Ancient Documents Section

I am indebted to so many other websites for publishing public domain English translations of ancient literature that it seemed appropriate to include a section of this nature on my own site. A good place to start seems to be the correspondence of the younger Pliny. To my knowledge there exist two public domain translations: one by William Melmoth in 1747 (but updated and reprinted a number of times); and one by E.G. Hardy of the tenth book only (Pliny’s correspondence with the Roman Emperor Trajan), but with a great many notes and published in 1889. These are both available as scanned page images on Google books, but no one has placed them online as a searchable, English text. I personally prefer the work of Betty Radice, first published in 1969; but alas, hers is still subject to copyright. I will work on getting both of these translations online, starting with that of Hardy.

The Epistles of  Pliny the Younger

E.G. Hardy Translation (MacMillan, 1889)

Latin and English, Complete with original notes:

Book X (The Correspondence of Pliny with Trajan)

William Melmoth Translation

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

Book 6

Book 7

Book 8

Book 9

Book 10

Other Resources:

*The first five books are available online at Ancient History in a translation by John B. Firth.

*A selection of letters from the first nine books, and all of book 10 are available online at Bartleby in the William Melmoth translation.