Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1987

Publication Title

Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists

Volume

24

Pages

1-8

Publisher Name

American Society of Papyrologists

Abstract

In a well-known letter to his friend Rufinus (8.18), Pliny the Younger opens with, and then develops, a remark about the will of one Domitius Tullus. There seems to have been a popular belief (quod creditur vulgo), formulated as an aphorism, to the effect that "men's wills are a mirror of their characters" (testamenta hominum speculum esse morum). But Tullus, a man of low repute who had assembled his estate by shady practices and who had tempted the legacy hunters, turns out to have made a fine will, characterized by pietas toward his adopted daughter whom he named heir, by generous legacies to his grandsons and great-grandson, and by generous provisions for the wife of his infirm old age. All this notwithstanding, Rome was alive with gossip (ergo varii tota civitate sermones ... ), much of it malicious, speculating on the motives behind this paradox of the bad man who had made so good a will.

Comments

Author Posting. © James Keenan, 1987. This article is posted here by permission of the American Society of Papyrologists for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 24, 1987.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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