"Liber Manet": Pliny, "Ep." 9.27.2 and Jerome, "Ep." 130.19.5Author(s): Andrew CainSource: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Dec., 2008), pp. 708-710Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27564206 .

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708 SHORTER NOTES

This Virgilian evocation could merely add to the funereal air that has attended Vitellius since he tried to abdicate.8 While Aeneas will return to the land of the living, Vitellius' end is nigh. But Tacitus may also be underlining his portrait of Vitellius as a man who has not been truly alive for some time. While Aeneas revisits his past in the

Underworld and learns something of the future of Rome and comes to a better

understanding of what he must do as leader of a war in Italy, Vitellius is depicted as

shunning the duties of a commander. Instead he conceals his anxieties with luxus and

hides in the shade of his gardens, ut ignava animalia, quibus si cibum sugg?ras, lacent

torpentque, praeterita instantia futura pari oblivione dimiserat (H. 3.36.1).9 Tacitus

consistently depicts Vitellus as a slave to his own gluttony.10 Sallust reckons the lives

and deaths of such men as the same, since they do nothing by which they will be remembered (Cat. 2.8). Vitellius, who lives only for the moment, oblivious to past and

future, is the antithesis of Aeneas, who devotes his whole life after Troy to sowing the

seeds for the future greatness of Rome.

While Tacitus may temper considerably the negative portrait of Vitellius estab

lished by Flavian propaganda and does pity him his squalid end, he never acquits him of unfitness to rule or the damage he caused to Rome. While sounding a note of

pathos, the comparisons of Vitellius to Aeneas are also a damning judgement.11

University of Massachusetts Amherst ELIZABETH KEITEL

eek@classics.umass.edu doi:10.1017/S0009838808000839

8 See 77. 3.67.1, quoted above. Also, Vitellius' son is carried in a lecticula to the attempted abdication velut in funebrem pompam (77. 3.67.2) while Vitellius himself wears mourning {pullo amictu, 77. 3.67.2).

9 Tacitus places the second battle of Bedriacum out of chronological order just before 77. 3.36, thus making Vitellius' obliviousness and failure to cope seem all the more shocking. At 77. 2.67.2,

Vitellius is never so intent on his worries that he forgets his pleasures; at H. 3.63.2, he is so sunk in

torpor that he would forget he is the emperor if others did not remind him. On Vitellius' living

only for the present, see also H. 2.95.3. For Tacitus' depiction of Vitellius as not truly alive, see E.

Keitel, 'Feast your eyes on this: Vitellius as a stock tyrant (Tac. Hist. 3.36-39)', in J. Marincola

(ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Oxford, 2007), 441-6, at 444-5. 10 Vitellius had attended Nero's recitals willingly because he was luxu et saginae mancipatus

emptusque (77. 2.71.1). For his gluttony and self-indulgence, see also 77. 1.62.2; 2.31.1, 62.1 and 95.3.

11 Baxter (n. 1) at 105-6 believes that Tacitus evokes the death of Priam for Vitellius' death,

just as he has for the death of Galba. (On the various associations Tacitus activates when

recounting Galba's death, see Ash [n. 2] at 79-83.) On a more optimistic note, R. Guerrini, 'Tito

al santuario Pafio e il ricordo di Enea (Tac. Hist. 2.4)', Atene e Roma 31 (1986), 28-34, argues that Titus' consultation with the priest at the Temple of Venus Paphios is meant to recall Aeneas

consulting the Sibyl in Aen. 6.

LIBER MANET: PLINY, EP. 9.27.2 AND

JEROME, EP. 130.19.5

Jerome is one of the most famous late antique readers of the correspondence of Pliny

the Younger.1 Over the years scholars have identified a number of Plinian echoes

1 On other late antique readers of Pliny, such as Ambrose of Milan, see A. Cameron, 'The fate

of Pliny's Letters in the Late Empire', CQ n.s. 15 (1965), 289-98, esp. 290,293^; H. Savon, 'Saint

Ambroise a-t-il imit? le recueil de lettres de Pline le Jeune?', REAug 41 (1995), 3-17.

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SHORTER NOTES 709

across his vast body of writings.2 In the late nineteenth century Luebeck noted Jerome's indebtedness in Ep. 53.1.3 (394) and Ep. 73.10.1 (398) to Pliny's Ep. 2.3.8 and

Ep. 4.7.3, respectively.3 Cameron later showed that an anecdote told by Jerome in his

polemical treatise Against John of Jerusalem (396/7) derives from Ep. 7.6.11.4 In a note

published in the same year as Cameron's, Jones pointed out that the preface to

Jerome's On Illustrious Men (393) evokes phraseology in Ep. 9.2.2.5 More recently Adkin has unearthed Plinian resonances in the Commentary on Galatians (386) as well

as in the preface to Jerome's revision of Chronicles according to the Septuagint

(c. 387).6 I would like now to suggest that Jerome appropriated a poignant phrase from Pliny's Ep. 9.27.2 in one of his last surviving letters.

In 414, about five years before his death, an ageing Jerome composed a lengthy and

stylish epistolary exhortation to virginity (Ep. 130) and addressed it to Demetrias, a

young virgin from the prestigious gens Anicia.1 Eager to impress Demetrias and her

family, Jerome cited his credentials as a teacher of the ascetic life: T have written short

exhortations to several virgins and widows, and in these smaller works I have gathered

together all that there is to be said on the subject'.8 He specifically mentioned his most celebrated treatise on virginity, Ep. 22 to Eustochium (384):

ante annos circiter triginta de uirginitate seruanda edidi librum, in quo necesse mihi fuit ire

contra uitia et propter instructionem uirginis, quam monebam, diaboli insidias patefacere, qui sermo offendit plurimos, dum unusquisque in se intellegens, quod dicebatur, non quasi

monitorem libenter audiuit, sed quasi criminatorem sui operis auersatus est. uerumtamen quid

profuit armasse exercitum reclamantium et uulnus conscientiae dolore monstrasse? liber manet, homines praeterierunt.9

Ep. 22 was heavily criticized by contemporaries for its satirizing of the 'worldly' (i.e.

non-ascetic) lifestyles of lay and especially clerical Christians.10 In the passage above

2 Cf. F. Trisoglio, 'S. Girolamo e Plinio il Giovane', RSC 21 (1973), 343-83, for an extensive

catalogue of alleged echoes, virtually all of which may be discarded on the grounds that they are

tenuous. 3 A. Luebeck, Hieronymus quos nouerit scriptores et ex quibus hauserit (Leipzig, 1872), 220-1.

H. Hagendahl, Latin Fathers and the Classics. A Study on the Apologists, Jerome and Other

Christian Writers (G?teborg, 1958), 186-7, seconded these two parallels but failed to produce any new ones; nor did he adduce any more examples in 'Jerome and the Latin classics', VChr 28

(1974), 216-27. 4 A. Cameron, 'Pliny's Letters in the Later Empire. An addendum', CQ n.s. 17 (1967), 421-2

(421). 5 CP. Jones, 'The Younger Pliny and Jerome', Phoenix 21 (1967), 301. 6 N. Adkin, 'The Younger Pliny and Jerome', RPL 24 (2001), 31-47. 7 For an analysis of this letter, see A. Cain, The Letters of Jerome. Asceticism, Biblical

Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2009), 160-6. 8

Ep. 130.19.5 (CSEL 56:200): scripsi et ad pier as que uirgines ac uiduas o-novha ofi?na et,

quidquid did poterat, in Ulis opusculis defloratum est. For Jerome's rhetorical construction of his

ascetic authority, see A. Cain, ' Vox clamantis in deserto. Rhetoric, reproach, and the forging of

ascetic authority in Jerome's letters from the Syrian desert', JThS n.s. 57 (2006), 500-25; id.,

'Rethinking Jerome's portraits of holy women', in A. Cain and J. L?ssl (edd.), Jerome of Stridon.

His Life, Writings and Legacy (Aldershot, 2009), forthcoming. 9

Ep. 130.19.3-5 (CSEL 56:200). 10 P. Laurence, 'L'?p?tre 22 de J?r?me et son temps', in L. Nadjo and ?. Gavoille (edd.), Epis

tulae antiquae. Actes du Ier colloque Le genre ?pistolaire antique et ses prolongements (Universit?

Fran?ois-Rabelais, Tours, 18-19 Septembre 1998) (Paris, 2000), 63-83. On Jerome's satire, see

D.S. Wiesen, St. Jerome as a Satirist. A Study in Christian Latin Thought and Letters (Ithaca,

1964).

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710 SHORTER NOTES

Jerome frankly acknowledges its troubled reception. By the same token, he maintains

that the criticism is unjustified, for the only people who complain are the ones who see

in themselves the very vices he has attacked.11 These disgruntled critics come and go

but his book is here to stay as a perpetual reminder of their disgraceful conduct: liber manet, homines praeterierunt.

The first half of Jerome's arresting formulation (liber manet) is attested in only one

other place in all of extant Latin literature, in a letter by Pliny the Younger. In Ep. 9.27

to Paternus, Pliny ponders the power of history.12 He relates an anecdote about an

unnamed historian who gave a recitatio of his work one day. Certain members of the

audience begged him to stop reading because they were ashamed at being reminded of

the nefarious behaviour of which they themselves were guilty (tantus audiendi quae

fecerint pudor, quibus nullus faciendi quae audire erubescunt). The historian granted

their request, but nevertheless they were not let off the hook. For the 'book', and the

infamy of their deeds documented therein, will live on in perpetuity: liber tarnen ut

factum ipsum manet manebit legeturque semper.

The fact that Pliny and Jerome both used the same unique phrase (liber manet) in

strikingly similar moralistic contexts to emphasize the permanence of the 'book' and

the transience of its miscreant critics enables us to posit a plausible genetic relation

ship between their letters, especially when we recall that Jerome is known to have

recycled Plinian phraseology from elsewhere in the ninth book of the Epistles.13 His

deployment of this intertext does not necessarily mean that he had Pliny's

correspondence in hand during the last few years of his life. He had an extraordinary

memory and may first have encountered this aphoristic-sounding phrase years, even

decades, earlier in his reading of Pliny and invoked it when he wanted to make a

formal pronouncement about the literary immortality of one of his most treasured

writings.14 Furthermore, while scholars hitherto have been able to confirm Jerome's

borrowings from Pliny's letters in his writings only from the 380s and 390s, the evidence adduced here demonstrates that he was still drawing inspiration from his

epistolographic predecessor late into his career.

University of Colorado, Boulder ANDREW CAIN

ac@colorado.edu doi: 10.1017/S0009838808000840

11 This was Jerome's customary method of defending his satirical technique; see Epp. 27.1;

52.17; 117.1; 125.5. See further A. Cain, 'Jerome's epistula 117 on the subintroductae: satire,

apology, and ascetic propaganda in Gaul', forthcoming in Augustinianum. 12 See R. Ash, 'Aliudest enim epistulam, aliudhistoriam ... scribere (Epistles 6.16.22): Pliny the

historian?', Arethusa 36 (2003), 211-25, at 216-17. For a brief commentary on the letter, see

further A.N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny. A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford,

1966), 509-10. The Latin text is printed in R.A.B. Mynors (ed.), C. Plinii Caecili Secundi

Epistularum Libri Decem (Oxford, 1992), 280-1. 13 See Jones (n. 5) for Jerome's reliance on Ep. 9.2.2. 14 For some general remarks about this aspect of Jerome's compositional technique, see

N. Adkin, Jerome on Virginity. A Commentary on the Libellus de virginitate servanda (Letter 22)

(Cambridge, 2003), 2-5; id., 'Tertullian in Jerome's consolation to Heliodorus (Ep. 60)', in Cain

and L?ssl, Jerome of Stridon, forthcoming.

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