This etext was prepared by Rebecca Trump <r_trump@yahoo.com>
and Sue Asscher <asschers@dingoblue.net.au>
NOTE.—In the following translation the Teubner text, edited by Keil,has been followed.
Some slight memoir and critical estimate of the author of thiscollection of Letters may perhaps be acceptable to those who areunfamiliar with the circumstances of the times in which he lived.Moreover, few have studied the Letters themselves without feeling a warmaffection for the writer of them. He discloses his character therein socompletely, and, in spite of his glaring fault of vanity and his endlesslove of adulation, that character is in the main so charming, that onecan easily understand the high esteem in which Pliny was held by thewide circle of his friends, by the Emperor Trajan, and by the public atlarge. The correspondence of Pliny the Younger depicts for us theeveryday life of a Roman gentleman in the best sense of the term. Wesee him practising at the Bar; we see him engaged in the civilmagistracies at Rome, and in the governorship of the important provinceof Bithynia; we see him consulted by the Emperor on affairs of state,and occupying a definite place among the "Amici Caesaris." Best of all,perhaps, we see him in his daily life, a devoted scholar, never so happyas when he is in his study, laboriously seeking to perfect his style,whether in verse or prose, by the models of the great writers of thepast and the criticisms of the friends whom he has summoned, in afriendly way, to hear his compositions read or recited. Or again wefind him at one of his country villas, enjoying a well-earned leisureafter the courts have risen at Rome and all the best society has betakenitself into the country to escape the heats and fevers of the capital.We see him managing his estates, listening to the complaints of histenants, making abatements of rent, and grumbling at the agriculturaldepression and the havoc that the bad seasons have made with his crops.Or he spends a day in the open air hunting, yet never omits to take withhim a book to read or tablets on which to write, in case the scent iscold and game is not plentiful. In short, the Letters of Pliny theYounger give us a picture of social life as it was in the closing yearsof the first, and the opening years of the second century of theChristian era, which is as fascinating as it is absolutely unique.
Pliny was born either in 61 or 62 A.D. at Comum on Lake Larius. Hisfather, Lucius Caecilius Cilo, had been aedile of the colony, and, dyingyoung, left a widow, who with her two sons, sought protection with herbrother, Caius Plinius Secundus, the famous author of the NaturalHistory. The elder Pliny in his will adopted the younger of the twoboys, and so Publius Caecilius Secundus—as he was originally called—took thenceforth the name of Caius Plinius, L.F. Caecilius Secundus.Though later usage has assigned him the name of Pliny the Younger, hewas known to his contemporaries and usually addressed as Secundus. Butin his early years Pliny was placed under the guardianship of VirginiusRufus, one of the most distinguished Romans of his day, a successful andbrilliant general who had twice refused the purple, when offered to himby his legionaries, and who lived to a ripe old age—the Wellington ofhis generation. So it was at Comum that he spent his early boyhood, andhis affection for his bi