to Pliny's rule which he suggested to one of his correspondents on the subject of letter-writing. The letter-writer, said Pliny, must aim at a style at once compressed and accurate in its form of expression (pressus sermo purusque ex Epistolis petitur). Sidonius, on the other hand, is diffuse and often picturesque, and his language is enriched or disfigured by an ample and often a barbarous vocabulary, drawn from the popular dialect into which the Latin of Cicero and Pliny was fast declining when the Bishop of Clermont wrote. His correspondents were many and various, including, it appears, some seventeen contemporary bishops.
On the whole, the Letters of Sidonius give a vivid and even a brilliant picture of the highly cultivated life of the noble and upper classes of the fast fading Empire of the fifth century.
Briefly to sum up what we have said in this second study of Pliny's Letters. We have dwelt on the great importance of Pliny's picture of Christianity in the first years of the second century; for it was
1st. A picture painted by a great Roman (pagan) statesman;
and
2nd. Though it appears in a letter, the letter was one of a collection of Letters intended for future generations. Pliny here copied Cicero, who really may be said to have "invented" this novel and peculiar form of literature, i.e. letters written not merely for private friends and officials, but for the public, and intended to be handed down, if they were found worthy, to after ages.
The "silence" of all Latin literature after the age of
Pliny for some two hundred and seventy years, of course
prevents citing any examples of such letters, written for public
use and for posterity, during this "silent" period.
But after this "silence," a brief renaissance of Latin literature took place.
In this renaissance the works of only two prose writers of great reputation have been preserved for us. Both these were most distinguished men in the political world and in the world of literature.
