Who are the letters addressed to?

Tacitus, who had asked Pliny about his uncle’s death.

Where is letter 6.20?

Below 6.16 in the reader; the two are read as a pair.

Pliny 6.16 in Latin: The Vesuvius Letters, 6.16 and 6.20

Letter 6.16

The death of Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder commanded the Roman fleet at Misenum. He set out across the bay toward people stranded on the coast below Vesuvius, through falling pumice and ash, and died there.

Letter 6.20

The younger Pliny’s own account.

After his uncle sailed, the seventeen-year-old Pliny and his mother fled Misenum among a panicking crowd, in darkness, as the ground shook and ash fell.

What the Latin is like

Polished prose with a strong story.

The letters are polished literary prose with a strong narrative. On LC’s difficulty scale the pair scores 6.7 (Intermediate, near the top). The reader has both letters, from the Perseus text cross-checked against Keil’s 1870 Teubner edition, about 1,400 words.

Pliny the Younger's Letters — Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger)

The complete required Pliny selection for the revised AP Latin course, including both Vesuvius letters.

See the library entry →