Th is paper argues that the character of Curiatius Maternus in Tacitus' Dialogus de Oratoribus is consistent throughout the dialogue in his attitude to the imperial regime. Maternus begins the dialogue in outright dissent, while in the second half he appears to be an apologist for the regime. Accepting the ironic reading of Maternus' concluding speech, this paper asserts that Maternus shifts to fi gured speech in reaction to M. Aper, who expresses solidarity with the political values and rhetorical style of the delatores, and Vipstanus Messalla, the half-brother of the delator M. Aquilius Regulus. Confronted with such individuals, Maternus recognizes he must change the tenor of his language. Th us, his concluding speech is ironic critique consistent with his earlier dissent.
Pliny's portrayal of his public life under Domitian has often come under fire from both those who approach Pliny's Letters from a historical perspective and those who study them as a literary production. This article reevaluates Pliny's experiences in five significant areas: public speaking, amicitia, political promotion, threats of political persecution, and survival and reconciliation. In all of these circumstances, Pliny is found to be an honest narrator of his own political struggles under Domitian and an eloquent voice for his generation's endurance.
‘He is always enthusiastic, almost invariably cheerful, and amiable, and quite correct. One can well imagine how a sunny-tempered man of elegant tastes and universal humanity must have won easily the regard of a great number of friends’; so E. T. Merrill wrote of Pliny over a century ago. Such sentiments on the ebullient style and sunny personality of Pliny have perdured for decades, even up to the present. And why not? A reputation for optimism and even naiveté should not be so easily overcome for one who admits to a weakness for praising his friends too excessively (Ep. 7.28) and writes an entire letter for the sole purpose of demonstrating his unwillingness to say anything negative about someone (8.22.4). The Panegyricus, with its periods of fulsome praise and hopefulness, presents no reason to alter Pliny's image as a cheerful optimist.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.