Bekende Romeinen: Het mediale zelf van Plinius en Martialis

Writing and publishing short texts about oneself, one’s friends, one’s activities
and opinions is something everybody does who is active on social media.
It was also done by Pliny in his Epistles and by Martial in his Epigrams.
Of course, their media do not map exactly onto ours, nor do their norms,
values and expectations, but precisely for that reason the comparison may
be illuminating. In this article, I discuss how Pliny, in the medium of the
letter, and Martial, in the medium of the epigram, constructed and presented
their social selves. As the article is primarily meant for Dutch schoolteachers
teaching Pliny and Martial for the Central School Exam of 2022, I use, as far
as possible, passages that are on the reading list for that exam.