Introduction
From Hubert McNeill Poteat, Selected Letters of Pliny (D.C. Heath, 1937), pp. vii-viii.
P. Caecilius Secundus was born in the beautiful little city of Comum, situated at the southern end of the western branch of Lake Larius (Lago di Como). The date of his birth is not known; but his own statement (Letter 6.20, section 5) that the great eruption of Vesuvius (August 24, 79) occurred during his eighteenth year places his advent between August 24, 61, and August 24, 62. His father, L. Caecilius Cilo, died when his son was quite young, leaving him to be reared by his mother, Plinia, and his two guardians, the great Verginius Rufus (see Letter 2.1) and C. Plinius Secundus, his mother's brother, commonly called Pliny the Elder. Upon the death of the latter (Letter 6.16), P. Caecilius Secundus, as his heir, adopted the name C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus and is commonly called Pliny the Younger, to distinguish him from his uncle.
The boy was educated in Comum, possibly in Mediolanum (modern Milan), and in Rome—where the eminent Spanish professor, Quintilian, was one of his teachers (Letter 2.14, section 9). He began his legal career at the age of eighteen. Very soon afterward he was appointed Decemvir stlitibus iudicandis—assistant to the presiding justice of the centumviral court (Letter 1.18, section 3). A brief military tribunate in Syria followed, and upon his return to Rome he entered upon the senatorial cursus honorum by filling the office of quaestor (probably from June 1, 89, to May 31, 90). From December, 91, to December, 92, he was tribune of the plebs; in 93 he held the praetorship, and upon the completion of his term of office he was appointed by Domitian to the board of three which had charge of the military treasury. Nerva, just before he died in 98, made Pliny prefect of the state treasury. Our author reached the goal of his ambitions and desires when he became consul on September 1, 100. In 103 or 104 he was made a member of the ancient college of augurs, and probably in 105 Trajan gave him the onerous post of commissioner of the channel and banks of the Tiber. His last and most important service to the state was rendered in the province of Bithynia and Pontus—in general, northern Asia Minor (Letter 10.15)—whither he went, probably in 111, as Trajan's personal representative (legatus), to govern that great province. He is generally believed to have died at his post of duty, in 113 or 114.
There are nine books of letters addressed by Pliny to various correspondents; the tenth book contains the epistles written by Pliny to the emperor Trajan, together with Trajan's replies. Pliny collected and published his letters. The only other work of his which has come down to us is the oration in which he thanks Trajan for the appointment to the consulship (the Panegyric).