Letters, Book 10

Book 10 of Pliny's letters is different from the others: it contains his official correspondence with the emperor Trajan, with Trajan's replies. A few early letters date from the start of Trajan's reign in AD 98; the rest come from Pliny's time as Trajan's special governor of Bithynia and Pontus, on the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey, from about AD 110. The book was probably published after Pliny's death.

The early letters congratulate Trajan on his accession and ask favours, such as citizenship for Pliny's Egyptian masseur Harpocras. Pliny then reports his journey to the province and his audit of the cities' finances. Questions follow on every aspect of government: whether prisons should be guarded by soldiers or public slaves, what to do about slaves found among recruits, and convicts working as public slaves. After a fire at Nicomedia Pliny asks to form a brigade of 150 firemen, and Trajan refuses for fear that any such club would become political. There are troubled aqueducts at Nicomedia, a cracked theatre and a gymnasium at Nicaea, a proposed canal from a lake to the sea, Byzantium's costly embassies, travel permits, the moving of temples and graves, entry fees for councillors and athletes' prizes. The famous exchange about the Christians is in the course.

These letters are a unique record of how a Roman province was run and of an emperor's crisp replies. The Latin is plainer and more businesslike than in the earlier books, and most letters are short.