Pliny the Younger

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus was born in 61 and raised partly by his uncle, Pliny the Elder. He climbed the cursus honorum, the ladder of Roman civil and military posts, and served as an imperial magistrate under Trajan, who reigned from 98 to 117. Of the 369 letters he wrote, 247 survived — some addressed to Trajan, others to the historian Tacitus and other notables of the period. During his time in Syria he moved among philosophers including Artemidorus and Euphrates the Stoic, and may have employed the biographer Suetonius on his staff. He died around 113, leaving behind one of the few…