The Publication of Pliny’s Letters

Abstract

This chapter considers the interrelated questions of the mode and sequence of publication of Pliny’s letters and argues that signs of artistic arrangement within and among the individual books point to both the original groupings and to Pliny’s broader literary goals. It employs two types of arguments not previously brought to bear on the issue: literary critical arguments focused on significantly placed thematic and verbal correspondences evoking intertextually poignant analogues for Pliny’s literary aspirations, and philological/cultural-historical arguments centring on the form in which Pliny’s books have come down to us and the various contemporary modes of publication of short collections of miscellaneous occasional works. A brief conclusion puts forward a summary hypothesis of the most probable sequence of publication of the nine books of private letters but places less weight on details of the proposed reconstruction than on the implications of its methodology for Pliny’s aims as a literary artist.

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