Pliny's Praise: The Panegyricus in the Roman World

Paul Roche

may 2011 · Cambridge University Press

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Pliny's Panegyricus (AD 100) survives as a unique example of senatorial rhetoric from the early Roman Empire. It offers an eyewitness account of the last years of Domitian's principate, the reign of Nerva and Trajan's early years, and it communicates a detailed senatorial view on the behaviour expected of an emperor. It is an important document in the development of the ideals of imperial leadership, but it also contributes greatly to our understanding of imperial political culture more generally. This volume, the first ever devoted to the Panegyricus, contains expert studies of its key historical and rhetorical contexts, as well as important critical approaches to the published version of the speech and its influence in antiquity. It offers scholars of Roman history, literature and rhetoric an up-to-date overview of key approaches to the speech, and students and interested readers an authoritative introduction to this vital and under-appreciated speech.

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Paul Roche is Senior Lecturer in Latin at the University of Sydney. He has published a number of articles and chapters on the literature and history of the early Roman Empire, and has a particular focus on politics and public imagery in Domitianic and Trajanic Rome. He is the author of Lucan, De Bello Civili Book 1: A Commentary (2009) and the editor (with W. J. Dominik and J. G. Garthwaite) of Writing Politics in Imperial Rome (2009).