PLINY AND TRAJAN.*
MR. HARDY'S school edition of Juvenal was a meritorious and useful piece of work ; but the volume now before us is alto- gether on a higher level. It is a serious contribution to
classical knowledge, giving as it does a satisfactory treatment to a subject of very considerable importance. The Trajan letters of Pliny necessarily lack much of the literary charm that belongs to the rest of his correspondence, but they are far superior in solid interest. Indeed, they are unique. If they remind us of Cicero's Cilician epistles, it is to suggest a decided 'contrast. Pliny's letters are emphatically the letters of an administrator and practical man of business, and give the modern reader a knowledge of affairs in the province far beyond anything that is to be got out of Cicero.
Mr. Hardy has an excellent account, in his introduction, of Rome's government of her provinces. Under the Republic it had been almost uniformly bad. The Empire brought a great change for the better. The provinces were no longer so much plunder to be shared out among eminent or notorious politicians, who gave and received their vices impunitatis. They were, on the higher theory, the charge, and on the lower, the property of a ruler, whose duty, or, to say the least, whose interest it was that they should not be wronged. Of course, an Emperor might be careless, and he might be deceived. But it was to his gain that the provincials should not be oppressed ; and on the whole, they got the benefit of this change, while they had the advantage of being out of the way of his personal caprices. The evils of the old system remained chiefly in those provinces that were left to the jurisdiction of the Senate. Bithynia had suffered in this way. In A.D. 103, and again in 106, the Bithynian Pro-Consul was accused after the expiration of his term of office. Pliny was sent to set things right. He represented the Emperor, but the Senate sanctioned his mission ; and though he had the inferior title of Proprmtor, he was put on an equality with the Senatorial Governors by being invested with potestas consularis.
Mr. Hardy thinks that the special circumstances under which Pliny went out make it impossible to judge of Trojan's general way of dealing with the provinces from the details given in this correspondence. A reader is certainly struck by the thought that if the Emperor kept in his own hands all the matters which the Bithynian Governor refers to him, he must have been simply overpowered by business. Then comes the question,—who attended to all these matters when the man who kept all the strings in his hands was away ? The bureaucrat must be always in his bureau. But Trojan was absent from Rome nearly half his reign. Indeed, he left the city at the end of 113, and did not see it again before his death, nearly four years afterwards.
It is quite possible that Pliny's responsibility was limited not only by the terms of his commission, but by his own temperament. We can see that he was wanting in decision, and his Imperial correspondent hints as tpuch in his answer to Letter 39 (48), when he remonstrates against the request for an architect to be sent from Rome. " You can't be without architects," he writes ; " every province has skilful and clever men of this sort ; and you must not suppose that you can get them most quickly from Rome, since we have to send to Greece for them." This was certainly a courteous rebuke.
One thing is abundantly clear from the correspondence, whether there was anything exceptional in the case of Bithynia or no,—that there was nothing like " Home-rule " in the Roman Empire. It would be too much to say that there was no local government ; but what there was, was restrained within very narrow limits, and could always be overridden by considerations of Imperial necessity. One of the most curious instances of this is to be found in Epp. 33-34 (42-43). There had been a great fire
• C. Plinii Cieeilii Secundi Epistule ad Traianum Intperatorcm, cunt Eiusdem Responsis. Edited, with Notes and Introductory Essays, by E. G. Hardy, M.A. London ; Macmillan and Co. 1888. in Nicomedia ; no fire-engines or buckets were at hand ; the spectators would not help. Consequently, a great part of the city had been burnt. Pliny, probably at the suggestion of the Nicomedians, makes the modest request that a fire-brigade, which was not to exceed more than a hundred and fifty in number, might be provided. But the Emperor will have none of it. The city had been disturbed by factions, and the brigade would be certain to become a political club. The landlords of the city must take precautions to preserve their property, and if a fire should breakout, employ thepeople to put it out (uti adcursu populi). He does not condescend to explain how they were to be made to work. Ireland, though not without factions, and though its associations have certainly a tendency to become political, is yet allowed to have fire-brigades. Even when a "free and confederate" city—there were only two in the whole province—wished to institute a benefit club, it could only do so by virtue of an express provision in the treaty which defined its relations to Rome. In all other States such clubs were absolutely forbidden. Local Senates there were, but their function was financial rather than political, and was at least as much a burthen as an honour. Already we hear of men appointed to the office against their will, while we get hints of the methods, afterwards so ingeniously developed, of making this office an engine of oppression. Pliny, for instance, though quite a kindly disposed man, does not scruple to sug- gest that the local Senators should be compelled to borrow money which there was a difficulty in investing at good interest. One is glad to find Trajan putting his foot down emphatically. " To compel men to borrow against their will what perhaps will have to lie idle in their hands, does not suit our idea of justice."
A vast number of curious details of life come to the surface in this correspondence, and present interesting analogies and contrasts to modern ways. Testimonials, for instance, are now somewhat of a nuisance. They seem to have prevailed to an equally objectionable extent in Bithynia. But there they commonly took the form of complimentary statues. Busts and portraits are modern expressions of this sort of flattery, and they have the advantage of being less cumbrous. We hear of a certain Archippus, who seems at least to have been a dubious character—for one of the Pro-Consuls had condemned him to penal servitude for life—yet his native town of Prusa had erected to him not only one but several statues ; and now—so strangely does history repeat itself—he would be made life- member of a club, or be presented with the freedom of a city. The political character of Roman religion, to turn to another subject, comes out in two letters from Trajan which Mr. Hardy very suggestively compares. The dedication of a piece of ground to the Deified Claudius was irrevocable ; but a temple of Cybele, the most venerable of Greco-Asiatic deities, could be transferred without scruple from one spot to another. " The soil of a foreign State does not admit of dedication according to our laws."
Of course, the most interesting letters in the collection are those that refer to the Christians. Mr. Hardy declines to deal with the question of their authenticity, but evidently believes that there is no good reason for questioning it. But he has some remarks that deserve careful consideration on the question, opened up by them, of the early persecutions of the adherents of Christianity. That attributed to Nero as taking place after the Great Fire of Rome, and described in a famous passage by Tacitus, he is disposed to consider as an extensive " Jew-baiting," into which Tacitus, writing late in Trojan's reign, read, so to speak, the more detailed knowledge of a later time. It must be remembered, however, that Tacitus was a contemporary witness. We do not know the exact date of his birth, but he must have had an intelligent recollection of events which happened in A.D. 64.
Mr. Hardy's commentary is ample and clear, while it is furnished with explanations and illustrations drawn from wide reading. Both in his choice of a subject and in his treatment of it, he has gone beyond the too narrow range to which English scholars commonly limit themselves.
Previous page
