Pliny the Younger (redirected from Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus)

Pliny the Younger

 Latin Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus

(born AD 61/62, Comum—died c. 113, Bithynia, Asia Minor) Roman author and administrator. The nephew of Pliny the Elder, he practiced law and held official posts, including consul and head of the military and senatorial treasuries. He is known for the nine books of private letters he published in AD 100–109. The carefully composed letter, at that time a fashion among the wealthy, was transformed by Pliny into an art. His are charming and meticulous occasional pieces on diverse literary, social, and domestic themes that intimately illustrate public and private life in the heyday of the Roman Empire.

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Pliny the Younger 

(Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus; Gaius Plinius Caecilius Junior, or Minor). Born A.D. 61 or 62 in Novum Comum (now Como); died circa 114. Roman writer and statesman.

Pliny the Younger became a consul in 100 and served as imperial governor of the province of Bithynia and Pontus from 111 to 113. He adhered to the traditional views of the Roman senatorial aristocracy, who were opposed to the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties but were reconciled to the imperial power under Nerva and Trajan. Of Pliny’s many works, only a collection of letters in ten books and an oration in praise of Trajan (Panegyric on Trajan) have been preserved. His legal orations and poetry have been lost. The letters, which contain valuable information on the culture, everyday life, and economic and political history of imperial Rome, include a gallery of portraits of Pliny’s contemporaries. One of the main sources for reconstructing the social aspects of upper-class life under the Roman Empire, Pliny’s letters are also considered models of the epistolary genre.

WORKS

C. Plini Caecili Secundi epistolarum libri novem…. Edited by M. Schuster.… Leipzig, 1952.
In Russian translation:
Pis’ma Pliniia Mladshego. Translated by M. E. Sergeenko [et al.]. Moscow-Leningrad, 1950.

REFERENCES

Sokolov, V. S. Plinii Mladshii. Moscow, 1956.
Guillemin, A. M. Pline et la vie littéraire de son temps. Paris, 1929.
Unità, G. Vita, valore letterario e carattere morale di Plinio il Giovane. Rome-Milan, 1933.