This book provides a new understanding of Pliny's letters by combining historical analysis of the social pressures that shape Pliny's authorial pose with close literary analysis of the letters themselves. It demonstrates how ruling-class ideology is disseminated and how it shapes the literary persona and personal identity of a ruling-class member. The powerful heuristic tool of examining the interplay between confidence and anxieties in the letters will help restore Pliny's relatively neglected masterpiece to a more prominent place in undergraduate Latin and Roman Civilization courses.

Introduction: The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger

1

(14)

The First Book: Introduction and Epitome

3

(2)

The Ideal Emperor and the Ideal Senator

5

(5)

Friendship and Exchange: The ``Virtuous Circle''

10

(3)

Ideology and Literary Style

13

(2)

No Regrets? Literary and Political Programmatic Elements in 1.1

15

(14)

Literary Favors and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

17

(12)

Villas: Factories of Literature (1.3)

29

(16)

Utopias in the Villa Description

31

(7)

Representations of Literary Value

38

(2)

Literary Value and Immortality

40

(3)

The Internal Friendly Cycle of the Self

43

(2)

The Material Conditions of Life: New and Old Slaves (1.4, 1.21)

45

(10)

Letter 1.21: Judging New Slaves With Eyes and Ears

45

(5)

Letter 1.4: Mild Masters and Slaves Waking Up

50

(5)

Models of Senators and Emperors: Regulus, the Bad Senator (1.5)

55

(38)

Regulus: The ``Eloquence'' of the Collaborator

64

(12)

Spurinna: Communications Among Good Senators

76

(7)

The Meeting with Regulus: Satisfied with Our Era?

83

(10)

Pliny's Three Children (1.8)

93

(18)

The Directions of Pliny's Anxieties: Downwards, Sideways, and Upwards

97

(7)

Containing the Rhetoric of Blame

104

(1)

Bitter Medicine for Raising Children

105

(6)

Literary Leisure in the Life of Politics (1.9)

111

(8)

Pliny's Tame Philosopher (1.10)

119

(22)

Praising the Tame Philosopher

126

(15)

The Death of Corellius: Pain and Loss, Consolation and Gain (1.12)

141

(20)

The Philosophical Reckoning of Grief and Loss

145

(7)

The Two Sickbed Scenes

152

(5)

A Great New Consolation

157

(4)

The New Freedom of Speech, along with the Freedom Not to Listen (1.13)

161

(16)

Producing the Next Deserving Generation of the Ruling Class (1.14)

177

(18)

Creating Imperial Meaning out of Republican Forms (1.23)

195

(16)

Establishing Friendly Ties and Hierarchies: Suetonius (1.18, 1.24)

211

(16)

Letter 1.18: Pliny's Dream: Bravery under the Prior Regime

211

(10)

Letter 1.24: No Regrets: Real Estate and the Circulation of Symbolic Capital

221

(6)

Conclusion: A Personal Note

227

(2)

Appendix: Marriage and Child-rearing among the Roman Elite

229

(6)

Bibliography

235

(6)

Index

241

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The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger

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