Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger was a Roman senator, lawyer, administrator and letter writer who lived under the Flavian and Trajanic emperors. His surviving correspondence offers unusually detailed evidence for elite society, patronage, provincial administration and public life in the early second century.

Pliny’s surviving letters, including those describing the eruption of Vesuvius and his correspondence with Trajan from Bithynia-Pontus, provide unusually detailed evidence for elite Roman society and provincial administration. His exchange with Trajan about Christians is especially important for the history of early Christianity. The letters were carefully edited for publication, so they reveal both historical events and Pliny’s deliberate construction of his public identity.

In Pliny the Younger’s The Letters of Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Younger’s letters are a key source for elite Roman life under the early empire. Historical accounts that place Pliny the Younger in context include Mary Beard’s Pompeii.