Pliny the Younger (61/62 113 AD) was a lawyer and politician in Rome, later provincial governor in Asia Minor. His letters, collected in ten books, are an invaluable source for the political, literary and cultural life of the imperial era. They are addressed to over a hundred different addressees representing a cross-section of the Roman upper class. The topics that the author deals with include his litigation, his literary studies, the administration of estates, the famous accounts of the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD or the exchange of letters with Emperor Trajan on the state's dealings with Christians.