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The Praetorship of the Younger Pliny
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
In attempting to fix the date of Pliny's praetorship there are three passages from his works which we must bear in mind:—
1. Ep. 3, II, 2–3: ‘equidem, cum essent philosophi ab urbe summoti, fui apud ilium (the philosopher Artemidorus) in suburbano et, quo notabilius, hoc est periculosius, esset, fui praetor, pecuniam etiam, qua tunc illi ampliore opus erat, ut aes alienum exsolveret contractum ex pulcherrimis causis, mussantibus magnis quibusdam et locupletibus amicis mutuatus ipse gratuitam dedi. atque haec feci, cum septem amicis meis aut occisis aut relegatis, occisis Senecione, Rustico, Helvidio, relegatis Maurico, Gratilla, Arria, Fannia, tot circa me iactis fulminibus quasi ambustus mihi quoque impendere idem exitium certis quibusdam notis augurarer.’
2. Ep. 7, 16, 1–2: ‘Calestrium Tironem familiarissime diligo et privatis mihi et publicis necessitudinibus implicitum. simul militavimus, simul quaestores Caesaris fuimus. ille me in tribunatu liberorum iure praecessit, ego ilium in praetura sum con secutus, cum mihi Caesar annum remisisset.’
3. Pan. 95, 3–4 : ‘vos modo favete huic proposito et credite, si cursu quodam provectus ab illo insidiosissimo principe, antequam profiteretur odium bonorum, postquam professus est, substiti; si cum viderem, quae ad honores compendia paterent, longius iter malui.’
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- Copyright ©R. H. Harte 1935. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 See Mommsen, Th., ‘Lebensgeschichte des jüngeren Plinius’ in Historische Schriften, 1, 418–423Google Scholar; Otto, W., ‘Zur Lebensgeschichte des jüngeren Plinius’ in Sitz. der Bayer. Akad. da Wissen., 1919, 43–54Google Scholar, and ‘Zur Prätur des jüngeren Plinius’ ibid., 1923, Abt. 4; Baehrens, W. A., ‘Zur Prätur des jüngeren Plinius’ in Hermes, 58, 109–112Google Scholar.
2 Pliny, Ep. 7, 33, 4Google Scholar; Tac. Agric. 45, 1Google Scholar.
3 The provincial governors left their provinces in the early summer (see Willems, P., Le droit public romain, ed. 5, p. 516Google Scholar) and, by the rule which appears in the Lex Acilia (§ 8), they apparently could not be prosecuted during their year of office. The advocates against Classicus, who also was governor of Baetica, did not appear in the Senate till the end of August or the beginning of September; cf. Pliny, Ep. 3, 4, 2Google Scholar; ad Traj. 8.
4 Ep. 1, 7, 2.
5 E.g. the trials of Marius Priscus and Classicus in Pliny, Ep. 2, 11 and 3, 9Google Scholar. (The length of the trial of Classicus is, however, a matter of argument. Apparently it lasted from the autumn of 99 to the spring of 100).
6 Jerome puts the banishment of the philosophers in A.D. 94–5 and this is supported by Cassius Dio 7, 13.
7 As Otto does, op. cit., 50–51.
7a Vida infra, p. 53.
8 Pliny, Ep. 2.
9 Willems, op. cit., 460–461; Mommsen, Staatsrecht I3, 572–577.
10 Cassius Dio, 52, 20, 1–2. See also Mommsen, op. cit. I3, 575, A. 1.
11 Willems, op. cit., 461.
12 Tac. Agric. 6–7 and 44.
13 He was seventeen in August A.D. 79; see Ep. 6, 20, 5.
14 Suet. Dom. 10, 3Google Scholar: ‘verum aliquanto post civilis belli victoriam saevior.’ Cf. Tac. Agric. 45.
15 Schiller, H., Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, 1, 2, 536Google Scholar.
16 Suet. Dom. 10, 2Google Scholar: see Gsell, S., Essai sur le règne de l'empereur Domitien, 285, n. 8Google Scholar. Aulus Gellius 15, 11, 4, also speaks of the philosophers as banished ‘urbe et Italia.’