Pliny the Younger: EPISTVLARVM LIBRI DECEM

1 Legatum mihi obvenit modicum sed amplissimo gratius. Cur amplissimo gratius? Pomponia Galla exheredato filio Asudio Curiano heredem reliquerat me, dederat coheredes Sertorium Severum praetorium virum aliosque splendidos equites Romanos.

1 A bequest has come to me, modest but more welcome than a very ample one. Why more welcome than a very ample one? Pomponia Galla, her son Asudius Curianus having been disinherited, had left me as heir, and had appointed as coheirs Sertorius Severus, a praetorian man, and other splendid Roman equestrians.

2 Curianus orabat, ut sibi donarem portionem meam seque praeiudicio iuvarem; eandem tacita conventione salvam mihi pollicebatur. 3 Respondebam non convenire moribus meis aliud palam aliud agere secreto; praeterea non esse satis honestum donare et locupleti et orbo; in summa non profuturum ei si donassem, profuturum si cessissem, esse autem me paratum cedere si inique exheredatum mihi liqueret. 4 Ad hoc ille: 'Rogo cognoscas.' Cunctatus paulum 'Faciam' inquam; 'neque enim video cur ipse me minorem putem, quam tibi videor.

2 Curianus was begging that I donate my portion to him and help him by a precedent; under a tacit agreement he was promising that same share safe for me. 3 I kept replying that it did not suit my morals to do one thing openly and another in secret; besides, that it was not sufficiently honorable to make a gift to one both wealthy and childless; in sum, that it would not profit him if I donated, it would profit if I yielded, and that I was, however, prepared to yield if it became clear to me that he had been unjustly disinherited. 4 To this he: 'I ask that you ascertain.' Having hesitated a little, I say, 'I will do it; for I do not see why I should think myself less than I seem to you.'

Sed iam nunc memento non defuturam mihi constantiam, si ita fides duxerit, secundum matrem tuam pronuntiandi.' 5 'Ut voles' ait; 'voles enim quod aequissimum.' Adhibui in consilium duos quos tunc civitas nostra spectatissimos habuit, Corellium et Frontinum. 6 His circumdatus in cubiculo meo sedi. Dixit Curianus quae pro se putabat.

But now remember that constancy will not be lacking to me, if good faith thus leads, to pronounce in favor of your mother.' 5 'As you wish,' he says; 'for you will wish what is most equitable.' I brought into counsel two whom at that time our city held most esteemed, Corellius and Frontinus. 6 Surrounded by these men I sat in my cubiculum. Curianus said the points which he thought were in his favor.

Respondi paucis ego — neque enim aderat alius, qui defunctae pudorem tueretur -, deinde secessi, et ex consilii sententia 'Videtur' inquam, 'Curiane, mater tua iustas habuisse causas irascendi tibi.'

I replied in a few words — for there was present no other who might protect the modesty of the deceased -, then I withdrew, and in accordance with the council’s opinion, 'It seems,' I say, 'Curianus, that your mother had just causes for being angry with you.'

Post hoc ille cum ceteris subscripsit centumvirale iudicium, non subscripsit mecum. 7 Appetebat iudicii dies; coheredes mei componere et transigere cupiebant non diffidentia causae, sed metu temporum. Verebantur quod videbant multis accidisse, ne ex centumvirali iudicio capitis rei exirent.

After this, he with the others subscribed the centumviral case; he did not subscribe it with me. 7 The day of the trial was approaching; my coheirs were eager to compose and to transact, not from diffidence of the cause, but from fear of the times. They were afraid of what they saw had happened to many, lest they come out of the centumviral court as defendants on a capital charge.

8 Et erant quidam in illis, quibus obici et Gratillae amicitia et Rustici posset. 9 Rogant me ut cum Curiano loquar. Convenimus in aedem Concordiae.

8 And there were certain among them, to whom both friendship with Gratilla and with Rusticus could be objected. 9 They ask me to speak with Curianus. We meet in the Temple of Concord.

Ibi ego 'Si mater' inquam 'te ex parte quarta scripsisset heredem, num queri posses? Quid si heredem quidem instituisset ex asse, sed legatis ita exhausisset ut non amplius apud te quam quarta remaneret? Igitur sufficere tibi debet, si exheredatus a matre quartam partem ab heredibus eius accipias, quam tamen ego augebo.

Thereupon I said, 'If your mother,' I said, 'had written you as heir for a fourth part, could you complain? What if she had indeed instituted you as heir for the as (the whole), but had so exhausted it with legacies that no more than a fourth remained with you? Therefore it ought to suffice you, if, disinherited by your mother, you receive a fourth part from her heirs, which, however, I will augment.'

10 Scis te non subscripsisse mecum, et iam biennium transisse omniaque me usu cepisse. Sed ut te coheredes mei tractabiliorem experiantur, utque tibi nihil abstulerit reverentia mei, offero pro mea parte tantundem.' Tuli fructum non conscientiae modo verum etiam famae. 11 Ille ergo Curianus legatum mihi reliquit et factum meum, nisi forte blandior mihi antiquum, notabili honore signavit.

10 ‘You know that you did not subscribe with me, and that already a biennium has passed and that I have taken everything by usucapion. But, in order that my coheirs may find you more tractable, and that reverence for me may have taken nothing away from you, I offer, for my share, just as much.’ I reaped fruit not only of conscience but also of fame. 11 Therefore that Curianus left me a legacy and sealed my deed—unless perhaps I flatter myself—as old-fashioned, with notable honor.

12 Haec tibi scripsi, quia de omnibus quae me vel delectant vel angunt, non aliter tecum quam mecum loqui soleo; deinde quod durum existimabam, te amantissimum mei fraudare voluptate quam ipse capiebam. 13 Neque enim sum tam sapiens ut nihil mea intersit, an iis quae honeste fecisse me credo, testificatio quaedam et quasi praemium accedat. Vale.

12 I have written these things to you, because about all the matters which either delight me or anguish me, I am accustomed to speak with you no otherwise than with myself; then because I thought it harsh to defraud you, most loving toward me, of the pleasure which I myself was taking. 13 For I am not so wise that it does not matter to me at all whether to those things which I believe I have done honorably there be added a certain testification and, as it were, a reward. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CALPURNIO FLACCO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS CALPURNIUS FLACCUS, GREETINGS.

1 Accepi pulcherrimos turdos, cum quibus parem calculum ponere nec urbis copiis ex Laurentino nec maris tam turbidis tempestatibus possum. 2 Recipies ergo epistulas steriles et simpliciter ingratas, ac ne illam quidem sollertiam Diomedis in permutando munere imitantes. Sed, quae facilitas tua, hoc magis dabis veniam, quod se non mereri fatentur.

1 I have received most beautiful thrushes, with which I cannot put an equal reckoning, neither by the city’s resources from my Laurentine nor by the sea in such turbid tempests. 2 You will therefore receive letters barren and simply ungrateful, and not even imitating that cleverness of Diomedes in exchanging a gift. But, such is your affability, you will the more grant pardon, because they confess that they do not deserve it.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS TITIO ARISTONI SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS TITIUS ARISTO, GREETINGS.

1 Cum plurima officia tua mihi grata et iucunda sunt, tum vel maxime quod me celandum non putasti, fuisse apud te de versiculis meis multum copiosumque sermonem, eumque diversitate iudiciorum longius processisse, exstitisse etiam quosdam, qui scripta quidem ipsa non improbarent, me tamen amice simpliciterque reprehenderent, quod haec scriberem recitaremque. 2 Quibus ego, ut augeam meam culpam, ita respondeo: facio non numquam versiculos severos parum, facio; nam et comoedias audio et specto mimos et lyricos lego et Sotadicos intellego; aliquando praeterea rideo iocor ludo, utque omnia innoxiae remissionis genera breviter amplectar, homo sum. 3 Nec vero moleste fero hanc esse de moribus meis existimationem, ut qui nesciunt talia doctissimos gravissimos sanctissimos homines scriptitasse, me scribere mirentur.

1 While very many of your courtesies are pleasing and delightful to me, most of all is this: that you did not think I ought to be kept in the dark that there had been at your house much and copious conversation about my little verses, and that, by the diversity of judgments, it had gone rather further; that there had even arisen certain persons who did not disapprove the writings themselves, yet would, in a friendly and straightforward way, blame me for writing and reciting these things. 2 To whom I reply thus, in order to augment my own fault: I sometimes make little verses that are somewhat too little severe, I do; for I both listen to comedies and watch mimes and read lyric poets and understand Sotadic pieces; moreover, at times I laugh, I jest, I play; and, to embrace briefly all the kinds of harmless remission, I am a man. 3 Nor indeed do I take it ill that this should be the estimation of my morals, that those who do not know that most learned, most grave, most holy men have written such things, marvel that I write them.

4 Ab illis autem quibus notum est, quos quantosque auctores sequar, facile impetrari posse confido, ut errare me sed cum illis sinant, quorum non seria modo verum etiam lusus exprimere laudabile est. 5 An ego verear — neminem viventium, ne quam in speciem adulationis incidam, nominabo -, sed ego verear ne me non satis deceat, quod decuit M. Tullium, C. Calvum, Asinium Pollionem, M. Messalam, Q. Hortensium, M. Brutum, L. Sullam, Q. Catulum, Q. Scaevolam, Servium Sulpicium, Varronem, Torquatum, immo Torquatos, C. Memmium, Lentulum Gaetulicum, Annaeum Senecam et proxime Verginium Rufum et, si non sufficiunt exempla privata, Divum Iulium, Divum Augustum, Divum Nervam, Tiberium Caesarem? 6 Neronem enim transeo, quamvis sciam non corrumpi in deterius quae aliquando etiam a malis, sed honesta manere quae saepius a bonis fiunt.

4 But from those to whom it is known which and how great authors I follow, I am confident it can be easily obtained that they allow me to err—yet with them—whose not only serious works but even jeux d’esprit it is laudable to express. 5 Shall I indeed fear — I will name no one of the living, lest I fall into any appearance of adulation -, but shall I fear that what was fitting for M. Tullius, C. Calvus, Asinius Pollio, M. Messala, Q. Hortensius, M. Brutus, L. Sulla, Q. Catulus, Q. Scaevola, Servius Sulpicius, Varro, Torquatus, nay, the Torquati, C. Memmius, Lentulus Gaetulicus, Annaeus Seneca, and most recently Verginius Rufus, and—if private examples do not suffice—the Divine Julius, the Divine Augustus, the Divine Nerva, Tiberius Caesar, does not sufficiently befit me? 6 For I pass over Nero, although I know that things which are sometimes even by bad men are not thereby corrupted into worse, but that things honorable remain such as are more often done by good men.

Inter quos vel praecipue numerandus est P. Vergilius, Cornelius Nepos et prius Accius Enniusque. Non quidem hi senatores, sed sanctitas morum non distat ordinibus. 7 Recito tamen, quod illi an fecerint nescio.

Among whom is to be counted most especially P. Vergilius, Cornelius Nepos, and earlier Accius and Ennius. Not indeed were these senators, but the sanctity of morals does not differ among orders. 7 I recite, nevertheless—whether they did so, I do not know.

Etiam: sed illi iudicio suo poterant esse contenti, mihi modestior constantia est quam ut satis absolutum putem, quod a me probetur. 8 Itaque has recitandi causas sequor, primum quod ipse qui recitat aliquanto acrius scriptis suis auditorum reverentia intendit; deinde quod de quibus dubitat, quasi ex consilii sententia statuit. 9 Multa etiam multis admonetur, et si non admoneatur, quid quisque sentiat perspicit ex vultu oculis nutu manu murmure silentio; quae satis apertis notis iudicium ab humanitate discernunt.

Yes: but they could be content with their own judgment; for me there is a more modest constancy than that I should think sufficiently complete what is approved by myself. 8 And so I follow these causes for reciting: first, because the very one who recites addresses his writings rather more keenly by reason of the reverence of the auditors; then, because concerning those things about which he doubts, he decides as if by the opinion of a council. 9 He is also admonished of many things by many; and if he be not admonished, he perceives what each person feels from face, eyes, nod, hand, murmur, silence—signs which, being quite open, distinguish judgment from courtesy.

10 Atque adeo si cui forte eorum qui interfuerunt curae fuerit eadem illa legere, intelleget me quaedam aut commutasse aut praeterisse, fortasse etiam ex suo iudicio, quamvis ipse nihil dixerit mihi. 11 Atque haec ita disputo quasi populum in auditorium, non in cubiculum amicos advocarim, quos plures habere multis gloriosum, reprehensioni nemini fuit. Vale.

10 And indeed, if by chance any of those who were present should care to read those same things, he will understand that I have either altered certain things or passed over some, perhaps even from his own judgment, although he himself said nothing to me. 11 And I discuss these matters thus as if I had summoned a people into an auditorium, not friends into a bedchamber; to have more of whom has been a glory to many, a reproach to no one. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS IULIO VALERIANO SUO S.

C. PLINIUS TO HIS JULIUS VALERIANUS, GREETINGS.

1 Res parva, sed initium non parvae. Vir praetorius Sollers a senatu periit, ut sibi instituere nundinas in agris suis permitteretur. Contra dixerunt legati Vicetinorum; adfuit Tuscilius Nominatus.

1 A small matter, but the beginning of no small one. A praetorian man, Sollers, petitioned the senate that he be permitted to establish market-days on his own lands. The legates of the Vicentini spoke against; Tuscilius Nominatus was present.

2 Dilata causa est. Alio senatu Vicetini sine advocato intraverunt, dixerunt se deceptos, lapsine verbo, an quia ita sentiebant. Interrogati a Nepote praetore, quem docuissent, responderunt quem prius.

2 The case was deferred. At another sitting of the senate the Vicetini entered without an advocate; they said they had been deceived, whether by a verbal lapse, or because that was truly their sentiment. When asked by Nepos the praetor whom they had instructed, they replied: the same one as before.

Interrogati an tunc gratis adfuisset, responderunt sex milibus nummum; an rursus aliquid dedissent, dixerunt mille denarios. Nepos postulavit ut Nominatus induceretur. 3 Hactenus illo die.

Asked whether he had then been present gratis, they answered: for six thousand coins; whether they had again given anything, they said: one thousand denarii. Nepos demanded that Nominatus be brought in. 3 So much for that day.

Sed quantum auguror longius res procedet. Nam pleraque tacta tantum et omnino commota latissime serpunt. Erexi aures tuas.

But, as far as I augur, the matter will proceed farther. For most things, once only touched and altogether set in motion, spread very widely. I have pricked up your ears.

4 Quam diu nunc oportet, quam blande roges, ut reliqua cognoscas! si tamen non ante ob haec ipsa veneris Romam, spectatorque malueris esse quam lector. Vale.

4 How long now is it fitting, how blandly you should ask, so that you may come to know the rest! If, however, you do not come to Rome beforehand on account of these very things, and prefer to be a spectator rather than a reader. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS NOVIO MAXIMO SUO S.

Gaius Pliny to his Novius Maximus, greetings.

1 Nuntiatum mihi C. Fannium decessisse; qui nuntius me gravi dolore confudit, primum quod amavi hominem elegantem disertum, deinde quod iudicio eius uti solebam. Erat enim acutus natura, usu exercitatus, veritate promptissimus. 2 Angit me super ista casus ipsius: decessit veteri testamento, omisit quos maxime diligebat, prosecutus est quibus offensior erat.

1 It was announced to me that Gaius Fannius had deceased; and this announcement overwhelmed me with grave grief, first because I loved the man, elegant and well‑spoken, then because I used to employ his judgment. For he was acute by nature, exercised by use, most prompt in verity. 2 What wrings me, beyond these things, is his own lot: he died under an old testament; he omitted those whom he most cherished, he favored those with whom he had been more offended.

Sed hoc utcumque tolerabile; gravius illud, quod pulcherrimum opus imperfectum reliquit. 3 Quamvis enim agendis causis distringeretur, scribebat tamen exitus occisorum aut relegatorum a Nerone et iam tres libros absolverat subtiles et diligentes et Latinos atque inter sermonem historiamque medios, ac tanto magis reliquos perficere cupiebat, quanto frequentius hi lectitabantur. 4 Mihi autem videtur acerba semper et immatura mors eorum, qui immortale aliquid parant.

But this is somehow tolerable; more grievous is that he left a most beautiful work unfinished. 3 For although he was distracted by pleading cases, nevertheless he was writing the outcomes of those slain or relegated by Nero, and had already completed three books—subtle and diligent and Latin, and midway between discourse and history—and he all the more desired to finish the remaining ones, the more frequently these were being read again and again. 4 Moreover, it seems to me that the death of those who are preparing something immortal is always bitter and untimely.

Nam qui voluptatibus dediti quasi in diem vivunt, vivendi causas cotidie finiunt; qui vero posteros cogitant, et memoriam sui operibus extendunt, his nulla mors non repentina est, ut quae semper incohatum aliquid abrumpat. 5 Gaius quidem Fannius, quod accidit, multo ante praesensit. Visus est sibi per nocturnam quietem iacere in lectulo suo compositus in habitum studentis, habere ante se scrinium — ita solebat -; mox imaginatus est venisse Neronem, in toro resedisse, prompsisse primum librum quem de sceleribus eius ediderat, cumque ad extremum revolvisse; idem in secundo ac tertio fecisse, tunc abisse.

For those given over to pleasures, who live as if for the day, the reasons for living they finish day by day; but for those who think of posterity and extend the memory of themselves by their works, for them no death is not sudden, since it always breaks off something only begun. 5 Gaius Fannius, for his part, long before anticipated what happened. He seemed to himself in the quiet of night to be lying on his little couch, composed in the posture of a student, to have before him a scrinium — so he used to do -; soon he imagined that Nero had come, had sat down upon the couch, had brought forth the first book which he had published about his crimes, and had unrolled it to the end; that he had done the same in the second and the third, then had gone away.

6 Expavit et sic interpretatus est, tamquam idem sibi futurus esset scribendi finis, qui fuisset illi legendi: et fuit idem. 7 Quod me recordantem miseratio subit, quantum vigiliarum quantum laboris exhauserit frustra. Occursant animo mea mortalitas mea scripta.

6 He took fright and interpreted it thus, as though the same end of writing were going to be for himself as had been for him the end of reading; and it was the same. 7 Which, as I recall it, compassion comes over me, how many vigils, how much labor he had exhausted in vain. My mortality, my writings, rush upon my mind.

Nec dubito te quoque eadem cogitatione terreri, pro istis quae inter manus habes. 8 Proinde, dum suppetit vita, enitamur ut mors quam paucissima quae abolere possit inveniat. Vale.

Nor do I doubt that you too are terrified by the same reflection, for those things which you have in your hands. 8 Therefore, while life suffices, let us strive that death may find as few things as possible which it can abolish. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS DOMITIO APOLLINARI SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS DOMITIUS APOLLINARIS, GREETINGS.

1 Amavi curam et sollicitudinem tuam, quod cum audisses me aestate Tuscos meos petiturum, ne facerem suasisti, dum putas insalubres. 2 Est sane gravis et pestilens ora Tuscorum, quae per litus extenditur; sed hi procul a mari recesserunt, quin etiam Appennino saluberrimo montium subiacent. 3 Atque adeo ut omnem pro me metum ponas, accipe temperiem caeli regionis situm villae amoenitatem, quae et tibi auditu et mihi relatu iucunda erunt.

1 I have loved your care and solicitude, because when you heard that in summer I would make for my Tuscan estates, you advised that I should not do so, while you suppose them insalubrious. 2 The shore-district of the Tuscans, which extends along the littoral, is indeed harsh and pestilent; but these are withdrawn far from the sea, nay even they lie beneath the most salubrious Apennine mountains. 3 And indeed, so that you may lay aside all fear on my account, receive the temperateness of the climate, the situation of the region, the amenity of the villa, which will be pleasant both to you in the hearing and to me in the recounting.

4 Caelum est hieme frigidum et gelidum; myrtos oleas quaeque alia assiduo tepore laetantur, aspernatur ac respuit; laurum tamen patitur atque etiam nitidissimam profert, interdum sed non saepius quam sub urbe nostra necat. 5 Aestatis mira clementia: semper aer spiritu aliquo movetur, frequentius tamen auras quam ventos habet. 6 Hinc senes multi: videas avos proavosque iam iuvenum, audias fabulas veteres sermonesque maiorum, cumque veneris illo putes alio te saeculo natum.

4 The climate in winter is cold and gelid; it shuns and rejects myrtles, olives, and whatever other things rejoice in assiduous warmth; yet it tolerates the laurel and even brings it forth most lustrous, at times, but no more often than under our city, it kills it. 5 Summer’s marvelous clemency: the air is always moved by some breath, yet more often it has breezes than winds. 6 Hence many elders: you might see grandfathers and great-grandfathers of young men already, you might hear ancient fables and the discourses of ancestors, and when you come there you would think yourself born in another age.

7 Regionis forma pulcherrima. Imaginare amphitheatrum aliquod immensum, et quale sola rerum natura possit effingere. Lata et diffusa planities montibus cingitur, montes summa sui parte procera nemora et antiqua habent.

7 The region’s form is most beautiful. Imagine some immense amphitheater, such as Nature alone could fashion. A broad and outspread plain is encircled by mountains; the mountains, in their topmost part, hold tall and ancient groves.

8 Frequens ibi et varia venatio. Inde caeduae silvae cum ipso monte descendunt. Has inter pingues terrenique colles — neque enim facile usquam saxum etiam si quaeratur occurrit — planissimis campis fertilitate non cedunt, opimamque messem serius tantum, sed non minus percoquunt.

8 There the hunting is frequent and varied. From there coppice-woods descend with the mountain itself. Among these, the rich and earthy hills — for indeed rock scarcely occurs anywhere, even if sought — do not yield to the flattest plains in fertility, and they ripen a rich harvest only later, yet no less thoroughly.

9 Sub his per latus omne vineae porriguntur, unamque faciem longe lateque contexunt; quarum a fine imoque quasi margine arbusta nascuntur. 10 Prata inde campique, campi quos non nisi, ingentes boves et fortissima aratra perfringunt: tantis glaebis tenacissimum solum cum primum prosecatur assurgit, ut nono demum sulco perdometur. 11 Prata florida et gemmea trifolium aliasque herbas teneras semper et molles et quasi novas alunt.

9 Under these, along every side, vineyards are stretched out, and they weave one single aspect far and wide; from whose end and very lowest, as if a border, arboreta spring up. 10 Thence meadows and fields, fields which none but huge oxen and the very stoutest ploughs break through: with such great clods the most tenacious soil, when first it is ploughed, rises up, that only at the ninth furrow is it at last thoroughly subdued. 11 Flowery and gem-like meadows nourish trifolium (clover) and other tender herbs, always soft and as if new.

Cuncta enim perennibus rivis nutriuntur; sed ubi aquae plurimum, palus nulla, quia devexa terra, quidquid liquoris accepit nec absorbuit, effundit in Tiberim. 12 Medios ille agros secat navium patiens omnesque fruges devehit in urbem, hieme dumtaxat et vere; aestate summittitur immensique fluminis nomen arenti alveo deserit, autumno resumit. 13 Magnam capies voluptatem, si hunc regionis situm ex monte prospexeris.

For everything is nourished by perennial streams; but where there is the most water, there is no marsh, because the ground slopes downward, and whatever moisture it has received and has not absorbed, it pours out into the Tiber. 12 That river cuts through the middle of the fields, being navigable for ships, and conveys all produce into the city, in winter only and in spring; in summer it subsides and, with its channel parched, abandons the name of an immense river, in autumn it resumes it. 13 You will take great delight, if from a mountain you look out upon this situation of the region.

Neque enim terras tibi sed formam aliquam ad eximiam pulchritudinem pictam videberis cernere: ea varietate, ea descriptione, quocumque inciderint oculi, reficientur.

For you will seem to behold not lands, but a certain form painted to eximious beauty: by that variety, by that description, wherever the eyes shall fall, they will be refreshed.

14 Villa in colle imo sita prospicit quasi ex summo: ita leviter et sensim clivo fallente consurgit, ut cum ascendere te non putes, sentias ascendisse. A tergo Appenninum, sed longius habet; accipit ab hoc auras quamlibet sereno et placido die, non tamen acres et immodicas, sed spatio ipso lassas et infractas. 15 Magna sui parte meridiem spectat aestivumque solem ab hora sexta, hibernum aliquanto maturius quasi invitat, in porticum latam et pro modo longam.

14 A villa set at the foot of a hill looks out as if from the summit: so lightly and gradually it rises with the slope deceiving, that when you do not think you are ascending, you feel you have ascended. At its back it has the Apennine, but farther off; it receives from it breezes on however serene and placid a day, yet not sharp and immoderate, but wearied and broken by the distance itself. 15 In a great part of itself it faces the south and admits the summer sun from the sixth hour, and, as if inviting it, the winter sun somewhat earlier, into a portico broad and, in proportion, long.

Multa in hae membra, atrium etiam ex more veterum. 16 Ante porticum xystus in plurimas species distinctus concisusque buxo; demissus inde pronusque pulvinus, cui bestiarum effigies invicem adversas buxus inscripsit; acanthus in plano, mollis et paene dixerim liquidus. 17 Ambit hunc ambulatio pressis varieque tonsis viridibus inclusa; ab his gestatio in modum circi, quae buxum multiformem humilesque et retentas manu arbusculas circumit.

Many parts in this, an atrium too after the custom of the ancients. 16 Before the portico, a xystus distinguished into very many patterns and cut out with boxwood; from there a sunk and forward-sloping bank, upon which boxwood has inscribed effigies of beasts set one against the other by turns; acanthus on the level, soft and I could almost say liquid. 17 An ambulatory encircles this, enclosed by greenery compacted and variously shorn; beyond these, a drive in the manner of a circus, which goes around multiform boxwood and little trees, low and held back by the hand.

Omnia maceria muniuntur: hanc gradata buxus operit et subtrahit. 18 Pratum inde non minus natura quam superiora illa arte visendum; campi deinde porro multaque alia prata et arbusta. 19 A capite porticus triclinium excurrit; valvis xystum desinentem et protinus pratum multumque ruris videt, fenestris hac latus xysti et quod prosilit villae, hac adiacentis hippodromi nemus comasque prospectat.

All things are fortified by a wall; terraced boxwood covers this and withdraws it from sight. 18 Then a meadow, to be viewed no less for its nature than those upper features for art; then fields further on, and many other meadows and arboreta. 19 From the head of the portico a triclinium runs out; with its doors it looks upon the xystus as it ends and straightway the meadow and much of the countryside, with its windows on this side upon the flank of the xystus and the part of the villa that leaps forward, on this side upon the grove and the leafy canopies of the adjoining hippodrome.

20 Contra mediam fere porticum diaeta paulum recedit, cingit areolam, quae quattuor platanis inumbratur. Inter has marmoreo labro aqua exundat circumiectasque platanos et subiecta platanis leni aspergine fovet. 21 Est in hac diaeta dormitorium cubiculum quod diem clamorem sonum excludit, iunctaque ei cotidiana amicorumque cenatio: areolam illam, porticus alam eademque omnia quae porticus adspicit.

20 Nearly opposite the middle of the portico a suite withdraws a little; it girds a little plot, which is shaded by four plane-trees. Between these, from a marble basin, water overflows and with a gentle sprinkling cherishes the plane-trees set around and the things set beneath the plane-trees. 21 In this suite there is a sleeping bedroom which shuts out day, clamor, and sound, and joined to it a dining-room for daily use and for friends: it looks upon that little plot, the wing of the portico, and likewise all the things which the portico looks upon.

22 Est et aliud cubiculum a proxima platano viride et umbrosum, marmore excultum podio tenus, nec cedit gratiae marmoris ramos insidentesque ramis aves imitata pictura. 23 Fonticulus in hoc, in fonte crater; circa sipunculi plures miscent iucundissimum murmur. In cornu porticus amplissimum cubiculum triclinio occurrit; aliis fenestris xystum, aliis despicit pratum, sed ante piscinam, quae fenestris servit ac subiacet, strepitu visuque iucunda; 24 nam ex edito desiliens aqua suscepta marmore albescit.

22 There is also another little bedroom, green and shadowy by the nearby plane-tree, adorned with marble up to the podium; nor does the painting, imitating branches and birds perched on the branches, yield to the grace of the marble. 23 There is a little fountain in this, and in the fountain a krater; around it several little siphons blend a most delightful murmur. At the corner of the portico a very spacious room adjoins the triclinium; with some windows it looks upon the xystus, with others it looks down upon the meadow, but in front is a fishpond, which serves the windows and lies beneath, delightful in sound and in sight; 24 for the water, leaping down from a height, is received by marble and grows white.

Idem cubiculum hieme tepidissimum, quia plurimo sole perfunditur. 25 Cohaeret hypocauston et, si dies nubilus, immisso vapore solis vicem supplet. Inde apodyterium balinei laxum et hilare excipit cella frigidaria, in qua baptisterium amplum atque opacum.

The same cubiculum is very tepid in winter, because it is bathed in a very great deal of sun. 25 A hypocaust adjoins, and, if the day is cloudy, with vapor admitted it supplies the stead of the sun. From there a frigidary cell receives the apodyterium of the bath, ample and cheerful, in which there is a spacious and shady baptistery.

Si natare latius aut tepidius velis, in area piscina est, in proximo puteus, ex quo possis rursus astringi, si paeniteat teporis. 26 Frigidariae cellae conectitur media, cui sol benignissime praesto est; caldariae magis, prominet enim. In hac tres descensiones, duae in sole, tertia a sole longius, a luce non longius.

If you wish to swim more broadly or more tepidly, in the courtyard there is a pool; nearby, a well, from which you can be braced again, if you repent of the tepidness. 26 A middle room is connected to the frigidarium chamber, to which the sun is most kindly at hand; even more to the caldarium, for it projects. In this are three descents, two in the sun, the third farther from the sun, not farther from the light.

27 Apodyterio superpositum est sphaeristerium, quod plura genera exercitationis pluresque circulos capit. Non procul a balineo scalae, quae in cryptoporticum ferunt prius ad diaetas tres. Harum alia arcolae illi, in qua platani quattuor, alia prato, alia vineis imminet diversasque caeli partes ut prospectus habet.

27 Above the changing-room is a sphaeristerium (ball-court), which holds more kinds of exercise and more circles. Not far from the bath are stairs which lead into the cryptoporticus, first to three apartments. Of these, one looks out upon that little arbour, in which there are four plane-trees, another overlooks the meadow, another the vineyards, and it has, as an outlook, different quarters of the sky.

28 In summa cryptoporticu cubiculum ex ipsa cryptoporticu excisum, quod hippodromum vineas montes intuetur. Iungitur cubiculum obvium soli, maxime hiberno. Hinc oritur diaeta, quae villae hippodromum adnectit.

28 At the top of the cryptoporticus, a bedroom cut out from the cryptoporticus itself, which looks upon the hippodrome, the vineyards, the mountains. Is joined a bedroom facing the sun, most of all the winter sun. From here there arises a diaeta (suite), which connects the villa to the hippodrome.

Haec facies, hic usus a fronte.

Such is the aspect, such the use from the front.

29 A latere aestiva cryptoporticus in edito posita, quae non adspicere vineas sed tangere videtur. In media triclinium saluberrimum afflatum ex Appenninis vallibus recipit; post latissimis fenestris vineas, valvis aeque vineas sed per cryptoporticum quasi admittit. 30 A latere triclinii quod fenestris caret, scalae convivio utilia secretiore ambitu suggerunt.

29 On the side, a summer cryptoporticus set on a height, which seems not to look at the vineyards but to touch them. In the middle, a triclinium most healthful receives a breathing from the Apennine valleys; to the rear it admits the vineyards by very broad windows, by the doors likewise the vineyards, but, as it were, through the cryptoporticus. 30 On the side of the triclinium which lacks windows, stairs, by a more secluded circuit, supply things useful for the banquet.

In fine cubiculum, cui non minus iucundum prospectum cryptoporticus ipsa quam vineae praebent. Subest cryptoporticus subterraneae similis; aestate incluso frigore riget contentaque acre suo nec desiderat auras nec admittit. 31 Post utramque cryptoporticum, unde triclinium desinit, incipit porticus ante medium diem hiberna, inclinato die aestiva.

At the end, a cubiculum, to which the cryptoporticus itself no less than the vineyards offers a pleasant prospect. Beneath lies a cryptoporticus similar to a subterranean one; in summer, it stiffens with the cold enclosed, and, content with its own sharp chill, neither desires breezes nor admits them. 31 Beyond each cryptoporticus, where the triclinium ends, a portico begins—the winter one before midday, the summer one as the day inclines.

Hac adeuntur diaetae duae, quarum in altera cubicula quattuor, altera tria ut circumit sol aut sole utuntur aut umbra.

By this, two suites are approached, of which in the one there are four bedchambers, in the other three; and as the sun makes its circuit, they make use either of the sun or of shade.

32 Hanc dispositionem amoenitatemque tectorum longe longeque praecedit hippodromus. Medius patescit statimque intrantium oculis totus offertur, platanis circumitur; illae hedera vestiuntur utque summae suis ita imae alienis frondibus virent. Hedera truncum et ramos pererrat vicinasque platanos transitu suo copulat.

32 This disposition and amenity of the buildings the hippodrome far and far precedes. In the middle it lies open, and straightway is presented whole to the eyes of those entering; it is encircled by plane-trees. Those are clothed with ivy; and just as the tops are green with their own leaves, so the bottoms with others’ leaves. The ivy traverses the trunk and branches and, in its passage, couples the neighboring plane-trees.

Has buxus interiacet; exteriores buxos circumvenit laurus, umbraeque platanorum suam confert. 33 Rectus hic hippodromi limes in extrema parte hemicyclio frangitur mutatque faciem: cupressis ambitur et tegitur, densiore umbra opacior nigriorque; interioribus circulis — sunt enim plures — purissimum diem recipit. 34 Inde etiam rosas effert, umbrarumque frigus non ingrato sole distinguit.

Between these, box intervenes; the laurel encircles the outer box-trees and contributes its own to the shade of the plane-trees. 33 Here the straight boundary of the hippodrome at its far end is broken by a hemicycle and changes its appearance: it is surrounded and covered by cypresses, more opaque and blacker with denser shade; in the inner circles — for there are several — it receives the purest daylight. 34 From there it even brings forth roses, and it distinguishes the coolness of the shadows with a not ungrateful sun.

Finito vario illo multiplicique curvamine recto limiti redditur nec huic uni, nam viae plures intercedentibus buxis dividuntur. 35 Alibi pratulum, alibi ipsa buxus intervenit in formas mille descripta, litteras interdum, quae modo nomen domini dicunt modo artificis: alternis metulae surgunt, alternis inserta sunt poma, et in opere urbanissimo subita velut illati ruris imitatio. Medium spatium brevioribus utrimque platanis adornatur.

With that varied and manifold curvature finished, it is brought back to a straight boundary—and not to this one alone, for several paths are divided by boxwoods interceding. 35 Elsewhere a little meadow, elsewhere boxwood itself comes in, described into a thousand forms, sometimes letters, which now speak the name of the master, now of the artificer: in alternation little cones rise, in alternation fruits are set in, and within a most urban work there is a sudden, as it were, imitation of country brought in. The middle space is adorned on either side with shorter plane-trees.

36 Post has acanthus hinc inde lubricus et flexuosus, deinde plures figurae pluraque nomina. In capite stibadium candido marmore vite protegitur; vitem quattuor columellae Carystiae subeunt. Ex stibadio aqua velut expressa cubantium pondere sipunculis effluit, cavato lapide suscipitur, gracili marmore continetur atque ita occulte temperatur, ut impleat nec redundet.

36 After these, acanthus on this side and that, slick and flexuous; then more figures and more names. At the head, a stibadium of white marble is covered by a vine; four Carystian little columns support the vine. From the stibadium water, as if pressed out by the weight of the reclining, flows through little siphons, is received in a hollowed stone, is contained by slender marble, and is so covertly regulated that it fills and does not overflow.

37 Gustatorium graviorque cena margini imponitur, levior naucularum et avium figuris innatans circumit. Contra fons egerit aquam et recipit; nam expulsa in altum in se cadit iunctisque hiatibus et absorbetur et tollitur. E regione stibadii adversum cubiculum tantum stibadio reddit ornatus, quantum accipit ab illo.

37 A gustatorium and the heavier dinner are set upon the margin, while the lighter, floating with figures of little boats and birds, goes around. Opposite, a fountain drives out water and takes it back; for, when expelled on high, it falls into itself and, with the inlets conjoined, it is both absorbed and lifted. Over against the stibadium, facing the bedchamber, the decoration returns to the stibadium as much ornament as it receives from it.

38 Marmore splendet, valvis in viridia prominet et exit, alia viridia superioribus inferioribusque fenestris suspicit despicitque. Mox zothecula refugit quasi in cubiculum idem atque aliud. Lectus hic et undique fenestrae, et tamen lumen obscurum umbra premente.

38 It shines with marble, by its folding-doors it projects into the greens and goes out; other greens it looks up to and looks down on from the upper and lower windows. Soon a little zotheca draws back, as if into a bedroom the same and yet other. Here a bed and windows on every side, and yet the light is dim with the shadow pressing.

39 Nam laetissima vitis per omne tectum in culmen nititur et ascendit. Non secus ibi quam in nemore iaceas, imbrem tantum tamquam in nemore non sentias. 40 Hic quoque fons nascitur simulque subducitur.

39 For a most luxuriant vine strives over the whole roof and climbs to the ridge. There you recline no otherwise than in a grove, only that, as though in a grove, you do not feel the rain. 40 Here too a fountain is born and at the same time is withdrawn.

Sunt locis pluribus disposita sedilia e marmore, quae ambulatione fessos ut cubiculum ipsum iuvant. Fonticuli sedilibus adiacent; per totum hippodromum inducti strepunt rivi, et qua manus duxit sequuntur: his nunc illa viridia, nunc haec, interdum simul omnia lavantur.

In several places there are seats set of marble, which aid those weary from ambulation as does the bedchamber itself. Little fountains adjoin the seats; rills, conducted through the whole hippodrome, murmur, and they follow where a hand has led: by these now those greens are washed, now these, sometimes all at once.

41 Vitassem iam dudum ne viderer argutior, nisi proposuissem omnes angulos tecum epistula circumire. Neque enim verebar ne laboriosum esset legenti tibi, quod visenti non fuisset, praesertim cum interquiescere, si liberet, depositaque epistula quasi residere saepius posses. Praeterea indulsi amori meo; amo enim, quae maxima ex parte ipse incohavi aut incohata percolui.

41 I would long since have avoided it, lest I seem more over-subtle, had I not proposed to go around all the corners with you by a letter. For I did not fear that it would be laborious for you reading, what would not have been for you seeing, especially since you could pause for rest, if you pleased, and, the letter set down, as it were sit down more often. Besides, I indulged my affection; for I love the things which for the greatest part I myself have initiated, or, being inchoate, I have cultivated.

42 In summa — cur enim non aperiam tibi vel iudicium meum vel errorem? — primum ego officium scriptoris existimo, titulum suum legat atque identidem interroget se quid coeperit scribere, sciatque si materiae immoratur non esse longum, longissimum si aliquid accersit atque attrahit. 43 Vides quot versibus Homerus, quot Vergilius arma hic Aeneae Achillis ille describat; brevis tamen uterque est quia facit quod instituit.

42 In sum — for why should I not lay open to you either my judgment or my error? — first I reckon it the office of a writer to read his title and again and again ask himself what he began to write, and to know that if he dwells upon the subject-matter it is not long, but it is longest if he summons and drags in something. 43 You see in how many verses Homer, in how many Vergil, this one describes the arms of Aeneas, that one of Achilles; nevertheless each is brief because he does what he instituted.

Vides ut Aratus minutissima etiam sidera consectetur et colligat; modum tamen servat. Non enim excursus hic eius, sed opus ipsum est. 44 Similiter nos ut 'parva magnis', cum totam villam oculis tuis subicere conamur, si nihil inductum et quasi devium loquimur, non epistula quae describit sed villa quae describitur magna est.

You see how Aratus pursues and collects even the tiniest stars; yet he keeps the measure. For this is not his excursus, but the opus itself. 44 Similarly we, as “small things to great,” when we try to set the whole villa under your eyes, if we speak nothing introduced and, as it were, devious, it is not the letter which describes that is great, but the villa which is described.

Verum illuc unde coepi, ne secundum legem meam iure reprendar, si longior fuero in hoc in quod excessi. 45 Habes causas cur ego Tuscos meos Tusculanis Tiburtinis Praenestinisque praeponam. Nam super illa quae rettuli, altius ibi otium et pinguius eoque securius: nulla necessitas togae, nemo accersitor ex proximo, placida omnia et quiescentia, quod ipsum salubritati regionis ut purius caelum, ut aer liquidior accedit.

But back to that whence I began, lest according to my own law I be justly reprehended, if I shall be longer in that in which I have exceeded. 45 You have the reasons why I set my Tuscan estates before the Tusculan, the Tiburtine, and the Praenestine. For, besides those things which I have recounted, leisure there is loftier and fatter, and therefore securer: no necessity of the toga, no summoner from nearby, all things placid and quiescent, which very thing accrues to the salubrity of the region, as a purer sky, as a more limpid air.

46 Ibi animo, ibi corpore maxime valeo. Nam studiis animum, venatu corpus exerceo. Mei quoque nusquam salubrius degunt; usque adhuc certe neminem ex iis quos eduxeram mecum, — venia sit dicto — ibi amisi.

46 There, in mind, there, in body, I am at my strongest. For with studies I exercise the mind, with hunting the body. My household too lives nowhere more healthfully; up to now certainly I have lost no one there of those whom I had brought out with me — pardon the saying —.

Di modo in posterum hoc mihi gaudium, hanc gloriam loco servent! Vale.

Only may the gods preserve for me in time to come this joy, this glory, in that place! Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CALVISIO RUFO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS CALVISIUS RUFUS, GREETINGS.

1 Nec heredem institui nec praecipere posse rem publicam constat; Saturninus autem, qui nos reliquit heredes, quadrantem rei publicae nostrae, deinde pro quadrante praeceptionem quadringentorum milium dedit. Hoc si ius aspicias irritum, si defuncti voluntatem ratum et firmum est. 2 Mihi autem defuncti voluntas — vereor quam in partem iuris consulti quod sum dicturus accipiant — antiquior iure est, utique in eo quod ad communem patriam voluit pervenire.

1 It is established that the commonwealth can be neither instituted as heir nor able to take by preception; but Saturninus, who left us as heirs, gave a quarter to our commonwealth, and then in place of the quarter a preception of 400,000. This, if you look to the law, is void; if to the will of the deceased, it is valid and firm. 2 To me, however, the will of the deceased — I fear in what sense the jurisconsults will take what I am about to say — is prior to the law, especially in that which he wished to come to the common fatherland.

3 An cui de meo sestertium sedecies contuli, huic quadringentorum milium paulo amplius tertiam partem ex adventicio denegem? Scio te quoque a iudicio meo non abhorrere, cum eandem rem publicam ut civis optimus diligas. 4 Velim ergo, cum proxime decuriones contrahentur, quid sit iuris indices, parce tamen et modeste; deinde subiungas nos quadringenta milia offerre, sicut praeceperit Saturninus.

3 Am I then to deny to this same one, to whom I have contributed from my own means one million six hundred thousand sesterces, a little more than a third part of four hundred thousand from the adventitious [funds]? I know that you also do not recoil from my judgment, since you, as an excellent citizen, cherish the same commonwealth. 4 I would wish, therefore, when the decurions are next convened, that you indicate what the law is, sparingly, however, and modestly; then you should subjoin that we offer four hundred thousand, just as Saturninus has prescribed.

Illius hoc munus, illius liberalitas; nostrum tantum obsequium vocetur. 5 Haec ego scribere publice supersedi, primum quod memineram pro necessitudine amicitiae nostrae, pro facultate prudentiae tuae et debere te et posse perinde meis ac tuis partibus fungi; deinde quia verebar ne modum, quem tibi in sermone custodire facile est, tenuisse in epistula non viderer. 6 Nam sermonem vultus gestus vox ipsa moderatur, epistula omnibus commendationibus destituta malignitati interpretantium exponitur.

Let this be his gift, his liberality; let only our deference be so called. 5 I have refrained from writing these things publicly, first because I remembered that, by reason of the bond of our friendship and the capacity of your prudence, you both ought and are able to perform my parts as well as your own; then because I feared that I might seem not to have kept in a letter the moderation which it is easy for you to keep in conversation. 6 For conversation is moderated by countenance, gesture, and the voice itself, whereas a letter, deprived of all commendations, is exposed to the malignity of interpreters.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS TITINIO CAPITONI SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS TITINIUS CAPITO, GREETING.

1 Suades ut historiam scribam, et suades non solus: multi hoc me saepe monuerunt et ego volo, non quia commode facturum esse confidam — id enim temere credas nisi expertus -, sed quia mihi pulchrum in primis videtur non pati occidere, quibus aeternitas debeatur, aliorumque famam cum sua extendere. 2 Me autem nihil aeque ac diuturnitatis amor et cupido sollicitat, res homine dignissima, eo praesertim qui nullius sibi conscius culpae posteritatis memoriam non reformidet. 3 Itaque diebus ac noctibus cogito, si 'qua me quoque possim tollere humo'; id enim voto meo sufficit, illud supra votum 'victorque virum volitare per ora'; 'quamquam o-': sed hoc satis est, quod prope sola historia polliceri videtur.

1 You advise that I write a history, and you advise it not alone: many have often urged this upon me, and I too wish to do so, not because I am confident that I shall do it commodiously—for you would believe that rashly unless you had tried—but because it seems to me most beautiful, above all, not to allow to perish those to whom eternity is owed, and to extend the fame of others along with my own. 2 Nothing, however, troubles and stimulates me so much as the love and desire of long duration, a thing most worthy of a human being—especially for one who, conscious to himself of no fault, does not dread the memory of posterity. 3 And so by days and by nights I ponder, whether ‘by some way I too might lift myself from the ground’; for that suffices for my vow, this beyond my vow: ‘and, victor, to flit through the mouths of men’; ‘although o-’: but this is enough, which almost history alone seems to promise.

4 Orationi enim et carmini parva gratia, nisi eloquentia est summa: historia quoquo modo scripta delectat. Sunt enim homines natura curiosi, et quamlibet nuda rerum cognitione capiuntur, ut qui sermunculis etiam fabellisque ducantur. Me vero ad hoc studium impellit domesticum quoque exemplum.

4 For to oration and to song there is slight grace, unless the eloquence is supreme: history, however written, delights. For human beings are by nature curious, and are captivated by however naked a cognition of things, like those who are led even by little discourses and little fables. Indeed, a domestic example also impels me toward this study.

5 Avunculus meus idemque per adoptionem pater historias et quidem religiosissime scripsit. Invenio autem apud sapientes honestissimum esse maiorum vestigia sequi, si modo recto itinere praecesserint. Cur ergo cunctor?

5 My uncle, and likewise my father by adoption, wrote histories—and indeed most scrupulously. Moreover, I find among the wise that it is most honorable to follow the footsteps of our ancestors, provided only that they have gone before on a straight path. Why, therefore, do I hesitate?

6 Egi magnas et graves causas. Has, etiamsi mihi tenuis ex iis spes, destino retractare, ne tantus ille labor meus, nisi hoc quod reliquum est studii addidero, mecum pariter intercidat. 7 Nam si rationem posteritatis habeas, quidquid non est peractum, pro non incohato est.

6 I have pled great and grave causes. These, even if there is but a tenuous hope for me from them, I resolve to re‑examine, lest that so great labor of mine, unless I add this which remains of study, should perish together with me. 7 For if you have regard for posterity, whatever is not fully performed is accounted as not even inchoate.

Dices: 'Potes simul et rescribere actiones et componere historiam.' Utinam! sed utrumque tam magnum est, ut abunde sit alterum efficere. 8 Unodevicensimo aetatis anno dicere in foro coepi, et nunc demum quid praestare debeat orator, adhuc tamen per caliginem video.

You will say: 'You can at once both write up the actions and compose a history.' Would that it were so! but each is so great that it is more than enough to accomplish the one. 8 In my nineteenth year of age I began to speak in the forum, and only now do I see—though still through a mist—what an orator ought to perform.

9 Quid si huic oneri novum accesserit? Habet quidem oratio et historia multa communia, sed plura diversa in his ipsis, quae communia videntur. Narrat illa narrat haec, sed aliter: huic pleraque humilia et sordida et ex medio petita, illi omnia recondita splendida excelsa conveniunt; 10 hanc saepius ossa musculi nervi, illam tori quidam et quasi iubae decent; haec vel maxime vi amaritudine instantia, illa tractu et suavitate atque etiam dulcedine placet; postremo alia verba alius sonus alia constructio.

9 What if something new were to be added to this burden? Oratory and history indeed have many things in common, but more things diverse even in those very points which seem common. That narrates and this narrates, but differently: to this most things lowly and sordid and drawn from the common stock are fitting; to that all things recondite, splendid, exalted are suitable; 10 to this more often bones, muscles, nerves are becoming; to that certain swellings and, as it were, manes; this pleases most of all by force, bitterness, urgency; that by sweep and suavity and even sweetness; finally, different words, a different sound, a different construction.

11 Nam plurimum refert, ut Thucydides ait, κτῆμα sit an ἀγώνισμα; quorum alterum oratio, alterum historia est. His ex causis non adducor ut duo dissimilia et hoc ipso diversa, quo maxima, confundam misceamque, ne tanta quasi colluvione turbatus ibi faciam quod hic debeo; ideoque interim veniam, ut ne a meis verbis recedam, advocandi peto. 12 Tu tamen iam nunc cogita quae potissimum tempora aggrediar.

11 For it makes a very great difference, as Thucydides says, whether it be a κτῆμα or an ἀγώνισμα; of which the κτῆμα is history, the ἀγώνισμα oratory. For these causes I am not induced to confound and commingle two dissimilar things and, in this very respect, divergent—in that they concern matters of the highest moment—lest, disturbed by so great a kind of confluence, I should do there what I ought to do here; and therefore for the meantime I ask leave for advocating, so that I may not depart from my own words. 12 You, however, even now consider which times I should most especially undertake.

Vetera et scripta aliis? Parata inquisitio, sed onerosa collatio. Intacta et nova?

Old things and writings by others? A ready inquisition, but an onerous collation. Intact and new?

Graves offensae levis gratia. 13 Nam praeter id, quod in tantis vitiis hominum plura culpanda sunt quam laudanda, tum si laudaveris parcus, si culpaveris nimius fuisse dicaris, quamvis illud plenissime, hoc restrictissime feceris. 14 Sed haec me non retardant; est enim mihi pro fide satis animi: illud peto praesternas ad quod hortaris, eligasque materiam, ne mihi iam scribere parato alia rursus cunctationis et morae iusta ratio nascatur.

Grave offenses, slight favor. 13 For, besides this, that in such great vices of men there are more things to be blamed than to be praised, then if you shall have praised, you will be said to have been sparing; if you shall have blamed, excessive, though you may have done that most fully and this most restrictively. 14 But these do not hold me back; for I have spirit enough in proportion to my good faith: this I ask—that you pave the way to that which you urge, and choose the material, lest for me, now prepared to write, another just reason of hesitation and delay be born again.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS SEMPRONIO RUFO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS SEMPRONIUS RUFUS, GREETINGS.

1 Descenderam in basilicam Iuliam, auditurus quibus proxima comperendinatione respondere debebam. 2 Sedebant iudices, decemviri venerant, obversabantur advocati, silentium longum; tandem a praetore nuntius. Dimittuntur centumviri, eximitur dies me gaudente, qui umquam ita paratus sum ut non mora laeter.

1 I had gone down into the Julian basilica, about to hear those to whom at the next comperendination I had to respond. 2 The judges were seated, the decemvirs had come, the advocates were moving about before us, a long silence; at length a message from the praetor. The centumvirs are dismissed, the day is struck out—myself rejoicing, for I have never been so prepared that I do not rejoice at a delay.

3 Causa dilationis Nepos praetor, qui legibus quaerit. Proposuerat breve edictum, admonebat accusatores, admonebat reos exsecuturum se quae senatus consulto continerentur. 4 Suberat edicto senatus consultum: hoc omnes qui quid negotii haberent iurare prius quam agerent iubebantur, nihil sc ob advocationem cuiquam dedisse promisisse cavisse.

3 The cause of the delay was the praetor Nepos, who inquires in accordance with the laws. He had posted a brief edict; he kept reminding the accusers, he kept reminding the defendants, that he would execute what was contained in the senatus consultum. 4 A senatus consultum was appended beneath the edict: by this all who had any business were ordered to swear, before they proceeded to act, that they had given, promised, or provided security to no one on account of advocacy.

His enim verbis ac mille praeterea et venire advocationes et emi vetabantur; peractis tamen negotiis permittebatur pecuniam dumtaxat decem milium dare. 5 Hoc facto Nepotis commotus praetor qui centumviralibus praesidet, deliberaturus an sequeretur exemplum, inopinatum nobis otium dedit. 6 Interim tota civitate Nepotis edictum carpitur laudatur.

By these words and a thousand besides both the selling and the buying of advocacies were forbidden; when business was nevertheless concluded, it was permitted to give money to the amount of only ten thousand. 5 This having been done, the praetor who presides over the centumviral courts, moved by Nepos’s act and about to deliberate whether he should follow the example, gave us unlooked-for leisure. 6 Meanwhile throughout the whole city Nepos’s edict is carped at and lauded.

Multi: 'Invenimus, qui curva corrigeret! Quid? ante hunc praetores non fuerunt?

Many: 'We have found one who would correct the crooked! What? Were there not praetors before this man?'

quis autem hic est, qui emendet publicos mores?' Alii contra: 'Rectissime fecit; initurus magistratum iura cognovit, senatus consulta legit, reprimit foedissimas pactiones, rem pulcherrimam turpissime venire non patitur.' 7 Tales ubique sermones, qui tamen alterutram in partem ex eventu praevalebunt. Est omnino iniquum, sed usu receptum, quod honesta consilia vel turpia, prout male aut prospere cedunt, ita vel probantur vel reprehenduntur. Inde plerumque eadem facta modo diligentiae modo vanitatis, modo libertatis modo furoris nomen accipiunt.

who, however, is this man who would emend the public morals?' Others on the contrary: 'Most rightly has he done; about to enter upon the magistracy he acquainted himself with the laws, he read the senatorial decrees, he represses the most foul bargains, he does not allow a most beautiful thing to be sold most shamefully.' 7 Such are the conversations everywhere, which nevertheless will prevail to one side or the other according to the outcome. It is altogether unjust, but received by usage, that honorable or base counsels, as they turn out badly or prosperously, are thus either approved or censured. Hence for the most part the same deeds receive the name now of diligence now of vanity, now of liberty now of frenzy.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS SUETONIO TRANQUILLO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, GREETINGS.

1 Libera tandem hendecasyllaborum meorum fidem, qui scripta tua communibus amicis spoponderunt. Appellantur cotidie, efflagitantur, ac iam periculum est ne cogantur ad exhibendum formulam accipere. 2 Sum et ipse in edendo haesitator, tu tamen meam quoque cunctationem tarditatemque vicisti.

1 At last release the credit of my hendecasyllables, which have pledged your writings to our common friends. They are called upon daily, they are clamored for, and now there is danger lest they be compelled to accept a writ to produce them. 2 I too am a hesitator in publishing; yet you have even outdone my own hesitation and slowness.

Proinde aut rumpe iam moras aut cave ne eosdem istos libellos, quos tibi hendecasyllabi nostri blanditiis elicere non possunt, convicio scazontes extorqueant. 3 Perfectum opus absolutumque est, nec iam splendescit lima sed atteritur. Patere me videre titulum tuum, patere audire describi legi venire volumina Tranquilli mei.

Accordingly, either break off delays now, or beware lest scazons with invective extort those same little booklets which our hendecasyllables cannot entice from you by blandishments. 3 The work is perfected and completed, and now the file no longer makes it shine, but wears it away. Allow me to see your title, allow me to hear that the volumes of my Tranquillus are being transcribed, read, and offered for sale.

Aequum est nos in amore tam mutuo eandem percipere ex te voluptatem, qua tu perfrueris ex nobis. Vale.

It is equitable that we, in so mutual a love, receive from you the same pleasure which you enjoy from us. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CALPURNIO FABATO PROSOCERO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO CALPURNIUS FABATUS, HIS GRANDFATHER-IN-LAW, SENDS GREETINGS.

1 Recepi litteras tuas ex quibus cognovi speciosissimam te porticum sub tuo filiique tui nomine dedicasse, sequenti die in portarum ornatum pecuniam promisisse, ut initium novae liberalitatis esset consummatio prioris. 2 Gaudeo primum tua gloria, cuius ad me pars aliqua pro necessitudine nostra redundat; deinde quod memoriam soceri mei pulcherrimis operibus video proferri; postremo quod patria nostra florescit, quam mihi a quocumque excoli iucundum, a te vero laetissimum est. 3 Quod superest, deos precor ut animum istum tibi, animo isti tempus quam longissimum tribuant.

1 I received your letters, from which I learned that you have dedicated a most splendid portico under your name and your son’s name, and on the following day promised money for the adornment of the gates, so that the consummation of the former might be the beginning of a new liberality. 2 I rejoice, first, in your glory, a part of which, on account of our kinship, overflows to me; next, that I see the memory of my father-in-law being brought forward by the most beautiful works; lastly, that our fatherland flourishes, which for me to be cultivated by anyone is pleasant, but by you indeed is most gladsome. 3 As for what remains, I pray the gods to grant that spirit to you, and to that spirit a time as long as possible.

Nam liquet mihi futurum ut peracto quod proxime promisisti, incohes aliud. Nescit enim semel incitata liberalitas stare, cuius pulchritudinem usus ipse commendat. Vale.

For it is clear to me that, once what you most recently promised has been carried through, you will begin another. For liberality, once incited, does not know how to stand still, whose beauty the very use itself commends. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS TERENTIO SCAURO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS TERENTIUS SCAURUS, GREETINGS.

1 Recitaturus oratiunculam quam publicare cogito, advocavi aliquos ut vererer, paucos ut verum audirem. Nam mihi duplex ratio recitandi, una ut sollicitudine intendar, altera ut admonear, si quid forte me ut meum fallit. 2 Tuli quod petebam: inveni qui mihi copiam consilii sui facerent, ipse praeterea quaedam emendanda adnotavi.

1 About to recite a little oration which I am thinking to publish, I summoned some so that I might feel awe, a few so that I might hear the truth. For to me there is a twofold rationale of reciting, one that I may be made tense by solicitude, the other that I may be admonished, if by chance anything, just because it is my own, escapes me. 2 I obtained what I was seeking: I found those who would grant me the benefit of their counsel; I myself, moreover, noted certain things to be emended.

Emendavi librum, quem misi tibi. 3 Materiam ex titulo cognosces, cetera liber explicabit, quem iam nunc oportet ita consuescere, ut sine praefatione intellegatur. 4 Tu velim quid de universo, quid de partibus sentias, scribas mihi.

I have emended the book which I sent to you. 3 You will recognize the subject-matter from the title; the rest the book will explicate, which now already ought to be so accustomed as to be understood without a preface. 4 I would like you to write to me what you think about the whole, and what about the parts.

Ero enim vel cautior in continendo vel constantior in edendo, si huc vel illuc auctoritas tua accesserit. Vale.

For I shall be either more cautious in containing/withholding or more constant in publishing, if your authority should come to this side or to that. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS <IULIO> VALERIANO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS VALERIANUS, GREETINGS.

1 Et tu rogas et ego promisi si rogasses, scripturum me tibi quem habuisset eventum postulatio Nepotis circa Tuscilium Nominatum. Inductus est Nominatus; egit ipse pro se nullo accusante. Nam legati Vicetinorum non modo non presserunt eum verum etiam sublevaverunt.

1 And you ask, and I had promised that, if you should ask, I would write to you what outcome the petition of Nepos had had concerning Tuscilius Nominatus. Nominatus was introduced; he conducted the case for himself, with no accuser. For the legates of the Vicentini not only did not press him, but even supported him.

2 Summa defensionis, non fidem sibi in advocatione sed constantiam defuisse; descendisse ut acturum, atque etiam in curia visum, deinde sermonibus amicorum perterritum recessisse; monitum enim ne desiderio senatoris, non iam quasi de nundinis sed quasi de gratia fama dignitate certantis, tam pertinaciter praesertim in senatu repugnaret, alioqui maiorem invidiam quam proxime passurus. 3 Erat sane prius, a paucis tamen, acclamatum exeunti. Subiunxit preces multumque lacrimarum; quin etiam tota actione homo in dicendo exercitatus operam dedit, ut deprecari magis — id enim et favorabilius et tutius — quam defendi videretur.

2 The sum of the defense was that what had failed him in the advocacy was not fidelity but constancy; that he had gone down to plead, and had even been seen in the Curia, then, terrified by the conversations of friends, had withdrawn; for he had been warned not to resist so stubbornly—especially in the senate—the desire of a senator, one contending now not, as it were, about market-days but about favor, fame, and dignity, otherwise he was about to suffer greater envy than quite lately. 3 Indeed, previously there had been acclamation for him as he was going out, though by a few. He added entreaties and many tears; nay even throughout the whole action the man practiced in speaking took pains that he might seem to be deprecating rather—since that was both more favorable and safer—than to be defended.

4 Absolutus est sententia designati consulis Afrani Dextri, cuius haec summa: melius quidem Nominatum fuisse facturum, si causam Vicetinorum eodem animo quo susceperat pertulisset; quia tamen in hoc genus culpae non fraude incidisset, nihilque dignum animadversione admisisse convinceretur, liberandum, ita ut Vicetinis quod acceperat redderet. 5 Assenserunt omnes praeter Fabium Aprum. Is interdicendum ei advocationibus in quinquennium censuit, et quamvis neminem auctoritate traxisset, constanter in sententia mansit; quin etiam Dextrum, qui primus diversum censuerat, prolata lege de senatu habendo iurare coegit e re publica esse quod censuisset.

4 He was acquitted by the sentence of the consul-designate Afranius Dexter, whose gist was this: Nominatus would indeed have done better if he had carried through the cause of the Vicentines with the same spirit with which he had undertaken it; since, however, he had fallen into this kind of fault not through fraud, and was proved to have committed nothing worthy of animadversion, he should be freed, on condition that he return to the Vicentines what he had received. 5 All assented except Fabius Aper. He judged that he should be interdicted from advocations for five years, and although he drew no one by his authority, he remained constant in his opinion; nay more, he even compelled Dexter, who had been the first to vote differently, with the law on holding the senate produced, to swear that what he had judged was for the commonwealth.

6 Cui quamquam legitimae postulationi a quibusdam reclamatum est; exprobrare enim censenti ambitionem videbatur. Sed prius quam sententiae dicerentur, Nigrinus tribunus plebis recitavit libellum disertum et gravem, quo questus est venire advocationes, venire etiam praevaricationes, in lites coiri, et gloriae loco poni ex spoliis civium magnos et statos reditus. 7 Recitavit capita legum, admonuit senatus consultorum, in fine dixit petendum ab optimo principe, ut quia leges, quia senatus consulta contemnerentur, ipse tantis vitiis mederetur.

6 Although objections were raised by some to this legitimate request; for it seemed to the one delivering his opinion that he was reproaching ambition. But before the votes were declared, Nigrinus, tribune of the plebs, read out a pamphlet, eloquent and weighty, in which he complained that advocations were for sale, that even prevarications were for sale, that people were entering into compacts for lawsuits, and that, in place of glory, great and fixed revenues were being set up from the spoils of citizens. 7 He read the heads of the laws, reminded them of senatorial decrees, and in the end said that a request must be made of the best princeps, that, since the laws and the senatorial decrees were being scorned, he himself should remedy such great vices.

8 Pauci dies, et liber principis severus et tamen moderatus: leges ipsum; est in publicis actis. Quam me iuvat, quod in causis agendis non modo pactione dono munere verum etiam xeniis semper abstinui! 9 Oportet quidem, quae sunt inhonesta, non quasi illicita sed quasi pudenda vitare; iucundum tamen si prohiberi publice videas, quod numquam tibi ipse permiseris.

8 A few days [later], and there is a book of the princeps, severe and yet moderate: you will read it yourself; it is in the public acts. How it gladdens me that in conducting cases I have always abstained not only from a bargain, a gift, a present, but even from xenia (hospitality-gifts)! 9 One ought indeed to avoid what is dishonorable, not as though illicit but as though shameful; yet it is pleasant if you see publicly forbidden what you have never permitted yourself.

10 Erit fortasse, immo non dubie, huius propositi mei et minor laus et obscurior fama, cum omnes ex necessitate facient quod ego sponte faciebam. Interim fruor voluptate, cum alii divinum me, alii meis rapinis meae avaritiae occursum per ludum ac iocum dictitant. Vale.

10 There will be perhaps—nay, not doubtfully—both a lesser praise and a more obscure fame of this my purpose, since all will from necessity do what I was doing of my own accord. Meanwhile I enjoy the pleasure, since some call me divine, others keep saying in sport and jest that by my rapines a check has met my avarice. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS PONTIO ALLIFANO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS PONTIUS ALLIFANUS, SENDS GREETINGS.

1 Secesseram in municipium, cum mihi nuntiatum est Cornutum Tertullum accepisse Aemiliae viae curam. 2 Exprimere non possum, quanto sim gaudio affectus, et ipsius et meo nomine: ipsius quod, sit licet — sicut est — ab omni ambitione longe remotus, debet tamen ei iucundus honor esse ultro datus, meo quod aliquanto magis me delectat mandatum mihi officium, postquam par Cornuto datum video. 3 Neque enim augeri dignitate quam aequari bonis gratius.

1 I had withdrawn into the municipium, when it was announced to me that Cornutus Tertullus had received the charge of the Via Aemilia. 2 I cannot express with how much joy I have been affected, both on his account and on my own: on his, because, although he is—as indeed he is—far removed from all ambition, nevertheless an honor given unasked ought to be pleasant to him; on my own, because the office entrusted to me delights me somewhat more, after I see that an equal to Cornutus has been given. 3 For it is not more pleasing to be augmented in dignity than to be made equal to good men.

Cornuto autem quid melius, quid sanctius, quid in omni genere laudis ad exemplar antiquitatis expressius? quod mihi cognitum est non fama, qua alioqui optima et meritissima fruitur, sed longis magnisque experimentis. 4 Una diligimus, una dileximus omnes fere quos aetas nostra in utroque sexu aemulandos tulit; quae societas amicitiarum artissima nos familiaritate coniunxit.

But what is better than Cornutus, what more holy, what, in every kind of praise, more exactly expressed after the exemplar of antiquity? which has become known to me not by fame—of which otherwise he enjoys the best and most well-deserved—but by long and great trials. 4 Together we esteem, together we have esteemed, almost all those whom our age has produced as emulable in either sex; and this fellowship of friendships, most close-knit, has united us by intimacy.

5 Accessit vinculum necessitudinis publicae; idem enim mihi, ut scis, collega quasi voto petitus in praefectura aerarii fuit, fuit et in consulatu. Tum ego qui vir et quantus esset altissime inspexi, cum sequerer ut magistrum, ut parentem vererer, quod non tam aetatis maturitate quam vitae merebatur. 6 His ex causis ut illi sic mihi gratulor, nec privatim magis quam publice, quod tandem homines non ad pericula ut prius verum ad honores virtute perveniunt.

5 A bond of public relationship was added; for the same man, as you know, was my colleague—almost as if sought by a vow—in the prefecture of the treasury, and he was so also in the consulship. Then I looked most deeply into what a man and how great he was, since I followed him as a master, revered him as a parent, which he deserved not so much by the maturity of age as of life. 6 For these reasons I congratulate him, and so too myself, and not more privately than publicly, because at last men come by virtue not to perils as before but to honors.

7 In infinitum epistulam extendam, si gaudio meo indulgeam. Praevertor ad ea, quae me agentem hic nuntius deprehendit. 8 Eram cum prosocero meo, eram cum amita uxoris, eram cum amicis diu desideratis, circumibam agellos, audiebam multum rusticarum querellarum, rationes legebam invitus et cursim — aliis enim chartis, aliis sum litteris initiatus -, coeperam etiam itineri me praeparare.

7 I shall extend the letter to infinity, if I indulge my joy. I hasten to those matters, in the midst of which this messenger found me here, busy. 8 I was with my wife’s grandfather, I was with my wife’s aunt, I was with friends long desired, I was going around my little fields, I was hearing much of rustic complaints, I was reading accounts unwillingly and cursorily — for by some papers, by others I am initiated into letters -, I had even begun to prepare myself for a journey.

8 Nam includor angustiis commeatus, eoque ipso, quod delegatum Cornuto audio officium, mei admoneor. Cupio te quoque sub idem tempus Campania tua remittat, ne quis cum in urbem rediero, contubernio nostro dies pereat. Vale.

8 For I am hemmed in by the straits of my leave, and by that very fact, that I hear the office has been delegated to Cornutus, I am reminded of myself. I wish that your Campania too may send you back about the same time, so that no day, when I have returned to the city, may be lost to our companionship. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS ARRIO ANTONINO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS ARRIUS ANTONINUS, GREETINGS.

1 Cum versus tuos aemulor, tum maxime quam sint boni experior. Ut enim pictores pulchram absolutamque faciem raro nisi in peius effingunt, ita ego ab hoc archetypo labor et decido. 2 Quo magis hortor, ut quam plurima proferas, quae imitari omnes concupiscant, nemo aut paucissimi possint.

1 When I emulate your verses, then most of all I experience how good they are. For just as painters rarely render a beautiful and perfected face except into something worse, so from this archetype I slip and fall short. 2 Therefore I urge you all the more to bring forth as many as possible, such that all may covet to imitate them, and no one, or very few, be able.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS AEFULANO MARCELLINO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS AEFULANUS MARCELLINUS, SENDS GREETING.

1 Tristissimus haec tibi scribo, Fundani nostri filia minore defuncta. Qua puella nihil umquam festivius amabilius, nec modo longiore vita sed prope immortalitate dignius vidi. 2 Nondum annos xiiii impleverat, et iam illi anilis prudentia, matronalis gravitas erat et tamen suavitas puellaris cum virginali verecundia.

1 I write this to you in deepest sorrow: the younger daughter of our Fundanus has died. Than that girl I have never seen anything more delightful and more amiable, nor more deserving not only of a longer life but almost of immortality. 2 She had not yet completed 14 years, and already she had an old woman’s prudence, a matronal gravity, and yet a girlish sweetness with virginal modesty.

3 Ut illa patris cervicibus inhaerebat! ut nos amicos paternos et amanter et modeste complectebatur! ut nutrices, ut paedagogos, ut praeceptores pro suo quemque officio diligebat!

3 How she clung to her father’s neck! how she embraced us, her father’s friends, both lovingly and modestly! how she cherished the nurses, the pedagogues, the preceptors, each according to his own office!

quam studiose, quam intellegenter lectitabat! ut parce custoditeque ludebat! Qua illa temperantia, qua patientia, qua etiam constantia novissimam valetudinem tulit!

How studiously, how intelligently she kept reading! how sparingly and guardedly she played! With what temperance, with what patience, with what even constancy she bore her final illness!

4 Medicis obsequebatur, sororem patrem adhortabatur ipsamque se destitutam corporis viribus vigore animi sustinebat. 5 Duravit hic illi usque ad extremum, nec aut spatio valetudinis aut metu mortis infractus est, quo plures gravioresque nobis causas relinqueret et desiderii et doloris. 6 O triste plane acerbumque funus!

4 She complied with the physicians, exhorted her sister and father, and she herself, destitute of the body’s strength, sustained herself by vigor of spirit. 5 This endured in her right up to the very end, nor was it broken either by the span of her illness or by fear of death, whereby she left to us more and graver causes both of longing and of grief. 6 O sad indeed and bitter funeral!

o morte ipsa mortis tempus indignius! iam testinata erat egregio iuveni, iam electus nuptiarum dies, iam nos vocati. Quod gaudium quo maerore mutatum est!

O, the time of death more unworthy than death itself! Already she had been betrothed to a distinguished young man, already the day of the nuptials had been chosen, already we had been invited. What joy was changed into what sorrow!

7 Non possum exprimere verbis quantum animo vulnus acceperim, cum audivi Fundanum ipsum, ut multa luctuosa dolor invenit, praecipientem, quod in vestes margarita gemmas fuerat erogaturus, hoc in tus et unguenta et odores impenderetur. 8 Est quidem ille eruditus et sapiens, ut qui se ab ineunte aetate altioribus studiis artibusque dediderit; sed nunc omnia, quae audiit saepe quae dixit, aspernatur expulsisque virtutibus aliis pietatis est totus. 9 Ignosces, laudabis etiam, si cogitaveris quid amiserit.

7 I cannot express in words how great a wound I received in spirit, when I heard Fundanus himself—since grief finds many mournful measures—giving instructions that what he had been about to disburse on clothes, pearls, and gems should be expended on incense and unguents and odors. 8 He is indeed erudite and sapient, as one who from his earliest age devoted himself to higher studies and arts; but now he spurns everything that he has often heard and said, and, with the other virtues driven out, he is wholly of piety. 9 You will pardon, you will even praise him, if you consider what he has lost.

Amisit enim filiam, quae non minus mores eius quam os vultumque referebat, totumque patrem mira similitudine exscripserat. 10 Proinde si quas ad eum de dolore tam iusto litteras mittes, memento adhibere solacium non quasi castigatorium et nimis forte, sed molle et humanum. Quod ut facilius admittat, multum faciet medii temporis spatium.

For he has lost his daughter, who reflected no less his character than his features and countenance, and had transcribed the whole father in wondrous similitude. 10 Accordingly, if you send any letters to him about so just a grief, remember to apply solace not as if castigatory and too forceful, but gentle and humane. That he may more easily admit this, the space of intervening time will do much.

11 Ut enim crudum adhuc vulnus medentium manus reformidat, deinde patitur atque ultro requirit, sic recens animi dolor consolationes reicit ac refugit, mox desiderat et clementer admotis acquiescit. Vale.

11 For just as a still raw wound shrinks back from the hands of physicians, then endures and even seeks them, so a fresh pain of the mind casts off and flees consolations, soon desires them, and gently, when they are applied, acquiesces. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS VESTRICIO SPURINNAE SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS VESTRICIUS SPURINNA, GREETINGS.

1 Scio quanto opere bonis artibus faveas, quantum gaudium capias, si nobiles iuvenes dignum aliquid maioribus suis faciant. Quo festinantius nuntio tibi fuisse me hodie in auditorio Calpurni Pisonis. 2 Recitabat καταστερισμῶν eruditam sane luculentamque materiam.

1 I know how greatly you favor the good arts, how much joy you take if noble youths do something worthy of their ancestors. Wherefore the more hastily I announce to you that I was today in the auditorium of Calpurnius Piso. 2 He was giving a recitation on Catasterisms, a truly erudite and luculent subject-matter.

Scripta elegis erat fluentibus et teneris et enodibus, sublimibus etiam, ut poposcit locus. Apte enim et varie nunc attollebatur, nunc residebat; excelsa depressis, exilia plenis, severis iucunda mutabat, omnia ingenio pari. 3 Commendabat haec voce suavissima, vocem verecundia: multum sanguinis, multum sollicitudinis in ore, magna ornamenta recitantis.

The pieces were written in elegiac verse—fluent and tender and unknotted (smooth), even sublime, as the place demanded. For aptly and variously now it was lifted up, now it subsided; he would exchange the lofty for the low, the slight for the full, the severe for the pleasant, all with equal genius. 3 He commended these by a most sweet voice, and modesty commended the voice: much color, much solicitude in his face—great ornaments of a reciter.

Etenim nescio quo pacto magis in studiis homines timor quam fiducia decet. 4 Ne plura — quamquam libet plura, quo sunt pulchriora de iuvene, rariora de nobili -, recitatione finita multum ac diu exosculatus adulescentem, qui est acerrimus stimulus monendi, laudibus incitavi, pergeret qua coepisset, lumenque quod sibi maiores sui praetulissent, posteris ipse praeferret. 5 Gratulatus sum optimae matri, gratulatus et fratri, qui ex auditorio illo non minorem pietatis gloriam quam ille alter eloquentiae retulit: tam notabiliter pro fratre recitante primum metus eius, mox gaudium eminuit.

For indeed, I know not by what manner, but somehow in studies fear rather than confidence befits men. 4 Not to say more—although I am inclined to say more, in proportion as the things are more beautiful about the youth, rarer about one of noble birth—, the recitation having been finished, after kissing the young man much and long, which is the keenest stimulus for admonition, I incited him with praises to press on in the path he had begun, and to bear before his descendants the light which his ancestors had borne before him. 5 I offered congratulations to the excellent mother, and congratulations also to the brother, who from that auditorium brought back no less glory of piety than the other brought back of eloquence: so notably, while his brother was reciting, first his fear, soon his joy, was conspicuous.

6 Di faciant ut talia tibi saepius nuntiem! Faveo enim saeculo ne sit sterile et effetum, mireque cupio ne nobiles nostri nihil in domibus suis pulchrum nisi imagines habeant; quae nunc mihi hos adulescentes tacitae laudare adhortari, et quod amborum gloriae satis magnum est, agnoscere videntur. Vale.

6 May the gods bring it about that I may announce such things to you more often! For I favor the age, lest it be sterile and effete, and I keenly desire that our nobles not have in their houses nothing beautiful except images; which now seem to me, silent, to praise and exhort these adolescents, and—which is quite great enough for the glory of both—to recognize them. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CALPURNIO MACRO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS CALPURNIUS MACRO, SENDS GREETINGS.

1 Bene est mihi quia tibi bene est. Habes uxorem tecum, habes filium; frueris mari fontibus viridibus agro villa amoenissima. Neque enim dubito esse amoenissimam, in qua se composuerat homo felicior, ante quam felicissimus fieret.

1 It is well with me because it is well with you. You have your wife with you, you have a son; you enjoy the sea, verdant springs, the field, a most pleasant villa. Nor indeed do I doubt that it is most pleasant, in which a more fortunate man had settled himself, before he became most fortunate.

2 Ego in Tuscis et venor et studeo, quae interdum alternis, interdum simul facio; nec tamen adhuc possum pronuntiare, utrum sit difficilius capere aliquid an scribere. Vale.

2 I in Tuscany both hunt and study, which I sometimes do alternately, sometimes simultaneously; and yet I cannot as yet pronounce which is more difficult, to capture something or to write. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS VALERIO PAULINO SUO S.

G. PLINY TO HIS VALERIUS PAULINUS, GREETINGS.

1 Video quam molliter tuos habeas; quo simplicius tibi confitebor, qua indulgentia meos tractem. 2 Est mihi semper in animo et Homericum illud πατὴρ δ᾽ ὥς ἤπιος ἦεν et hoc nostrum 'pater familiae'. Quod si essem natura asperior et durior, frangeret me tamen infirmitas liberti mei Zosimi, cui tanto maior humanitas exhibenda est, quanto nunc illa magis eget. 3 Homo probus officiosus litteratus; et ars quidem eius et quasi inscriptio comoedus, in qua plurimum facit.

1 I see how gently you manage yours; and so I will the more simply confess to you with what indulgence I treat mine. 2 I always have in mind both that Homeric line “and he was gentle like a father” and this of ours, “father of the household.” But even if by nature I were harsher and sterner, nevertheless the weakness of my freedman Zosimus would break me—toward whom a humanity all the greater must be shown, in proportion as he now has the more need of it. 3 An upright, dutiful, lettered man; and indeed his art and, as it were, his inscription is “comic actor,” at which he excels greatly.

Nam pronuntiat acriter sapienter apte decenter etiam; utitur et cithara perite, ultra quam comoedo necesse est. Idem tam commode orationes et historias et carmina legit, ut hoc solum didicisse videatur. 4 Haec tibi sedulo exposui, quo magis scires, quam multa unus mihi et quam iucunda ministeria praestaret.

For he declaims keenly, wisely, aptly, and even decorously; he also uses the cithara expertly, beyond what is necessary for a comic actor. The same man reads orations and histories and poems so commodiously that he seems to have learned this alone. 4 These things I have set out to you sedulously, so that you might the more know how many and how delightful ministrations one man rendered to me.

Accedit longa iam caritas hominis, quam ipsa pericula auxerunt. 5 Est enim ita natura comparatum, ut nihil aeque amorem incitet et accendat quam carendi metus; quem ego pro hoc non semel patior. 6 Nam ante aliquot annos, dum intente instanterque pronuntiat, sanguinem reiecit atque ob hoc in Aegyptum missus a me post longam peregrinationem confirmatus rediit nuper; deinde dum per continuos dies nimis imperat voci, veteris infirmitatis tussicula admonitus rursus sanguinem reddidit.

There is now added a long-standing affection for the man, which the perils themselves have augmented. 5 For it is so arranged by nature, that nothing so equally incites and inflames love as the fear of being without; which for his sake I undergo more than once. 6 For some years ago, while he was declaiming intently and insistently, he coughed up blood, and on this account, sent by me to Egypt, after a long peregrination he returned recently strengthened; then, while for continuous days he imposed too much upon his voice, admonished by a little cough of his old infirmity, he again coughed up blood.

7 Qua ex causa destinavi eum mittere in praedia tua, quae Foro Iulii possides. Audivi enim te saepe referentem esse ibi et aera salubrem et lac eiusmodi curationibus accommodatissimum. 8 Rogo ergo scribas tuis, ut illi villa, ut domus pateat, offerant etiam sumptibus eius, si quid opus erit.

7 For which cause I have determined to send him to your estates, which you possess at Forum Iulii. For I have heard you often reporting that there the air is salubrious and the milk most suitable for curations of this kind. 8 Therefore I ask that you write to your people, that the villa, that the house be open to him; let them also meet his expenses, if there shall be any need.

9 Erit autem opus modico; est enim tam parcus et continens, ut non solum delicias verum etiam necessitates valetudinis frugalitate restringat. Ego proficiscenti tantum viatici dabo, quantum sufficiat eunti in tua. Vale.

9 But there will be need of a modest amount; for he is so sparing and continent that he restrains not only delights but even the necessities of health by frugality. I will give to him as he sets out just so much viaticum as shall suffice for going to yours. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CORNELIO URSO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS CORNELIUS URSUS, GREETINGS.

1 Iterum Bithyni: breve tempus a Iulio Basso, et Rufum Varenum proconsulem detulerunt, Varenum quem nuper adversus Bassum advocatum et postularant et acceperant. Inducti in senatum inquisitionem postulaverunt. 2 Varenus petit ut sibi quoque defensionis causa evocare testes liceret; recusantibus Bithynis cognitio suscepta est.

1 Again the Bithynians: they moved for a brief adjournment in the case of Julius Bassus, and they brought a charge against Rufus Varenus, the proconsul—Varenus, whom recently, against Bassus, they had both asked for and obtained as advocate. Brought into the senate, they requested an investigation. 2 Varenus asks that it be permitted to him also, for the sake of defense, to summon witnesses; with the Bithynians refusing, the inquiry was undertaken.

Egi pro Vareno non sine eventu; nam bene an male liber indicabit. 3 In actionibus enim utramque in partem fortuna dominatur: multum commendationis et detrahit et affert memoria vox gestus tempus ipsum, postremo vel amor vel odium rei; liber offensis, liber gratia, liber et secundis casibus et adversis caret. 4 Respondit mihi Fonteius Magnus, unus ex Bithynis, plurimis verbis paucissimis rebus.

I pleaded on behalf of Varenus not without outcome; for whether well or ill the book will indicate. 3 For in pleadings fortune rules to either side: memory, voice, gesture, the time itself, and finally either love or hatred of the matter, both take away and bring much commendation; the book is free from resentments, free from favor, free from both favorable and adverse chances. 4 Fonteius Magnus, one of the Bithynians, answered me, with very many words, with very few points.

Est plerisque Graecorum, ut illi, pro copia volubilitas: tam longas tamque frigidas perihodos uno spiritu quasi torrente contorquent. 5 Itaque Iulius Candidus non invenuste solet dicere, aliud esse eloquentiam aliud loquentiam. Nam eloquentia vix uni aut alteri, immo — si M. Antonio credimus — nemini, haec vero, quam Candidus loquentiam appellat, multis atque etiam impudentissimo cuique maxime contigit.

Most of the Greeks have, as they do, volubility in place of copiousness: they hurl forth in a single breath such long and so frigid periods, as if in a torrent. 5 And so Julius Candidus is wont, not without wit, to say that eloquence is one thing, loquacity another. For eloquence belongs scarcely to one or two—indeed, if we believe M. Antonius—to no one; but this thing, which Candidus calls loquacity, has befallen many, and most of all every most shameless person.

6 Postero die dixit pro Vareno Homullus callide acriter culte, contra Nigrinus presse graviter ornate. Censuit Acilius Rufus consul designatus inquisitionem Bithynis dandam, postulationem Vareni silentio praeteriit. 7 Haec forma negandi fuit.

6 On the next day Homullus spoke for Varenus cleverly, sharply, polishedly; by contrast Nigrinus [spoke] tersely, gravely, ornately. Acilius Rufus, consul designate, opined that an inquisition should be given to the Bithynians; he passed over the postulation of Varenus in silence. 7 This was the form of denying.

Cornelius Priscus consularis et accusatoribus quae petebant et reo tribuit, vicitque numero. Impetravimus rem nec lege comprehensam nec satis usitatam, iustam tamen. 8 Quare iustam, non sum epistula exsecuturus, ut desideres actionem.

Cornelius Priscus, of consular rank, granted both to the accusers what they were seeking and to the defendant, and he prevailed by number. We obtained a thing neither comprehended by law nor quite customary, yet just. 8 Why it is just I shall not set forth in an epistle, so that you may desire the pleading.

Nam si verum est Homericum illud:

For if that Homeric saying is true:

"τὴν γὰρ ἀοιδὴν μᾶλλον ἐπικείουσ᾽ ἄνθρωποι,
ἥ τις ἀκουόντεσσι νεωτάτη ἀμφιπέληται,"

"for men applaud the song more,
which comes round to the hearers as the newest,"

providendum est mihi, ne gratiam novitatis et florem, quae oratiunculam illam vel maxime commendat, epistulae loquacitate praecerpam. Vale.

I must take care, lest I, by the loquacity of a letter, preempt the grace of novelty and its bloom, which most especially commends that little oration. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS POMPEIO SATURNINO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS POMPEIUS SATURNINUS, GREETING.

1 Varie me affecerunt litterae tuae; nam partim laeta partim tristia continebant: laeta quod te in urbe teneri nuntiabant — 'nollem' inquis; sed ego volo -, praeterea quod recitaturum statim ut venissem pollicebantur; ago gratias quod exspector. 2 Triste illud, quod Iulius Valens graviter iacet; quamquam ne hoc quidem triste, si illius utilitatibus aestimetur, cuius interest quam maturissime inexplicabili morbo liberari. 3 Illud plane non triste solum verum etiam luctuosum, quod Iulius Avitus decessit dum ex quaestura redit, decessit in nave, procul a fratre amantissimo, procul a matre a sororibus 4 — nihil ista ad mortuum pertinent, sed pertinuerunt cum moreretur, pertinent ad hos qui supersunt -; iam quod in flore primo tantae indolis iuvenis exstinctus est summa consecuturus, si virtutes eius maturuissent.

1 Your letters affected me in various ways; for they contained partly joyful, partly sad matters: joyful, because they announced that you are being kept in the city — “I would rather not,” you say; but I wish it -, moreover because they promised that you would give a recitation as soon as I had come; I give thanks that I am awaited. 2 That is sad, that Julius Valens lies gravely ill; although not even this is sad, if it be estimated by his advantages, whose interest it is to be freed as speedily as possible from an inexplicable disease. 3 This indeed is not only sad but even lugubrious, that Julius Avitus has died while returning from the quaestorship, he died on ship, far from his most loving brother, far from his mother and sisters 4 — none of those things pertains to the dead man, but they did pertain while he was dying; they pertain to those who survive -; and moreover that, in his first flower, a youth of such endowment has been extinguished, destined to attain the highest honors, if his virtues had ripened.

5 Quo ille studiorum amore flagrabat! quantum legit, quantum etiam scripsit! quae nunc omnia cum ipso sine fructu posteritatis abierunt.

5 With what love of studies he blazed! how much he read, how much he even wrote! all which things have now passed away along with him, without fruit for posterity.

6 Sed quid ego indulgeo dolori? Cui si frenos remittas, nulla materia non maxima est. Finem epistulae faciam, ut facere possim etiam lacrimis quas epistula expressit.

6 But why do I indulge grief? To which, if you let the reins go, there is no subject that does not become the greatest. I will make an end of the letter, so that I may also be able to make an end to the tears which the letter has expressed.

Vale.

Farewell.