Rethinking the Political Role of Pliny's Panegyricus in the Panegyrici Latini

The purpose of this paper is to offer a preliminary response to the political influence of Pliny's Panegyricus in the Panegyrici Latini, focussing on passages that contain echoes stricto sensu of Pliny on political matters so as to refine understanding of the rhetorical function of Pliny's Panegyricus in the corpus as a whole. The line of argument follows a chronological order: the panegyric orations from the period 289-321 comprise a set in which the influence of Pliny is relatively minor, whereas Pliny's text has a significant bearing on the conceptual and expressive dimensions of the speeches delivered in 362 and 389.