Abstract
The Pliny who is known to us from his letters has too often been dismissed as a conscientious but timid administrator, a pedant aspiring to literary fame, and a generous patron whose uncritical support of promising young men ends by becoming a bore. The answer would be that the Roman conception of friendship was one of mutual aid and reciprocal obligations on the part of cliens and patronus; that desire for gloria is marked in almost every Roman we know about and is closely associated with the hope non omnis moriar; and that when Pliny was sent out as an administrator with special powers as legatus Augusti propraetore consulari potestate to inquire into the financial and administrative confusion in the affairs of Bithynia and Pontus, he had considerable legal experience from his work in the Chancery court of Rome as well as expert knowledge of Bithynia from his handling of the defence in the cases brought by the province against the senatorial governors Iulius Bassus and Rufus Varenus.
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