PLINY, THE YOUNGER. Publius Caecilius Secundus, later known as Gaius Plinius Caeciius Secundus (A.D. c. 61c. 113), Latin author of the Letters and the Panegyric on Trajan, was the second son of Lucius Caeciius Cio, by Plinia, the sister of the Elder Pliny. He was born at Novum Comum, the modern Como, the date of his birth being approximately determined by the fact that he was in his 18th year at the death of his uncle in August AD. 79 (Epp. Vi. 20, 5). Having lost his father at an early age, he owed much to his mother and to his guardian, Verginius Rufus, who had twice filled the office of consul and had twice refused the purple (ii. I, 8). He owed still more to his uncle. When the Elder Pliny was summoned to Rome by Vespasian in A.D. 72, he was probably accompanied by his nephew, who there went through the usual course of education in Roman literature and in Greek, and at the age of fourteen composed a Greek tragedy (vii. 4, 2). He afterwards studied philosophy and rhetoric under Nicetes Sacerdos and Quintilian (vi. 6, 3, ii. 14, 9), and modelled his own oratorical style on that of Demosthenes, Cicero and Calvus (i. 2). The Elder Pliny inspired his nephew with something of his own indomitable industry; and in August 79, when the author of the Historia naturalis lost his life in the famous eruption of Vesuvius, it was the sister of the Elder and the mother of the Younger Pliny who first descried the signs of the approaching visitation, and, some twenty-seven years later, it was the Younger Pliny who wrote a graphic account of the last hours of his uncle, in. a letter addressed to the historian Tacitus (vi. 16). By his will the Elder Pliny had made his nephew his adopted son, and the latter now assumed the nomen and praenomen of his adoptive father. A year later he made his first public appearance as an advocate (v. 8, 8), and soon afterwards became a member of the board of decemviri stlitibus judicandis, which was associated with the praetor in the presidency of the centumviral court. Early in the reign of Domitian he served as a military tribune in Syria (A.D. 81 or 82), devoting part of his leisure to the study of philosophy under the Stoic Euphrates (i. 10, 2). On returning to Rome he was nominated to the honorary office of sevir equitum romanorum, and was actively engaged as a pleader before the entumviri, the chancery court of Rome (vi. 12, 2). His official career began in A.D. 89, when he was nominated by Domitian as one of the twenty quaestors. He thus became a member of the senate for the rest of his life. In December 91 he was made tribune, and, during his tenure of that office, withdrew from practice at the bar (i. 23). Early in 93 he was appointed praetor (iii. II, 2), and, in his year of office, was one of the counsel for the impeachment of Baebius Massa, the procurator of Hispania Baetica (iii. 4, V1. 29, Vii. 33). During the latest and darkest years of Domitian he deemed it prudent to withdraw from public affairs, but his financial abilities were recognized by his nomination in 94or 95 to the praefectur .serarii miitaris (ix. 13, II). On the death of Domitian and the accession of Niva he delivered a speech (subsequently published) in prosecution of Publicius Certus, who had been foremost in the attack on Helvidius Priscus (ix. 13). Early in 98 he was promoted to the position of praefect of the public treasury in the temple of Saturn. After the accession of Trajan in the same year, Pliny was associated with Tacitus in the impeachment of Marius Priscus for his maladministration of the province of Africa (ii. 11). The trial was held under the presidency of the emperor, who had already nominated him consul suffectus for part of the year A.D. 100. The formal oration of thanks for this nomination, described by Pliny himself as his gratiarum actio (iii. 13, I and 18, I), is called in the MSS. the Panegyricus Trajani dictus. The following year was marked by the death of Silius Italicus and Martial, who are gracefully commemorated in two of his Letters (iii. 7 and 21). It is probable that in 103104 he was promoted to a place in the college of Augurs, vacated by his friend Frontinus (iv. 8), and that in 105 he was appointed curator of the river Tiber (v. 14, 2). In the same year he employed part of his leisure in producing a volume of hendeca syllabic verse (iv. 14, V. 1o). He usually spent the winter at his seaside villa on the Latian coast near Laurentum, and the summer at one of his country houses, either among the Tuscan hills, near Tifernum, or on the lake of Como, or at Tusculum, Tibur or Praeneste. It was probably in 104, and again in 106, that he was retained for the defence of a governor of Bithynia, thus becoming familiar with the affairs of a province which needed a thorough reorganization. Accordingly, about 111, he was selected by Trajan as governor of Bithynia, under the special title of legate propraetor with consular power. He reached Bithynia in September, held office for fifteen months or more, and probably died in 113. His health was far from robust. He speaks of his delicate frame (gracilitas mea); and he was apt to suffer from weakness of the eyes (vii. 21) and of the throat or chest (ii. ii~ 15). Frugal and abstemious in his diet (i. I5~ iii. I and 12), studious and methodical in his habits (i. 6, V. 18, ix 36 and 40), he took a quiet delight in some of the gentler forms of outdoor recreation. We are startled to find him telling Tacitus of his interest in hunting the wild boar, but he is careful to add that, while the beaters were at work, he sat beside the nets and was busily taking notes, thus combining the cult of Minerva with that of Diana (i. 6). He also tells the historian that, when his uncle left Misenum to take a nearer view of the eruption of Vesuvius, he preferred to stay behind, making an abstract of a book of Livy (vi. 20, .5). Among his friends were Tacitus and Suetonius, as well as Frontinus, Martial and Silius Italicus; and the Stoics, Musonius and Helvidius Priscus. He was thrice married; on the death of his second wife without issue, Trajan conferred on him the jus trium liberorum (A.D. 98), and, before 105, he found a third wife in the accomplished and amiable Calpurnia (iv. 19). He was generous in his private and his public benefactions (i. 9, 2, ii. 4, 2, VI. 32). At his Tuscan villa near Tifernum Tiberinum (iv. 1, 4), the modern Citt di Castello, he set up a temple at his own expense and adorned it with statues of Nerva and Trajan (x. 8). 1n his lifetime he founded and endowed a library at his native place (i. 8, V. 7), and, besides promoting local education (iv. 3), established an institute for the maintenance and instruction of the sons and daughters of free-born parents (vii. 18). By his will he left a large sum for the building and the perpetual repair of public baths, and the interest of a still larger sum for the benefit of one hundred freedmen of the testator and, ultimately, for an annual banquet. On a marble slab that once adorned the public baths at Comum, his distinctions were recorded in a long inscription, which was afterwards removed to Milan. It was there broken into six square pieces, four of which were built into a tomb within the great church of Sant Ambrogio. Of these four fragments only one survives, but with the aid of transcripts of the other three made by Cyriacus of Ancona in 442, the whole was restored by Mommsen allowance might be made for any one who recanted. There was also the question whether any one should be punished simply for bearing the name of Christian or only if he was found guilty of crimes associated with that name. Hitherto, in the case of those who were brought before him, he had asked them three distinct times whether they were Christians, and, if they persisted in the admission, had ordered them to be taken to execution. Whatever might be the real character of their profession, he held that such obstinate persistence ought to be punished. There were others no less demented, who, being Roman citizens, would be sent to Rome for trial. Soon, as the natural consequence of these proceedings, a variety of cases had come under his notice. He had received an anonymous statement giving a list of accused persons. Some of them, who denied that they had ever been Christians, had consented to pray to the gods, to adore the image of the emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; these he had dismissed. Others admitted that they were Christians, but presently denied it, adding that they had ceased to be Christians for some years. All of these worshipped images of the gods and of the emperor, and blasphemed Christ. They averred that the sum and substance of their fault was that they had been accustomed to meet on a fixed day before daylight to sing in turns a hymn to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by a solemn oath (sacramestto) to abstain from theft or robbery, and from adultery, perjury and dishonesty; after which they were wont to separate and to meet again for a common meal. This, however, they had ceased to do as soon as Pliny had published a decree against collegia, in accordance with the emperors edict. To ascertain the truth, he had also put to the torture two maid-servants described as deaconesses, but had discovered nothing beyond a perverse and extravagan.t superstition.. He had accordingly put off the formal trial with a view to consulting the emperor. The question appeared to be worthy of such a consultation, especially in view of the number of persons of all ages and ranks, and of both sexes, who were imperilled. The contagion had spread through towns and villages and the open country, but it might still be stayed. Temples that had been welinigh deserted were already beginning to be frequented, rites long intermitted were being renewed, and the trade in fodder for sacrificial victims was reviving. It might be inferred from this how large a number might be reclaimed, if only room were granted for repentance. Trajail in his reply (Epp. 97) expresses approval of Plinys course of action in the case of the Christians brought before him. it was impossible (he adds) to lay down any uniform or definite rule. The persons in question were not to be hunted out, but if they were reported and were found guilty, they were to be punished. If, however, any one denied that he was a Christian, and ratified his denial by worshipping the gods of Rome, he was to receive pardon. B Ut 00 attention was to be paid to anonymous charges, it would be a bad precedent and unworthy of the spirit of the age. The view that the Christians were punished for being members of a colic gium or sodalitas (once held by E. G. Hardy, and still maintained by Professor Merrill) is hard to reconcile with Plinys own statement that t,be Christians had promptly obeyed the emperors decree against collegia (~ 7). Further reasons against this view have been urged by kamsay, who sums up his main results as follows: (1) There was no express law or formal edict against the Christians. (2) They were not prosecuted or punished for contravening any formal law of a wider character. (3) They were judged and condemned by Pliny (with Tr~jans full approval) by virtue of the imperiuin delegated to him, and in accordance with the instructions issued to governors of provinces to search out and punish sacrilegious persons. (4) They had already been classed as outlaws, and the name of Christian in itself entailed condemnation. (5) This treatment was a settled principle of imperial policy, not established by the capricious action of a single emperor. (6) While Trajan felt bound to carry ut the established principle his personal view was to some fxtent opposed to it. (7) A definite form of procedure had been ,~stablished. (8) This procedure was followed by Pliny (W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 223). It has been well observed by E. G. Hardy that the double aspect of Trajans rescript, which, while it theoretically condemned the Christians, practically gave them a certain security, explains the different views which have since been taken of it; but by most of the church writers, and perhaps on the whole with justice, it has been regarded as favorable and as rather discouraging persecution than legalizing it (Plinys Correcpondence with Trojan, 63, 21o217). AUTHORnmEs.The correspondence with Tra~an was apparently preserved in a single Paris MS.; Epp. 41121 were first printed by Avantius of Verona (1502); and Epp. 140 by Aldus Manutius (1508). The original MS. has vanished; but the copy supplied to the printers of the Aldine text was discovered by Mr. E. G. Hardy in the Bodleian in 1888. The two letters on the Christians were known to Tertullian (A pot. c. 2). The attacks on the genuineness of the whole or part of the collection have been refuted by Wilde (Leiden, 1889). For a critical edition of text, see H. Keil (Leipzig, 1870), with full index of names by Mommsen; for plain text, Keil (1853), &c., C. F. W. MUller (1903); the best annotated editions are those of Gesner and Schaefer (1805) and G. E. Gierig (1796-1806); of the LeUers alone, G. Kortte (1734), and the less trustworthy edition of M. Doring (1843); of bks. i. and ii., Cowan (1889); of iii., Mayor (1880, with Life by G. H. Rendall); of vi., Duff (1906); of the Panegyricus, C. G. Schwarz (1846); of the Correspondence with Trojan, E. G. Hardy (1889); of Selected Letters, H. T. Merrill (903); best Eng. trans. by J. D. Lewis (1879). On Plinys life, see the works by J. Masson (Amsterdam, 1709); H. Schontag (Hof, 1876); and Giesen (Bonn, 1885). On the chronology of the letters, &c., Mommsen, in Hermes, iii. 31114 (1868; trans. into French by Morel, 1873); criticized by Stobbe (Philologus, 1870); Genioll (Halle, 1872); C. Peter (Pinlologus, 1873); Asbach (Rhein. Miss., 1881); and Schultz (Berlin, 1899). For style, the works of H. Holstein (1862-1869); K. Kraut (1872); J. P. Lagergren (1872); and Morillot (Grenoble, 1888). On the villas, Burns Rome and the Campagna (1871), 411415; Aitchison, in the Builder (Feb. 8, 1890); Winnefeld, in Jahrb. des arch. Inst. (1891), pp. 201217; and Magoun, in Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc. (1895). See also bibliography in Hubner and Mayors Lat. Lit. (1875), pp. 147149; and in Schanz, Rm. Lit. ~ 41/24449. For recent literature on Pliny and the Christians, see C. F. Arnold, Studien (Konigsberg, 1887); Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, ii. 7 (ed. 1889); Neumann, Der rmische Stoat und die allgemeine Kirche (1890) vol. i.; Mommsen, in Hist. Zeitschrift (I89c); W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire (ed. 1893), ch. 10, pp. 196225; and E. G. Hardy, Christianity and the Roman Government (1894), reprinted in Studies in Roman History (1906), pp. 1162; with the literature quoted in these works and in Schanz, Rom. Lit. 641.