Pliny (GAIUS PLINIUS CÆCIUS SECUNDUS), the Younger, was born at Novum Comum, 62 A.D. His education, after his tenth year, when his father died, was conducted under the eye of his mother, Plinia, of his tutor Virginius Rufus, of whose worth, intellectual and moral, he has left a beautiful memorial, and of his uncle who adopted him. He early displayed high literary aptitude, wrote a Greek tragedy in his fourteenth year, and made such progress under Quintilian that, like his friend Tacitus, he became noted as one of the most accomplished men of his time. His proficiency as an orator enabled him, when not more than eighteen, to plead in the Forum, and brought him much practice, not only at the Centumviral bar, chiefly in will-cases, but also before the senate. Official appointments came to him in quick succession. Then, still young, he served as military tribune in Syria, where he frequented the schools of the Stoic Euphrates, and of Artemidorus; at twenty-five, the earliest possible age, he was quæstor Cæsar, then prætor, and afterwards consul in 100 A.D., in which year he wrote his laboured panegyric of the Emperor Trajan. In 103 he became pro-prætor of the Provincia Pontica, but vacated the post in two years, and, among other offices, held that of curator of the Tiber, chiefly for the prevention of floods. He married twice; his second wife, Calpurnia, granddaughter of Calpurnius Fabatus, is fondly referred to in one of his most charming letters for the many gifts and accomplishments with which she sweetened his rather invalid life. He died without issue, but in what year is unknown.
It is to his letters that Pliny owes his assured place in literature as one of the masters of the epistolary style. An avowed imitator of Cicero, he has caught much of the charm of his model, while his Latinity is hardly, if at all, inferior in purity and ease. His meaning, though never obscure, is generally fuller than his expression, and, reading between the lines, we discern the features of a truly lovable man, quite aware of his strong as of his weak points, much given to hospitality, and always pleased to help a less favoured brother, such as Suetonius or Martial. We derive from him not a few of our distinctest impressions of the public and private life of the upper class in the 1st century; above all, it is from his correspondence with Trajan that we get our clearest knowledge of how even the most enlightened of the Romans regarded the then obscure sect of the Christians. It appears that a person acknowledging himself a Christian was liable to punishment, even to death. When under examination, however, no Christian would admit anything further than his practice of meeting with his co-religionists on an appointed day before it was light; singing a hymn to Christ as God (or 'as to a God'—quasi deo); and taking an oath which bound him to no crime, but never to commit theft, robbery, adultery, and malfeasance, and never to deny a deposit. Even when put to the torture, two female slaves, said to be deaconesses, confessed nothing more to Pliny, who thereupon consulted the emperor as to how he might stop the spread of what he could only call 'a depraved and extravagant superstition.' Trajan declined to lay down a general rule for dealing with the Christians; he recommended that they should not be sought out on suspicion, but that, if accused and convicted of holding that faith, they should be punished. Accusations unsupported by an accuser were not to be received, while suspected cases were to have an opportunity of clearing themselves by offering prayers to the Roman gods (diis nostris).
Keil's text of the Epistles and Panegyricus (Leip. 1853) is the best, while a useful selection with a good commentary has been published by Church and Brodrigg (1871). Melmoth's translation (1746) is free and eminently readable; Orrery's, of the Epistles (1751), is still esteemed.