[Sidenote: Pliny’s letters.] Pliny’s extant works consist of nine books of letters to various persons, written between 97 and 109 A. D., a panegyric on the Emperor Trajan, delivered in 100 A. D. when Pliny was made consul, and seventy-two letters to Trajan, written between 98 and 106, and from September, 111, to January, 113 A. D. Trajan’s replies to fifty-one of these letters are published which exhibit his firm judgment and practical common sense in striking contrast to Pliny’s indecision and lack of independence. Pliny’s other letters are more interesting. He describes the scenes in the Roman courts, the gatherings where the audience was bored by authors who recited their works, he gives detailed descriptions of his Laurentine[125] and Tuscan[126] villas, in two letters[127] to Tacitus he gives an account of the eruption of Vesuvius, his uncle’s death, and his own feelings. Incidentally he throws much light upon the social and family life of the time. His own character is also clearly portrayed. What a young prig he must have been who refused his uncle’s invitation to accompany him to see, from a nearer point of view, the great eruption, preferring to spend his time over his books, and who even continued to make extracts when awakened by the terrible quaking of the earth—and this at seventeen years of age! His vanity is beautifully exhibited in another letter to Tacitus,[128] in which he tells a story to his own credit, and hopes that Tacitus will insert it in the _Histories_, and in still another,[129] where he says to the most original and inimitable of all Roman writers since the Augustan times, “You, such is the similarity of our natures, always seemed to me most easy to imitate and most to be imitated. Wherefore I am the more pleased that, if there is any talk about literature, we are mentioned together, that I occur at once to those who are speaking of you.” Other qualities appear no less clearly. Vain he was and fond of praise, but at the same time kind to his slaves, affectionate to his friends, gentle, and conscientious. He seldom speaks unkindly of any one; and when he utters a sharp criticism, he almost always avoids mentioning the name of the person criticized. The love of nature was fashionable at Rome, and Pliny may be only following the fashion when he writes of natural scenery, but it is quite as probable that he really felt its charms. He had a great admiration for Cicero, and it was doubtless owing, in part, at least, to this admiration that Pliny, like Cicero, published his letters. There is, however, a great difference between the two collections. Cicero’s letters were collected and published by others, whereas Pliny’s were from the beginning intended for publication and were published at various times by Pliny himself. They are therefore not unpremeditated utterances, but carefully prepared writings for the perusal of the public. Nevertheless the epistolary