restored by Mommsen [C.I.L. v. 5262]. It is to the following effect:—
Gaius Plinius Caecilius <Secundus>, son of Lucius, of the Ufentine tribe; <consul;> augur; legate-propraetor of the province of Pontus and Bithynia, with consular power, by decree of the senate sent into the said province by the emperor Nerva Trajan <Augustus, Germanicus, Dacicus, pater patriae>; curator of the bed and banks of the Tiber and of the <sewers of the city>; praefect of the Treasury of Saturn; praefect of the Treasury of War; <praetor>, tribune of the plebs; emperor’s quaestor, sevir of the <Roman> knights; military tribune of the <third> Gallic legion; <decemvir> for the adjudication of <suits>; provided by will for the erection of baths at a cost of . . . , adding for the furnishing of the same 300,000 sesterces (£2400) and furthermore, for maintenance, 200,000 sesterces (£1600); likewise, for the support of one hundred of his own freedmen <he bequeathed> to the township 1,866,666 sesterces (c. £15,000), the eventual accretions <whereof> he devised to the townsfolk for a public entertainment; . . . <likewise, in his lifetime> he gave for the support of sons and daughters of the townsfolk <500,000> sesterces (£4000); <likewise a library, and>, for the maintenance of the library, 100,000 sesterces (£800).
With the exception of two mediocre sets of verses, quoted by himself (vii. 4 and 9), his poems have perished. His speeches were apt to be prolix, and he defended their prolixity on principle (i 20). He was apparently the first to make a practice of reciting his speeches before a gathering of his friends before finally publishing them (iii. 18). The only speech that has survived is the Panegyric on Trajan, first delivered by Pliny in the emperor’s presence, next recited to the orator’s friends for the space of three days, and ultimately published in an expanded form (Epp. iii. 18). It is unduly florid and redundant in style, but it supplies us with the fullest account of the emperor’s antecedents, and of his policy during the first two years and a half of his rule.
It describes his entering Rome on foot, amid the rejoicings of the citizens, his liberality towards his soldiers and to the citizens of Rome, a liberality that was extended even to persons under eleven years of age; his charities for the maintenance of the children of the poor; his remission of succession-duties in cases where the property was small or the heirs members of the testator’s family; his establishment of free trade in corn between the various parts of the empire; his abandonment of vexatious and petty prosecutions for “high treason”; his punishment of informers; his abolition of pantomimes; his repairs of public buildings and his extension and embellishment of the Circus Maximus. The speech was discovered by Aurispa at Mainz in 1432, as part of a collection of Panegyrici; and was first printed by Fr. Puteolanus at Milan about fifty years later.
Besides the Panegyric, we possess the nine books of Pliny’s Letters, and a separate book containing his Correspondence with Trajan.
In the first letter of the first book Pliny states that he has collected certain of his letters without regard to chronological order (non servato temporis ordine). Pliny’s learned biographer, the Dutch scholar, Jean Masson (1709), wrongly assumed that this statement referred to the whole of the collection. He inferred that all the nine books were published simultaneously; and he also held that Pliny was governor of Bithynia inA.D. 103–105. It was afterwards maintained by Mommsen (1868) that the books were in strictly chronological order, that the letters in each book were in general arranged in order of date, that all of them were later than the death of Domitian (September 96), that the several books were probably published in the following order: i. (97); ii. (100); iii. (101–102); iv. (105); v. and vi. (106); vii. (107); vii. (108); and ix. (not later than 109); and, lastly, that Pliny was governor of Bithynia from A.D. 111–112 to 113. The letter which is probably the earliest (ii. 20) has since been assigned to the last part of the reign of Domitian, and it has been suggested by Professor Merrill that the nine books were published in three groups: i.–ii. (97 or 98); iii.–vi.(106); vii.–ix. (108 or 109).
In his Letters Pliny presents us with a picture of the varied interests of a cultivated Roman gentleman. The etiquette of the imperial circle, scenes from the law-courts and the recitation room, the reunions of dilettante and philosophers, the busy life of the capital or of the municipal town, the recreations of the seaside and of the country—all these he brings vividly before our eyes. He elaborately describes his Laurentine and his Tuscan villa, and frankly tells us how he spends the day at each (ii. 17, v. 6, ix. 36 and 40); expatiates on his verses and his speeches, his holiday-tasks in Umbria (vii. 9, ix. 10), and his happy memories of the Lake of Como (i. 6). He gives an enthusiastic account of a statuette of Corinthian bronze he has recently purchased (iii. 6). He is interested in providing a teacher of rhetoric for the place of his birth (iv. 13); he exults in the devotion of his wife, Calpurnia (vi. 19); towards his servants he is an indulgent master (viii. 16); he intercedes on behalf of the freedman of a friend (ix. 21), and, when a freedman of his own is in delicate health, sends him first to Egypt and afterwards to the Riviera (v. 19). He consults Suetonius on the interpretation of dreams (i. 18); he presents another of his correspondents with a batch of ghost-stories (vii. 27) or a marvellous tale about a tame dolphin on the north coast of Africa (ix. 33). He discourses on the beauties of the Clitumnus (viii. 8) and the floating islands of the Vadimonian lake (viii. 20). He describes an eruption of Vesuvius in connexion with the last days of the Elder Pliny (vi. 16 and 20), giving elsewhere an account of his manner of life and a list of his writings (iii. 5). He laments the death of Silius Italicus (iii. 7), of Martial (iii. 21), and of Verginius Rufus (ii. 1), and of others less known to fame. He takes as his models Cicero and Tacitus (vii. 20), whose name is so often (to his delight) associated with his own (ix. 23). He rejoices to learn that his writings are read at Lyons (ix. 11). He complains of the inanity of circus-races (ix. 6), of the decay of interest in public recitations (i. 13), of bad taste in matters of hospitality (ii. 6), and of the way in which time is frittered away in the social duties of Rome (i. 9). He lays down the principles that should guide a Roman governor in Greece (viii. 24); he maintains the cause of the oppressed provinces of Spain and Africa; and he exposes the iniquities of the informer Regulus, the only living man whom he attacks in his Letters, going so far as to denounce him as omnium bipedum nequissimus (i. 5, 14).
The Letters are models of graceful thought and refined expression, each of them dealing with a single topic and generally ending with an epigrammatic point. They were imitated by Symmachus (Macrobius v. 1, 7) and by Apollinaris Sidonius (Epp. ix. 1, 1). In the middle ages they were known to Ratherius of Verona (10th century), who quotes a passage from i. 5, 16 (Migne, cxxxvi. p. 391). Selections were included in a volume of Flores compiled at Verona in 1329; and a MS. of bks. i.–vii. and ix. was discovered by Guarino at Venice in 1419. These books were printed in the editio princeps (Venice, 1471). Part of bk. viii. appeared for the first time at the end of the next edition (Rome, c. 1474). The whole of bk. viii. was first published in its proper place by Aldus Manutius (Venice, 1508).
Pliny’s Correspondence with Trajan supplies us with many interesting details as to the government of Bithynia, and as to the relations between the governor and the central authority. It reflects the greatest credit on the strict and almost punctilious conscientiousness of the governor, and on the assiduity and the high principle which animated the emperor.
On reaching the province, Pliny celebrates the emperor’s birthday, and proceeds to examine the finances of Prusa. His request for a surveyor to check the outlay on the public works is refused on the ground that the emperor has hardly enough surveyors for the works he is carrying on in Rome. He asks the emperor to sanction the repair of the ancient baths at Prusa, the building of an aqueduct at Nicomedia and a theatre at Nicaea, and the covering in of a stream that has become a public nuisance at Amastris. When he consults the emperor as to the baths at Claudiopolis, the emperor sensibly replies: “You, who are on the spot, will be best able to decide” (40). When Pliny hesitates about a small affair relating to Dio Chrysostom (the Bithynian friend of Nerva and Trajan), the emperor betrays a not unnatural impatience in his response: potuisti non haerere, mi Secunde carissime (82). Pliny also asks for a decision on the status and maintenance of deserted children (65), and on the custom of distributing public doles on the occasion of interesting events in the life of a private citizen. The emperor agrees that the custom might lead to “political factions,” and should therefore be strictly controlled (117). Owing to a destructive fire at Nicomedia, Pliny suggests the formation of a volunteer fire-brigade, limited to 150 members. The emperor is afraid that the fire-brigade might become a “political club” and cautiously contents himself with approving the provision of a fire-engine (34).
Trajan’s fear of factions and clubs in these two last cases has sometimes been connected with the question of his attitude towards the Christians in Bithynia. Pliny (Epp. 96) states that he had never taken part in formal trials of Christians, and was therefore unfamiliar with precedents as to the extent of the investigation, and as to the degree of punishment. He felt that a distinction might be drawn between adults and those of tender years; and that
