VOL. XII

GREEK IN PLINY'S LETTERS

In Pliny's Laurentian villa there was a pleasant room where the sun shone all day through a great bay window (2.17.8). He had built in the wall a little book case, which, he says, non legendos libros, sed lectitandos capit. He does not give a list of these books. References and quotations in his letters, however, allow a fairly confident conjecture of some of his favorite reading, and we know that it included some Greek. It is my purpose to gather from Pliny's correspondence whatever can be learned of his interest in Greek literature and about his knowledge of the Greek language. The Letters justify a few positive assertions of Pliny's interest in certain Greek authors. But the meagerness of his references to Greek literature must lead us to discount inferences from his silence. With this preliminary warning I shall venture to call attention to some of these omissions as well as to Pliny's praise and quotation of the Greek poets and orators.

When Pliny lived, the great age of Greece lay almost as far from the Romans as the age of Dante lies from us. Yet Greek was still the popular and the literary language of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, and in Rome it was traditionally associated with the higher intellectual interests and the arts, with philosophy, oratory, and poetry. The tradition is illustrated by the Imperial patronage of Greek studies. Instances of this are conveniently collected in Mayor's note on Juvenal 15.110: Suetonius relates that Tiberius liked to puzzle his guests with pedantic memory-questions on Greek poetry and mythology (Tib. 70), that Caligula offered prizes for Greek oratory as well as Latin, in the provincal town of Lyons (Calig. 20), that a similar competition was instituted in Rome by Domitian (Dom. 4), and that Vespasian provided for the support of both Greek and Latin rhetoricians at public expense (Vesp. 8). The philhellenism of Hadrian is well known, and has left its visible monuments in the columns of the Olympieum at Athens and in the treasures of sculpture with which the Villa at Tivoli has enriched the museums of Europe. Marcus Aurelius chose to record his Meditations in Greek as the language of philosophy, although it was in his time that Pausanias was writing a guide to Greece whose very antiquarian sentiment sadly implies the decay of Hellenic civilization on its original soil. The consideration and almost filial forbearance which educated Romans showed towards Greece in her childish and petulant decline are reflected in Pliny's letter to Maximus (8.24), who

No. 6

had been appointed by the Emperor to carry out certain reforms in Achaia.

Pliny describes two of the numerous Greek rhetoricians who lectured in Rome: Euphrates the Syrian, an old friend of his (1.19), and a certain Isaeus (2.3). But better evidence of the diffusion of Greek culture in that part of Roman society with which Pliny was most intimately connected may be found in the number of persons to whom he addresses letters containing some Greek word, quotation, or allusion supposably to be understood and appreciated by his correspondent. I have counted thirty-seven. One is the Emperor Trajan. Thirteen are known to have been men of senatorial rank, the kind of persons whom Pliny met on most nearly equal terms. These include such men as Calestrius Tiro (6.22); Vestricius Spurinna (5.17), to whom Pliny writes with enthusiasm of a public reading by a young patrician, Calpurnius Piso; and Fuscus Salinator (7.9), a young friend who asks Pliny's advice on the conduct of his studies in the country. Others are men of letters, or men of distinctly literary interests, but of less distinguished social and official position than Pliny. Among these are Suetonius (1.18); Julius Genitor (7.30), a rhetorician who was recommended by Pliny to Corellia as a tutor for her son; and Caninius, who attempted an epic on the Dacian Wars (3.7; 8.4). Two are marked both by high rank and by literary interests: Arrius Antoninus (4.3; 4.18), whose Greek epigrams Pliny admired so much that he tried to imitate them in Latin, and, more important than any of the others, Cornelius Tacitus (1.20). Some are known to have been lawyers who pleaded cases before the courts, and as such had a certain community of interests with Pliny. Among these are Fuscus Salinator (7.9; 9.36), whom Pliny counsels in the matter of literary exercises, and Ummidius Quadratus (7.13), both young patricians whose appearance on opposing sides before the prefect of the city delighted Pliny (6.11). Other such advocati to whom Pliny writes with Greek references are Cornelius Minicianus (4.11) and Voconius Romanus (6.33), to whom he sends a copy of his speech for Attia Variola. Without trying to complete the list, we may note that three such letters are sent to Pliny's old friend and neighbor at Como, Calvisius (2.20; 3.1; 8.2) and four to Maximus (2.14; 8.24; 9.1; 9.23), whom Trajan sent out to regulate the condition of Achaia.

It may be remarked that there is no Greek in any of Pliny's letters to women: whether because the subjects did not suggest Greek words or allusions, or because Roman ladies were not generally expected to understand the language. In a popular handbook on Roman education' it is stated that the daughter of Fundanus knew Greek; but I can find no ground for this assertion in the letter in which Pliny laments her untimely death (5.16). Sallust tells of one woman of rank who was skilled in Greek-Sempronia, the wife of Decimus Junius Brutus (Catilina 25), but it may be inferred from this reference that in Republican times, at least, such knowledge was uncommon among Roman ladies.

Of the fifty-five letters containing Greek references twenty-two may be classified as literary letters. They are devoted to such subjects as (1) Pliny's own compositions, in oratory (4.5.1, to Sparsus; 7.30, to Julius Genitor), or in poetry (7.4, to Pontius Allifanus); (2) the works of Pliny's friends-Arrius Antoninus's Greek epigrams (4.3), or Caninius's epic on the Dacian Wars (8.4); (3) public readings and lectures by Pliny's friends, as the reading of Calpurnius Piso (5.17, to Spurinna), and that of Serius Augurinus (4.27, to Pompeius Falco), or the oratory of Isaeus, the rhetorician (2.3, to Metilius Nepos); (4) the theory of oratory (1.20, to Tacitus; 9.26, to Lupercus); (5) literary exercises, e.g. the letter of advice to Fuscus (7.9).

It is natural that Pliny should quote Greek in writing on these topics. But we shall also find occasional quotations or isolated Greek words in other letters on the most varied themes: in the anecdotes about Regulus, for instance (2.20.12, to Calvisius), or in his description of his own prosecution of Publius Cestus in the interest of Arria and Fannia (9.13.20, to Quadratus), or his refusal to appear against the Baetici (1.7.1,4, to Octavius Rufus).

The letter to Maximus on his appointment to a commission in Greece is Pliny's most direct expression of reverence for the country which had bequeathed its humanitas and its litterae to Rome (8.24). But there are incidental remarks and allusions which reflect the same feeling a feeling which must be regarded not as a special and individual characteristic of Pliny, but rather as belonging to the atmosphere of educated society in Rome.

Thus, writing of Spurinna's literary diversions in old age (3.1.7), he says, scribit enim, et quidem utraque lingua, lyrica doctissime. This tacit recognition of only one language besides Latin is also found in Horace, Carm. 3.8.5, and in Quintilian I. Prooem. I.

There is a pleasant letter telling of a visit to a country gentleman whose mental horizon Pliny had supposed to be determined by the interests of his farm and household (7.25). Pliny was unexpectedly entertained doctissimo sermone, and writes

'How terse all his talk! how Latin, how Greek! For he has such ability in both languages that he seems to excel in the one he is speaking most. You would suppose the man lived in Athens, not in a country place'.

A. S. Wilkins, Roman Education, 42.

Some of Pliny's friends tried to write Greek verse. Arrius composed epigrams (4.3), Caninius an epic (8.4). Pliny approves of Caninius's attempt, and is enthusiastic over the success of Arrius: 'A Roman speaking in such Greek phrase! Why, I should say Athens itself is not so Attic'. A little later he writes to Arrius that he has been trying to imitate the epigrams in Latin, and perhaps quoting Lucretius 1.140 excuses his possible failure on the ground egestate patrii sermonis.

Describing to Fuscus his daily programme at the Tuscan villa, Pliny says (9.36.3), 'I read aloud, distinctly and carefully, a Greek or a Latin oration'. To the same young man he had already sent advice on studies in the country (7.9.1-2):

'It is especially profitable, and advised by many, to translate either from Greek into Latin or from Latin into Greek: by this sort of exercise precision and brilliancy of diction, wealth of figures, and vigor of 1 exposition are secured, and, moreover, through imitation of the best models, a facility in attaining similar excellences; matters, too, that would have escaped the reader cannot escape the translator. Intelligence and judgment are developed by this practice'.

A considerable number of isolated Greek words and phrases, apart from quotations, is to be found in Pliny's letters, though he does not scatter them with so free a hand as Cicero does in his letters to Atticus. Some of these words are rare one or two are not discoverable in Liddell and Scott, at any rate. In the lack of evidence for the usage of some it has been difficult to classify them. I have attempted a division into four groups: (1) technical words and phrases; (2) words which, while not precisely technical, seem to have connoted something which could not be conveniently expressed in Latin: (3) slang words; (4) Greek words used where Latin would do as well. The boundaries dividing these groups are not always clear.

(1) The technical terms are few. Two are used in the description of Isaeus's oratory (2.3.3). These are (a) ἐνθυμήματα, which Quintilian (5.14.2) describes as a sort of abbreviated syllogism: presumably Pliny uses the word in the same tense2; (b) ἕξις, which Quintilian (10.1.1) defines as an indispensable prima facilitas-the ease and readiness which perfect command of one's own resources gives. Pliny must have heard both these terms in Quintilian's lecture-room.

Another word which has a technical application in rhetoric is κεφάλαιον. Pliny mentions a private hearing of the case of Bruttianus against Atticinus (6.22.2), where both spoke briefly, carptim et κατὰ κεφάλαιον, taking up each point briefly and reviewing only the main heads of the argument. Quintilian (3.11.27) quotes the word from Menander, and gives the Latin equivalent, caput rei.

The word λήκυθοι (1.2.4) which Pliny quotes from Cicero, Ad Att. 1.14.3 has hardly the dignity of a

On the changes of meaning which this word underwent in the usage of Greek writers from Aristotle on, see Roberts's Dionysius of Halicarnassus, The Three Literary Letters, 190.