CHAPTER I

THE CIRCLE OF THE YOUNGER PLINY

The contrast between the pictures of society in Juvenal and in Pliny—They belonged to different worlds—They were also of very different temperaments—Moral contrasts side by side in every age—There were puritan homes in Italy, even in the worst days—Influence of old Roman tradition and country life—The circle at Como—Pliny’s youth and early training—Character of the Elder Pliny—His immense industry—Retreats of old Roman virtue—The character and reforms of Vespasian—His endowment of education—The moral influence of Quintilian on Roman youth—Pliny’s student friends—His relations with the Stoic circle—His reverence for Fannia—His career at the Bar—He idealises the practice in the Centumviral court—Career of M. Aquilius Regulus, the great delator and advocate—Pliny’s passion for fame—The crowd of literary amateurs in his day—Pliny and Martial—Pliny’s relation to the literary movement of his time—His admiration for Cicero—His reverence for Greece—He once wrote a Greek tragedy—His apology for his loose verses—His ambition as an orator, and canons of oratorical style—Pliny’s Letters compared with Cicero’s—The merits and fame of the Letters—Their arrangement—They are a memorial of the social life and literary tone of the time—The character of Silius Italicus—Literary coteries—Pliny’s friendship with Suetonius—The devotion of literary amateurs to poetic composition and its causes—The influence of the great Augustan models read at school—Signs of decay in literature—The growing love of the archaic style—Immense literary ambition of the time—Attempts of Nero and Domitian to satisfy it by public literary competitions—The plague of recitations—Pliny believes in the duty of attending them—The weariness and emptiness of life in the capital—The charm of the country—Roman country seats on the Anio or the Laurentine and Campanian shores—The sites of these villas—Their furniture and decorations—Doubtful appreciation of works of art—The gardens of the villa—The routine of a country gentleman’s day—The financial management of an estate—Difficulties with tenants—Pliny’s kindness to freedmen and slaves—The darker side of slavery—Murder of a master—Pliny’s views on suicide—Tragedies in his circle—Pliny’s charity and optimism—The solidarity of the aristocratic class—Pliny thinks it a duty to assist the career of promising youth—The women of his circle—His love for Calpurnia and his love letters—The charity and humanitarian sentiment of the age—_Bene fac, hoc tecum feres_—The wealthy recognise the duties of wealth—Charitable foundations of the emperors—Pliny’s lavish generosity, both private and public—Yet he is only a shining example among a crowd of similar benefactors in the Antonine age

Pages 141-195

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