Pliny’s character.—Pliny, without being a great man, is a more favourable specimen of character, feeling, and gentlemanly tone, than almost any other Roman author. He avoided censorious writing, and most of the people he mentions are praised. The chief exception is Regulus (Ep. i. 5, etc.), and possibly also Iavolenus Priscus (vi. 15). When anybody is blamed, his name is omitted unless he is dead or has been banished.
Ep. vii. 28, i, ‘Ais quosdam apud te reprehendisse, tamquam amicos meos ex omni occasione ultra modum laudem. Agnosco crimen, amplector etiam. Quid enim honestius culpa benignitatis?’
For his desire of praise cf. Ep. ix. 23, 5, ‘An ... ego celebritate nominis mei gaudere non debeo? Ego vero et gaudeo et gaudere me dico.’
For his kindness to slaves cf. Ep. viii. 16, 1, ‘Permitto servis quoque quasi testamenta facere eaque ut legitima custodio’ (and the rest of the letter).
For his grief at the loss of friends cf. Ep. v. 21, 6, ‘Sed quid ego indulgeo dolori? cui si frenos remittas, nulla materia non maxima est. Finem epistulae faciam, ut facere possim etiam lacrimis quas epistula expressit.’
For his love of nature cf. Ep. i. 9, 6, ‘O mare, o litus, verum secretumque μουσεῖον, quam multa invenitis, quam multa dictatis!’
Cf. also descriptions of natural scenery, as in Epp. ii. 17, 3; v. 6, 13; vi. 31, 15; viii. 8.
TACITUS.
(1) LIFE.
The historian’s full name is uncertain. Other writers, e.g. Pliny the younger, call him Cornelius Tacitus, or simply Tacitus. His praenomen is given as P. in the best Tacitean MS. (Mediceus I.), and as C. in later MSS. and by Sidonius Apollinaris (Ep. iv. 14; 22).[109] His birthplace is unknown. The tradition that he was born at Interamna in Umbria arose from the fact that the emperor Tacitus (A.D. 275-6), who claimed descent from the historian (Vopisc. Tac. 10, 3), was born there.[110] The probable date of his birth is got from a comparison of two passages: