Books: The Letters of Pliny the Younger
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Pliny the Younger >> The Letters of Pliny the Younger
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Again, there is a precedent in my own family which impels me towards
writing history. My uncle, who was also my father by adoption, was a
historian of the most scrupulous type, and I find all wise men agree
that one can do nothing better than follow in the footsteps of one's
ancestors, provided that they have gone in the right path themselves.
Why, then, do I hesitate? For this reason, that I have delivered a
number of pleadings of serious importance, and it is my intention to
revise them carefully--though my hopes of fame from them are only
slight--lest, in spite of all the trouble they have given me, they
should perish with me, just for want of receiving the last polishing and
additional touches. For if you have a view to what posterity will say,
all that is not absolutely finished must be classed as incomplete
matter. You will say: "Yes, but you can touch up your pleadings and
compose history at the same time." I wish I could, but each is so great
a task that I should think I had done very well to have finished either.
I began to plead in the Forum in my nineteenth year, and it is only just
now that I begin to see darkly what an orator ought to be. What would
happen if I were to take on a new task in addition to this one? Oratory
and history have many things in common, but they also differ greatly in
the points that seem common to both. There is narrative in both, but of
a different type; the humblest, meanest and most common-place subjects
suit the one; the other requires research, splendour, and dignity. In
the one you may describe the bones, muscles, and nerves of the body, in
the other brawny parts and flowing manes. In oratory one wants force,
invective, sustained attack; in history the charm is obtained by
copiousness and agreeableness, even by sweetness of style. Lastly, the
words used, the forms of speech, and the construction of the sentences
are different. For, as Thucydides remarks, it makes all the difference
whether the composition is to be a possession for all time or a
declamation for the moment; oratory has to do with the latter, history
with the former.
Hence it is that I do not feel tempted to hopelessly jumble together two
dissimilar styles which differ from one another just because of their
great importance, and I am afraid I should become bewildered by such a
terrible medley and write in the one style just where I ought to be
employing the other. For the meantime, therefore, to use the language
of the courts, I ask your gracious permission to go on with my pleading.
However, do you be good enough even now to consider the period which it
would be best for me to tackle. Shall it be a period of ancient history
which others have dealt with before me? If so, the materials are all
ready to hand, but the putting them together would be a heavy task. On
the other hand, if I choose a modern period which has not been dealt
with, I shall get but small thanks and am bound to give serious offence.
For, besides the fact that the general standard of morality is so lax
that there is much more to censure than to praise, you are sure to be
called niggardly if you praise and too censorious if you censure, though
you may have been lavish of appreciation and scrupulously guarded in
reproach. However, these considerations do not stay me, for I have the
courage of my convictions. I only beg of you to prepare the way for me
in the direction you urge me to take, and choose a subject for me, so
that, when I am at length ready to take pen in hand, no other
overpowering reason may crop up to make me hesitate and delay my
purpose. Farewell.
5.IX.--TO RUFUS.
I had gone down to the basilica of Julius to listen to the speeches of
the counsel to whom I had to reply from the last postponement. The
judges were in their places; the decemvirs had arrived; the advocates
were moving to and fro, and then came a long silence, broken at last by
a message from the praetor. The centumvirs were dismissed and the
hearing was put off, at which I was glad, for I am never so well
prepared that I am not pleased at having extra time given me. The
postponement was due to Nepos, the praetor-designate, who hears cases
with the most scrupulous attention to legal forms. He had issued a
short edict warning both plaintiffs and defendants that he would
strictly carry out the decree of the Senate. Attached to the edict was
a copy of the decree, which provided "that all persons engaged in any
lawsuit are hereby ordered to take an oath before their cases are heard,
that they have neither given nor promised any sum to their advocates,
nor have entered into any contract to pay them for their advocacy." In
these words and other long sentences as well, advocates were forbidden
to sell their services and litigants to buy them, although, when a suit
is over, the latter are allowed to offer their counsel a sum not
exceeding ten thousand sesterces. The praetor, who was presiding over
the Court of the Centumviri, was embarrassed by this decree of Nepos and
gave us an unexpected holiday, while he made up his mind whether or not
he should follow the example set him. Meanwhile, the whole town is
discussing the edict of Nepos, some favourably, others adversely. Many
people are saying: "Well, we have found a man to set the crooked
straight. But have there been no praetors before Nepos, and who is
Nepos that he should mend our public morals?" On the other hand, a
number of people argue: "He has acted quite rightly. He has mastered
the laws before entering office, he has read the decrees of the Senate,
he is putting a stop to a disgraceful system of bargaining, and he will
not allow a most honourable profession to be bought and sold in a
scandalous way." That is how people are talking everywhere, and there
will be no majority for one side or the other till it is known how the
matter will end. It is very deplorable, but it is the accepted rule
that good or bad counsels are approved or condemned according to whether
they turn out well or badly. The result is that we find the self-same
deed ascribed sometimes to zeal, sometimes to vanity, and even to love
of liberty and downright madness. Farewell.
5.X.--TO SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS.
Do, I beg of you, fulfil the promise I made in my verses when I pledged
my word that our common friends should see your compositions. People
are asking for them every day, clamouring for them even, and, if you are
not careful, you may find yourself served with a writ to publish them.
I myself am very slow to make up my mind to publish, but you are far
more of a slow-coach than even I am. So either decide at once, or take
care that I do not drag those books of yours from you by the lash of my
satire, as I have failed to coax them out by my hendecasyllabics. The
work is absolutely finished, and if you polish it any more you will only
impair it without making it shine the more brightly. Do let me see your
name on the title page; do let me hear that the volumes of my friend
Tranquillus are being copied, read, and sold. It is only fair,
considering the strength of our attachment, that you should afford me
the same gratification that I have afforded you. Farewell.
5.XI.--TO CALPURNIUS FABATUS.
I have received your letter, from which I gather that you have dedicated
a most beautiful portico in the joint names of yourself and your son,
and that on the following day you promised a sum of money for the
decoration of the gates, so as to signalise the completion of your
earlier act of generosity by immediately beginning a new one. I am
delighted to hear it, in the first place, on account of the reputation
you will secure, of which some part will extend to me, owing to the
closeness of our friendship; secondly, because I see that the name of my
father-in-law will be perpetuated by these choice works; and, lastly,
because our country is in such a flourishing state. Pleasant as it is
to see her honoured by any one, it is trebly gratifying when the honour
is paid by yourself. It only remains for me to pray Heaven to confirm
you in this habit of mind, and bestow upon you long length of years.
For I venture to prophesy that, when your latest promise is complete,
you will set about something else. When once a man's generosity has
been aroused it knows not where to stop, for the more it is practised
the more beautiful it becomes in the eyes of the generous. Farewell.
5.XII.--TO TERENTIUS SCAURUS.
Before giving a recital of a little speech which I had some thoughts of
publishing, I called a few friends to hear it, so as to put me on my
mettle, but not many, so that I might get candid criticism. For there
are two reasons why I give these recitals, one that I may screw myself
up to the proper pitch by their anxiety that I should do myself justice,
and the other that they may correct me if I happen to make a mistake and
do not notice it because the blunder is my own. I got what I wanted and
I found some friends who gave me their advice freely; while I myself
noticed certain passages which required correction. I have revised the
speech which I am sending you. You will see what the subject is from
the title, and the speech itself will explain all other points. It
ought now to become so familiar to people as to be understood without
any preface. But I trust that you will write and tell me what you think
of it as a whole as well as in parts, for I shall be the more careful to
suppress it, or the more determined to publish it, according as your
critical judgment inclines one way or the other. Farewell.
5.XIII.--TO VALERIANUS.
In compliance with your request--and the promise I made to comply in
case you asked me--I will write and tell you the upshot of the demand of
Nepos in the matter of Tuscilius Nominatus. Nominatus was brought into
the Senate, and he pleaded his own case. There was no one to accuse
him, for the legates of the Vicetini, so far from making matters
difficult for him, smoothed his path. The substance of his defence was
that in his conduct of the case he had failed not in loyalty but in
resolution, that he had come down with the intention of pleading and had
been seen in the Senate-house, but had been discouraged by what his
friends told him in conversation, and so had left the chamber. He had
been advised, he said, not to oppose, especially in the Senate, a member
of that body who was now fighting hard not so much to get leave to
establish a market on his estate, as to maintain his influence,
reputation, and position, and he was warned that if he did not give way
he would come in for greater ill-will than had been recently shown him.
It was true that he had been hissed as he left the chamber on the
previous hearing, but only by a few people. He spoke in a very
appealing way and shed a number of tears, and, throughout his pleading,
he used his undoubted abilities as a speaker to make it seem that he was
not so much defending his conduct as asking pardon for it, which was
certainly the safest and best course for him to adopt.
He was acquitted on the motion of the consul-designate, Afranius Dexter,
whose speech may be summarised as follows. He argued that Nominatus
would have done much better if he had gone through with the cause of the
Vicetini with the same resolution with which he had undertaken it, but
that since his conduct, though blameworthy, was not fraudulent, and he
had not been convicted of having committed any crime, he had better be
acquitted on the understanding that he should return to the Vicetini the
fees he had received from them. All present agreed, with the exception
of Fabius Aper, who proposed that Nominatus should be disbarred for the
term of five years, and he continued firmly in that opinion though he
drew no one over to side with him. He even produced the law under which
the meeting of the Senate had been convened, and forced Dexter, who had
been the first to propose the resolution opposed to his, to swear that
his proposal was for the good of the State. Though this demand was
perfectly legal, certain members loudly protested against it, on the
ground that Aper seemed to be accusing Dexter of showing undue favour to
Nominatus. But before any further speeches were made to the motion,
Nigrinus, a tribune of the plebs, read out a learned and weighty
remonstrance in which he complained that counsel were bought and sold,
that they would sell their clients' cases, that they conspired together
to make litigation, and that, instead of being satisfied with fame, they
drew large and fixed amounts at the expense of citizens. He recited the
heads of various laws, he recalled to their memories certain decrees of
the Senate, and at last proposed that, as the laws and the decrees of
the Senate were treated as a dead letter, they should petition their
excellent Emperor to find a remedy for such a scandal.
A few days elapsed, and then the Emperor issued an edict which was at
once moderate and severe. You will be able to read the text of it, for
it appears in the official register. Imagine how delighted I am that I
have always made a point of refusing for my services as counsel not only
to enter into any understanding to receive presents and gifts in any
shape, but even friendly acknowledgments! We ought indeed to refrain
from doing anything that is not quite honourable, not because it is
forbidden, but because we should be ashamed to do it; still it is
gratifying to see a custom which you have never allowed yourself to
follow publicly forbidden. Very likely--and in fact there is no doubt
on the point--I shall reap fewer praises and my reputation will not
shine as brightly when all the members of my profession find themselves
compelled to behave as I did quite of my own free will. In the meantime
I enjoy the pleasure of hearing some of my friends say that I must have
foreseen what was coming, while others banter me by declaring that the
new edict has been designed to put a stop to my plunder and greed.
Farewell.
5.XIV.--TO PONTIUS.
I had already retired to my township when the news was brought to me
that Cornutus Tertullus had accepted the curatorship of the Aemilian
Way. I cannot tell you how delighted I am, both for his own sake and
for mine. I am pleased for his sake, because, though he is
unquestionably entirely void of all ambitious aspirations, he cannot but
be gratified at being offered a post without seeking it; and I am
pleased on my own account, because I am all the more satisfied with my
own employment now that Cornutus has had a position of equal eminence
given to him. For it is just as gratifying to be placed on an equality
with worthy citizens as to receive a step up in one's official position.
And where is there a better man than Cornutus, or a man of more noble
life? Where will you find one who follows more closely the ancient
pattern in all that is praiseworthy? I know his virtues not by hearsay
alone, though he enjoys a richly deserved reputation everywhere, but
from a personal experience extending over many years.
We both of us entertain an affectionate regard, and have done for years,
for all the worthy persons of both sexes whom our age has produced, and
this community of friendships has thrown us together into the most
intimate relations. Another link in the chain has been the closeness of
our public connection. As you know, he was my colleague as prefect of
the Treasury--thus realising, so to speak, my dearest wish--and again he
was associated with me in the consulship. It was there that I obtained
my clearest insight into the character and real greatness of the man,
when I followed his judgment as a magistrate and reverenced him as a
parent, while my veneration was inspired not so much by the ripeness of
his years as by the ripeness of his general character. Hence it is that
I congratulate both him and myself, for public reasons quite as much as
for personal ones, in that now at last a virtuous life leads a man not
to peril, as it used to do, but to public honours.
I should let my pen run on for ever if I were to give my joy a free
course, so I will turn back to tell you how I was engaged when the
messenger came and found me. I was with my wife's grandfather and her
aunt, and in the company of friends I had long wished to see. I was
going the round of the estate, hearing no end of complaints from my
tenants, reading over with an unwilling eye and in a cursory fashion the
accounts--for I have been consecrating my energies to papers and books
of quite a different style--and I had even begun to make preparations
for my journey. For I am rather pressed owing to the shortness of my
leave, and I am reminded of my own public duties by hearing of those
which have been entrusted to Cornutus. I hope that your Campanian villa
may spare you about the same time, lest, when I return to town, I should
lose a single day of your company. Farewell.
5.XV.--TO ARRIUS ANTONINUS.
It is when I try to equal your verses that I most fully appreciate how
excellent they are. For just as painters rarely succeed in putting a
perfectly beautiful face on their canvas without doing injustice to the
original, so, though I slave hard with your verses as my model, I always
fall short. Let me urge you then to publish as many as possible, so
good that every one will burn to imitate them, and yet no one, or but
very few, will succeed in the attempt. Farewell.
5.XVI.--TO MARCELLINUS.
I am writing to you in great distress. The younger daughter of your
friend Fundanus is dead, and I never saw a girl of a brighter and more
lovable disposition, nor one who better deserved length of days or even
to live for ever. She had hardly completed her fourteenth year, yet she
possessed the prudence of old age and the sedateness of a matron, with
the sweetness of a child and the modesty of a maiden. How she used to
cling round her father's neck! How tenderly and modestly she embraced
us who were her father's friends! Her nurses, her teachers and tutors,
how well she loved them, each according to his station! With what
application and quickness she used to read, while her amusements were
never carried to excess and never overstepped the mark. What
resignation, patience and fortitude she showed during her last illness!
She obeyed her doctor's orders, she cheered her sister and father, and
when her body had lost all its strength, she kept herself alive by the
vigour of her mind. This never failed her right up to the end, nor was
it broken down by her long illness or by the fear of death, and this has
made us miss her all the more severely and made our sorrow all the
heavier to bear. What a sad, heart-rending funeral it was! The moment
of her death seemed even more cruel than death itself, for she had just
been betrothed to a youth of splendid character; the day of the wedding
had been decided upon, and we had already been summoned to attend it.
Think into what terrible grief our joy was changed! I really cannot
tell you in words how acutely I felt it when I heard Fundanus himself,
for one sorrow always leads on to other bitter sorrows--giving the order
that the money he had intended to lay out upon wedding raiment, pearls
and gems, should be spent upon incense, unguents and scents.
He is, it is true, a man of learning and wisdom, who from early years
has devoted himself to the deeper studies and the nobler arts, but, at a
moment like this, all the philosophy he has ever heard from others or
uttered himself is put on one side. All virtues but one are disregarded
for the time being--he can only think of parental love. You will
forgive and even praise him for this, if you consider the loss he has
suffered. For he has lost a daughter who reflected in herself, not only
his face and feature, but his character, and one who was the living
image of her father in every particular. If you send him a letter in
the midst of this rightful grief of his, be careful to use words of
solace which will not flay the heart or deal roughly with his sorrow,
but which will soothe and ease his pain. The time which has elapsed
will make him the more likely to admit your words of consolation, for,
just as a raw wound first shrinks from the touch of the doctor's hand,
then bears it without flinching and actually welcomes it, so with mental
anguish we reject and fly from consolation when the pain is fresh, then
after a time we look for it and find relief in its soothing application.
Farewell.
5.XVII.--TO SPURINNA.
I know what an interest you take in the liberal arts, and how delighted
you are when young men of rank do anything worthy of their ancestry.
That is why I am losing no time to tell you that to-day I made one of
the audience of Calpurnius Piso. He was reading his poem on the Legends
of the Stars, and it was a learned and very excellent composition. It
was written in fluent, graceful, and smooth elegiacs, and rose even to
lofty heights as occasion demanded. The style was cleverly varied, in
some places it soared, in others it was subdued; passing from the grand
to the commonplace, from thinness to richness, and from lively to
severe, and in each case with consummate skill. The sweetness of his
voice lent it an additional charm, and his modesty made even his voice
the sweeter, while his blushes and his nervousness, which were very
plain to see, still further set off the reading. I don't know why, but
diffidence becomes a man of letters much more than over-confidence.
However, to cut the story short,--though I would gladly say more,
because such performances are all the more charming when given by a
young man, and all the rarer when he is of noble birth,--as soon as the
reading was concluded, I embraced the youth with great cordiality, and
by showering praises upon him--which are always the best incentive when
giving advice--I urged him to go on as he had begun, and hold out to his
descendants the light which his own ancestors had held out to him. I
congratulated his excellent mother and also his brother, who made one of
the audience, and indeed achieved as much reputation for brotherly
feeling as his brother Calpurnius did for his eloquence, for while the
latter was reading everybody noticed first the nervous look on the
brother's face, and then the expression of joy. I pray Heaven that I
may often have such news for you, for I am very partial to the age I
live in, and I hope that it may not prove barren and worthless. I am
really most anxious that our young men of rank should have some other
beautiful objects in their houses besides the busts of their ancestors,
and it seems to me that the latter tacitly approve and encourage these
two young men, and even recognise them as their true descendants, which
is in itself a sufficiently high compliment to both. Farewell.
5.XVIII.--TO CALPURNIUS MACER.
As all is well with you, all is well with me. You have your wife with
you, and your son; you enjoy your sea-view, your fountains, greenery,
estate, and your charming villa. I cannot doubt that the latter is most
charming, inasmuch as it was the home of the man who was even happier
there than when he became the happiest man on earth. I am staying at my
Tuscan house; I hunt and I study, sometimes in turns, sometimes both
together, and I cannot as yet tell you whether I find it more difficult
to catch anything or to compose anything. Farewell.
5.XIX.--TO PAULINUS.
I notice how kindly you treat your servants, so I will be quite frank
with you, and tell you with what indulgence I treat mine. I always bear
in mind that phrase in Homer, "like a father mild," and our own Latin
phrase, "father of his family." Even if I had naturally been of a
harsher and less genial disposition, the weakness of my freedman Zosimus
would melt my harshness, for one has to show him greater kindness just
in proportion as he needs it more at his time of life. He is an honest
fellow, devoted to his duties and well-educated, but his chief
accomplishment and, so to speak, his particular recommendation is his
skill in playing comedy, in which he is really admirable. For his
delivery is sharp, intelligent, to the point, and even graceful, and he
plays the harp much better than is usually expected from a comedian. He
is also so clever in reading speeches, history and poetry, that you
would fancy he had never studied anything else. I have gone into all
this detail to show you how many services this one man can render me,
and how pleasant they are. Moreover, I have long entertained a great
regard for him, which has been increased by his serious ill-health, for
Nature has so arranged it that nothing fires and stimulates our
affection so much as the fear of losing the object of it, and I have on
more than one occasion been afraid of losing Zosimus.
Some years since, while he was reciting with great earnestness and fire,
he spat blood, and I sent him on that account to Egypt, from which
country he recently returned with his health restored. Then, after
severely taxing his voice for days together, he was warned of his old
malady by a slight cough, and once more brought up some blood. So I
have decided to send him to the farm which you own at Forum Julii, for I
have often heard you say that the air there is healthy, and the milk
peculiarly beneficial to complaints of this kind. I should be glad,
therefore, if you will write to your people to take him in at the house
and give him lodging, and accommodate him with anything he may require
at his expense. His needs will be very small, for he is so sparing and
abstemious that his frugality leads him to deny himself, not only
dainties, but even that which is necessary for his weak health. When he
sets out, I will give him sufficient travelling money for one who is
going to your part of the country. Farewell.
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