Ryan Pasco (Boston University)
In his Laurentine villa letter, Pliny the Younger describes a chamber where he avoids the Saturnalian celebrations of the enslaved people in his household (Plin. Ep. 2.17.22-4). In this paper, I consider this account of the Saturnalia, a festival that notionally relaxes everyday hierarchies, alongside his praise of Trajan in the Panegyricus for restoring normative social distinctions that his predecessors distorted or inverted. Through this comparison, I argue that Pliny frames his control as enslaver in quasi-imperial terms while emphasizing the political circumstances that guarantee his retreat.
Readers of Pliny’s Saturnalia in Epistles 2.17 often cite it in discussions of seclusion as it relates to artistic production and otium (Du Prey: 282, Ludolph: 130, Myers: 118, Gibson and Morello: 219), but rarely address how the passage presents social hierarchies. Stanley Hoffer cites the passage briefly as evidence of Pliny’s disdain for social disruption (83, n61). The scant treatment of Pliny’s attitude towards the Saturnalia’s challenge of normal hierarchies is striking because readers frequently observe that Pliny’s villa descriptions largely ignore the enslaved workers that occupied them (Myers 119, Gibson and Morello 216-17). The significance of Pliny’s silencing of Saturnalia festivities within this larger strategy of erasure, and its political significance has been overlooked.
I first argue that in Epistles 2.17, Pliny’s villa architecture and narrative silence the voices of the enslaved: his narrative pulls us, with him, into a chamber that drowns out their voices (voces servolorum) and muffles Saturnalian noise (festisque clamoribus personat). His account renders the enslaved silent and invisible during an occasion that notionally admits their conspicuous vocality; Pliny thus underlines his control of social rank within the confines of the villa. I next articulate the broader political relevance of Pliny’s villa control by turning to Pliny’s Panegyricus. I argue that Pliny’s speech emphasizes Trajan’s role in correcting normative hierarchies that, under his predecessors, had transformed: Domitian made gladiators his equal (Plin. Pan. 33.4) and past emperors were ‘enslaved’ to their freedmen (libertorum erant servi, Plin. Pan. 88.1); as depictions of Claudius’ imperial freedmen show, these role reversals can be understood in Saturnalian terms (Cass. Dio 60.19.2-3; Plin. Ep. 8.6). The Panegyricus ties this imperial hierarchism to domestic life, as Trajan asserts enslaver-enslaved hierarchies (obsequium servis) and averts a metaphorical servile bellum (Plin. Pan. 42.2-3).
To conclude, I show that Pliny’s control over the festival’s disruptive potential on a domestic scale resembles Trajan’s empire-wide correction of social inversions; his household is thus a sort state-in-miniature, as he admits elsewhere (servis res publica … domus est; Plin. Ep. 8.16.2). I suggest that Pliny’s Saturnalian episode in Letters 2.17 thus frames Pliny’s villa ownership so that it both mimics and depends on imperial power. My reading shows how Pliny’s much-discussed Laurentine villa letter can be fruitfully brought into conversation with contemporary Trajanic ideology and, further, how we might explore thematic interactions between Pliny’s Epistles and Panegyricus.