Ep. ii. 1, 8, ‘Ille mihi tutor relictus adfectum parentis exhibuit.’ Pliny was removed to Rome with his uncle, probably at the end of A.D. 72. While at school he wrote poetry (Ep. vii. 4, 2, quoted below), and studied philosophy and rhetoric.
Ep. vi. 6, 3, ‘Quos tunc ego frequentabam, Quintilianum, Niceten Sacerdotem.’ Cf. also ii. 14, 10; i. 20, 4; vii. 4, etc. For literary studies with his uncle cf. Ep. vi. 20, 5, ‘Posco librum Titi Livi et quasi per otium lego, atque etiam, ut coeperam, excerpo.’
His uncle, as above stated, died on 24th August, A.D. 79, and by his will adopted Pliny, whose name thereafter was C. Plinius L. f. Ouf. Caecilius Secundus. He therefore changed his praenomen to that of his adoptive father, and put his former nomen among his cognomina. By his contemporaries he is called Plinius (cf. Martial, x. 19), or Secundus, as by Trajan. The name Caecilius was confined to formal inscriptions.
In A.D. 80 or 81 Pliny first appeared as an advocate. Cf. Ep. v. 8, 8, ‘Undevicensimo aetatis anno dicere in foro coepi.’ Before entering the Senate, he held (as stated in the chief inscription, given below) the decemvirate litibus iudicandis, the military tribunate in the third Gallic legion, and the title of Sevir in the Roman knighthood. Pliny probably held his military tribunate under Domitian (i.e., after 13th September, A.D. 81) in Syria.
Cf. Ep. i. 10, 2, ‘Hunc [Euphraten philosophum] ego in Syria, cum adulescentulus militarem, penitus et domi inspexi.’
The date of Pliny’s praetorship as A.D. 93 is settled by Ep. iii. 11, 2, the events recorded in which passage are known from Tac. Agr. 45 to have taken place shortly after Agricola’s death in August, A.D. 93.
‘Fui praetor ... cum ... occisis Senecione Rustico Helvidio, relegatis Maurico Gratilla Arria Fannia ... mihi quoque impendere idem exitium certis quibusdam notis augurarer.’
The words in Ep. vii. 16 (of Calestrius Tiro), ‘Simul quaestores Caesaris fuimus: ille me in tribunatu liberorum iure praecessit, ego illum in praetura sum consecutus, cum mihi Caesar annum remisisset,’ refer to the fact that the emperor did not insist on the year of absence from office between the tribunate and the quaestorship. Pliny was quaestor from 1st June, 89 to 31st May, 90 A.D., being nominated by the emperor, as shown by the above passage. He was trib. pleb. from 10th December, 90 to 9th December, 91 A.D., and during his year of office undertook no cases. Cf. Ep. i. 23, 2, ‘Ipse cum tribunus essem ... abstinui causis agendis.’ By special favour he was allowed to take office as praetor on 1st January, A.D. 93. In this year he appeared before the Senate for the people of Baetica against the procurator Baebius Massa.
Ep. vii. 33, esp. § 4, ‘Dederat me senatus cum Herennio Senecione advocatum provinciae Baeticae contra Baebium Massam.’
The inscriptions of Pliny show that he was praefectus aerarii militaris between his praetorship in 93 and his praefectura aerarii Saturni (from 98 onwards), and this office he held either from 94 to 96 or from 95 to 97 A.D. Pliny tells us that he and Cornutus Tertullus were designated consuls, when they had held the praefectura aerarii Saturni for less than two years.