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The Letters of Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger

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The Letters of Pliny the Younger | Pliny the Younger
3.92
1,917 rating
Book Overview: 

The largest surviving body of Pliny's work is his Epistulae (Letters), a series of personal missives directed to his friends, associates and the Emperor Trajan. These letters are a unique testimony of Roman administrative history and everyday life in the 1st century CE. Especially noteworthy among the letters are two in which he describes the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August 79, during which his uncle Pliny the Elder died (65 and 66 in this edition), and one in which he asks the Emperor for instructions regarding official policy concerning Christians (Trajan Letter 97). Other letters include a ghost story, a story about a dolphin, descriptions of Pliny's villa, and Pliny's opinions on legacy-hunting, the treatment of slaves and the decline in respect for orators.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .e an invitation, it is to entertain, not distinguish, my company: I place every man upon my own level whom I admit to my table." "Not excepting even your freedmen?" "Not excepting even my freedmen, whom I consider on these occasions my guests, as much as any of the rest." He replied, "This must cost you a great deal." "Not in the least." "How can that be?" "Simply because, although my freedmen don't drink the same wine as myself, yet I drink the same as they do." And, no doubt about it, if a man is wise enough to moderate his appetite, he will not find it such a very expensive thing to share with all his visitors what he takes himself. Restrain it, keep it in, if you wish to be true economist. You will find temperance a far better way of saving than treating other people rudely can be. Why do I say all this? Why, for fear a young man of your high character and promise should be imposed upon by this immoderate luxury which prevails at some tables, under the specious notion. . . Read More

Community Reviews

5.00
- David - Jun 04, 2014

A look into the life of a Roman aristocrat
4 June 2014
So we must work at our profession and not make anybody else's idleness an excuse for our own. There is no lack of readers and listeners; it is for us to produce something worth being written and heard.
A part of me wished that I read these letters

5.00
- Regina - Dec 09, 2020

Stupendous! This book is a gem! Oh, how much I enjoyed this book! I have added some fragments toward the end of my review, each one listed under the number of the book in which it was published. Some of my favourite letters are those he sent to his wife Calpurnia; he was a loving husband. I always e

4.00
- Roy - Apr 15, 2019

... the work of getting anybody to cheerfully undertake the monotony and drudgery of education must be effected not by pay merely, but by a skillfully worked-up appeal to the emotions as well.

I read this book in preparation for a recent visit to Pompeii; and it was an excellent choice. The ancie

5.00
- Paul - Jun 08, 2020

A letter deserves a letter in reply, and therefore –

Dear Pliny the Younger:

I wanted to thank you for your letters, and to apologize for the 1,907-year delay in replying. Normally, I am more prompt in my correspondence practices. Hoping that the fact that I have been alive for only 58 of those 1,907

5.00
- David - Jan 06, 2017

While attending the Roman races, Cornelius Tacitus (56-120) was engaged by a young man in a very wide-ranging conversation. Duly impressed, the ardent youth asked him his name and Tacitus replied that he already knew him from his readings. "Then you must be either Tacitus or Pliny," exclaimed the ve

3.00
- Justin - Apr 03, 2016

"I'm really enjoying reading Pliny. It's strange, but I really identify with him. He's just this guy, he's got his job to do, but what he really cares about is literature, reading it, writing a bit of it, talking about it with his friends."
"Okay."
"I've been imagining myself as Pliny when I write em

5.00
- Jo - Feb 11, 2016

I've been reading these letters one at a time as one of the many books I've had on the go for months. Because the text is English and then Latin, which I knew but didn't remember, I came to the end unexpectedly, and with unexpected sadness and disappointment. I could happily have kept reading it for

5.00
- Jim - May 03, 2019

In this age of Trump, it was strange to read of a period during the Roman Empire under the reign of Trajan (98-117 AD) when good government was the norm.That was because there were brilliant, conscientious senators and governors like Pliny the Younger in his Complete Letters.

At some point between th

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