No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Pliny's Praetorship Again
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
This paper is offered to my former tutor both in deep gratitude and in answer to a challenge. When as Camden Professor he was encouraging me in my project for a historical commentary on the Letters of Pliny, he remarked that with the available evidence the problem of the date of Pliny's praetorship did not appear to be capable of definite resolution. This is an attempt to decide the matter, partly by a fresh examination of the evidence and partly by the production of a new argument.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright ©A. N. Sherwin-White 1957. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 Mommsen, , ‘Zur Lebensgeschichte des j.Plinius,’ GS IV, 404 ff.Google Scholar W. Otto, ’Zur Lebensgeschichte etc.’ SB. Bayer. Ak. Wiss. 1919. Abh. 10, 44 ff. Harte, R. H., ‘The praetorship of the younger Pliny,’ JRS XXV (1935) 51 ffGoogle Scholar.
2 Gellius, , NA XV, 11Google Scholar, 4–5. Suet., Dom. 10, 3. Suetonius, like Pliny, puts the expulsion after the trial of Senecio. The epitomators Zonaras (XI, 19) and Syncellus (p. 343) add nothing to what they preserve of the Eusebian tradition.
3 Xiphilinus is best found in the Loeb text of Dio 67, 13, 3. The statement is made in the passive: οἱ λοιποὶ πάντες (φιλόσοφοι) ἐξηλάθησαν αὖθις ἐκ τῆς Ῥώμης, and may refer back to that in 65, 13, 2, about Vespasian's expulsion.
4 Eusebius, Op. V (Leipzig, 1911), p. 217Google Scholar. For Jerome, ibid, VII (ed. Helm), pp. 189 f.
The arrangement in Karst is clear enough. There is no doubt that these are regnal years, as Otto saw, o.c. 50. Domitian is given fifteen full years with a sixteenth of five days in the Armenian version or five months (!) in Jerome.
5 Jerome puts the first trial of the Vestals in Year III, and that of Cornelia in Year XI. In this latter date he disagrees with the Chronicon Paschale. Dio (Xiphilinus) 67, 32 with Pliny IV, 11, 7, indicates two occasions.
6 The Parthian campaigns are given twice, the first time in Years V and VI the second in XVI–XIX. Pliny's governorship of Bithynia is attributed to Year X, i.e. 107–8, which though near cannot be right.
7 Philostratus, Ap. Ty. 7, 4. cf. Otto, o.c. 48, n. 3. Mommsen, o.c. 419, n. 2.
8 Ep. I, 23, 2–4, at length, on the sacrosanctity and special power of the tribunate, ‘his rationibus malui me tribunum omnibus exhibere quam paucis advocatum.’
9 ibid, X, 3, a. ‘ut toto animo delegate mihi officio vacarem’. cf. Ep. III, 4, 2–4, ‘de communis officii necessitatibus praelocuti excusare me … temptarunt.’
10 There is no force in Otto's suggestion that in X, 3a, I, alioqui in ‘omnibus advocationibus quibus alioqui numquam eram promiscue functus’ means ‘in other offices’. His usage of this adverb elsewhere shows that its effect is quite generalized, cf. Epp. II, 15, 2; V, 14, 2; VI, 6, 3; VIII, 29, 2. cf. Bursian, JB 1929, 59 ff. for this controversy.
11 The Corellia case is dated by the consulship of Caecilius Strabo to 105 (IV, 17,1). The Varenus case, despite much unnecessary excitement, was always dated to a year after 105 by the reference in VI, 5, to the activity of Licinius Nepos, the vigorous praetor of 105 now out of office. That Pliny was the successor of Julius Ferox, documented as Curator Tiberis from 101 to 103 (ILS 5930; CIL VI, 31549–51; AE 1937, n. 97), who as consul of 99 was senior to him, has not been made doubtful by Otto's farcical attempt to make Pliny Curator in 101 for a few months, resigning for reasons of ill health. Otto, o.c. 91 ff., was anticipated by Peters, Philologus XXXII, 708. The suggestion that this was a sortitive office—to get round the difficulty about Ferox's seniority—will not do. Pliny calls it a mandatum officium in V, 14, 2, which means that it was given by the emperor; cf. x, 26, 2. Pliny always uses mandare of choice, cf. e.g. II, 1, 9; III, 9, 36. Besides, the sortitive offices, to judge by the sequence of the senior proconsulships, were limited to year-groups.
12 Ep. I, 5, 15–16; IX, 13.
13 Tac., Ann. XV, 53 and 70, with Furneaux ad loc.
14 Pliny, Ep. III, 9, 18–19.
15 In the Classicus case the delay from an indictment apparently in 98 to hearing in 100 was due to the sudden death of the reus, and the deliberations about the renewal of the case against his assistants. Epp. III, 9, 5–6; 4, 2–4, and X, 8. So too in the Priscus case the change of charge causes delay, from late 98 to December, 99, but the minor accusation was dealt with quickly (II, 11, 2–5 and 8–10, with X, 3a). Once the main case is brought on it is finished in three sessions, II, 11, 10; 12, 2. one of which lasted three days.
16 Otto, o.c. 45 f. Ep. VII, 33, 7–8.
17 Pliny, Ep. I, 5, 3; VII, 19, 5.
18 Ulpian, Dig. 48, 2, 4.
19 cf. V, 12, 2, for an analogy, where the offence is akin to destitutio causae: ‘non fidem sibi in advocatione sed constantiam defuisse.‘ The procedure in these technical charges against advocates is given in Ep. III, 9, 30: ‘est lege cautum ut reus ante peragatur tune de praevaricatione quaeratur videlicet quia optime ex accusatione ipsa accusatoris fides aestimatur.’ For the disallowal of a similar attack on one of the leaders in a case see IV, 9, 20–1.
20 The question was whether Modestus had given a fair sententia in an earlier decision affecting Arrionilla. Regulus used the word pietas instead of the more usual fides because of its desirable ambiguity. For the virtues of an advocate, comprising industria, fides, and constantia, the basic elements of pietas, see III; II, 11, 19; III, 9, 23.
21 This is the natural meaning of the statements in Pliny, Ep. x, 3a, 1; 8, 3. Pan. 91, 1; 92, 1. Otto himself, for once taking the obvious line, disposed of Merrill's suggestion that Pliny and Tertullus did not enter office as Treasurers until the autumn of 98, shortly before their predecessor is supposed to have begun his suffect consulship. Mommsen, o.c. 423, rightly observed that the statement ‘nondum biennium compleveramus in officio … cum tu nobis … consulatum obtulisti’ requires only that they were appointed Treasurers on a day in January, 98, later than the date in January, 100, of the consular elections of 100, but before the death of Nerva (January, 27 or 28, Garzetti, Nerva 94 ff.). Pliny notes it as exceptional that they continued in office up to the eve of their consulships, Pan. 92, 1 (n. 28).
22 cf. Dio 52, 23, 2. The Cura Tiberis provides two good contemporary instances in Ferox, n. 11, and Messius Rusticus, who was in office from 121 to 124 (ILS 5931; AE 1917–8, n. 108).
23 Pan. 95, 3: ‘si cursu quodam provectus ab illo insidiosissimo principe antequam profiteretur odium bonorum, postquam professus est substiti: cum viderem quae ad honores compendia paterent longius iter malui.’ But the only honor left to Pliny was the consulship. Otto, o.c. 53, thought this a suggestio falsi, since Pliny could not expect the consulship by 96. But Pliny means only that he refused to take steps towards the consulship, i.e. he ceased to hold office.
24 Ep. III, 11, 2–3; IV, 24, 4–5; VII, 27, 14; 33, 8–9. Some of these are addressed to noteworthy figures, and perhaps correspond to a fashion in contemporary society. But Pliny lets it out in VII, 19, 10, that he suffered from a guilty conscience for not doing enough to help his friends Arria and Fannia: ‘habuerunt officia mea … in adversis … non feci tamen paria.’
25 No visit to Comum is recorded after that of 1, 8, 2, until IV, 1 and 13, 3; 30, I. In II, 8, 2–3, he bewails his inability to visit Comum, and in III, 6, makes a tentative plan for a sudden visit—‘si tamen officii ratio permiserit excurrere isto’—which may be that of IV, 1.
26 This office is shown to be the Treasury of Saturn rather than the Aerarium Militare by the judicial duties which it involved, I, 10, 10 (cf. Dig. 49, 14, 13–15; Pliny, Pan. 36, 1). Hence the letter belongs to 98 or later. Otherwise it could be evidence for Pliny holding office as Military Treasurer under Nerva, since it belongs to the period after the return of the philosophers to Rome.
27 Pliny, Ep. I, 5, II, for the first date. The debate of Ep. IX, 13, is now fixed to 97 by the latest evidence for the date of Apollinaris' consulship. Syme, R., JRS XLIV (1954) 81Google Scholar.
28 Pliny, Pan. 92, 2: ‘tanta tibi integritatis nostrae fiducia fuit ut non dubitares te salva diligentiae tuae ratione facturum si nos post maximum officium privatos esse non sineres.’
29 o.c. n. I above.
30 III, 11, 2: ‘cum essent philosophi ab urbe summoti fui apud ilium in suburbano et … fui praetor, pecuniam etiam qua tune illi ampliore opus erat … dedi. atque haec feci … septem amicis meis aut occisis aut relegatis.’
31 cf. II, 11, 2–3; III, 9, 4–6; IV, 9, 2.
32 It may be added that in the third sentence, n. 30, ‘atque haec feci’ fairly dates both acts to the time of Senecio's trial, pace Harte.