Pomponius Secundus was a prominent Roman statesman and literary creative from the 1st century. He lived a curious life, alternating between public prestige and political danger during the reigns of Emperor Tiberius (r. 14-37), Emperor Caligula (r. 37-41) and Emperor Claudius (r. 41-54). Pulled along by the wild currents of ancient Roman politics, Pomponius Secundus was imprisoned during the treason trials of Tiberius, but was freed by Caligula, and his public career really began to take off during the time of Claudius. He achieved the lofty political ranks of consul and legatus, and also proved himself to be an able military commander around the year 50 by leading a successful campaign against the Germanic Chatti people. Yet, his successful career in politics and the military aside, it was largely for his literature that Pomponius Secundus was famous. In short, he was a poet and playwright known for writing popular tragedies featured in ancient Roman theaters. Public appeal for his works may have been aided by a technique used by the playwright that is still utilized by writers, developers and lawyers to this day—crowd testing.
As the story goes, if Pomponius Secundus and his creative team ever disagreed about a matter of literary editing, the playwright would run the disputed lines by an audience and observe how the crowd reacted to the different versions of the script. According to Pomponius’ philosophy, whatever achieved the best reaction from the audience was the correct answer. The Roman writer, Pliny the Younger (c. 61/62-113), detailed this process:
“I imagine it is because there is some sort of collective wisdom in mere numbers, so that, though individual judgments may be poor, when combined they carry weight. Thus it was that Pomponius Secundus, the author of tragedies, if one of his close friends happened to think that some passage should be deleted when he wished to keep it, used to say that he ‘appealed to the people’: and according to the people’s silence or applause he would act on his own judgment or that of his friend. Such was his faith in public opinion, whether rightly or wrongly it is not for me to say” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 7.17).
The playwright’s natural talent and crowd-tested amendments produced a body of literary tragedies that garnered high acclaim from the ancient Roman public, as well as Rome’s more critical literary circle. Yet, some of Pomponius Secundus’ crowd testing experiments may have also gone awry. Curiously, in one unusual public show that the playwright put on around the year 47, something about his verses caused an angry backlash from the crowd, ultimately resulting in heckling and unrest. The incident was bad enough for Emperor Claudius to reprimand the crowd. On this odd incident, the esteemed Roman historian, Tacitus (c. 56/57-117), wrote: “[Claudius] published edicts severely rebuking the lawlessness of the people in the theatre, when they insulted Caius Pomponius [Secundus], an ex-consul, who furnished verses for the stage…” (Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome, 11.13). Blips such as this one aside, Pomponius Secundus was generally received as a respected celebrity, who was not only lauded by the aforementioned Pliny the Younger, Emperor Claudius, and Tacitus, but also by further scholars, such as Quintilian (c. 35-96), Pliny the Elder (c. 23-79), Cassius Dio (c. 163-235) and Charisius (c. 4th century).
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (The Fortitude of Scaevola, attributed to the circle of Peter Paul Rubens, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons, RKD and Pushkin Museum).
Sources:
- The Letters of Pliny the Younger, translated by Betty Radice. New York: Penguin Classics, 1963, 1969.
- The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus, translated by Michael Grant. New York: Penguin Classics, 1996.
- https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D11%3Achapter%3D13
- https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=secundus-pomponius-bio-1
- https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-5228?d=%2F10.1093%2Facrefore%2F9780199381135.001.0001%2Facrefore-9780199381135-e-5228&p=emailAW3dAt34gRzKU
