Letters of Pliny the Younger | Page 3

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Prepared by David Reed [email protected] or [email protected]

Letters of Pliny

Translated by William Melmoth revised by F. C. T. Bosanquet

GAIUS PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS, usually known as Pliny
the Younger, was born at Como in 62 A. D. He was only eight years
old when his father Caecilius died, and he was adopted by his uncle,
the elder Pliny, author of the Natural History. He was carefully
educated, studying rhetoric under Quintilian and other famous teachers,
and he became the most eloquent pleader of his time. In this and in
much else he imitated Cicero, who had by this time come to be the
recognized master of Latin style. While still young he served as
military tribune in Syria, but he does not seem to have taken zealously
to a soldier s life. On his return he entered politics under the Emperor
Domitian; and in the year 100 A. D. was appointed consul by Trajan
and admitted to confidential intercourse with that emperor. Later while
he was governor of Bithynia, he was in the habit of submitting every
point of policy to his master, and the correspondence between Trajan
and him, which forms the last part of the present selection, is of a high
degree of interest, both on account of the subjects discussed and for the
light thrown on the characters of the two men. He is supposed to have
died about 113 A. D. Pliny's speeches are now lost, with the exception
of one, a panegyric on Trajan delivered in thanksgiving for the
consulate. This, though diffuse and somewhat too complimentary for
modern taste, became a model for this kind of composition. The others
were mostly of two classes, forensic and political, many of the latter

being, like Cicero's speech against Verres, impeachments of provincial
governors for cruelty and extortion toward their subjects. in these, as in
his public activities in general, he appears as a man of public spirit and
integrity; and in his relations with his native town he was a thoughtful
and munificent benefactor.
The letters, on which to-day his fame mainly rests, were largely written
with a view to publication, and were arranged by Pliny himself. They
thus lack the spontaneity of Cicero s impulsive utterances, but to most
modern readers who are not special students of Roman history they are
even more interesting. They deal with a great variety of subjects: the
description of a Roman villa; the charms of country life; the reluctance
of people to