Pliny the Younger is probably most famed for his description of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which he witnessed first-hand, and which his uncle (Pliny the Elder) was involved in.
Pliny’s writings were discovered fairly recently by a classicist called Betty Radice, and have since been extensively researched into. He was a lawyer by trade and later in life, under Emperor Trajan, was the
governor of Bythinia (which comprised of areas of Turkey). His
letters cover a manner of different subjects. Many are written to his
friends, offering them advice about how to live and so on, and many are written to the Emperor Trajan. The style is very different in these two types. The letters to friends are full of
interesting constructions and some wonderful examples of how versatile the Latin language is, whereas those to the Emperor are much more formal. It seems that to Trajan, Pliny was a tiresome provincial governor (this is inferred from his replies, which Pliny included in his letters, yet Pliny has quite a
sense of self-importance which comes across as very pompous). His
Letter to Trajan about the dilemma of Christians and how best to deal with them (at the time, they were an illegal cult) is extremely interesting and in other letters, he expounds virtues and morals that seem timeless: they make sense to us today. Another letter describes his slave Zosimus, whom he cares for, and how he is suffering from tuberculosis. He then asks a friend whether he will take Zosimus as a guest at his villa in the south of France
Overall, Pliny’s Letters are well worth a read, and are a great example of Classical writing and how life was lived two thousand years ago.
More summaries about the Pliny's Letters