小普林尼最著名的是他的书信。他一共收集和发表了10卷,369封信。其中前9卷包括248封信,这248封信是写给105个不同的收信人的,其中包括朋友、熟人和当时的知名人士。这些信都在普林尼赴比提尼亚前发表的。第十卷包括他与图拉真之间的书信往来(共12封信,其中包括图拉真的回信)。在这些信中小普林尼也探讨了如何对待基督教的问题。在给塔西佗的信中普林尼描述了使他的叔叔和导师老普林尼丧生的那场维苏威火山的爆发。小普林尼在发表他的书信时特别注意保持书信的格式(包括收信人、发信人、称呼等等格式)。在每封信中他都会讨论一个问题。他的书信涉及到罗马上层社会几乎所有的生活问题。虽然这些书信是经过加工后发表的,而且其诠言风格“一般”,但是他为后人提供了当时罗马社会、生活和政治的详细的描述。比如他描述了个人的事务、报道、政治、对他的庄园的描写、对风景的描写、教育问题等等。只有第十卷中的书信是按照其发送时间排列的。 Pliny the Younger or Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (62-c.115): Roman senator, nephew of Pliny the Elder, governor of Bithynia-Pontus (109-111), author of a famous collection of letters.
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.
Pliny the Elder
(Caius Plinius Secundus) (pl′n) (KEY) , c.A.D. 23–A.D. 79, Roman naturalist, b. Cisalpine Gaul. He was a friend and fellow soldier of Vespasian, and he dedicated his great work to Titus. He died of asphyxiation in the neighborhood of Vesuvius, having gone to investigate the eruption. His one surviving work is an encyclopedia of natural science (Historia naturalis). It is divided into 37 books and, after a preface, deals with the nature of the physical universe; geography; anthropology; zoology; botany, including the medicinal uses of plants; curatives derived from the animal world; and mineralogy, including an account of the uses of pigments and a history of the fine arts. Pliny’s industry was immense and his knowledge of sources extensive, but his information is mostly secondhand and quite useless as science. 1 See Selections from the History of the World, ed. by P. Turner (1962). 2
His nephew and ward, Pliny the Younger (Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus), A.D. 62?–c.A.D. 113, was an orator and a statesman. He was quaestor (A.D. 89), tribune (A.D. 91), and praetor (A.D. 93) and subsequently held treasury posts. He was consul (A.D. 100) and died in his proconsular province of Pontus-Bithynia. His fame rests on his letters, written probably for publication, which are an excellent mirror of Roman life. 3
See his Letters and Panegyricus, tr. by B. Radice (2 vol., 1969); studies by S. E. Stout (1954) and A. N. Sherwin-White (1966). 4