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