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Pliny, Letters 5.10 and the Literary Career of Suetonius*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2010

Tristan J. Power
Tristan J. Power
Affiliation:
New York, tristan.power@gmail.com
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Abstract

This paper establishes a new date for the publication of Suetonius’ Illustrious Men through allusions to Suetonius’ Virgil in Pliny, Letters 5.10. These allusions are part of a much wider network of allusions, both within this particular letter and more generally in Pliny's Book 5, that revolves around the theme of unpublished writings. It is a partial or full publication of the Illustrious Men that probably led to Suetonius’ award of the ius trium liberorum in a.d. 110, and he may now have published all of the Caesars before his dismissal by Hadrian in a.d. 122.

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Articles
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The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 100 , November 2010 , pp. 140 - 162
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2010. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Wallace-Hadrill, A., Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars (1983), 43–66Google Scholar, 74–8, 92, 126–9, 132–3.

2 This is the period when Septicius Clarus was Prefect of the Praetorian Guard (SHA, Hadr. 9.5, 11.3), and when at least part, if not all, of the Caesars was dedicated to him, according to Lydus (Mag. 2.6). See Syme, R., ‘Guard Prefects of Trajan and Hadrian’, JRS 70 (1980), 64–80Google Scholar (= Roman Papers, vol. 3, ed. A. R. Birley (1984), 1276–302), at 68–9; Baldwin, B., Suetonius (1983), 39–41Google Scholar.

3 Syme, R., ‘Biographers of the Caesars’, MH 37 (1980), 104–28Google Scholar (= Roman Papers vol. 3, ed. A. R. Birley (1984), 1251–75), 1257; cf. idem, Tacitus, 2 vols (1958), 501Google Scholar.

4 Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 59; cf. 45: ‘it might be a fair guess that he learnt his trade, so to speak, on Greek words, and gradually progressed to the accumulated learning evident in the Caesars.’ For other speculations on the Illustrious Men as earlier than the Caesars based on a priori assumptions about the Caesars’ larger scale and omission of details reported in the Illustrious Men, see e.g. Macé, A., Essai sur Suétone, BEFAR 82 (1900), 300–1Google Scholar; Corte, F. Della, ‘Suspiciones II’, in Antidoron U. E. Paoli oblatum (1956), 82–95Google Scholar (= Opuscula, vol. 9 (1985), 249–63Google Scholar), at 94–5; Syme, op. cit. (n. 3, 1958), 501; idem, ‘Biographers of the Caesars’, MH 37 (1980), 104–28Google Scholar (= Roman Papers vol. 3, ed. Birley, A. R. (1984), 1251–75Google Scholar), at 110–11, 124; Townend, G. B., ‘Suetonius’, in Luce, T. J. (ed.), Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome, vol. 2 (1982), 1049–61Google Scholar, at 1051; Lindsay, H., ‘Suetonius as ab epistulis to Hadrian and the early history of the imperial correspondence’, Historia 43 (1994), 454–68Google Scholar, at 464; idem, ‘Suetonius on the character of Horace’, AUMLA 83 (1995), 69–82Google Scholar, at 77; Bradley, K. R., ‘Introduction’, in Rolfe, J. C., Suetonius2, vol. 1 (1998), 1–34Google Scholar, at 6, 10, cf. K. R. Bradley, OCD3 s.v. ‘Suetonius’; Bennett, J., Trajan: Optimus Princeps 2 (2001), 136Google Scholar; Pausch, D., Biographie und Bildungskultur: Personendarstellungen bei Plinius dem Jüngeren, Gellius und Sueton (2004), 88Google Scholar, 238–9, 246; Paratore, E., Una nuova ricostruzione del ‘De poetis’ di Suetonio3, ed. Questa, C., Bravi, L., Clementi, G., and Torino, A., Philologiae, Ludus 17 (2007), 193Google Scholar, 334, n. 63.

5 Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 7–8.

6 For this point, see Baldwin, op. cit. (n. 2), 383–4; Wardle, D., Suetonius’ Life of Caligula: A Commentary, Collection Latomus 225 (1994), 14–15Google Scholar; idem, ‘Suetonius and his own day’, in Deroux, C. (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, vol. 9, Collection Latomus 244 (1998), 425–47Google Scholar, at 428–9.

7 See Schanz-Hosius 3 (1896), 48 (= (1959), 56); Macé, op. cit. (n. 4), 66–77; Rolfe, J. C., Suetonius, vol. 2 (1914), 390Google Scholar; Ailloud, H. (ed.), Vies des Douze Césars, vol. 1 (1931), xiiiGoogle Scholar; Rostagni, A. (ed.), Svetonio, De poetis e biografi minori: restituzione e commento (1944), viii–xiGoogle Scholar; Sanders, H. A., ‘Suetonius in the civil service under Hadrian’, AJPh 65 (1944), 113–23Google Scholar, at 114; Paratore, E., Storia della letteratura latina (1950), 739Google Scholar; Della Corte, op. cit. (n. 4), 94; Brugnoli, G., Studi Suetoniani (1968), 142–3Google Scholar; Cizek, E., Structures et idéologie dans ‘Les Vies des Douze Césars’ de Suétone (1977), 14Google Scholar; McDermott, W. C., ‘Pliny the Younger and inscriptions’, CW 65 (1971), 84–94Google Scholar, at 93; idem, ‘Suetonius and Cicero’, Gymnasium 87 (1980), 485–95Google Scholar, at 493, n. 39; Syme, R., ‘The travels of Suetonius Tranquillus’, Hermes 109 (1981), 105–17Google Scholar (= Roman Papers, vol. 3, ed. Birley, A. R. (1984), 1337–49Google Scholar), at 115; Shotter, D. C. A. (ed.) Suetonius: Lives of Galba, Otho & Vitellius (1993), 6Google Scholar; Velaza, J., ‘Elementos para una cronología literaria de Suetonio’, EClás 35 (1993), 37–50Google Scholar, at 45; Schmidt, P. L., HLL 4 (1997), 28Google Scholar; Lana, I., ‘Svetonio’, in Lana, I. and Maltese, E. V. (eds), Storia della civiltà letteraria greca e latina, vol. 2 (1998), 1030–5Google Scholar, at 1031; Stok, F., ‘Sulla datazione del De poetis di Svetonio’, in Brugnoli, G. and Stok, F. (eds), Studi sulle Vitae Vergilianae (2006), 47–57Google Scholar, at 56; Walsh, P. G., Pliny the Younger: Complete Letters (2006), xxviiGoogle Scholar, 331 (suggesting the whole Illustrious Men or perhaps only part of the collection). A different possibility was raised by Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 46–7, that the work mentioned by Pliny was in fact a compilation on Greek and Roman games (following A. Reifferscheid's reconstruction of that work in his edition of Suetonius’ fragments (1860), pp. 461–5); cf. Mellor, R., The Roman Historians (1999), 147–8Google Scholar. However, our fragments of Suetonius on that topic are probably from three or four smaller works, rather than the ‘major achievement’ thought by Wallace-Hadrill (47); see Wardle, D., ‘Did Suetonius write in Greek?’, AClass 36 (1993), 91–103Google Scholar, at 92–6. While this smaller scale would not necessarily discount one of these works as a candidate for the recognition of the ius trium liberorum in a.d. 110 (cf. my discussion of Martial below, Section II, and the remarks of Coleman, K. M. (ed.), M. Valerii Martialis Liber spectaculorum (2006), lxxxiii–lxxxivGoogle Scholar), none fit well with the context of Pliny's letter. Sherwin-White, A. N., The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (1966), 338Google Scholar erroneously favours a volume of verse, but concedes that no such volume by Suetonius is known. For more sceptical views of Letters 5.10 as evidence for Suetonius’ works, see e.g. Funaioli, G., RE 4 A1 (1931), 598Google Scholar; Lindsay, H. (ed.), Suetonius: Caligula (1993), 15Google Scholar, n. 10.

8 Gamberini, F., Stylistic Theory and Practice in the Younger Pliny (1983), 528Google Scholar convincingly defends ‘haesitator’ against the conjectures ‘haesitantior’ or ‘haesitabundus’ proposed by Syme, R., ‘Minor emendations in Pliny and Tacitus’, CQ n.s. 30 (1980), 426–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar (= Roman Papers, vol. 3, ed. A. R. Birley (1984), 1233–5), at 426.

9 See Marchesi, I., The Art of Pliny's Letters: A Poetics of Allusion in the Private Correspondence (2008), 193–4Google Scholar, 156, 237 respectively; also index locorum s.v. ‘Virgil’. Pliny's use of Virgil was under-estimated by Sherwin-White, op. cit. (n. 7), 5.

10 Syme, opp. citt. (n. 8), 426 and (n. 7), 115.

11 See Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 156–7, and below.

12 On this metaphorical topos in the letter, see Steidle, W., Sueton und die antike Biographie, Zetemata 1 (1951), 9Google Scholar, n. 2; Brugnoli, op. cit. (n. 7), 29–30, cf. 50; Gamberini, op. cit. (n. 8), 217; Lounsbury, R. C., The Arts of Suetonius: An Introduction, American University Studies 17, 3 (1987), 25Google Scholar, 144–5. Imagery of brightness, such as Pliny's ‘splendescit’, is customary within this metaphor; see especially Catull. 1.1 (‘lepidus’, ‘bright’), with Krostenko, B. A., Cicero, Catullus, and the Language of Social Performance (2001), 254–5Google Scholar; and on Pliny's use of splendesco, also Gamberini, op. cit. (n. 8), 507. On the theme of labor limae in general, see Hor., Ars P. 291 (the locus classicus), with, e.g., Nauta, R. R., ‘The recusatio in Flavian poetry’, in Nauta, R. R., van Dam, .-J. and Smolenaars, J. J. L. (eds), Flavian Poetry, Mnemosyne Suppl. 270 (2006), 21–40Google Scholar, at 35. Pliny may have partly in mind Quint., Inst. 10.4.4 on the dangers of too much revision: ‘sit ergo aliquando quod placeat aut certe quod sufficiat, ut opus poliat lima, non exterat’ (‘Therefore, let be at times what is acceptable or at least what is sufficient, so that the file polishes the work, rather than rubs it away’); see Cova, P. V., La critica letteraria di Plinio il Giovane (1966), 52–3Google Scholar, comparing Ep. 9.35.2: ‘est tamen aliquis modus, primum quod nimia cura deterit magis quam emendat’ (‘There is nevertheless some limit, first because too much care wears down rather than corrects’).

13 Ammianus also often alludes to Virgil's works, including the Georgics; see e.g. Amm. Marc. 14.11.34, 26.1.1, 31.4.6 ~ Georg. 2.105–6, with Kelly, G., Ammianus Marcellinus: The Allusive Historian (2008), 292–3Google Scholar; also index locorum s.v. ‘Virgil’. On Ammianus’ use of Virgil, see also O’Brien, P., ‘Ammianus epicus: Virgilian allusion in the Res Gestae’, Phoenix 60 (2006), 274–303Google Scholar; idem, ‘An unnoticed reminiscence of the Aeneid 10.517–20 at Ammianus Marcellinus 22.12.6’, Mnemosyne 60 (2007), 662–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 On the importance of unique textual echoes in establishing an allusion, see Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (1998), 19Google Scholar, 25–6.

15 See Batstone, W., ‘Virgilian didaxis: value and meaning in the Georgics’, in Martindale, C. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil (1997), 125–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 135–7. On such metaliterary readings of the Georgics, see also, e.g., Harrison, S. J., Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace (2007), 138–49Google Scholar. In addition to the word ‘incipiat’, Virgil's ‘splendescere’ is also worth noting, which does not mean simply ‘shine’ (as in splendeo), but rather ‘begin to shine’; see OLD s.v. splendesco 1a.

16 On Pliny's metaphor, see Gamberini, op. cit. (n. 8), 217; on Virgil's, Mynors, R. A. B. (ed.), Georgics (1990), 11Google Scholar (ad loc.): ‘you can still tell a good farmer by the shine on his tools’.

17 See Görler, W., ‘Rowing strokes: tentative considerations on “shifting” objects in Virgil and elsewhere’, in Adams, J. N. and Mayer, R. G. (eds), Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry, Proceedings of the British Academy 93 (1999), 269–86Google Scholar, at 277–8 on the Virgilian imagery. An allusion to the Georgics is also generally fitting in the context of the lima, since Virgil epitomized limae labor et mora especially while writing that poem; see Suet., Virg. 22, with Horsfall, N., ‘Virgil: his life and times’, in idem (ed.), A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Mnemosyne Suppl. 151 (1995), 1–25Google Scholar, at 15–16.

18 For this kind of appreciation of Pliny's Letters in context, see especially Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 1–11, passim; also Henderson, J., Pliny's Statue: The Letters, Self-Portraiture and Classical Art (2002)Google Scholar on Book 3; and more generally, R. Morello and R. K. Gibson, The Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction (forthcoming). On the polished revision of the Letters, cf. Ash, R., ‘“Aliud est enim epistulam, aliud historiam … scribere” (Epistles 6.16.22): Pliny the historian?’, Arethusa 36 (2003), 211–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 215; Mayer, R., ‘Pliny and gloria dicendi’, Arethusa 36 (2003), 227–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 232–3.

19 See e.g. Ep. 5.8, which is recalled in 7.33 through the shared model of Cic., Fam. 5.12 (Sherwin-White, op. cit. (n. 7), 333; Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 221–3); also Ep. 1.2 and 1.3 (Aen. 6.129); 1.12 and 1.13 (Catull. 8); 5.3.2 and 7.4.2 (Ter., Hau. 77); with Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 26–36, 40–52, 80 respectively. See too ibid., 25–6 on letters paired through intratextual narrative connections, such as those to Tacitus on the death of Pliny's uncle (Ep. 6.16 and 20) — in both of which Pliny again has in mind Cic., Fam. 5.12; see Traub, H. W., ‘Pliny's treatment of history in epistolary form’, TAPhA 86 (1956), 213–32Google Scholar, at 229. For 6.16 and 6.20 as a pair, cf. Berry, D. H., ‘Letters from an advocate: Pliny's “Vesuvius” narratives (Epistles 6.16, 6.20)’, PLLS 13 (2008), 297–313Google Scholar, at 301–2, 307. See also ibid., 302–3 for the connections of 6.15, 6.16, and 6.20 through the shared intertext of Aeneid 2. Hoffer, S. E., The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger, American Classical Studies 43 (1999), 211–25Google Scholar, discusses Pliny's two letters about Suetonius in Book 1 (1.18 and 1.24) as similarly linked by theme.

20 Both letters also include legal humour: in one Pliny seeks an adjournment (5.8.11), and in the other he jests that his verses might be served with a writ (5.10.1); on the latter joke, see Sherwin-White, op. cit. (n. 7), 338. Furthermore, as with 5.8 (see previous note), there is a letter in another book to which 5.10 also relates: the similar plea of 2.10 to Octavius Rufus; cf. Della Corte, op. cit. (n. 4), 93. The same themes in 2.10 of hesitation to publish (§ 8: ‘cunctatione’, cf. 5.10.1: ‘cunctationem’), denied pleasure (§ 2: ‘nobis uoluptate’, cf. 5.10.3: ‘nos … uoluptatem’), and especially personified verses (§ 3: ‘ut errones aliquem cuius dicantur inuenient’, cf. 5.10.1: ‘cogantur ad exhibendum formulam accipere’) are all recalled in 5.10, and the potential loss of Rufus’ work through plagiarism is paralleled in 5.10 by the implied potential loss of Suetonius’ work through theft (on this implication, see below). On Plin., Ep. 2.10, see Seo, J. M., ‘Plagiarism and poetic identity in Martial’, AJPh 130 (2009), 567–93Google Scholar, at 569–73.

21 For Georg. 3.8–9 as referring to the Aeneid, see e.g. Thomas, R. F. (ed.), Virgil: Georgics, vol. 2 (1988)Google Scholar, 36–7, 39 (ad loc.). Virgil alludes in the first place to Enn., Varia 18, and revisits the allusion at Aen. 12.235; see Hinds, op. cit. (n. 14), 52–6.

22 For Letters 5.8 as a recusatio in this sense, see Baier, T., ‘Κτῆμα oder ἀγώνισμα: Plinius über historischen und rhetorischen Stil (Epist. 5, 8)’, in Castagna, L. and Lefèvre, E. (eds), Plinius der Jüngere und seine Zeit (2003), 69–81Google Scholar.

23 On this topos in this section of the Elder's preface, see R. K. Gibson, ‘Elder and better: the Natural History and the Letters of the Younger Pliny’, in R. K. Gibson and R. Morello (eds), Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts (forthcoming), citing Janson, T., Latin Prose Prefaces: Studies in Literary Conventions (1964), 75–6Google Scholar. This same section of the preface is also evoked by Pliny in Letters 3.5, 5.6, 6.16, and 6.20; see Gibson, op. cit. (above); cf. Morello and Gibson, op. cit. (n. 18), ch. 7.

24 For Pliny's rhetorical structuring of this letter around Capito's expected questions, see Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 162–3.

25 The word incohato in this passage may also have connotations of Pliny the Elder, since Gibson, op. cit. (n. 23), shows that Pliny the Younger appears to allude to him in Letters 5.6 with regard to parts of his own villa ‘quae maxima ex parte ipse incohaui aut incohata percolui’ (§ 41: ‘which I myself began for the most part or completed from what had been begun’), since these parts were probably begun by the Elder; cf. Morello and Gibson, op. cit. (n. 18), ch. 7. See also Ep. 6.16.9 on the Elder during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius — ‘quod studioso animo incohauerat obit maximo’ (‘what he had begun with a scholarly spirit he ended with a brave one’); this dichotomy between writers (‘studioso’) and the heroic characters within literary works (‘maximo’) is particularly relevant to Letters 5.8 (see below).

26 On this intratextual link within the letter, cf. Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 163.

27 See the discussion of Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 151–70, and on this allusion, 154–5; cf. Ludolph, M., Epistolographie und Selbstdarstellung: Untersuchungen zu den EParadebriefen’ Plinius des Jüngerer (1997), 73Google Scholar and n. 225. For this tension between action and literary composition, cf. also Ep. 6.16.3 (on Pliny the Elder): ‘aut facere scribenda aut scribere legenda’ (‘either to do things worth recording or to record things worth reading’); and § 9 (quoted above, n. 25).

28 cf. Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 162: ‘It is neither heroic nor authorial endurance, but textual canonization that concerns Pliny’; also 163–4.

29 In those letters, Pliny is the witness of and participator in events within the narrative, the supplier of raw material for another's historical work, and (through the sheer polish of these letters) a rival historian himself — all in one; see e.g. Traub, op. cit. (n. 19), 226–32; Ash, op. cit. (n. 18); Augoustakis, A., ‘Nequaquam historia digna? Plinian style in Ep. 6.20’, CJ 100 (2004–5), 265–73Google Scholar; Tzounakas, S., ‘Neque enim historiam componebam: Pliny's first epistle and his attitude towards historiography’, MH 64 (2007), 42–54Google Scholar, at 52; Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 171–89. Berry, op. cit. (n. 19), shows that Pliny is also a rival advocate to Tacitus, since these letters are no less comparable to oratory than to historiography.

30 cf. references above (n. 28).

31 On these lines within the Aeneid, see Reed, J. D., Virgil's Gaze: Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid (2007), 109Google Scholar and n. 15.

32 See Ep. 5.21.5 (on Julius Avitus): ‘quantum etiam scripsit! quae nunc omnia cum ipso sine fructu posteritatis abierunt'’ (‘How much he even wrote! Now all of it has disappeared along with him without any benefit to posterity’); cf. 5.8.6 (quoted above): ‘mecum partier intercidat’. On the ‘theme of unfinished work’ in Book 5 generally, cf. also Morello and Gibson, op. cit. (n. 18), ch. 7.

33 Morello and Gibson, op. cit. (n. 18), ch. 7.

34 Radice, B., The Letters of the Younger Pliny2 (1969), 148Google Scholar translates the line in a similar way: ‘The work is already finished and perfect; revision will not give it further polish but only dull its freshness.’ Cf. also the translation of Walsh, op. cit. (n. 7), 123: ‘Your writings are fully developed and perfected; the file does not give them a bright sheen, but impoverishes them.’

35 See OLD s.v. attero 3a: ‘To diminish (property, resources, etc.) by use, waste, fritter away’. Both Radice and Walsh seem to prefer 4c: ‘to diminish, impair (qualities, faculties, etc.)’; cf. previous note.

36 See above (Section I (d) and nn. 16–17).

37 On this poem as an intertext of Letters 5.10, see Roller, M., ‘Pliny's Catullus: the politics of literary appropriation’, TAPhA 128 (1998), 265–304Google Scholar, at 287–8 (anticipated by Brugnoli, op. cit. (n. 7), 29, n. 40), who notes strong contextual similarities and structural echoes, as well as verbal ones at Ep. 5.10.1: ‘hendecasyllaborum’ ~ Catull. 42.1: ‘hendecasyllabi’, and Ep. 5.10.1: ‘efflagitantur’ ~ Catull. 42.10: ‘reflagitate’. For Catullus’ great influence on Pliny generally, see Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), passim, especially 39–95 with earlier bibliography. For many of Catullus’ poems as probably originally sent to friends like letters, see Wiseman, T. P., Catullus and his World: A Reappraisal (1985), 126–7Google Scholar.

38 Regarding the content of the tablets in this poem, see e.g. Quinn, K., Catullus: The Poems 2 (1973), 216–17Google Scholar (on 42.4–5).

39 On this irony, see Selden, D. L., ‘Caveat lector: Catullus and the rhetoric of performance’, in Gaisser, J. H. (ed.), Catullus (2007), 490–559Google Scholar, at 524–7. For other ironies in this poem, see Pelling, C., ‘Duplices tabellae: a reading — and rereading —of Propertius 3, 23’, SIFC 20 (2002), 171–81Google Scholar, at 177.

40 Other possibly implied threats to Suetonius’ work may be those of fire and reuse, but these must be inferred from two other poems by Catullus, to which 42 seems tied (Catullus 36 and 95 respectively). Horace recognizes a connection between Catullus 36 and 42 through his combined allusions to both poems (Carm. 1.16); see Putnam, M. C. J., Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace (2006), 81–5Google Scholar. See also Farrell, J., ‘The impermanent text in Catullus and other Roman poets’, in Johnson, W. A. and Parker, H. N. (eds), Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (2009), 164–85Google Scholar, at 172–3: ‘it seems likely that destroying the poems is what the moecha of 42, like the puella of 36, has in mind’ (173). Other poets such as Propertius (3.23) and Ovid (Am. 1.12) seem to have drawn instead on the connection with Catullus 95 in their own reinventions of Catullus 42; see Roman, L., ‘A history of lost tablets’, ClAnt 25 (2006), 351–88Google Scholar, at 360 and 366–7 respectively. On Catull. 95, see also Watson, L. C., ‘Catullan recycling? Cacata carta’, Mnemosyne 58 (2005), 270–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Aen. 3.340. For the unlikelihood that this or any of Virgil's half-lines were intentional, or that he would not have finished them had he lived, see Baldwin, B., ‘Half-lines in Virgil: old and new ideas’, SO 68 (1993), 144–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This story of Augustus vetoing Virgil's wish is told more briefly by Pliny the Elder (HN 7.114) with no mention of the Aeneid's degree of completeness.

42 Other possible textual echoes of Suetonius’ Virgil in Pliny's Letters are proposed by Stok, op. cit. (n. 7), 50, 54–5, n. 29, and Marchesi, op. cit. (n. 9), 81, n. 44, but they are too general.

43 See, e.g., Cic., Inv. rhet. 1.25, Brut. 137, De or. 1.130, 3.192, Orat. 207, Acad. pr. 55, Div. 2.150, Fin. 4.14, 5.24, Off. 3.3, Tusc. 2.22, 4.17, Rhet. Her. 2.18; Sen., Ep. 34.3; Plin., HN 2.8, 22.117; Gell., NA 16.18.6. It is, however, the only such pairing (rather than mere proximity) of these two words in Pliny's Letters, and in Suetonius; see Howard, A. A. and Jackson, C. N., Index verborum C. Suetoni Tranquilli stilique eius proprietatum nonnullarum (1922)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, s.v.v. absolutio, absoluo, perficio. Although Howard and Jackson omit Suetonius’ Virgil, Persius, Passienus Crispus, and Pliny the Elder, the phrase cannot be found in these Lives. See also Bayer, K., Suetons Vergilvita: Versuch einer Rekonstruktion (2002), 296Google Scholar.

44 See Griffin, J., ‘Introduction’, in Day Lewis, C., Virgil: The Aeneid (1986), ix–xxivGoogle Scholar, at xv–xvi: ‘It is worth observing that the survival of a visibly unfinished poem in antiquity is a very rare thing: ancient taste was not attracted by the romantic appeal of the fragmentary and suggestive but looked for perfection and completeness … That the Aeneid was none the less accepted shows the high position which Virgil had at the time of his death, the expectation which the poem had aroused, and the immediate impression which it made on its first readers’; cf. Gransden, K. W., Virgil: The Aeneid2, ed. Harrison, S. J. (2004), 35Google Scholar. See also O’Hara, J. J., ‘The unfinished Aeneid?’, in Farrell, J. and Putnam, M. J. C. (eds), A Companion to Vergil's Aeneid and its Tradition (2010), 96–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the unique anticipation for the Aeneid, see below.

45 By threatening to change from flattering hendecasyllables to insulting scazons, Pliny reverses Catullus’ own reversal from insults to flattery, suggesting that his letter, like Catullus’ poem, is an exercise in revision that mirrors its own subject matter: Catullus simulates the act of erasure on a writing-tablet by rearranging the words ‘moecha putida, redde’ to ‘redde, putida moecha’ (Catull. 42.11–12, 19–20), and eventually by altering two of the letters in ‘putida’ to make it ‘pudica’ (42.24); see Roman, op. cit. (n. 40), 354–5. In the same way, Pliny inverts Virgil's ‘incipiat iam … attritus splendescere’ (Georg. 1.45–6) into ‘nec iam splendescit … sed atteritur’ (Ep. 5.10.3) as discussed above, and will also change from hendecasyllables to scazons, which have a more unfinished sound. On the differences between these two metres, see e.g. Freudenburg, K., Satires of Rome: Threatening Poses from Lucilius to Juvenal (2001), 138Google Scholar; P. Watson, ‘Contextualising Martial's metres’, in Nauta, van Dam, and Smolenaars, op. cit. (n. 12), 285–97, at 286–96. Pliny also revises Catullus’ word ‘reflagitate’ into ‘efflagitantur’ (more suitable to the context, since Pliny is not demanding the return of tablets), and also his hendecasyllables, which are no longer the agents of the flagitatio, but its recipients. For other erasures of and additions to Catullus in this letter, see Roller, op. cit. (n. 37), 288.

46 As Quintilian remarks in a passage (Inst. 10.4.4) that may also be partly in Pliny's mind (see above, n. 12): ‘sit ergo aliquando quod placeat aut certe quod sufficiat, ut opus poliat lima, non exterat’. It is noteworthy too that in the above passage of Suetonius Virgil describes his own process of writing using the metaphorical term ‘props’ (‘tibicinibus’), much like the (literal and) metaphorical ‘ploughshare’ (‘uomer’) in the passage towards the start of the Georgics, which similarly creates a ‘shine’ (Georg. 1.46 ‘splendescere’, cf. Virg. 24 ‘fulsit’) indicative of the author's literary ability.

47 Albeit a more appropriate word; see above (n. 45). Although the verb flagito is common in Pliny's Letters, efflagito is rare, appearing only one other time (Ep. 2.5.1: ‘efflagitatam’) in a letter that borders on the same paradoxical notion of a work being both finished and unfinished (§ 12: ‘existimatur pars aliqua etiam sine ceteris esse perfecta’, ‘some part is thought finished even without the rest’). See also Pliny's possible revision of Quintilian's ‘exterat’ (Inst. 10.4.4) into ‘atteritur’ (Ep. 5.10.3) so as to allude to the Virgilian passage (Georg. 1.45–6); cf. previous note, and contrast Ep. 9.35.2, ‘deterit’.

48 Augustus’ use of Greek (‘uel prima carminis ὑπογραφὴ uel κῶλον quodlibet’) would have lessened the force of any threats in this letter; on this use of Greek in letters, see Adams, J. N., Bilingualism and the Latin Language (2003), 330–5Google Scholar. As with the phrase absolutus perfectusque, the coupling of supplex and minax (or variations thereof) is not uncommon (e.g. Livy 2.23.11: ‘postulare multo minaciter magis quam suppliciter’; Suet., Tit. 5.2: ‘suppliciter nec non et minaciter efflagitantes’), or for that matter the coupling of blanditia and conuicium (e.g. Ov., Rem. am. 507: ‘nec dic blanditias nec fac conuicia posti’), but the contextual similarities again seem more than coincidence. The closeness of these two sets of opposing ideas is demonstrated by the ideas’ being interchangeable; see e.g. Tac., Hist. 1.35.2: ‘minantibus intrepidus, aduersus blandientis incorruptus’.

49 See the fragment of what appears to be Virgil's letter of response to Augustus in Macrob., Sat. 1.24.11: ‘ego uero frequentes a te litteras accipio … de Aenea quidem meo, si mehercle iam dignum auribus haberem tuis, libenter mitterem, sed tanta inchoata res est ut paene uitio mentis tantum opus ingressus mihi uidear, cum praesertim, ut scis, alia quoque studia ad id opus multoque potiora impertiar’ (‘I have indeed received the frequent letters from you … Regarding my Aeneas in fact, if I now had anything at all worthy of your ears, I should freely send it, but so great is the theme that I have begun that I seem to myself to have entered upon so great a work almost by some mental defect, especially since, as you know, I am made to partake in other much more useful studies for this work’). On this letter in relation to Virgil's wish to burn the Aeneid, see, e.g., Otis, B., Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry (1964), 1–4Google Scholar; and in relation to his tactfulness towards Augustus, e.g. Thomas, R. F., Virgil and the Augustan Reception (2001), 39–40Google Scholar; cf. Horsfall, op. cit. (n. 17), 18, n. 119, comparing Suet., Aug. 89.3: ‘componi tamen aliquid de se nisi et serio et a praestantissimis offendebatur’ (‘He [Augustus] took offence at anything being composed about him except seriously and by the most eminent writers’).

50 cf. Syme, op. cit. (n. 7), 115 on this allusion: ‘The over-powerful epic phrase softens the rebuke and conveys a humorous note.’

51 cf. Iddeng, J. W., ‘Publica aut peri! The releasing and distribution of Roman books’, SO 81 (2006), 58–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 78. See e.g. Plin., Ep. 7.17.7 (‘aliis trado adnotanda’), and Roller, op. cit. (n. 37), 293. Cf. Mayer, R. (ed.), Tacitus: Dialogus de oratoribus (2001), 24–5Google Scholar on the possibility that Tacitus may have sent Pliny selections from his Dialogus; also Edwards, R., ‘Hunting for boars with Pliny and Tacitus’, ClAnt 27 (2008), 35–58Google Scholar, at 37–9, 52–4.

52 Walsh, op. cit. (n. 7), xxvii. On public and private readings at Rome generally, see e.g. Wiseman, op. cit. (n. 37), 124–9; Habinek, T. N., The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome (1998), 103–21Google Scholar, 201–9; Roller, op. cit. (n. 37), 290–7. See also H. N. Parker, ‘Books and reading Latin poetry’, in Johnson and Parker, op. cit. (n. 40), 186–229, at 224, who notes that drafts of poetry were sometimes sent to those who had attended their reading; cf. Roller, op. cit. (n. 37), 293.

53 On this practice, see Parker, op. cit. (n. 52), 202–11, especially 203–4 on the favouring of prose works as reading material for private social events. For readings creating subsequent eagerness for the work's written text, see e.g. Plin., Ep. 3.10.2, 5.3.10; cf. also 5.5 (to which 5.10 cross-refers; see above), where Fannius’ desire to finish his work is based on positive responses to the books already in circulation (§ 3: ‘tanto magis reliquos perficere cupiebat, quanto frequentius hi lectitabantur’, quoted above). Pliny notably does not, as he does in §§ 6–7 of Letters 2.10 (which is otherwise very similar to 5.10; cf. above, n. 20), urge Suetonius at least to give readings, which is most easily explained by the possibility that he has already done so. Furthermore, in a later letter to Suetonius (Ep. 9.34) Pliny asks the biographer for advice on giving readings, as though he were rather experienced at it. If Suetonius has given readings of the Illustrious Men, this adds to the probability of an implied parallel in 5.10 with the Virgil, since Suetonius reports in that Life that Virgil too gave readings of the Aeneid before publication (Virg. 32–4).

54 Through Pliny's appropriation of Catullus 42 in Letters 5.10, his own interest in Suetonius’ work is also taken to the point of suggesting usurpation, since he tries to obtain the writing from Suetonius as if it were his own, as in Catullus’ poem; on the implications of Pliny's great interest in Suetonius’ work, see below.

55 cf. Della Corte, op. cit. (n. 4), 94; Morello and Gibson, op. cit. (n. 18), ch. 7. On Pliny's concern for his uncle's fame in Letters 6.16, see Berry, op. cit. (n. 19), 299–301. For Suetonius’ Life of Pliny the Elder, which formed part of his Illustrious Men, see C. L. Roth's edition of Suetonius (1858), pp. 300–1. This particular concern of Pliny's is one that Suetonius himself shared, since he immortalizes his own father Suetonius Laetus in the Otho (10.1). We may also compare Clarus’ frequent pleas for Pliny to publish the Letters (Ep. 1.1), since Clarus himself was not a writer, and could only hope to be immortalized through the works of others; on this, see Hoffer, op. cit. (n. 19), 19.

56 On this irony, see, e.g., Ash, op. cit. (n. 18), 213–14; Tzounakas, op. cit. (n. 29). Cf. references above (n. 18).

57 Syme, op. cit. (n. 7), 115.

58 See Sherwin-White, op. cit. (n. 7), 34–5.

59 Pliny's distinction in Letters 5.10 with regard to circulation (§ 3: ‘describi legi uenire uolumina Tranquilli mei … eandem percipere ex te uoluptatem, qua tu perfrueris ex nobis’) need not connote an initial publication, but only Suetonius’ first work on a major scale. It is still possible that some of the antiquarian works had appeared before the Illustrious Men, but none for which a comparable amount of copies was produced and sold. This collection of literary biographies would have had an obviously wide appeal, and if we can take the entries in Jerome's Chronicle that probably derive from Suetonius as an indication of scope, each full copy must have run several books in length; for conjectures on the work's exact scale, see, e.g., Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 51–2; Velaza, op. cit. (n. 7), 38–40 with earlier bibliography.

60 See above (n. 2).

61 A Suetonian model for this satire was first suggested by G. B. Townend in an unpublished paper (summarized in idem, ‘Suetonius and literary biography’, PCA 69 (1972), 27Google Scholar; cf. idem The literary substrata to Juvenal's Satires’, JRS 63 (1973), 148–60Google Scholar, at 152), and has since found some acceptance: Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 52; Braund, S. H., Beyond Anger: A Study of Juvenal's Third Book of Satires (1988), 45–7Google Scholar, 212–13; Hardie, A., ‘Juvenal and the condition of letters: the seventh satire’, PLLS 6 (1990), 145–209Google Scholar, at 174–6, 203–4; Kaster, R. A. (ed.), C. Suetonius Tranquillus: De grammaticis et rhetoribus (1995), xlixGoogle Scholar, 238–40.

62 See Kaster, op. cit. (n. 61), 232. The argument of Hardie, op. cit. (n. 61), 176 for direct allusions at Juv. 7.215–36 to Suet., Gramm. 23.1–6 is speculative: there are no verbal echoes, and two of the details are merely comparisons to Palaemon, while another is attributed to a teacher in general (Juv. 7.230: ‘praeceptori’).

63 On this prominence, see e.g. Kaster, op. cit. (n. 61), xxix; McNelis, C., ‘Grammarians and rhetoricians’, in Dominik, W. and Hall, J. (eds), A Companion to Roman Rhetoric (2007), 285–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Mayer, op. cit. (n. 51), 15 on rhetoricians. The matter is further complicated by the conjectural status of our categories for Suetonius’ Illustrious Men, which are based simply on the existing Lives and the fragments in Jerome; see T. J. Power, ‘The structure and content of Suetonius’ Illustrious Men’ (forthcoming).

64 For this claim, see Roth, op. cit. (n. 55), p. lxxviii; Macé, op. cit. (n. 4), 69–76; Funaioli, op. cit. (n. 7), 598; Brugnoli, op. cit. (n. 7), 59.

65 See Reifferscheid, op. cit. (n. 7), p. 422; Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 52–3 and n. 5. For Suetonius’ appearing to have imposed a cut-off of the Flavian period for the subjects of the Illustrious Men, based on the existing Lives and fragments in Jerome, and on the similar cut-off in the Caesars, see Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 52–6.

66 See references above (nn. 1, 4, 7).

67 As proposed by Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 7–8.

68 For the date of this letter, see Sherwin-White, op. cit. (n. 7), 81, 689 (ad loc.); cf. Millar, F., Rome, the Greek World, and the East, vol. 2, ed. Cotton, H. M. and Rogers, G. M. (2004), 38Google Scholar, 45.

69 See Saller, R. P., Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (1982), 108CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For letters of recommendation as extensions of the sender's own status, see also Rees, R., ‘Letters of recommendation and the rhetoric of praise’, in Morello, R. and Morrison, A. D. (eds), Ancient Letters: Classical and Antique Epistolography (2007), 149–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 See Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC–AD 337) (1977), 90–1Google Scholar; also Macé, op. cit. (n. 4), 77, proposing the recent publication of the Illustrious Men, although he dates this letter incorrectly to a.d. 113 (cf. ibid., 49–50, based on Mommsen, T., ‘Zur Lebensgeschichte des jüngeren Plinius’, Hermes 3 (1869), 31–136Google Scholar (= Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4 (Berlin, 1906), 366–468), at 43, 58); contrast references above (n. 68). Cf. Rostagni, op. cit. (n. 7), x; Della Corte, op. cit. (n. 4), 94; Paratore, op. cit. (n. 4), 193.

71 On this Clarus, see Sherwin-White, op. cit. (n. 7), 157. The same word eruditissimus is also used by Pliny the Younger to describe Pliny the Elder at Ep. 6.16.7, possibly as an allusion to the list of the latter's publications in Ep. 3.5, where the Younger refers to the Natural History as ‘opus diffusum eruditum’ (§ 6: ‘a learned and vast work’); see Gibson, op. cit. (n. 23); and on Ep. 6.16 as connected to 3.5 more generally, Berry, op. cit. (n. 19), 301, 303, 305.

72 The suggestion of W. Eck, ‘The emperor and his advisors’, CAH2 11 (2000), 195–213, at 211–12, that both Pliny and Suetonius received these awards through the influence alone of those who interceded on their behalf is unconvincing (see below).

73 See Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 46–7, favouring a work on games by Suetonius for this particular honour (cf. above, n. 7); Groot, H., Zur Bedeutung der öffentlichen Spiele bei Tacitus, Sueton und Cassius Dio: Überlegungen zur Selbstbeschreibung der römischen Gesellschaft, Antike Kultur und Geschichte 12 (2008), 33Google Scholar, n. 21, favouring the Illustrious Men. Cf. also above (n. 70).

74 See Coleman, op. cit. (n. 7), lxxxiii–lxxxiv, and on the Liber de spectaculis as combined from previous smaller collections, xlv–lxiv, especially liv–lvi for parts datable as late as a.d. 83–5. Cf. also Williams, C. A. (ed.), Martial: Epigrams, Book Two (2004), 4–5Google Scholar, 278–9 (on 2.92, suggesting, implausibly, the whole Liber de spectaculis as the poems mentioned by Martial).

75 Coleman, op. cit. (n. 7), lx–lxi.

76 See ibid., xlix, Table 4.

77 Suetonius’ literary reputation may also have led to his appointment by Trajan to one of his first offices as recorded by the Hippo inscription (AE 1953, 73), possibly inter selectos (iudices); see Townend, G. B., ‘The Hippo inscription and the career of Suetonius’, Historia 10 (1961), 99–109Google Scholar, at 100, citing the parallel of Gell., NA 14.2.1.

78 The notion that the Illustrious Men could not have been published before a.d. 107, when the rhetorician Iulius Tiro, whose biography was included according to a later ancient index to the Grammarians and Rhetoricians, may still have been alive (see Funaioli, op. cit. (n. 7), 598 with earlier bibliography; also Kaster, op. cit. (n. 61), xxiv, n. 9), depends on the assumption that this is the same man whose will was contested in that year (Plin., Ep. 6.31.7–12, with the date of Sherwin-White, op. cit. (n. 7), 391). This is only plausible if Wallace-Hadrill's conjecture about Suetonius’ temporal boundaries within the work is incorrect (see above, n. 65), in which case Tiro would be the only known exception to this timeframe. Unconvincing too is the suggestion of Kaster, op. cit. (n. 61), 211 that Gramm. 20.2 implies Suetonius’ holding of the post a bibliothecis, since Suetonius had a general interest in imperial offices, as evident from the Caesars, the Illustrious Men, and his mostly lost work Institution of Offices (for the fragments of this work, see Roth, op. cit. (n. 55), pp. 302–3); see Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 74–8, 81–8; Wardle, D., ‘Suetonius as ab epistulis: an African connection’, Historia 51 (2002), 462–80Google Scholar, at 462–3.

79 cf. Walsh, op. cit. (n. 7), 331. For the likelihood that the Poets were the first part of Suetonius’ Illustrious Men, see Power, op. cit. (n. 63).

80 Townend, G. B., ‘The date of composition of Suetonius’ Caesares’, CQ n.s. 9 (1959), 285–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Syme, op. cit. (n. 2), 69, n. 54; Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 62; A. R. Birley, JRS 74 (1984), 264; Bradley, K. R., ‘The imperial ideal in Suetonius’ “Caesares”’, ANRW 2.33.5 (1991), 3701–32Google Scholar, at 3724, n. 102; Wardle, op. cit. (n. 78), 463, n. 6.

81 Townend, op. cit. (n. 80), 290–3; cf. idem, ‘Suetonius and his influence’, in Dorey, T. A. (ed.), Latin Biography (1967), 79–111Google Scholar, at 90; Townend, op. cit. (n. 4), 1055-6. Against these and other such allusions, see Wardle, op. cit. (n. 6, 1998); Vlaardingerbroek, M., ‘Hadrianus en Suetonius: De keizer en de kamergeleerde’, Hermeneus 71 (1999), 220–5Google Scholar, at 224–5.

82 Townend, op. cit. (n. 80), 286–8. For the belief that Augustus’ letters were the fruit of Suetonius’ privileged access to archives, see the bibliography cited in Coninck, L. de, ‘Un projet d’études sur les sources primaires littéraires et documentaires des historiens à Rome’, AncSoc 11–12 (1980–1), 387–407Google Scholar, at 398, n. 71, to which add Fraenkel, E., Horace (1957), 17Google Scholar; Gascou, J., Suétone historien, BEFAR 255 (1984), 471–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 498–502; idem, ‘L’utilisation de documents de première main dans les Vies des Douze Césars de Suétone’, VL 133 (1994), 7–21Google Scholar, at 8–9, 17, 19; idem, ‘Histoire et biographie: Suétone’, in Histoire et historiographie dans l’Antiquité, Cahiers de la villa ‘Kérylos’ 11 (2001), 155–65Google Scholar, at 160–1; F. Stok, ‘The life of Vergil before Donatus’, in Farrell and Putnam, op. cit. (n. 44), 107–20, at 108. On Augustus’ private letters generally, see Giordano, L., ‘Ottaviano Augusto scrittore. Le lettere private’, MAT 24 (2000), 3–52Google Scholar.

83 Syme, opp. citt. (n. 4), 116–17, 121; (n. 2), 69; and (n. 7), 116–17.

84 Syme, op. cit. (n. 7), 116–17. Cf. also Venini, P., ‘Svetonio’, in Della Corte, F. (ed.), Dizionario degli Scrittori Greci e Latini, vol. 3 (1988), 2145–51Google Scholar, at 2146, n. 4.

85 Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 61–2. Cf. also Bradley, K. R., Suetonius’ Life of Nero: An Historical Commentary (1978), 20–1Google Scholar; Pagán, V. E., JRS 92 (2002), 253Google Scholar.

86 Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 94, n. 27; cf. 56–7, 66; Macé, op. cit. (n. 4), 361–9, and Crook, J. A., CR n.s. 19 (1969), 62–3Google Scholar, at 63, both cited by Wallace-Hadrill (62, n. 14); pace Sharrock, A. and Ash, R., Fifty Key Classical Authors (2002), 366Google Scholar, 369, and Konstan, D., ‘Reading politics in Suetonius’, in Dominik, W. J., Garthwaite, ., and Roche, P. A. (eds), Writing Politics in Imperial Rome (2009), 447–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 461, n. 54, who attribute to Wallace-Hadrill instead the view of Syme (cf. above, n. 84). Wallace-Hadrill was anticipated also by McDermott, W. C., CJ 64 (1969), 189Google Scholar.

87 See de Coninck, op. cit. (n. 82), 397–403; idem, Suetonius en de Archivalia (1983), 45–57Google Scholar; idem, ‘Les sources documentaires de Suétone, “Les XII Césars”: 1900–1990’, ANRW 2.33.5 (1991), 3675–700Google Scholar, at 3690–2; Baldwin, op. cit. (n. 2), 47–8; Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 94–5; von Albrecht, M., A History of Roman Literature: From Livius Andronicus to Boethius, 2 vols, Mnemosyne Suppl. 165 (1997; first published in German, 1994), 1393Google Scholar; Hurley, D. W. (ed.), Suetonius: Diuus Claudius (2001), 9Google Scholar; Brandão, J. L. L., Máscaras dos Césares: Teatro e moralidade nas Vidas suetonianas (2009), 49–50Google Scholar.

88 Levi, M. A., ‘Dopo Azio. Appunti sulle fonti Augustee. Svetonio’, RFIC 16 (1937), 1–24Google Scholar, at 14–18 = idem (ed.), C. Suetoni Tranquilli Divus Augustus (1951), xliv–liv.

89 See Macé, op. cit. (n. 4), 123, and 168, comparing Aug. 3.2, 85.2, 94.6. However, the inference from this that the letters of Augustus in the Caesars, none of which are so introduced, may not therefore have been similarly in circulation like those in the Illustrious Men lacks cogency (pace Crook, J. A., ‘Suetonius “ab epistulis”’, PCPhS 4 (1956–7), 18–22Google Scholar, at 22), since the other letters in the Illustrious Men are not prefaced in this way either (Virg. 31, Hor. 2.3–4 Klingner).

90 Including probably their well-known and frequent correspondence to each other (cf. above, n. 49); for inspection of writings by Virgil and Augustus in their own hands, particularly Augustus’ letters, cf. Quint., Inst. 1.7.20–2; pace Gascou, op. cit. (n. 82, 1994), 8–9 (cf. idem, op. cit. (n. 82, 1984), 471–2), who thinks that the knowledge of Augustus’ handwriting in Pliny and Quintilian is merely indirect. For Pliny the Elder's knowledge of Augustus’ letters, see also HN 18.139; and Baldwin, B., ‘Roman emperors in the Elder Pliny’, Scholia 4 (1995), 56–78Google Scholar, at 62–3.

91 See Baldwin, op. cit. (n. 2), 48; cf. idem, ‘Nero the poet’, in Deroux, C. (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, vol. 12 (2005), 307–18Google Scholar, at 309. However, Baldwin elsewhere suspects (‘Augustus the poet’, in Defosse, P. (ed.), Hommages à Carl Deroux, vol. 1 (2002), 40–7Google Scholar, at 41) that this phrase implies ‘covert pride … in the secretarial position that gave him access to papers denied to others’.

92 Suetonius was at any rate more interested in the period of the foundation of the Principate than in those closer to his own time; see above. See also Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit. (n. 1), 94–5 on the similar silence of Suetonius’ contemporaries on the private letters of other emperors and the exemplary style of Augustus’ letters. It was common for Roman rulers to destroy records, especially the papers of their predecessors; see, e.g., Zadorojnyi, A. V., ‘Lord of the flies: literacy and tyranny in imperial biography’, in McGing, B. and Mossman, J. (eds), The Limits of Ancient Biography (2006), 351–94Google Scholar, at 373, citing Plut., Sert. 27.4–5, Eum. 16.4, Pomp. 20.7–8; App., B Civ. 5.132; Dio 41.63.5–6, 52.42.8, 64.15.1, 67.11.1–2, 71.28.4, 71.29.1–2; Amm. Marc. 21.16.11; Zadorojnyi elsewhere adds (‘“Stabbed with large pens”: trajectories of literacy in Plutarch's Lives’, in de Blois, L., Bons, J., Kessels, T. and Schenkeveld, D. M. (eds), The Statesman in Plutarch's Works, vol. 2 (2005), 113–37Google Scholar, at 118, n. 30) App., B Civ. 1.115; Dio 43.13.2.

93 See Georgiadou, A., ‘The Lives of the Caesars and Plutarch's other Lives’, ICS 13 (1988), 349–56Google Scholar, at 354–5; Duff, T. E., Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (1999), 19–20Google Scholar.

94 See Mooney, G. W. (ed.), C. Suetoni Tranquilli De vita Caesarum libri VII–VIII: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Divus Vespasianus, Divus Titus, Domitianus (1930), 15Google Scholar.

95 Townend, op. cit. (n. 80), 286.

96 See Bradley, K. R., ‘The composition of Suetonius’ Caesares again’, JIES 1 (1973), 257–63Google Scholar, at 262. See also Ner. 23.1, with Bradley, op. cit. (n. 85), 142 (ad loc.). Baldwin, op. cit. (n. 2), 43–6 (cf. idem, ‘Hadrian's dismissal of Suetonius: a reasoned response’, Historia 46 (1997), 254–6Google Scholar) pushes the evidence of the Historia Augusta (Hadr. 11.3) too far to presume an ongoing friendship between Hadrian and Suetonius following the latter's dismissal and a continued use of imperial archives, which is now unnecessary.

97 Townend, op. cit. (n. 80), 288–90.

98 cf. Bradley, K. R., CPh 80 (1985), 263Google Scholar. On this device in Plutarch and Tacitus, cf. Pauw, D. A., ‘Impersonal expressions and unidentified spokesmen in Greek and Roman historiography and biography’, AClass 23 (1980), 83–95Google Scholar (cited by Bradley), who shows how it is used to portray figures in worse light than the authors can honestly claim. Townend, op. cit. (n. 80), 289–90, appreciates this purpose with regard to Suetonius’ generalizations from specific instances, but not in his deployment of unnamed sources, which, as he himself demonstrates (289), does not mean that real sources do not lie behind them.