The Letters of Pliny the Younger

ISBN-10: 1544103832
ISBN-13: 9781544103839
Series: The Letters of Pliny the Younger
Pages: 132
Language: English
Published: 2017-02-25
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Author: Pliny the Pliny the Younger

Description

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 - c. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him. Both Pliny the Elder and the Younger were witnesses to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, in which the former died. Pliny the Younger wrote hundreds of letters, many of which still survive and are of great historical value. Some are addressed to reigning emperors or to notables such as the historian Tacitus. Pliny served as an imperial magistrate under Trajan (reigned 98-117), and his letters to Trajan provide one of the few surviving records of the relationship between the imperial office and provincial governors. Pliny rose through a series of civil and military offices, the cursus honorum. He was a friend of the historian Tacitus and might have employed the biographer Suetonius on his staff. Pliny also came into contact with other well-known men of the period, including the philosophers Artemidorus and Euphrates the Stoic, during his time in Syria.