A Tale of Two Plinys

Cambridge Latin Anthology – Avunculus Meus

In this course, Prof. Christopher Whitton (University of Cambridge) explores Pliny’s Epistle 3.5, which describes a day in the life of his uncle, Pliny the Elder. It will be particularly useful for those reading the ‘Avunculus Meus’ set text for OCR Latin GCSE (J282). In the first lecture, we introduce the two Plinys that form the author and subject of Epistle 3.5 – Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger – considering the lives, political careers and literary outputs of each man. In the second lecture, we turn to the description of Pliny’s extraordinarily busy day itself, focusing in particular on the amount of time he spends on studia (reading and writing). In the third lecture, we take a step back to think about Pliny’s Letters (or Epistles) more broadly, focusing in particular on two other letters that describe the day in the life of an elite Roman – 3.1 (about Vestricius Spurinna) and 9.36 (about Pliny the Younger himself) and how these descriptions might change our view of Pliny the Elder’s day described in 3.5. In a short final lecture, we offer a couple of further reading suggestions.

A Tale of Two Plinys

In this lecture we introduce the two Plinys that form the author and subject of Pliny’s Epistle 3.5, focusing in particular on: (i) the life of Pliny of Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, 23/4-79 AD); (ii) his political career: military service in Germania, procurator in Tarrconensis, prefect of the fleet at Misenum; (iii) his literary output, including his Natural History; (iv) the life of Pliny the Younger (Gaius Caecilius Plinius Secundus, 61/62-c. 113 AD), including his relation to Pliny the Elder; (v) his political career: senator, consul, governor of Bithynia and Pontus; and (vi) his literary output, including his letters.