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The Finances of the Younger Pliny
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
Extract
The financial affairs of the younger Pliny are of particular interest for the social and economic history of the Roman Empire, because Pliny was one of the largest municipal benefactors in-the West (almost the largest known) and because unusually full information has survived about both his gifts and the resources that lay behind them. Almost every corner of Pliny's life as revealed by his Letters and by inscriptions is well-trodden ground, and his generosities are no exception. But the standard treatment of Pliny's gifts (Gentile's article published in 1881) is somewhat out of date and deals fully only with the gifts made to Comum. The only extensive discussion of Pliny's public and private generosities together with his resources appears in a popular work which is marred by too many uncertainties of method to allow justice to be done to the subject. No more than three of the 103 pages of Mommsen's biographical study of Pliny are devoted to his gifts, and the question of his resources is not considered. Since a number of points remain controversial, there are grounds for attempting a fresh analysis of Pliny's financial affairs as a whole.
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References
1 For a bibliography of recent work on Pliny, with references to four previous bibliographies, see Beaujeu, J., ‘Pline le Jeune 1955–1960’, Lustrum vi, 1961, pp. 272–303Google Scholar. I am indebted to Mr. J. A. Crook for valuable criticisms. Responsibility for the views expressed here is mine.
2 Gentile, I., ‘Le Beneficenze di Plinio Cecilio Secondo ai Comensi’, Rend. R. Ist. Lombardo, ser. II, xiv, 1881, pp. 458–470Google Scholar.
3 Allain, E., Pline le Jeune et ses héritiers, 4 vols., 1901–1902, esp. vol. I, pp. 56–118Google Scholar.
4 Mommsen, Th., Hermes iii, 1869, pp. 31–139Google Scholar. A slightly revised version appeared in French as ‘Étude sur Pline le Jeune’, Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études, sci. hist, et phil., fasc. 15, 1873, and German (with additions, partly by other hands) in Mommsen, Th., Gesammelte Schriften IV, 1906, 366–468Google Scholar. The references in the present article are to the version of 1906.
5 PIR2 C 1379; Pliny, , NH XVIII, 31Google Scholar (PTR 1 T 14 & SCRI no. 1194); PIR 1 p 109; Cassius Dio LXI, 10, 3 (PIR 2 A 617).
6 II, 20, 13; for Regulus, cf. Syme, pp. 100–102 and PIR 2 A 1005.
7 Cf. for example, two senators of the first century A.D., Sex. Pompeius, who owned estates in Sicily, Macedonia and Campania, and Rubellius Plautus, who owned estates in Asia and Latium (PIR 1 P 450 and R 85).
8 Carcopino takes an opposite view, but does not argue the question in detail (Daily life in ancient Rome, 1962 ed., p. 81).
9 ‘Sunt quidem omnino nobis modicae facultates’, II, 4, 3. Pliny's father was rich enough to es donate a temple to Comum during his lifetime (Pais no. 745; for the identification, see n. 45 below). Both his father and his mother bequeathed to Pliny estates by Lake Como (VII, 11, 5), and Pliny was the adopted heir of Pliny the Naturalist (V, 8, 5).
10 Pliny, refers to his own position as a ‘dignitas sumptuosa’ (II, 4, 3).
11 For HS8 million as a senatorial fortune, Tacitus, , Ann. XIII, 34Google Scholar, Suetonius, Vesp. 17 (briefly discussed in PBSR xxxi, 1963, p. 164Google Scholar; cf. also Cassius Dio LX, 29, 2 & Pliny, , NH XXIX, 8Google Scholar). But resources of half this amount could apparently be countenanced in an aspirant to the Senate under Trajan (X, 4, 2). Carcopino states that Pliny was worth HS20 million or less (a figure apparently accepted by Radice, p. 311), but offers no substantiation (Daily life in ancient Rome, 1962 ed., pp. 81, 83).
12 VII, 11, 5–6; for Pliny's estates inherited from his mother, see also II, 15, 2.
13 The distinction drawn by Sirago between Pliny's ‘praedia circa Larium’ and his ‘praedia trans Padum’ seems to be spurious (Sirago, pp.27–28). Even if, as he argues, Lake Como (‘Larius lacus’) did not belong to Transpadana under the Augustan system of regiones, it is sufficiently clear that Pliny uses a colloquial laxity in referring to his estates (‘mei Tusci’ probably lay mainly in Umbria, cf. Radice, p. 33) for his mentions of Transpadana to carry no topographical weight by themselves. Sirago is obliged to admit one instance where Pliny's use of ‘trans Padum’ is clearly generic, not precise (VI, 1, 1, to which should be added IV, 6, 1); and his case appears to rest merely on the proximity of lands which Pliny owned to lands owned by the Milanese L. Verginius Rufus (a point already made by Chilver, p. 150; II, 1, 8;cf. Syme, p. 86 for Rufus' origin). This has no sure topographical significance, as Rufus himself quite possibly owned estates by Lake Como; he certainly owned one property outside Mediolanium (at Alsium, VI, 10, 1), and it was common for the rich to own property in several districts. To take three obvious examples, the younger Pliny held property at Tifernum Tiberinum, Vicus Laurentium and Rome as well as by Lake Como (IV, 1, 4–5; II, 17; III, 21, 5; VII, 11, 5); his mother-in-law Pompeia Celerina held property at Ocriculum, Narnia, Carsulae, Perusia and Alsium (I, 4, 1; VI, 10, 1); and his wife's grandfather, L. Calpurnius Fabatus, lived at Comum and held other property at Ameria and in Campania (V, 11, ILS 2721; VIII, 20, 3; VI, 30, 2–4).
14 IV, 1, 3–5; 6, 1, etc. For epigraphic record of pliny's estate at Tifernum, cf. CIL XI 6689171 and Mommsen, p. 442 fin.
15 X, 8, 5 (SCRI no. 1185 ) dated to 98 by Otto, pp. 82–85 & Syme, p. 658.
16 Allam I, p. 70, n. 1; Chilver, pp. 150–151; Radice, p. 105, n. 1.
17 PIR 2 C 349; V, 7, 4; III, 19. Calvisius Rufus was not merely a useful local contact at Comum, but a close friend and adviser of Pliny's (III, 19, 1 and 9; I, 12, 12; IV, 4, 1; V, 7).
18 Tifernum: IX, 15; 16; 20; X, 8, 5; VIII, 2 (because addressed to Calvisius Rufus, who lived at Comum). Comum: II, 15, 2 (cf. VII, 11, 5); V, 14, 8. Cf. VII, 30, 3 and IX, 37, which may refer to either district.
19 X, 8, 5; cf. SCRI no. 1184 and note.
20 The only grounds attached to Pliny's Laurentine villa were a garden and beach (IV, 6), though the house itself was probably grand enough to fetch a substantial sale price (cf. II, 17; Cicero's houses at Tusculum and Formiae were worth more than HS500,000 and HS250,000 respectively, ad Att. IV, 2, 5).
21 At the tame of wntmg II, 19 Pliny evidently thought that he might have less than HS3 million in hand.
22 II, 4, 3; 15, 2; IV, 6, 1; V, 14, 8; VII, 30, 3; VIII, 2; IX, 15; 16; 20, 2; 28, 2; 37; X, 8, 5.
23 Cf. Hopkins, M. K., A demographic profile of the later Roman aristocracy (unpublished Fellowship dissertation in the library of King's College, CambridgeGoogle Scholar).
24 VII, 20, 6; cf. II, 18, 2; IX, 11; 23; Martial X, 19 FIRA III, no. 48 The author of this will, first identified as a [Dasumius] by Borghesi (Oeuvres, VI, p. 429), has been further defined as ‘L. Dasumius Tuscus?’ (Mommsen, ad CIL VI 10229Google Scholar) “p Dasumius Tuscus’ (Arangio-Ruiz, , FIRA III p 133Google Scholar); ‘L Dasumius [Hadrianus?]’ (A Degrassi, I fasti consolari dell'impero romano, 1952, p. 28; cf. Groag, PIR 2 III, p. xiGoogle Scholar, no. 14), and as ‘the consular L. Dasumius’ (Syme, p. 603).
25 III, 21,5; Martial X, 19. For the enormously high cost of land in the city of Rome, cf. Pliny, NH XXXVI, 103Google Scholar.
26 II, 17; cf. Pember's reconstruction of the layout of the villa reproduced in Radice, p. 305, and Van Buren, A. W. in JRS xxxviii, 1948, p. 35 ffGoogle Scholar.
27 That Pliny owned these further three villas is accepted by Gentile, p. 470, n. 1, Syme, p. 84, n. 5 and Sirago, pp. 32–34; the notion is rejected by Radice, p. 144, n. 1.
28 The most recent edition is the Oxford Classical Text edited by R. A. B. Mynors, 1963.
29 I, 3, 1; 8, 2; II, 8, 1; III, 6, 4; IV, 6, 1; 13, 3; 30, 1; V, 7, 2–4; 11, 2; 14, 1 & 8; VI, 1, 1; 24, 2; VII, 11, 5; IX, 7, 1.
30 III, 4, 2; IV, 1, 3; 6, 1; V, 6; 18, 2; IX, 15; 36; 40, 1; X, 8, 5 (cf. III, 4, 2).
31 I, 9, 4; 22, 11; II, 17; IV, 6; V, 2; VII, 4, 3; IX, 40.
32 With Pompeia Celerina, his mother-in-law, I, 4 & VI, 10; with Vestricius Spurinna, III, 1; with Iunius Mauricus at Formiae, VI, 14; at the house of Pontius Allifanus in Campania, VI, 28; frequent stays with Calestrius Tiro, VII, 16, 2; with Terentius Iunior, VII, 25, 3. Cf. V, 14, 8 & IV, 1, 1, a visit to Calpurnius Fabatus, the grandfather of Pliny's wife.
33 Mynors, p. 113.
34 Sirago claims that IV, 13, 3; 30; V, 14; and VI, 1 decisively show that Pliny had a house in the town of Comum, but the letters cited do not support his inference (Sirago, p. 28). Pliny was apparently not educated in Comum (cf. II, 13, 5 & X, 4, 1), and he remained ignorant of the public educational arrangements at his native town until quite late in life (IV, 13, 3). It has to be remembered that to be a native of a particular town was almost universal in the Roman world, and did not denote urban origin in itself (cf. my remarks in JRS liii, 1963, pp. 85–86Google Scholar).
35 W. W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery 1908, p. 6.
36 Apuleius, Apol. 77 and 93; cf. my remarks in PBSR xxxi, 1963, pp. 161Google Scholar & n. 12, 164 & n. 28.
37 The picture of slave numbers under the Roman Empire given by Westermann is unrealistically low, and omits much of the most suggestive evidence for large slave-holdings, including the 4,116 slaves bequeathed by the freedman Caecilius Isidorus in 8 B.C. (Pliny, NH XXXIII, 135), Pudentilla's 400 slaves (n. 36 above) and the 16 vicarii attendant on a slave dispensator who died at Rome (ILS 1514) (W. L. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity, 1955, pp. 84–90). It is interesting to notice that some of the landowners who declared property at Ligures Baebiani and Veleia under Trajan employed slave bailiffs to run their estates (CIL IX 1455, i, 65; 4; 71; XI 1147, oblig. 16; 19; 29; 31 [bis]), though at Veleia it was more common to employ freedmen for this purpose (XI 1147, oblig. 1; 9; 15; 30; 35; 38; 41).
38 ILS 2927, 11. 11–12. W. W. Buckland, Textbook of Roman Law 3 1963, p. 78 and n. 2. This conclusion has already been briefly argued by Carcopino, Daily life in ancient Rome, 1962, ed., p. 83.
39 Cf. also Apuleius, Apol. 17.
40 Cf. the contemporary will of Dasumius, FIRA III, no. 48, 11.36 ff.; Syme, p. 603.
41 Mommsen, p. 434, n. 6.
42 ibid. Mommsen's position (accepted by Gentile, pp. 468–469) is set out in more detail in Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, vii, 1868, pp. 314–318Google Scholar, though he is primarily concerned there with the juridical point at issue, not with the details of Pliny's affairs.
43 Radice, p. 144.
44 Radice, p. 145; SCRI, nos. 1341a, 1343a.
45 Pais no. 745, examined by Otto, pp. 5–16; the identification is also accepted by Chilver, p. 106 and Syme, p. 60 and n. 4. Radice retains the earlier and less satisfactory identification of Pliny's father as the Cilo, L. Caecilius mentioned in CIL V 5279Google Scholar (Radice, p. 12 and Mommsen, pp. 394–395).
46 X, 8, 1–4; Mommsen, p. 370, n. 1.
47 Syme, Appendix 21, pp. 660–664. Radice, pp. 16–17.
48 For buildings that took between one and two years to complete, cf. CSRA nos. 30 & 31; SCRI no. 470. If the figure of HS1 million conjectured for the library's cost is correct, the building must have been one of considerable size; cf. CSRA nos. 1–28.
49 I, 8, 2 & 10; VII, 18, 2. Since it now appears very unlikely that the first Book of the Letters was published as early as A.D. 97 (n. 47 above), the fact that Pliny mentions his alimenta in this book offers no ground for assigning their inception to that year (as argued by Gentile, p. 460).
50 I, 8, 2 & 10. Syme, pp. 658–659.
51 X, 8, 5, cf. III, 4, 2; for the date, Otto, pp. 82–85.
52 VII, 18, 2–4 (where Pliny makes clear that he actually laid out more than HS500,000 on his alimenta); ILS 2927, 1.14; Mommsen, p. 434 and n. 6; V, 7, 3. (SCRI nos. 644, 661 & 441).
53 CIL X 5056 = ILS 977 = SCRI no. 650. For the date of this gift, see Hammond, M., Mem. Amer. Acad. in Rome, xxi, 1953, pp. 147–51Google Scholar.
54 HS401,800, CIL IX 1455, cf. ILS 6509= SCRI, no. 645a.
55 HS 1,044,000 was the final value of the Veleian alimentary fund, reached not later than A.D. 113; CIL XI 1147, cf. ILS 6675 = SCRI no. 639a.
56 Cf. above and n. 48.
57 For the government alimenta in Italy, see my article in PBSR, xxxii, 1964, pp. 123–146Google Scholar. It is still uncertain whether Nerva or Trajan was their founder, but the balance of evidence inclines towards Trajan (op. cit., pp. 123 & 144).
58 See CSRA no. 248; SCRI nos. 637, 641, 642; CIL II 1174 (cf. my discussion in Historia xiii, 1964, p. 207Google Scholar).
59 X, 8, 2–4; IV, 1, 4–5; Mommsen, p. 370, n.1.
60 III, 4,2, & n. 59 above. The overall figure for Pliny's lifetime public gifts given in V, 7, 3 refers only to Comum (cf. V, 7, 2).
61 Cf. II, 20; V, 1, 1; VII, 20, 6; Cicero, , Phil. II, 16, 40Google Scholar; FIRA III, no. 48.
62 W. W. Buckland, Textbook of Roman Law 2, p. 342 ff; Digest XXXV, 2, 1 ff.
63 Cf. Syme, p. 84 (also n. 70 below).
64 Pliny was still childless in the last of his letters that mention the subject of offspring (VIII, 10; 11; cf. IV, 13, 5).
65 ILS 2927, 11.11–2 = SCRI no. 638. Pliny's literary friend Caninius Rufus had also given money for an annual feast to Comum (VII, 18, 1). Regarded as a provision for feasts, Pliny's foundation was one of enormous size, the biggest of the eight foundations for popular feasts of which record has survived from Italy (SCRI nos. 1079j, 1080–1083 & 1085–1087).
66 See note to SCRI no. 638.
67 Pueri legitimi received HS16 per month under the government alimenta (CIL XI 1147).
68 Digest XXXIV, 1, 6, an excerpt from Iavolenus Priscus, one of Pliny's more senior contemporaries (Ep. VI, 15, 2–3, cf. Syme, pp. 52 & 91).
69 SCRI & CSRA passim; but cf. a foundation of 3,333 drachmae at Tralles, , Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, i, 1882–1883, pp. 98–99Google Scholar.
70 VII, 18; VIII, 2. Cf. IX, 37, 3; n. 63 above.
71 ILS 2927, 11.10–11 = SCRI nos. 469a & 655, cf. nos. 1307–1309. Gentile argues that Pliny's gift provided no more than the enlargement of existing baths; but there is no evidence for his assumption. Even if, as is very likely, Comum already possessed public baths at the time of Pliny's death, it was not at all unusual for Roman towns to be equipped with several sets of public baths (cf. SCRI no. 468, for example; Gentile, p. 467 & n. 2).
72 Frank, V, p. 106; cf. Italian bath prices in SCRI nos. 443–445, 447, 450, 468, 470.
73 CIL XI 5272; Mommsen, pp. 444–446. Cf. VIII, 8, 6.
74 SCRI no. 637 and note; cf. Syme, p. 231, n. 7.
75 SCRI nos. 468 + 646 + 653 + 654; 639; 446 + 640.
76 Pliny, , NH XXIX, 9Google Scholar; Pauly-Wissowa, XI, 1865.
77 IGRR III 804 (misprinted as 604 in Frank, IV, p. 785).
78 P. Graindor, Un Milliardaire antique, Hérode Atticus et sa famille, 1930, pp. 32 & 72.
79 X, 8, 1; for Nerva's allocations of land, Cassius Dio LXVIII, 2, 1; Ep. VII, 31; ILS 1019. For the alimenta under Trajan, see n. 57 above.
80 L. Caecilius Secundus, probably Pliny's father, held one of the equestrian militiae, together with a magistracy and a priesthood at Comum (Pais no. 745, n. 45 above).
81 Galen, vol. XIII, p. 636 (Kühn), where Galen rather lightly suggests the existence of a definite distinction between someone with HS20 million and a truly rich man. For tendencies towards the progressive increase in the size of large fortunes under the Empire, cf. A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602, 1964, pp. 554–555.
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