I argue that the prologue of Tacitus' Agricola is at pains to maintain for the work the option to be important or to be inconsequential. The goal of this effort is to anticipate a spectrum of possible receptions: if the work is welcomed by its audiences, it can serve as the first step in a prestigious literary career; if it meets with indifference or hostility, Tacitus' already-existing social self can find protection behind the claims to limited importance. In the first (...) section, I describe the rhetorical strategies through which Tacitus advances this doubled set of claims. In the second, I discuss Agricola's relationship to Sallust's monographs and adduce for comparison Pliny the Younger's career as a Catullan poet; I show that claims to write after the manner of a canonical author directly serve the aim of “keeping options open.”. (shrink)

In Letter 5.8 Pliny shows that in the post-Domitianic era historia has become an impossible genre, both as a vehicle for conventional moral wisdom and because of the authoritative narrative voice it necessitates. The letter's literary strategies of deferral express these problems even as its content appears to argue positively the merits of historia and compare it with those of oratio. Pliny emphasizes the insufficiency of the narrative “I”, suggesting instead the importance of dialogue as the means both toward the (...) ethical reconstruction of post-tyrannical discourse and the literary fame for which Pliny also hopes. (shrink)

This paper will examine intertextual references between the Dialogus of Tacitus and the letters of Pliny, in particular those regarding boar hunting. It will argue that there are clues in the letters of Pliny which can help us to understand the relationship between these two writers as well as the tone and purpose of the Dialogus. By studying Pliny's letters to Tacitus on hunting , one can see the specific reference to boars as an allusion to Marcus Aper, the chief (...) spokesperson for contemporary eloquence in the dialogue, indicating a degree of humor and irony in the Dialogus that is further displayed by the similarity of Pliny's opening exhortation in Epistle 1.6, ridebis et licet rideas, to the final words of the Dialogus, cum adrisissent, discessimus. Moreover, the dialogue between Pliny and Tacitus in Pliny's letters can be seen as an indication that the Dialogus itself may have been revised throughout the years, thus problematizing the debate about the “publication date” of the Dialogus. (shrink)