Letters, Book 4

Book 4 of Pliny's letters dates from about AD 104 to 105, when Pliny was a senior senator and, by one of these letters, newly made an augur. It is one of the most varied books in the collection.

Pliny mocks the extravagant grief of his old enemy Regulus for his young son and the book Regulus wrote about him. A grim letter recalls how Domitian had the senior Vestal Virgin Cornelia buried alive for alleged unchastity, and how the ex-praetor Valerius Licinianus, accused with her, now teaches rhetoric in exile. Pliny tells Tacitus of his plan to found a school at Comum, his home town, so that its boys need not study elsewhere, with the parents paying part of the cost. He praises his young wife Calpurnia to her aunt, describing how she reads his books and listens to his recitations from behind a curtain. He reports the trial of Julius Bassus, a packed sitting of the centumviral court, the death of the daughters of Helvidius, and the abolition of the games at Vienne. He sends his light verse to friends and asks Licinius Sura to explain the intermittent spring near Comum which rises and falls three times a day.

The book shows Pliny as advocate, patron, husband and naturalist. The Calpurnia and Cornelia letters are often read; the Latin is fluent and of moderate difficulty.