Chronology

Every drafted work, year by year, alongside the events of Pliny the Younger's life. Runs of consecutive letters are folded into groups so you can skim past them or expand to read.

100 BC

Age ~39. Consul under Trajan, Pliny delivers the Panegyricus — the formal speech of thanks to the emperor, later expanded into the model of how a good prince should be praised, and an implicit rebuke of the dead Domitian.

speech Panegyric to Trajan 100 AD

105 BC

Age ~44. The nine books of literary Letters take shape — polished, self-aware notes to friends on everything from a villa to the eruption of Vesuvius that killed his uncle — a careful self-portrait of the cultivated Roman gentleman. A tenth book will gather his official correspondence as governor of Bithynia, including the famous exchange with Trajan about the Christians.

letters 1 letter
  1. The Letters 105 AD

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