Books: The Letters of Pliny the Younger

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1.VII.--TO OCTAVIUS RUFUS.

See on what a pinnacle you have placed me by giving me the same power
and royal will that Homer attributed to Jupiter, Best and Greatest:--
"One half his prayer the Father granted, the other half he refused."
For I too can answer your request by just nodding a yes or no. It is
open to me, especially as you press me to do so, to decline to act on
behalf of the Barbici against a single individual; but I should be
violating the good faith and constancy that you admire in me, if I were
to accept a brief against a province to which I am bound by many
friendly ties, and by the work and dangers I have often undertaken in
its behalf. So I will take a middle course, and of the alternative
favours you ask I will choose the one which will commend itself both to
your interest and your judgment. For what I have to consider is not so
much what will meet your wishes of the moment, but how to do that which
will win the steady approval of a man of your high character. I hope to
be in Rome about the Ides of October and then join my credit with yours,
and convince Gallus in person of the wisdom of my resolve, though even
now you may assure him of my good intentions. "He spake, and Kronios
nodded his dark brows." Homer again, but why should I not go on plying
you with Homeric lines? You will not let me ply you with verses of your
own, though I love them so well that I think your permission to quote
them would be the one bribe that would induce me to appear against the
Barbici. I have almost made a shocking omission, and forgotten to thank
you for the dates you sent me. They are very fine, and are likely to
prove strong rivals of my figs and mushrooms. Farewell.

1.VIII.--TO POMPEIUS SATURNINUS.

Your letter, asking me to send you one of my compositions, came at an
opportune moment, for I had just made up my mind to do so. So you were
spurring a willing horse, and you have not only spoiled your only chance
of making excuses for declining, but have enabled me to press work upon
you without feeling ashamed at asking the favour. For it would be
equally unbecoming for me to hesitate about accepting your offer as for
you who made it to look upon it as a bore. However, you must not expect
anything of an original kind from a lazy man like me. I shall only ask
you to find time to again look through the speech which I made to my
townsfolk at the dedication of the public library. I remember that you
have already criticised a few points therein, but merely in a general
way, and I now beg that you will not only criticise it as a whole, but
will ply your pencil on particular passages as well, in your severest
manner. For even after a thorough revision it will still be open to us
to publish or suppress it as we think fit. Very likely the revision
will help us out of our hesitation and enable us to decide one way or
the other. By looking through it again and again we shall either find
that it is not worth publication or we shall render it worthy by the way
we revise it.

What makes me doubtful is rather the subject-matter than the actual
composition. It is perhaps a shade too laudatory and ostentatious. And
this will be more than our modesty can carry, however plain and
unassuming the style in which it is written, especially as I have to
enlarge on the munificence of my relatives as well as on my own. It is
a ticklish and dangerous subject, even when one can flatter one's self
that there was no way of avoiding it. For if people grow impatient at
hearing the praises of others, how much more difficult must it be to
prevent a speech becoming tedious when we sing our own praises or those
of our family? We look askance even at unpretentious honesty, and do so
all the more when its fame is trumpeted abroad. In short, it is only
the good action that is done by stealth and passes unapplauded which
protects the doer from the carping criticism of the world. For this
reason I have often debated whether I ought to have composed the speech,
such as it is, simply to suit my own feelings, or whether I should have
looked beyond myself to the public. I am inclined to the former
alternative by the thought that many actions which are necessary to the
performance of an object lose their point and appositeness when that
object is attained. I will not weary you with examples further than to
ask whether anything could have been more appropriate than my gracing in
writing the reasons which prompted my generosity. By so doing, the
result was that I grew familiar with generous sentiments; the more I
discussed the virtue the more I saw its beauties, and above all I saved
myself from the reaction that often follows a sudden fit of open-
handedness. From all this there gradually grew up within me the habit
of despising money, and whereas nature seems to have tied men down to
their money bags to guard them, I was enabled to throw off the
prevailing shackles of avarice by my long and carefully reasoned love of
generosity. Consequently my munificence appeared to me to be all the
more worthy of praise, inasmuch as I was drawn to it by reason and not
by any sudden impulse.

Again, I also felt that I was promising not mere games or gladiatorial
shows, but an annual subscription for the upbringing of freeborn youths.
The pleasures of the eye and ear never lack eulogists; on the contrary,
they need rather to be put in the background than in the foreground by
speakers: but to obtain volunteers who will undertake the fatigue and
hard work of self-culture, we have not only to offer rewards but to
encourage them with the choicest addresses. For if doctors have to coax
their patients into adopting an insipid but yet wholesome diet, how much
the more ought the man who is giving his fellows good advice to use all
the allurements of oratory to make his hearers adopt a course which,
though most useful, is not generally popular? Especially is this the
case when we have to try and convince men who have no children of the
value of the boon which is bestowed on those who have, and to induce all
the rest to wait patiently till their turn comes to receive the benefit
now given to a few, and in the meantime show themselves fit recipients
for it. But just as then, when we wished to explain the meaning and
bearing of our bounty, we were studying the common good and not seeking
an opportunity for self-boasting, so now in the matter of publication we
are afraid lest people should think that we have had an eye not so much
to the benefit of others as to our own glorification. Besides, we do
not forget how much better it is to seek the reward of a good action in
the testimony of one's conscience than in fame. For glory ought to
follow of its own accord, and not to be consciously sought for; nor,
again, is a good deed any the less beautiful because owing to some
chance or other no glory attends it. Those who boast of their own good
deeds are credited not so much with boasting for having done them, but
with having done them in order to be able to boast of them.
Consequently what would have been considered a noble action if told of
by a stranger, loses its striking qualities when recounted by the actual
doer. For when men find that the deed itself is inassailable they
attack the boastfulness of the doer, and hence if you commit anything to
be ashamed of, the deed itself is blamed, while if you perform anything
deserving of praise, you are blamed for not having kept silence upon it.

Beyond all this, however, there is a special obstacle in the way of
publishing the speech. I delivered it not before the people but before
the municipal corporation, not in public but in the Council Chamber. So
I am afraid that it may look inconsistent if, after avoiding the
applause and cheers of the crowd when I delivered the speech, I now seek
for that applause by publishing it, and if, after getting the common
people, whose interests I was seeking, removed from the threshold and
the walls of the Chamber--to prevent the appearance of courting
popularity--I should now seem to deliberately seek the acclamations of
those who are only interested in my munificence to the extent of having
a good example shown them. Well, I have told you the grounds of my
hesitation, but I shall follow the advice you give me, for its weight
will be reason sufficient for me. Farewell.

1.IX.--TO MINUTIUS FUNDANUS.

It is surprising how if you take each day singly here in the city you
pass or seem to pass your time reasonably enough when you take stock
thereof, but how, when you put the days together, you are dissatisfied
with yourself. If you ask any one, "What have you been doing to-day?"
he will say, "Oh, I have been attending a coming-of-age function; I was
at a betrothal or a wedding; so-and-so asked me to witness the signing
of a will; I have been acting as witness to A, or I have been in
consultation with B." All these occupations appear of paramount
importance on the day in question, but if you remember that you repeat
the round day after day, they seem a sheer waste of time, especially
when you have got away from them into the country; for then the thought
occurs to you, "What a number of days I have frittered away in these
chilly formalities!" That is how I feel when I am at my Laurentine
Villa and busy reading or writing, or even when I am giving my body a
thorough rest and so repairing the pillars of my mind. I hear nothing
and say nothing to give me vexation; no one comes backbiting a third
party, and I myself have no fault to find with any one except it be with
myself when my pen does not run to my liking. I have no hopes and fears
to worry me, no rumours to disturb my rest. I hold converse with myself
and with my books. 'Tis a genuine and honest life; such leisure is
delicious and honourable, and one might say that it is much more
attractive than any business. The sea, the shore, these are the true
secret haunts of the Muses, and how many inspirations they give me, how
they prompt my musings! Do, I beg of you, as soon as ever you can, turn
your back on the din, the idle chatter, and the frivolous occupations of
Rome, and give yourself up to study or recreation. It is better, as our
friend Attilius once very wittily and very truly said, to have no
occupation than to be occupied with nothingness. Farewell.

1.X.--TO ATTIUS CLEMENS.

If ever there was a time when this Rome of ours was devoted to learning,
it is now. There are many shining lights, of whom it will be enough to
mention but one. I refer to Euphrates the philosopher. I saw a great
deal of him, even in the privacy of his home life, during my young
soldiering days in Syria, and I did my best to win his affection, though
that was not a hard task, for he is ever easy of access, frank, and full
of the humanities that he teaches. I only wish that I had been as
successful in fulfilling the hopes he then formed of me as he has been
increasing his large stock of virtues, though possibly it is I who now
admire them the more because I can appreciate them the better. Even now
my appreciation is not as complete as it might be. It is only an artist
who can thoroughly judge another painter, sculptor, or image-maker, and
so too it needs a philosopher to estimate another philosopher at his
full merit. But so far as I can judge, Euphrates has many qualities so
conspicuously brilliant that they arrest the eyes and attention even of
those who have but modest pretensions to learning. His reasoning is
acute, weighty, and elegant, often attaining to the breadth and
loftiness that we find in Plato. His conversation flows in a copious
yet varied stream, strikingly pleasant to the ear, and with a charm that
seizes and carries away even the reluctant hearer. Add to this a tall,
commanding presence, a handsome face, long flowing hair, a streaming
white beard--all of which may be thought accidental adjuncts and without
significance, but they do wonderfully increase the veneration he
inspires. There is no studied negligence in his dress, it is severely
plain but not austere; when you meet him you revere him without
shrinking away in awe. His life is purity itself, but he is just as
genial; his lash is not for men but for their vices; for the erring he
has gentle words of correction rather than sharp rebuke. When he gives
advice you cannot help listening in rapt attention, and you hope he will
go on persuading you even when the persuasion is complete. He has three
children, two of them sons, whom he has brought up with the strictest
care. His father-in-law is Pompeius Julianus, a man of great
distinction, but whose chief title to fame is that though, as ruler of a
province, he might have chosen a son-in-law of the highest social rank,
he preferred one who was distinguished not for social dignities but for
wisdom.

Yet why describe at greater length a man whose society I can no longer
enjoy? Is it to make myself feel my loss the more? For my time is all
taken up by the duties of an office--important, no doubt, but tedious in
the extreme. I sit at my magisterial desk; I countersign petitions, I
make out the public accounts; I write hosts of letters, but what
illiterary productions they are! Sometimes--but how seldom I get the
opportunity--I complain to Euphrates about these uncongenial duties. He
consoles me and even assures me that there is no more noble part in the
whole of philosophy than to be a public official, to hear cases, pass
judgment, explain the laws and administer justice, and so practise in
short what the philosophers do but teach. But he never can persuade me
of this, that it is better to be busy as I am than to spend whole days
in listening to and acquiring knowledge from him. That makes me the
readier to urge you, whose time is your own, to let him put a finish and
polish upon you when you come to town, and I hope you will come all the
sooner on that account. I am not one of those--and there are many of
them--who grudge to others the happiness they are debarred from
themselves; on the contrary, I feel a very lively sense of pleasure in
seeing my friends abounding in joys that are denied to me. Farewell.

1.XI.--TO FABIUS JUSTUS.

It is quite a long time since I had a letter from you. "Oh," you say,
"there has been nothing to write about." But at least you might write
and say just that, or you might send me the line with which our
grandfathers used to begin their letters: "All is well if you are well,
for I am well." I should be quite satisfied with so much; for, after
all, it is the heart of a letter. Do you think I am joking? I am
perfectly serious. Pray, let me know of your doings. It makes me feel
downright uneasy to be kept in ignorance. Farewell.

1.XII.--TO CALESTRIUS TIRO.

I have suffered a most grievous loss, if loss is a word that can be
applied to my being bereft of so distinguished a man. Corellius Rufus
is dead, and what makes my grief the more poignant is that he died by
his own act. Such a death is always most lamentable, since neither
natural causes nor Fate can be held responsible for it. When people die
of disease there is a great consolation in the thought that no one could
have prevented it; when they lay violent hands on themselves we feel a
pang which nothing can assuage in the thought that they might have lived
longer. Corellius, it is true, felt driven to take his own life by
Reason--and Reason is always tantamount to Necessity with philosophers--
and yet there were abundant inducements for him to live. His conscience
was stainless, his reputation beyond reproach; he stood high in men's
esteem. Moreover, he had a daughter, a wife, a grandson, and sisters,
and, besides all these relations, many genuine friends. But his battle
against ill-health had been so long and hopeless that all these splendid
rewards of living were outweighed by the reasons that urged him to die.

I have heard him say that he was first attacked by gout in the feet when
he was thirty-three years of age. He had inherited the complaint, for
it often happens that a tendency to disease is handed down like other
qualities in a sort of succession. While he was in the prime of life he
overcame his malady and kept it well in check by abstemious and pure
living, and when it became sharper in its attacks as he grew old he bore
up against it with great fortitude of mind. Even when he suffered
incredible torture and the most horrible agony--for the pain was no
longer confined, as before, to the feet, but had begun to spread over
all his limbs--I went to see him in the time of Domitian when he was
staying at his country house. His attendants withdrew from his chamber,
as they always did whenever one of his more intimate friends entered the
room. Even his wife, a lady who might have been trusted to keep any
secret, also used to retire. Looking round the room, he said: "Why do
you think I endure pain like this so long? It is that I may outlive
that tyrant, even if only by a single day." Could you but have given
him a frame fit to support his resolution, he would have achieved the
object of his desire. However, some god heard his prayer and granted
it, and then feeling that he could die without anxiety and as a free man
ought, he snapped the bonds that bound him to life. Though they were
many, he preferred death.

His malady had become worse, though he tried to moderate it by his
careful diet, and then, as it still continued to grow, he escaped from
it by a fixed resolve. Two, three, four days passed and he refused all
food. Then his wife Hispulla sent our mutual friend Caius Geminius to
tell me the sad news that Corellius had determined to die, that he was
not moved by the entreaties of his wife and daughter, and that I was the
only one left who might possibly recall him to life. I flew to see him,
and had almost reached the house when Hispulla sent me another message
by Julius Atticus, saying that now even I could do nothing, for his
resolve had become more and more fixed. When the doctor offered him
nourishment he said, "My mind is made up," and the word has awakened
within me not only a sense of loss, but of admiration. I keep thinking
what a friend, what a manly friend is now lost to me. He was at the end
of his seventy-sixth year, an age long enough even for the stoutest of
us. True. He has escaped a lifelong illness; he has died leaving
children to survive him, and knowing that the State, which was dearer to
him than everything else beside, was prospering well. Yes, yes, I know
all this. And yet I grieve at his death as I should at the death of a
young man in the full vigour of life; I grieve--you may think me weak
for so doing--on my own account too. For I have lost, lost for ever,
the guide, philosopher, and friend of my life. In short, I will say
again what I said to my friend Calvisius, when my grief was fresh: "I
am afraid I shall not live so well ordered a life now." Send me a word
of sympathy, but do not say, "He was an old man, or he was infirm."
These are hackneyed words; send me some that are new, that are potent to
ease my trouble, that I cannot find in books or hear from my friends.
For all that I have heard and read occur to me naturally, but they are
powerless in the presence of my excessive sorrow. Farewell.

1.XIII.--TO SOSIUS SENECIO.

This year has brought us a fine crop of poets: right through April
hardly a day passed without some recital or other. I am delighted that
literature is so flourishing and that men are giving such open proofs of
brains, even though audiences are found so slow in coming together.
People as a rule lounge in the squares and waste the time in gossip when
they should be listening to the recital. They get some one to come and
tell them whether the reciter has entered the hall yet, whether he has
got through his introduction, or whether he has nearly reached the end
of his reading. Not until then do they enter the room, and even then
they come in slowly and languidly. Nor do they sit it out; no, before
the close of the recital they slip away, some sidling out so as not to
attract attention, others rising openly and walking out boldly. And
yet, by Hercules, our fathers tell a story of how Claudius Caesar one
day, while walking up and down in the palace, happened to hear some
clapping of hands, and on inquiring the cause and being told that
Nonianus was giving a reading, he suddenly joined the company to every
one's surprise. But nowadays even those who have most time on their
hands, after receiving early notices and frequent reminders, either fail
to put in an appearance, or if they do come they complain that they have
wasted a day just because they have not wasted it. All the more praise
and credit, therefore, is due to those who do not allow their love of
writing and reciting to be damped either by the laziness or the
fastidiousness of their audiences. For my own part, I have hardly ever
failed to attend. True, the authors are mostly my friends, for almost
all the literary people are also friends of mine, and for this reason I
have spent more time in Rome than I had intended. But now I can betake
myself to my country retreat and compose something, though not for a
public recital, lest those whose readings I attended should think I went
not so much to hear their works as to get a claim on them to come and
hear mine. As in everything else, if you lend a man your ears, all the
grace of the act vanishes if you ask for his in return. Farewell.

1.XIV.--TO JUNIUS MAURICUS.

You ask me to look out for a husband for your brother's daughter, and
you do well to select me for such a commission. For you know how I
looked up to him, and what an affection I had for his splendid
qualities; you know, too, what good advice he gave me in my salad days,
and how by his warm praises he actually made it appear that I deserved
them. You could not have given me a more important commission or one
that I should be better pleased to undertake, and there is no charge
that I could possibly accept as a greater compliment to myself than that
of being set to choose a young man worthy of being the father of
grandchildren to Arulenus Rusticus. I should have had to look carefully
and long, had it not been that Minucius Acilianus was ready to hand,--
one might almost say that Providence had prepared him for the purpose.
He has for me the close and affectionate regard of one young man for
another--for he is only a few years younger than myself--yet at the same
time he pays me the deference due to a man of years, for he is as
anxious that I should mould and form his character as I used to be that
you and your son should mould mine. His native place is Brixia, a part
of that Italy of ours which still retains and preserves much of the old-
fashioned courtesy, frugality and even rusticity. His father, Minucius
Macrinus, was one of the leaders of the Equestrian order, because he did
not wish to attain higher rank; he was admitted by the divine Vespasian
to Praetorian rank, and to the end of his days preferred this modest and
honourable distinction to the--what shall I say?--ambitions or dignities
for which we strive. His grandmother on his mother's side was Serrana
Procula, who belonged to the township of Patavia. You know the
character of that place--well, Serrana was a model of austere living
even to the people of Patavia. His uncle was Publius Acilius, a man of
almost unique weight, judgment, and honour. In short, you will find
nothing in the whole of his family which will fail to please you as much
as if the family were your own.

As for Acilianus himself, he is an energetic and untiring worker, and
the very pink of courtesy. He has already acquitted himself with great
credit in the quaestorship, tribunate, and praetorship, and so he has
thus spared you the trouble of having to canvass in his behalf. He has
a frank, open countenance, fresh-coloured and blooming; a handsome,
well-made figure, and an air that would become a senator. These are
points which, in my opinion, are not to be neglected, for I regard them
as meet rewards to a girl for her chastity. I don't know whether I
should add that his father is a well-to-do man, for when I think of you
and your brother for whom we are looking out for a son-in-law, I feel
disinclined to speak of money. On the other hand, when I consider the
prevailing tendencies of the day and the laws of the state which lay
such prominent stress upon the matter of income, I think it right not to
overlook the point. Moreover, when I remember the possible issue of the
marriage, I feel that in choosing a bridegroom one must take his income
into account. Perhaps you will imagine that I have let my affection run
away with me, and that I have exaggerated my friend's merits beyond
their due. But I pledge you my word of honour that you will find his
virtues to be far in excess of my description of them. I have the most
intense affection for the young man, and he deserves my love, but it is
one of the proofs of a lover that you do not overburden the object of
your regard with praise. Farewell.

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