Writing a Modern Biography of an Ancient Roman

Modern biographies of ancient individuals focus on emperors and generals, as a form of political or military history. A biography of a ‘private’ individual like Pliny raises more urgently the question of the distorting effects of our biographical norms. Modern biography encourages the recreation of a ‘unique individual’, insight into the effects of childhood, or the reconstruction of a rich inner life. Approaches of this sort are not suited to Pliny: he was not interested in the ‘interiority’ found in Catullus or Augustine. Pliny’s individuality can be captured by working along the grain of the Letters: by focusing on the range of locales in which he lived, worked, and owned properties. No Roman writer, not even Vergil, ties his identity to the regions of Italy more successfully than Pliny. This approach is suited to the episodic nature both of Pliny’s own life and of the evidence available.

Pontus-Bithynia

Pliny was governor of Pontus-Bithynia c. 110–12 C.E. He had spent time as a young military tribune in the Greek east, and remained well disposed to connections from Syria. His attitude to Pontus-Bithynia was rather different. In Rome, he defended guilty former governors against prosecution by the province. He viewed the inhabitants of Pontus-Bithynia as different from the ‘free’ Greeks of Achaia. His subsequent arrival as governor was presumably greeted with apprehension. Government of the province was conducted by correspondence with Trajan: long delays in the return of replies from Rome posed severe challenges to effective government. Pliny’s term there provides evidence of how thinly Roman power was stretched, and of the endemic opportunism Rome fostered in the provinces. In Pontus, Pliny met the future in a form he could not have recognized: the Black Sea Christians, whose novel cult would one day usher in the decline (or transformation) of the classical world Pliny knew.

Umbria and the Laurentine Shore

Pliny owned two important residences outside Rome: one on the Laurentine shore; the other in Umbria. Pliny calls the latter villa ‘Tuscan’: a reference to the ethnicity (rather than geography) of the locality. He was deeply embedded and widely connected in Umbria, but plays the region down, to give Comum prominence. A network of Umbrian friends can be documented, plus marriage to ‘Venuleia’: daughter of an established Umbro-Etruscan senatorial family. Pliny says little about her, to give the later marriage to Calpurnia of Comum more publicity. Pliny’s persona in Umbria is warm, and marked by an interest in religious sites. At the Laurentine villa, Pliny focuses on reading, writing, and improvement of the self. How does Pliny’s persona at his villas relate to ancient conceptions of the ‘true self’? Pliny’s leisure was based on the labour of those who worked his huge Umbrian estates. What were his record and practices as a wealthy landowner?

Comum

The chapter begins with the foundation of Novum Comum, its layout, position and history in northern Italy. The effect of landscape on individuals is a modern Romantic trope. Pliny preserves the ancient idea of the effect of environment on groups, and gives Comum prominence as a way of suggesting that he shares the antique values of the Transpadana. A marked love of water is also evident in his life. His father died before Pliny was 14, and was perhaps an early supporter of Vespasian. Loyalty to the Flavians had deep family roots. Verginius Rufus of Milan, twice consul by the time Pliny was 7 or 8, was appointed as his guardian. Details of childhood are otherwise few. In his Confessions, Augustine provides a fuller account of the childhood of a promising future orator spent in a region far from Rome. Pliny was very unlikely to have shared Augustine’s (modern) sense of alienation from his childhood education.

Return to Comum

Pliny was a generous donor to Comum as an adult, building a library and baths and contributing funds. It is unlikely that he was able to travel to the distant Transpadana very often as a senator. Pliny’s donations took place in a context of the contemporary flourishing of the Transpadana. His marriage to Calpurnia in the late 90s C.E. went hand in hand with his investments in the town. The epigraphic record suggests he did not begin to donate to Comum until late in his marriage to ‘Venuleia’. Calpurnia brought with her the aura of the virtuous Transpadana: a connection with more symbolic advantages than ‘Venuleia’. Pliny’s promotion of his union with Calpurnia is marked by unusual emotion. But Calpurnia was expected to make a success of the relationship by focusing on Pliny’s interests. In Comum, Pliny’s eye is caught by the villas on the lake rather than the cityscape or sub-Alpine setting.

Rome

This chapter begins with events in Rome from Pliny’s youth and early manhood: his education as an orator under Quintilian, first appearance in a trial, early steps along the cursus honorum towards entry into the senate, as well as first marriage and early friendships. It considers the apparent lack of a relationship between Pliny and Plutarch as evidence of the former’s love of rhetoric and literature rather than philosophy, before covering Pliny’s praetorship of 93–4 C.E., the trial of Baebius Massa, and the ‘treason’ trials of the ‘Stoic opposition’. Pliny’s record of continuing imperial favour under Domitian is somewhat at odds with his commentary, which asserts a stalled career. But it is not the praetorship that is a threat to Pliny’s integrity; rather his account of a subsequent post at the military treasury does not take care to avoid being potentially misleading. Later parts of the chapter look at the death of Domitian, accession of Nerva, attempted prosecution of Publicius Certus, death of first or second wife ‘Venuleia’, and subsequent marriage to Calpurnia, as well as the consulship of 100 C.E. under Trajan, and the Panegyricus. Pliny’s lack of interest in Rome’s cityscape is noted, alongside his success in the Centumviral court. Pliny’s high hopes for senatorial partnership with Trajan end in a hitherto undiagnosed pessimism and disillusion in Pliny.

Campania

Pliny’s narrative of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E. underpins almost all modern accounts. The story is rarely told from his point of view. Scrutiny of the meaning or reliability of Pliny’s details is likewise rarely undertaken. The August date of the eruption is also now contested. There is, in addition, a tension between the apparent trustworthiness of the ‘scientific’ details, and Pliny’s desire to present the Elder Pliny’s rescue mission as heroic rather than misguided. The addressing of Pliny’s epistolary narrative to Tacitus may account for the focus on the Elder Pliny rather than on the masses of other victims in the eruption. The youthful constantia of Pliny, the pyroclastic flows and surges, and the death of the Elder are also treated in the course of the chapter, as are the significant Flavian connections of the Elder, and his continuing role in Pliny’s life as a model to accept or reject, and the role of Pliny’s mother during the eruption.

Pliny the Younger

Within a century of his death, the Younger Pliny was already being confused with his famous uncle, the Elder Pliny. In the 1300s, the two were successfully disentangled, although the error of their origin in Verona (rather than Como) was spread. Statues of the Plinii were erected on Como cathedral in the 1480s as part of a campaign to reassert their citizenship of Roman Comum. Biographical interest in the Younger remained strong in the centuries that followed. Pliny remains the best documented Roman individual, other than emperors, between Cicero and Augustine. The present biography will tell its story through a focus on the locales with which Pliny was most closely associated; but a strong thread of linear narration will be maintained. His Letters are the main source for his life: they need to be evaluated carefully. Four figures will accompany Pliny throughout the biography: Cicero, Tacitus, Epictetus, and Augustine.