Roman History Books and More

pliny the younger's villas and his descriptions of nature in his letters

Pliny obviously loved the countryside, and solitude when there.  He gives us and extensive, lovingly descriptions of his villas at Laurentum and in Tuscany, and how he contrived to make use of space for himself removed from all noise and interruptions.  The villa at Laurentum is certainly to die for!  This article* has a drawing of the layout of the villa.  I also like Pliny's description of nature and natural phenomena.

Villas

II.17 “my Laurentum place”
V.6  the Tuscan villa
IX.7. a very brief description of his places on Lake Como

Nature

IV.30  the spring at Lake Como
VIII.8 the source of the Clitumnus
VIII.20  Lake Vadimon

* a review of Caroline Lawrence' Roman Mysteries is coming soon.

definition of hendecasyllabos (pliny the younger letters)

Calling on the  experts:  I've  several times come across hendecasyllabos in Pliny's letters, and Betty Radice translated this as hendecasyllable.  A dictionary search gives me hendecasyllabic verse (with a reference to Catullus).  However, Wikipedia – as usual handle with care – insists on two different types of verse: hendecasyllable verse (Italian poetry) vs. hendecasyllabics (as used by Catullus – and Martial, it seems).  Is there a difference?

Latin text from The Latin Library.

IV.14

C. PLINIUS [DECIMO] PATERNO SUO S.

1 Tu fortasse orationem, ut soles, et flagitas et exspectas; at ego quasi ex aliqua peregrina delicataque merce lusus meos tibi prodo. 2 Accipies cum hac epistula hendecasyllabos nostros, quibus nos in vehiculo in balineo inter cenam oblectamus otium temporis. 3 His iocamur ludimus amamus dolemus querimur irascimur, describimus aliquid modo pressius modo elatius, atque ipsa varietate temptamus efficere, ut alia aliis quaedam fortasse omnibus placeant. 4 Ex quibus tamen si non nulla tibi petulantiora paulo videbuntur, erit eruditionis tuae cogitare summos illos et gravissimos viros qui talia scripserunt non modo lascivia rerum, sed ne verbis quidem nudis abstinuisse; quae nos refugimus, non quia severiores - unde enim? -, sed quia timidiores sumus. 5 Scimus alioqui huius opusculi illam esse verissimam legem, quam Catullus expressit:

list of letters of pliny the younger to his wife calpurnia, calpurnia hispulla her aunt, and calpurnius fabatus her grandfather

Pliny the Younger's third wife, Calpurnia, was his most beloved one according to livius.org, Pliny the Younger:

… In these years the successful author married again. Calpurnia was the love of his life. Of course he was forty and she fourteen, but this difference was no obstacle to a happy marriage. Pliny published several love letters, which are very interesting - not because of their contents, but because they are there: his were one of the first letters like these.

Sadly, this marriage, like the earlier ones, produced no children.  (Pliny's second wife may have died in childbirth.)  There are three letters to Calpurnia.  Pliny also wrote to her mother aunt, Calpurnia Hispulla, and her grandfather, Calpurnius Fabatus.

Here is the list (with links where they are available online):

Letters to Calpurnia

VI.4, VI.7
VII.5

Letters to Calpurnia Hispulla

IV.19
VIII.11

Letters to Calpurnius Fabatus

IV.1
V.11
VI.12, VI.30
VII.11, VII.16, VII.23, VII.32
VIII.10

book chat on wednesday: selected letters by pliny the younger, preliminary list

As we can't discuss all of Pliny's letters, it has been suggested that we concentrate on his correspondence with Trajan (Book X) and his letters to Tacitus, Suetonius and some others. And on some of the trials he was involved in. Below is the list of the letters to Tacitus and Suetonius, and as far they are available in the online edition at Ancient/Classical History at About.com, they are also linked.

The letters to Tacitus:

I.6, 1.20
IV.13
VI.9 
VI.16 & VI.20 (eruption of Vesuvius, from the volcanism blog, nicely illustrated)
VII.20, VII.33
VIII.7
IX.10, IX.14.

The letters to Suetonius:

I.18
III.8
V.10
IX.34

pliny the younger on jstor

I mentioned earlier that I would pursue Pliny the Younger on JSTOR. 

There are hundreds of articles of course, ranging from analyzing Pliny the man to interpreting his letters, to discussion of individual letters, and so on: You name it, they have it.

Quite often, Pliny is described as a gentleman, as praise as well as "is there all that is to him?" Here are two:

Fred Dunham calls him a "Gentleman and Citizen," lauding him via John Milton

… who defines education as follows: "I call, therefore, a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform skillfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war." Such was Milton's concept of the English gentleman and citizen, and so it has remained to this day.

Later, he writes:

Pliny's letters [leave] us with vivid impressions. We enjoy him because he has a revealing message expressed in a style that shows the highest respect for the intelligence of a reader. His letters were apparently the product of slow, careful study ad numerous emendations; they were not the result of rapid practice in improvised journalistic writing. To be sure, his composition at times verges upon artificial formality; but we think no more of this fault than we do of George Washington's letters, which were written in a day when epistolary art was more formal than it is today. Pliny was not a journalist, although he possessed many of the best qualities of a good reporter. Were he living today, his writings might appear in the New York Times or in the Atlantic Monthly, but not in the Saturday Evening Post or the usual daily papers - and perhaps this is in his favor. 

The Younger Pliny. Gentleman and Citizen
Author(s): Fred S. Dunham
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 7 (Apr., 1945), pp. 417-426
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292044

A. Carleton Andrews doesn't think it's such a good thing:

This at least is true, that a person whom we call a gentleman is a social conformist, whether or not he manifests inherent courtesy in addition to observance of the accepted forms of courtesy, and Pliny must be so considered if we accept him as a gentleman.

Pliny the Younger, Conformist
Author(s): A. Carleton Andrews
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Dec., 1938), pp. 143-154
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3290716

And then there is a discussion of his sense of humor or the lack thereof:

And so one may approach the problem of humor either with the greatest diffidence, because he knows not what humor is, or with the greatest assurance, because no one knows any better than he what it is.

This problem emerges in connection with the younger Pliny, who, while certainly not a second Aristophanes or a premature Mark Twain, has enlivened his Letters at intervals with what appear to be gleams of attractive humor. Yet W. M. L. Hutchinson in his Introduction to the Loeb translation has written that Pliny's character, "in spite of priggishness, vanity, and want of humour, has not only respectable but amiable traits.'' Perhaps the mistake is mine, and all that had seemed humor is nothing else than amiability raised to the nth degree.

But the more one thinks about Pliny, the more apparent it becomes that he must have had a sense of humor.

Pliny's "Want of Humor"
Author(s): Graves H. Thompson
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jan., 1942), pp. 201-209
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3291609

Ronald Syme, to no ones surprise, it interested in persons:

People in Pliny
Author(s): Ronald Syme
Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 58, Parts 1 and 2 (1968), pp. 135-151
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/299703

Correspondents of Pliny
Author(s): Ronald Syme
Source: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Vol. 34, No. 3 (3rd Qtr., 1985), pp. 324-359
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4435931

introductions to the letters of pliny the younger from print editions

This is mainly for those participants in the October 21 chat on the Letters of Pliny the Younger who do not have a print copy.

I went to Google Books and found previews of two major print editions.  One  offers  the complete introduction, the other the larger part, meaning some pages are blank, nonetheless giving as excellent an overview and discussion of the letters. (The latter is the copy I have.)  Considering that we have only one chat, and also in general, these chapters can be quite helpful to the understanding of Pliny the person and Pliny the letter writer.

• Oxford World Classics Edition (Patrick Gerard Walsh)
  Complete Introduction and Note on the Text & Translation.
  Click on arrows to get to the Introduction.
  
• The Penguin Classics Edition (Betty Radice)
  Incomplete introduction. It also shows appendices, such as a reconstructed plan of Pliny's house at Laurentum. ("Content: Inscriptions," scroll down)

Statue of Pliny the Younger on the façade of
the Cathedral of S. Maria Maggiore in Como
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

pliny the younger, his life and letters

In our next book chat on October 21 we are going to discuss the Letters of Pliny the Younger (Plinius Secundus).  There are more translations in print, and the letters  also available online:

• Letters of Pliny the Younger at About.com
• Letters of Pliny the Younger at VRoma (Latin and English)

Jona Lendering at livius.org has an extensive (in 6 parts) biography of Pliny the Younger.  It's an all you want to know about ... and more essay.

For my next post on Plinius Secundus, I may explore JSTOR.

But there is also a beer called Pliny the Younger … maybe we should lift a cup in his honor …

new at lacus curtius: plutarch on talkativeness

Bill Thayer: It's bad.

de garrulitate by Plutarch

It is a troublesome and difficult task that philosophy has in hand when it undertakes to cure garrulousness. For the remedy, words of reason, requires listeners; but the garrulous listen to nobody, for they are always talking. And this is the first symptom of their ailment: looseness of the tongue become impotence of the ears.  For it is a deliberate deafness, that of men who, I take it, blame Nature because they have only one tongue, but two ears. If, then, Euripides was right when he said with reference to the unintelligent hearer,

          I could not fill a man who will not hold
          My wise words flooding into unwise ears,

it would be more just to say to the garrulous man, or rather about the garrulous man,

          I could not fill a man who will not take
          My wise words flooding into unwise ears,

or rather submerging, a man who talks to those who will not listen, and will not listen when others talk. For even if he does listen for a moment, when his loquacity is, as it were, at ebb, the rising tide immediately makes up for it many times over.

They give the name Seven-voiced to the portico at Olympia which reverberates many times from a single utterance; and if but the least word sets garrulousness in motion, straightway it echoes round about on all sides,

          Touching the heart-strings never touched before.

read on

Mestrios Plutarchos (Plutarch)

did cicero coin the term populares? not

In Caesar's Women, Colleen McCullough has Caesar intimate that Cicero coined the term Populares, but did he?  That question arose during tonight's book chat.  Though the word seems almost a fixation of Cicero's, the answer is no and can be found at JSTOR:

Cicero and the Word Popvlaris [Cicero and the Word Popularis]
Robin Seager
The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Nov., 1972), pp. 328-338
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/638213

It has by now become a commonplace among the historians of the republic that optimates and populares were not political parties in any modern sense. Nevertheless the ghost of the 'popular party' still lingers in subtle disguises, the most insidious of which is donned whenever populares is translated as 'the populares', with all that the definite article may imply.  It is the aim of this paper to catalogue the principal functions and connotations of the word popularis in Cicero, with illustrative material from other sources, in the hope that such a demonstration may contribute to the final laying of the ghost. The first section is essentially a commentary on the definition of populares given in the Pro Sestio;  the second attempts to expound the various techniques that Cicero uses to combat an opponent who claims to be popularis.
read on

'the augustan aristocracy' by ronald syme

I'm in awe of and intrigued by Sir Ronald Syme's The Augustan Aristocracy – and have to chuckle over things such as  "… the opuscule of Velleius Paterculus which swells before the end into a panegyric of Tiberius Caesar."  Of course, as always with Syme, the book is quite dense. I wish I had more time.

The book is nearly unaffordable right know, at least on the U.S. market, although I must have hit a window when I purchased it a year or so ago: interested parties might want to check ever so often, especially at AbeBooks.com.

Google Books does have an extensive preview which gives an excellent indication of the scope of the work.

I searched the Internet Archive without success, but did find The Roman Revolution.

sejanus 'the tuscan'

That's what C.P. Baker calls him in his Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, in the chapter "The Advent of the Tuscan," p. 221 ff.  Online

[…] He was a Tuscan, sprung of that strange, dark and ancient Etrurian race which seemed to derive many of its typical characteristics from an older culture than that of classical Greece and Rome. The Etrurian possessed a start in the virtues and vices of civilization that the Roman, trained in a later school, never quite recaptured: his very mind and temperament, like those of the Jew, were attuned by a remote historical experience to the life of populous cities and crowded human society.

Maecenas had been a Tuscan—that very wise man of the world who never fought nor worked, but, because he lived in a torrent of talk, ruled the men who did so. . . . After all, the art of arriving at an understanding with other men is the whole art of civilization.

Seianus possessed this gift. He had a genius for adapting himself to other men. We may call it genius, for he successfully adapted himself to the mind of one of the subtlest, most discerning, and most difficult men who ever lived Tiberius.

lucius aelius sejanus, praetorian guard prefect (20 b.c. – october 18, 31 c.e.)

Important historical type with the name of Sejanus removed in damnatio memoriae.

I have been browsing through two Tiberius biographies, Tiberius by Robin Seager and Tiberius the Politician by Barbara Levick, to see how realistically Sejanus has been portrayed in the novel Tiberius: The Memoirs of the Emperor by Allan Massie, our current read.

Indeed, it seems the connection with Tiberius is almost as early as imagined in the novel.  Both biographers indicate that they accept Tacitus' depiction of Sejanus.  Both however cast doubt on the assumption that Sejanus had Drusus poisoned, picking apart the story of the letter which Apicata, the divorced wife of Sejanus, sent to Tiberius after the former's death.  But, as Seager writes, the issue is really academic:  Drusus had to die and die soon.  Thus, if he hadn't died of natural causes, he would have been eliminated sooner rather than later. 

tacitus on germanicus

I find it rather irritating that Tacitus, in his Annals, often refers to Germanicus as "Caesar," and with not much consistency.

Update

And Tiberius as well, as I see now:

63. Maroboduus, now utterly deserted, had no resource but in the mercy of Caesar. Having crossed the Danube where it flows by the province of Noricum, he wrote to Tiberius, not like a fugitive or a suppliant, but as one who remembered his past greatness. When as a most famous king in former days he received invitations from many nations, he had still, he said, preferred the friendship of Rome. Caesar replied that he should have a safe and honourable home in Italy, if he would remain there, or, if his interests required something different, he might leave it under the same protection under which he had come.

update on tiberius biographies: g.p. baker online

An update to modern biographies of tiberius:

Robert found the G.P. Baker one on the Internet Archive

Tiberius Caesar

Enjoy!

another horace biography

Earlier on, I bemoaned the fact that there are so few Horace biographies around.  Well, N.S. Gill found one:

The next Roman history book chat will discuss Horace. On Irene Hahn's blog, she mentions there is a shortage of biographical information on Horace. The Internet Archive provides a wealth of out-of-copyright material, including an old-fashioned biography of Horace: Horace by Wm. Tuckwell (1829-1919). London: G. Bell & sons. 1905. There are others to search for, but this first one I looked at seems to have the info.

read on

Author: Tuckwell, William, 1829-1919
Subject: Horace
Publisher: London : G. Bell & sons

It's  a concise (87 pages) introduction to Horace, nicely illustrated too.  And with a chapter on wine …

The Internet Archive (subscription is free)

seguing from horace into tiberius (our recent and upcoming book chats)

Horace wrote an Ode to Drusus and Tiberius

(Update July 4:  Oops, wrong Latin one)

Odes, Book 4, XIV

Quae cura patrum quaeue Quiritium
plenis honorum muneribus tuas,
     Auguste, uirtutes in aeuum
     per titulos memoresque fastus

aeternet, o qua sol habitabilis               5
inlustrat oras maxime principum?
     quem legis expertes Latinae
     Vindelici didicere nuper

quid Marte posses. Milite nam tuo
Drusus Genaunos, inplacidum genus,               10
     Breunosque uelocis et arces
     Alpibus impositas tremendis

deiecit acer plus uice simplici.
Maior Neronum mox graue proelium
     commisit immanisque Raetos               15
     auspiciis pepulit secundis,

continue reading Odes, Book 4, XIV, in Latin

What care the Citizens and the Senators
shall take in immortalising your virtues,
granting you full honours, Augustus,
with titles and memorial plaques, O,

greatest of princes, wherever the sun shines
over the countries where people can live, you,
whose power in war the Vindelici
free of our Roman laws, till now, have learnt.

For, with your army, brave Drusus, demolished
the Genauni, that implacable race, in more
direct retaliation, the swift
Breuni, and their defences, established

on the formidable Alpine heights:
and soon Tiberius, the elder Nero, entered
that fierce fight, with his favourable
omens, defeating the wild Rhaetians:

continue reading Odes, Book 4, XIV, in English translation

Original text:  Latin Library:  Q. HORATIVS FLACCVS
Translation:  A.S. Kline, Poetry in Tranlation: Horace

ancient historians on tiberius (a.d. 14-37)

DIR Tiberius says:

The main ancient literary sources for the reign of Tiberius are: Tac. Ann. 1-6; Dio 57-59; Suetonius, Tiberius and Gaius; Josephus BJ 2.204-17 and AJ 18.181-87, 205-25; Velleius Paterculus, esp. 2.94-131. References to Tiberius are also found in Pliny the Elder, Philo, Seneca and others.

Tacitus Annals, Books 1-6
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/tac/index.htm
or Wikisource:

• Book 1: 14-15 C.E.
• Book 2: 16-19 C.E.
• Book 3: 20-22 C.E.
• Book 4: 23-28 C.E.
• Book 5: 29-31 C.E.
• Book 6: 32-37 C.E.

be happy wherever you are (i'm on a roll tonight)

Horace: Epistles, Book 1, XI

Quid tibi uisa Chios, Bullati, notaque Lesbos,
quid concinna Samos, quid Croesi regia Sardis,
Zmyrna quid et Colophon? Maiora minoraue fama,
cunctane prae Campo et Tiberino flumine sordent?
An uenit in uotum Attalicis ex urbibus una?               5
An Lebedum laudas odio maris atque uiarum?
Scis Lebedus quid sit: Gabiis desertior atque
Fidenis uicus; tamen illic uiuere uellem,
oblitusque meorum, obliuiscendus et illis,
Neptunum procul e terra spectare furentem.               10
Sed neque qui Capua Romam petit, imbre lutoque
aspersus uolet in caupona uiuere; nec qui
frigus collegit, furnos et balnea laudat
ut fortunatam plene praestantia uitam;
nec si te ualidus iactauerit Auster in alto,               15
idcirco nauem trans Aegaeum mare uendas.
Incolumi Rhodos et Mytilene pulchra facit quod
paenula solstitio, campestre niualibus auris,
per brumam Tiberis, Sextili mense caminus.
Dum licet ac uoltum seruat Fortuna benignum,               20
Romae laudetur Samos et Chios et Rhodos absens.
Tu quamcumque deus tibi fortunauerit horam
grata sume manu neu dulcia differ in annum,
ut quocumque loco fueris uixisse libenter
te dicas; nam si ratio et prudentia curas,               25
non locus effusi late maris arbiter aufert,
caelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.
Strenua non exercet inertia; nauibus atque
quadrigis petimus bene uiuere. Quod petis, hic est,
est Vlubris, animus si te non deficit aequus.               30

horace: more carpe diem

Epistles, Book 1, IV

Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide iudex,
quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana?
Scribere quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula uincat,
an tacitum siluas inter reptare salubris,
curantem quicquid dignum sapiente bonoque est?               5
Non tu corpus eras sine pectore; di tibi formam,
di tibi diuitias dederunt artemque fruendi.
Quid uoueat dulci nutricula maius alumno,
qui sapere et fari possit quae sentiat, et cui
gratia, fama, ualetudo contingat abunde,               10
et mundus uictus non deficiente crumina?
Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras
omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum;
grata superueniet quae non sperabitur hora.
Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute uises,               15
cum ridere uoles, Epicuri de grege porcum.

back to horace: carpe diem

Odes, Book 1, XI

Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Vt melius quicquid erit pati!
Seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare               5
Tyrrhenum, sapias, uina liques et spatio breui
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit inuida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us,
whether your fate or mine, don’t waste your time on Babylonian,
futile, calculations. How much better to suffer what happens,
whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one,
one debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs.
Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that far-reaching hope.
The envious moment is flying now, now, while we’re speaking:
Seize the day, place in the hours that come as little faith as you can.

Original text:  Latin Library:  Q. HORATIVS FLACCVS
Translation:  A.S. Kline, Poetry in Tranlation: Horace