The Letters of the Younger Pliny, Book Review Example

“The Letters of the Young Pliny” represent a compelling primary source document for Roman historians, political scientists, theologians and religious historians, and legal theorists.  The letters are composed by the Roman gentleman, magistrate and lawyer Pliny throughout his adult life in the 1^st century A.D. The epistles offer a wide treatment of various thematics, which is a testament to their continued importance and relevance. Insofar as Pliny was a figure involved in Roman political and legal life, his letters provide a first-hand account of the workings of the Roman legal system and the general political process. Pliny, therefore, can be thought of as a valuable conceptual thinker, to the extent that he offers a summarization from both a pragmatic and theoretical perspective of the concepts that were the foundation of such a legal and political system. Moreover, Pliny’s account offers a perspective on the crucial relationships that constituted the upper classes of Roman life, such as relationships between the upper classes and the Emperor. Pliny also provides considerable thought to the form of discourse itself, with an interest in argumentative forms and rhetoric, which reflect the concerns of his own profession as a magistrate and his commitment to the power of the written word. Concomitantly, Pliny offers an autobiographical account which allows the historian to understand how a Roman gentlemen, statesman and lawyer of the upper classes lived in the Roman empire of the first century. In Pliny’s letters, this account can take a deeply personal tone, allowing for a humanization of this historical period in its treatment of timeless themes such as love. In the following essay, we shall examine how Pliny presents such themes and what such themes may reveal about his own personage.

What is immediately striking about the letters of the Young Pliny is the style of the texts. They evince a fundamental attentiveness to the written word, as his letters are imbued with a simultaneous precision and economy of words that is combined with an insightfulness that surfaces in his various treatments of the description of events, the analysis of concepts, and of relations to people in his life. For example, in his letter to Cornelius Tacitus, Pliny advances a careful reading of what constitutes the rigorous and effective formation of legal arguments. This letter can be considered as a valuable conceptual meditation for both legal historians and students of rhetoric: Pliny immediately contrasts the notions of the brevity of discourse with a more thorough exposition of an argument. Whereas Pliny does emphasize that brevity is valuable insofar as it helps clarify the main points of an argument, he also notes that a more expansive treatment is valuable to the extent that this opens the possibility for a strengthening of one’s argument. Thus, the point of the argument is not merely to overwhelm the listener with what in contemporary terms would be called “sound-bites”, but rather to develop a detailed discourse that builds its premises in a deliberate and meditative fashion. In consequence, this deliberate and meditative fashion will demonstrate the depth of the argument to the listener, not only in its content, but also in its form, which is to say that the listener will be impressed by the expansiveness of the argument and its thoroughness, as opposed to an appeal to mere sentimentality. In other words, the content of a legal argument, its precise proposition, must be advanced in a form that is most applicable to advancing these arguments in a pronounced manner. Here the value of Pliny’s texts can therefore be understood in its emphasis on pure composition.

Pliny’s letters to the Emperor Trajan demonstrate the crucial structure of political relationships within the Roman empire of the first century. A key feature of this correspondence is the reverence that Pliny pays to the Emperor. Thus, despite Pliny’s high social status, his choice of diction nevertheless reflects the undoubtedly central position the Emperor played in the Roman Empire. For example, Pliny addresses the Emperor in terms such as “most sacred Father” clearly showing both the patriarchal nature of Roman society, while also evincing the role of the Emperor as a certain father figure to the entire nation. It is clear, therefore, that the political structure of Rome is a radical monarchy. At the same time, however, Pliny’s texts demonstrate a certain freedom of discourse that still existed despite the almost sacred status of the Emperor. For example, in Letter VI of the correspondence with Trajan, Pliny requests that the Emperor revoke the slave status of a doctor who treated him. This demonstrates an open-discourse in the Roman society despite its regimented, caste-like structure, as it is possible for significant political figures to make requests of the Emperor despite the latter’s absolute position. The concepts such correspondence evoke are thus a rigidity of political structure that is demonstrated in the patriarchal absoluteness of the Emperor, however one that is combined with almost a democratic style of speech in which political decisions may also be formulated outside of the Emperor’s authority. Whereas the Emperor maintains the last word on such decisions, such a correspondence reveals the somewhat open character of the public discourse that existed in the period.

Concomitantly, there is a deeply personal subtext to Pliny’s writings that recalls the resolutely human status of the composer of these letters and his interlocutors: Pliny’s texts provides a counterpoint to the notion of historical documents as mere artifacts, in their vivid description of personal relations. In his letter to Calpurnia Hispulla (4.XIX), Pliny provides an account of family life, detailing the nature of his relationship to the daughter of Calpurnia Hispulla’s brother. This letter emphasizes the love that the daughter feels for Pliny, in vivid personal terms, providing almost an anatomy of personal love, as Pliny recalls the various forms in which love may be said to manifest itself. Here, however, the nature of their relationship is ambiguous as Pliny mentions his wife, while at the same time noting that the daughter also bears a love for Pliny. It is thus unclear as to what exactly is the nature of the relationship between Pliny and the young woman is – at the same time, Pliny attests that it is a clear expression of love. Such a letter thus evinces the complex familial relationships that existed in the Roman period, showing that such relationships can remain difficult to define despite any clear general delineation of Roman society along patriarchal lines.

Pliny’s letters can considered valuable above all according to the diversity of themes that they treat. From the discussion of the form of argumentative discourse and the structures of Roman family life to the letters representing a reflection of the structure of Roman political life through Pliny’s correspondence to the Emperor, a profound thematic depth reveals itself in his epistles. The relevance of the young Pliny’s letters in diverse fields can thus be traced directly to the wide thematics Pliny addresses, which is concomitantly a testament to the extensiveness of his thought. Accordingly, the collection of correspondence provides a certain insight into Pliny as a deep thinker, one who is as comfortable providing detailed expositions of the form of discourse to the synopsis of romantic relationships. Such an expansiveness of themes signify the importance of the young Pliny’s letters not only on a theoretical or conceptual level, but also on a biographical and intimate level. Throughout the letters, two images of Pliny thus emerge: that of the rigorous thinker and the “normal” human being that is a part of a greater societal body.