Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Pliny's thanksgiving: an introduction to the Panegyricus
- 2 Self-fashioning in the Panegyricus
- 3 The Panegyricus and the Monuments of Rome
- 4 The Panegyricus and rhetorical theory
- 5 Ciceronian praise as a step towards Pliny's Panegyricus
- 6 Contemporary contexts
- 7 Politics and the sublime in the Panegyricus
- 8 Down the Pan: historical exemplarity in the Panegyricus
- 9 Afterwords of praise
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
2 - Self-fashioning in the Panegyricus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Pliny's thanksgiving: an introduction to the Panegyricus
- 2 Self-fashioning in the Panegyricus
- 3 The Panegyricus and the Monuments of Rome
- 4 The Panegyricus and rhetorical theory
- 5 Ciceronian praise as a step towards Pliny's Panegyricus
- 6 Contemporary contexts
- 7 Politics and the sublime in the Panegyricus
- 8 Down the Pan: historical exemplarity in the Panegyricus
- 9 Afterwords of praise
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Summary
Implicit in any formal speech in praise of a ruler is the putative authority of the speaker. To extol the ruler's background and lineage properly, to characterize his virtues in appropriate terms, to celebrate his accomplishments in convincing detail and to place them in the most impressive contexts – to offer a public verdict, in a word, on the legitimacy of the ruler's power – is not for everyone to do, and indeed stands as an ambitious assertion of one's own knowledge about, and capacity for judgement on, complex matters of state and high politics. And so it was with Pliny's gratiarum actio. By delivering a speech that pronounces on everything from the deeper meaning of Trajan's adoption by Nerva and the legacies of Domitian's reign to the fiscal impact of the emperor's policy on inheritances and the current state of senatorial opinion on this or that issue, Pliny leaves little doubt that he is both close to the centre of power and well qualified to assess it. That the original speech was given on the occasion of his accession to a suffect consulship (100 ce) only underlines this impression. He goes even further, however, systematically (and often superfluously) displaying ‘insider’ knowledge, characterizing the nature of political authority in imperial Rome to his own advantage, and reciting a number of carefully chosen chapters from his own biography.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Pliny's PraiseThe Panegyricus in the Roman World, pp. 29 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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