Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger (62-113), Roman official, whose letters give a valuable description of life in the 1st century ad. His full Latin name was Gaius Plinius Caecilius. He was a nephew of Pliny the Elder, by whom he was adopted and whose name he took in 79; his name was originally Publius Caecilius Secundus. He was born in Novum Comum, and studied in Rome under the famous teacher and rhetorician Quintilian. Pliny was distinguished both for his literary accomplishments and for his oratorical ability. He held numerous official appointments. As a young man he served as military tribune in Syria, where he frequented the schools of the Stoics; he was quaestor Caesaris at the age of 25, then praetor, and then consul in 100, in which year he wrote the Panegyricus, a eulogy of the Emperor Trajan. About 111 he was appointed governor of the province of Bithynia, where he remained for about two years. Whether his death occurred in Bithynia or soon after in Rome is not known. He was married three times, but died childless.

Pliny himself collected and published nine books of Epistulae (Letters), and a tenth book, containing his official correspondence as governor of Bithynia with the Emperor Trajan, was published after his death. To these letters Pliny owes his place in literature as one of the masters of the epistolary style. The private letters, most of which were undoubtedly written or revised with a view to publication, give a valuable picture of the life of the writer and of his friends and contemporaries. Pliny himself appears in the letters as a genial philanthropist, devoted to literary pursuits and to improving his estates by architectural adornment. The most interesting letters include two of his friend the historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus on the eruption of Vesuvius—one letter describing in detail his villa at Laurentum, the other relating the story of a haunted house in Athens—and one to the Roman Emperor Trajan, concerning policy against the Christians.