Pliny The Younger

The Letters of the Younger Pliny

Herausgeber: T. Bosanquet, F. C.

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 - c. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him. Pliny the Younger wrote hundreds of letters, of which 247 survive and are of great historical value. Some are addressed to reigning emperors or to notables such as the historian Tacitus. Pliny served as an imperial magistrate under Trajan (reigned 98-117), and his letters to Trajan provide one of the few surviving records of the relationship between the imperial office and provincial governors. Pliny rose through a series of civil and military offices, the cursus honorum. He was a friend of the historian Tacitus and might have employed the biographer Suetonius on his staff. Pliny also came into contact with other well-known men of the period, including the philosophers Artemidorus and Euphrates the Stoic, during his time in Syria. Pliny was by birth of equestrian rank, that is, a member of the aristocratic order of equites (knights), the lower (beneath the senatorial order) of the two Roman aristocratic orders that monopolised senior civil and military offices during the early Empire. His career began at the age of 18 and initially followed a normal equestrian route. But, unlike most equestrians, he achieved entry into the upper order by being elected Quaestor in his late twenties. Pliny was active in the Roman legal system, especially in the sphere of the Roman centumviral court, which dealt with inheritance cases. Later, he was a well-known prosecutor and defender at the trials of a series of provincial governors, including Baebius Massa, governor of Baetica; Marius Priscus, governor of Africa; Gaius Caecilius Classicus, governor of Baetica; and most ironically in light of his later appointment to this province, Gaius Julius Bassus and Varenus Rufus, both governors of Bithynia and Pontus. Pliny's career is commonly considered as a summary of the main Roman public charges and is the best-documented example from this period, offering proof for many aspects of imperial culture. Effectively, Pliny crossed all the principal fields of the organization of the early Roman Empire. It is an achievement for a man to have not only survived the reigns of several disparate emperors, especially the much-detested Domitian, but also to have risen in rank throughout. (wikipedia.org)

Produktdetails

• Verlag: IndoEuropeanPublishing.com
• Seitenzahl: 220
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. Januar 2019
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 13mm
• Gewicht: 365g
• ISBN-13: 9781644390849
• ISBN-10: 1644390841
• Artikelnr.: 53723922

Autorenporträt

Pliny the Younger, born around 61 AD in Novum Comum (modern-day Como, Italy), was a Roman lawyer, author, and magistrate. Orphaned young, he was adopted by his uncle, Pliny the Elder, a famous naturalist. Under his uncle's guidance, he received a strong education in rhetoric and literature.He held various public offices, rising through the Roman political ranks. Serving as consul in 100 AD, he later became governor of Bithynia-Pontus, where he corresponded with Emperor Trajan. His letters from this period provide rare insights into Roman law and administration.Pliny is best known for his letters, which capture Roman society and politics in the 1st century AD. His writings include a firsthand account of Mount Vesuvius's eruption and early references to Christians. These letters remain valuable historical records of life in ancient Rome.