Source A: Pliny, Letters 2.6
'It would take too long to go back further, and it does not matter how it came about that I, who hardly knew him, was dining with a man who, in his own opinion, was elegant and careful, but in mine was mean and extravagant at the same time. For he served some rich dishes to himself and a few others, and cheap scraps to the rest. He had even divided the wine, in tiny little flasks, into three kinds - not to give us a choice, but so that we had no right to refuse: one for himself and for us, another for his lesser friends (for he grades his friends), and another for his freedmen and ours. The man reclining next to me noticed and asked whether I approved. I said no. "So what custom do you follow?" he asked. "I serve the same to everyone, for I invite people to dinner, not to mark them down, and I treat as equal in everything those I have made equal at my table and on my couches." "Even freedmen?" "Even them, for at dinner I regard them as fellow guests, not freedmen." "That must cost you a lot." "Not at all." "How can that be?" "Because, of course, my freedmen don't drink the same wine as I do - I drink the same as my freedmen."'
To what extent is the purpose of Pliny's letters different from the purpose of the satirists? Use Source A as a starting point and your own knowledge of Pliny's letters and the satires.
Model answer
Source A shares some features with satire. Like Horace describing Nasidienus or Petronius describing Trimalchio, Pliny criticises a pretentious host at a dinner party, who serves rich dishes to himself and a few others and 'cheap scraps' to the rest, and grades his wine into three kinds. The letter even ends with a witty punchline: 'I drink the same as my freedmen'. So Pliny, like the satirists, exposes a social vice - meanness disguised as elegance.
However, the purpose of the letter is quite different. Its real subject is Pliny himself: he presents himself as the model host, fair and sensible, who invites people 'to dinner, not to mark them down'. The letter was written to a young friend, Avitus, as advice, so that he would not be deceived by luxury disguised as thrift. Pliny does not even name the host, and there is no exaggeration or grotesque detail - nothing like Juvenal's crushed corpses or Trimalchio's silver toothpick.
My wider knowledge supports this. In Letter 9.6 Pliny gently mocks race fans who 'love a piece of cloth', but the point is to show how wisely he spends his own leisure on literature. Letter 1.9 contrasts pointless duties in Rome with study at his villa, rather like Horace's 'O countryside', but without self-mockery. Other letters praise people - his wife Calpurnia in 4.19, his freedman Zosimus in 5.19 - or record events, such as the murder of Larcius Macedo by his slaves in 3.14. Satire, by contrast, is verse (or, for Petronius, comic fiction) designed to attack vice and folly through humour and exaggeration.
So Pliny's purpose is largely different. He sometimes criticises like a satirist and shares their moral concerns, but his letters are polished self-portraits of an ideal Roman gentleman, meant to praise good conduct and display his character rather than to mock.
Explanation
Letter 2.6 is the letter that comes closest to satire, which makes it a good test case: the best answers acknowledge the similarities (a dinner, a vice, a witty ending) before showing how Pliny's self-presentation and restraint change the purpose. A clear judgement, supported by other letters and by examples from the satires, is needed for Level 4.
