BOOK I.

Ver.12.12.00*END*

This etext was prepared by Rebecca Trump <r_trump@yahoo.com>

and Sue Asscher <asschers@dingoblue.net.au>

THE LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY JOHN B.

FIRTH.

FIRST SERIES.

THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD,

LONDON AND FELLING-ON-TYNE.

NEW YORK: 3 EAST 14TH STREET.

NOTE.--In the following translation the Teubner text, edited by Keil,

has been followed.

INTRODUCTION.

Some slight memoir and critical estimate of the author of this

collection of Letters may perhaps be acceptable to those who are

unfamiliar with the circumstances of the times in which he lived.

Moreover, few have studied the Letters themselves without feeling a warm

affection for the writer of them. He discloses his character therein so

completely, and, in spite of his glaring fault of vanity and his endless

love of adulation, that character is in the main so charming, that one

can easily understand the high esteem in which Pliny was held by the

wide circle of his friends, by the Emperor Trajan, and by the public at

large. The correspondence of Pliny the Younger depicts for us the

everyday life of a Roman gentleman in the best sense of the term. We

see him practising at the Bar; we see him engaged in the civil

magistracies at Rome, and in the governorship of the important province

of Bithynia; we see him consulted by the Emperor on affairs of state,

and occupying a definite place among the "Amici Caesaris." Best of all,

perhaps, we see him in his daily life, a devoted scholar, never so happy

as when he is in his study, laboriously seeking to perfect his style,

whether in verse or prose, by the models of the great writers of the

past and the criticisms of the friends whom he has summoned, in a

friendly way, to hear his compositions read or recited. Or again we

find him at one of his country villas, enjoying a well-earned leisure

after the courts have risen at Rome and all the best society has betaken

itself into the country to escape the heats and fevers of the capital.

We see him managing his estates, listening to the complaints of his

tenants, making abatements of rent, and grumbling at the agricultural

depression and the havoc that the bad seasons have made with his crops.

Or he spends a day in the open air hunting, yet never omits to take with

him a book to read or tablets on which to write, in case the scent is

cold and game is not plentiful. In short, the Letters of Pliny the

Younger give us a picture of social life as it was in the closing years

of the first, and the opening years of the second century of the

Christian era, which is as fascinating as it is absolutely unique.

Pliny was born either in 61 or 62 A.D. at Comum on Lake Larius. His

father, Lucius Caecilius Cilo, had been aedile of the colony, and, dying

young, left a widow, who with her two sons, sought protection with her

brother, Caius Plinius Secundus, the famous author of the Natural

History. The elder Pliny in his will adopted the younger of the two

boys, and so Publius Caecilius Secundus--as he was originally called--

took thenceforth the name of Caius Plinius, L.F. Caecilius Secundus.

Though later usage has assigned him the name of Pliny the Younger, he

was known to his contemporaries and usually addressed as Secundus. But

in his early years Pliny was placed under the guardianship of Virginius

Rufus, one of the most distinguished Romans of his day, a successful and

brilliant general who had twice refused the purple, when offered to him

by his legionaries, and who lived to a ripe old age--the Wellington of

his generation. So it was at Comum that he spent his early boyhood, and

his affection for his birthplace led him in later years to provide for

the educational needs of the youth of the district, who had previously

been obliged to go to Mediolanum (Milan) to obtain their schooling.

What can be better, he asks, than for children to be educated where they

are born, so that they may grow to love their native place by residing

in it? Pliny was fortunate in having so distinguished an uncle. On the

accession of Vespasian, the elder Pliny was called to Rome by the

Emperor, and when his nephew--vixdum adolescentus--joined him in the

capital, he took charge of his studies. At the age of fourteen the

young student had composed a Greek tragedy, to which he playfully refers

in one of his letters, and in Rome he had the benefit of attending the

lectures of the great Quintilian and Nicetes Sacerdos, and of making

literary friendships which were to prove of the utmost value to him in

after years. Pliny tells us that his uncle looked to him for assistance

in his literary work, and he was thus engaged when his uncle lost his

life in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, so graphically described in the

two famous letters to Tacitus. That Pliny deeply felt the loss of his

relative and patron is shown by the eloquent tribute he paid to his

memory, and doubtless, as his death occurred just at his own entry into

public life, he was deprived of an influence which might have helped him

greatly in his career. Domitian was on the throne, when, in 82, Pliny

joined the 3rd Gallic legion, stationed in Syria, as military tribune.

Service in the field, however, was not to his liking, and, as soon as

his period of soldiering was over, he hurried back to Rome to win his

spurs at the Bar and climb the ladder of civic distinction. He became

Quaestor in 89 on the recommendation of the Emperor, Tribune in 91, and

Praetor in 93.

So far his advancement had been rapid, but evil times succeeded.

Domitian went from bad to worse. Always moody, suspicious, and

revengeful, he began to imitate the worst vices of his predecessors of

the line of Augustus. His hand fell heavily upon the Senatorial order,

and another era of proscription began, in which the dreaded delatores

again became the "terror" of Rome. It was a time of spoliation and

murder, and Pliny writes of it with a shudder. Contrasting with the

happy regime of Trajan that which prevailed in his youth and early

manhood, he declares that virtue was regarded with suspicion and a

premium set upon idleness, that in the camps the generals lacked

authority and the soldiers had no sense of obedience, while, when he

entered the Senate, he found it a craven and tongueless assembly (Curiam

trepidam et elinguem), only convened to perpetrate some piece of

villainy for the Emperor, or to humiliate the Senators by the sense of

their own impotence. Pliny was not the man to make a bold stand against

tyranny, and, during those perilous years, one can well believe that he

did his best to avoid compromising himself, though his sympathies were

wholly on the side of his proscribed friends. He was a typical

official, suave and polished in manner, yet without that perilous

enthusiasm which would simply have marked him for destruction. For two

years he was Prefect of the Military Treasury, an office directly in the

gift of the Emperor, and it would seem, therefore, that his character

for uprightness stood him in good stead with the tyrant even in his

worst years. He did not, like so many of the Roman nobles, retire from

public life and enter into the sullen opposition which enraged the

Emperors even more than active and declared antagonism.

In one passage, indeed, Pliny declares that he, too, was on the black

list of the Emperor, but the words must not be taken too literally. He

was given to boasting, and he may easily have represented, when the

danger was past, that the peril in which he had stood was greater than

it really was. No doubt he felt keenly the judicial murder of his

friends Senecio, Rusticus, and Helvidius, and the banishment of

Mauricus, Gratilla, Arria, and Fannia--for women were not spared in the

general proscription; but, after all, the fact that he held office

during the closing years of Domitian's life is ample proof that he knew

how to walk circumspectly, and did not allow his detestation of the

informers to compromise his safety. When at length, in 96, the Emperor

was assassinated in the palace, and the Senate raised Nerva to the

purple, Pliny stepped forward as the champion of the oppressed, and

impeached Publicius Certus for compassing the death of Helvidius

Priscus, though he was only so far successful that he prevented Certus

from enjoying the consulship which had been promised him. Pliny revised

the speech and published it in book form, and Certus died a few days

after it appeared, haunted, so Pliny tells us, by the vision of his

prosecutor pursuing him, sword in hand. Nerva's reign was short, but he

was succeeded by one of the best of the Roman Emperors, Trajan, a prince

under whose just, impartial and strong rule, a man of Pliny's character

was bound to thrive and pass from office to office. In 98 he had been

appointed by Nerva Prefect of the Treasury of Saturn, and in 100 he held

the Consulship for two months, while still retaining his post at the

Treasury, and delivered his well-known Panegyric on the 1st of

September in that year. Either in 103 or 104 he was advanced to the

Augurate, and two years later was appointed Curator of the Tiber. Then

in 111 or 112--according to Mommsen's Chronology--Trajan bestowed upon

him a signal mark of his esteem by selecting him for the Governorship of

the province of Pontus and Bithynia, which he had transferred from the

list of senatorial to that of imperial provinces. Pliny was given the

special title of Legate Propraetor with full Consular powers, and he

remained in his province for at least fifteen months. After that the

curtain falls. Whether he died in Bithynia, or shortly after his return

to Rome, or whether he lived on to enjoy the ripe old age of which he

writes so pleasantly in his letters, we do not know. Certainly the

probabilities are that, if he had lived, he would have continued to

correspond with his friends, and the absence of further letters makes

for the probability that he died in about his fiftieth year.

In judging these letters for their literary value, the first thing which

strikes the reader is that Pliny did not write for his friends alone.

Whatever the subject of the epistle, whether it was an invitation to

dinner, a description of the charms of the country, an account of a

visit to a friend, or an expression of condolence with some one in his

or her bereavement, he never allowed his pen to run on carelessly. He

scarcely ever prattles in his letters or lets himself go. One always

sees in the writer the literary man, who knows that his correspondence

is being passed round from hand to hand, and who hopes that it will find

readers among posterity. Consequently there is an air of studied

artificiality about many of the letters, which was more to the taste of

the eighteenth than the nineteenth century. They remind one in many

ways of Richardson and Mackenzie, and Pliny would have been recognised

by those two writers, and by the latter in particular, as a thorough

"man of sentiment." Herein they differ greatly from the other important

collection which has come down to us from classical times, the Letters

of Cicero. Pliny, indeed,--and in this he was a true disciple of his

old teacher Quintilian,--took the great Roman orator as his model.

Nothing pleased him more than for his friends to tell him that he was

the Cicero of his time. Like Marcus Tullius, he was the foremost

pleader of his day; like him again he dabbled in poetry, and his verses,

so far as we know them, were sorry stuff. Yet again like his master, he

fondly believed that he enjoyed the special inspiration of the Muses.

Pliny, unfortunately for his reputation, gives us a few samples, which

are quite as lame and jingling as the famous "O fortunatam natam, me

Consule, Romam!" which had made generations of Romans smile. And so, as

Cicero was in all things his master, Pliny too wrote letters, excellent

in their way, but lacking the vivacity and directness of his model, and,

of course, wholly deficient in the political interest which makes

Cicero's correspondence one of the most important authorities for the

history of his troublous time. Pliny's Letters cover the period from

the accession of Nerva down to 113 A.D. None precede the death of

Domitian in September 96. That is to say, they were written in an era

of profound political peace, and most of them in the reign of Trajan,

whose rule Pliny accepted with enthusiastic admiration. One certainly

could have wished that he had written freely to his friends during the

last years of Domitian's tyranny, for the value of such contemporary

documents would have been enormous. But he would only have risked his

life by so doing, and that he had no desire to do. It was not until the

tyrant had fallen under the sword of Stephanus that he felt it safe to

trust his thoughts to paper. The new era which was inaugurated loosened

his tongue and made him breathe more freely. He exulted that at last an

honest man could venture to hold his head high without drawing down upon

himself the vengeance of the vile informers who throve upon the

misfortunes of the State.

Two of Pliny's correspondents and friends were Cornelius Tacitus and

Suetonius Tranquillus. Yet no one can read either the Histories and

Annals of Tacitus or the Lives of the Caesars and then pass to a reading

of Pliny's Letters without being struck by the enormous difference in

their tone and spirit. It is almost impossible to believe that their

respective authors were contemporaries. When turning over the pages of

Tacitus one feels that the vices and despotism of the Emperors and the

Empire had crushed all spirit out of the world, had made quiet family

life impossible, and had stamped out every trace of justice and clean

living. It is a remarkable fact that the great writers of the first

century, as soon as the Augustan era had closed, should have been

masters of a merciless satire, which has rarely been equaled in the

history of the world, and never excelled. When we think of Roman

society, as it was in the early Empire, our thoughts recur to the lurid

canvases which have been painted for us by Juvenal, by Tacitus, by

Lucan, by Seneca, and by Petronius--pictures which have made the world

shudder, and have led even careful historians astray. Pliny supplies

the needful corrective and gives us the reverse side of the medal. Like

the authors we have mentioned, he too writes of the evil days which he

himself has passed through, as of a horrid nightmare from which he has

just awakened; but from his letters, artificial and stilted as they are

in some respects, we learn that there were still to be found those who

had not bowed the knee to Baal.

And so, with this volume in our hands, we obtain a personal introduction

to a number of distinguished Romans and Roman matrons, whose names have

been preserved for all time by the Younger Pliny. His circle of friends

was a large one. Let us mention a few of them. We have already spoken

of Virginius Rufus, the grand old soldier and patriot, who, dying at the

age of eighty-four, was awarded a public funeral, while Cornelius

Tacitus, then Consul, delivered the panegyric in his honour. Vestricius

Spurinna was another distinguished general of the old school, and Pliny

relates with enthusiasm how he paid a visit to him in his country-house

when Spurinna was seventy-seven years of age and had retired from public

office. He tells us how his friend spent his day, how he drove and

walked and played tennis to keep himself in health, wrote Greek and

Latin lyrics, and maintained a keen interest in all that went on in the

capital. Corellius Rufus is another of the older men of whom Pliny

writes with sincere affection, and he helped to pay the debt of

gratitude he owed him by numerous acts of kindness to his daughter

Crellia. Voconius Romanus is another of his closest friends, and Pliny

tells us that he wrote such admirable letters that you would think the

Muses themselves must speak in Latin. His literary associates numbered

among them Caius Cornelius Tacitus, Silius Italicus the poet--whose

veneration for Virgil was so great that he kept his master's birthday

with more solemnity than his own, and visited his tomb on the Bay of

Naples with as much respect as worshippers pay to a temple,--Martial the

epigrammatist, Suetonius Tranquillus the historian, and others such as

Passennus Paullus, Caninius Rufus, Virgilius Romanus, and Caius Fannius,

whose works have not survived the wreck of time, though Pliny showers

upon all of them enthusiastic and indiscriminate praise. Again, he

enjoyed the friendship of a number of distinguished foreigners,

professional rhetoricians and philosophers, who came back to Rome after

their sentence of banishment, passed by Domitian, had been revoked by

Nerva and Trajan. Euphrates, Artemidorus, and Isaeus were the three

most famous, and their respective styles are carefully described by

Pliny. Even more interesting perhaps is the gallery of Roman ladies,

whose portraits are limned with so fine and discriminating a touch.

Juvenal again is responsible for much misconception as to the part the

women of Rome played in Roman society. The appalling Sixth Satire, in

which he unhesitatingly declares that most women--if not all--are bad,

and that virtue and chastity are so rare as to be almost unknown, in

which he roundly accuses them of all the vices known to human depravity,

reads like a monstrous and disgraceful libel on the sex when one turns

to Pliny and makes the acquaintance of Arria, Fannia, Corellia, and

Calpurnia. The characters of Arria and Fannia are well known; they are

among the heroines of history. But in Pliny there are numerous

references to women whose names are not even known to us, but the terms

in which they are referred to prove what sweet, womanly lives they led.

For example, he writes to Geminus: "Our friend Macrinus has suffered a

grievous wound. He has lost his wife, who would have been regarded as a

model of all the virtues even if she had lived in the good old days. He

lived with her for thirty-nine years, without so much as a single

quarrel or disagreement." "Vixit cum hac triginta novem annis sine

jurgio, sine offensa. One is reminded of the fine line of Propertius,

in which Cornelia boasts of the blameless union of herself and her

husband, Paullus--

"Viximus insignes inter utramque facem."

This is no isolated example. One of the most pathetic letters is that

in which Pliny writes of the death of the younger daughter of his friend

Fundanus, a girl in her fifteenth year, who had already "the prudence of

age, the gravity of a matron, and all the maidenly modesty and sweetness

of a girl." Pliny tells us how it cut him to the quick to hear her

father give directions that the money he had meant to lay out on dresses

and pearls and jewels for her betrothal should be spent on incense,

unguents, and spices for her bier. What a different picture from

anything we find in Juvenal, who would fain have us believe that

Messalina was the type of the average Roman matron of his day!

Such were some of Pliny's friends. His distinguished position at the

Bar drew him a host of clients; his official status and his friendship

with Trajan gave him the entree into any society he liked. He was,

moreover, a man of considerable wealth, generous, even lavish, with his

money, and his disposition was one of the kindest. He was always ready

to believe the best of any one, always prepared to do a friend a

service, devoted to his wife and her relations, and anxious to deal

justly and honourably with all men. We have called him vain, and vain

he undoubtedly was to an extraordinary degree. But Pliny's vanity is

never offensive. The very naivete with which he acknowledges his

failing disarms all criticism and merely renders it amusing. Indeed, it

is doubtful whether he would have admitted that it was a failing at all,

inasmuch as it was his love of praise which spurred him on to literary

endeavour. The Romans, in their grand manner, affected a certain

magniloquence which is alien to the Anglo-Saxon cast of thought, and if

Horace could declare of his own odes that he had erected a monument more

durable than brass, Pliny, who always had the great masters before him,

naturally fell into the same rather vainglorious train of thought. His

frankest confession is to be found in a letter to Titinius Capito, who

had urged him to write history, when he says: "Me autem nihil aeque ac

diuturnitatis amor et cupido sollicitat, res homine dignissima, eo

presertime qui nullius sibi conscius culpae posteritatis memoriam non

reformidet." Or again, he admits that he is not Stoic enough to be

merely content with the consciousness of having done his duty. He

craves for a public testimony thereto, a little applause from the

bystanders, a vote of thanks from those whom he has benefited. Most of

us desire the same--the difference is that Pliny does not mind owning up

to it. But this vanity of his peeps out in curious places. When we

find him speaking of a young Roman of fashion standing for hours in a

crowd to listen to his pleading in the courts, or of his audience

pressing him not to omit a single line of his poems, or of the

deferential way in which certain young barristers of promise hang on his

lips, copy his gestures and bow to his judgment, one cannot resist a

smile. When he tells us that he went on calmly reading and taking notes

during the eruption of Vesuvius, though the hot ashes were threatening

to overwhelm the villa in which he was staying, or when he quotes the

really execrable verses which some scribbler of the day composed in his

honour, with the most exquisite self-complacency, one is tempted to show

a little impatience at such extravagant self-satisfaction. Tacitus

again--that supreme master of irony--must have occasionally curled his

thin lip on reading some of the epistles which were addressed to him by

his friend Pliny. It is a tribute to Pliny's powers of literary

discernment that he appreciated the marvellous ability of Tacitus,

though had he failed to do so, we should have rated him for his

blindness. No cultured Roman could fail to see that Tacitus had brought

a new literary style to a pitch of the highest perfection, and his fame

throughout his lifetime was enormous. So apparently was Pliny's, and

the latter boasts that their names are mentioned together in everyday

conversation, and in the last wills and testaments of people with

literary taste. Tacitus one day was sitting at the games, and got into

conversation with a stranger sitting in the next seat. It took a

literary turn, and the stranger was delighted with the learning that

Tacitus displayed. "Are you a Roman, or from the country" said he.

"You know me quite well," answered Tacitus, "from the books you have

studied." "Then," rejoined the stranger, "you must be either Tacitus or

Pliny." It was Tacitus himself who told Pliny the story, and one can

imagine how it would delight him. He promptly sits down and tells it to

his friend Maximus, and adds another story of a similar character. But

the most extraordinary passage of all occurs in a letter (vii. 20) to

Tacitus himself. In it Pliny says that when he was a young man and

Tacitus was already famous, he determined to make him his model. There

were, he said, many brilliant geniuses, but you--such was the affinity

of our natures--seemed to me to be the most easy to imitate, and the

most worthy of imitation. Maxime imitabilis, maxime imitandus

videbaris. Unconscious conceit could go no farther!

And yet one can pardon this egregious vanity when one thinks of Pliny's

other qualities. Who else is there in Roman literature who so

thoroughly corresponds with our modern ideal of a rich, generous,

cultured public servant? In one place we find him providing for the

educational needs of his birthplace, Comum. In another he renounces his

share of an inheritance, and bestows it upon his old township. Or he

buys a statue for a temple, finds the money for a new shrine, pays the

debts of an acquaintance, gives a friend's daughter a handsome dowry,

opens his purse and enables another deserving friend to acquire the

status of a senator, or finds Martial his travelling expenses. All the

rising young authors and barristers in Rome looked to him for

encouragement and support; he was ready to attend their public readings,

to rise when the reading was over and say a few words of encouragement,

to canvass for them if they were standing for office, and enlist on

their behalf all the influence at his command. And he only asked in

return a little deference and acknowledgment of his kindness! Most

interesting of all, we find him giving a farm to his old nurse, and

asking a friend to look after it for her. He sends a slave of his, who

was troubled with consumption, to Egypt for a change of air, and

afterwards to the colony of Forum Julii, the modern Frejus on the

Riviera. Pliny writes of the slaves of his household just as any kind-

hearted Jamaican planter would have written before the Emancipation Act,

and it is to be noted that the head slaves of a Roman gentleman's

establishment were often Greeks of high literary attainments, and

treated by their masters as intimate and affectionate friends. Pliny

narrates with a shock of uneasiness and horror the story of a Roman

knight who was beaten to death by the servants of his household, and,

though he admits that the knight had been cruel and overbearing, such an

untimely fate brought home to him the insecurity of all masters--that

insecurity which led the Romans to punish with such merciless severity

any attack by a slave upon his owner. Not that Pliny had any cause for

self-reproach! He tells us in a charming letter his rule of conduct

with his dependants, and the theory on which he conducted his household.

According to his view, "Servis respublica quaedam et quasi civitas domus

est." Consequently, he allowed them to make wills and leave their

property as they desired, provided only that the recipients were also

members of the household, and, what was better still, he speaks of his

"facilitas manumittendi"--his readiness to give them their freedom for

faithful service. One can well imagine that Pliny's was a model family,

that it was his pride to be in every sense of the word a just

paterfamilias, and that he showed his slaves great consideration for

their welfare. He complains, indeed, jocularly in one place that too

much kindness is not good for servants, as it leads them to presume upon

the easy-going temperament of their master, but that is only a good-

natured grumble on the perennial servant problem.

Pliny was thrice married, twice under Domitian, but his second wife died

in 97, and the lady who figures in the letters is his third wife

Calpurnia, grand-daughter of Calpurnius Fabatus, and niece of a lady

named Hispulla. We get a charming picture of their mutual happiness in

a letter written by Pliny to Hispulla, who had had charge of his wife's

education when she was a girl. He praises her intelligence, her

economy, her love for him, and the interest she takes in his career.

When he is pleading in the courts she has messengers to bring her word

of the success of the speech and the result of the trial; when he is

giving a reading to his friends, Calpurnia sits behind a curtain and

greedily drinks in the praises they bestow. She sets his verses to

music, and Hispulla, who made the match, is neatly rewarded at the

conclusion of the letter by Pliny saying that both he and his wife vie

with one another in seeing who can thank her the more. When Calpurnia

was obliged to leave her husband and go to Campania for her health, we

find Pliny writing her tender love-letters, describing his anxiety on

her behalf, telling her how he conjures up the very things he most

dreads, how he reads and re-reads her letters, which are his only

comfort, and begging her to write him certainly once, and if possible,

twice a day. Then in the prettiest passage of all, he tells her how, at

the hours when he used to visit her, he finds his feet carrying him to

the door of her chamber and turns away from the threshold of the empty

room, sad as a lover who finds the door closed against him. The

glimpses which Roman literature affords us of the conjugal happiness of

man and wife are comparatively few. Cicero, indeed, wrote in a similar

strain to his wife Terentia, and used even tenderer diminutives than

Pliny, but the sequel was that he soon afterwards divorced her and

married a rich ward. We do not know the sequel in the case of Pliny.

All we know is that he nearly lost his wife in a dangerous illness

brought on by a miscarriage, and that she accompanied him to Bithynia

during his governorship. Whether she bore him the child which he so

ardently desired is not stated, but the probabilities are against it, as

there is no mention of such an event in the letters. His correspondence

clearly proves that for all his ambition he was essentially a family

man. Nothing could be finer than his description of the heroic devotion

of Arria to her husband, and the pathos with which he describes the

conduct of Fannia, who concealed the death of her dearly loved son from

her sick husband Paetus, telling him the boy was well and resting

quietly, and controlling her motherly tears until she could keep them

back no longer, and rushed from the room to give them free course.

Then, "Satiata siccis oculis composito vultu redibat, tanquam orbitatem

foris reliquisset." No one could have written that beautiful sentence

but a man of tender heart and sympathies.

Pliny's tastes were catholic. He writes with delight, but without

pretending to be a connoisseur, of an antique statuette which he had

purchased out of a legacy. Some rich men in Rome had the mania for

antiques--Corinthian bronzes were the rage in Pliny's day--as badly as

those who haunt our modern sale-rooms. Pliny's hobby, if he had been

living in our time, would probably have been books. He is one of the

most bookish men of antiquity. Wherever he went his books went with

him; in his carriage, in his gardens they never left his side. He

betrays, moreover, a taste for the beauties of nature which is

distinctly un-Roman. Even the Roman poets were almost utterly oblivious

to the charms of scenery. When Horace points out of the window to the

snow lying deep on Soracte, it is not to emphasise the beauty of the

scene, but a preliminary to telling the boy to pile the logs of Algidus

upon the fire. Even Virgil, who occasionally paints a bit of landscape

or seascape in the Aeneid, does so in a half-hearted fashion, as a mere

preface to the incident which is to follow, not from a poet's love of

beauty. In Pliny, on the other hand, we find the modern love for a

beautiful view. Me nihil aeque ac natura opera delectant. When he

describes his Tuscan villa he uses language with which we feel in

complete harmony. He specifies the places from which the best views may

be obtained; and if the garden seems to our taste to have been laid out

in rather a formal way, with its box-trees cut into different shapes of

animals and birds, he was in that respect only following the fashion of

his day, and his delight in the unadorned beauties of the surrounding

country has a genuine ring in it. In another curious respect Pliny was

ahead of his times. He had no taste for the Circensian games and the

brutalities of the gladiatorial shows. Writing to Sempronius Rufus (iv.

22), he bluntly declares that he wishes they could be abolished in Rome,

inasmuch as they degrade the character and morals of the whole world.

In another passage (ix. 6) he says that the Circensian games have not

the smallest attraction for him--ne levissime quidem teneor. He cannot

understand why so many thousands of grown-up people take such a childish

pleasure in watching horses running races. It is not the speed of the

horses or the skill of the drivers which is the attraction,--if it were,

there might be some reason for their enthusiasm,--what they go to see is

the victory of their pet racing colours, the triumph of the reds, blues,

or greens. Favent panno, pannum amant.

We find him writing on all manner of subjects. He asks his scientific

friends to explain to him the mystery of a spring whose waters ebb and

flow, of a lake which contained floating islands, and in one letter he

tells a fascinating ghost story of quite the conventional type, about a

haunted house, which drove any unwary tenant crazy, and the ghost of a

murdered man which walked with clanking chains. Pliny was no cut and

dried philosopher. Like his master Cicero he was an eclectic, and

pinned his faith to no single creed. Whatever was human interested him,

and on whatever interested him he put pen to paper. It need scarcely be

said how valuable these letters are in filling up the gaps of Roman

history. We have to thank Pliny for our knowledge of the great eruption

of Vesuvius which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum, and it was

probably only due to the accident that the elder Pliny was one of the

victims that we possess the two striking letters in which the disaster

is described. In another letter our author describes how the Emperor

Trajan sent for him and others to his country seat at Centum Cellae, to

help him to try certain important cases, and then he tells us of the

modest, simple living of Trajan--Suavitas simplicitasque convictus--and

the presents he gave them on their departure. The debates in the

Senate, the trials in the Court of the Hundred, the public readings in

the city, which--first introduced by Asinius Pollio in the time of

Augustus--were then the fashion,--of all these Pliny gives us a clear

presentment. His charity is hardly ever at fault. Only when he writes

of Regulus and Pallas does he dip his pen in gall. But Regulus had been

his bitter enemy and an informer, and the memory of Pallas was justly

execrated.

A few words may be added respecting the letters which form the Tenth

Book of his correspondence, and which show us Pliny acting as Governor

of the province of Pontus and Bithynia. He had been sent there because

the finances of many of the cities had been allowed to fall into a

shocking state, and because the Emperor wanted a man whom he could

thoroughly trust to put them straight. No doubt Pliny, while flattered

at this proof of Trajan's regard, felt the severance from his friends

and ordinary pursuits which this term of absence necessitated. But

compare his attitude with that of Cicero as Governor of Cilicia! Cicero

crawled on the outward journey, and when he reached his destination he

counted the days to his return like a bullied school-boy counts the days

to the end of the term. He writes to his friends in the capital,

begging and praying of them that they will prevent his being obliged to

stay for a second year. All his thoughts are of Rome and how to return

there. The wretched provincials bore him to distraction; he yearns for

the wider arena of the capital in which to play the swelling part to

which he aspires. There is, in short, not a trace in Cicero's letters

from his province to show that he took the slightest interest in his new

surroundings. Pliny displays a far different spirit. He reminds us

more of the Colonial Governor of our own day. He is interested in the

past history and traditions of the country, he is anxious that the

cities shall have good water supplies, good baths, good theatres, good

gymnasia. He is for ever suggesting to the Emperor that he should send

architects to consult with him on some important public work. And these

letters disclose to us what a wonderful system of organised government

the Roman Empire possessed. Pliny even writes to Trajan to ask

permission that an evil-smelling sewer may be covered over in a town

called Amastria. If all the governors of the provinces wrote home for

orders on such points, the Emperor must indeed have been busy, and some

of his replies to Pliny show that Trajan hinted very plainly that a

governor ought to have some initiative of his own. None the less, the

tenour of this correspondence proves that Trajan held the threads of

government very jealously in his own hands. When Pliny suggested the

establishment of a small fire-brigade in Nicomedia, where the citizens

had stood enjoying the aesthetic beauty of a disastrous fire which

destroyed whole streets, instead of putting it out, Trajan sharply

vetoed the suggestion, on the ground that the Greeks were factious

people and would turn even a fire-brigade to illicit and seditious

purposes.

There is, of course, one letter to Trajan which has achieved world-wide

fame, that in which he asks the Emperor how he wishes him to deal with

the Christians who were brought before him and refused to worship the

statues of the Emperor and the gods. So much has been written upon this

subject that it is almost superfluous to add more. Yet it may be

pointed out that the letter only confirms our estimate of the kindliness

and scrupulous justice of Pliny. He acquits the Christians of all

criminal practices; he bears testimony to the purity of their lives and

their principles. What baffles and vexes him is their "pertinacity and

inflexible obstinacy"--Neque enim dubitabam, qualecunque esset quod

fateretur, pertinaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere

puniri. He could not understand, in other words, why, when the theory

of the Roman religion was so tolerant, the Christians should be so

intolerantly narrow-minded and bigoted. As we have said, Pliny was an

eclectic, and an eclectic is the last person to understand the frame of

mind which glories in martyrdom. Such was Pliny's attitude towards the

purely religious side of the question, but that, after all, was not the

main issue. With him, as the representative of the Roman Emperor, the

crime of the Christians lay not so much in their refusal to worship the

statues of Jupiter and the heavenly host of the Pagan mythology, as in

their refusal to worship the statue of the Emperor. Church and State

have never been so closely identified in any form of government as in

that of the early Roman Empire. The genius of the Emperor was the

genius of the Empire; to refuse to sprinkle a few grains of incense on

the ara of Trajan was an act of gross political treason to the best of

rulers. No wonder, therefore, that Pliny felt constrained to punish

these harmless members of a sect which he could not understand.

Trajan's reply is equally clear and distinct. He discountenanced all

inquisition and persecution. The Christians are not to be hunted down,

no notice is to be taken of anonymous accusations, and if any suspected

person renounces his error and offers prayers publicly to the gods of

Rome, no further action is to be taken against him. On the other hand,

if the case is proved and the accused still remains obstinate,

punishment must follow and the law be maintained. Pliny evidently

thought that if the Christians were given a chance of renouncing their

past folly the growth of the new religion would be checked. He speaks

of a certain revival of the old religion, of the temples once more being

thronged by worshippers, and the sacrificial victims again finding

buyers, though almost in the same sentence he describes "the contagion

of the Christian superstition" as having spread not only in the towns

but into the villages and rural districts. He did not foresee that in

process of time a Roman Emperor would himself embrace the new faith and

persecute the upholders of the old with the same vigour as was in his

day applied to the repression of the new.

J.B. FIRTH.

THE LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY.

BOOK I.

1.I.--TO SEPTICIUS.

You have constantly urged me to collect and publish the more highly

finished of the letters that I may have written. I have made such a

collection, but without preserving the order in which they were

composed, as I was not writing a historical narrative. So I have taken

them as they happened to come to hand. I can only hope that you will

not have cause to regret the advice you gave, and that I shall not

repent having followed it; for I shall set to work to recover such

letters as have up to now been tossed on one side, and I shall not keep

back any that I may write in the future. Farewell.

1.II.--TO ARRIANUS.

As I see that your arrival is likely to be later than I expected, I

forward you the speech which I promised in an earlier letter. I beg

that you will read and revise it as you have done with other

compositions of mine, because I think none of my previous works is

written in quite the same style. I have tried to imitate, at least in

manner and turns of phrase, your old favourite, Demosthenes, and Calvus,

to whom I have recently taken a great fancy; for to catch the fire and

power of such acknowledged stylists is only given to the heaven-inspired

few. I hope you will not think me conceited if I say that the subject-

matter was not unworthy of such imitation, for throughout the whole

argument I found something that kept rousing me from my sleepy and

confirmed indolence, that is to say, as far as a person of my

temperament can be roused. Not that I abjured altogether the pigments

of our master Cicero; when an opportunity arose for a pleasant little

excursion from the main path of my argument I availed myself of it, as

my object was to be terse without being unnecessarily dry. Nor must you

think that I am apologising for these few passages. For just to make

your eye for faults the keener, I will confess that both my friends here

and myself have no fear of publishing the speech, if you will but set

your mark of approval against the passages that possibly show my folly.

I must publish something, and I only hope that the best thing for the

purpose may be this volume which is ready finished. That is the prayer

of a lazy man, is it not? but there are several reasons why I must

publish, and the strongest is that the various copies I have lent out

are said to still find readers, though by this time they have lost the

charm of novelty. Of course, it may be that the booksellers say this to

flatter me. Well, let them flatter, so long as fibs of this kind

encourage me to study the harder. Farewell.

1.III.--TO CANINIUS RUFUS.

How is Comum looking, your darling spot and mine? And that most

charming villa of yours, what of it, and its portico where it is always

spring, its shady clumps of plane trees, its fresh crystal canal, and

the lake below that gives such a charming view? How is the exercise

ground, so soft yet firm to the foot; how goes the bath that gets the

sun's rays so plentifully as he journeys round it? What too of the big

banqueting halls and the little rooms just for a few, and the retiring

rooms for night and day? Have they full possession of you, and do they

share your company in turn? or are you, as usual, continually being

called away to attend to private family business? You are indeed a

lucky man if you can spend all your leisure there; if you cannot, your

case is that of most of us. But really it is time that you passed on

your unimportant and petty duties for others to look after, and buried

yourself among your books in that secluded yet beautiful retreat. Make

this at once the business and the leisure of your life, your occupation

and your rest; let your waking hours be spent among your books, and your

hours of sleep as well. Mould something, hammer out something that

shall be known as yours for all time. Your other property will find a

succession of heirs when you are gone; what I speak of will continue

yours for ever--if once it begins to be. I know the capacity and

inventive wit that I am spurring on. You have only to think of yourself

as the able man others will think you when you have realised your

ability. Farewell.

1.IV.--TO POMPEIA CELERINA.

What treasures you have in your villas at Ocriculum, at Narnia, at

Carsola and Perusia! Even a bathing place at Narnia! My letters--for

now there is no need for you to write--will have shown you how pleased I

am, or rather the short letter will which I wrote long ago. The fact

is, that some of my own property is scarcely so completely mine as is

some of yours; the only difference being that I get more thoroughly and

attentively looked after by your servants than I do by my own. You will

very likely find the same thing yourself when you come to stay in one of

my villas. I hope you will, in the first place that you may get as much

pleasure out of what belongs to me as I have from what belongs to you,

and in the second that my people may be roused a little to a sense of

their duties. I find them rather remiss in their behaviour and almost

careless. But that is their way; if they have a considerate master,

their fear of him grows less and less as they get to know him, while a

new face sharpens their attention and they study to gain their master's

good opinion, not by looking after his wants but those of his guests.

Farewell.

1.V.--TO VOCONIUS ROMANUS.

Did you ever see a man more abject and fawning than Marcus Regulus has

been since the death of Domitian? His misdeeds were better concealed

during that prince's reign, but they were every bit as bad as they were

in the time of Nero. He began to be afraid that I was angry with him

and he was not mistaken, for I certainly was annoyed. After doing what

he could to help those who were compassing the ruin of Rusticus

Arulenus, he had openly exulted at his death, and went so far as to

publicly read and then publish a pamphlet in which he violently attacks

Rusticus and even calls him "the Stoics' ape," adding that "he is marked

with the brand of Vitellius." You recognise, of course, the Regulian

style! He tears to pieces Herennius Senecio so savagely that Metius

Carus said to him, "What have you to do with my dead men? Did I ever

worry your Crassus or Camerinus?"--these being some of Regulus's victims

in the days of Nero. Regulus thought I bore him malice for this, and so

he did not invite me when he read his pamphlet. Besides, he remembered

that he once mortally attacked me in the Court of the Centumviri.

I was a witness on behalf of Arionilla, the wife of Timon, at the

request of Rusticus Arulenus, and Regulus was conducting the

prosecution. We on our side were relying for part of the defence on a

decision of Metius Modestus, an excellent man who had been banished by

Domitian and was at that moment in exile. This was Regulus's

opportunity. "Tell me, Secundus," said he, "what you think of

Modestus." You see in what peril I should have placed myself if I had

answered that I thought highly of him, and how disgraceful it would have

been if I had said that I thought ill of him. I fancy it must have been

the gods who came to my rescue. "I will tell you what I think of him,"

I said, "when the Court has to give a decision on the point." He

returned to the charge: "My question is, what do you think of

Modestus?" Again I replied: "Witnesses used to be interrogated about

persons in the dock, not about those who are already convicted." A

third time he asked: "Well, I won't ask you now what you think of

Modestus, but what you think of his loyalty." "You ask me," said I,

"for my opinion. But I do not think it is in order for you to ask an

opinion on what the Court has already passed judgment." He was

silenced, while I was congratulated and praised for not having smirched

my reputation by giving an answer that might have been discreet but

would certainly have been dishonest, and for not having entangled myself

in the meshes of such a crafty question.

Well, now the fellow is conscience-stricken, and buttonholes first

Caecilius Celer and then implores Fabius Justsus to reconcile me to him.

Not content with that, he makes his way in to see Spurinna, and begs and

prays of him--you know what an abject coward he is when he is

frightened--as follows. "Do go," says he, "and call on Pliny in the

morning--early in the morning, for my suspense is unbearable--and do

what you can to remove his anger against me." I was early awake that

day, when a message came from Spurinna, "I am coming to see you." I

sent back word, "I will come and see you." We met at the portico of

Livia, just as we were each of us on the way to see the other. He

explained his commission from Regulus and added his own entreaties, but

did not press the point too strongly, as became a worthy gentleman

asking a favour for a worthless acquaintance. This was my answer:

"Well, you must see for yourself what message you think best to take

back to Regulus; I should not like you to be under any misapprehension.

I am waiting till Mauricus returns"--he had not yet returned from exile-

-"and so I cannot give you an answer either way, for I shall do just

what he thinks best. It is he who is principally interested in this

matter, I am only secondarily concerned." A few days afterwards Regulus

himself met me when I was paying my respects to the new praetor. He

followed me thither and asked for a private conversation. He said he

was afraid that something he once said in the Court of the Centumviri

rankled in my memory, when, in replying to Satrius Rufus and myself, he

remarked, "Satrius Rufus, who is quite content with the eloquence of our

days, and does not seek to rival Cicero." I told him that as I had his

own confession for it I could now see that the remark was a spiteful

one, but that it was quite possible to put a complimentary construction

upon it. "For," said I, "I do try to rival Cicero, and I am not content

with the eloquence of our own time. I think it is very stupid not to

take as models the very best masters. But how is it that you remember

this case and forget the other one in which you asked me what I thought

of the loyalty of Metius Modestus?" As you know, he is always pale, but

he grew perceptibly paler at this thrust. Then he stammered out, "I put

the question not to damage you but Modestus." Observe the man's

malignant nature who does not mind acknowledging that he wished to do an

injury to an exile. Then he went on to make this fine excuse; "He wrote

in a letter which was read aloud in Domitian's presence, 'Regulus is the

vilest creature that walks on two legs.'" Modestus never wrote a truer

word.

That practically closed the conversation. I did not wish it to go any

further, so that I might not commit myself until Mauricus arrived.

Moreover, I am quite aware that Regulus is a difficult bird to net. He

is rich, he is a shrewd intriguer, he has no inconsiderable body of

followers and a still larger circle of those who fear him, and fear is

often a more powerful factor than affection. But, after all, these are

bonds that may be shattered and weakened, for a bad man's influence is

as little to be relied upon as is the man himself. Moreover, let me

repeat that I am waiting for Mauricus. He is a man of sound judgment

and sagacity, which he has learned by experience, and he can gauge what

is likely to happen in the future from what has occurred in the past. I

shall be guided by him, and either strike a blow or put by my weapons

just as he thinks best. I have written you this letter because it is

only right, considering our regard for one another, that you should be

acquainted not only with what I have said and done, but also with my

plans for the future. Farewell.

1.VI.--TO CORNELIUS TACITUS.

You will laugh, and I give you leave to. You know what sort of

sportsman I am, but I, even I, have bagged three boars, each one of them

a perfect beauty. "What!" you will say, "YOU!" Yes, I, and that too

without any violent departure from my usual lazy ways. I was sitting by

the nets; I had by my side not a hunting spear and a dart, but my pen

and writing tablets. I was engaged in some composition and jotting down

notes, so that I might have full tablets to take home with me, even

though my hands were empty. You need not shrug your shoulders at study

under such conditions. It is really surprising how the mind is

stimulated by bodily movement and exercise. I find the most powerful

incentive to thought in having the woods all about me, in the solitude

and the silence which is observed in hunting. So when next you go

hunting, take my advice and carry your writing tablets with you as well

as your luncheon basket and your flask. You will find that Minerva

loves to wander on the mountains quite as much as Diana. Farewell.

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.

1.XV.--TO SEPTICIUS CLARUS.

What a fellow you are! You promise to come to dinner and then fail to

turn up! Well, here is my magisterial sentence upon you. You must pay

the money I am out of pocket to the last farthing, and you will find the

sum no small one. I had provided for each guest one lettuce, three

snails, two eggs, spelt mixed with honey and snow (you will please

reckon up the cost of the latter as among the costly of all, since it

melts away in the dish), olives from Baetica, cucumbers, onions, and a

thousand other equally expensive dainties. You would have listened to a

comedian, or a reciter, or a harp-player, or perhaps to all, as I am

such a lavish host. But you preferred to dine elsewhere,--where I know

not--off oysters, sow's matrices, sea-urchins, and to watch Spanish

dancing girls! You will be paid out for it, though how I decline to

say. You have done violence to yourself. You have grudged, possibly

yourself, but certainly me, a fine treat. Yes, yourself! For how we

should have enjoyed ourselves, how we should have laughed together, how

we should have applied ourselves! You can dine at many houses in better

style than at mine, but nowhere will you have a better time, or such a

simple and free and easy entertainment. In short, give me a trial, and

if afterwards you do not prefer to excuse yourself to others rather than

to me, why then I give you leave to decline my invitations always.

Farewell.

1.XVI.--TO ERUCIUS.

I used to be very fond of Pompeius Saturninus--our Saturninus, as I may

call him--and to admire his intellectual powers, even before I knew him;

they were so varied, so supple, so many-sided; but now I am devoted to

him body and soul. I have heard him pleading in the Courts, always keen

and empassioned, and his addresses are as polished and graceful when

they are impromptu as when they have been carefully prepared. He has a

never-failing flow of apt sentiment; his style is weighty and dignified,

his language is of the sonorous, classical school. All these qualities

charm me immensely when they come pouring forth in a streaming rush of

eloquence, and they charm me too when I read them in book form. You

will experience the same pleasure as I do when you take them up, and you

will at once compare them with some one of the old masters whose rival

indeed he is. You will find even greater charm in the style of his

historical compositions, in its terseness, its lucidity, smoothness,

brilliancy and stateliness, for there is the same vigour in the

historical harangues as there is in his own orations, only rather more

compressed, restricted, and epigrammatic.

Moreover, he writes verses that Catullus or Calvus might have composed.

They are positively brimming over with grace, sweetness, irony and love.

He occasionally, and of set design, interpolates among these smooth and

easy-flowing verses others cast in a more rugged mould, and here again

he is like Catullus and Calvus. A little while ago he read me some

letters which he declared had been written by his wife. I thought, on

hearing them, that they were either Plautus or Terence in prose, and

whether they were composed, as he said, by his wife or by himself, as he

denies, his credit is the same. It belongs to him either as the actual

author of the letters or as the teacher who has made such a polished and

learned lady of his wife--whom he married when she was a girl. So I

pass the whole day in the company of Saturninus. I read him before I

set pen to paper; I read him again after finishing my writing, and again

when I am at leisure. He is always the same but never seems the same.

Let me urge and beg of you to do likewise, for the fact that the author

is still alive ought not to be of any detriment to his works. If he had

been a contemporary of those on whom we have never set eyes, we should

not only be seeking to procure copies of his books but also asking for

busts of him. Why then, as he is still amongst us, should his credit

and popularity dwindle, as though we were tired of him? Surely it is

discreditable and scandalous that we should not give a man the due he

richly deserves, simply because we can see him with our own eyes, speak

to him, hear him, embrace him, and not only praise but love him.

Farewell.

1.XVII.--TO CORNELIUS TITIANUS.

Faith and loyalty are not yet extinct among men: there are still those

to be found who keep friendly remembrances even of the dead. Titinius

Capito has obtained permission from our Emperor to erect a statue of

Lucius Silanus in the Forum. It is a graceful and entirely praiseworthy

act to turn one's friendship with a sovereign to such a purpose, and to

use all the influence one possesses to obtain honours for others. But

Capito is a devoted hero-worshipper; it is remarkable how religiously

and enthusiastically he regards the busts of the Bruti, the Cassii, and

the Catos in his own house, where he may do as he pleases in this

matter. He even composes splendid lyrics on the lives of all the most

famous men of the past. Surely a man who is such an intense admirer of

the virtue of others must know how to exemplify a crowd of virtues in

his own person. Lucius Silanus quite deserved the honour that has been

paid to him, and Capito in seeking to immortalise his memory has

immortalised his own quite as much. For it is not more honourable and

distinguished to have a statue of one's own in the Forum of the Roman

People than to be the author of some one else's statue being placed

there. Farewell.

1.XVIII.--TO SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS.

You say in your letter that you have been troubled by a dream, and are

afraid lest your suit should go against you. So you ask me to try and

get it postponed, and that I will have to put it off for a few days, or

at least for one day. It is not an easy matter, but I will do my best,

for, as Homer says, "A dream comes from Zeus." However, it makes all

the difference whether your dreams usually signify the course of future

events or their opposite. When I think over a certain dream I once had,

what causes you fear seems to me to promise a splendid termination to

your case. I had undertaken a brief for Julius Pastor, when there

appeared to me in my sleep a vision of my mother-in-law, who threw

herself on her knees before me and begged that I would not plead. I was

quite a young man at the time of the action, which was to be heard in

the Fourfold Court, and I was appearing against the most powerful men of

the State, including some of the Friends of Caesar. All these things or

any one of them might well have shattered my resolution after such an

ominous dream. Nevertheless, I went on with the case, remembering the

well-known line of Homer: "But one omen is best, to fight on behalf of

one's country." For in my case the keeping of my word seemed to me as

important as fighting on behalf of my country or as any other still more

pressing consideration--if any consideration more pressing can be

imagined. Well, the action went off successfully, and it was the way

that I conducted that case which got me a hearing with men and opened

the door to fame. So I advise you to see whether you too cannot turn

your dream, as I did mine, to a prosperous issue, or if you think that

it is safer to follow the well-known proverb: "Never do anything if you

feel the least hesitation," write and tell me so. I will invent some

excuse or other, and will so arrange matters that you can have your suit

brought on when you like. For, after all, your position is not the same

as mine was; a trial before the Centumvir's Court cannot be postponed on

any consideration, but an action like yours can be, although it is

rather difficult to arrange. Farewell.

1.XIX.--TO ROMANUS FIRMUS.

You and I were born in the same township, we went to school together,

and shared quarters from an early age; your father was on terms of

friendship with my mother and my uncle, and with me--as far as the

disparity in our years allowed. These are overwhelming reasons why I

ought to advance you as far as I can along the path of dignities. The

fact of your being a decurio in our town shows that you have an income

of a hundred thousand sesterces, and so, that we may have the pleasure

of enjoying your society not only as a decurio, but as a Roman knight, I

offer you 300,000 numm., to make up the equestrian qualification. The

length of our friendship is sufficient guarantee that you will not

forget this favour, and I do not even urge you to enjoy with modesty the

dignity which I thus enable you to attain, as perhaps I ought, just

because I know you will do so without any urging from without. People

ought to guard an honour all the more carefully, when, in so doing, they

are taking care of a gift bestowed by the kindness of a friend.

Farewell.

1.XX.--TO CORNELIUS TACITUS.

I am constantly having arguments with a friend of mine who is a learned

and practised speaker, but who admires in pleading nothing so much as

brevity. I allow that brevity ought to be observed, if the case permits

of it; but sometimes it is an act of collusion to pass over matters that

ought to be mentioned, and it is even an act of collusion to run briefly

and rapidly over points which ought to be dwelt upon, to be thoroughly

driven home, and to be taken up and dealt with more than once. For very

often an argument acquires strength and weight by being handled at some

length, and a speech ought to be impressed on the mind, not by a short,

sharp shock, but by measured blows, just as a sword should be used in

dealing with the body of an opponent. Thereupon he plies me with

authorities, and flourishes before me the speeches of Lysias among the

Greeks, and those of the Gracchi and Cato from among Roman orators. The

majority of these are certainly characterised by conciseness and

brevity, but I quote against Lysias the examples of Demosthenes,

Aeschines, Hyperides, and a multitude of others, while against the

Gracchi and Cato I set Pollio, Caesar, Caelius, and, above all, Marcus

Tullius, whose longest speech is generally considered to be his best.

And upon my word, as with all other good things, the more there is of a

good book, the better it is. You know how it is with statues, images,

pictures, and the outlines of many animals and even trees, that if they

are at all graceful nothing gives them a greater charm than size. It is

just the same with speeches,--even the mere volumes themselves acquire a

certain additional dignity and beauty from mere bulk.

These are but a few of the many arguments I usually employ to establish

my point; but there is no pinning my friend down in an argument. He is

such a slippery fellow that he wriggles off the pin and declares that

these same orators, whose speeches I instance, spoke at less length than

their published addresses seem to show. I hold the contrary to be the

case, and there are many speeches of many orators in favour of my

opinion, as, for example, the Pro Murena and the Pro Vareno of Cicero,

in which he indicates by side-heads alone, and quite barely and briefly,

how he dealt with certain charges against his clients. From these it is

clear that he actually spoke at much greater length and left out a

considerable number of passages when he published the addresses. Cicero

indeed says that in his defence of Cluentius "he had simply followed the

ancient custom and compressed his whole case into a peroration," and

that in defending Caius Cornelius "he had pleaded for four days." Hence

it cannot be questioned that after speaking somewhat discursively for

several days, as he was bound to do, he subsequently trimmed and revised

his oration and compressed it into a single book--a long one, it is

true, but yet a single book.

But, argues my friend, a good indictment is a different thing from a

good speech. I know some people hold that view, but I--of course I may

be wrong--feel persuaded that though it is possible to have a good

indictment without a good speech, it is not possible for a good speech

not to be a good indictment. For a speech is the exemplar of an

indictment--one might even call it its archetype. Hence in every first-

class oration we find a thousand extempore figures of speech, even in

those which we know to have been carefully edited. For example, in the

Speech against Verres:--"--some artist. What was his name? Yes, you

are quite right. My friends here tell me it was Polycletus." It

follows, therefore, that the most perfect indictment is that which most

resembles a spoken speech, provided only that sufficiently adequate time

is allowed for its delivery. If it is not, then the orator is not at

fault, but the presiding magistrate is very much to blame. My opinion

receives support from the laws, which are lavish in the amount of time

they place at a pleader's disposal. They do not inculcate brevity among

counsel, but exhaustiveness--that is to say, they give them time for a

painstaking statement of their case, and this is quite incompatible with

brevity, except the most unimportant actions. I will add also what

experience has taught me, and experience is the finest master. I have

constantly acted as counsel, as presiding magistrate, and as one of the

consulting bench. Different people are influenced by different things,

and it often happens that unimportant details have important

consequences. Men do not think alike, nor have they the same

inclinations, and hence it comes about that though people have listened

together to the same case being tried, they often form different

opinions about it, and sometimes, though arriving at the same

conclusion, they have been influenced by very different motives.

Moreover, each one has a bias in favour of his own interpretation, and

thus, when a second party enunciates an opinion which he himself has

arrived at, he takes it for gospel and holds to it firmly.

Consequently, a pleader should give each member of the jury something

that he may get hold of and recognise as his own opinion.

Regulus once said to me when we were in Court together: "You think you

ought to follow up every single point in the case: I lose no time in

getting a view of my opponent's throat, and consider only the easiest

way of cutting it." (I must admit that he does cut it when he gets hold

of it, but often in trying to get a hold he makes a mistake.) Here was

my answer to him: "Yes, but sometimes what you think is the throat is

only the knee, or the shin bone or the ankle. As for myself, I may not

be quick at getting a clear view of my enemy's throat, but I keep

feeling for a grip and try him at every point. In short, as the Greeks

say, 'I leave no stone unturned.'" I am like a husbandman, I look

carefully after not only my vineyards but my orchards, not only my

orchards but my meadows, while in the meadows I set seed for barley,

beans, and other vegetables, as well as for spelt and the best white

wheat. So when I plead in the Courts I scatter my arguments like seeds

with a lavish hand, and reap the crop that they produce. For the minds

of judges are as obscure, as little to be relied upon, and as deceptive

as the dispositions of storms and soils.

Nor do I forget that in his eulogy of that consummate orator, Pericles,

the comedy-writer Eupolis used the following language:--"But besides his

keenness, Persuasion sate upon his lips. So he charmed all ears and,

alone of all our orators, left his thrill behind him in his hearer's

minds." But even Pericles would not have possessed the persuasion and

charm of which Eupolis speaks merely owing to his conciseness or to his

keenness, or to both (for they are different attributes), unless he had

also possessed consummate oratorical power. In order to delight and

carry conviction an orator must have ample time and room allowed him,

for he alone can leave a thrill in his hearers' minds who plants his

weapon besides merely puncturing the skin. Again, see what another

comic poet writes of the same Pericles: "He lightened, he thundered, he

turned Hellas upside down." Such metaphors as thunder, lightning, and

chaos and confusion could not be used of abbreviated and compressed

oratory, but only of oratory on a sweeping scale, pitched in a lofty and

exalted key.

But, you say, the mean is the best. Quite so, but the mean is as much

neglected by those who fail to do justice to their subject as by those

who overdo it, by those who wear a bearing rein as by those who give

themselves their heads. And so you often hear the criticism that a

speech was "frigid and weak," just as you hear that another was

"overloaded and a mass of repetition." The one speaker is said to have

over-elaborated his subject, the other not to have risen to the

occasion. Both are at fault; one through weakness, the other through

too much strength, and the latter, though he may not show the more

refined intellect, certainly shows the more robust mind. When I say

this it must not be supposed that I am approving Homer's Thersites--the

man who was a torrent of words--but rather his Ulysses, whose "words

were like snow-flakes in winter," though at the same time I admire his

Menelaus, who spoke "Few words, but well to the point." Yet, if I had

to choose, I should prefer the speech that is like the winter snow-

storm--viz. fluent, flowing, and of generous width; and not only that,

but divine and celestial. It may, I know, be said that many people

prefer a short pleading. No doubt, but they are lazy creatures, and it

is ridiculous to consult the tastes of such sloths as though they were

critics. For if you take their opinion as worth anything, you will find

that they not only prefer a short pleading, but no pleading at all.

Well, I have told you what I think. I shall change my opinion if you do

not agree with me, but in that case I beg of you to give me clear

reasons for your disagreement; for although I feel bound to bow to a man

of your judgment, yet in a point of such importance, I consider that I

ought to give way rather to a reasoned statement than to an ipse dixit.

But even if you think I am right, still write and tell me so, and make

the letter as short as you like--for you will thus confirm my judgment.

If I am wrong, see that you write me a very long letter. I feel sure I

have not estimated you wrongly in thus asking you for a short note if

you agree with me, while laying on you the obligation of writing at

length if you disagree. Farewell.

1.XXI.--TO PLINIUS PATERNUS.

Let me acknowledge not only the keenness of your judgment but the

sharpness of your eyesight, not because you are full of wisdom--no,

don't plume yourself on that--but because you are just as wise as I am,

and that is saying a great deal. Yet, joking apart, I think the slaves

which I bought on your recommendation are a tidy-looking lot. It now

remains to be seen whether they are honest; because in judging the value

of a slave, it is better to trust one's ears than one's eyes. Farewell.

1.XXII.--TO CATILIUS SEVERUS.

Here am I still in Rome, and a good deal surprised to find myself here.

But I am troubled at the long illness of Titus Aristo, which he cannot

shake off. He is a man for whom I feel an extraordinary admiration and

affection: search where you will, he is second to none in character,

uprightness, and learning--so much so that I hardly look upon his

illness as that of a mere individual being in danger. It is rather as

if literature and all good arts were personified in him, and through him

were in grievous peril. What a knowledge he has of private and public

rights and the laws relating to them! What a mastery he has of things

in general, what experience, what an acquaintance with the past! There

is nothing you may wish to learn that he cannot teach you; to me,

certainly, he is a perfect mine of learning whenever I am requiring any

out-of-the-way information. Then again, how convincing his conversation

is, how strongly it impresses you, how modest and becoming is his

hesitation! What is there that he does not know straight away? And

yet, often enough, he shows hesitation and doubt, from the very

diversity of the reasons that come crowding into his mind, and upon

these he brings to bear his keen and mighty intellect, and, going back

to their fountain-head, reviews them, tests them, and weighs them in the

balance. Again, how sparing he is in his manner of life, how unassuming

in his dress! I often look at his bedroom and the bed itself, as though

they were models of old-fashioned economy. However, they are adorned by

his splendid mind, which has not a thought for ostentation, but refers

everything to his conscience. He seeks his reward for a good deed not

in the praise of the world, but in the deed itself. In short, you will

not find it easy to discover any one, even among those who prefer to

study wisdom rather than take heed to their bodily pleasures, worthy to

be compared with him. He does not haunt the training grounds and the

public porticos, nor does he charm the idle moments of others and his

own by indulging in long talks; no, he is always in his toga and always

at work; his services are at the disposal of many in the Courts, and he

helps numbers more by his advice. Yet in chastity of life, in piety, in

justice, in courage even, there is no one of all his acquaintance to

whom he need give place.

You would marvel, if you were by his side, at the patience with which he

endures his illness, how he fights against his suffering, how he resists

his thirst, how, without moving and without throwing off his bed-

clothes, he endures the dreadful burning heats of his fever. Just

recently he sent for me and a few others of his especial friends with

me, and begged us to consult his doctors and ask them about the

termination of his illness, so that if there were no hope for him he

might voluntarily give up his life, but might fight against it and hold

out if the illness only threatened to be difficult and long. He owed

it, he said, to the prayers of his wife, the tears of his daughter, and

the regard of us who were his friends, not to cheat our hopes by a

voluntary death, providing those hopes were not altogether futile. I

think that such an acknowledgment as that must be especially difficult

to make, and worthy of the highest praise; for many people are quite

capable of hastening to death under the impulse of a sudden instinct,

but only a truly noble mind can weigh up the pros and cons of the

matter, and resolve to live or die according to the dictates of Reason.

However, the doctors give us reassuring promises, and it now remains for

the Deity to confirm and fulfil them, and so at length release me from

my anxiety. The moment my mind is easy, I shall be off to my Laurentine

Villa--that is to say, to my books and tablets, and to my studious ease.

For now as I sit by my friend's bedside I can neither read nor write,

and I am so anxious that I have no inclination for such study.

Well, I have told you my fears, my hopes, and my future plans; it is

your turn now to write and tell me what you have been doing, what you

are doing now, and what your plans are, and I hope your letter will be a

more cheerful one than mine. If you have nothing to complain about, it

will be no small consolation to me in my general upset. Farewell.

1.XXIII.--TO POMPEIUS FALCO.

You ask me whether I think you ought to practise in the courts while you

are tribune. The answer entirely depends on the conception you have of

the tribuneship, whether you think it is a mere empty honour, a name

with no real dignity, or an office of the highest sanctity, and one that

no one, not even the holder himself, ought to slight in the least

degree. When I was tribune, I may have been wrong for thinking that I

was somebody, but I acted as if I were, and I abstained from practising

in the courts. In the first place, I thought it below my dignity that

I, at whose entrance every one ought to rise and give way, should stand

to plead while all others were sitting; or that I, who could impose

silence on all and sundry, should be ordered to be silent by a water-

clock; that I, whom it was a crime to interrupt, should be subjected

even to abuse, and that I should make people think I was a spiritless

fellow if I let an insult pass unnoticed, or proud and puffed up if I

resented and avenged it. Again, there was this embarrassing thought

always before me. Supposing appeal was made to me as tribune either by

my client or by the other party to the suit, what should I do? Lend him

aid, or keep silence and say not a word, and thus forswear my magistracy

and reduce myself to a mere private citizen? Moved by these

considerations, I preferred to be at the disposal of all men as a

tribune rather than act as an advocate for a few. But, to repeat what I

said before, it makes all the difference what conception you happen to

have of the office, and what part you essay to play. Providing you

carry it through to the end, either will be quite congruous with a man

of wisdom. Farewell.

1.XXIV.--TO BAEBIUS HISPANUS.

My comrade Tranquillus wishes to buy a bit of land which your friend is

said to be offering for sale. I beg that you will see that he purchases

it at a fair price, for in that case he will be glad to have bought it.

A bad bargain is always annoying, and especially so as it seems to show

that the previous owner has played one a scurvy trick. As to the plot

in question, if only the price is right, there are many reasons that

tempt my friend Tranquillus to buy--the nearness of the city, the

convenient road, the modest dimensions of his villa and the extent of

the farm, which is just enough to pleasantly disengage his thoughts from

other things, but not enough to give him any worry. In fact learned

schoolmen, like Tranquillus, on turning land-owners, ought only to have

just sufficient land to enable them to get rid of headaches, cure their

eyes, walk lazily round their boundary paths, make one beaten track for

themselves, get to know all their vines and count their trees. I have

gone into these details that you might understand what a regard I have

for Tranquillus, and how greatly I shall be indebted to you if he is

enabled to purchase the estate which has all these advantages to commend

it at such a reasonable price that he will not regret having bought it.

Farewell.