(SHORT)VISUAL CIRCUITS IN THE PANEGYRIC BY PLINY AT TRAJAN

Pliny's Panegyric is both a praise and a portrait of the imperial power, as held and embodied by the figure of Trajan. In shaping this portrait, Pliny appears to pay specific attention to a crucial feature of Roman power-dynamics: the visual communication. Indeed, on the one hand, the figure of the civilis princeps that Pliny is concerned to outline is constructed through a mutual pattern of social gazes: in sharp contrast with such secluded imperators as Domitian, Trajan's self-display offers to the spectating community the possibility to visually mirror and confirm his power. On the other hand, however, these mutual gazes take place in the imbalance of power that unavoidably informs the relationship between the emperor and his subordinates: a relationship where truth and appearance may always overlap.