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People in Pliny

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Ronald Syme
Ronald Syme
Affiliation:
Brasenose College, Oxford
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Extract

Alluding to the scanty sources for the reign of Trajan, the historian Gibbon came out with a melancholy pronouncement: ‘the glimmerings of an abridgement or the doubtful light of a panegyric’. Gibbon's mind was on warfare and government. A later age is drawn to a wider and more subtle theme: the study of society. A document of unique value exists, the correspondence of Pliny. It illuminates class and rank and behaviour—and a whole region of Northern Italy. For other lands of the Roman West the evidence is poor and scattered. The written record has little more to disclose than the families of Seneca and Julius Agricola or the pedigree of the Antonine emperors. One has recourse to inscriptions and the study of nomenclature.

Pliny reveals persons of all orders, from consular magnates to small men and local friends. He also covers a wide range in time, from several long-lived survivors who had come to manhood under Claudius and Nero to youths of predictable promise whose consulates would adorn the first years of Trajan's successor. Further, the interrelation with other types of evidence is highly instructive. The information is abundant enough to permit some negative inferences. It is worth giving a thought to categories and groups that are absent from the correspondence or sparsely on show. Other ‘circles’ may therefore be surmised in the life of the capital. The categories are both social and regional. Certain cities of the North happen to make no contribution.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1-2 , November 1968 , pp. 135 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Ronald Syme 1968. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Chilver, G. E. F., Cisalpine Gaul (1941).Google Scholar

2 FO XXVI: ‘V non. Mart. Augustus profe[ct]us ad Italiam circu[’.

3 Epp. I, 14, 4: ‘patria est ei Brixia, ex ilia nostra Italia quae multum adhuc verecundiae frugalitatis atque etiam rusticitatis antiquae retinet ac servat.’

4 Gellius xv, 18, 1. From Livy, cf. Plutarch, Caesar 47, etc. For the episode, Latte, K., Mus.Helv. XVI (1959), 140 ffGoogle Scholar.

5 Thus presumably Verginius Rufus and Pliny, cf. Chilver, o.c. 98 f.; 106 f.

6 Martial VI, 85, 6; X, 12, 1. The word ‘cispadanus’ does not occur.

7 Mansuelli, G. A., Rev. arch. 1962, 159 ff.Google Scholar

8 The elder Pliny is the only author to name them. Welcome confirmation comes from the post ‘c]ensendo reg. X’ on the cursus of M. Hirrius Fronto Neratius Pansa (suff. ? 73 or 76): inscription from Saepinum presented by Dr. M. Torelli at the Epigraphic Congress in Cambridge (September 1967), see below, pp. 170 ff.

9 cf. Tacitus, , Hist. I, 70, 3Google Scholar: ‘firmissima Transpadanae regionis municipia, Mediolanum ac Novariam et Eporediam et Vercellas, adiunxere’.

10 Even Q. Glitius Atilius Agricola (suff. 97, suff. II 103) is missing.

11 As does Chilver, o.c. 86, cf. 98; 103.

12 For that conjecture, cf. Athenaeum xxxv (1957), 315Google Scholar.

13 For a list analysing the population of a number of Cisalpine cities according to class and status, see Mansuelli, G. A., Rev. arch. 1962, 169 ff.Google Scholar Not of much use, for the execution is defective and incoherent.

14 E.g. Brixia, with its numerous senatorial families and its large territorium: the largest of any city in Italy.

15 JRS XXXIX (1949), 6ffGoogle Scholar.

16 Tacitus (1958), 277: 747.

17 Sherwin-White, A. N., The Letters of Pliny. A Historical and Social Commentary (1966).Google Scholar

18 o.c. 65 ff.

19 For the list, Tacitus (1958), 665. Cornutus Tertullus (Africa or Asia) must now make way for Q. Servaeus Innocens, cf. below, p. 151.

20 For specimens, Historia XIII (1964), 106 fGoogle Scholar.

21 It is commended without qualms by Chilver, , Cisalpine Gaul (1941), 103Google Scholar; Syme, , Tacitus (1958), 86, cf. 635.Google Scholar

22 Schulze, LE 299. For a new ‘Calestro’, at Trebula Mutuesca, cf. Torelli, M., Rendiconti Acc. Lincei 8 XVIII (1963), 252Google Scholar.

23 Schulze, LE 254.

24 Chilver, o.c. 100.

25 Calderini, A., Aquileia Romania (1930), 574Google Scholar. It will be noted that some northern specimens are new formations from cognomina. Thus, at Comum, ‘Secundienus’ (CIL V, 5372 f.) and ‘Pusillienus’ (5365). The latter occurs in the full nomenclature of Pliny's friend Plinius Paternus (1, 21), disclosed by AE 1916, 116 as ‘P. Plinius Paternus L. f. Ouf. Pusillienus’.

26 Badian, E., Foreign Clientelae (264–70 B.C.) (1958), 309 ff.Google Scholar

27 Tacitus (1958), 783.

28 Mansuelli, G. A., Rev. arch. 1962, 172 ff.Google Scholar

29 Tacitus (1958), 801

30 viz. Q. Pomponius Rufus, by the début of his career, ‘bello qu[od] imp. G[a]lba pro [re p.] gessit’ (IRT 537), hence one of the young notables of Tarraconensis; and Mamilianus (or his son) has the significant tribe ‘Galeria’ (CIL VII, 164 = RIB 445: Deva).

31 Thus PIR 1, P 491 (P–W omits); and confusion must be confessed to in Hermes LXXXV (1957), 488Google Scholar. Further, the Index of OCT has the single entry.

32 For the proper sorting out, cf. Sherwin-White on 1, 8; V, 7, 1.

33 JRS XLIII (1953), 159Google Scholar; Gnomon XXIX (1957), 521Google Scholar.

34 Among them the status of Voconius Romanus as affecting the date. See Sherwin-White on 11, 13 (at some length).

35 For the hypothesis that Priscus was exercising jurisdiction in Transpadana at the time, cf. Hermes LXXXV (1957), 488Google Scholar; Tacitus (1958), 224. About 107 C. Julius Proculus (suff. 109) was in fact governing the region as imperial legate (ILS 1040).

36 Sherwin-White operates with Cornelius Priscus (suff. ? 104). Also with D. (Junius) Novius Priscus (cos. 78), whom he conjectures to be brother or parent of the Novius Maximus who receives IV, 20 and V, 5: cf. the annotation on IV, 20 and VI, 8. Nobody seems to admit M. Trebatius Priscus (suff. 108).

37 Stein, A., Die Präfekten von Ägypten in römischer Zeit (1950), 50 ff.Google Scholar For conjecture about his origin and other posts, Historia VI (1957), 480 ffGoogle Scholar.

38 Resumed in the note on 11, 14; and observe P. 752.

39 Maesius Maximus being now identified helps a little. But there is no sign that Novius Maximus (IV, 20; v, 5) was a senator. (On p. 66 it is stated that he was suffectus in 78.)

40 On ‘Hispo’ and ‘Hispulla’, cf. JRS XXXIX (1949), 14 fGoogle Scholar. Those names had a detrimental appeal for Juvenal (11, 50; VI, 74; XII, 11).

41 Chilver, o.c. 71 ff. Ostensibly Latin gentilicia like ‘Attius’ and ‘Atilius’ may often derive from native nomina.

42 Tacitus (1958), 620.

43 Chilver, o.c. 86 ff.

44 In CIL V, Brixia and Verona exceed 800, but Patavium has about 325, Mantua only 30—and similarly Cremona. As for the Aemilia, observe Mutina (c. 150), Parma (not quite 100).

45 At Brixia: CIL V, 4262 f.; 4324 f.; 4326; 4331–64; 8882.

46 At Patavium: CIL V, 2819 f.; 2322–5.

47 Garzetti, A., Nerva (1950), 104 ff.Google Scholar

48 For a number of items Garzetti cited Lully, G., De senatorum Romanorum patria (Rome, 1918)Google Scholar. That was unfortunate.

49 Groag, P–W XIX, 23 f. For more accruing, Tacitus (1958), 785.

50 o.c. 103.

51 For a few specimens, Historia V (1956), 204 fGoogle Scholar. Others can be discovered in the recent article ‘M. Ulpius Traianus’, P–W Supp. x (1965), 1032 ff. For example, Q. Sosius Senecio (cos. 99), after being designated as probably Narbonensian (1040), changes without warning into a ‘Spanier’ (1044): there is no clear sign anywhere about his origin. Sosius is assigned the governorship of Moesia Inferior at the time of the Second Dacian War (1074; 1077). That goes back to a conjecture of A. Stein. In fact baseless, cf. JRS xxxv (1945), 112 fGoogle Scholar. (in review of Die Legaten von Moesien); XLIX (1959), 28Google Scholar; Latomus XXIII (1964), 755 fGoogle Scholar.

L. Fabius Justus (suff. 102) is highly relevant. But the article shows no awareness of the new interpretation of Hunt's Pridianum (BM Pap. 2851), which locates him in Moesia Inferior in 105, cf. JRS XLIX (1959), 27 f.Google Scholar; J. F. Gilliam, Hommages Grenier (1962), 750. Instead, Fabius is put in the other Moesian command in 107–8 (1081).

To conclude with a trifle. Q. Glitius Agricola of Augusta Taurinorum (suff. 97) is supposed to be related to Pliny, ‘über Pomponia Celerina’ (1041, cf. 1053). The nomen of the lady is erroneous, the relationship sheer fantasy.

52 Historia V (1956), 204 ff.Google Scholar; VIII (1959), 207 ff.; XI (1962), 146 ff.

53 Historia IV (1955), 52 ffGoogle Scholar.

54 Historia XIII (1964), 105 ffGoogle Scholar.