique (‘simplicity and truthfulness’, 54.5) enable the senate to escape from miserae adulationis | (‘wretched flattery’, 54.1), and mark him out as unique among principes (54.6). The paragraph ends with sublime negatives to convey the glory of his rejecting glory: quod ego titulis omnibus | speciosius reor, | quando non trabibus aut saxis  nomen tuum | sed monimentis aeternae laudis inciditur | (‘I think this is more glorious than any inscription, when your name is cut, not on architraves or rocks, but on monuments of praise that will last for ever’, 54.7; cf. 84.8).19 18

19

For iubes esse liberos cf. Livy 45.22.3, 26.12 senatum populumque Romanum Illyrios esse liberos iubere ‘that the senate and people of Rome bade the Illyrians be free’, 29.4. Trajan’s acceptance of a fourth consulate appears on coins from October 100 on; cf. Belloni (1973) xvi–xvii. Relevant to the republic is Augustus’ slight place in the Panegyricus: cf. Lyasse (2008) 337–42. Nerva’s principate is not itself the real restoration of liberty: note the deft phrasing at 8.1. On the late appearance of Libertas in Trajan’s coinage, cf. Belloni (1974) 1089–90; contrast LIBERTAS RESTITVTA from at least 70 in BMCRE2 Vespasian 525, 549 (plates 19.15, 22.1). With simplicitati tuae ueritatique | cf. 84.1 and Dio Chrys. Or. 1.26 tŸn m•n oÔn ‰pl»thta kaª tŸn ˆlžqeian ¡ge±tai basilik¼n kaª jr»nimon (‘[the good king]) thinks simplicity and truth is something kingly and wise’). Note also Cass. Dio (Xiph.) 68.6.2 ple±ston g‡r –p© te dikai»thti kaª –p’ ˆndre© t te ‰pl»thti tän  qän di”prepe (‘[Trajan]) stood out particularly in justice and courage and in the simplicity of his manners’).

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The monimentis are undefined; they suggest obliquely the mighty oration which is now being heard or read. Trajan’s own oratory is not praised chiefly as oratory, rather as an embodiment of his fides (‘trustworthiness’), seen in the inadfectata ueritas uerborum (‘unaffected truthfulness of his words’) and the whole manner of delivery (67.1). At the moment when Trajan and Pliny might seem to come closest, Pliny draws significance from what for Trajan is straightforward and transparent. As ever, he stages revelations of Trajan’s self-effacing greatness. The speech is built on a contrast not just between Trajan and Domitian, but between Trajan and Pliny, somewhat as in Cicero the pressing and intelligent orator is set against the simple Roscius or the pressing and emotional orator is set against the sublimely impassive Milo. The contrast with Pliny, like that with Domitian, makes the praise more vivid and more tolerable. It brings out that Trajan does not strive for glory; adulation is precluded. The gifted orator’s writing in its continual freshness and surprise averts (for the careful reader) the monotony of unseasoned laudation. Underlying the writing is the same elegance of paradox and subtlety of thought as in the letters. The overall sublimity of impact is not a matter of endless straining for extremes, but a convergence of Trajan’s unstrained nobility and Pliny’s intelligent and unobvious praise.20 We should finally look in more detail at some of this writing. We will take parts of a typical passage which does not use such obvious sources or imagery of the sublime as those so far discussed. This will show us how what we may now see as sublimity is locally in constant alternation and dialogue with other sorts of writing; it should also give us a fuller idea of the general sublimity which emerges. 27.3 quocirca nihil magis in tota tua liberalitate laudauerim, | quam quod congiarium das de tuo, alimenta de tuo, | neque a te liberi ciuium | ut ferarum catuli sanguine et caedibus | nutriuntur; | 27.4 quodque gratissimum est accipientibus, | sciunt dari sibi | quod nemini sit ereptum, | locupletatisque tam multis | pauperiorem esse factum | principem tantum. | quamquam ne hunc quidem: nam cuius est quidquid est omnium, | tantum ipse quantum omnes habet. 28.1 alio me uocat numerosa gloria tua. | alio autem? quasi uero iam satis ueneratus miratusque sim | quod tantam pecuniam  profudisti | non ut flagitii tibi conscius | ab insectatione eius | auerteres famam, | nec ut tristes hominum maestosque sermones | laetiore materia | detineres! | . . . 28.2 amor impendio isto, | non uenia quaesita est, | populusque Romanus | obligatus | a tribunali tuo, non exoratus recessit. | 28.3 obtulisti enim congiarium | gaudentibus gaudens | securusque 20

On 67.1 cf. Fantham (1999) 233.

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securis | . . . 28.7 dabis congiaria si uoles, praestabis alimenta si uoles: | illi tamen propter te nascuntur. 29.1 instar ego perpetui congiarii | reor adfluentiam annonae. | huius aliquando | cura Pompeio | non minus addidit gloriae | quam pulsus ambitus campo, | exactus hostis mari, | Oriens triumphis | Occidensque lustratus. | 29.2 nec uero ille ciuilius | quam parens noster | auctoritate consilio fide reclusit uias, | portus patefecit, itinera terris | litoribus mare litora mari  reddidit, | diuersasque gentes | ita commercio miscuit | ut quod genitum esset usquam, | id apud omnes natum uideretur. | 29.3 nonne cernere datur | ut sine ullius iniuria | omnis usibus nostris | annus exuberet? | . . . 29.5 inde copiae, | inde annona de qua inter licentem uendentemque conueniat, | inde hic satietas | nec fames usquam. | (Plin. Pan. 27.3–29.5) 27.3 Hence I would like to praise nothing in all this generosity of yours more than your giving the largesse and the maintenance from your own resources. The children of citizens are not being fed like the young of beasts on blood and slaughter. 27.4 They know, as is most welcome for those who receive things, that what they are being given has not been snatched from anyone else, and that when so many have been made rich, the only one who has been made poor is the princeps. Though not even he has been, they know: the man who has whatever all have, himself has as much as all do. 28.1 Your glory, with its many aspects, calls me away elsewhere. Elsewhere? As if I had yet sufficiently revered and wondered at your pouring forth so much money with no aim of diverting rumour from attacking a crime you knew you had committed, or occupying people’s grim and gloomy conversations with a more cheerful subject!. . . . 28.2 It was love, not pardon which you sought with that expense; the Roman people left your tribunal obliged, not won over. 28.3 You gave your largesse with shared joy, shared freedom from care. 28.7 You can give largesse if you like, and provide maintenance if you like; but those children are born because of you. 29.1 Like a continual largesse, I believe, is the abundance of the corn-supply. Taking this on gave Pompey long ago no less glory than driving bribery from the place of elections and the enemy from the sea and traversing east and west with triumphs. 29.2 Nor did he behave more like a citizen than did our Father, authoritatively, strategically and dependably, in unclosing roads, opening up ports, giving back journeys to the land, the sea to the shores, the shores to the sea, in mixing different races through trade so that what was produced anywhere seemed to have been born everywhere. 29.3 Have we not been granted to see how the entire year abounds for our purposes, without anyone suffering wrong? . . . 29.5 This [purchase by the fiscus] is what produces abundance, and a corn-supply that bidder and seller can agree on; this is what produces abundance here and hunger nowhere.

Trajan gives largesse to encourage the birth of children, and his own nature makes people want to have children in his world, as they would not

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in Domitian’s. The image of the ferarum catuli (27.3) would demean the human and Roman beneficiaries, but suggestions of an epic simile, and the impressive sanguine et caedibus |, convey a kind of dark historical sublimity from terrible events. Conversely, the impoverishment of the princeps (27.4) seems to associate an almost amusingly undignified idea with Trajan, for a moment; but it impressively displays his simple generosity. A twist then reminds us of the greatness of his position, but suggests a moral basis: not just that he owns everything, but that he enters into the happiness of all.21 The apparent transition (28.1) presents a striking personification: the inanimate gloria acts on the rapt person, with a Horatian exaltation (cf. Carm. 3.25). But with a fine reversal, the transition is undone (contrast 18.1), and Pliny enhances the glory and the subtlety. Not merely the fact of generosity but the motive of innocence is brought out through a contrast with the machiavellianism of other principes: auerteres famam | (effectively ordered) and tristes . . . maestosque sermones | . . . detineres convey in the negative an ignoble attitude. After more such negatives (omitted here), the positive amor (28.2) begins a sentence; it lights up the discourse with the simple and ardent emotion that governs Trajan’s relations with the Roman people. A searching distinction between participles brings out that earlier principes were really at the mercy of the people – an ignominious position. The polyptoton in 28.3 shows the emotional equality of people and princeps; the intensity of the figure creates an elevated depiction of what Trajan has created. The whole section ends (28.7) with a grandiose dismissal of the financial aspects; the simple talis es (27.1, ‘you are such a person’) now rises into the powerful simplicity of propter te nascuntur. Here is the Trajanic sublime.22 The actual transition (29.1) works through neat metaphor; the metaphor, with perpetui, gives the impression of raising us to a still higher pitch. (gloriae takes up gloria in 28.1.) Now instead of praise through contrast with a 21

22

Trajan receives the globe from Nerva (or the senate) on RIC Trajan no. 28, BMCRE Trajan nos. 53–5 (plates 10.3–4). Belloni (1973) 2 describes the act cautiously. With the significant de tuo (27.3), cf. Sen. Ep. 77.8. For locupletatisque cf. locupletatori ciuium in CIL 6.958, 40500–1 (108 ce). On Domitian’s financial crisis see Carradice (1983) 159–66. Pan. 25–8 are discussed by Aubrion (1975) 109–10. Children are very prominent in Trajanic material; Trajan’s alimentary scheme for them begins soon after this speech (on it see Woolf (1990); Lo Cascio (2000); CIL 6.40497 (note the urban context), 9.1455 (Ligures Baebiani, 101 ce), 11.1147 (Veleia, late 102 or later)). Cf. the Beneventum arch, inside right: De Maria (1988) 131, 233 plate 13.1; Kleiner (1992) 224, 226; Molin (1994) 719–20; on coins e.g. RIC no. 474, BMCRE no. 920 (plate 35.10), unusually with ROMA REST; Belloni (1973) nos. 111, 124–5 (plate 5); Banti (1983) nos. 3–13.

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negative, we have a complicated device. Trajan is likened to a great republican figure, who (from one perspective) championed the senate against Caesar, and was lauded in Cicero’s Pro Lege Manilia. Pompey’s achievement is matched with deeds of his which themselves rise into sublimity; they grow in space and reach a spatial sublime (cf. Orientem Occidentemque conectit | ‘joins east and west’, 32.2). Trajan’s action is then presented formally through Pompey’s (29.2): ciuilius seems an unelevated word; but it points to Trajan’s republican and unassuming attitude (cf. 2.7) towards what was in fact a spatially magnificent achievement. A trio of abstract nouns suggests the qualities of a republican leader in parens noster; the vigorous verbs reclusit and patefecit show the power of his action; land and sea give the grandeur of space, while litoribus mare litora mari | ingeniously brings out a double benefit. usquam and apud omnes portray a transformation of the world. A shorter sentence (29.3) brings us directly into the present, with question and deixis. A poetic phrase concludes it, annus exuberet |; the transgression of prose norms in this combination helps express the transgression of normal temporal limits. The whole year (omnis is in forceful hyperbaton) has the fruitfulness associated with a part. But added to this splendour is the moral point sine ullius iniuria |. As with Trajan’s handouts, no one suffers. The final sentence (29.5) creates a tricolon which at first seems to heighten the style – then to descend as we proceed to commercial agreement, with the prosaic licentem uendentemque – then to rise with the vision of hunger absent from the world. The spatial grandeur has a moral dimension. This leads into a passage (30–1) where Egypt’s boasts and the mighty Nile are excelled.23 When the speech is given the intent and reflective reading which it demands, it can be seen to fluctuate continually in its stylistic level, and yet to present overall a glorious sublimity. This sublimity is political and moral, but can only be realized through Pliny’s art. It separates itself forcefully from the false sublime of other principes. On Trajan’s side, it springs paradoxically from an avoidance of aspiration towards sublimity; on Pliny’s side, it rests not only on truth but on penetration, on an ability to see through 23

Annona appears on Trajan’s coinage, as on Nerva’s and Domitian’s (Carradice (1983) 112, 114); cf. e.g. with prow of ship and cornucopiae, RIC Traj. nos. 492–4; BMCRE Traj. nos. 781–3 (plates 28.5); Belloni (1973) no. 49 (plate 2); Banti (1983) nos. 180–2. They also depict Trajan’s port at Ostia: RIC nos. 471 (plate 11.189), 631; BMCRE no. 770A (plate 28.1); Banti (1983) nos. 82–4A; Meiggs (1973) 161–6; cf. also ILS 298 (Ancona, 114–15 ce). Parens noster avoids but alludes to the official pater patriae (cf. M´ethy (2000) 383–4); though granted to both Nerva and Domitian, that title has republican roots. It is evidenced early in Trajan’s coinage, and is ubiquitous in documents, cf. e.g. Pferdehirt (2004) no. 8 (plates 10–11; 99 ce); Eck and Pangerl (2004) photo p. 234; AE 2004 1913 (100 ce).

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Trajan’s modesty and through apparently insignificant material or aspects to sublime reality and sublime utterance. A merely literary analysis cannot reach historical actuality; but on its own imaginative terms, the speech offers a remarkable version of the political sublime. Its aesthetics are made inextricable from its political and ethical meaning.

chapter 8

Down the Pan: historical exemplarity in the Panegyricus John Henderson

distincte definiteque designat

(Pan.88.6: ¾rism»v / paradiastolž / ¾moiopr»joron)

introduction Pan[egyricus] is addressed through the senators in session (patres conscripti, 1.1). Thanksgiving is directed to the gods for their gift of an Optimus princeps before the speech turns towards parens noster for allowing the event: Caesar Auguste (4.3). A secundary function, thanksgiving by the speaker for appointment to the consulate, is subjoined, in a doubly selfreflexive address on behalf of Pliny and his colleague Cornutus Tertullus (90.3); and here the performance thanks Trajan both as consul on behalf of the Roman state and on Pliny’s, too (tu . . . , suo quoque nomine, 91.1; cf. 90.3). Trajan and his new pair of (suffect) consuls give and get the glory generated over again whenever recitation of the speech evokes another ‘here and now’ for its ‘we and this’. Besides these protagonists, Pliny will find cause to name a clutch of figures from Roman history:1 on the one hand, heroes of the republic, pegged to the earliest phase through the Hannibalic War and into the second- and first-century finale – Fabricii, Scipiones, Camilli (13.4); Bruti, Camilli again (55.6); Papirii and Quinctii (57.5); Pisones, Laelii and Metelli (88.6); 2 on the other, the proto-emperor Pompey (29.1). The line of emperors from Augustus to Domitian receives citations (Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, 11.1; Augustus, 4.5, 88.10; Nero, 53.4; Titus, 35.4; Domitian, 20.4; nowhere 1 2

Panegyricus’ loci on history are listed in Durry (1938) 37–8 (with several errors); see too Innes in this volume, esp. p. 82. For the classic tabulation of Roman historical exempla, see Litchfield (1914). For modern revaluation, see essays in Coudry and Sp¨ath (2001) esp. for Camilli and Fabricii. For Scipiones cf. e.g. Henderson (1997) 33–6; Bruti and Metelli: Henderson (1998) 73–107, 109–11; Papirii Cursores: Oakley (2005) 175–7; Quinctii: Ogilvie (1965) 399–400, cf. 516–17, on Quinctius Capitolinus; for Pisones (a pinsendo, Plin. Nat. 18.10) and Laelii, see below on Pan. 88.6.

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Caligula), although necessarily the names of Trajan’s two fathers, adoptive and natural, steal the show: Nerva (7.4, 7.7, 8.2, 8.3, 8.5, 10.2, 35.4, 38.6, 89.1, 90.6) and Traianus pater (88.6, 89.2; cf. pater, 9.2). Whereas Domitian’s name disappears but for its two bows early on, so that insistently vindictive disappearing of the monster into oblivion can feature extensively as the vituperative flipside of the binary rhetoric of praise,3 the encomium buoys up the mood of celebration by harping on the new emperor’s auspicious advent as the blessed ‘son of god’. Specifically, paraded invocation of diuus Nerua inaugurates Trajan’s reflexive legitimation of a new (anti-)dynasty through consecration of his predecessor: chosen successor turns chosen ‘son’ as chosen one, to articulate an unprecedented peaceful transfer of power shorn of blood-ties and genetics.4 Pan makes plenny of noise spelling out the dynamics of this new deal for emperors of Rome, laying before senatorial elites present and to come the role of nomination in the authorization of a Caesar assembled through detailed presentation of precedents.5 Practising parsimonious nominalization, irreference, reticence and rhetorical damnatio memoriae, the amplificatory swell in the modality of praise compensates by performing self-referential explicitation of exemplary manipulation of stripped-down, dismantled, unplugged history in suturing positive representation of the present. Ratifying personalized power through secured terms of acclamation is presented as the prize for this governmental rhetoric between House and Palace. Dots and crosses from history weave into the texture of political encomium the amplificatory resonance of historicality: it needs tracking through the grain of the (con)text. By rooting newly tooled beatification in a Rome-long tradition of ‘historical exempla’ which begins from sanctification of an individual’s signal heroics in service to Rome, and then blurs into their descendants’ family legacy and cult,6 the imperial orator can surf on a venerable tradition of beatification by award of an acclamatory epithet:7 the product of this reward for virtue had long been styled as self-advertising inheritance and pressure of expectation on each future generation in the gens.8 As 3 4 5 6 7 8

For disappearing the other in invective, see Henderson (2006) 143–7 on Cic. Pis. For accession panegyric: Braund (1998) esp. 65–8; post-assassination: Hoffer (2006) esp. 80–4 on Pan. 5–10. For the all-enveloping Trajan made from paradox: Rees (2001). For the logic of naming/entitlement: McCulloch (1989). On Roman naming: Salway (1994); cf. Wilson (1998) esp. ‘Part i. Ancient Rome’. On Pan’s manipulation of history and exempla: Molin (1989) 789–91. For parodic nostalgia on historical exempla within Roman onomastic discourse, see Henderson (1997) on Juv. 8.

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euphemous hyperbole had become a ploy in the repertoire of clans competing for honours and predominance in the stakes of the republic, so it inflated to mark successive bids to outsize those stakes, expropriated to glamorize the would-be autocrat and deliver him soi-disant ascendancy. As master-signifiers of mastery concretized around the emergence of ‘Caesar’ as the self-perpetuating gentilician core of a panoply of transcendental titulature, ‘Imperator’, ‘Augustus’, reinforced by deification of dead autocrats realized as divine affiliation, diui filius, the first dynasty of Julio-Claudian emperors had created an elaborate, yet notably elastic, impro-system that demonstrated the intrication of any individual reign within longer-term stakes for obedience;9 after the rapid-fire disruptions and abortive shifts of the failed bids to found the second dynasty, the Flavians had resumed the nomenclature and father–son model of succession ready-made, but also recapitulated the pattern of step-up sublation to valorize unprecedented majesty in fresh hype. The New Man Pliny’s New Dawn for a New Emperor will launch the bid to found a third dynasty on a selective review of names for power in Latin that extend from traditions from way back when elected consuls brokered between their predecessors and their prospective replacements to boss Rome. But his target will be to clinch, on top of an underlying continuation of positive spin from adherence to exemplary heroes and accredited emperors, dissociation from the demonized Domitianic negative plus an overlay of charismatic bedazzle for Trajan’s annunciation.10 Abusive trashing of the tyrant must mesh with gentle backgrounding of the catalyst ‘enabler’ Nerva. But Pan’s blazoned solution to the terminological challenge hands Rome and its latest Caesar Augustus the blankestest cheque available to Latinity, exhaustively unpacking the indefeasible subsumption within its bravura modesty of all actual or imaginable forerunners. It would catch on, too, later in the reign (on diplomas from 114 ce).11 Pliny’s very first word (bene) already cues us in, his first proposition homes on the beatitude (optimo principi), and his first lesson self-enacts its conferring by senatorial decree here and now facilitated by the consul’s voice amid senatorial felicitations (‘Optimi’ cognomen, 2.7). All the speech’s negotiations with earlier precedents in naming power – felix and magnus, 9 10

11

See Syme (1958b). For the emergence of exempla as Roman discourse (rather than as consensual shorthand), see esp. Mayer (1991) on Seneca; Chaplin (2000) esp. ch. 5 on Livy; Roller (2004); B¨ucher (2006); Fox (2007) esp. ch. 6; Langlands (2008) 160–4. I have learned much from Brooke (2009) on Ciceronian oratory. On Trajan as ‘Optimus’ see Nore˜na (2007) 258 n. 58; cf. Fell (1992).

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Caesar, imperator, Germanicus, pater patriae, augustus (add augusta; and amicus principis) – will be there to be beggared by the thrill of this new ‘vacant sign’, whose point is to catch us up in the well-wishing dramatically attributed to an excitable senatorial audience. As vows, prayers and well-wishing bulk up the rippling bouts of thanksgiving, text-act leads the congregation into the optative mood, into overpowering optimism, and panegyric appellates into epiphanic being our ‘Optimus princeps’. The bestest shorthand ‘name’ for this superlative rhetoric would have to be ‘Optimization’. §1–2 Pan loses no time in indicating that it (this box-set version)12 means to twintask as on the one hand specifically occasioned performance, delivering on its brief as the latest affirmation of age-old traditions of political oratory in the functioning of the Roman state apparatus,13 and on the other knowing exhibition of the logic inherent in the thinking encoded in its routines and formulae: Bene ac sapienter . . . maiores instituerunt (‘Good and wise that the ancestors put in place the principle’, 1.1). The agenda, to begin with, will be choice of language, and so it should be, heading up any speech-act same as any other transaction: to get off on the right foot, pray for the blessing of the gods. This formulaic summary of Romanness (mos) is a pious preamble ushering in the optimal instance of the consul charged with the task of rendering (wording) thanks to ‘a/the best princeps’, doing the bidding of the senate.14 There is no more beautiful gift of the gods than a princeps who is as godlike as can be, intones the voice, and you can feel it, too, as the level lifts to herald clarity beyond the reach of doubt or dispute and proclaim our prince the placement of no hidden workings of destiny but of the up-front and in-person choice of the Almighty Jupiter. This consul steps himself into evocative shoes, ‘summoned up’ as the latest incarnation of that long line of anonymized maiores, as if ‘rising to the occasion’ and ‘coming back to life’ are one and the same, as they must always have been (excitamur). Through Pliny speak so many: they prayed to Jove as the Founder. The difference today makes is Pliny’s supplement: 12 13 14

For the reworking of Panegyricus according to Plin. Ep. 3.18, see Henderson (2002) 141–51; Habinek (2007) 214–15. For the ‘public script’ realized through the rhetorical performance of sincerity, see the classic account in Bartsch (1994) ch. 5. For Pan’s manipulation of principatus, see Ramelli (1999); Gowing (2005) esp. 120–31.

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to Jove as ‘Preserver of the Empire’.15 Adding and adapting, the speech must befit Iuppiter Optimus, live up to consulate, senate and emperor alike. This consul heads, speaks but also stands for all citizens, who shall, henceforth, match Jupiter in openly and presently declaring their thoughts. [2] But to achieve this they must avert and exorcise adulation, be rid of the voices of the past, their own words, of insincerity, untruth, slavery:16 ‘May we say nothing of the kind we said before’ (cf. 75.6 below; an excitable twist on the stock panegyric stance, where there is ‘No call to avoid what others have put into their speeches before’, Isoc. Pan. 9). Wishing away the past powers the present by foregrounding epochmaking as prime duty of all ‘our speeches’: demarcation of Now by antithesis with Then is the conceptual principle underpinning the baseline dynamics of thanksgiving as epideictic genre, anchoring and motivating the invention, conceptualization and marshalling of continuities and ruptures between the past/s into and as (if ) ‘given’ epochs, eras, periods, regimes; and their definition of the present through ‘negative antithesis’. For you can tune in to the way thanks deliver depending on who it is being thanked; there has to be a corresponsion, since a tyrant is not a fellow-Roman, a slave-owner is no father. Our princeps is not a god, not a divinity? So don’t fawn on him as if he is. As one of us, he learned, as wisdom has it, same place we did, that ‘He’s only a human in charge of humans’ (meminit). Ponder: you can tell lots from the way that the people of Rome come up with customized epithets to chant at each princeps – from Yesterday’s ‘Beaut’, to Today’s ‘Braveheart’, other times’ ‘What moves, what uox’ versus Trajan’s ‘Respect! Frugality! Courtesy!’ Then there is the senate. Harder to lay down the law here – ‘How about us?’ – but how does the house habitually behave (solemus)? This Emperor of ours is not (is he?) hailed as divine, but chorused for being human, adjusted, obliging: so to the rhetorical cap we have been steered towards, so we get there as if tentatively, with a follow-up ‘question’, a rider. ‘So now: what is there as appropriately citizen-amongcitizens and senator-to-senator as that “nickname” we’ve pinned on you: “Best”?’ (‘Optimi’ cognomen, 2.7). We’ve got this far without dignifying any of them with their names, Domitian, Nero, whatever, and spotlight the strategy right here, dropping the quizzical feint and out with it: ‘What made this emperor’s prerogative and monopoly was the way his predecessors grabbed all they could’ (2.8). To get the feel of the honorific quotient of ‘Optimus’ is clearly vital since we 15 16

A cult title, already transferred to sobriquet of Augustus by Velleius, 2.60.1. On Pan’s manipulation of the Roman discourse of ‘freedom’, see Morford (1992).

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follow up by paralleling it by juxtaposition with ‘felix’, similarly acclaimed as social and non-hierarchical, as ‘we’ call him and us ‘lucky’ and break through his defences by embarrassing him into understanding how this discourse works: tears and blushes are inflicted, conjured, at and as part of the unveiled dynamics of imperial acclamation: what is said, what is meant; what is heard, what is recognized (agnoscit . . . sentitque . . . dici, 2.8). Any emperor needs reminding that senators decide what they mean when they choose to call him anything; that consular thanksgiving has a history, practises cultural mnemonics and preaches its (self-)perpetuation into the bargain: complimenting one on being special, distinct from his role, tells him that he will become one more ‘previous princeps’, and the antithesis between epochs is in the rhetorical gift of ‘our speeches’. So this first episode has paved a congratulatory path towards delivering on the promise to come up with words on ‘our princeps’ that couldn’t seem possible to apply to ‘another one’ (2.1), by gleefully flagging up the new (anti-)title of ‘Optimus’ with a big ‘O’, and specifying that its appeal is that it means less than shouting ‘lucky’ – little more than an unassuming ‘sir’, and as such the keynote condensation of recovery from oppression: ‘Simply the Best’. Pliny manages to broker this pact for the lot of them, on the button, by bonding into his text the most loaded laconic touch of all: ‘haec faciat, haec audiat’ (2.8), he cites us as reciting, in our best wishes for a mutually beneficial era in prospect: at once, ‘may he fulfil his vows and hear our pledge of allegiance’ and ‘he wants acclamation, he does his stuff’. It’s all very well and as it should be for the consul to proclaim the out-of-left-field thought that if the emperor doesn’t fulfil his vows, they won’t play ball and pray; but that’s how to introduce a gossamer promise as good as a threat, and reduce a good guy to tears of joy and cheeks ablaze with humili- . . . . Scoffing at the unthinkable makes it thinkable. Since the emperor wants everything to go smoothly too, and so answer his prayers, he’ll say amen to this, and as indeed one trained senator among the rest understand how lightly and expertly this appointee is conveying how this business of acclamation works. Appointment as (t)his emperor’s nominee for a couple of magic months in fall 100 ce presumably included the calculation that Pliny’s gift and penchant for documenting his public service might turn into a best chance to headline as most understanding of emperors, though neither of them could dream they would boss Latin Panegyric in perpetuity. If the model of succession through adoption took hold, if not as first preference, then Rome would never have, or need, a ‘fourth dynasty’ to be inaugurated and conceived afresh: Trajan could, if he kept faith with Pan and made like Nerva, figure and remain the paradigm of successful

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succession. On anything like that prognostication, Pliny’s sophistic coup of hitting on the prime equivocation in ‘Optimus’ between non-despotic ordinary sociality and ultimate enfolding of all protocols of praise within one single abyss of obeisance would take some beating. §3–5 After a well-rounded meditation self-reflexively sketching lessons on the counterproductive outcomes of premeditated rhetoric attempting to beat the pandemonium of spontaneously improvised acclamation at its own game,17 [4] the voice of Pan resumes its vindication as standard consular commission, briskly glossed as an institutionalized ‘reminder’ to emperors (recognoscerent – ‘what good ones do, and bad ones should’). As ‘by decree of the senate’ it escapes the emperors’ blanket veto on private thanksgiving, a ‘necessity’ imposed on – ‘you, Caesar Augustus’: for here is where we turn momentarily to evoke Trajan’s presence by direct address. Ready to turn back towards the patres conscripti for Pliny’s summoning up of an iconic likeness that would live up to the emperor’s power ‘on a par with the gods’’, before the gaze pans Trajan with another vocative address ‘in your direction, Caesar Augustus’. Naturally, the sight of ‘our princeps’ before us outstrips fantasy, combining in one frame the star features of all forerunners but minus the warts (like the artist piecing together loveliness from the best body parts distributed between all the beauties in town; see below on 89). Here again the text scrubs names (unless Pliny infiltrates his friend Tacitus, busy filling his Histories’ portrait gallery of emperors: tacitus agitaui (4.3), running us past a list of polarized profiles for a dream-leader that maybe most readily cash out as Tiberius/Galba (if we forbear in this context from blurring ‘principes’ to take in the late republic’s Antony/Cicero), Julius Caesar/Titus, Galba/Augustus. [5] In confirming Trajan has the necessary quality to look the part of panacea, we get to specify his peaceful accession by adoption, eliminating both (Augustus’ and Vespasian’s) first and second dynasties from comparison, as arising from civil wars and coup d’´etat. §6–8 This minimalist double review of imperial physiognomics proves to kick off detailed and lengthy (pre-Suetonian biopic) narration of Trajan’s rise to power, his passage to the purple, starting with omens as positive as 17

On the orchestration of Pliny’s praise, see esp. Lassandro (2003).

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those of (unspecified and unspecifiable) ‘other principes’ were sinister, as a Capitol crowd jumped the gun and mistook Trajan already for the emperor, before events conspired to force him to accept adoption by a wobbly Nerva succumbing to mutiny, arrest and confinement. Pliny lays on the spooky atmosphere thick and embellishes the clich´es that paint this ‘coup’ a velvet revolution: storms before calm, the ups and downs of life, ‘It was almost worth going through all that!’ Rome ran for refuge in Trajan’s lap, as Trajan was summoned to save the city by adoption the way ‘great commanders in the old days’ (olim duces magni, 4.2) used to be in the habit of being recalled from the front on far-flung campaigns to aid their country back home. No names pilfer limelight – and this time we would find ourselves hard put to fill in the blank (with which hoary worthies from way back when? Is this Agesilaus (Nep. Ages. 4.1), or shall we shoehorn a reclaimed Camillus in? Try it!) and obliged instead to supply the obvious panjandrum: Hannibal, finally dislodged from Italy, a` la Agesilaus in Asia, by direct threat to his Carthage (Liv. 30.9), for Trajan’s trailblazer! (Could Silius’ epic of Pliny’s moment be ‘rehabilitating’ that Roman anathema so unequivocally? Never! See below.) [7] Truly, this ‘journey to the principate is unprecedented, unheard of’.18 This (non-deathbed) adoption set genetic kinship aside, the sole prior bond being between ‘gentlemen/(two of ) the best’ (uterque Optimus, 7.4). Not a private deal struck in a palace bedroom to appease an empress, unlike ‘one or two’ stepfathers we should (this time) specify (Augustus adopting Livia’s Tiberius, Tac. Ann. 1.3.3, 5.6; Claudius and Nero, with Agrippina playing Tanaquil (see Liv. 1.41), Tac. Ann. 12.25, 68.3; current empress Plotina would engineer Hadrian’s successor without ever mothering a son). Hard to miss the shadow of that anxiety, The Upstart, in the formulaic phrasing of this ‘helpmeet’s elevation to partnership’ (assumptus es in laborum curarumque consortium, 7.3) – shades, that is, of the suicidal climber Sejanus, built-in liability of every palace stuck with a throneful of senility (Tac. Ann. 4.2.3, 7.1). Once liberated, the idea that a hiccoup in assured governance could be the opportunity for the Strong Man to wade in – and step up – requires energetic rhetorical disarming: with reluctance from the promotee (recusatio, 5.5; ‘summons to save the state’, 6.4) preparing the way for mimetic participation (an . . . quaeras? Non . . . totam per ciuitatem circumferas oculos et . . . existimes . . . inueneris? . . . possis . . . adoptes . . . adoptasses, 7.5–7). Focalization through the promoter gets each of us playing emperor playing the field, looking for ‘the best option’ (quem Optimum quem dis 18

For the strategy of chronological narration, see Innes in this volume, esp. p. 78.

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simillimum, 7.5), so as to play down the cardinal thought that picking childless and time-expiring Nerva for quasi ‘interrex’, if he didn’t pick himself (which of ‘you’ were in on that deal?), had necessarily set his reign the nerve-racking one-item agenda of succession, willy-nilly. Yes, he was set the primeval challenge at Rome, of smoothing sound administration while avoiding the stigma of ‘tyrannical-Tarquinian, regal’ arbitrariness (superbum istud et regium, 7.6). Plugging the ‘Bene ac Sapienter’ tropology for all it’s worth, Pliny tunes out nervous Nervan fragility by giving us a seat at a theoretically wised-up appointment committee on high, fathering comprehension of the dynamics of adoptive succession on Nerva, with a professorial tweak from himself. ‘Pick the one accepted as future ruler even if you don’t pick him. . . . Biology, he (must have) reasoned, makes no difference – except that a bad choice is harder to take (just how it is, people being people, huh!) than bad luck with a prince of the blood.’ Damnation! – (We know why that misfortune was tolerated . . . but we’re tipping the balance away from fatalism and knuckling under to unbiddable human nature, sold on paternity.) [8] For thinking political fixers, the chances of choice are optimized by avoidance strategies (uitauit hunc casum, ‘chance/disaster’, 8.1). Widening participation meant including incurably regressive homines (like ‘you’ and ‘us’ – and him?), so fully ceremonial referral of the decision to the gods, for a ruling from ‘Jupiter Best and Greatest’, manifested through annunciatory miracle as the emperor’s deposition of the latest Pannonian victory-laurel on Jove’s lap wired divine electricity through Nerva’s suddenly majestic and recharged frame as he – He – summoned gods and men to witness the Assumption of Trajan in absentia: his adoption as ‘sole aid’ and ‘support’ (more troublingly reminiscent ‘Upstart’ riffs). Power sharing or abdication – same difference? As this Anchises rediuiuus is touched by the Deity and shouldered by the ‘son’ he and Rome need, the Trajan before our senate session fills in for the ‘virtual presence’ (non secus ac praesenti tibi, 8.4) of his role as Aeneas . . . on the point of quitting his razed Troy forever. . . . The orator packs in links to the stock of ‘archetypal’ scenarios to make us remember, and forget (to remember), selectively where cashing out analogies and dwelling on implications would scatter core thrust into fraught periphery. Tacitus gets to stage and dwell on the ‘fifteen-minutes-of-fame’ geriatric emperor Galba’s prequel for Nerva’s adoption of his update on Piso Licinianus’ shot at stand-in Aeneas, showing how this once proud republican family’s procession of honours turned to repeat butchery and martyrdom to autocracy, topped by the five-days-long zenith/nadir of rhetorically gilded co-rule pending decapitation in the forum of civil war chaos,

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69 ce-style (Tac. Hist. 1.14, 48); Pliny is not going to call up by mention this misfire into downfall atrocity, and blots out the prompt his Anchises overdub harbours to terminal crisis with oratorically enacted muting: ‘And lo! In a trice down sank all hubbub.’ Sh! All down to the adoptee – utter contrast, how could we ever/so soon forget?, with the trouble that did not die down but arose from the immediately preceding episode of imperial succession-adoption: Domitian’s abortive promotion to next-in-line of Flavius Clemens’ short-lived sons, restyled Domitianus and Vespasianus, the last-ditch arrangement cancelled in the sudden arraignment and execution of their father shortly before Domitian’s assassination (oblitine sumus . . . ?, 8.5). Picking Trajan did the trick for Nerva: ‘Lo! In a trice: “son”– “Caesar” – “imperator” – “partner in tribunician sacrosanctity”.’ §9–10 The titles all rolled into one packed magic moment of grace – where not so long before a ‘true father’ only ever bestowed titles on one of his two sons (namely, the other one – Titus). As Pan backs his embryonic dyarchy model, history shudders through. On the cue ‘imperator’, Pliny turns to make hay with the imperial title ‘Germanicus’: not the adopted son of Tiberius, named for his father’s conquests; not Pliny’s patron and honorary ‘parent’ Verginius Rufus, proud to lead the legions in Germany to suppress revolt – without being tempted to march south at their head and seize the throne (Ep. 2.1, 6.10, 9.19: affiliation, commemoration, vindication); and not the vanity of Domitian’s self-styling as ‘Germanicus’. Quite the reverse, as this commander of Germany was sent the title from Rome, at the frontier, ordered to accept the package while still unroyalled, so far as he knew, and therefore honour-bound by the grand traditions of military discipline to obey orders from his at once imperator, princeps and father (mos a maioribus traditus, 9.5). [10] Icing on the cake: he had to obey the more because others were disobeying; and supersession of said cake: it wasn’t Nerva’s pick but the Roman consensus, SPQR, which Nerva got to first, that’s all. Everyone’s prayers answered. So they were at the mercy of this marshal; he did spare Rome (moderatus es, 10.3). This cat slipped out of the bag with the elevation to imperator, a matter of more than ‘the name, the icons, the insignia’, in Trajan’s case active physical leadership in camp, the original and still, clearly, the patent core to the title (10.3). When this soldier’s soldier became ‘Caesar’ in Germany, he was driving straight for the top, all too like the original, Julius, and only restrained by his own preference to keep his new name of ‘son’, ‘opting’

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for second-in-command so long as he served the ‘optimal/saintliest’ ‘gent.’ of an oldster (optabas . . . optimo illi et sanctissimo seni, 10.4; the juncture where Pliny chooses to open his letter-file with Trajan: imperator sanctissime, optauerat . . . imperator optime, . . . opto, Ep. 10.1).19 §10–11 The timing worked out divinely: Nerva’s last act in life was to adopt his consecrator, immortality so close, historians will dispute whether he was still human. His one-line epitaph will style him ‘father of the state qua father of Trajan’ (nomine, 10.6). The pretty conceits are flirting with quite the wrong company: deification ceremonial is a routine, so Trajan treads a rut. But no, this version will not just tick the boxes (bene) but grasp the logic (sapienter): [11] Nerva’s apotheosis ‘copied the formulae but with discernment’ (hoc idem sed alia mente, 11.1). You could, then, have fooled us: forcing rhetoric is required to distinguish Nerva/Trajan from their models. And poisoned Penegyricus makes short work of the short set of precedents, supplying names to target derision. Augustus/Tiberius aimed ‘to smuggle in blasphemy trials’ (maiestas); Claudius/Nero ‘to mock him’; Vespasian/Titus and Titus/Domitian ‘to look like son and brother of god’. Whereas (here’s heresy) Trajan – Trajan is a believer, has faith, a ‘good successor’s faith’. Those latest Flavian precursors basked in high and mighty sloth trading on their father’s divinity; Trajan instead looks past them to ‘vie with the classic early Roman heroes’ (illos ueteres et antiquos). Who shall be nameless. [A lacuna interrupts a transition . . . §12–13 . . . and] we next meet another jibe at a generalissimo whose ‘celebration of a triumph was the most reliable pointer to his having been routed’ (Domitian in 89 ce). [12] Pan is following up the topic of the imperatorium nomen, facing about to watch the enemies of Rome contemplate a new ‘old-style classic Roman leader’ (Romanum ducem unum ex illis ueteribus et priscis, 12.1). In panic, they don’t cut deals for hostages or sell ‘victories’, but beg and grovel, ‘delivering panegyrics’ of their own when they get lucky (agunt gratias) and otherwise ‘stifling grumbles’ (non audent queri). Tribes across the Danube frontier learn to revere the newcomer’s serene mastery of their extreme biosphere; [13] and the soldiers that face them adore his 19

See Hoffer (2006).

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exemplary hands-on mucking-in troop-handling regime reviving the grand world-conquering tradition of Rome: the formulae of this legendary set piece tap into the core narrative history repertoire and its nostalgias (Sall. Jug. 45, 85.33–5). This drum needs banging: Rome has itself a soldieremperor, a soldier emperor (commilito) in the house. More than a comrade for the all-time stars in the pantheon: hac mihi admiratione dignus imperator uideretur si inter Fabricios et Scipiones et Camillos esset; tunc enim illum imitationis ardor semperque melior aliquis accenderet. (Plin. Pan. 13.4) A commandant would seem worthy of this admiration to me if operating with Fabriciuses + Scipios + Camilluses to right and left. You see, back in their day his fire would be lit by the burn of emulation, by endless betterment.

These cohorts in polysyndeton optimize our princeps by raiding Virgilian Anchises’ panoptic catechism for Romanness (tu . . . Romane, memento, Verg. A. 6.851) for the holiest haul of historical exempla: Fabricius heads 844, Scipiadae head 843, and Camillus closes 825. This intertextuality window-references to the taster of a home-grown crop of heroes in the laudes Italiae (Verg. G. 2.169–70): magnosque Camillos, | Scipiadas hinge the couplet, building to the climax of te, maxime Caesar |. Virgil paraded his underworld pageant to choreograph mos maiorum in action, as the factory of eternal gentilician recycling promises to engineer imitationis ardor semperque melior aliquis (13.5). Pan’s concentrated triad offer us first a one-off hero from the early third-century Pyrrhic victories, given the ‘generalizing plural’ treatment that stamps traditionalism into this protreptic.20 You too can from nowhere invent yourself as a new name on the list of lists, as Rome augments. Clan Fabricia making its solitary mark. Last comes Furius Camillus from the early fourth century, rescuing Rome from torching by Gallic invaders. His name carried his fame through the speaking cognomen ‘altarboy’, propagated through homonymous son and grandson consuls, but never leaching the glory away from ‘the original’. Instead, mighty Camillus acquired a meta-role as exemplary ‘second founder’ of Rome, boxing and coxing between (a) Romulus and Augustus (Liv. 5.49.7) and (b) Brutus and Julius/Augustus (see below on 55.6) in competing triadic epochs in Roman history, kingdom, republic/imperium, principate. Everrenewable preservationism, bridge between Cicero’s bank of exempla and Pliny’s/Tacitus’ amplificatory extensions (e.g. Asinius Gallus at Tac. Ann. 20

For discussion of the ‘generalizing plural’ in Latin, see Henderson (1997) on Hor. C. 1.12 at 29–32 with 97–114.

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2.33, Fabricios . . . Scipiones vs. Ann. 6.2, Scipiones . . . et Silani et Cassii). Central, to virtually everything, come the Cornelii Scipiones, dominating the culture-hero stakes from their rise in the early third century to their second-century hegemony. They always were a clan branch marked off by their cognomen, but arriving on the scene in waves, regularly in fraternal pairs, but also twinned across generations by duplicate exploits, especially the rhyming triumphal agnomen of the two Africani, brandishing their conquest and extirpation of Hannibal and Carthage, besides Asiaticus for the brother of Africanus Maior, and Numantinus to double up polyonomy for Africanus Minor. ‘Gentlemen’s cane/geriatric walking-stick/regal sceptre/Almighty’s lightning-bolt’, a ‘Scipio’ stands for the entire apparatus of exemplary provocation to emulate, replicate, pluralize and even outstrip but not oust, displace but never replace, those ancestors. At least one up-and-coming Cornelius Scipio is, for sure, here listening (Salvidienus Orfitus, cos. 110). §Excursus What Pliny releases with this flourish of Names is the ideologized trademark of oratory at Rome, codified for the (Flavian) curriculum of Trajan and Pliny by the imperial professor in rhetoric as the crowning glory of Oratory: neque ea solum quae talibus disciplinis continentur, sed magis etiam quae sunt tradita antiquitus dicta ac facta praeclare et nosse et animo semper agitare conueniet. quae profecto nusquam plura maioraque quam in nostrae ciuitatis monumentis reperientur. an fortitudinem, iustitiam, fidem, continentiam, frugalitatem, contemptum doloris ac mortis melius alii docebunt quam Fabricii, Curii, Reguli, Decii, Mucii aliique innumerabiles? quantum enim Graeci praeceptis ualent, tantum Romani, quod est maius, exemplis. (Quint. Inst. 12.2.29–30) and familiarity with not just the contents of those subjects will be appropriate but the more so the venerable tradition of word and deed passed on: activate them mentally forever. They will nowhere show up in greater quantity and scale than in the archives of our country. Take heroism, righteousness, trustworthiness, self-discipline, frugality, contempt for pain and for death. Who will better teach these lessons than Fabriciuses, Curiuses, Reguluses, Deciuses, Muciuses, and countless others? Because, strong as the Greeks are in precepts, the Romans are just as strong, and this is the grander factor, when it comes to exemplary figures.

‘Historical exempla’ gave oratory in court terrain for battle with and over malleable, appropriable, deniable narratives drawn from an archive without

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a definitive text to appeal to; they provided all speakers, especially on ceremonial occasions for epideictic suavity, grandiosity, pomposity, with upbeat material for persuasion, at once in your face and subliminal, and with opiate padding, feel-good and rapid-fire. Before all, they stretched the memory store, and extended to a stiff test of credentials for playing the Roman game, well or at all. Skilful deployment bespoke cultural eloquence, no less: in primis uero abundare debet orator exemplorum copia cum ueterum tum etiam nouorum, adeo ut non ea modo quae conscripta sunt historiis aut sermonibus uelut per manus tradita quaeque cotidie aguntur debeat nosse, uerum ne ea quidem quae sunt a clarioribus poetis ficta neglegere. nam illa quidem priora aut testimoniorum aut etiam iudicatorum optinent locum, sed haec quoque aut uetustatis fide tuta sunt aut ab hominibus magnis praeceptorum loco ficta creduntur. sciat ergo quam plurima: unde etiam senibus auctoritas maior est, quod plura nosse et uidisse creduntur (quod Homerus frequentissime testatur). sed non est exspectanda ultima aetas, cum studia praestent ut, quantum ad cognitionem pertinet rerum, etiam praeteritis saeculis uixisse uideamur. (Quint. Inst. 12.4.1–2) A first principle is that the orator must be awash with abundant supply of exempla from both yesteryear and also fresh arrivals. So much so that he must not only be familiar with write-ups in history books or dialogues, so to speak passed on hand to hand, plus daily events, but never neglect either even the factions of poets on the canon. You see the first category rank as testimonials or even verdicts, but the second set either have the safeguard of Antiquity’s credibility or else are trusted as an imaginary scenario for precepts from the Greats. So he’s to know the mostest, the more the better. Which is why veterans have the greater authority: they are trusted to know more because they’ve seen more (as Homer testifies all the time). But no, no waiting for your last phase, because study is guaranteed, so far as our awareness of data is concerned, to make us look like we’ve lived the centuries, however bygone.

Here Cicero was the master technician, practitioner/theorist rolled into one, and furnished the textbook cases: quis Carthaginiensium pluris fuit Hannibale consilio, uirtute, rebus gestis, qui unus cum tot imperatoribus nostris per tot annos de imperio et de gloria decertauit? hunc sui ciues e ciuitate eiecerunt: nos etiam hostem litteris nostris et memoria uidemus esse celebratum. qua re imitemur nostros Brutos, Camillos, Ahalas, Decios, Curios, Fabricios, Maximos, Scipiones, Lentulos, Aemilios, innumerabilis alios qui hanc rem publicam stabiliuerunt; quos equidem in deorum immortalium coetu ac numero repono. (Cic. Sest. 142–3)

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Which Punic outranked Hannibal as planner, hero and high achiever? He fought it out single-handed with our legion commanders over decades, for supremacy and fame both. His people threw him out, whereas we watch glorification of our foe in Roman pages and memories. So let us imitate our Brutuses, Camilluses, Ahalas, Deciuses, Curiuses, Fabriciuses, Fabiuses, Scipios, Lentuluses, Aemiliuses, and the myriads who built the republic strong. Them I lodge sure in the company and roster of the immortal gods.

§Boomerang Now (tradition also knows to say, of itself, as a traditional feedback loop of self-policing) a lot of this goes a long way; mantra easily spills into inanition. Lips can curl when saints form a queue: dicet aliquis: ‘Haec est igitur tua disciplina?’ . . . ego, si quis . . . hoc robore animi atque hac indole uirtutis atque continentiae fuit, ut respueret omnes uoluptates . . . nihil in uita expetendum putaret, nisi quod esset cum laude et cum dignitate coniunctum, hunc mea sententia diuinis quibusdam bonis instructum atque ornatum puto. ex hoc genere illos fuisse arbitror Camillos, Fabricios, Curios omnesque eos, qui haec ex minimis tanta fecerunt. uerum haec genera uirtutum non solum in moribus nostris, sed uix iam in libris reperiuntur. chartae quoque, quae illam pristinam seueritatem continebant, obsoleuerunt. (Cic. Cael. 39–40) Someone will ask ‘So this is what you call discipline, huh? ’ . . . I say, anyone with the strength of mind and constitutional courage and control required to repudiate all pleasures . . . and recognize as a life target only the concomitants of repute and honour, he gets my vote for his distinguished panoply of divine blessings. The ilk, I warrant, of the Camilluses, Fabriciuses, Curiuses and all who once built Rome from nothing to grandeur. But. This idiom of excellence is today hardly to be found in the Roman make-up, or even in the library. Even the pages that formerly enshrined the old puritanism have faded away.

Pliny too is citing the citation system, as such (as if incidental, automatic and, no less, exempli gratia), for all that his multiplicate trio do prosecute their rhetorical mission, of smoothing the nobody upstart Spaniard n´e Ulpius Traianus into self-inventing ‘son and heir of diuus (Cocceius) Nerva, latest of the Caesars, the Augustuses’, as the latest product from the factory belt. But he is also using it to incubate his hero as a bornout-of-time education on legs to all budding Romans to come. That is, Pan freshens up here by going militant, anti-intellectual, book-trashingly censorious, as Plin laments the passing of live militarist culture in favour of academic theory, fun where fatigues belong, inspirational bemedalled

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vets. replaced by Greekling/weakling boffins, in order to wheel on the lone autodidact Trajan, turned on by ‘the forefathers’ traditions of the fatherland’s excellences’ (patrio more patria uirtute, 13.5). The great exception, this phenomenal one-man bubble reinvents the race for exemplary status (ibid.): sine aemulo sine exemplo secum certare secum contendere ac sicut imperat solus solum ita esse qui debeat imperare. (Plin. Pan. 13.5) with neither rival nor paradigm he competes solo, fights himself, and just as he stands alone as emperor, so he alone qualifies to rule the empire.

§14–15 So the thanksgiving narrative plumps for parsimonious deployment of the exemplary heritage, with such good cause. Right here, the maiores are summoned to open its new chapter for the storybooks, starring the ‘incunabulation and kindergarten’ of Pliny’s version of Trajan: The Early Years (`a la Tac. Agr. 5). Writing Trajan from his start at his father’s side in Parthia, then his call from Spain to go do Domitian’s dirty work for him in Germany (already deserving the ‘Germanicus’ badge), re-launches his journey to the summit, kitting the boy out with seven-league boots borrowed from that indefatigable son of Jupiter who strode to Spain and back, bestrode the globe east–west in fact on his dragon-slaying ordeals/crusades. By Hercules (14.5)! The blatant hook was Spain; the topic remains the soldier-imperator; hereabouts formative training tours us up through the career steps, when Trajan learned his song well so he could teach it, ten years of geopolitical coursework, travelling, earning spurs . . . Pliny’s text does it, too: showing/teaching us how reading this hagiography is, as its destiny, to generate echelons of would-be clones. [15] Boys will get the bug from Pan (as from Lives/Annals of Trajan proper) and want to visit the heritage sites wherever Trajan toiled, rested, guested. Instead of Virgil’s Evander guiding Aeneas round the future location of the city of Rome, already memorializing the inspirational heroics of Hercules on site, now Rome the world empire hosts its posterity on the Trajan Trail (tectum magnus hospes impleueris, 15.4: aude, hospes, contemnere opes . . . angusti subter fastigia tecti | ingentem Aenean duxit, Verg. A. 8.364–6). Again, the process of enculturation is here an open book, even to Roman schoolboys, laying out the dynamics of hero-fiction even while applying the craft to tailor its specific commission and deliver. Because the prince who became royal grew up a priuatus, he could project straight onto the

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legendary champions that won the world before royalty. The story of his rise would incapsulate and reiterate the mythistory of Rome; so far, no Caesar born to reign had made it, but the maximal contrast with the Trajanectory was the non-story of Domitian, non-achieving teenager, back-up prince in reserve, then unintended heir, turning into sagaless progenitor of zilch. Foregone conclusion, nothing gone nowhere. Pliny makes Trajan transume all Wannabes after his lead, tracking and tracing Trajan across the empire ‘just the way the hallowed footprints of mighty leaders were pointed out to you in the same places back then’. This in the present (speech), for the future (tracking back over Trajan’s transition to exemplary status, for replication, for good). To make our consummate ‘historical exemplum’-to-be, we resume our traipse through the emperor’s past, catching up with that mucking-in soldierly c.-in-c. (commilito, 15.5 ∼ 13.3). With the topic of military governance, the consul traces out on behalf of the House what emperor they will be thankful to have had, and to have recommended to him, them, and his and their successors. §16–24 The line is drawn at the Danube bank between crossing over to glory-hunt a triumph (transeas, 16.2) a` la Domitianic mock-up, and [17] waiting in beautiful Trajanic non-aggression for the real thing to come, with mighty chieftains’ names on display (ingentia ducum nomina nec indecora nominibus corpora, 17.2). [18] Meantime, retrieving ‘lapsed camp discipline’ traditions from ‘the flawed previous era’ (∼ Sall. Iug. 45; Tac. Ann. 13.35), Trajan gets officers licking troops into shape, on guard against enemy not emperor, no longer dreading the guys more than the other side; [19] without overshadowing them, he fuses control with the common touch (imperatorem commilitonemque, 19.3) until [20] the home trip called, from and in peace, ‘like some great commander – you! – heading out to the front’, achieving total polarity against ‘that transit, no, not transit, but the scorched earth trail of a certain recent Caesar’ (quam dissimilis nuper alterius principis transitus, 20.4). Here (as I think) Pliny names and shames ‘Domitian’s March’, as he outdoes Cicero’s branding of his bˆete noire’s non-iter-sed-calamitas that first made his name as Demosthenic scourge (Cic. Ver. 1.46). The specific prompt here to ‘future emperors, like it or not, to know’, and know good, ‘“The Tab – To Their Own Cost”’, models the Domitian/Trajan divide as the permanent acid test:

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propositis . . . duobus exemplis meminerint perinde coniecturam de moribus suis homines esse facturos, prout hoc uel illud elegerint. (Plin. Pan. 20.6) put this pair of exempla before them and be it never forgot that folk will readyreckon their character according to whether they chose ‘A’ or they chose ‘B’.

[21] Still en route, Trajan indulged in no ‘new honours, new titles’ rigmarole, and – lo! – still deferred the obligatory coronation entitlement to the label pater patriae, concurrent with the rest of the purpling package (nomen illud, quod alii primo statim principatus die ut imperatoris et Caesaris receperunt, 21.2). [22] His day one was the Entry to Rome, ‘not charioted by a white triumph team, not shouldered high and haughty, as per predecessors’ (priores . . . solebant, 22.1). [23] Instead he went walkabout for this introitus, the son treading in his father’s footsteps (isdem uestigiis, 23.5), [24] the very ‘optimizing’ epitome of imperial promise (talis denique quales alii principes futuros se pollicentur, 24.1) – where ‘pre-Ulpian emperors had lost the use of their feet’ and so ‘were shouldered above the likes of us’; ‘the common ground, blurred imperial footprints, reached Trajan for the stars’. §25–32 The thanksgiving speech’s ‘longeurs road’ matches the multitude of favours to acclaim, globe-shrinking handouts for army and [26] populus worldwide matched by child benefit investment in citizens of the future, [27] backed by the personal panache that spells reassurance, not ‘incurable diseases afflicting an emperor, featuring rage’. [28] Freebies in high-rolling profusion, not to be confused with previous sweeteners to lessen dislike (antea principes, 28.3), [29] flood into quasi-unending state subsidy in the form of grain prices, ‘once the source of as much glory for its controller Pompey the Great (“Magnus” ∼ non minus) as his cumulative successes with the lex Pompeia dismissing bribery and affray from elections, his sweeping of piracy from the Mediterranean, and his triumphal processions sanctifying the world all the way from the rising to the setting sun’ (29.1) (Asia to go with Africa and Spain). Now Pliny is using this uniquely extended historical exemplum to bridge from dole through corn supply to relief for Egyptian famine to spread Trajanic munificence planet-wide. The only Great with a term as daily bread czar to rank up there with world conquest (cf. Cic. Att. 4.1.6–7) is worth it despite the reminders of this loser’s assassination and decapitation at the Nile Delta in Civil War against the first of the Caesars, Julius, because Latin annona debouches so easily into miraculous

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fertility per annum, opening up trade routes into transporting (deuehunt) exuberant bumper harvests. [30] For Trajan’s now eclipses the glory of Nilotic Egypt, proverbially gross producer-exporter of grain (deuexerat, 30.1). [31] Whose unheard-of crop failure handed Fortune the ‘raw materials and geo-metaphorical setting’ for disproving the old saw that Rome depends on Egypt for foodstuff in a reversal that shipped back (reuexit, 31.3) such floods of transported grain cargo that ‘the Nile never flowed more bountifully’. A once-for-alltime warning to swollen-headed Egypt, teach its unreliable stream a lesson (post haec . . . , 31.4). [32] Same then goes (for Trajan as for Pompey) for all Roman territories, the transglobal trade community directing surplus to deficit areas. The Pan cameo for Pompey may import associations with Cicero’s ground-breaking encomium, where (admittedly years before lex or cura) he pressed that his appointment to an extraordinary commission to see off the Mithridatic War was in the impro-spirit of echt Roman traditions of adaptability (Man. 60–1).21 Where the other chief classic precedent for gratiarum actio to a (in fact, the) Caesar, namely the brisk Pro Marcello, confines itself to making history by making a historical exemplum of Julius the Merciful,22 and adduces no roll-call of predecessors (who might undo Cicero’s strenuous screening out of exploits stained with Civil War), the Maniliana unrolls just one such pageant (23): reliquum est ut de felicitate (quam praestare de se ipso nemo potest, meminisse et commemorare de altero possumus, sicut aequum est homines de potestate deorum) timide et pauca dicamus. ego enim sic existimo: Maximo, Marcello, Scipioni, Mario, et ceteris magnis imperatoribus non solum propter uirtutem, sed etiam propter fortunam saepius imperia mandata atque exercitus esse commissos. . . . de huius autem hominis felicitate, de quo nunc agimus, hac utar moderatione dicendi, non ut in illius potestate fortunam positam esse dicam, sed ut praeterita meminisse, reliqua sperare uideamur, ne aut inuisa dis immortalibus oratio nostra aut ingrata esse uideatur. (Cic. Man. 23) For finale, let me speak of Being Lucky. Nobody can deliver this of themselves, but we can commemorate it of another (as humans of the power of the gods, fair enough). A few timid remarks, the way I see it: Fabius, Marcellus, Scipio, Marius & co. – the Greats among commanders – they all had commands entrusted to them with armies assigned not just for their excellence but also, and more often, 21 22

See Steel (2001) 113–56. For Pro Marcello as prime forerunner of the imperial Latin panegyric, see Levene (1997) 68–77 – but allow the leading consular the whip hand in curia, as brandished by Dyer (1990); for Pro Marcello as a forerunner to the Panegyricus see too Manuwald, pp. 90–2 in this volume.

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for being fortunate. . . . On this person here’s luck, in the present case, I shall treat in toned-down style, not to claim Fortune is put in his power, but to come over as mindful of the past and hopeful of what remains, so my speech won’t come across as either hated by the gods or thankless.

But here the brash ethos suits bold tribunician agitation pushing the envelope and sports street legal Marius for cred. with plebeian orthodoxy. There is none of the senior consular resonance of Cicero coming out, on the back of the Marcellus ‘pardon’, from boycotting the senate to bespeak the senate’s prerogative of declaiming in the name of Rome: there he defines live enthymemic parameters within which Caesar could deserve and so retain admiration and cooperation. §33–55 But Rome did not live on bread alone. Generous but to no fault, Trajan supplied ‘circuses’ (as well as panem): beautiful spectaculars with none of the bring-down negatives familiar from when ‘that Psychopath’ ran the show(s), when dislike for a gladiator would become a trial for disloyalty, fans became human torch exhibits on the end of a hook, and paranoid readings of support given or withheld were the order of the day. [34] One (one-off ) beautiful ‘special’ rounded up the hangover vermin from those days, informers (delatores) and suchlike ‘cancer in the body politic’.23 [35] The nautical wheeze now was to herd them on a boat and push it out, at the mercy of wind and wave, ‘onto whatever rocks they deliver them’ (detulissent, 35.1). This purge allusively riffs on Cicero’s exorcism of the Catilinarian conspirators (excidisti intestinum malum, 34.2; ∼ Cat. 1.5), but civilizes – and entertains – by forgoing execution of those left to lurk and instead substituting bloodless stagecraft; but up front it melodramatizes that seachange in ‘The Times’ (quantum diuersitas temporum, 35.2), while unleashing vitriolic spite, crowing, terror in virtually Domitianic (tooth for a tooth) vindictiveness. This topic, of a thousand sanctions on the parasites, springs that heaven-bound ‘Titan’ of an emperor Titus on us for his moment, tightly knitted in as trailblazing provider for ‘our security and retribution’ (ingenti animo, 35.4 ∼ ingentia . . . animos, 34.3; securitati, 35.4 ∼ secura, 34.1, securitate, 35.1; ultioni ∼ ultionem, 35.4; cf. 36.2; prospexerat, 35.4 ∼ prospectare, 35.1). [36] Titus may be good and a god, though (a) Flavian: but since his edict on the penalties for false informing cannot have worked even as the ascension he had earned was granted (sc. by Domitian), since 23

Gubernatorial-govern-mental anecdote: Manolaraki (2008) esp. 377–83.

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the informers fastbred (sc. under Domitian), and though Nerva beefed it up apparently to the full and to everyone’s satisfaction, now Trajan has excogitated so much, it’s as though he dreamed it up out of thin air! So Titus’ bit-part makes him a less than exemplary extra, walking on to be cut; he can, however, stand in for the ‘before’ (sc. before Domitian) recovered for the proprieties of civil law ‘today’. Further profuse generosity is backed by silencing the racketeers, sh!, the way we were ‘before informers’. [37–52] Administration, administration, administration: the fine-print budgeting, tax calculus, social programme, daily regime of consultation, work and rest, public works and monuments that amount to ‘our security’ choke the speech along between sporadic reminders of uncanny bonding with Nerva, ‘optimal emperor as optimal father’ (37.6, 38.6, 43.4), as against rapacious ‘earlier – tyrant – emperors’ blanked as if they never were (39.2; 40.3; ut regum ita Caesarum, 43.5; 50.2), and above all ‘that unforgotten’ bent ‘emperor’, ‘that gargantuan beast’ With No Name ‘tormented in his own (Cyclops) cave’, ‘the sex-crime emperor’ statuefied in every niche, ‘sadistic slave-driver’ (42.4, 48.3–5, 52.3, 52.7). [45] Constructing ‘what we need, our exemplum’ (45.6) for history well and wisely, surfing on the backwash of remembered adversity shared with us (44.1), will deliver on the top-down copycat compulsion represented by impacting follow-my-leader paradigm – by optimization (optare . . . meliorem . . . melior . . . non . . . nisi Optimum, 44.3; cf. 52.3; proximating Jupiter Optimus Maximus, 52.6; 53.2). It already is, on paper: melius homines exemplis docentur (45.6; cf. 47.6). A hard act, Pan hopes and says, to follow. Meanwhile excursions into historicality are starved – ‘earlier emperors with the exception of your father, oh plus one or two (no, that’s too many)’ enthused over bad subjects, preferring slaves: defining despotism. Who they? Augustus? Titus? Really? [46] Closure of degrading pantomime turns the clock back to the ‘Hollywood emperor’ charade (scaenicus imperator ∼ Tac. Ann. 15.50.4). [53] So, dict. sap., Pliny elaborately editorializes the ‘whole’ dynamic of his running comparison between best and bad emperors, spicing it with pot/kettle sarcasm on ‘Nero’s recent revenge’, when Domitian executed his assassin, to clinch the symmetry with future malefactors and their prospective retroactive cursing by posterity (sub exemplo praemonere, 53.5). Pan’s every word operates the enthymeme that a rebuke for the last emperor delivers the best praise of the one living: ‘Silence on a bad emperor from posterity is proof positive that the one they have behaves the same way.’ [54] Which is tantamount to registering that adulation shadows puny panegyric as evil twin, just as showbiz, the major arts, poetry and history

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(annales) are haunted, along with senatorial debate and all decision-making discourse, by the duty to assign honorific formulae and nominations, aka pandering: e.g. ‘a month to rename, several months, why not?, per Caesar’ (54.4). The classic ‘unsung hero’ paradox has Pliny make a meal of it proving that the loveliest title ascribed to ‘Trajan’ ordains him the refuser of titles: [55] that will go down the ages, ‘There once was an emperor who . . . ’ (contrast ‘earlier times’; more sapientia; and prolixe . . . cumulateque selfdescribes, as it enacts, its text). Yet – or yes – the odd tribute makes it through, like the odd statue (cf. unam alteramue et hanc aeream, 52.3): quales olim ob egregia in rem publicam merita priuatis dicabantur; uisuntur eadem e materia Caesaris statuae qua Brutorum qua Camillorum. (Plin. Pan. 55.6) just like the ones once upon a time dedicated to citizens to mark exceptional service to the state: pilgrims visit Caesars Trajans made of the same material as the Brutuses and Camilluses.

Camillus we have met pluralized-cum-‘generalized’ already (13.4); he | and | Brutus were both singular in Anchises’ panorama (Verg. A. 6.825, 818). Virgil specified the first founder of the republic, and pairing with Camillus olim would discount other Brutuses here too, for all the proximity of ‘Caesar’ and its twin ‘Brutus’, sc. his best friend and assassin, the tyrannicide. But there is no conflict here: the original Brutus, the ‘Liberator’, rid Rome of monarchs in the first place. No matter, Pliny presses on with the brazen paradox-mongering of orthodoxy on the ‘principate’: nec discrepat causa: illi enim reges hostemque uictorem moenibus depulerunt, hic regnum ipsum quaeque alia captiuitas gignit, arcet ac summouet, sedemque obtinet principis ne sit domino locus. (Plin. Pan. 55.7) And the logic contains no contradiction: whereas they drove kings and victorious foe from the city walls, he repels and shoos kingship itself, plus the rest of the products of being captured: takes over the throne of a princeps/emperor so there’s no place for the despot/enslaver.

§56.1–2 With this belaboured climax to the onslaught of administrative items building towards the arrival of Trajan at the consulate (diuisio at 41.1), the broadest sweep of Roman historicality served to crown Pan’s portrait for eternity of the ‘lovable’ living statue facing the senate’s gaze. Arrival at the climax/rhetorical bridge to the section is marked by self-commentary flourish (diuisio here): ‘You must have spotted long since, my first

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readers/senators, that my treatment is not selective’ but instead holistic construal of An Emperor, purpureus pannus.24 ‘You, imperator auguste’ and Pan’s ‘hi-fidelity narration’ cannot skip or finesse, or miss a moment (uel transilire uel praeteruehi, 56.2; quod momentum, quod . . . temporis punctum . . . omnia, 56.2). Of optimization (nisi Optimus non, 56.1; optime . . . laudasse, 56.2). It was with the sermonizing topic of the ‘inscribed monument’ that Pliny stretched his humdrum epistolary corpus to support that ‘history of the present’’s solitary showcase for historical exempla: excused and accommodated as involuntary outrage expressed through sarcasm, the context is the official award of honorary insignia plus a big cheque to a ‘satisfied’ Claudius’ freedman secretary with the pretentiously evocative royal name of Pallas (Ep. 7.29.2; as if straight from the Aeneid, another Arcadian son of Evander, cf. Tac. Ann. 12.53.3).25 This prompts the follow-up explosion on the trail of the original decree of the senate, which made the epitaph seem ‘modest – even self-deprecating’: conferant se misceantque, non dico illi ueteres, Africani Achaici Numantini, sed hi proximi Marii Sullae Pompei (nolo progredi longius): infra Palladis laudes iacebunt. (Plin. Ep. 8.6.2) Come for the comparison, mingle. Not you, from Antiquity, Africanuses, Achaicuses, Numantinuses, but you, from next door, Mariuses, Sullas, Pompeys – No! I refuse to go down that road. Far enough. – All of them will lie flattened beneath panegyric for Pallas.

Why, a grateful House even voted, and glossed, thanksgiving to Caesar re Pallas (Pallantis nomine, 8.6.5; ∼ Pan, see on 75 below). And Pliny strains his didactic/reflexive letter to the limit in pain-full transcription spliced with his imaginative efforts to recreate each scenario (quamquam indignationem quibusdam in locis fortasse ultra modum extulerim, 8.6.17). That princeps Optimus (8.6.10, 13) set out, well and wise, the ‘beautiful rationale’ (8.6.15, cf. exemplo . . . Pallantis, 13): ut exemplo Pallantis praemiorum ad studium aemulationis ceteri prouocarentur. ea honorum utilitas erat. (Plin. Ep. 8.6.15) the dividend of the honours bestowed was intended to use Pallas’ exemplary rewards to provoke everyone else to pitch in and take him on. Pour encourager les autres. 24 25

For Pliny’s pride in the ordo . . . et transitus et figurae on show in Pan, see Ep. 3.13.3, with Henderson (2002) 133; on style and composition in Pan, cf. Gamberini (1983) 337–448. Pallas in Plin. Ep.: Henderson (2002) 33–4.

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The Epistles writes down its negative historical exemplum by summoning up, first, honorific titles won by the second-century generalissimos of the worldconquering republic who fought for Rome: both Scipio Africanuses – one of them dumb-cluck counted twice, for ‘Numantinus’ was the second triumphal agnomen won by Scipio Africanus Minor (Aemilianus; see above on 13.4); plus Mummius ‘Achaicus’, who sacked rebel Achaean Corinth the same year as Scipio Aemilianus sacked Carthage (146). And, second, the first-century republic-conquering generalissimos who also fought for Rome, but did it their way: Marius fighting it out with his former lieutenant Sulla; then Pompey the Great (whose missing partner would be Julius Caesar, link between Aeneas’ Trojans, Venus, Jupiter and every ever-after Roman emperor, including Pallas’ eventual executor, Nero). Where the first names were acquired extras, Rome trampling the other (Carthage, Spain, Greece – Achaea in central Hellas, including Arcadia), the second triad made their given names name fame, whether Rough Diamond New Man Marius, Faded Aristo Cornelius Sulla, or son of a general from the backwoods Pompey (Sullae Felices did recur up to Claudius’ reign; Pompeii and ‘Magni’ went their separate ways to oblivion). Feel Pliny deconstruct = rip apart (M. Antonius) Pallas’ identity, between slave turned emperor’s pal and chief minion and self-styled scion of a legend from the first paragraphs of Rome’s foundation myth. Burst balloon – flat as a pancake. The next note will receive a certain book from Tacitus, ‘as teacher to pupil’ (8.7.1). With, and in (it declares), an impossibly strained outsize hyperbaton . . . §56.2–62 Under two years narrated, and Pan heralds arrival at the pinnacle topic of purple consulates with mock-despair at the speech’s ‘near-infinite diffusion’ (∼ Liv. 31.1.5). Trajan’s first doesn’t count (a mention: under Domitian in 91); the second was Nervan but held in absentia, at the front ‘as they used to do when it was traditional to switch costumes, consular robes for commander’s cloak, and chase down uncharted lands for victory’ (56.4; sc. back when consuls stayed in Rome before their mission abroad as proconsul, before Sulla, even before the mid-second century). Throw in a ‘lovely’ and duly elaborated scenario ‘not seen for centuries’ when the paraphernalia of capital and camp met together and acclamation as ‘imperator Traianus’ was hailed live, for scorning, not for taming, the foe. [57] The third was refused at the start of Trajan’s reign, though several ‘new emperors’ (Gaius, Otho, Domitian) would keep transferring consulates destined for others to themselves, while one (Nero) even at the end

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of his reign seized and stole a consulate he had himself bestowed ‘though it was almost over’ (57.2; from rebel Julius Vindex). Was Trajan shy of a third consulate or his first as emperor? In ‘a state that had seen consuls v and even vi [see below] – not those that were installed as liberty breathed her last, through force and uprising, but those in retirement and absence who had consulates brought them on their farms – the emperor of the human race turned down a iii, as, huh, too heavy?’ (57.4): tantone Papiriis etiam et Quinctiis moderatior ‘Augustus’ et ‘Caesar’ et ‘pater patriae’? (Plin. Pan. 57.5) Is being ‘Augustus/Caesar/pater patriae’ rolled into one more restrained than being one of the Papiriuses/Quinctiuses?

On the bona fide elected quintuple consulate mark were the late fourthcentury Papirius Cursor, early third-century and late third-century Fabii Maximi, and late third-century Claudius Marcellus; on the sextuple, mid-fifth-century Quinctius Capitolinus. Consuls summoned from the plough were late fifth-century Quinctius Cincinnatus26 and mid-thirdcentury Atilius Regulus. Bracketing (non-Virgilian) Papirius and Quinctius together here heads up Cursor and Capitolinus in these generalizing plurals, excluding e.g. Cursor’s son and, among Quinctii, Cincinnatus, Flamininus et al. The men of violence would be Marius (vii) and Caesar (v). [58] But Pliny tears away from his chronological procession, skipping appeal for comparison to ‘the one whose serial consulates created a long and undifferentiated “year”’ (58.1) and so fading out Augustus (xiii, with ix continuous 33–23 bce) and Vespasian (ix, with viii in 70–9) to collapse emperor excesses into the hate-object of ‘comparison’ Domitian (x, with vii in a row 82–8). By facing Trajan with his own contemporary luminaries among consular senators: Fabricius Veiento (iii: possibly now dead?) and those others granted to open and so name their year (Cornelius Palma, Cornelius Senecio), the orating consul blurs us from his New Era back to the New Republic: ‘This is the way at the expulsion of the kings the year of freedom began; the way once upon that time throwing off enslavement brought unroyal names into the consul lists’ (58.3). [59] Through this potted history of ‘republican’ imperium, we all but catch up with the moment, lobbying still against the emperor’s recusatio for his cos. iii. (‘Teach future emperors their duty’). [60] But Trajan has by now conceded, for when he could be present, i.e. for the present term, to be cos. iii together with unroyal coss. iii: Frontinus iii ordinarius from 26

Ogilvie (1965) 428–9, 436, 441.

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1 January, to be replaced by [incertus] suffect cos. for March–April. These were the first such pairings with emperors granted to civilians, whereas ‘once upon a time’, by contrast, ‘allies in war and partners in peril’ were sparingly bestowed: on Agrippa in 27 bce, L. Vitellius in 47 ce, Licinius Mucianus in 72, and Verginius Rufus in 97. [61] We catch us up/put the clock back some more, at the sight nine months back of illum antiquum senatum (61.1) when a cos. iii sat side by side with a cos. iii formally requiring the cos. designate to state his vote: father Nerva had already teamed them as coss. ii (in 98), in crisis, ‘just like olden days when once upon a time the enemy drew close, the republic was drawn into last-ditch peril, and the call would come for a hero tried and tested in high office and high distinction. It wasn’t a case of consulships delivered to the same people, but the same people delivered to consulships’ (61.7). ‘Many more coss. iii, please!’ (61.10). [62] Unlike paulo ante, optimal – exemplary – relations obtain between senate and emperor nunc. §63–80 On with Trajan’s present and correct consulate, then? No: first . . . the preliminaries! Exemplary candidature ‘for good emperors to ape and bad uns to find amazing’ (63.1). Not the way ‘predecessor emperors’ did it, but in person down ‘on the ancient site of the people’s power’ (the Campus Martius ∼ metaphorized at/as honoris et gloriae campus, 70.8), submitting to every ritual requirement: [64] ‘Imp./Caesar/Augustus stood to attention attending the enthroned presiding consul, as if there’s nothing unusual in that’ (64.2). Lovely twists a-plenty to all this! [65] And so too, well-andwise consular conduct (nunc primum disco, 65.1) through and out of office, ‘unlike those who chucked in a consulate just a few days in, or before it even started’ (65.3: Tiberius, Caligula and Domitian). So ‘finale tallied with overture’. [66] But, senators – Pan holds out against skipping (non transilui, 66.1). At no point stuck for material, our single-minded slo’mo’ Trajanectoratory presses on down the tract ‘without deviation, dispersion, repetition’ (66.1; well/wise? Check!). From Day One = the 1 January pledges under oath, [67] you could see this selfless emperor meant it, unlike alii, and ‘he won’t forget we appreciate this time you can depend on because life was so different under a pessimized emperor’ (67.3). [68] So, a happy and carefree day, when on their turn ‘other emperors were torn by anxiety and panic attack’ (68.2). [69] On to conduct of the next selections, where ‘should anyone need a historical example’, Trajan noted, ‘they should copy you’. ‘A hard example to

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follow: Caesar’ + ‘A hard example to follow, Caesar’ (69.3). Cue (a) train of aristocrats – ‘great names summoned up by Caesar’s kindness from the darkness of oblivion’ (69.5) – accelerated back into the limelight, to their ancestors’ level (Cornelius Dolabella Metilianus, Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus, Pinarius Severus . . . ). [70] And (b) our New Man from Novum Comum, cos. Pliny, risks orating an anecdote to match, on a certain quaestorian candidate well known to the rest of the House (and to Ep. 8.4: Sex. Quinctilius Valerius Maximus), encouraged to make his descendants as noble as their parents made those aristos. His origins in Asian Mysia on the Troad made him a good lesson for provincials when he governed a province. (As good a lesson as a certain New Man hailing from Italica in Baetica, presently governing this very provincial’s selection process.) [71] Again matching sequel to prequel, Trajan presents ‘an archaic sight for our sore eyes: an emperor stood on a level with the candidates’ (71.3). Calling the names over set wheels of optimization in train (faciebas ergo, cum diceres optimos, 71.1). [72] And the ceremonial prayers, ‘after so long, too long’ (72.2), saw emperor and senate as one, whereas ‘for sure the demise of previous emperors has taught that only those loved by people are loved by the gods!’ (72.4). Not that the prayers changed scripts along with the prayers’ fortunes; rather (so Pan self-reflects), ‘the same words are meant differently’ (72.7). [73] But the novelty of joyous pandemonium around a blubbing emperor ‘has burdened’, will burden, ‘future emperors – and our descendants, the latter requiring they deserve to hear the same prayers, the former cross at not hearing them’ (73.6). [74] Amid felicitations to Trajan and to ‘Us’, the House rang with more pithy ‘skill and – solemn – wisdom’ (sapienter et grauiter, 74.2): in the gnomic ‘crede nobis, crede tibi’ (‘Trust us/Trust your self’, 74.2), they could even tell a Trajan to look to his laurels, and with ‘what forfeited the worst emperor’s trust, win the best’s’ (74.3). [75] Business opens with the business of this one oration, beggared by its oral matrix, in live acclamation, and the transumption of both into ‘published articles’ and onto ‘inscribed monuments’. The rhetorical Panfare acclaims here and now, on this page for each successive us, the fact that the scriptural fanfare was possible for this occasion, unlike past equivalents, and does the nation good and proud to ‘go out to the masses and be forwarded to the future’ (75.3). Pliny ‘pursues and syllogizes’ these ‘details’: (a) get the world in on the act; (b) prove verdicts on emperors good or bad need not be posthumous; (c) demonstrate in agendo the previous ban on thanksgiving, now lifted ‘(a) negatively, so as not to suppress our enthusiasm and/for Trajan’s deserts; (b) positively, so as to think ahead for History to come through Exemplarity’. Well to be wise, as Pliny lays down the generic law

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for Eulogy: discant et principes acclamationes ueras falsasque discernere (‘Even emperors must learn to tell the difference in acclamation: true or false?’, 75.5). For this, its own graphic text, as it bids to become master-text for all Panegyrici Latini: quid nunc ego . . . nisi ut haereat animo tuo gaudium, quod tunc oculis protulisti; ames illum diem et tamen uincas, noua merearis, noua audias? eadem enim dici nisi facta non possunt. (Plin. Pan. 75.6) Right here, right now. To stick in the mind this spectacular Trajansport of the joy your eyes broadcast in the moment. The day to love, and yet to beat; fresh services evoking fresh congratulations. The Iron Law is, the same words are down to the same deeds.

So this speech is for keeps and not shy of telling us so. [76] Meantime, back and on to business, the exemplary ‘primeval consul’’s iron constitution powering through the 48-hour session of free-style debate, so properly conducted ‘it looked like some Great Hero from Antiquity had walked in, to serve under a Good Emperor!’ (76.9). [77] Running selections, running jurisdiction, all amounting to running a course in Consulship. [78] And provoking justified demands-commands-remands for a cos. iv. So as to optimize one brief span and prosper the future (the details spill out); without spoiling the consulate’s originary titular identification with Liberty Regained; incidentally relieving the embarrassment of those ordinary cos. iiis; [79] without fighting the will of the House; without flunking the Idiot’s Guide to Consulship: ‘the more the better’ . . . [80] Sun goes down on High Court Judge Trajan, working through every day’s trials, playing God the Cosmic Father running planet earth with each nod in one parting paroxysm on consularity from consul Pliny. §81–9 Between consular emperor and consular orator we take a step down through off-duty Trajan’s regimen (∼ the finale of Pliny’s regimen at Ep. 9.37, three from the end of the last book). This meaty hunter revives the oncetraditional training of future principes (then ‘leaders’ now ‘emperors’), for real, unlike other emperors’ charades. This boatie is the diametrical opposite of [82] Dormition shivering on a barge towed across inland lake or seaside bay, good sport for Danube and Rhine to host. Not to be defensive about it, muscular physique does have its role in heroic labours; see any Greek Myths collection in your off-duty reading (see under Cephalus, Orion, et al.; and Hercules, Castor and Pollux, etc. etc. Exemplorum gratia).

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Relax and enjoy contrasting – listing – ‘most emperors’’s ways to unwind. [83] Before going behind the scenes, inside the palace, to catch domestic optimization at work, call on empress (Pompeia Plotina) and duchess (Trajan’s sister Ulpia Marciana). [84] They are well/wisely postponing the grand-dame title of ‘Augustas’ until earned (sc. until one becomes a mother, the other a wife).27 [85] The courtier’s honorific status of ‘friend’, no longer ‘a word/name without content/substance’ (nomen tantum amicitiae, 85.1), evokes [86] an offbeat second ‘nautical’ anecdote that must find space in Pan (o rem memoriae litterisque mandandam, 86.2): one [unknown] personally appointed Commander of the Guard is allowed by Trajan to resign, personally escorted on board ship, with the full propemptic treatment, waves and more tears. . . . Take for granted acts of generosity (taceo . . . all the way through 86.5–6),28 [87] one facet of overall well-and-wise handling of citizen subjects to set before its converse, [88] due handling of servants, freed or slaves: in contrast to ‘most emperors out of twelve, who treated their citizens as if they owned them, and their freedmen as if they owned them’ (88.1). If this last topic hyperlinked the prime hits Claudius and Nero (see the Annales when Tacitus gets to writing them), then it helped bridge through time-expired Nerva to boy-wonder Trajan via congratulation on inheriting staff from ‘father and the good Flavians’ (88.3), and so pave the path towards closing down the main structure of Pan through a ring back to the adoption saga and its precipitation of the ‘innovatory’ nickname ‘Traianus Optimus’ (now awarded by SPQR ∼ 2.7). To stick this nonce dyad into the Roman archive permanently, Pan pulls out all the stops to scale Heaven. The rhetoric, the discourse, of Historical Exemplarity29 supplies the terms for meta-terminological optimization: an satius fuit, ‘Felicem’ uocare? quod non moribus sed fortunae datum est. satius ‘Magnum’? cui plus inuidiae quam pulchritudinis inest. adoptauit te Optimus princeps in suum, senatus in ‘Optimi’ nomen. hoc tibi tam proprium quam paternum; nec magis definite distincteque designat, qui ‘Traianum’, quam qui ‘Optimum’ appellat: ut olim frugalitate Pisones, sapientia Laelii, pietate Metelli monstrabantur. quae simul omnia uno isto nomine continentur. nec uideri potest Optimus, nisi qui est optimis omnibus in sua cuiusque laude praestantior. 27 28 29

One happy Trajanic ‘family’: Roche (2002). Nautical rhetoric: Manolaraki (2008) esp. 377–83. Exemplarity critiqued: Goldhill (1994); Gelley (1995). With (self-)reference to ‘Augustus’, see Lowrie (2009) on Res Gestae.

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merito tibi ergo post ceteras appellationes haec est addita ut maior. minus est enim imperatorem et Caesarem et Augustum, quam omnibus imperatoribus et Caesaribus et Augustis esse meliorem. ideoque ille parens hominum deorumque Optimi prius, deinde Maximi nomine colitur. quo praeclarior laus tua, quem non minus constat Optimum esse, quam maximum. adsecutus es nomen, quod ad alium transire non possit, nisi ut appareat in bono principe alienum, in malo falsum, quod licet omnes postea usurpent, semper tamen agnoscetur ut tuum. etenim, ut nomine ‘Augusti’ admonemur eius cui primum dicatum est, ita haec ‘Optimi’ appellatio numquam memoriae hominum sine te recurret, quotiensque posteri nostri ‘Optimum’ aliquem uocare cogentur, totiens recordabantur quis meruerit uocari. (Plin. Pan. 88.5–10) Being called ‘Lucky’ would have worked? No, that doesn’t reward ethics, it rewards fortune. ‘The Great’ would? No, the jealousy factor’s higher than the beauty. Your were adopted by a gent./the best emperor for his own, but the senate adopted you for the title of ‘The Best’. This is your own property as well as your father’s legacy to you. It’s no more specific, or more diagnostic, a nomenclature if you are addressed as ‘Trajan’ rather than ‘The Best’. It’s like Pisos getting fingered in the old days for being ‘Frugal’, Laeliuses for ‘Wise’, Metelluses for ‘Good Boys’. And all those qualities are simultaneously subsumed in your single name, given that the only person who can look ‘the best’ is the one who is out ahead of all ‘the best’ in their own particular category of distinction. So you deserve to have this form of address pinned on you to complete the set: for the extra greatness. It’s plainly less great to be ‘Imp./Caes./Aug.’ than to better all of the ‘Imps./Caesars/Augustuses’. And that is why ‘The One who is Father of the Human Race and the Gods’ is worshipped first by the name ‘The Best’, and then ‘The Greatest’. Hence your distinction is the more dazzling as the one who, beyond dispute, is no less ‘the best’ than ‘the greatest’. You have acquired a name which cannot trajansfer to anyone else – if not to stand revealed as someone else’s property in the case of a good emperor, and as counterfeit in a bad one; and even if all emperors ever after usurp it, it will still forever be recognized as yours. Plus: the parallel with the name ‘Augustus’, which tells us to think of the one first hallowed by it, means that this form of address as ‘The Best’ will never present itself again to human memory without you. Every time Roman posterity are obliged to call anyone ‘The Best’, they shall remember each time who it was that earned the right to be so called.

Did and does every Roman not think ‘Sulla’ with every felicitation in the book (see on 56.1–2 above: reburnished aristo turned butcher neo-con)

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Cornelius Sulla?30 And (the automatic pairing for prime examples of honorific ad hominem title, e.g. Liv. 30.45.6) was every great a cue to think ‘Pompey’, and Pompey (see on 29.1 and 56.1–2 above: backwoodsman turned Alexander then all-time loser),31 and Pompeys? What to make of the slide from ‘optimus, gent.’, to ‘Optimus, Perfection’, as we are making it happen, when we pan down the speech, re-registering/pre-registering as we go every single bonus, melior, optimum in the book, together with all their doubles, pessimus, peior, malus? Founding the dynasty by adopting Trajan may be the core trajansaction, but every Latin sentence henceforth valorizes the new value system, engrossed and disseminated around the trajanscendental signifier of Value. To think cold fusion of ‘Trajan–Optimus’, Pliny turns to three specimens of those dubbed ‘Good Guys’, Calpurnius Piso ‘Frugi’ (cos. 134: as tribune, first – successful – legislator against extortion (Cic. Font. 39); recycling the nickname through Cicero’s son-in-law and the cos. 15) and, involving an oneiric polarity, to the ‘generalized’ Laelius ‘Sapiens’ (cos. 140: allegedly so called from ‘Wise-ly’ dropping a land-redistribution bill before the fan was hit (Plut. Ti. Gracch. 8.3); to his friends, ‘Philosophicizing Adviser’ to Scipio Aemilianus (Cic. Am. 7); otherwise bare of cognomen, son of a nouus-and-Scipio Africanus Maior lieutenant); and, to clinch a saintly tricolon, Caecilius Metellus ‘Piuses’ (cos. 80: successful lobbyist for his father’s pardon from exile (Val. Max. 5.2.7); matched for Piety by his adoptive son Metellus (Pius) Scipio). Shades of the republic at, and tipping from, its zenith, this triangulated omenclature models for the multiplicity and plurivocality of mundane republican ideology, long absorbed into the monoeidic ontology of celestialized autocracy. This is, no doubt, how the logic of ‘abstraction’ gets going, as spectacularly enshrined in the (fatally flawed, and newly vicious) myth of The Artist’s synthetic statue of Perfect Beauty (cf. on 4 above). In the short version of Uncle Pliny (Nat. 35.64), Zeuxis was to make a statue for the city of Acragas to dedicate in the temple of Hera ‘Lacinia’, so he held a beauty parade of their girls and chose five of the best, so his painting would reflect ‘the feature in each of ’em that got most votes’ (quod in quaque laudatissimum esset). In Cicero’s elaborated prooemial set piece (Inv. 2.1–3), Zeuxis was handsomely commissioned by the city of Croton as the maestro to adorn the temple of Hera, including a portrait of Helen, to embody ‘the surpassing beauty of the female form’. He got them to volunteer to send him their most beautiful girls; he chose five, ‘because he reckoned it impossible to find everything he was looking for to 30

Cf. Henderson (1998) 177–80.

31

Henderson (1998) 196–7, 200–3.

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get to sexiness in one body: when it comes to perfecting anything in any simple category in all its parts, nature just never does turn out the finished article’ (2.3). (So, nice reader, welcome to an omnium gatherum textbook, or Variorum.) This is scandalously anti-organic fetishistic thinking fit for a cosmetic surgery brochure; but . . . it rolls up both of Pliny’s own pin-ups in one composite figure of Perfection – ‘father / avatar as Orator’! – and provides Pan with exactly the specious ‘logic’ required to send imperatorial epideixis through the roof. The po’mo’ satirist Lucian (Im. 5–10) cobbles together for his meta-Beauty Parade the sexiest statues known to Art, to perfect his transcendent image of Beauty, hailing her, after Xenophon’s most beautiful femme fatale in fiction, as, precisely, ‘Pan-thea’.32 Whereas (ahem!) the consul’s composite composition hails all the power in Power as the abstraction of Abstraction: ‘“Emperor” = the set of sets of honorific cartouches for specific virtues’. But then, within Emperor Newspeak, the set of titles for emperor – ‘Imp./Caesar/Augustus’ – has become (inherently, as its point!) trumpable through historical iteration, even more definitively than those one-owner labels hung on a bearer with the chance of sticking, however compromised by the rhetoricians’ ‘generalizing plural’. It must be the rule that any specific bearer of this Christmas-tree package of dignifiers is trumped by the subsumption of the whole line-up into one Superior Being, once they are treated as ‘generalizable plurals’ – ‘imperators/Caesars/Augustuses’ – and rolled into one Bigger Unit (ut maior). This is the Pan logic of optimization (minus est ∼ esse meliorem), which apotheoses imperial titulature by bringing it flush with the Almighty Principle/Principal that declares Roman (Father) ‘Jupiter’ Optimized to mean Maximized, and to put them in the order ‘Optimus > Maximus’ to indicate the hierarchy: ‘Best’ is not less great than ‘Greatest’ (non minus: even if you mustn’t say this is Better).33 Now to call a halt to all such transumptive moves ad infinitum: we are already at, or in, infinitum; there shall be no further trajansition because ‘The Bestest’ won’t ever unfuse from ‘Trajan’ (any more than Jove will ever wake up ‘O.’ but not ‘M.’, or vice versa). ‘Traianus Optimus’ will never be counterfeited, always be recognized as henotheistic Monad. Attached to the Origin, as are all ‘Augustuses’ to the original Augustus: so that every appellation of ‘an Optimus’ will trigger cultural memory, wired to the Gent. who first 32 33

On Zeuxis’ Helen and ‘abstraction’: Stewart (1997) 93 and 247. For the principle of self-beatific auxesis in ‘Augustus’ (from augeo/augurium), see Lowrie (forthcoming); for ‘Caesar’ as would-be transcendental signifier, see Henderson (1998) 99–100, 167, 195–7, 199, 211.

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earned the acclamation. The Ultimate End of HiStory, thanks to Grace that deifines (defies-deifies-defines) Examplifiction.  §90–5 Pan winds up with I.O.M. and down through a combination of (a) pater/ diuus Nerva flush with joy at seeing the choice for Optimus both be and be hailed Optimus, himself optimus, ‘Gent.’, bettered by his son (meliorem: recall the myth of Thetis’ son, destined to best his father, and therefore best not the Almighty’s lovechild, Catul. 64.27); and in a double declension (b) Traianus pater, as the doubles call the odds in banter on genetic vs. elective filiation. [90] With this descent, Pliny emerges to give his work his consular seal of approval in a sphragis that perorates with a self-aduertising parade of the panegyrist’s power to award and withhold reification through naming/shaming that loudly declares itself a de rigueur topos of Thanksgiving. [91] The last ‘historicizing’ flashes in the Pan reimpose the polarity between Trajan and ‘those emperors’ and turn Pliny and his silent partner Tertullus into ‘those consuls of Antiquity’. Detailed/lightning recapitulation of Trajan’s trajectory [92] into the moulding of this moment (fast approaching 18 September on Pliny’s watch, the magic Optimum day when Trajan was born, Damnation was assassinated, and Nerva took charge, ( . . . Optimum, meliorem optimo – ecstatic hyperbole here in two ticks torpedoes everything, every superlative, Pan has staked its all on) brings us full circle back, [93–5] through Pliny’s own longius iter (lived, eluding Domitian, and now textualized, thanks to Trajan), to a traditionalist’s closing prayers to Rome’s tutelary deities under Capitoline Jupiter (in fine orationis, 94.1; ∼ dicendi initium, 1.1; peppered now with seueritas demonizing the ‘ravenous bandit’, 94.3). Our consultation of this optimization theorist concludes, well-and-wisely, ‘loving the best emperor as much as previously hated by the worst’ (95.5), by installing himself as eternally up for s/election as consul(tant). Affinity with Trajan throughout evinced this plan of Plin to play the emperor of Pan.

chapter 9

Afterwords of praise Roger Rees

Pliny’s intention that the oratio (i.e. the written version, Ep. 1.20.9) of his Panegyricus be available to posterity was explicit (Ep. 3.13, 3.18).1 So if his self-important aspiration that the speech prove directly instructive to future emperors (Ep. 3.18.2–3; Pan. 4.1) was not to be realized, it was not for lack of effort on his behalf, since his conscious attempt to revise and expand the original version and to secure the speech’s survival through distribution seems to have been an ambitious and original project.2 This process of revision and publication was in keeping not only with Pliny’s general practice in publishing his oratory, but also perhaps with his longterm commitment to publish his letters.3 As his own literary agent for his speeches and letters, Pliny was bold and innovative, but if he would have been pleased with the reception of his Panegyricus in later antiquity, it was perhaps not what he would have imagined. Forty-three years after Pliny’s suffect consulship, Fronto was to take similar office, in July and August. In a letter to Marcus Aurelius in early July 143 ce, prompted by a question from the Caesar, Fronto explained that he was postponing delivery of his gratiarum actio to Augustus Antoninus Pius for the consulship until 13 August.4 As part of his explanation, Fronto disclosed that the many speeches of praise he had delivered in the senate to Marcus Aurelius’ grandfather Hadrian still maintained an interested readership, sunt orationes istae frequenter in omnium manibus (‘those speeches are often in everyone’s hands’, 1. p. 1105 ), and that he had similar hopes for the speech under preparation to Antoninus, laudatio mea non in Actis 1 2 3 4 5

On Pliny’s actio and oratio, Fantham (1999) 226. For Pliny’s initiative, Fantham (1999) 229; for recent consideration of his ambition, Manolaraki (2008) 388. For publication of his letters, Sherwin-White (1966, 1969); for publication of his oratory, Mayer (2003). On the complicated chronology and differentiation between letters relating to the speech for his consulate and the speech for his designation (and others), see Van Den Hout (1999) 44–6, 61, 382–3. Citations of Fronto use the volume and page number of the edition of Haines (1919).

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Senatus abstrusa lateat, sed in manibus hominum oculisque uersetur (‘may my panegyric not lie hidden in the Acts of the Senate but be in the hands and before the eyes of men’, 1. p. 110). Of principal interest here is that Fronto actively sought for his panegyrics to enjoy wide literary appeal rather than to stand as part of a documentary record.6 If we take him at his word, then he was already successful in this goal and aspired to further achievement. After it was finally declaimed, Antoninus himself was grateful for the speech, as he took the time to explain in a letter (1. pp. 126–7) and Marcus Aurelius was rapturous in his approval (1. p. 128); and eighteen years on, in 161, Fronto was to hear from Marcus Aurelius, now Augustus himself, that he had enjoyed re-reading the same speech or speeches of 143: patris tui laudes a me in senatu designato et inito consulatu meo dictas legisti libenter (‘you read with pleasure the praises of your father spoken by me in the senate as consul designate and early in the office’, Haines 1. p. 302). Only scraps of Fronto’s oratory survive, including the opening words he intended for a speech of thanks to Antoninus Pius for the consulship which Fronto intended to write as part of his proclamation for display on a board (1. p. 110),7 but it seems from the evidence of his letters that the principle of prose panegyric as a literary form, actively to be published and distributed, and of interest beyond its dramatic date and setting to a wider audience, was firmly established.8 Elsewhere in his correspondence, Fronto discusses the style, tone and subject matter of his panegyrics and epideictic rhetoric more generally (e.g. 1. pp. 104–6, 118, 130–6; 2. p. 136.). In various of his rhetorical practices and associated discourse, therefore, Fronto can be seen as a continuator of the sort of intellectual preoccupations foregrounded by Pliny some decades previously. On the other hand, at no point does Fronto express a debt to Pliny: there are no references or allusions to him or his writing. While this is in keeping with Fronto’s customary preference for republican authors such as Ennius, Sallust and Cicero, his happy continuation of a literary-political practice originated, it seems, by Pliny the Younger, is variously suggestive.9 It is unlikely that so soon after the speech to Trajan and its revision and publication, Fronto was unaware of Pliny’s initiative; nor does it seem probable that the practice of publication and distribution of imperial panegyric had become so standard in the four decades since 100 ce that acknowledgement 6 8 9

7 Van Den Hout (1999) 61. Champlin (1980) 51–2. Champlin (1980) 83–9, on what the lost speech might have contained. On Fronto’s interest in republican authors, Van Den Hout (1999) vi–vii. For Fronto’s references to such, cf. e.g. 1. p. 166, 2. pp. 4, 49, 74.

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of Pliny’s role was either superfluous or unimpressive. In sum, the relationship between Pliny and Fronto as imperial panegyrists seems to have been complicated: Fronto seems to have quietly assumed Pliny’s reification of panegyric as an acceptable literary form for discussion and publication, but at the same time to have downplayed that very influence. This ambivalent relationship between Pliny and Fronto was to play a further role in later antiquity’s reception of the Panegyricus. Another century and a half on, in the spring of 297, an anonymous orator addressed a panegyric to the Caesar Constantius, probably in Trier.10 The year before Constantius had overseen the reconquest of Britain after about a decade of separatist rule, and the speech is dominated by a narrative of that campaign. The orator draws a favourable comparison between Constantius’ active involvement in the reconquest and the distant role Antoninus Pius had played from Rome in the recovery of southern Scotland all those years before. This comparison is introduced by reference to Fronto: itaque Fronto, Romanae eloquentiae non secundum sed alterum decus, cum belli in Britannia confecti laudem Antonino principi daret, quamuis ille in ipso Vrbis palatio residens gerendi eius mandasset auspicium, ueluti longae nauis gubernaculis praesidentem totius uelificationis et cursus gloriam meruisse testatus est. at enim tu, Caesar inuicte . . . (Pan. Lat. viii(4)14.2–3) And so, when Fronto – not the second but the other ornament of Roman eloquence – praised Antoninus for completing the war in Britain, even though the emperor had delegated command while himself staying in his palace at Rome, he swore that he had deserved the glory for the whole naval launch and expedition as if he had been in charge at the long-ships’ helm. But you, unconquered Caesar . . .

It may be that the panegyric the orator cites was in fact the same gratiarum actio for the consulship that Fronto discusses in his letters.11 The orator’s patient rehearsal of some of Fronto’s speech’s details perhaps suggests that he could not assume of his audience a very close recall of the panegyric.12 But at the same time, his confident designation of Fronto as Romanae eloquentiae non secundum sed alterum decus (a phrase itself echoing Marcus Aurelius’ characterization of Fronto in a letter of 143 as decus eloquentiae Romanae, 1. p. 130) indicates the availability of at least some of Fronto’s output in northeast Gaul in the late third century, and his excellent reputation there at the time: the equal, the orator implies of course, of Cicero.13 10 12 13

11 Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 133. Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 105–6; Rees (2002) 95–129. Champlin (1980) 165 n. 27; Van Den Hout (1999) 612; and below on Ausonius on the circulation of Fronto’s oratory in late antiquity. Nixon (1990) 34; cf. Van Den Hout (1999) x, who claims that ‘no quotations from or references to these letters are found before [the fourth century]’, and 607–8.

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Perhaps this commendation received allusive affirmation too: Klotz identified more than a dozen intertexts which give the speech what now seems a distinctively Ciceronian patina, and speculated too that the orator elsewhere alluded to Fronto’s now lost panegyric.14 Without sufficient extant material, moderns cannot evaluate the orator’s favourable judgement of Fronto, but the claim, which in its inflation of Marcus Aurelius’ phrase significantly elevates Fronto from ‘an ornament’ to ‘the other ornament’, is nonetheless an arresting one in consideration of later antiquity’s reception of the Panegyricus. There is, it seems, no reminiscence of Pliny.15 This is remarkable precisely because the Gallic speech was preserved in the very collection which had at its head Pliny’s Panegyricus. The Panegyrici Latini is a late antique collection of twelve speeches, many of them anonymous, spanning nearly three hundred years, from Pliny’s Panegyricus to a speech by Pacatus to the emperor Theodosius in 389.16 It is in this context that the complete Panegyricus survived antiquity, to be rediscovered in Mainz in 1433.17 The Panegyricus is first in the collection in date and in manuscript sequence, but thereafter the speeches are not in chronological order.18 The second in manuscript sequence is the latest in date – that of Pacatus – which among other arguments has led to the now orthodox assumption that Pacatus himself, a professor of rhetoric at Bordeaux, put the collection together sometime soon after 389.19 The preference for Cicero and Fronto explicitly articulated by Constantius’ panegyrist in 297 should deter any assumptions about the pre-eminent status of the Panegyricus in late antiquity that the speech’s position as first in Pacatus’ collection may prompt. The commendation of Fronto in a collection fronted by Pliny crystallizes the problematic status of the Panegyricus in late antiquity, for like Fronto himself the century before, the orator of 297 does not put Pliny on a pedestal. Pacatus’ own approval of Pliny’s speech extends beyond his inclusion of it in the anthology to intertextual engagement. A few examples, from two early chapters of Pacatus’ speech to Theodosius (Pan. Lat. ii(12)): in 14 15 16

17 18 19

Klotz (1911) 544–7; Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 126 n. 37; cf. Van Den Hout (1999) 383. Klotz (1911) 546–8, with varying conviction. For texts, translations and historical commentaries on the speeches after Pliny’s, see Nixon and Rodgers (1994); for other complete editions, see Mynors (1964), Paladini and Fedeli (1976) and Lassandro (1992). Winterbottom in Reynolds (1983) 289; Lassandro (2000) 25–32; Garc´ıa Ruiz (2006) 38–9. Hence the dual reference system with Roman numerals denoting manuscript sequence and Arabic numerals chronological order; see Rees (2002) 20. On Pacatus’ life and work, see Turcan-Verkerk (2003); on his role as editor, Pichon (1906a) 137, (1906b) 244–7; for a reading of Pacatus’ possible editorial intentions with the Panegyrici, see Rees (forthcoming a).

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chapter 2, Pacatus’ comments on the climate of freedom of speech in which he claimed to speak non . . . expressae metu uoces (‘utterances not extorted by fear’, 2.2) recalls Pliny’s recedant uoces illae quas metus exprimebat (‘let those utterances which fear used to extort disappear’, Pan. 2.2). Likewise, Pacatus’ paradoxical play duas res diuersissimas iunxi metum et temeritatem (‘I have combined two most disparate qualities – fear and audacity’, 2.2) is clearly an autobiographical redeployment of Pliny’s compliment to Trajan iunxisti enim ac miscuisti res diuersissimas, securitatem olim imperantis et incipientis pudorem (‘you combined and mixed most disparate qualities, the assurance of one used to ruling and the modesty of a beginner’, Pan. 24.1);20 in chapter 12, Pacatus’ credetne hoc olim uentura posteritas? (‘Will posterity to come ever believe this?’, 12.3) recalls Pliny’s credentne posteri? (‘Will future generations believe?’, Pan. 9.2), and likewise Pliny’s iam imperator . . . et . . . quantum ad te pertinet, priuatus (‘now both emperor and, as far as you are concerned, a private citizen’, Pan. 9.3) seems the hypotext for Pacatus’ quid tua intererat te principem fieri, qui futurus eras in imperatore priuatus? (‘What difference did it make for you to become emperor, when as emperor you were going to be a private citizen?’, 12.5). What seems likely from these apparently very deliberate phrases is that Pacatus included Pliny’s Panegyricus in the anthology not (only) as an act of literary preservation for its own sake, but amongst other things, to provide a key against which his own speech could be read. In combination, the priority given to the Panegyricus in the collection and its juxtaposition with Pacatus’ own speech equip the reader with all the means to evaluate the interplays in consistency and difference between the two speeches – and, indeed, post an insistent invitation to do so. Various possibilities suggest themselves.21 In the intertexts above, canvassing the political licence to speak freely, and the nature of imperial accession and demeanour, we might identify essentially ideological phenomena. In late antiquity, Trajan’s reputation was unparalleled: to be felicior Augusto melior Traiano (‘more blessed than Augustus, better than Trajan’, Eutropius, Breuiarum 8.5.3) was the imperial dream. What better analogue could there be for Pacatus’ commendation of Theodosius, recently emerged victorious from one civil war (against Magnus Maximus) and soon to face another (Eugenius), than Rome’s most reputedly distinguished emperor? At the same time, as Turcan-Verkerk has pointed out, the Spanish origin that connected Trajan and Theodosius 20 21

Against Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 449 n. 5, who call this latter intertext ‘hackneyed and familiar’, it seems to me precisely calqued upon Pliny. Ronning (2007) 139–44.

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would invite further assimilation of the two.22 The political potential of a relationship with the Panegyricus was considerable, and the ideological character of many of Pacatus’ allusions to Pliny reminds us that late antiquity’s attitude towards Pliny’s text owed much to Trajan’s reputation – just as, at the same time, Trajan’s reputation in late antiquity might have owed much to Pliny’s Panegyricus.23 Another role the Panegyricus fulfils in the collection is to provide literary credibility. Speaking in the senate house in Rome, Pacatus makes one arm of his opening captatio beneuolentiae denounce his own oratory as rudem hunc et incultum Transalpini sermonis horrorem (‘the rough and uncultivated horror of this Transalpine speech’, 1.3). In effect, Pacatus acknowledges his own Romanization a desideratum. In a bewitching argument, then, Pacatus’ disingenuous opening claim is finessed by links to the Panegyricus (at the levels of editorial organization and verbal reminiscence). Pliny’s speech itself is presented as the originary imperial-panegyrical work, the number one; and at the same time, far from being a clumsy outsider, Pacatus promotes himself as the number two, a worthy heir to Pliny; his knowledge of and reaction to the Panegyricus endorse Pacatus’ oratorical endeavour. In his reception of the speech, Pacatus’ editorial and literary motivations coalesce advantageously in a process which both invokes and extends a tradition. Pacatus may have been inspired to canonize the Panegyricus by precedents in speeches from earlier on in late antiquity.24 For example, addressing the emperor Maximian in Trier in April 289, the anonymous orator’s quantam tu mereris aetatem (‘the lifetime you deserve’, Pan. Lat. x(2)2.7) reprises Pliny’s dent tibi, Caesar, aetatem di quam mereris (‘Caesar, may the gods give you the lifetime you deserve’, Pan. 28.6); so too on their addressees’ accessions, te . . . plus tribuisse beneficii quam acceperis (‘you gave more benefit than you received’, x(2)3.1) recalls exspectatum est tempus quo liqueret non tam accepisse te beneficium quam dedisse (‘we had to wait for a time to see that you had given rather than received a benefit’, Pan. 6.3).25 Pliny’s version of the ‘ship of state’ metaphor – quae te publicae salutis gubernaculis admoueret (‘which moved you [sc. Trajan] to the helm of the state’s health’, 6.2) – underlies both rei publicae . . . salutarem manum gubernaculis addidisti (‘you added your [sc. Maximian] healthy hand to the state’s helm’, x(2)4.2) and Pacatus’ uiro publicis gubernaculis admouendo 22 23 24

Turcan-Verkerk (2003) 65. For further discussion of Pacatus’ allusions to Pliny, see Rees (forthcoming a). 25 Klotz (1911) 535, with some other examples. Cf. his Letters, Cameron (1965).

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(‘by moving a man [sc. Theodosius] to the state’s helm’, 3.5): between them there is a chain which enhances the anthology’s sense of collectivity. In a section of his speech to Constantine in 307, an orators’ apostrophe to the emperor’s late father Constantius quanto nunc gaudio poteris (‘how much pleasure you now have’, Pan. Lat. vii(6)14.4) in diction and thought is indebted to Pliny’s exclamation to the deified Nerva quanto nunc, diue Nerua, gaudio frueris (‘how much pleasure you now enjoy’, Pan. 89.1).26 In a speech of 310 and perhaps less distinctively, non fortuita hominum consensio . . . te principem fecit (‘no chance agreement amongst men made you emperor’, vi(7)3.1) recalls Pliny’s non te propria cupiditas . . . principem fecit (‘no personal desire made you emperor’, Pan. 7.1).27 It is such intertexts that make it certain that the Panegyricus was known as early as the late third century. Perhaps it was their acquaintance and engagement with the Panegyricus that commended it or their own speeches (or both) to Pacatus, when, a century later, he composed his own panegyric and compiled his anthology. However, any status the Panegyricus is granted by its position at the head of the collection, and by the scattered intertexts within it, is complicated by the summoning of Roman literary ghosts other than Pliny’s at various points and with differing urgency throughout the anthology. This gallery of great names which populates the collection, by means of allusion through intertext, direct quotation or even name-dropping, is extensive. Fronto and Cicero, so appreciatively invoked in the phrase from 297, are joined across the collection by others, such as Sallust, Caesar, Livy, Velleius, Florus, Seneca and Tacitus.28 Further, it should immediately be conceded that the Plinian intertexts in the eleven speeches with which the Panegyricus is preserved are hardly their most conspicuous literary quality. Even if some such intertexts are considered marked, it should be noted that others are not, and that some speeches, such as that of 297 mentioned above, feature none.29 Nor can we account for any one orator’s inattention to Pliny by assuming the Panegyricus was unknown to him, as we can with the Letters;30 for, just as we have seen that the author of the speech of 289 knew and admired the Panegyricus to the extent that he adapted certain phrases for inclusion in his own speech, so too the orator of 291 knew the speech of 289, as multiple similarities make absolutely clear (and have convinced 26 28 29 30

27 Klotz (1911) 554. Klotz (1911) 550. With, it should be made clear, varied combinations and inconsistent concentration; e.g. on Pan. Lat. vi(7), see Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 218. Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 18. Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 14. ‘Clearly their reading must have often embraced Pliny.’

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some readers that they are, in fact, the work of the same hand).31 However, unlike the speech of 289, that of 291 features no echoes of Pliny beyond what Klotz identified as ‘a certain similarity of thought’.32 Likewise, the author of the speech of 297 knew the speeches of 289 and 291 and drew on them variously, but the Plinian element in x(2) is completely overlooked.33 The silences about Pliny are, it seems, quite deliberate. If after his own headline act, Pliny has to jostle for time under the spotlight in the Panegyrici Latini, Cicero has the lead role. Ciceronian intertexts far outnumber Pliny’s, from the speech of 289 to Pacatus’ a century later.34 And much as by position it is the Panegyricus that Pacatus as editor privileges, it is not the descendants of Pliny whose critical judgement he confesses to fear himself, but those of the republican orators Cato, Cicero and Hortensius (1.4).35 Throughout the anthology, Cicero’s works, his panegyrical speeches, particularly the Pro Lege Manilia, find most echoes; four of the collection draw on that speech’s proemium as if to assert their own rhetorical and wider cultural credentials from the start, and the orator of 297 uses the Pro Marcello similarly cogently.36 Meanwhile, Pliny’s name never features.37 A further concession must be that whatever debts or attitudes the later speeches’ intertextual engagement with the Panegyricus may reveal, stylistic and other literary differences between Pliny’s speech and them are as many and as conspicuous as the political and ideological differences which distinguish Trajan from the various emperors addressed in the later panegyrics. The orators’ individual preferences and idiosyncrasies are apparent across the collection, but the risk of oversimplifying notwithstanding, they all stand apart from Pliny’s. Pacatus’ speech is the next longest of the twelve after Pliny’s, but even so it is only half the length of the Panegyricus;38 most are very much shorter.39 Whereas Pliny revised and expanded his speech for publication, the later works seem to have been published as delivered.40 The late antique panegyrists were quick to illuminate their speeches with literary embellishments from far beyond Pliny’s compass – some of their prose reading has been mentioned already, but the speeches also include 31 32 33 35 37 38 40

Rees (2002) 193–204. Klotz (1911) 535, specifically between xi(3)15 and Pan. 56, on which John Henderson has expanded in Gibson and Rees (forthcoming); Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 18. 34 Note the moderation in identifying literary debts urged by Vereeke (1975). Klotz (1911) 548–9. 36 Klotz (1911) 544; Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 17. Nixon (1990). Did all the late antique panegyrists who had read the Panegyricus know its author? Cameron (1965) 289–90 on the late antique confusion between the Elder and Younger Pliny. 39 L’Huillier (1992) 429–39. Thirty-eight OCT sides, compared to Pliny’s eighty-one. Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 33; cf. L’Huillier (1992) 169 on Pacatus.

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imaginative redeployment of the poets Ennius, Lucretius, Ovid, Statius, Virgil and others.41 There are a few neologisms in these speeches, almost exclusively in the panegyrics by Claudius Mamertinus (iii(11)) and Pacatus himself, and some ‘post-classical’ forms and syntax too. The contemporary preference for the cursus mixtus in prose rhythm holds good for the late antique speeches, and although there are of course rhetorical conceits, such as repetitions, tricola and prosopopeia, as befit epideictic oratory, the late speeches’ sentiments are very rarely articulated in the indulgent amplifications for which the Panegyricus is well known.42 Although it was available to generations of orators in late antique Gaul, it is equally clear that the Panegyricus was not simply a template for their own speeches, ready for systematic remodelling.43 Despite Pacatus’ enthusiasm for the Panegyricus, evidenced in his roles as orator and anthologizer, it cannot have been any decisively Plinian character that commended speeches to him for inclusion in his collection. The Panegyrici Latini collection privileges Pliny by putting him first, but it is not an album of cover-versions. In many respects, it is difficult to calibrate the extent to which the Panegyrici Latini represent oratorical norms in late antique Gaul, but the surviving fragments of Symmachus’ imperial panegyrics offer useful comparanda. Symmachus was in Gaul in the late 360s, to visit the imperial court, and in Trier itself he delivered panegyrics to the emperors Valentinian and Gratian, sections of which survive.44 In Symmachus’ first speech to Valentinian, Pliny’s Panegyricus seems faintly to reverberate: for example, on elaborating his addressee’s unique qualification for imperial office by rejecting other potential aspirants, Symmachus’ fuerit aliquis in pace iucundus, sed idem rebus trepidis parum felix (‘one man was happy in peacetime, but the same was less successful in dangerous times’, Or. 1.6) evokes Pliny’s identical argument and similar phrasing, enituit aliquis in bello, sed obsoleuit in pace (‘one man shone in war, but paled in peacetime’, Pan. 41 42

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Rees (2004a) and in Gibson and Rees (forthcoming). Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 15–21, with bibliography, including Chruzander (1897). On the style of the Panegyricus, see Durry (1938), Rees (2001) and Hutchinson in this volume. Manolaraki (2008) argues for a carefully articulated relationship between subject and rhetoric in the theme of seascapes. Cf. Winterbottom in Reynolds (1983) 289: ‘[the Panegyricus] was a primary model for a collection of later encomia of fourth century emperors’; Manolaraki (2008) 374. ‘the archetypal model for later imperial eulogies’. Note the identification of rhetorical handbooks and treatises, notably Menander Rhetor, as a ‘rival’ evolutionary theory for the Panegyrici Latini; Mesk (1912), discussed by Nixon and Rodgers (1994) 10–13. For Symmachus’ political career, see Sogno (2006); the fragmentary texts are edited by Pabst (1989); they survive from a sixth-century rescript which also contains fragments of Pliny’s Panegyricus – see Mynors (1964) ix and Winterbottom in Reynolds (1983) 289.

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4.5);45 more faintly perhaps, Symmachus’ characterization of Valentinian before his accession as a well-travelled and durable soldier (Or. 1) recalls Pliny’s Trajan (Pan. 13–15).46 Macrobius classified Pliny and Symmachus together in the same genus dicendi pingue et floridum in quo Plinius Secundus quondam et nunc nullo ueterum minor noster Symmachus luxuriatur (‘the rich and florid [type] in which Pliny Secundus once luxuriated, and our Symmachus does now, inferior to none of his predecessors’, Sat. 5.1.7). There are connections between the two, both in Symmachus’ text and in a contemporary’s perception, but at the same time, it is Cicero whom Symmachus quotes and whose name he cites, in an early passage (1.2). No credit is granted to Pliny, here or in the fragments of Symmachus’ other imperial panegyrics. This pattern may be replicated in the case of Symmachus’ Letters, which were published in nine books of private and one of official correspondence, as had been Pliny’s, but no debt is acknowledged explicitly or by clear allusion.47 Symmachus’ friend and fourth-century Gaul’s most prolific literary author showed no such reticence. In the prose close to his Cento Nuptialis, just after the pornographic imminutio scene, in determined affirmation of the distinction between literature and life, Ausonius names Pliny as an example of a virtuous author of scurrilous verse: meminerint autem, quippe eruditi, probissimo uiro Plinio in poematiis lasciuiam, in moribus constitisse censuram (‘Let them remember, being learned men, that in his poetry Pliny, that most upright man, was lascivious, but in his morals he was censorious’, 4–5 Green).48 Pliny’s poetry is lost to us, but Ausonius’ remark makes it feasible that it – and/or Pliny’s letters in which he comments on his poetry – was available to him and his erudite contemporaries.49 Much safer is the assumption that Pliny’s Panegyricus would have been available to Ausonius, since we know from the Panegyrici Latini that it was available to Gallic orators before and during his lifetime.50 But although Ausonius was ready to invoke Pliny in justification of his own scandalous poetry, and probably had access to the Panegyricus, no such explicitly authorizing gesture is granted to Pliny in Ausonius’ gratiarum actio for the consulship of 379. 45 46 47 48 49

50

Pabst (1989) 130 n. 38; see also Pabst (1989) 128 n. 19, 135 n. 85. Note also the loaded commilitones, Symm. Or. 1.19 and Plin. Pan. 15.5; and the play on priuatus princeps, Symm. Or. 1.2 and Plin. Pan. 9.3. Cameron (1965) 295–8. Recalling Plin. Ep. 4.14, itself quoting Catul. 16; Green (1991) 524–5, xxi. On Pliny’s poetry, Hershkowitz (1995). The question of its survival to late antiquity is complicated by the attribution of a line of Martial (1.4.8) to Pliny in Ausonius’ MSS (Green 139 l.3); Cameron (1965) 295 sees the mistake as Ausonius’, Green (1991) 524 as a scribe’s. Green (1991) 537 assumes Ausonius’ familiarity with Pliny’s speech.

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Pliny is not named, and although the panegyric is long, it lacks the stylistic flair of Pliny’s speech.51 There may be instances of topoi where Ausonius drew on Pliny, but none is celebrated as such, and verbal reminiscences are not striking.52 Ausonius, however, is not unaware of his panegyrical ancestry, but again, like the orator of 297 before him, it is to Fronto that he turns when he addresses a question to himself in dramatized outrage in tanti te ergo oratoris [sc. Frontonis] fastigium gloriosus attollis? (‘Do you arrogantly raise yourself to the heights of such an orator [as Fronto]?’, 8.33). Ausonius invokes Fronto as the only appropriate model for himself as consul and tutor to an emperor, unica mihi et amplectanda est Frontonis imitatio (‘the only one I must imitate is Fronto’, 7.32). Of course, Pliny had not been tutor to Trajan, so was not a possible model for Ausonius according to his logic, but the artifice of the argument that Ausonius frames again signals Fronto’s high stock in late antique Gaul, and imitatio of him extended, it seems, to the same suppression or downplaying of Pliny’s Panegyricus that, I argued above, Fronto himself had practised two hundred years earlier.53 Meantime, when Pliny could conveniently have been cited as a precedent for a man grateful for the consulship, he isn’t, while Cicero’s name is happily dropped (6.25), and his work is also suitably paraphrased (12.58, recalling Cic. Pis. 1). It seems, then, that the Panegyricus was available to Symmachus and Ausonius, but as was the case for the authors of the Panegyrici Latini, their evocations of it varied but never amounted to treatment of it – or Pliny – as a canonical archetype which demanded emulation. Confronting the position that Pliny’s Letters were unavailable in late antiquity until they were rediscovered by Sidonius Apollinaris in the later fifth century,54 Alan Cameron argued that his correspondence was in fact known in the late fourth century.55 In contrast, the intertextual record establishes beyond any doubt that the Panegyricus was available to orators, at least in Gaul, from as early as the first Latin speech to survive to us after Pliny’s, that of 289. But the lack of uniformity in the legacy of the 51 52

53 54

Green (1991) xxiii on the speech’s ‘ponderous amplitude’; on the style of the gratiarum actio see Green (1991) 538 and ad locc.: e.g. 539 on the ‘disarmingly simple opening’. Green (1991) 537 and e.g. 540. Uotis pro tua salute susceptis – nam de sua cui non te imperante securitas? (‘with wishes for your well-being – for with you in power, whose property is not secure?’, 1.3) perhaps draws on Pliny’s non te distringimus uotis. non enim pacem, non concordiam, non securitatem, non opes oramus, non honores: simplex cunctaque ista complexum unum omnium uotum est, salus principis (‘we don’t strip you with our wishes; we don’t pray for peace, or harmony, or security or wealth or honours: everyone’s simple and sole wish, which covers all those things, is the emperor’s well-being’, Pan. 94.2), but the force is considerably diluted by Ausonius’ much plainer style. On Fronto in late antiquity, see Macr. 5.1.7 siccum [genus dicendi]; Sid. Ep. 4.3.1 Frontonia grauitas. 55 Cameron (1965). The view was established in Merrill (1915) and Stout (1955).

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Panegyricus in later antiquity is difficult to interpret, both in the broad canvas of late antique literary culture and at the decisive moment of the publication of Pacatus’ collection. Fronto’s general preference had been for republican over imperial literature, and accordingly he turned to Cicero (not Pliny) for his panegyrical authority.56 Later antique panegyrics’ frequent turns to Cicero (and occasional turns to Fronto) could thus be seen as a continuation, in only a slightly modified form, of that preference. On the other hand, a panegyric to an emperor was by definition an imperial phenomenon and one for which there was increasing demand as court ceremonial evolved quickly after the mid-third century; the swelling ranks of orators, especially those on the margins of the empire’s spread, eager to promote themselves or their community, would want literary models to emulate. In such an atmosphere, the topoi, lexis and style of the speech which had set itself up as the high-water mark of Latin imperial panegyric could demand attention and invite emulation; yet in late antiquity’s cumulative aesthetic, where generic and historical boundaries are blurred, Pliny would not replace Cicero and Fronto, but join them, each to feature (or not) according to the contingencies of the new work and its author’s judgement and preferences. These themselves would be various. In the case of Fronto, silence about the Panegyricus is perhaps best explained by the political reality that commendatory reference to panegyrical discourse under a previous regime, especially the immediate predecessor’s, was inappropriate. Pliny himself had spoken of the venal dishonesty of panegyrics to emperors before Trajan, creating an effective context for his assertions of his own sincerity (Pan. 2–3).57 For Fronto, perhaps Pliny’s Panegyricus could have been both an inspiration and a bˆete noire. But for later orators, without any sense of Pliny or Trajan as recent rivals, the Panegyricus could have served as a vital landmark in rhetorical history – a speech which legitimized their own oratorical endeavours, but demanded of them no specific engagement.58 And so Pliny’s ghost could whisper in the speech of 289, leave only faint trace elements in 291, be snubbed in 297, whisper again in 307, and so on. Presumably made available through the reading lists of trainee orators in schools of rhetoric, such as at Bordeaux and Autun, the Panegyricus would have been a fine working example of effective imperial panegyric, a useful learning resource, 56 57 58

Notable exceptions would be the consistently high regard for Virgil, despite Fronto, and Fronto’s own work. Morford (1992) and Bartsch (1994); Gibson, pp. 116–24 in this volume. Ronning (2007) 142.

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to complement the rhetorical treatises that were, no doubt, also in circulation. The speech was available to orators, but without any of the sense of magnetic imperative that drew late antique authors towards Cicero and Virgil.59 The varied record of verbal reminiscence of the Panegyricus in late antiquity, therefore, might suggest that the speech’s most durable legacy was less textual (or political) than generic – Pliny’s creation of respectable belles lettres out of imperial panegyric seems to have been held up as a decisive milestone in Roman rhetorical history. With Pliny’s example behind them, Fronto, Symmachus and Ausonius could confidently intend their panegyrics for publication as works of literary interest. Similarly, the Constantinian period saw the collation of an anthology of seven of the panegyrics which Pacatus was to include in his collection of twelve.60 Who compiled this earlier anthology, or why, or even how it then reached Pacatus are matters for speculation, but overall we can posit a fourth-century culture of an intellectual readership of imperial panegyrics after their original delivery. The availability of Pliny’s Panegyricus throughout those same decades is hardly likely to have been coincidental, and Pacatus’ summa manus – the re-publication of Pliny’s speech at the head of the new anthology, at the same time as Pliny’s Letters were enjoying a revival – would, inter alia, have underlined the respectability of the principle. After Pliny, the genre of panegyric, and not just his Panegyricus, could hope for later readers. At the same time, the record of verbal reminiscence indicates that Pacatus’ major role in the ancient afterlife of the Panegyricus may have a distorting effect on appreciation of the speech’s reception in late antiquity. Pacatus’ decision in 389 to quarry the Panegyricus himself, and soon afterwards to extend the practice of anthologizing panegyric, and to privilege Pliny in his new anthology, may combine to misrepresent the influence the speech had exerted at a stylistic level throughout the fourth century. Pacatus’ intervention brings the Plinian element to the surface, and decisively enhances the speeches’ emulative and collective characters; but the belatedness of these effects must also be remembered. Perhaps Pacatus’ decision to anthologize the Panegyricus was not so much a recognition of the status the speech already held but, in part, an attempt to secure for it the appreciative audience Pacatus felt it deserved but lacked (and in so doing, of course, enabling wider appreciation of his own allusive engagement with Pliny’s speech). 59 60

Despite the absence, in some cases, of Plinian intertexts, note the claim of Cameron (1965) 295 n. 4 that ‘all panegyrists of the later empire [were] perfectly familiar with Pliny’s Panegyricus’. Rees (2011).

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On the other hand, lack of enthusiasm for the text of Pliny’s Panegyricus, if correctly identified in a lack of verbal reminiscence of it, or in appeals to Cicero and Fronto as authorities, did not turn Pacatus against speeches from the previous hundred years, despite his own commitment to it. As orator and editor, Pacatus comes over as decisive in his own tastes but tolerant of others’; and for all the potentially flattening effects of courtly protocols and rhetorical conventions, the variety in late antique oratory’s response to the Panegyricus reveals the considered eclecticism of which the genre was capable. Ultimately the synergy of the XII Panegyrici Latini draws upon more than the charge between its first two speeches. The Panegyricus’ first place in the collection reverently enshrines it as an admirable precursor, but the texts that follow frame it as a model example of what imperial panegyric could be, but not what it had to be. As the original, literary imperial Latin prose panegyric, the Panegyricus boasts the genre’s acceptability, its grandness, its stature, its need to be read seriously; it provided the fundamental premise, the bedrock from which Pacatus’ anthology could develop a more varied aesthetic and ideological range. If intertextual glances to the Panegyricus bring authority and credibility, the tradition it is seen to begin is one that tolerates – even encourages – this development, variety and adaptation. This is a case not of cloning but of generic modification. The Panegyricus is the ideal start to authorize the showcasing of rhetorical flair, for while an orator speaks of his emperor’s incomparability and his novelty, he himself needs to renew, and so emerges a tension between the authority of the past’s legacy and each generation’s need to be up to date.

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Index locorum

4.5, 10 6–8, 148–51 9–10, 151–2 10–11, 152 11.2–3, 131 12–13, 152–4, 156–7 13.4, 153 13.5, 157 14.1, 130 14–15, 157–8 15.4, 118 16.5, 130 16–24, 158–9 20.6, 159 22.2, 133 25.5, 130 25–32, 159–61 27.3–29.5, 137–40 28.4, 56 31.4, 130 33–55, 161–3 35.2, 34 37–41, 30–1 47.4–49.4, 60 48.3–49.1, 129 49.1, 62 49.3, 63 50.2, 64 50.4, 65 51.1, 49 51.2, 49 51.3, 49 51.3–5, 58 51.5, 56 52.3, 117 52.7, 128 55.6, 163 55.6–7, 53 55.7, 163 55.9, 52 55.11, 52

Aristotle Rhetorica 1.9.36, 5 Cassius Dio 67.8.2–4, 54 68.7.3, 59 Cicero De Imperio Cn. Pompeii (Pro Lege Manilia) 23, 160 De Oratore 2.347, 89 Pro Caelio 39–40, 156 Pro Marcello 11–12, 51 Pro Sestio 142–3, 155 Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 286, 55 Isocrates Evagoras 8, 3 Martial 8 praef. 6–9, 119 Panegyrici Latini viii(4)14.2–3, 177 Pliny the Younger Epistulae 3.13, 40, 69, 79, 125, 175 3.18, 1, 5, 40, 67, 69, 83, 175 4.22.4–6, 45 8.6.2, 164 8.6.15, 164 9.26, 126–8 Panegyricus 1–2, 145–8 3–5, 148

204

Index locorum 56.1–2, 163–5 56.2–62, 165–7 56–62, 36–7 57.5, 166 59.6, 37 60.4, 121 61.3, 134 63–80, 167–9 71.4, 134 75.6, 169 78.1–2, 38 81–9, 169–74 83.1, 61 85.2–5, 32 88.5–10, 171 90–3, 95, 42–3 90–5, 174 Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 2.10.11, 105

3.7, 70–4 12.2.29–30, 154 12.4.1–2, 155 Seneca the Younger De Clementia 1.11.4, 63 1.13.1, 64 Statius Siluae 1.6.81–4, 119 4.1.9–10, 120 4.2.14–16, 121 5.1.186–8, 118 Suetonius Claudius 4.5, 59 Vitruvius De Architectura 6.5.1, 2, 62

205

General index

Cornutus Tertullus, 7, 12, 17, 22, 42, 43, 142, 174 cubiculum principis, 58 cultural authority of technical knowledge, 32 Curiatius Maternus, 126

Acilius Glabrio, Manius, 20 acta diurna, 5, 17 aerarium militare, 21, 30 aerarium Saturni, 42, 50 Aeschines, 127, 129 Antoninus Pius, 108, 175, 177 Attius Suburanus, 17 Augustus, 9, 48, 59, 82, 133, 142, 144, 149, 152, 153, 162, 166, 171, 179 Ausonius (Decimus Magnus Ausonius), 184, 185, 187 Calestrius Tiro, 20, 21 Camilli, 153–4 cardinal virtues, 9, 69, 72, 75 Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) and the Panegyrici Latini, 177, 178, 182, 184, 186–7 and the sublime, 126, 127 attitude to praise in public life, 87–8 De Imperio Cn. Pompeii (Pro Lege Manilia), 93–4 De Lege agraria, 2, 96–7 De Oratore, 68, 72, 80 discussions of praise and rhetoric, 88–9 forms and function of praise, 89–96 Philippics, 94–5 Pliny’s model, 86, 98–100, 102 Pro Archia Poeta, 93 Pro Marcello, 48, 51, 90, 99, 101, 106, 160, 182 speeches post reditum, 97 Circus Maximus, 54–9 puluinar, 57–9 Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus), 59, 142, 149, 152, 164, 165, 170 Constantine I (Flavius Valerius Constantinus), 181 Constantius (Flavius Valerius Constantius I), 177, 178, 181 consular actiarum gratio, 2–3

delation, delatores (informers), 7, 12, 21, 34, 50, 117, 161 Demosthenes, 126, 127, 136 model for Pliny, 127, 136 Dio Chrysostom, Orationes, 111–16 divinity and the sublime, 130–1 Domitian (Titus Flavius Domitianus) and Pliny’s career, 39 and praise, 116–23 and the sublime, 128–9 as negative example, 10–14 assassination, 62 career, 18–22 damnatio memoriae, 17, 46, 116, 143 great builder, 46 his monuments, 45–66 in the Panegyricus, 10–14, 128–9 principate, 17 solitude, 65 surveillance of guests, 52 Domus Flauia, 46, 49, 58, 60, 64, 65 Egypt, 7, 111, 118, 140, 160 emperors and the consulship, 165–6 encomium, 3, 47, 50, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 107, 143, 160 epideictic oratory and biographical structure, 72–3 and comparisons, 82 and division by virtues, 72 and praise of the mind, 72–3 culture of, 104–6 hymns and praise of places, 74 organization, 70–7

206

General index Quintilian on, 70–5 style, 69–70 epitaphios logos, 2, 4 Fabricii, 153–4 Fabricius Veiento, Aulus Didius Gallus, 46 fire of 17, 48 Frontinus, De Aquae Ductis, 109–11 Fronto (Marcus Cornelius Fronto), 177 and the Panegyrici Latini, 177–8 preference for republican literature, 186 Galba (Servius Sulpicius Galba), 15, 19, 148, 150 Gratian (Flavius Gratianus), 183 Hercules, 157, 169 invective loci (as per Craig (2004)), 12, 13 Isocrates, 1, 3, 47, 69, 75, 82, 83 Evagoras, 3, 4, 47, 69, 75 Iunius Mauricus, 45 Jupiter, 17, 43, 53, 70, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 114, 116, 117, 121, 123, 131, 145, 150, 157, 165, 173, 174 laudatio funebris, 1, 2, 3, 175 Laudes Messallae, 48 libertas (freedom), 7, 99, 133, 135, 136 Longinus, 69, 126, 130 Marcus Aurelius, 175, 177 Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis), 118–19 Maximian (Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus), 4, 180 Menander I, 74, 75 Menander II, 74, 75, 76 Naumachia of Domitian, 54–5 Nerva (Marcus Cocceius Nerva), 15, 22, 51, 80, 81, 82, 109, 149 and Domus Flauia, 60 claims on Domitianic monuments, 48 connected with Domitian, 45 principate, 15 reign, 15 Nicolaus (49 Felten), 74 Nile, 111, 118, 130, 140, 159, 160 Oratory in the age of Trajan, 106–8 Pacatus, 178, 179, 180, 182, 186, 187, 188 Pallas (Marcus Antonius Pallas), 164, 165 panegyric and physical monuments, 47–8 Panegyrici Latini, 187–8

207

Panegyricus admonitory programme, 5–10, 67 aesthetics, 125–41 and contemporary praise culture, 104–24 and genre of prose panegyric, 5, 187–8 and ‘metaphorical monuments’, 50–3 and monuments of Rome, 45–66 and negative exemplarity, 10–14 and rhetorical theory, 67–84 and strategy of antithesis, 53, 69, 78, 109, 114, 115, 146, 147 and the first person plural, 33–5 and the sublime, 125–41 consulship in, 79–80 elevation, 125, 127, 131, 133, 135, 136, 149 evidentiary value, 14–18 friendship in, 136 gold and silver in, 52, 53 historical exemplarity in, 142–74 imperial virtues in, 8–10 legacy in antiquity, 187–8 occasion, 1 Optimization, 162, 164, 168, 170, 173, 174 organization of material, 70, 77, 180 precursors and predecessors, 1–4 proem, 71, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 publication, 4–5, 40–1 significance, 4–5 sincerity and belief, 13–14, 17, 21–2 style, 69–70 time in, 146 title of, 67 Trajan’s family in, 81–2 Plato’s Symposium Agathon’s speech in praise of Love, 69, 74 Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), 18 Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) administrative expertise, 29–33 and knowledge of the imperial court, 31 and the character of the consulship, 36 as consul, 37–8 as ‘insider’, 33–5 career, 18–22, 39, 41–3 friendship with Trajan, 31–2 his consulship, 44 insider knowledge, 29–33 self-fashioning, 29–44 supporter of Trajan, 41–3 Pompeia Plotina, 31, 60, 61, 149, 170 Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus), 73, 93, 94, 101, 129, 138, 140, 142, 159, 160, 165, 172 progymnasmata, 68 Pseudo-Aristides 7, 76, 77, 81, 82 Pseudo-Dionysius, 69

208

General index

Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus), 70–5 praise of Domitian, 70–1 Res Gestae Diui Augusti, 9, 48 Scipiones, 153–4 securitas (security), 7, 8 Senatus Consultum de Pisone Patre, 9 Seneca’s De Clementia, 9 Sidonius Apollinaris (Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius), 185 Silius Italicus (Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus), 117 Statius, Siluae, 117–18, 119 sublime the, 125, 127, 130, 132, 137 Suetonius, 9, 12, 13, 54, 58 Symmachus (Quintus Aurelius Symmachus), 183, 184, 185, 187 Tacitus, Agricola, 48, 109, 116 technical analysis, 73 Theodosius, 178, 179, 181 Theon, 68, 71, 72, 73 three chronological periods, 76 Traianus Pater (Marcus Ulpius Traianus), 18, 19, 82, 143, 156, 165, 170, 173, 174 death, 17

Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Traianus) accessibility, 60–4 and the sublime, 130–7 appearance, 80 as consul, 36–8 career, 14–15, 18–22 connected with Domitian, 45 courage, 81 early principate, 16 liberalitas (generosity), 55–7 ‘Optimus’, 17, 82, 110, 114, 117, 142, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 162, 164, 170, 172, 173, 174 paucity of early building projects, 48 policies on taxation and inheritance, 30 recreation, 31 relationship with the senate, 16–17 Trajanic literary culture, 108–16 Trajanic praise culture continuity and periodization, 116–23 Valentinian I, 183, 184 Verginius Rufus, Lucius, 3, 19, 70, 107, 151, 167 Vettenius Severus, 5, 108 Vibius Severus, 5 Xenophon, 47, 69, 75, 173