AP Latin · Pliny's Letters · Unit 3
Pliny, Letters 6.4 & 6.7
Two short letters to Calpurnia, away in Campania for her health. Pliny cannot stop imagining the worst — and cannot stop rereading her replies.
Who is writing, and to whom. Pliny the Younger writing, around 105 CE, to his young wife Calpurnia. She was from Comum (Como), Pliny's home town, and was raised by her aunt Calpurnia Hispulla and her grandfather. This was Pliny's third marriage and, by his account, a devoted one.
What is happening. Calpurnia has gone to Campania to recover from an illness (later letters, 8.10–11, reveal a miscarriage). In 6.4 Pliny, kept in Rome by work, writes that his anxiety invents the very disasters he dreads, and begs for a letter every day. In 6.7 he answers a letter of hers: she keeps his books in his place; he rereads her letters as if they were new — and it only makes him miss her more.
How to read these. Shorter and plainer than the Vesuvius letters, but built from the same devices: balanced antithesis (securior … timebo; delectet ut torqueat), litotes (non sine cura, non mediocriter), and affectionate diminutives (corpusculum, libellos). Watch for indirect statement, indirect questions, and subjunctive relative clauses of characteristic.
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Reading check
Answer in your head, then open each to compare. These target the same skills the AP asks for: literal accuracy, recognising constructions, and citing Latin.