Does anyone kno anything about Pliny the younger?

Question

Religion homework!!! this is so stupid. i have to do a 3 pharagraph essay on this Pliny the younger guy and i dont even have a Religion book to look at. It's on back order. anyway help!!!

Answer 1

Pliny the Younger was the nephew of Pliny the elder; and he was the one who recorded the eruption of Vesuvius, whereas Pliny the elder died in the eruption. He also wrote about the persecution of the Christians during the time of the Romans. His letters have survived today and give us some insights about how the Romans 'dealt' with the Christians, which believed in a religion that had only one god, and went against the pagan belief of the Romans. One of his infamous letters was one from when he was a governor in Bithynia-Pontus, in regards to asking what he should do about the Christians in his area of governance. Ultimately, his letters is what makes him important to anyone who studies ancient Rome. If you want more info, the article on wikipedia is useful, but you may also want to try the article at livius.org, the link is below. Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Google the fellow.

In Wikipedia it says...

Born in Comum, Italy, the son of a landowner named Lucius Caecilius and his wife Plinia, Pliny the Younger was also a nephew of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny's father died at an early age; as a result, Pliny probably lived with his mother. His guardian is known to have been Lucius Verginius Rufus, famed for quelling a revolt against Nero. After being first tutored at home, Pliny later travelled to Rome where he furthered his education and was taught rhetoric by the great teacher and author Quintilian and Nicetes Sacerdos of Smyrna. It was at this time that Pliny became closer to his uncle Pliny the Elder and when the elder Pliny died during the Vesuvian eruption, the terms of the will passed the estate to the younger Pliny. In the same document he was adopted by his uncle, a common practice in Roman culture


And a whole lot more.

Answer 3

Sorry, I once read a 350 year old copy of a book by Pliny the Elder. It discussed whether or not insects had bloode? Fun reading. I think I remember that Pliny the Elder was around 25 AD.

Answer 4

It was one of the Plinys that recorded the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD, but I've got a feeling it was Pliny the Elder - sorry for the useless answer!

Answer 5

It's not a book on religion you'll need!! Pliny the younger was a Roman citizen who lived through and witnesses the destruction of Pompeii. He did write of Jesus though.

AD 61?–113?). The Roman author and administrator Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, known as Pliny the Younger, left a collection of private letters of great literary charm, intimately illustrating public and private life in the heyday of the Roman Empire. Pliny's letters introduce many of the leading figures of Roman society. They make possible the social reconstruction of an age for which there is otherwise no serious historical record.

Pliny was born in AD 61 or 62, in Comum (in what is now Italy), into a wealthy family and was adopted by his uncle, Pliny the Elder. He began to practice law at 18. His reputation in the civil-law courts placed him in demand in the political court that tried provincial officials for extortion. His most notable success was securing condemnation of a governor in Africa and a group of officials from Spain. Meanwhile he had attained the highest administrative posts, becoming praetor and consul. He was sent by Emperor Trajan to investigate corruption in the municipal administration of Bithynia, Asia Minor (now in Turkey), where apparently he died in about 113.

Between 100 and 109 Pliny published nine books of selected, private letters, beginning with those covering events from the death of Emperor Domitian (October 97) to the early part of 100. The tenth book contains addresses to Emperor Trajan on assorted official problems and the emperor's replies.

The private letters are carefully written, occasional letters on diverse topics. Each holds an item of recent social, literary, political, or domestic news, or sometimes an account of an earlier but contemporary historical event, or else initiates moral discussion of a problem. Each has a single subject and is written in a style that mixes, in Pliny's terminology, the historical, the poetical, and the oratorical manner, to fit the theme. The composition of these litterae curiosius scriptae (letters written with special care) was a fashion among the wealthy, and Pliny developed it into a miniature art form.

There are letters of advice to young men, notes of greeting and inquiry, and descriptions of scenes of natural beauty or of natural curiosities. Pliny also left a detailed picture of the amateur literary world with its custom of reciting works to seek critical revision from friends.

One of the best modern editions of the letters and his eulogy to Trajan is by M. Schuster (2nd ed., 1952). William Melmoth's English translation, The Letters of Pliny the Consul (1746), was revised by W.M. Hutchinson for the Loeb Classical Library in 1915.


Here's a link to a site which contains some of Pliny's translated letters and also the original Latin. They're a good source of Roman life, customs etc.

http://www.vroma.org/~hwalker/Pliny/PlinyTopics.html