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The dating of Pliny's latest letters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Ronald Syme
Ronald Syme
Affiliation:
Wolfson College, Oxford
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Extract

When announcing the first instalment, the author made a firm declaration: ‘collegi non servato temporis ordine’. The note of elegant disdain suitably echoes a poet: ‘postmodo collectas, utcumque sine ordine iunctas’;. In fact, care for balance and variety predominates.

Nevertheless, when Pliny came to recount public transactions, he had to respect a ‘temporis ordo’, as many signs indicate. Mommsen in his classic study was able to work out the chronological framework, of the nine books, from 97 to 108 or 109. In general, his scheme stands the test — that is, apart from the notion of a rapid publication in separate books. Indeed, no argument avails to prove that the first instalment saw the light of day earlier than the end of the year 105.

Pliny was expert in finance and an alert contriver everywhere. Persons of that quality may succumb to inadvertence, although not very often. Licinius Nepos, praetor in 105, comes twice into action (4.29; 5.4), before his edict gets a mention (5.9). Again, in a letter the context of which points to 105, a consulship for Minicius Fundanus is divined ‘in proximum annum’ (4.15.5). Fundanus entered office in the early summer of 107. By contrast, Valerius Paulinus, consul suffect in the pair that followed that consulship, does not come up until 9.37. An extremely late point in the collection. It imposes a salutary warning when a number of letters in the final triad are put under scrutiny.

The exposition of Mommsen ran into criticism, sometimes hasty or even perverse. Moreover, various attempts were made to modify the dates of certain prosecutions in the Senate. The emergence of a consul on the Fasti Ostienses demolished an elaborate reconstruction that concerned two proconsuls of Bithynia. More accruing, a number of fairly close dates can now be established.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , May 1985 , pp. 176 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

1 Ov. Ex Ponto 3.9.53.

2 Mommsen, , Hermes 3 (1869), 31 ffGoogle Scholar. = Ges. Schriften iv (1906), 366 ffGoogle Scholar.

3 For consular dates see Vidman, L., Fasti Ostienses 2 (Prague, 1982)Google Scholar.

4 With an explicit reference to ‘Kalendae’ (i.e. September 1); cf. below.

5 Viz, the prosecutions of Julius Bassus and Varenus Rufus.

6 Acilius Rufus, the ‘consul designatus’ of 5.20.6, was identified as ‘Rufus’, the first ‘suffectus’ of 107 (AE 1945, 35Google Scholar) — as then appeared certain. The consequences for recent theses of Premerstein, A. v. were briefly drawn in JRS 36 (1946), 163Google Scholar = Danubian Papers (1971), 166. Still valid, although the identity will be disputed in this paper.

7 Viz. Colonus (9.9), Venator (20), Sabinianus (21), Rusticus (29), Sardus (31), Mustius (39).

8 See the full and careful analysis of Sherwin-White, A. N., The Letters of Pliny. A Historical and Social Commentary (1966), 39 ffGoogle Scholar.

9 CIL 6.10299; Bruns, , Fontes 7 (1909), no. 117Google Scholar; Arangio-Ruiz, , FIR (1943), no. 48Google Scholar.

10 Sherwin-White, op. cit. 38: ‘not earlier than the first quarter of 108, which is the latest date in the letters’.

11 PIR 2, D 13 f. (with the Addendum, p. xi). Further developed in JRS 43 (1953), 156Google Scholar = Roman Papers (1979), 245Google Scholar.

12 AE 1976, 77Google Scholar.

13 Eck, W., ZPE 30 (1978), 277 ffGoogle Scholar.

14 Garcia, Carmen Castillo, Actas del I. Congreso Andaluz de Estudios Clásicos (Jaén, 1982), 159 ffGoogle Scholar.

15 ‘The Testamentum Dasumii. Some Novelties’, Chiron 15 (1985)Google Scholar, forthcoming. Contributions are to be expected from others, given the importance of document and theme.

16 Notably for the Hispano-Narbonensian ancestry of the Antonine dynasty. The heiress Domitia Cn. f. Lucilla was the maternal grandmother of Marcus Aurelius.

17 PIR,2 D 167; ‘circa annum 106/7’.

18 Thus HSCP 82 (1979), 305Google Scholar = RP 3 (1984), 1174Google Scholar.

19 For chronology and analysis of the contents, Sherwin-White, op. cit. 37 ff.

20 Sherwin-White, op. cit. 264 (on 4.1): ‘the book-date, which would give summer 104’. Observe, however, 345 (on 5.14.8): ‘in perhaps 104’.

21 Viz. 4.13.3; 30.1; 5.14.1; 6.1.1; 24.2.

22 Advance news of the appointment may explain ‘officii ratio’ (3.6.6), referring to a projected journey to Comum. The post is duly registered on the inscription (ILS 2927). For the duration of the mandate, observe that Pliny's predecessor Julius Ferox is attested both in 101 and in 103 (CIL 6.31549 f.).

23 Thus Sherwin-White, op. cit. 345 (on 5.14.8): ‘separating a visit to Comum in perhaps 104 from a second visit c. 106’. Cf. also 343: ‘one or two summers later’. And elsewhere.

24 As Pliny affirmed to Trajan in 98 (10.8.6).

25 Certain for the summer of 105 (5.6) and of 107 (8.1.1, cf. 9.37.1). The letter describing how he passed his days there (9.36) cannot be fixed to any single year. To Tifemum, Pliny may have paid more visits than can be established. Distant Comum is another matter.

26 Suet. Aug. 35.3.

27 No doubts in L. Vidman, op. cit. 47. In PIR 2, A 78 the consul suffect in Pliny had already been identified as L. Acilius L. f. Quir. Rufus, a senator of praetorian rank (CIL 10.7344: Thermae Himeraeae). He entered the Senate without having held a military tribunate or minor magistracy, therefore was probably not the son of a senator. Furthermore, after the praetorship Acilius Rufus was a praefectus frumenti dandi. Not at all a promising sign; cf. Eck, W., ANRW 2.1 (1974), 192 fGoogle Scholar.

28 Consequences ensue for dating the prosecution of Varenus Rufus. See further ‘Superior Suffect Consuls’, ZPE (1985)Google Scholar, forthcoming. To this category belong, in their different fashions, Attius Suburanus (101), Fabius Justus (102), Cornelius Dolabella (113).

29 Sherwin-White is disposed thus to assign no fewer than nine letters of Book IX (op. cit. 40), viz. 9.10, 15, 16, 20, 25, 28, 36, 37, 40.

30 ILS 6120, cf. Stein, A., RE VA, 663 ffGoogle Scholar.

31 i.e. unless the author has artistically disjoined the two occasions.

32 Some uncertainty is perceptible in Sherwin-White, op. cit. 40, cf. 499 f. (on 9.15). Not justifiable.

33 Cf. ‘istas occupationes’ in 7.12.5. To a Minicius: that is, Fundanus, consul suffect in the summer of 107.

34 L. Vidman, op. cit. 103, citing Groag and Degrassi.

35 Rex Alexander, one of the consular cousins of Julius Severus (OGIS 522: Ancyra), might go in this year. Likewise perhaps Bellicius Sollers, a ‘vir praetorius’ in 5.4.1: attested as a consul by ILS 1031 (Verona). Ti. Claudius Atticus is also to be considered (PIR 2, C 801).

36 Thus Birley, A. R., The Fasti of Roman Britain (1981), 99Google Scholar, doubting the inference from 9.15.3.

37 The word lacks annotation in Sherwin-White, ad loc.

38 Arrian, , Diss. Epicteti 3.7Google Scholar.

39 The appointment was put in 108 in Tacitus (1958), 80Google Scholar.

40 With echoes in Juvenal 10.228 ff., as argued in AJP 100 (1979), 253 fGoogle Scholar. = Roman Papers 3 (1984), 1137fGoogle Scholar.

41 CIL 6.10229, line 4.

42 The consul of 109, son of P. Calvisius Ruso Julius Frontinus (PIR 2, C 350). The latter, it is argued, can be disjoined from P. Calvisius Ruso (suff. 79). See ‘P. Calvisius Ruso, One Person or Two’, ZPE 56 (1984), 173 ffGoogle Scholar. Furthermore, the consul of 109 (and not the Cremutius Ruso of 6.23.2) should have the letter about Julius Frontinus (9.19).

43 When abridged on the Fasti, polyonymous consuls normally register the paternal name. On which, Epigrafia e Ordine Senatorio 1 (1982), 397 ffGoogle Scholar.

44 8.23. To (Caecilius) Macrinus. Although the nomenclature is so indistinctive, the curious will note T. Caecilius Macrinus, whose wife's mother was honoured at Mediolanum (CIL 5.5842).

45 Ad Q. Fratrem 3.5.8: ‘Romae et maxime in Appia ad Martis mira proluvies; Crassipedis ambulatio ablata, horti, tabernae plurimae; magna vis aquae usque ad piscinam publicam’.

46 Dio 39.61 (at the beginning of the year).

47 Orosius 6.14.5. Orosius missed the flood, Dio the fire.

48 See the ample commentary of Nisbet and Hubbard (1970), 16 ff.

49 On the other side, the inundation in January of 27 was duly interpreted as providential and instant recognition of the name ‘Augustus’ (Dio 53.23.1).

50 The incidence of high water along Ripetta for the period 1870–1930 is furnished by Le Gall, J., Le Tibre dans l'Antiquité (1953), 15Google Scholar. As follows: October, 1; November, 10; December, 12; January, 8; February, 5; March, 4. The highest rainfall occurs in the last three months of the year. For detailed reference to some historic floods, Nisbet and Hubbard, op. cit. 24 f., citing Smith, S. A., The Tiber and its Tributaries (1877)Google Scholar.

51 5.15; 17.

52 Such as the brief biography appended to the illness of Fannia, the daughter of Thrasea Paetus (7.19).

53 Julius Frontinus died in 103 or 104. Pliny succeeded to his augurship (4.8.3).

54 See further Some Arval Brethren (1980), ch. vii, ‘Mortality at Rome’Google Scholar.

55 HA, Hadr. 3.10: ‘ut a Sura comperit adoptandum se a Traiano esse’.

56 Despite the polite and innocuous profession ‘senectuti seposui’ (Tacitus, Hist. 1.1.4).

57 Cf. Sherwin-White, op. cit. 40.

58 Thus the remarks about the vintage in 8.15 (to Terentius Junior): assigned to 107.

59 E.g. 2.10 (Octavius Rufus, a poet); 5.5.7 (Novius Maximus, cf. the Maximus of 9.1).

60 This person, Sardus, is perhaps not wholly a nonentity; cf. the Asconius Sardus of ILS 6692 (Patavium). On whom see further PBSR 51 (1983), 109 fGoogle Scholar.

61 Decisive not for the date, it is true, but for Saguntum.

62 In fact Voconius was patently an Epicurean. He requested Pliny to forward a letter to Plotina (28.1).

63 Thus in Tacitus (1958), 80 f.Google Scholar, cf. 659. More fully in Historia 9 (1960), 366Google Scholar = RP (1979), 481Google Scholar. Not, however, conceded by Sherwin-White, op. cit. 511 (on 9.28.4).

64 A decade earlier Pliny had requested Trajan to adlect his friend ‘in amplissimum ordinem’ (10.4). No sign that Caesar complied.

65 On the present hypothesis, the winter of 109/110.

66 Mommsen, op. cit. 393.

67 E.g. ‘possibly as early as 109, perhaps rather in 110’ (Historia 9 (1960), 366Google Scholar = RP (1979), 481Google Scholar, cf. Hermes 109 (1981), 106Google Scholar = RP 3 (1984), 1339)Google Scholar.

68 Sherwin-White, op. cit. 81: ‘this should fix Pliny's years to 109–11’.

69 The year 110 earns the preference of Eck, W., Chiron 12 (1982), 349 fGoogle Scholar. Calpurnius Macer (suff. 103), the legate of Moesia Inferior, occurs early in the second calendar year (10.42). He is attested for 112 (CIL 3.779), but the beginning of his mandate cannot be established. It may emerge: Fabius Justus (suff. 102) is now certified for 106 (AE 1981, 746Google Scholar), continuing, it is presumed, until 108.