Pliny the Younger

====Epistle concerning voting systems====
Voting theorists and historians of social choice note Pliny's early mention of how the choice of voting procedure could influence the outcome of an election.<ref name="Farquharson 1969">{{Cite book
|author-last=Farquharson|author-first=Robin|date=1969|title=Theory of Voting
|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|isbn=9780300011210}}</ref><ref name="McLean and Urken 1995">{{Cite book
|editor-last=McLean|editor-first=Iain|editor-last2=Urken|editor-first2=Arnold B.|date=1995|title=Classics of social choice 
|publisher=University of Michigan Press|location=Ann Arbor MI |doi=10.3998/MPUB.12736 |isbn=9780472104505|s2cid= 142220732}}</ref> On June 24, 105, Pliny wrote a letter to [[Titius Aristo]],<ref name="Pliny105">{{cite book |title= Letters by Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus. Book 8 |url=http://www.attalus.org/old/pliny8.html|access-date=10 January 2021}}</ref> where he describes a criminal trial: under the traditional rules of the Senate, there would first be a vote on guilt and then (if the accused were found guilty) on punishment, for which execution and exile were proposed. Of the three distinct proposals, acquittal, exile, and execution, acquittal had the largest number of supporters but not a majority, although exile would have defeated either acquittal or execution in a direct two-way vote. Pliny supported acquittal but anticipated that first guilt and then execution would be chosen under the traditional rules, and so he argued for a novel three-way plurality vote, which would have resulted in acquittal. In response, those in favor of execution withdrew their proposal, the vote defaulted to a traditional majority vote between exile and acquittal, and exile carried.