(e) His references to previous literature. Thus Horace is often referred to (cf. 7, 62 and 227); Virgil with great frequency (cf. 1, 162; 6, 434 sqq.; 7, 66 and 227; 7, 233 sqq.). Mayor mentions Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Lucilius, Cicero, Ovid, Manilius, Valerius Maximus, Seneca, Lucan, and Martial among the authors imitated by Juvenal.
PLINY THE YOUNGER.
Pliny’s full name on the inscriptions of the later period of his life reads ‘C. Plinius L. f. Ouf. Caecilius Secundus.’ This name he partly got from his mother’s brother C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the elder), who adopted him by will: cf. Ep. v. 8, 5, ‘Avunculus meus idemque per adoptionem pater.’ Pliny’s name before his adoption in A.D. 79 (see below) was P. Caecilius L. f. Ouf. Secundus. His birthplace was Comum, and he belonged to the Oufentina, the tribe of the people of Comum, as well on the side of his natural as on that of his adoptive father. In an inscription preserved at Como (C.I.L. v. 5279) Pliny’s father, Cilo, is mentioned, and two men who are undoubtedly Cilo’s sons, the second mentioned being Pliny the younger, who had always been called Secundus.
‘L. Caecilius L. f. Cilo iiii.vir a(edilicia) p(otestate), qui testamento suo (sestertium) n(ummum) xxxx. (milia) municipibus Comensibus legavit, ex quorum reditu quotannis per Neptunalia oleum in campo et in thermis et in balineis omnibus, quae sunt Comi, praeberentur, t(estamento) f(ieri) iussit et L. Caecilio L. f. Valenti et P. Caecilio L. f. Secundo et Lutullae Picti f. contubernali.’[107]
For Cilo’s bequests here mentioned cf. Pliny, Ep. i, 8, 5; Comum is referred to as ‘patria mea’ in Ep. iv. 30, 1. The Caecilii were a family of station at Comum even in Caesar’s time. Cf. Catull. 35,
‘Poetae tenero meo sodali
velim Caecilio, papyre, dicas,
Veronam veniat Novi relinquens
Comi moenia Lariumque litus.’
Pliny inherited landed property there from his father and mother.
Ep. vii. 11, 5, ‘Indicavit mihi cupere se aliquid circa Larium nostrum possidere: ego illi ex praediis meis quod vellet ... optuli, exceptis maternis paternisque.’
The above inscription shows that Pliny’s father belonged to the municipal nobility, and possibly had ‘equestris nobilitas.’
Pliny was in his eighteenth year (Ep. vi. 20, 5, ‘agebam duodevicensimum annum’) on 24th August, A.D. 79, when his uncle perished in the eruption of Vesuvius, and he was therefore born in the second half of 61 or in the first half of 62 A.D. Cilo died young, before holding the chief municipal post, and before Pliny was of age; and Verginius Rufus became Pliny’s guardian.