The Letters of Pliny the Younger (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Many books have been penned about Ancient Rome. Some are well written and know what the're talking about - whilst others are long-winded and can bore you to tears in thirty seconds. Well, how about slicing through all that - and reading the words of a man who was actually there?

Pliny (the Younger) was a Roman nobleman born around 61AD. He served as a magistrate under the emperor Trajan, and was the nephew of Pliny (the Elder) the famous statesman and writer. It's refreshing to read the words of an actual Roman for a change instead of those of ancient or modern historians, and Pliny's letters cover many fascinating aspects of roman life. Also gratifying is that often we are also given the replies.

Among the topics covered are; family, villas, court cases, hobbies, and poetry (his own verses, it must be said, stink!). How refreshing to get inside a Roman nobleman's head, and share his thoughts (even though his letters were written perhaps with "one eye" on their eventual publication).

The most famous letter is addressed to his friend the roman historian Tacitus who has asked for an account of his uncle's death in the eruption of Vesuvius. This of course took place in 79AD and caused the destruction of both Pompeii and other towns in the Bay of Naples).

The translator Betty Radice has done a very good job rendering the letters into modern english and her twenty-two page introduction makes interesting reading. Brief appendices include a short glossary and three maps. If "real" roman history is your thing - you can't beat this collection!

Here are just a few excerpts:-

To: Valerius Paulinus "I am furious with you, rightly or not I don't know, but it makes no difference. You know very well that love is sometimes unfair, often violent, and always quick to take offence, but I have good reason, whether or not it is a just one, to be as furious as I would be in a just cause. It is so long since I had a letter from you. The only way to placate me is to write me a lot of letters now, at long last - lengthy ones, too."

To: Sempronius Rufus "I had gone down to the Basilica Julia to listen to the speeches in a case where I had to appear for the defence at the next hearing. The court was seated, the presiding magistrates had arrived and counsel on both sides were coming and going; then there was a long silence, broken at last by a message from the Praetor. The court adjourned and the case was suspended, much to my delight for I am never so well prepared as not to be glad of a delay"

To: Cornelius Tacitus "I should like to obey your orders,but when you tell me I ought to honour Diana along with Minerva I find it impossible - there is such a shortage of boars. So I can only serve Minerva, and even her in the lazy way to be expected during a summer holiday.

On my way here I made up some bits of nonesense (not worth keeping) in the conversational style one uses when travelling, and I added something to them once I was here and had nothing better to do; but peace reigns over the poems which you fancy are only too easy to finish in the woods and groves. I have revised one or two short speeches, though this is the sort of disagreeable task I detest and is more like one of the hardships of country life than it's pleasures."

I picked this collection of letters up to read on a trip to Rome a few years ago, and found it provided an interesting historical background to the experience of the city. I remembered its eye-witness account of the eruption of Vesuvius just before we visited that part of Italy at the beginning of the month, and brought it along to re-read. Although the two letters describing the destruction of Pompeii and the subsequent death of his uncle, the famous natural scientist and military commander Pliny the Elder are probably the best-known (they're used almost verbatim in, for example, Robert Harris's Pompeii), there are many rewards to be obtained in reading all of the letters. They give a well-rounded insight into a fascinating person - one with a successful career as a lawyer and magistrate in the early Roman Empire, who read widely in Greek and Latin and who published his own speeches and verse (although the latter, if the few examples he quotes are representative, would be - in the words of the present editor - "embarassingly banal" (p26)).

His letters are written to friends, family, colleagues and - in the last section of the book - to the emperor Trajan, as part of his final assignment as special commissioner for the province of Bithynia. These letters are more business-like, as he seeks Trajan's advice on financial and administrative problems (including a famous question about what to do about Christians, described as members of a "degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths" (p294)), and the emperor responds pithily and shrewdly to his devoted servant (replies to letters in the other sections have not been preserved). An sample (p299) illustrates Trajan's tone nicely:

"It is impossible for me to lay down a general rule whether everyone who is elected to his local senate in every town of Bithynia should pay a fee on entrance or not. I think then that the safest course, as always, is to keep to the local rules of each city, though as regards fees from senators appointed by invitation, I imagine they will see that they are not left behind the rest."

The other letters range over a variety of topics, as he describes life at his country villas and their gardens, recommends young men for imperial posts, pays tribute to notable figures and reports gossip from the courts. He comes across as a conscientious worker, a loyal friend and a generous public benefactor, and the picture he paints of a professional man who takes his responsibilities seriously, who can't afford to sqaunder his capital or neglect his obligations, and who believes in things like right procedure and effective administration counters the impression that many of us have of the decadence and dissolution of the Roman Empire. Even so, there's the occasional glimpse of the flaws in his character - sometimes he appears a bit too pompous or self-satisfied, and it's not entirely clear if he's really joking when he writes something like this (p237):

"If I begin praising you after your praise of me, I fear I shall look as though I am only showing gratitude instead of giving a true opinion. All the same, I do think all your written works are very fine, but especially those which deal with me. For this there is one and the same reason - you are at your best in writing about your friends, and I find it your best when it is about myself."

Reading these letters gives you an invaluable insight into the mind of a rich and powerful Roman and a snapshot of the socio-political climate in which he lived...so very different to our own. Bearing in mind he wrote these letters with the intent of having them published, makes reading them all the more interesting when we compare the values expressed with our own....