SPUDASMATA 179

SPUDASMATA
Studien zur Klassischen Philologie und ihren Grenzgebieten
Begründet von Hildebrecht Hommel und Ernst Zinn
Herausgeberinnen
Irmgard Männlein-Robert und Anja Wolkenhauer
Wissenschaftlicher Beirat
Robert Kirstein (Tübingen), Jürgen Leonhardt (Tübingen),
Marilena Maniaci (Rom/Cassino), Mischa Meier (Tübingen)
und Karla Pollmann (Bristol)

Band 179
TEXT, KONTEXT, KONTEXTUALISIERUNG

2018

GEORG OLMS VERLAG HILDESHEIM · ZÜRICH · NEW YORK

 TEXT, KONTEXT, KONTEXTUALISIERUNG

Moderne Kontextkonzepte und antike Literatur

Herausgegeben von
Ute Tischer, Alexandra Forst
und Ursula Gärtner

2018

GEORG OLMS VERLAG HILDESHEIM · ZÜRICH · NEW YORK

Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

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Inhalt

Vorwort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Ute Tischer / Alexandra Forst / Ursula Gärtner

Einleitung: Text, Kontext, Kontextualisierung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

I. Moderne Kontextkonzepte

Birgit Neumann / Sonja Frenzel

Literatur zwischen kulturellem Dokument, Ereignis und Agent –
Möglichkeiten und Grenzen kulturwissenschaftlicher
Text-Kontext-Modelle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Heidi Aschenberg
Text und Kontext: Sprachwissenschaftliche Überlegungen . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Marcus Willand
Der Leser als/im Kontext interpretativer Zuschreibungen . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

II. Kontext und Interpretation

René Nünlist
Kontext und Kontextualisierung als Kategorien antiker
Literaturerklärung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Thomas A. Schmitz
Callimachus and His Muses. Contextualization in the Aetia . . . . . . . . . . 119

Christopher Whitton
Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6 Inhalt

Alexandra Forst
Die publizierte Fassung der ersten Catilinaria Ciceros und
die Frage der Kontextbildung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

III. Kontext, Zitat, Fragment

Ute Tischer
Wer spricht? Die Sprecher-Origo als Kontextfaktor beim
Verstehen von Zitaten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Alexandra Trachsel
Kontexte und Kontextualisierungen im Bereich der
Fragmentforschung: Beispiele aus der Fragmentsammlung
des Demetrios von Skepsis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Monica Berti
Annotating Text Reuse within the Context: The Leipzig
Open Fragmentary Texts Series (LOFTS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Beate Hintzen
Kontextualisierung, De- und Re-Kontextualisierung am Beispiel
von Solons Lebensalterelegie (fr. 27 West) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

IV. Kontextualisierung als Textstrategie

Ursula Gärtner
hoc quo pertineat, dicet qui me nouerit. Neukontextualisierung
als literarische Strategie in Phaedrus’ Fabeln . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Karen Blaschka
Eleus sonipes, equus liber, equus bellator. (Neu-)Kontextualisierung
epischer Gleichnisse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
 Inhalt 7

Martin Bažil
Sensus diversi ut congruant. Semantische Kontextstrategien
in den spätantiken Vergilcentonen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Peter Kuhlmann
Kontextwechsel als Leserlenkung bei Seneca: Stoische Kern-
begriffe im Kontext römischer Werte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Oliver Ehlen
Chariton von Aphrodisias und die Selbstkontextualisierung
eines neuen Subgenres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Index locorum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Vorwort

Der vorliegende Band ist das Ergebnis einer gleichnamigen Tagung vom 3. bis
4. Juli 2015 an der Universität Potsdam. Dass es zu diesem Treffen kommen
konnte, war nicht selbstverständlich. Ursprünglich bereits für Mai 2015 ge-
plant und organisiert, mussten wir es sehr kurzfristig absagen, weil ein Streik
der Deutschen Bahn fast alle unsere Gäste daran hinderte, nach Potsdam zu
gelangen. Was wir monatelang mit viel konzeptionellem Elan vorbereitet hat-
ten, mussten wir nun mit nicht weniger Improvisationsaufwand innerhalb von
zwei Tagen in eine neue Form gießen. Nach Rücksprache mit unseren Referen-
tInnen fanden wir einen Ersatztermin im Juli, an dem wir wenigstens einen Teil
der ursprünglich vorgesehenen Vorträge hören konnten.
An diesen beiden Tagen im Juli trafen sich in Potsdam also Literatur- und
KulturwissenschaftlerInnen mit Klassischen PhilologInnen, um sich über ein
Thema zu verständigen, das gleichermaßen vertraut, komplex und dornig ist.
Das ging durchaus nicht ohne Verständnisschwierigkeiten vonstatten, text-
zentrierte und hermeneutisch orientierte Philologie traf auf theoretisch weit
ausdifferenzierte, aber an sehr verschiedenen Corpora und kulturellen Phäno-
menen entwickelte Ansätze der modernen Theoriebildung. Es entstanden dar-
aus lebhafte Diskussionen, aus denen wir viel über andere Disziplinen, beson-
ders aber auch über die Methoden und Traditionen unseres eigenen Faches
lernen konnten.
Fast alle unserer ReferentInnen haben sich an diesem Band beteiligt, darun-
ter zu unserer Freude auch viele derer, die im Juli verhindert waren, darunter
Birgit Neumann und Sonja Frenzel, Heidi Aschenberg, Christopher Whitton
und Beate Hintzen. Einige der BeiträgerInnen begegnen sich daher erst in die-
sem Band; die Ergebnisse zeigen einmal mehr, wieviel die Diskussion durch
sie noch hätte gewinnen können.
Allen Vortragenden, Gästen und BeiträgerInnen danken wir für Ihr Engage-
ment und die Geduld, die sie für unser Projekt aufgebracht haben. Darüber
hinaus gilt unser besonderer Dank der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, welche die
Tagung und die Drucklegung dieses Bandes großzügig unterstützt und bei
allen organisatorischen Problemen unkompliziert geholfen hat. Beteiligt an der
Konzeption und Durchführung des Treffens war unsere Kollegin Karen
Blaschka; ihr sei herzlich gedankt, ebenso wie auch den Studierenden des In-
stituts für Klassische Philologie und all den anderen HelferInnen, die mit
10 Vorwort

großem Einsatz für einen gastlichen Empfang und die reibungslose Organisa-
tion gesorgt haben. Danken möchten wir schließlich auch Frau Männlein-
Robert und Frau Wolkenhauer für die freundliche Aufnahme dieses Bandes in
die Reihe „Spudasmata“.

Die Herausgeberinnen
Potsdam, im Mai 2018
Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny
(Epistles 9,3)
Christopher Whitton (Emmanuel College, Cambridge)

Abstract

This chapter considers the roles, challenges and limits of context in a philological com-
mentary. Taking a short letter of Pliny the Younger as its example, it proceeds in three
stages. First, a comparative reading of commentaries from the sixteenth to the twentieth
centuries establishes some very different approaches that can be taken to contextualis-
ing this text. Second, I discuss ‘contexture’, the contextualising of (in this case) a pur-
ported fragment within its broader collection. Third, I consider intertextuality as a form
of context, offering an experimental reading of Pliny’s letter against Sallust, Seneca,
Cicero and Quintilian. Whether we see such intertextual traces in terms of allusion or
prefer to talk of the cultural archive, I suggest, the bounds of context are ripe for expan-
sion in the Epistles – and pose unanswerable, but unavoidable, questions for any writer
or reader of commentaries.

1. Plinian commentary in context

The aim of the commentary is simply to contextualize the author’s words for the
modern reader.1

Is meaning inherent and integral to a word, or does it have meaning in and only
in context? If meaning is context specific, what are the limits and boundaries of
context? … How should a commentary deal with such matters?2

Of all the modes of classical philology, the commentary is perhaps most heav-
ily invested in the business of contextualising. If ‘the Classics’ are by defini-
tion distant from modern readers, the commentator’s axiomatic endeavour is to
bridge the gap, to supply ‘the’ context which enables linguistically, historically

1 After Reed (1997) 87.

2 Goldhill (1999) 413.
138 Christopher Whitton

and culturally informed engagement with the text.3 Such at least is the utilitar-
ian, utopian vision of the task. It is also, of course, a deeply simplified vision.
A moment’s reflection opens up a wide range of context(s) which readers may
want, and commentators may seek to offer: semantic and linguistic context for
a word or phrase (‘meaning’, register, nuance), for instance; intellectual and
cultural context for an idea (how about gloria, say, or otium?), proposition or
theme; the contextualising of a portion of text (word, paragraph, book) in its
work, and of that work within literary history (where such terms as genre,
chronology and intertext will be live); biographical, ideological and sociohis-
torical contexts of author, age and/or contemporary audience (from historicist,
to New Historicist, to Konstanzer Schule). If we (crudely) demarcate all this as
‘ancient’ context, that leaves another set of ‘modern’ contexts surrounding the
commentary itself: written by whom and for whom? Under what editorial con-
straints? With what particular concerns, emphases and methodological sympa-
thies? What scholarly context will be established – all relevant publications
from the last fifty years? All commentaries on this text ever printed? Will at-
tention to the text’s reception be limited to ‘scholarship’, or for that matter to
modernity? Surely no commentator would be so bold, no reader so naïve, as to
propose that all these elements, and much more, can be boiled down to ‘an’
empirical context. (Not to mention the human deficiencies of any individual,
the gaping holes in our corporate understanding.) Which is to say, commentar-
ies, like any form of interpretation (and let’s be clear: for all the myths about
impassive authority, for all the hopes of κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί or the burden of blocking
the field for a generation, commentary is a form of interpretation), are inescap-
ably selective, partial, focalised – in a word, subjective. Subjective, not arbi-
trary (assuming you want it to be plausible), nor blinkered: any (good) com-
mentary in my eyes will both enable informed hermeneutic plurality and
constitute an interpretation in itself.
That makes a first context for my banner, alius aliud, and for the reflections
on commentary and context to come. My discussion centres on a case study
from Pliny the Younger’s Epistles, a text where debate is currently live on a
whole range of qualities – genre, literary texture, modes of composition and of
consumption – and thus on the sorts of context that a commentator should, or

3 See Fuhrmann (1985) 38; Stierle (1990) 21; Gumbrecht (1999) 443. Classical com-
mentaries have come in for valuable scrutiny in recent years: see first Most (1999)
and Gibson/Kraus (2002); also now Kraus/Stray (2015a).
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 139

might, be interested in. It also supplies a conveniently bite-sized guinea-pig,

the brief and (should we say?) self-contained Epistles 9,3.4

C. PLINIVS PAVLINO SVO S.

1 Alius aliud, ego beatissimum existimo qui bonae mansuraeque famae prae-
sumptione perfruitur, certusque posteritatis cum futura gloria uiuit. Ac mihi nisi
praemium aeternitatis ante oculos, pingue illud altumque otium placeat. 2 Eten-
im omnes homines arbitror oportere aut immortalitatem suam aut mortalitatem
cogitare, et illos quidem contendere eniti, hos quiescere remitti nec breuem uitam
caducis laboribus fatigare, ut uideo multos misera simul et ingrata imagine in-
dustriae ad uilitatem sui peruenire. 3 Haec ego tecum quae cotidie mecum, ut
desinam mecum si dissenties tu; quamquam non dissenties, ut qui semper clarum
aliquid et immortale meditere.
Vale.

My dear Paulinus,
1 Views differ, but I myself consider happiest the man who enjoys full fore-
knowledge of a good and enduring reputation and who, sure of posterity, lives
with his future fame. As for me, if I did not have the prize of eternity before my
eyes, I would choose that ‘rich and deep’ leisure. 2 For I deem that all men should
think either on their immortality or on their mortality, and accordingly either
strive and struggle or rest, relax and not weary a short life with fleeting toil, as I
see many doing, persisting in a pale imitation of industry, as wretched as it is
thankless, to the point of despising themselves. 3 I am telling you here what I tell
myself daily, so I can stop telling myself if you disagree – though you will not
disagree, being as you are a man who is constantly at work on something splen-
did and immortal.
Yours, Pliny

Imagine we wanted to contextualise these hundred-odd words with a commen-

tary. Or rather, to re-contextualise them, since we can hardly suppose that they
are free of context as presented. What (if any) associations does ‘Pliny’ evoke for
you? What are implications of the title Epistles (not, say, Letters)? What expecta-
tions are generated by the (familiar? frigid?) designation ‘9,3’? Not to mention
decisions I took about the text (did Pliny write alius aliud or alius alium?),5

4 Text after Mynors (1963), with minor changes to punctuation. All translations are
mine.
5 Views differ. Aliud is the reading of Mγ, ‘quod Plinium sapit’ to Mynors’ nose. But
there are signs that β (the other branch of the bifid tradition) had alium, as did Sido-
nius Apollinaris’ copy in the fifth century (cf. Sid. Ep. 6,12,1 aliquis aliquem; ego
illum praecipue puto … with Carlsson (1922) 59): lectio facilior, perhaps – but also
potior? To say what every textual critic knows all too well: reception is a matter not
‘just’ of context, but of the text itself.
140 Christopher Whitton

orthography, punctuation, layout, and that most violent intervention of all, a

translation. Our putative commentary will face some pragmatic questions too.
How long will it be? What factors, ideological and aesthetic, will govern our
choice of lemmata? How far should we seek to situate these lines within Book
9, within the Epistles, within Pliny’s output, within ‘high’ imperial literature,
within Roman culture? And how will the individual notes be informed by, and
contribute to a synthetic vision – interpretation – of each of those layers as a
whole? After all, if chopping a text down to multiple lemmata is an act of ‘de-
con-textualization’,6 every fragmentary comment is at the same time situated
in a many-layered interpretative context of its own.
I shan’t attempt here to construct a commentary as such. Admittedly, that
makes it rather easy for me to wallow in the rhetoric of boundlessness, though
it also reduces the risk of crambe repetita.7 It also recognises the difficulty of
excerpting a single letter for comment, not an unthinkable procedure,8 but one
which sets high challenges to the commentator, both intellectual (who could
acquire sufficient expertise on the whole work in the time set aside for a single
article?) and practical: with no ‘general introduction’ or cross-references, a
great deal needs jamming into the notes, not least by way of contextualising the
commentator’s own interpretation(s). Instead, I proceed in three stages. First, a
sample of three published commentaries will illustrate some of the choices that
can be made, and some of the consequences that follow. Then I consider two
contextual dimensions which are ripe for richer exploitation in future commen-
taries on the Epistles: contexture, and intertextuality.
Let’s begin, as many a modern reader would, by looking up our letter in
Sherwin-White.9

6 Kraus (2002) 15, part of an important discussion of ‘segmentation’. One response is

to jettison lemmatisation altogether, though few are comfortable with calling the
product a ‘commentary’ (West (1995–2002) is a rare example): contrast Syndikus
(1984–7), dubbed an ‘Interpretation’, or the hybrid ‘Interpretationskommentar’ of
Gärtner (2015).
7 I have attempted a commentary on another book of the Epistles in Whitton (2013).
Another (on Book 6) is being written by Roy Gibson.
8 As recently shown by Keeline (2013).
9 Sherwin-White (1966) 483. On this landmark of Plinian scholarship see Whitton/
Gibson (2016) 17–18; 38–39.
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 141

3. To Valerius Paulinus
Date not determinable. The recipient should be Valerius Paulinus, the consul of
107, ii. 2 pref., addressed also in Ep. 37. The otium theme is touched lightly in the
first note to him, ii. 2. 2.
1 . n i si p r a e miu m aetern itat is an te o cu lo s , … otium pla c e a t. For the
theme cf. i. 3. 3–4, iii. 7. 14–15, v. 5. 4–7 nn. Pliny is not attributing otium to
Paulinus, or he would have written istud, as in i. 3. 3.
2 . a d v i l i t a t em s u i p erv en ire. The phrase is Senecan, cf. Ep. 121. 24, ‘in
nullo deprehendes vilitatem sui’; De Clem. i. 3. 4.

Here is (one vision of) a very ‘scholarly’ commentary: laconic, austere, highly
selective, divorced from the text.10 The opening comments are tuned firmly to
epistolary realities: what is the date (sc. of the ‘original’ letter), and who the
‘recipient’ (a word which supposes rather more than ‘addressee’)? Sherwin-
White, after all, believed firmly in the ‘authenticity’ of this correspondence.11
The plausible identification of our addressee as Valerius Paulinus, cos. 107 (ar-
gued in ‘ii. 2 pref.’), accordingly adds political and social context; lurking in that
cross-reference is the fact that he has four other letters from Pliny – surely offer-
ing significant context within the collection, though Sherwin-White allows only
a brief check for coherence here (‘The otium theme …’). Then comes an apogee
of telegraphic brevity, in the note on nisi … placeat: ‘For the theme’ (the Latin
is left to speak for itself) ‘cf.’ (that notoriously open invitation to ‘compare’)
notes to three other passages. Follow them up and you will find limited enlight-
enment,12 but the note still serves its purpose, situating Pliny’s affirmation in
terms of his remarks elsewhere – again, in other words, offering internal context
within the Epistles. Next some anonymous knuckles are rapped, as a Fehlinter-
pretation is headed off at the pass (‘Pliny is not …’) – the closest Sherwin-White
comes to offering semantic crutches to students of this letter, or to establishing a
scholarly context.13 Finally, an isolated observation of Senecan tonality (to un-
specified effect) nicely encapsulates both the tralaticiousness integral to the

10 Not included in the volume, as usual in large-scale commentaries in modern Ox-

ford – and in antiquity (references in Budelmann (2002) 143 n. 4).
11 Staunchly defended in his introduction, 11–20.
12 There are no relevant notes at Ep. 1,3,3–4 or 5,5,4–7. On 3,7,14 we are referred ‘for
the theme of studiis proferamus’ to the same letters and to 9,3,3 (sic).
13 Sherwin-White explains his bibliographical parsimony on p. vi: ‘Much bibliogra-
phy of sound but repetitive stuff has been omitted to make the work manageable.
Besides, the study of Pliny has been plagued by amateurs …’
142 Christopher Whitton

genre and Sherwin-White’s own very selective mining of predecessors: a single

parallel (Sen. Ep. 121,24) is silently taken over from an eighteenth-century com-
mentary and buttressed with another, perhaps freshly found,14 to produce the
only hint of a literary-historical or intellectual-cultural context for these lines.
To be sure, my excerption of these notes is misleading, contigent as they are
not just on internal cross-references but on the historical findings and herme-
neutic impulse of the volume as a whole (‘raiders’ beware …). ‘Date not deter-
minable’, for instance, needs taking in the context of Sherwin-White’s impor-
tant chronological deductions, according to which any letter in Epistles 9
should date from ad 106–8.15 Besides, his fierce compression reflects real eco-
nomic constraints as well as personal directions of interest; the scrupulous
reader can extract more than first meets the eye, through chasing up the cross-
references and Senecan parallels; and the light interpretative touch, you might
say, leaves a clear field. But of course it is not a light interpretative touch: in
particular, the silencing of earlier commentators and (thus) the subordination
of literary texture to historical concerns contributes to a very strong vision of
this letter, as of the Epistles (and one with a distinct scholarly context of its
own). That vision has powerfully influenced readers and readings of Pliny, and
still does – for better or for worse (alius aliud).
For a strong contrast we can turn back 460 years to the first printed com-
mentary on the Epistles, produced in Milan by G. M. Cattaneo (Catanaeus) in
1506. Where Sherwin-White omits the text, Catanaeus makes it literally cen-
tral to each double-spread, attended – or ‘enclosed’ – by running notes in a
smaller font, in the graphic expression of symbiotic hierarchy known as textus
inclusus (Fig. 1).16 The text itself differs in several details, reflecting the partial
evidence available to him, and the letter is counted part of ‘liber octavus’, set
between Ep. 9,32 and Ep. 9,4.17 The commentary, too, could hardly be further
in manner and matter from Sherwin-White’s:

14 Or so I speculate. Ep. 121,24 is adduced by Cortius/Longolius (1734), one of the

few commentaries mentioned in Sherwin-White’s front matter. He shows no signs
of knowing Gierig (see below), where he could have found Sen. Cl. 1,3,4 here and
much besides. For ‘tralaticious’ cf. Kraus (2002) 11; Kraus and Stray (2015b) 9.
15 Sherwin-White (1966) 20–65.
16 Inherited from a manuscript layout then standard; cf. Bischoff (1990) 28–29; Budel-
mann (2002) 144–145.
17 Like other early editors, Catanaeus depended on γ MSS, which lack Book 8 and
have Book 9 out of order. This was corrected, along with much else, in his revised
edition of 1518. See Ciapponi (2011) 107; 111–121; Whitton/Gibson (2016) 4–6.
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 143

Alius. He sets immortality and a good and lasting reputation before all things.
Alius. Thinks something else is best.
Praesumptione. Opinion before the event.
Posteritatis. Immortality, because he will live among those who come after.
Nisi primum. Unless among the primary and most important.
Otium. The repose of eternity, in which he can rest for ever.
Mortalitatem. Being forgotten about after death. Legal writers often understand
mortalitas as mors.
Illos. Who pay heed to eternity.
Contendere. Strive towards it with distinguished works.
Hos. Who do not care about living after their own time.
Reniti. To be wearied and worn out by futile things.
Caducis. That will perish with death. He refers to those who expose their life to
so many dangers and labours because of greed, and want to be thought indus-
trious for doing so.
Ingrata imagine. Pointless pretence.
Mortalitatem. Silence after death.
Haec ego. Think.
Quae quotidie mecum. The things that I always reflect on.
Ut desinam mecum. Such, however, that I would stop contemplating such things,
if you have a different view.

A brief argumentum (‘He sets immortality …’) is followed by highly atomised

annotation mostly in the form of glosses, expanding on Pliny’s concision and
clarifying his meaning (with broad success);18 just once usage is illustrated
from elsewhere (‘legal writers …’). Here we see the pedagogical heritage of
the commentary format, and the priorities in the early years of print: basic ex-
plication of Pliny’s Latinity is the primary goal. Historical situation, epistolary
form and the place of this letter in its collection are disregarded. Again, I do
Catanaeus an injustice by making these lines represent the totality of his com-
mentary, which elsewhere includes (for instance) parallels adduced from other
authors, as well as synthesising remarks on Pliny’s life and the prose style of
the Epistles in the introductory material. Still, the contrast with Sherwin-White
is a salutary reminder of how different the proclivities of one commentator
(and age) from another can be.
Finally, let’s consider a third way, the commented edition of G. E. Gierig
(1800–2).19 Here again texts and notes share the page, now (as typically in the

18 Primary exceptions in the notes on nisi primum and otium (not surprisingly given
the textual corruption).
19 Another scholarly milestone; cf. Whitton/Gibson (2016) 11.
144 Christopher Whitton

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) with a vertical expression of hierarchy

(Fig. 2). For sheer length his comments on Epistles 9,3 put him in a different
league from Catanaeus and Sherwin-White – as does the extent of literary con-
textualisation. Space allows me to translate just a sample:

For Paulinus see on 2,2. In the Paris MS and Naples ed. this letter appears after
9,23, whose subject fits well with this one.
1. Elsewhere (6,6,3) Pliny thinks ‘most blessed’ those who, by the gods’ grace,
can both do things worth writing and write things worth reading, whereby cer-
tainly a ‘lasting’ (i.e. eternal, as 6,16,2) ‘reputation’ is prepared. But now some-
thing is added, the praesumptio of that reputation. Now, ‘that man enjoys the
praesumptio of a good reputation’ who can see for certain that his fame will be
eternal, and from that belief has its enjoyment, or advance enjoyment, in life. He
does not only hope that ‘he will have glory’, but already ‘lives with it’. On prae-
sumptio see my note on 2,10,6. posteritas, fame among those who come after.
Tac. Hist. 2,53 posteritatis cura. Then Pliny says uiuere cum gloria, as in Sall.
Jug. 14,15 cum moerore et luctu uitam exigere and in Tac. Ann. 3,16 uiuere cum
pietate. But Cicero, as is his way, was not satisfied with that praesumptio and
wanted to have full enjoyment of that glory in life: he writes to Lucceius, ut et
caeteri uiuentibus nobis ex libris tuis nos cognoscant, et nosmet ipsi uiui gloriola
nostra perfruamur [Fam. 5,12,9]. And that blessed state, beyond even what Pliny
holds best, had been the lot of Verginius, who for thirty years posteritati suae
interfuit, 2,1,2. For pingue and altum otium see on 1,3,2; 7,26,3. That is some-
thing he greatly liked (5,6,45), for all his focus on eternity, but not ‘unending’ –
for that is what he wants here: ‘I would prefer, over the cursus honorum and the
labours of the courts, unending leisure’, i.e. freedom from those things. Although
he owes his aeternitas not to the offices he held, but to the books he wrote in his
otium. He was following the same practice as Cato in Cic. Sen. 23 [i.e. 82]: an
censes me tantos labores diurnos nocturnosque domi militiaeque suscepturum
fuisse, si iisdem finibus gloriam meam, quibus uitam, essem terminaturus? nonne
melius multo fuisset otiosam aetatem et quietam sine ullo labore et contentione
traducere? The reading ac mihi was first found by Modius in his MSS; accepted
by Gruterus and printed by editors since, it has been confirmed by the Medicean
and Vossian MSS. Formerly ac nihil, for which Barthius conjectured cui nihil.

Here is a quite different style of exegesis again. There are no formal lemmata;
instead, a single note for §1, loosely tracking the text (praesumptione – pos-
teritatis – otium) but also arranged partly by topic (text-critical comment is left
for the end), partly for the linear flow of argument. As with Catanaeus, seman-
tic explication plays a part, now more selectively and bolstered with parallels.
As with Sherwin-White, cross-references within Epistles and commentary
serve brevity and establish thematic resonances; the role of epistolarity is con-
fined to identifying the addressee. But Gierig goes much further in situating
these lines within the collection, and in probing for nuance. Ep. 6,6,3, for in-
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 145

stance, provides not just a parallel but a point of contrast: context becomes a
means of differentiation. So too with the broader contextualising in Roman
literary culture. If the parallels for uiuere cum gloria in Sallust and Tacitus at-
test to usage, Cicero’s letter to Lucceius and De senectute serve as comparanda
for content, with difference underlined in the first case (‘But Cicero, as is his
way …’), similarity in the second (‘He was following the same practice as
Cato …’); further instances will follow, with Sallust in §2 and Seneca in §3. In
his commentary as a whole, Gierig rarely posits direct textual influence on
Pliny; in contrast to our modern fascination with intertextuality, it is an intel-
lectual-cultural context that he sets out to construct – though his ear for appo-
site parallels makes his commentary an invaluable resource for intertextual
readers. To my taste the amount of such material, and attention to nuance in
deploying it, makes Gierig’s the richest reading of Pliny’s collection in print –
though I don’t expect you necessarily to agree (alius aliud …). But his opening
remark about Ep. 9,23 also points us towards an element addressed head-on by
none of our three commentators, and one with high stakes for any holistic view
of this work. How are these few lines of Pliny to be contextualised in the run
of the collection? How is a Plinian letter woven into its book, and into the
Epistles writ large?

2. Commentary and contexture

context, n. … 4. a. concr. The whole structure of a continuous passage regarded in

its bearing upon any of the parts which constitute it; the parts which immediately
precede or follow any particular passage or ‘text’ and determine its meaning.20

For all the metaphorical range of the word ‘context’ in everyday and scholarly
usage, its primary meaning, at least for this lexicographical authority, is nar-
rowly concerned with words, and with sequence. The ‘fabric’ of the text is seen
in the interconnectedness of its weave, producing, in the Dictionary’s terms, ‘a
continuous passage’. When, though, is a continuous passage continuous? The
answer comes in the next word, ‘regarded’, which directs us to the inescapable
truth of all comment and interpretation: context, however hard we theorise it,
must (I submit) remain a deeply subjective concept. Pliny’s Epistles is a case

20 Oxford English Dictionary online (accessed March 2016).

146 Christopher Whitton

in point. For commentators over the centuries, the ‘continuous passage’ is co-
extensive with the text we call Epistles 9,3. More recent readers have been
curious to test Pliny’s collection of purportedly jumbled fragments for coher-
ence above and across the unit of a single letter.21 Your own view will reflect,
and help establish, your position on the spectrum from ‘historical’ to ‘fictional’
readings of individual letters, and how much artistry you attribute to Pliny’s
editing of the whole – elegantly studded varietas, to be sure; but are there
traces of grander designs?22 Otherwise put, what ‘contexture’ is to be discerned
in this fabric?
The opening letters of Epistles 9 are a typical medley, but not perhaps an
incoherent one: this is the opening of Pliny’s final book, and closural thoughts
of publication and posterity seem to lie even thicker than usual. Epistles 9,1
urges one Maximus to publish a work in which he defends himself against
Pompeius Planta, regardless of Planta’s recent death. The opening words
(saepe te monui …), it has been noted, precisely invert the first words of Epis-
tles 1,1 (frequenter hortatus es …), the first of many submerged signs that this
ninth book will seal a ring with the first.23 Epistles 9,2 thanks Sabinus for his
insistence that Pliny write frequently and at length, and for the first time makes
explicit a leitmotif of the collection, its self-modelling against Cicero’s let-
ters.24 Epistles 9,4 accompanies a draft of a long speech for Macrinus, which
Macrinus is invited to read as selectively as he likes – advice all too easily
transferred to readers of the Epistles itself?25 Epistles 9,5 addresses Tiro – a
name familiar from Cicero’s last book of letters ad familiares – on the subject
of good provincial governance: a planted prequel to Epistles 10?26 And so on.
Not all these considerations may persuade,27 but here is a heady agglomeration

21 References in Whitton (2013) 11–20.

22 Varietas was the governing principle for Sherwin-White, and has been given new
vitality by Fitzgerald (2016) 84–100. For ‘grander designs’ cf. Whitton (2015).
23 Cf. Bodel (2015) 75.
24 Cf. Gibson/Morello (2012) 97–99; for the extensive bibliography on Pliny’s Cicero-
imitatio see Whitton/Gibson (2016) 27. For some (e.g. Lefèvre (2009) 76–79) Ep.
9,2 is among Pliny’s gloomiest moments; others (e.g. Marchesi (2008) 232; 237)
detect irony.
25 For this metaliterary reading see Gibson/Morello (2012) 240–242.
26 Compare the analogous suggestion of Lefèvre (2009) 170–171 about Ep. 8,24.
27 Tiro risks (inter alia) anachronism, since Fam. may have been arranged as a sixteen-
book set well after Pliny’s day.
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 147

of theme – less in the simple sense (‘subject of the letter’) as on the higher, or
at least more self-conscious, plain of human mortality and literary immortality.
Some would go further. In Epistles 9,2 Pliny disdains the prospect of writ-
ing scholasticae atque umbraticae litterae – like (we might think) those of
Seneca. In Epistles 9,3 he intervenes, with a Senecan tonality some of which
caught even Sherwin-White’s attention, in ethical questions familiar not least
from De brevitate vitae – and in a letter addressed, like that dialogue, to a man
called Paulinus. Is this a form of intertextual bonding between epistles, trian-
gulated through Seneca as model and countermodel?28 Along similar lines,
consider again the naming of Cicero in Epistles 9,2. Does this provide herme-
neutic context for Epistles 9,1, where Pliny cites a Homeric line which also
features in Cicero’s letters to Atticus,29 and/or prompt us to reflect harder on
such Ciceronian elements as Gierig detects in Epistles 9,3?
Not that these letters renounce their fragmentary status. On the contrary, the
potential of the Epistles, like poems of Catullus or Martial, to approach its
subjects (above all the eminent authorial subject) from a range of contrasting,
even contradictory, angles, is one of its defining features as a literary (and au-
tobiographical) work. In Epistles 9,2,1 Pliny complains that he has not been
master of his own time lately: multum distringebar plerumque frigidis negoti-
is, quae simul et auocant animum et comminuunt (‘I was much occupied with
obligations, most of them tedious, which simultaneously distract and diminish
the mind’). In Epistles 9,3,2 he preaches about the foolishness of those who
exert themselves unduly, with no hope of long-term fame: such people ‘should
… not weary a short life with fleeting toil (caducis laboribus, i.e. toils which
will bring fleeting reward) …’ Which do we like to imagine, the Pliny who
plods through his days with frigid industry, or the Pliny who rises above it as
everyman philosopher? (Both, surely.) Context, here, brings as much contra-
diction as resolution.
Let me gesture, too, towards the larger scale of the weave, contexture across
the collection. If Epistles 9,1 responds to Epistles 1,1, so too, John Bodel has
suggested, Epistles 9,2 and 9,3 reply to 1,2 and 1,3 respectively, in each case

28 I combine here elements of Marchesi (2008) 233–236 and Gibson/Morello (2012)

101–102. André (1975) 241 (finding echoes of Brev. elsewhere in Ep.) would cons-
titute relevant context.
29 Hom. Od. 22,412; Cic. Att. 4,7,2: cf. Marchesi (2008) 219. Greek tags from the At-
ticus letters recur too often in the Epistles for accident.
148 Christopher Whitton

with radical modifications.30 There again, Sabinus’ demand in Epistles 9,2 (non
solum plurimas epistulas meas uerum etiam longissimas flagitas) closely
echoes Pliny’s demand to Paulinus in another second letter, Epistles 2,2 (pluri-
mas et longissimas) – the same Paulinus, it seems, who is addressed in Epistles
9,3.31 And if Roy Gibson is right to see in Epistles 9,38 (third from last in Book
9), in which Pliny praises a book by one Rufus, a symmetrical pairing with
Epistles 1,3, in which Pliny urges Caninius Rufus to literary efforts, we might
equally ask if Book 9 itself is spanned by such a symmetrical frame, from Epis-
tles 9,3 to 9,38.32 And so it goes … Sceptics may diagnose overheated imagina-
tions and numerological hocus-pocus; but a commentator who is at least open
to such approaches to the Epistles can, and I think should, offer rather more
pointers towards such ‘contexture’ than former generations cared to do.
These considerations come together in a single echo, or intratext, between
Epistles 1,3 and 9,3. Caninius Rufus is chided by Pliny for not making the most
of his equestrian leisure in distant Comum: ‘Why don’t you hand over petty
and grubby concerns to others (it’s high time!), and reclaim yourself, in that
deep and rich retreat of yours (in alto isto pinguique secessu), for literature?’
(Ep. 1,3,3). At one level, this provides valuable semantic context for the com-
mentator (or any interpreter) hoping to home in on the nuances of pingue illud
altumque otium in Epistles 9,3,1.33 At another, it can be interpreted as allusive
glue: is it chance that not just the theme, but the wording, recurs in these two
third-placed letters?34 But, if it is an invitation to read the letters together, it is
also a challenge. In Epistles 1,3 the ‘rich and deep leisure’ represents the ideal
condition for the studia, literary work, which (Pliny assures Caninius) will
confer eternity on its author. In Epistles 9,3, by contrast, Pliny appears to re-
nounce it as the Epicurean ease of a man who has given up hopes of immortal-
ity: ‘if I did not have the prize of eternity before my eyes, I would choose that
“rich and deep” leisure’. How to account for this difference?

30 Bodel (2015) 75–81.

31 Marchesi (2008) 229–232; Whitton (2013) 84; 87.
32 Cf. Gibson (2015) 186–93, building on recent observations about Ep. 1,1~9,40. Is it
‘just’ curious coincidence that the preceding item, Epistles 9,37, is the other letter
addressed to Paulinus in this book?
33 An invitation explicitly taken up only, among our trio, by Gierig (‘for pingue and
altum otium see on 1,3,2; 7,26,3’).
34 The phraseology otherwise appears only in Ep. 5,6,45, a(nother) highly charged
moment.
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 149

John Bodel finds an answer in the social status of the two addressees.35 Ca-
ninius is an equestrian, free from the rungs, or confines, of the senatorial cur-
sus. Paulinus is shortly to become consul,36 not the sort of man, then (Bodel
surmises), to whom Pliny would profess desires for otium litteratum. It would
follow that Epistles 9,3 exhorts Paulinus (and Pliny himself) to fame through
deeds, not through letters.37 How far Pliny’s letters are tailored to their address-
ees is a large and complex question – with important ramifications for the so-
ciohistorical contextualisation of both author and audience of the published
Epistles. But in this case I might draw different conclusions: to invoke some
further contextual details, Paulinus is characterised elsewhere as a man with
keen interests in studia,38 and the final verb of our letter (meditere) is used ex-
clusively in the Epistles for oratorical and literary composition. Besides, Pliny
is clear elsewhere that the scope for glory through deeds is now restricted to
emperors (or is such synthesis a violence to our fragmentary work?)39 and an-
other, very similar, reflection on ‘posterity vs. the idle life’ concerns literature
(ditto?).40 The choice before him (and Paulinus), then, would seem rather to be
between aeternitas and otium, between contendere eniti and quiescere remit-
ti – in short, between striving for immortality and relaxing. What is excluded
are the futile exertions that will not weigh with posterity, the imago industriae
with which lesser men waste their lives and destroy their self-esteem: namely
… political aspiration? I leave the question open (the privilege of any com-
mentator). What seems clear is that altum otium here – unlike elsewhere in the

35 Bodel (2015) 78–81. For different views see e.g. André (1966) 535–6 and Ludolph
(1997) 128–129, underlining the elasticity of Plinian otium (cf. Ep. 2,2,2 with Whit-
ton (2013) 88–9) in its larger cultural context.
36 Ep. 9,37 concerns his installation as suffect consul.
37 So too Gierig, who also perceived the resulting tension (‘although he owes his ae-
ternitas not to the offices he held, but to the books he wrote in his otium’).
38 Ep. 4,16 (on a glorious day in court, with the injunction 4,16,3 studeamus ergo …),
Ep. 5,19 (the illness of Pliny’s lector) and Ep. 9,3 add up to a fairly clear picture.
39 Ep. 3,7,14 … certe studîs proferamus; for culturally grounded readings of this Plin-
ian theme, see Bütler (1970) 21–27, Ludolph (1997) 60–88, Pausch (2004) 60–65.
The same letter (addressed, by the way, to Caninius Rufus) has just referred to hu-
man mortality as tam angustis terminis (Ep. 3,7,13; cf. 9,2,3 nos quam angustis
terminis claudamur, where it is politically modulated): is Ep. 3,7 thus one further
intertextual bond joining Ep. 9,2–3?
40 Ep. 5,5,4 qui uoluptatibus dediti quasi in diem uiuunt, uiuendi causas cotidie fini-
unt; qui uero posteros cogitant…
150 Christopher Whitton

Epistles – is depreciated, standing not as the prerequisite for studia but as an

exclusive alternative. And what seems clearer still is that any attempt to inter-
pret, to comment on, this short letter depends – for challenges as well as for
resolutions – on the full range of context within and across the Epistles. But the
net should be spread wider than that.

3. Context and intertext

‘Le commentaire est la scène de l’intertextualité mise au jour’41

Whether we want to talk of allusion or of the cultural archive,42 much of the art
of Pliny’s short letter lies in its intertextual depth, much of its meaning depends
on its situatedness in early imperial culture – aspects of context which no com-
mentator, in my view, should be content to pass over. When Pliny writes, eten-
im omnes homines arbitror oportere aut immortalitem suam aut mortalitatem
cogitare, et illos quidem contendere eniti, hos quiescere remitti … (Ep. 9,3,2),
we could hardly not cite Sallust: omnis homines … niti decet ne uitam silentio
transeant … (Cat. 1,1). But should we stop at that? Gierig is typically acute in
his brief remark, ‘severior Nostro est Sallust. …’: where Pliny offers a choice
between enjoying life or building posthumous fame, Sallust insists on the latter
as the only pursuit worthy of man; the choice he weighs up – and which Pliny
so strikingly avoids broaching – is between deeds and writing as the route to
immortality. An enlightening comparandum, then; but this piece of context it-
self demands contextualisation, not least to help us decide where to place it on
a scale from citation to incidental echo: are there signs of Sallustian intertextu-
ality elsewhere in the Epistles, and/or in contemporary literature? What are the
characteristics of Plinian intertextuality more generally? How does ancient
imitatio work? From a practical point of view, of course, I’m straying towards
the absurd, but it doesn’t seem fatuous to recall that every Einzelinterpretation,
every single note in a commentary, rests on, and informs in turn, a string of
larger textual and cultural Gesamtinterpretationen. (To my ear, for what it’s
worth, echoes of the preface to the Catiline stretch from alius aliud at the start

41 Stierle (1990) 21 – a tralaticious citation, of course (cf. Kraus (2002) 22 n. 69).

42 For the latter cf. Baßler 2005; Hinds (1998) 25–34 is a celebrated attempt to inter-
mediate between the two.
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 151

of the letter to clarum aliquid et immortale at its end, amounting to a strong

invitation to read the whole epistle with, or against, that famous opening.)43
Or recall Sherwin-White’s remark on uilitas sui. In fact it is just one of sev-
eral possible Senecan echoes. But the situation is rather different than with
Sallust: it is one thing to recognise in the grand declaration omnes homines ar-
bitror oportere a reworking of the first words of a famous work, another to trace
isolated phrases scattered around Seneca’s dialogues and Ethical Epistles (and
another again to see Paulinus’ name as an allusive pointer to De brevitate).44
Here again we want a broader view of Pliny’s intertextual practices vis-à-vis
Seneca, of Seneca’s place in the Epistles’ complex generic mix.45 Likewise rel-
evant would be signs that Pliny plays on the names of correspondents elsewhere
in the Epistles.46 Alternatively (or simultaneously), a more open-minded ap-
proach to intertextuality, taking us in the direction of the cultural archive, al-
lows for a reading of our letter with or without posited allusions. After all,
Pliny’s opening words frame the letter as nothing less than an intervention in
one of the great questions of philosophy, the definition of happiness (εὐδαιμονία,
beatitudo). A very schematic summary of his contribution, framed against Sal-
lust and Seneca, might look like this: in De brevitate and often, Seneca calls on
us to accept our mortality, to renounce futile pastimes, and to devote ourselves
instead to philosophy; in Epistles 9,3 Pliny invites us either to strive for (Sal-
lustian) immortality or to accept our (Senecan) mortality, in which case we
should renounce futile pastimes, and devote ourselves instead to Epicurean
ease. The substitution of laziness for philosophising fits well enough with the
view of philosophy on display elsewhere in the Epistles (a glimpse there of
another crucial layer of cultural context);47 so too the shift by which, if my

43 Cf. Cat. 2,9 aliud alii (Gibson/Morello (2012) 102–3) and Cat. 1,3 uita … breuis est
(~ Pliny’s breuem uitam, §2) … uirtus clara aeternaque habetur. The preface to
Cat. features prominently in Ep. 5,8 and 6,16,3.
44 Gierig illustrates Pliny’s point with Tranq. 2,7–10 … hinc illud est taedium et displi-
centia sui. On Brev. (above, p. 147) see Marchesi (2008) 235–6, who further reads
pingue illud altumque otium as an allusion to Sen. Ep. 73,10 pingue otium (so al-
ready Ludolph (1997) 62 n. 181; but see also Const. 3,4). By the same token you
might compare Pliny’s final words to Ep. 102,28 altius aliquid sublimiusque medi-
tare. See also Bütler (1970) 21–22 and Glücklich (2003) 31–34, taking an approach
to intertextuality more akin to Gierig’s.
45 A less straightforward question, this; cf. Whitton/Gibson (2016) 38.
46 Cf. Whitton (2013) 67.
47 Cf. André (1975); Griffin (2007).
152 Christopher Whitton

earlier remarks were not awry, Senecan meditation on death becomes the aes-
thetic ‘meditation’ of literary composition (meditere, §3). Which is only to un-
derline (whether or not my reading appeals) that the hermeneutic net for that
phrase uilitas sui needs spreading wide, both within and without the collection.
So too with Cicero. If the prize of eternity were not before him, declares
Pliny, he would prefer otium (§1). Gierig (we saw) drew an analogy with the
Cato of Cicero’s De senectute, who declares near the end that he would have
preferred otiosam aetatem et quietam if he thought his glory would die with
him; ‘but … my mind was constantly looking towards posterity’ (82). Should
we adduce this as a parallel, a source, an allusive target? Views may differ, and
a safe solution would be the much maligned but usefully open ‘cf.’, drawing
attention to the analogy without attempting to steer interpretation.48 But read-
ers would be well served, again, by some further context: for instance, that the
Elder Cato is a figure with whom Cicero identified particularly closely,49 as
Pliny insistently models himself on Cicero; that the comments in De senectute
are framed as proof of the soul’s immortality;50 that ‘Cato’s choice’ also fea-
tures prominently in the preface to De republica, as a counterargument to the
Epicurean doctrine of withdrawal;51 that the theme of ‘virtue over ease’ has a
long pedigree in antiquity, stretching back across Prodicus’ myth of ‘Heracles
at the crossroads’ to Hesiod’s Works and Days.52 How (if at all) each of these
factors should inform an interpretation of Pliny’s words is another series of
questions, contingent not least on how committed we are to one-on-one inter-
textual mapping, how far we prefer to situate Pliny more broadly within an-
cient ethics (it would be helpful, too, to know how often he appears to engage
with Cicero’s dialogues, and these ones in particular).53 Certainly, there is

48 Cf. Goldhill (1999) 397 (‘The ‘cf’ is in many ways the grounding problem of the
commentary format …’); also Gibson (2002) and Kraus (2002) 20–22.
49 Cf. Powell (1988) 16–19.
50 As at Tusc. 1,32–34.
51 Rep. 1,1–13, esp. 1,2–3 (Cato preferred his undis et tempestatibus … iactari over in
illa tranquillitate atque otio iucundissime uiuere) and 1,7,4 (Cicero’s matching
choice).
52 Prodicus as relayed by X. Mem. 2,21–34; Hes. Op. 286–292. Heracles is brought
into play here by Trisoglio (1973) ad loc.
53 Marchesi (2008) 252–257 gathers some modern suggestions, of variable quality and
leaving (e.g.) Gierig out of consideration; for all the current interest in Pliny and
Cicero, much work remains to be done on the detail. For Book 2 see Whitton (2013)
index s.v. ‘Cicero, treatises’.
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 153

abundant scope for nuance: we might contrast, for instance, Prodicus’ advo-
cacy of virtue as an absolute good with the implication, common to De senec-
tute and Epistles 9,3, that it is only the prospect of posthumous fame that mo-
tivates us, the immortality of the soul in Cicero with the much milder idea of
immortality through repute in Pliny,54 or Pliny’s professedly relaxed view of
those who prefer to live the idle life with the stringent attack in De republica
(each with its own argumentative context).55 It may also be pertinent that our
passages of De senectute and De republica frame otium pejoratively as selfish
Epicureanism:56 might this intertextual consideration give us further traction
on the problem we met earlier, Pliny’s apparent change of attitude to pingue
illud altumque otium? His curious reticence about quite how he and Rufus
should be striving for immortality, too, might take on a different aspect when
seen in the light of Cicero’s emphasis on the patriotism of statesmanship (and
with the laments of Ep. 9,2 still fresh in our ears).
Sallust, Seneca, Cicero, fundamental questions of imperial aristocratic eth-
ics – our brief letter demands quite some textual and cultural contextualising.
Nor is that all. Towards the end of his Institutio oratoria Quintilian briefly
paints a portrait of his ideal orator in retirement, ending with a stirring vision
of immortality beyond (Inst. 12,11,7):

Ac nescio an eum tum beatissimum credi oporteat fore cum iam secretus et con-
secratus, liber inuidia, procul contentionibus famam in tuto collocarit et sentiet
uiuus eam quae post fata praestari magis solet uenerationem et quid apud poste-
ros futurus sit uidebit.

And I rather think that he should be expected to be most blessed when finally,
retired and sanctified, free from envy, far from disputes, he has guaranteed his
fame and perceives in his lifetime the veneration that is more often granted after
death, and sees what he will be among posterity.

When Pliny begins his letter alius aliud, ego beatissimum existimo, qui bonae
mansuraeque famae praesumptione perfruitur, certusque posteritatis cum fu-
tura gloria uiuit, he adapts theme, language and sentence-structure from Quin-
tilian. ‘In my view,’ says Quintilian, ‘the orator is most blessed (beatissimum)
when he enjoys posthumous fame in his lifetime.’ ‘In my view,’ says Pliny,

54 Cf. André (1975) 242–243.

55 ‘Professedly relaxed’: cf. Ep. 5,5,4, quoted above (n. 40).
56 See Zetzel (1995) 96–97 for a model summary of this massive topic.
154 Christopher Whitton

‘most blessed (beatissimum) is the man who enjoys posthumous fame in his
lifetime.’ Inspection of formal details makes the appropriation clear.57 Once
again, a broader intertextual picture will be helpful, not least because few
scholars are inclined to believe that Pliny engages with Quintilian’s text, still
less agreed on how it might be evaluated.58 Might we, for instance, read the
choice of Quintilian’s final pages here as one more marker of closure in this
opening parade of Pliny’s last book? Does Pliny here, as on several other occa-
sions, read through Quintilian in a form of ‘window allusion’?
Let me pursue that last thought, and grope one last time towards the bound-
aries of context. Like R. G. Austin, Pliny surely recognised that Quintilian’s
‘rather touching picture’ of terminal distinction shows him ‘thinking of what
Cicero might have been had he lived to enjoy his retirement’.59 Whether he also
suspected, as I do, that Quintilian was thinking quite specifically of the preface
to the Brutus, is harder to say.60 But there may be traces of (yet) another famous
passage. For all the Quintilianic texture of Pliny’s opening sentence, there is
also a strong dose of the famous letter to Lucceius (Fam. 5,12).61 Cicero makes
an apt alibi for Pliny’s ambitions of immortality: ‘it is not just the remem-
brance of posterity and a hope, so to say, of immortality that fires me up …’
(Fam. 5,12,1). But he also produces a distinctive conceit, anxious as he is both
that others read about him soon ‘and that I for my part can have full enjoyment
of my glory, such as it is, in my own lifetime’ (… et nosmet ipsi uiui gloriola
nostra perfruamur, Fam. 5,12,9).62 Does the resemblance to Pliny’s opening
sentence and especially its epigram (Ep. 9,3,1 … perfruitur … certusque
posteritatis cum futura gloria uiuit) come about by chance? Gierig acutely
distinguished Cicero’s hopes of glory in his lifetime from Pliny’s more modest
talk of famae praesumptio. True; but that modesty slips in his epigram, which

57 Mostly obviously in the closing epigrams (Q. et quid … uidebit ~ P. certusque …

uiuit).
58 The Institutio may in fact be unrivalled as a point of intertextual reference in the
Epistles, as I argue in a forthcoming book (where substantiation of my remarks here
will also be found).
59 Austin (1948) 219. Cicero is the explicit focus of the preceding lines (Inst.
12,11,4–6).
60 Brut. 8–9 (esp. itaque ei mihi uidentur fortunate beateque uixisse …).
61 On which Pliny had modelled Ep. 7,33 (e.g. Marchesi (2008) 221–223).
62 This last passage cited, we saw, by Gierig. Cf. also Fam. 5,12,1 auctoritate testi-
moni tui … uiui perfruamur: the key terms frame the letter.
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 155

we might now try identifying as an ingeniously paradoxical combination of

Cicero’s desire (glory now, in life) with Quintilian’s historical vantage point
(glory would follow, for Cicero, only after death). Here, if so, is a particularly
opaque ‘window’, as Pliny responds to Quintilian’s implicit comment on Ci-
cero’s reputation (written with reference, I suggested, to the Brutus) by recall-
ing Cicero’s comments on his own reputation somewhere else altogether. A
fantasy of overdetermined intertextuality? Certainly such reasoning risks get-
ting unduly tied up in one corner of the cultural archive, to the neglect of the
files all around. But it also illustrates how multi-layered ‘context’ can turn out
to be, if we are only prepared to pursue it beyond the superfice. And that’s be-
fore we even start with reception.63
As promised, I have largely skirted around pragmatic issues of presentation
(just how would a manageable note on alius aliud look?) and strayed too far,
perhaps, towards maximalism (a bad case of horror vacui, some may think).
My argument, too, has (of course) been narrowly focused on a few lines of a
single work, the product of its own scholarly context and idiosyncrasies. But,
besides underlining the crying need for a modern commentary that does justice
to the complex contexture, intertextual depth and cultural situatedness of
Pliny’s Epistles, I hope it has raised some ‘transferable’ questions too, about
the breadth of context that is desirable in a commentary (as in any interpreta-
tion), about the many dimensions of context that may be involved, and about
the challenges facing any commentator who seeks ‘simply’ to contextualise the
words of an ancient author. As for answers – well, alius aliud.64

63 For some ancient reception see n. 5. For modern reception, circumspice.

64 This chapter derives from a paper given at Potsdam University in December 2015,
a displaced substitute for participation at the Text, Kontext, Kontextualisierung con-
ference. Warm thanks to my hosts then and editors now.
156 Christopher Whitton

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Figures:

Fig. 1: Catanaeus (1506), CXXXVIII recto. Photograph by Kathryn McKee.

By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge.
 Alius aliud: context, commentary and Pliny (Epistles 9,3) 159

Fig. 2: Gierig (1800–1802) 2,286–287. Photograph by Michael Squire.