PLINY THE YOUNGER (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus). - A nephew on his sister's side of the naturalist Pliny the Elder (v.), born at Como in 62 A.D., he came to Rome where he had Quintilian as his teacher, was consul in 100, sent with the rank of proconsul ("legatus Augusti pro praetore") to Bithynia in 111-12, died in Rome in 113, scarcely returned from his mission.
As an orator he wrote various speeches of which only the Panegyricus Traiano dictus survives, to thank the Emperor for having elected him consul, a bombastic composition, dictated according to the rules of the rhetoric of the time. His poetic output is lost. There remain, however, nine books of Epistulae by him, running from 96 to 109, 247 in all, written with a view to publication and assembled without regard for chronological order; they therefore lack the freshness of correspondence written off the cuff, but in compensation they offer a precious and varied picture of the life of the aristocracy of the time in city and villa. Moving are those that describe the fearless death of his uncle (VI, 16, 20); brilliant is the one on the sources of the Clitumnus (VIII, 8). To the nine books was later added the tenth, containing P.'s correspondence with Trajan during his Bithynian mission. There are 122 letters (72 reports by P. and 50 replies by Trajan) during the mission in Bithynia, which show with what scrupulousness as an honest official P. discharged his task. Of this book, preserved only in a Parisinus codex now lost, the authenticity was in the past wrongly contested, since it had been received in the editions of Avantius (1502) and Aldus (1508) and cited by the humanist and philologist G. Budé (1506). Moreover Tertullian (Apolog., 2, 6 ff.) already knows, in 197, and cites the content of a letter of P. included in this book and the related reply of Trajan (Epp. 96 and 97). These deserve special mention. In the first P. asks Trajan for instructions on how to proceed against the Christians, given: 1) their great number in city and countryside; 2) the harmlessness of their gatherings, which take place on fixed days before sunrise, for the purpose of singing in alternate fashion a hymn to Christ as to a god, and in which those assembled bind themselves by oath not to commit thefts, robberies, adulteries, not to betray the faith, not to refuse to return a deposit received, and, this done, they separate to gather again to consume a common and innocent meal; 3) that having subjected to trial and torture two slave women or ministers of that sect he has extracted from them only the profession of a depraved and excessive superstition (prava et immodica). In his reply Trajan, who had a high conception of the authority of the State and opposed unauthorized associations, orders him not to seek out the Christians but to punish them if denounced (though not on the basis of anonymous libelli), unless they deny being Christians and prove it by sacrificing to the gods of the Empire. This correspondence shows on the one hand that a procedure against the profession of Christianity already existed from the end of the 1st century; P., who is a magistrate, knows this, but having never taken part in investigations (cognitiones) against the Christians he does not know what and to what extent (quid et quatenus) they should be prosecuted and punished: whether the name of Christian or the crimes connected with that name; the great number of Christians also holds him back.
Trajan in his reply justifies P.'s hesitation by suggesting a juridically illogical rule (against which Tertullian rightly inveighs: «if they
(Int. Enc. Gutt.)
PLINY THE ELDER - P. in his study and representation of the world according to the same author. Miniature from the Historia naturalis, cod. Vat. lat. 1956, fol. 30 (15th cent.) - Vatican Library.
you condemn them because you do not have them tried? and if you do not try them, why do you not acquit them?») but practically understandable given the spread of Christianity in Asia Minor at the dawn of the 2nd century; this norm circumscribes the cases of persecution, placing the burden of it on individual and not anonymous accusers.