Providing a series of fascinating views of Imperial Rome, The Letters of the Younger Pliny also offer one of the fullest self-portraits to survive from classical times. Pliny's lively and very personal letters address an astonishing range of topics, from a deeply moving account of his uncle's death in the eruption that engulfed Pompeii, to observations on the early Christians "a desperate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths" from descriptions of everyday life in Rome, with its scandals and court cases, to Pliny's life in the country.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has...